"Concerning the Spiritual in Art"

Third time is a charm, I hope. I am done with graduate applications for the year 2010 and now can worry about something else, like if my flannel shirt makes me look too redneck or something.

Yesterday was a good day. I managed to get my graduate applications sent out on Tuesday and yesterday was the first day that I was able to work on some things without the feeling that I should be completing or tweaking my proposal. I do think that my applications look good this time, which is great, because actually getting in to graduate school is definitely more the goal than merely applying, but all of that aside, yesterday, I got to work on new concepts.

When I say new concepts, I am not really sure that is entirely accurate. My proposal for graduate school involved a lot of planning around working on the types of pieces that I was working on in 2006 and 2007. I had something going with those pieces, but they were not well received in the second showing. The first show was at Gallery 110 which is to this day the best show that I have had for sales. A lot of that is probably due to the location of the gallery, however, so I am not going to stress that show, but the second showing was at Lunar Boy Gallery. I thought the pieces were great, unfortunately the public was not of the same mind set. It was about there that I started to try to work on more cute things. I thought to myself, "what sells here, is the cute stuff" and I also thought of a man who had said to me, "well if you're living in Maine and what sells is paintings of lobsters, why aren't you painting lobsters?" So I started painting birds. I love my birds. I think they are unique and 100% my happy and fun side, but I am a Virgo, which I have learned means that I am a moody cuss. I like to make pieces with a lot of depth, and disguise them as cute.

So anywaaaaay. Moving on to 2010. I don't make New Years Resolutions. It seems silly to me to make a goal based on a calendar, but when I really started to get into my paper and started to pour through some books again looking for the right vernacular to speak about my proposal, something started to click into place again. So now, I bring you some random sketches from yesterday, because yesterday, I spent in my new sketchbook, which I love.

I'm sure you remember stuff like this, and if you liked it, fear not, there is more to come, and not only is there more to come, but it will all be connected, like NY Telephone. Sorry, there was a jingle for NY Telephone when I was a kid that went something like "We are all connecteeeeed, NY telephooooooone". I think of it nearly every time someone is talking about all of us being connected. For instance with the 6 degrees of separation. Anyway.

I was doing some sketches with these before, but I wasn't paying much attention to composition or color in how it produced a mood. My colors have been kind of the same on every piece for a little while here. I wouldn't expect that for too much longer. I actually started a painting of this guy yesterday. We'll see if I get enough of it done to post it later today. It's a little different, but not too different. I really want to make the palette work for me. If successful this will just be the start to a much larger project which I will tell you about if and only if stage one is completely successful. There you go, I'm keeping a secret from you, you'll have to check back and see if I tell you what it is.

I also purchased a Kandinsky book yesterday, "Concerning the Spiritual in Art". I haven't even made it to Kandinsky's text yet but the introduction by M.T.H. Sadler was enough to make me purchase the book. His discriptions of the post impressionist and Munich scenes of art are fascinating, and it is interesting to really think about the different schools of thought that are prevalent during certain art periods. How, really their art was all about breaking rules, but they made new rules, to set how you broke the rules. Very interesting.

Things are happening here in Lewis Acrylic land. And it's mostly good. I will catch you soon.
peace
Mike

Looking Back - A Tiny Retrospective

As you all know, I've been working on graduate school applications for the past several weeks. Today I finally started to give my portfolio a once over. I usually hate looking through my old work. I don't like remembering where the work has been, but this time, it has been really good for me I think. I had nearly forgotten what my work used to be like, which is a shame, because, I miss it. Now that I am looking at it, I am thinking how much I miss it. It had an emotion that I haven't been working with the past 2 years.

Somewhere along the line, I lost something. It wasn't anything specific, it was more a vitality thing. The life is not the same. So, upon looking through my stuff as a large body of work, I started to think that mentally I am throwing out the second half of this last year, not because it didn't have its good points, but because it is not what I want to pursue so much as what I was pursuing in the spring of 2007. The spring of 2007 was awesome, and yet incomplete. How do I take some of the painting skills that I have bettered over the past couple years and combine them with some of the rawness that I had freshly out of school?

And then I think to myself, "holy crow, I just justified reasoning for wanting to go to grad school in the first place". That is a much better answer than I want to grow as an artist. I have a purpose; I want the vitality of my older work combined with the painting delicacies of the new work and voila, I have something oh so much closer to what I wanted in the first place.

I've decided to share a couple photos with folks:

This is a piece from my first solo show at Gallery 110 in the summer of the 2006. At the time I was really into machinery and mechanics. I look at this now and start to get excited about mechanics again, which is an awesome feeling. The show at Gallery 110 was so awesome too, I miss the naivety I had about the art world at that point as well. I thought that the first solo show was all I needed to "make it". Now I wonder what "making it" is all about anyway.

This is a piece that I working on in my studio on Shilshole in Ballard, WA. I met my buddy Paul there and eventually traded him this piece for a sweet sculpture which is in my studio today.

At the time, I was still obsessed with mechanics but had moved on to water flow and pipes. This was not so much a precursor to the pipes in the sky pieces but kind of another extrapolation of the same concept. If you know my work and have been following me for sometime, you can see that this piece was originally a robot head drawing before I started working the bonsai tree in. You can catch the jaw line around the arrow. The pipe lines started as teeth lines as well. Weird, but awesome to look back at now.

I remember offering this piece to a local charity who was all about taking the piece of art for a raffle fund drive, but was not so into the idea that they were willing to drive from West Seattle to Ballard. Their loss in my opinion. I hope Paul still likes the piece.

Next up is another image from the Gallery 110 show. I did have other shows, quite a few actually, but this show is really ringing in my subconcious now because of the way it made me feel, the things that I learned, the other things that I should have learned, and the over arching theme of the day: How do I combine yesterday with today?


I "LOVED" this piece. It was the biggest pain in the butt to put together, and I remember Molly Norris-Curtis ended up attaching the piece in the back when it sold so that the buyer wouldn't be too frustrated. Remember I said I learned a lot from this show? But I look at this piece today, and remember my television plants phase, and joining panels together and how raw it felt, and how awesome it felt finishing pieces at this time, and I think again, how do I go there again, how do I feel so energetic and excited again? Somebody shed this cowl that I have over myself. I want that back. Preferably right now.

Lastly, I give you a piece, that I don't really have a very good picture of, but I didn't even think that I had documented at all. I finished this piece the day before my show at Lunar Boy Gallery needed to be delivered, at about four in the morning. I love it, but the painting is lost somewhere in Seattle. Who knows, maybe it just ended up in the dumpster. To anyone who might know where that stack of paintings that was at Latona went, could you give me a heads up? And to any young artists out there, always makes sure that you are the one dealing with your art, not somebody who you are "pretty sure" will grab it for you after you move 14 states across the country.

I still love all of this. It feels like is has been so long, and I guess really it's been almost seven years now that I have been trying to make it as a professional painter. Seven years. I've come so far, and yet, some would look at me and ask if I've gone anywhere at all. I don't have a good answer for that anymore, but it is so awesome to be able to look at some old work, and remember that it wasn't a chore. I didn't and still don't mind being poor. I have had an awesome seven years and I very much would like to get into graduate school and continue this journey, because I finally think that I am ready to listen to someone tell me how to work again.

Please keep your fingers crossed for me. And thank you so much to all of you that actually read this and follow my art. You are all so kind.

Peace
-Mike

Lumberjack Series

The other day when my chef said that I looked like 1/2 chef and 1/2 lumberjack, I do not think that he had necessarily intended to give me an idea for a series, but he did. So far it is making me quite pleased too. I am trying to create some contrast between flat patterns and round rendering. In the end I would like the pieces to have fairly realistic looking facial features and very flat pattern clothing. Sort of like a Gustav Klimt piece but without as much glitz. I want the pattern to be really plain, speaking about where I come from.


Naturally the models that I am referencing in this series of pieces are people that I feel very close to, some folks I grew up with, my gramps, and my father, and of course one of myself. Here is a quick sneak peek of what I've been working on. There will be a lot more soon.

I'm pretty stoked to be working on the human figure again, even if it is a relatively loose concept. Hopefully I can finish a couple before I send out my materials for graduate school. I think it would be good to have some more figurative work in my portfolio. Otherwise whoever is reviewing my work will think that all I can paint is birds and bulldozers. Little known fact "Slaves and Bulldozers" was originally "Birds and bulldozers" but Chris Cornell had to change the lyrics to make the song a bit sludgier to go with Kim Thayill's riffage. Just kidding.

Hope you all have a really good night. I'm going to.
peace
-Mike

Welcome to 2010

I'm going to come right out and say this. I did not finish my Art House Sketchbook. I know, "bad Mike", but I am almost done with my applications to graduate school, and when it was coming down to the wire, I decided that graduate school was more important to me than a sketchbook project, so I am finishing the sketchbook, but a little bit late.

Still, I have the utmost respect for the Art House Coop. I think they put together great projects and depending on my workloads in the near future may even do another one of their projects, but for now, grad school.

I recently have been asked to be the featured artist of the first True Brew art after hours event, organized by the multi-talented, multi-faceted, and ever moving Katy Brown of the Concord Arts Market. It should prove to be a good event, and a good excuse to get a couple more new pieces together for that show and for the final rounds of my portfolio for graduate school. 2010 is already looking busy, as I have that feature and a solo show at the Blue Bottle in September.

I do not think I want to be quite as busy as I was last year. I want to spend more time making some quality work, so I anticipate being a little choosier about the exhibits that I am involved in, but I am extremely excited about the Blue Bottle show and the Concord Arts Feature. You may even be able to find me at the Concord Arts Market this summer if I can pull my plans together.

No matter how it pans out though, 2010 is looking to be a good year, and I'm not going to take it lying down. Watch out as Lewis Acrylics turns 30.

Until then.
peace
-Mike

Release The Bees - NH invading CA

I've completed my painting for the Bee Here Now show at The Hive Gallery in LA. The finish and a critique from my buddy Erick, whose blog and work you should check out if you don't already know it - Erick ledesma, has made me realize that there is more that I can do with this. I like it. I've had this kind of little kid dream in my head of raising bees for honey and having a hive on land in the country here in New Hampshire. That is not to say that I will be dropping my paint brush for a Bee Keeper's mask any time soon. But it is good to have some thoughts running through your head to draw from.

My goal with this piece and with the squid sketch a few days ago was to keep my line work a little more, make the piece look a little less "produced" and edgier. I do think that I achieved that, and I think that this is a step in the right direction. I definitely enjoyed making this piece, but the size of the piece, which I chose because of the venue and the fact that I have to mail it across the country, made for limitations in my line and in my paint. Perhaps painting larger should be on the docket for things to be doing in 2010 as well.

I am excited about my new work, even if it does seem to have a little bit of my old work tied into it. It seems more personal in painting style. The next goal is to seem more personal in content as well. The next generation of Bee drawing is getting me super excited as well.

This sketch was completed for the Art House Co-op Book project, which I really need to kick into overdrive to finish the second half of this week. Not used to finishing books quickly. I usually work in several different books at once. I really like the play of negative and positive space with this bee drawing, and I enjoy that the tree is pretty much impossible to find in nature. I guess its all about finding a way to say something completely in your language.

I'm also looking forward to experimenting in the next drawing a bit more with some different fungus. Living and drawing in NH gives you entirely new perspectives on what is cool. I love fungi! Expect more fungi in 2010. But for now this fun guy is out...

peace
-Mike

Bee Here Now - In Progress

I've really been looking at the work of Jon Carling. Meighan of "My Love For You" turned me onto him a couple days ago. His work makes me excited to draw like Mel Kadel's work did the first time I saw it and like Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns made me in college.

How appropriate that he has done some bee images and I am trying to work on a Bee piece concerned with a "state of mind" or a "higher purpose" for the group show that I am participating in with the Hive.

At the same time, I am still trying to push my drawing back into my work. I miss drawing. There is something much more visceral about the drawing than there is the painting. If you are not careful with paint, as you are using it in massive volume, it can become like paint by numbers. Not good. The drawing helps me remember though, and then I know the stroke will come back in an edgier format in the paint as well.

It is all interconnected, but the one thing that I realize is that the less feeling that I have in the end product the less someone is going to identify with it. I need to "finish" pieces before I necessarily think they are done. That is the task for 2010, so if you see me overworking pieces, I want you to drop me an email, leave me a comment or just plain drop an anvil Looney Tunes style and remind me, that I am allowed to be expressive in my work.

So, tomorrow, I will have the finish of this Bee Here Now piece up. It's going to be good. I hope you like the in prog piece.

peace
-Mike

Squid with Pen & Ink

When I first started to get really into acrylic paints, I had tremendous difficulty rendering, not because I couldn't handle the paint but because I keep everything in mid-tones. I have always had issues with making things dynamic in contrast. I guess I am just an extreme moderate in all things. To compensate for this, and to bring form to my paintings I used to rely heavily on black ink line over top of my paintings. I have gotten better at pushing darks in my paintings, so over time I have started to steer clear of the pen over acrylic style.

Lately I have been missing the energy that I achieved with the ink line, however. It is nice to be able to render a bit better in acrylic paint, and build up shape and contrast solely with paint, but if the painting loses energy in so doing what good is it? At least this is the dilemma that I have been struggling with.

Today I was working on a piece and thinking to myself that I could push it further with paint, but then I was thinking that the piece might have been stronger as the drawing that I started with, so I started working the drawing over the top again. I don't know if this style better suits me or not, but I am pleased with the outcome. It is an avenue that I think deserves revisiting. Why not?
Let me know what you think. Thoughts are always welcome.

But for now, I have a crazy Rummy date with my mother in law. She's out for blood when she plays cards. Wish me luck.

peace
-Mike