Felted fruit sculpture

2 September 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

Rhonda McClure's felted sculpture of a watermelon with a spigot.

To the right is my favorite piece from the Nebraska State Fair (first time I’ve been in 13 years), which wasn’t even entered in the fine art category. It’s the Fair’s first year to be in Grand Island, recently relocating from Lincoln. The move, of course, caused a ruckus. If I recall correctly, the University of Nebraska wanted some of the former Fair property — just north of its city campus in Lincoln — for expansion. Grand Island was thrilled to be gifted with such an event, as most cities would be, but in some ways it’s already proven to be less than what was hoped for from what I can tell. Which I expected.

Unlike some states, such as neighboring Iowa, the Fair in Nebraska isn’t so much of a renowned event.

Filed under Art, Central Nebraska, Fiber, Grand Island, Sculpture

Clouds as etching

30 August 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

This past weekend we made another short trip back to Northwest Arkansas to catch up with M-DAT folks before the coming Autumn. While there we walked through a very nice show going up at John Brown University, which included this wonderful rendering of some clouds over a church destroyed during World War I.

Detail of La Calvaire de N---port 1914, an etching by Belgian artist Jules Van de Leene (1887-1962)

Filed under Art, Etching, Northwest Arkansas, Printmaking, Siloam Springs

On Musical Form: Is one way better than another?

18 August 2010 by pcNielsen 1 Comment

The one session I didn’t go to at the Hutchmoot was the one dealing with song. I am a fan of music, but my back was not a fan of sitting any longer on that particular day.

Later the same day, however, I got the chance to ask one of the many musicians hanging around at the moot a question I’ve had for a while now:

Why does so much new music follow more or less the same form?

That form goes something like this: verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus. Years ago I noticed that my own musical interests were going a different direction from the norm. I grew up listening, well, to what my friends were listening too, and then migrated to loud “Christian music” because I wanted to be more holy, and then in college began to develop my own ear, so to speak, for music. You can see a little more about this progression in the Soundtrack of My Life.

The musician’s answer was interrupted by someone wanting to buy a CD, but the long and short of his response was that that I was out of the ordinary as an artist and thus making these kinds of observations, and that the form is used in order to make it easier for listeners to remember the songs. He made it pretty clear musicians, in general, in Nashville, want people to easily recall their music.

I did learn something in the brief little conversation, but I still have questions. Shouldn’t musicians be working imaginatively with musical form though as “artists?” Shouldn’t they be creating things that are memorable in new ways? The musician I talked to pointed out some successful diversion from the common popular form, but they still seemed like a simplistic solution in my untrained opinion.

Are a lot of musicians creating for the lowest common denominator?

I’m also trying to figure out if the idea of memorability enters into the mind and process of a visual artist, a painter or a sculptor. It never has for me that I recall, not in the way that the musician in Nashville suggested anyway. Of course, music has a wonderful enigmatic superpower that the other arts just don’t. Our minds are drawn to it in a way they are not necessarily drawn into processing colors on a canvas or words on a page.

An interesting musical contrast to the make-it-memorable-mentality might be Herva, who I wrote about last year in a post titled The importance, and trap, of artistic freedom. Herva wrote

I want to make music with my heart and my hands, to paint or write (or whatever) with my insides (intelligence, spirit, guts, soul) guiding my choices. Will anyone pay for it? I have no idea. Will anyone other than me think it’s good? No clue. But I have to allow myself not to care or worry about that right now. Every creator I’m a fan of creates things oozing in singularity, works that rise out of the sludge due to their originality, clarity, and vision.

This is the opposite end of the spectrum, it would seem, from the person I talked to in Tennessee. Is there a right kind of way to make music? Is there a correct way to paint a painting? Or should the questions be reworded, “Is there a better way to make music, or a painting?”

Filed under Art, Business of art, Modern culture

Inspired by: An Eva Hesse watercolor

13 August 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

On the way down to Nashville we stopped at the St. Louis Art Museum to look at a small showing of prints and drawings done by sculptors. A few of them were quite nice, but a watercolor by Eva Hesse really stuck with me.

Cameraphone image of an untitled Eva Hess watercolor hung at the St. Louis Art Museum

I knew Hesse’s name prior to last week, but I didn’t know anything about her work. Interestingly, I don’t like a lot of it from what I can tell, with the exception of the untitled 1968 watercolor to the right and a 1969 installation titled Contingent, that looks a lot like an installation I did as a college student. The brief at the museum talks about how the two dimensional work was an exploration in light leading up to Contingent.

Both my wife and I were drawn to a beauty within the painting. The shapes reminded me of farm fields adjacent to one another, something I’ve been attempting to incorporate into my own works in the last year or two. But I also took note of her layering. Penciled lines unabashedly bordered and bled through the delicate watercolor wash. Such transparency and layering is something that’s eluded my fledgling attempts to convey the sense of space a person experiences when supercells roll over alfalfa on the Plains. Mmmm, I can smell that distant rain piercing the greeny-sweet alfalfa now.

Hesse’s painting seems to be just the kind of work I needed to see this summer. I’ve started to work on some small paintings, but there was an aspect of these works that was lacking. I was limiting myself to one media and method too strictly — despite referring to myself as a mixed media sculptor. I was only allowing myself to work within an overly basic idea of paint. I realized this before seeing the Hesse artwork, but her watercolor in essence gave definition to my realization.

Now let’s hope I can put some action to this inspiration in the near future!

Filed under Art, Drawing, Inspired by, Painting

Hutchmoot recap

10 August 2010 by pcNielsen 6 Comments

I wasn’t the typical attendee at this little conference quite ingeniously called a Hutchmoot — which seemed to at times mostly like an Andrew Peterson fan club. I’m not saying this is good or bad, but I didn’t really know who Andrew Peterson was before this trip (though I had heard a couple of his songs at some point). So the excitement over being at one of his release concerts Friday evening was lost on me. Further, I wasn’t subscribed to the Rabbit Room blog, which was the driving force behind the moot, until after my wife had registered us.

So far as I know, I was the only visual artist at the Hutchmoot other than Evie Coates, who Rabbit Roomer Pete Peterson, Andrew’s brother, lovingly cajoled into hanging a show of new work and giving a gallery talk (95% of the attendees went to a literature session during the talk instead), despite the wonderfully overwhelming task of cooking for the delegates (which she did a fabulous job of). I was glad though to meet the lady who edits the Stoneworks publication on the last day, Jennifer Trafton. She had spent most of the conference trying to remember why my name was familiar before finding the chance to ask.

Hutchmoot for me was mostly three things:

The Walt Wangerin keynote. I really had no idea who this guy was, other than an author, before this. And he didn’t say much that we didn’t already know, which he kept telling us. I didn’t get all that much out of the weekend related to story like I was hoping, with the exception of Wangerin’s keynote. My wife took notes that I’m going to have to look over later. I wrote down three quotations (some significant paraphrasing involved per my notes):

When art works, it becomes the cosmos [alive] for a while. – Walt Wangerin

You have to know your medium’s history and tradition (all of art moves over a little bit when you create a new work.) – T.S. Eliot

If we think we can create out of nothing, all we’ll create are monsters. – C.S. Lewis

Evie Coates, both her cooking and her artwork. Her assemblages represent a direction my own work could have very easily gone with the use of a variety of rusty found objects. I learned during the course of scattered conversation we were able to have that she has strong family ties to Siloam Springs. Her dad is actually a John Brown University graduate.

Kenny Hutson, a name I had probably read at some point in some Over the Rhine liner notes but didn’t really know. In the scheme of the Hutchmoot, Kenny played what most attendees would consider a very minor role, playing in Andrew Peterson’s band, but I was excited to hear someone who tours regularly with Over the Rhine.

Filed under Art, Art and faith

Intentional Observations: On the jobsite

30 July 2010 by pcNielsen 1 Comment

A few cameraphone images snapped while on the jobsite (as a house painter). The camera on my new [6 month old] phone brags as many megapixels as our first bonafide digital camera, and its macro function works pretty well. As the photo of the mayfly attests too.

The prize goes to whoever can figure out what the first picture is of.

Filed under Intentional observation, Photography

On painting, and other media all mixed up

25 July 2010 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

Sometimes I wonder why I’m so drawn to clay when my inspiration is so ethereal.

It’s more difficult to represent — either realistically or abstractly — such wispy notions with a substance that turns to rock after you’re done with it. Painting allows you to create transparencies on a surface that much more accurately mimic the kinds of light I’m so attracted to in the case of thunderstorms over the prairie.

However, I still want to create a way to beautifully and imaginative portray said supercells with sculptural materials. I believe it can be done, if I’m able to give more time to the idea. Recently I’ve been doing a little bit of painting anyway, as a way to think through the problem. And because the clay around the house (almost all of it reclaim) was either too wet or too dry to work. And I haven’t found a new supplier yet, though have one in mind.

Filed under Art, Ceramics, Painting

On pricing art, art as a hobby, art in the church . . .

16 July 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

Another great article from Comment to highlight today that talks about pricing art and art as job vs. art as hobby. A few quotes to highlight and respond to, and then a link to point you to the writing in its entirety.

I had a professor in my first year of college tell us fresh-faced art majors that if there was anything in the entire world that we could imagine doing besides art, we should do that other thing, because art was just too difficult to pursue without an unwavering dedication. He was right, and those of us that stuck with it knew we had been duly warned about what we were getting into. In a sense, the moment we decided not to change majors, we relinquished our right to whine about being underappreciated or undercompensated. What we did receive, however, was a new responsibility regarding stewardship of the discipline into which we had been adopted.

We talked about pricing a couple of times, but I wasn’t blessed with this kind of accurate bluntness at the beginning of my art schooling. (Does this mean I still get to whine about being underappreciated or undercompensated?) Of course, I sort of eased into my studio art major through pre-architecture, and then graphic design.

On more about doing that other thing besides art, read this post.

The one conversation I really remember on pricing was Eddie Dominguez telling us why his dinnerware was priced as high as it was. Paraphrased as I remember it: “I’d rather sell one platter at $10,000 and have nine to give away than sell ten platters for $1,000.”

Crafting images and objects can legitimately operate as both a form of recreation and a means of cultural reorganization and critique. Making things in order to enjoyably pass a Sunday afternoon, and making things in order to operate as lenses for interpreting the meaning of the world, are both justified endeavours—but they are not the same endeavour. The problem is that distinguishing between the two is complicated by an insidiously ordinary similarity in material and posture. If we imagine two people standing before two blank canvasses with brushes and paints at the ready, how are we to know which one is trying to unwind after a long week, and which one is trying to change the world?

Castleman, the author, describes the difference between art-as-vocation vs. art-as-hobby better than anyone I’ve seen so far, and tactfully too. I’d been thinking about this distinction more and more recently, and his writing on the topic puts my mind at ease.

This article may serve as a personal manifesto of sorts for me. Most of Castleman’s thoughts aren’t necessarily new to me, but they are organized in such a way that the piece is very enlightening. I could end up reposting it in its entirety if I keep going with excerpts and brief responses. That said, go read it for yourself: Will Paint for Food

Filed under Art, Art and faith, Business of art, Christianity

Let your squares be squares

13 July 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

Julie Rozman, an architect-slash-ceramics blogger I’ve followed for a few years now, posted some images of her work for sale. She’s moving from Chicago to Urbana to study ceramics, and one of her sets of work reminded me of a post I’ve been thinking about for a while.

A long while, actually. Probably since I graduated from college almost ten years ago now.

Julie's sculpture does not forget it's roots.

In my architecture classes, in my graphic design classes and some of the time in my ceramics classes I watched aspiring artists and designers, myself included, forget the basics of design. We’d go after an assignment with passion, with dreams of being featured on the front cover of Architectural Digest, and forget that there are certain building blocks to every visual and spatial solution. They were overthinking the problem.

I suppose this is a symptom of the genius mentality, the drive for stardom usurping the desire to make useful and beautiful contributions to our surrounding environments.

Filed under Aesthetics, Affluenza, Architecture, Art, Art education, Artist as genius, Basis for designing well, Beauty, Ceramics, Design, Modern culture

Conceptive creativity vs designing spaces

3 July 2010 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

My predisposition towards creating and refining interior spaces is getting the better of me again. Here we are in our new little home which we moved into — I avoid the word purchased since the bank still own’s 90% of it — in part because it was livable. Livable, yes, but not ideal.

First project underway, now complete.

The trick in part will be not putting too much time or money into the place, and working on projects that add the most value. The home isn’t in the best of neighborhoods and we won’t be able to add infinite value to the space with our projects. This, however, is a practical point of view. Merge this with a designer’s sensibility, which considers the practical as well as the aesthetic, and that’s where I’m headed.

The most expensive project will be replacing the kitchen cabinets. In our previous home we got away with painting and replacing the hardware, but the cabinets there were in better shape and more plentiful. We have a lot of saving to do before I tackle the kitchen. Before then will come removing the wall between the living room and kitchen (which is done), adding walls and flooring in the basement to create a family room and a bathroom (the bathroom is already partially plumbed) and painting inside and out.

Part of creating an organized studio space for myself to work in will be adding the walls in the basement. This is a relatively inexpensive project when you don’t include flooring, but it takes a fair amount of time. As in probably a month of weekends start to finish when you consider the wiring and pluming that will also be involved. And building in an entertainment center.

The struggle comes with another pervading inclination, that of creating works of art. Today I want to start a small series of paintings. My clay is either too wet or too dry at the moment (I’m still looking for a local supplier of a new clay body that I like since we moved) so I thought I’d do something in the way of conceptive creation, in this case painting (something I do on occasion). I quickly realized, however, the lighting over the new work surface I scrapped together is insufficient, so I’m back to thinking about spaces and projects around the house.

It’s a vicious cycle for me.

Filed under Aesthetics, Ceramics, Interior design, Painting

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