Tuesday, April 28, 2009

A Momentary Studio



With the onslaught of 90 degree weather (in the midst of high pollen season) comes a healthy dose of allergies for all of us at residence Denouement--our home was given a name by its former occupants and who are we to strip it of its title? But also, I can now resume my love of hanging laundry out to dry on our line. If I had a momentary studio, where nothing really got made but a good deal of thinking, looking and just plain BEING in a space that is fully my own was had...well, this patch of weedy grass between two trees on the edge of our property would be that momentary studio.

I've been thinking a bit about worlds within worlds as of late because I am nearing the end of the second book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy--in which walking between worlds, cutting windows to other worlds and sorting out the reality of worlds one can't see residing within one's own world are ideas all played out with a great deal of imagination and a lot good writing. I bring up Pullman and the notion of a world within a world here because it's an apt analogy for a healthy studio. When my studio is a place beyond my normal life, I step into another place--of my own devising, my own making. I step apart.

Walking to the edge of my property, peering into the woods, hanging color on a line is a way to step apart for just a moment.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Teetering








The problem with having a blog is its inherent assertion of "I know something and now I am going to tell you what I know." When the subject of said blog is one's own work, one's own studio, one's own life--well then, what happens when the writer herself is in the dark.

I speak of course of those intermediary times--in between comprehension/knowing and say, a half-breathe.

And what about when, for the time being, the half-breathe is more interesting than comprehension.

Maybe the half-breathe is all that is possible at the moment--and so it's intrigue is unreliable, a lure away from staying, plodding, pushing forward.

Here are some photos from the studio as it stands--or teeters.

(Yes teetering, or sitting precariously.)

Monday, April 6, 2009

Lauren Luloff


Lauren Luloff
Originally uploaded by Bromirski
Oh wow--I must post this image.

For one, tomorrow is the opening of a solo show of Lauren's in New York--at Sunday LES--a gallery whose page doesn't seem to open so I won't link it here.

Secondly, Lauren graduated from Penn State's undergraduate painting program a few years after I did. All I can say about that really is I get this painting on a pretty visceral level--where it came from and why. No doubt Lauren had her notions of painting blown wide open in Helen O'Leary's painting classes just as I did while a student.

VERY exciting!

(Line)

In-progress

1. I found the edge of a piece of linen--no doubt a leftover strip from a student stretching a canvas. The edge is lined with two stripes of red.

2. wooden strips, painted

3. fabric cut into strips

4. striped fabric cut into strips

5. tape (masking, scotch, archival, painters)

6. strips of heavy plastic cut into