I just can't get enough of the row house image, so I made some more collograph plates for printing today. I've finished six plates using this imagery so far, and I may not be done.
I just printed these, so the plates themselves look even cooler now. Honestly, I always enjoy my plates a bit more than my prints.
So I'll go back in and hand paint the actual prints I just pulled, but they were more of a necessity rather than the actual product that I wanted...I am planning on using the inked plates this week for something extra special.
11-16 total in this series so far, I don't quite enjoy #15, #16 has been sold, and #13 is being exhibited in Milwaukee in the near future. I have not decided whether or not I want to bring these three into the curator for the upcoming show. We'll see how the spirit moves me. I usually don't try to exhibit the circles much, because the figurative work is always harder to show. So yeah, I work on that a lot more, and they take more effort for me to create. Circles are for down time and the absolute pleasure of painting. BUT I am working on another bird piece as I write...busybusybusy.
I have about a hundred new photos to upload on flickr, and I haven't quite found the time for all of that nonsense so I'll give you a taste of my favorites. More of my odyssey in Baltimore and Virginia starts now!
I like to call this "Dirty Little Still Life with Plastic Flowers"
in and around the Remington neighborhood...
a very cool thing I always pass while walking on Mount Royal Avenue...
the door that helper elves use...
This makes me chuckle...we stopped at Dinosaurland!!!
which is in Northern Virginia, and has the best retro postcards evah.
I scraped up my back pretty good just now, getting shots of these new pieces outside on my wooden porch. Ouch. Know what else hurts? Emotional Vampires. Ouch...
Sole Intention
Soul In Tension
These pieces are some of my biggest circles yet, at 23" x 30". I'm still getting ready for the upcoming exhibition that the six of us in MACA will be having in September...so there may be another raven piece on the horizon as well. We are supposed to bring in everything we made this summer to the curator. This is all very exciting because it will be in the Brown Center (gorgeous!) and *drumroll* it will be my tenth art exhibition this year. Zoinks!
...show you these pieces? I don't think I have. They are being mailed soon for the RAA Annual Members' Show in October. I figured I'd mail them now, while I have the time. Anyway, these are the two pieces I picked, one figurative, one circular.
Her Curves and Angles
The second piece is part of a series that, well...look like the Rorschach inkblots. I started the series at #11 because Rorschach curiously stopped his tests at #10. Probably because it's hack psychology and he couldn't think any further about his own lame idea. Well, where one lame idea ends...I pick it back up. However, I will not be diagnosing anyone with these so I'm way less lame, thank you.
Check it, and type in my last name: http://www.msac.org/registry_search.cfm?id2=234&id1=161&level=1 I'm now on the Maryland State Arts Council Visual Artists Registry. YAY! I have also received confirmation of my Americorps placement this year at House of Ruth Maryland. This was my top choice, given my background. House of Ruth Maryland is a comprehensive (my word) domestic violence shelter in the area, and I will be their new Artist in Residence. Serendipitous!
Why hello Mayland, I'm heeere now!
Now for the photo show. A few other odd/fun things I've found in Baltimore:
"Relationship" was the aspect of Koinonia that we explored for the last piece made during MICA's Summer Institute. I decided to focus on a quote from a song that I played everyday on repeat. Sometimes I just have to be that annoying in order to feel the tone of the music behind the words. Anyway, I used a lot of threes in the finished piece, as the quote (from Saul Williams) has three portions. And I changed the 'he' to 'she' and I thought a lot about Ashley, the shy girl at my site. She barely looks up if someone is talking to her. I don't know if it is shame or severe self-confidence issues or what other issues she might have had that I didn't even know about...but she IS a good artist, and it broke my heart to see her looking down all of the time.
So for this piece, I related myself to her. If my mother weren't as insistent as she was, and if she hadn't had me on-the-go constantly, I might have been Ashely at some point in my life. Hard to believe, but true. I was shy, and I did have shame. It was difficult for me to figure out what being a woman meant without her...I was so lost. I think I still struggle with it, I struggle with my place in society. Ashley luckily, has a very supportive mother still with her, and sometimes I think that might make all the difference in the world.
This piece started out with the wings flat, jutting out the sides. My critique was intense this time around...an hour and a half long 'intense', but it was great to see everyone respond very strongly to the symbolism. I'm pleased that I am finally making headway with my messages. I realized awhile ago that I can't force my personal, specific meaning onto others. I am trying to generally guide, however, but that has to be subtle. What I'm doing now seems to definitely be working.
Critiques are so important for artists. I know at least for me, that if no one said anything I would be in my own head, not making sense to myself, or anyone else. Let me repeat, critiques are so important for artists. After my very long crit., I found that the wings, the way I had originally placed them, were serving no purpose other than to inform the gesture of the woman's arms. Many thought they would understand the bird reference and the idea of flight even without the literal wings. But I still enjoyed the gesture of the wings, themselves. I felt they looked almost like human hands.
A few days after I got the piece home, and a few ruminations later, I decided to bend the wings in, a very protective gesture. I know that I mother-henned those kids at the end, and possibly mother-beared them as well, defending against attacks and the like. What a good experience for me, being childless. But I felt very protective of them, and I think especially of Ashley. She stayed up late the night before our last class in order to complete the last art project. That's dedication, for a 13 year old on summer vacation!
So, here we go, here is the piece. This one has a slightly different title, but still plays off of the Baltimore/Poe reference...
I would just like to post a reminder that my watercolor exhibition Continuum, is starting at The Virginia Discovery Museum this Tuesday, August 3rd. Please check it out if you are in the area of Charlottesville. The exhibition is located in the back, in the programming room. Exhibition dates are August 3rd through the 22nd, 2010. The VADM is located at the east end of the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville. For a view of just some of the pieces I'm showing, gohere. And VADM also wrote a very fine blog post about me here.
While I was hanging the show, I did some decent, eyes-opened posing...
and had some excellent helper-elves along for the ride...
I just noticed that I got another great write-up, this time from the gallery owner that is hosting my current show in Milwaukee. Artist, educator, curator and writer Evelyn Patricia Terry had this to say about my installation on MARN:
"Shana R. Goetsch’s Passageways, an emotionally seductive installation, references a tragic event permanently etched into her psyche. Objects, carefully selected from Goetsch’s childhood, poignantly reference the haunting memory and in Goetsch’s words "allude to passageways between one form of 'life' and the next."
"Emotionally seductive"? Nice. What did I do to deserve the gift of this great, strong, wise woman in my life? EPT, you rule. That is all.
...at Art and Water for All. You should go, Milwaukee, because everyone deserves clean drinking water.
I again, will not be in attendance, very unfortunately. I'm still in Bmore. BUT I'll still show you what's available for purchase from me, at the benefit! It's up for one night only, July 31st, 2010!
Rorschach Test #16
Raspberry I
Raspberry II
Please buy some art, so that people can have clean water!
August 2nd, ETA: I was informed today that all of my pieces sold at the benefit. YAY!
Another show happening in Milwaukee, that's coming right up. I contributed a few pieces for this benefit. If you are in the area on July 31, go see this show, it's up for one night only!
For our summer site, Jess and I have been working with the Remington Community Youth. We are lucky enough to have some supporters in our corner. Someone wrote a blog entry for us! Thanks to Eric Imhof for being so generous in posting this, and Beth Barbush for the suggestions. Beth hosts the Porch Art Night every week for the Remington community. We were invited to do a printmaking demo there, coming up next Tuesday! Read all about it, at The Alligator right here!
This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar, and carries with it all my good intentions. -The Joy Luck Club
Last week I posted the third piece in this continuing series, Quoth the Raven. And since then, we've had another awesome critique. This new form of critique has been the best thing for me, ever. In undergrad, getting someone to even speak one word to me about my work was like getting blood out of a turnip. This system ensures people will speak. Here is a link to an essay regarding the new crit process, Liberatory Critique, written by the head of my program. It's a very important and meaningful process for me especially, given that I am used to getting a ton of absolute, and stunning silence in my life and art....even on here. Usually I am swimming in my own head because of this fact, and so I think, "To hell with what everyone else thinks, because I'm not sure they think about anything I produce at all." And here we are again. With the aid of my visitor tracker, I know that people do come, do look, but often don't say a word or leave a comment. We'll see what happens, I guess, but it's disheartening, and it's polarizing.
The second piece from this series that I presented to my fellow MACA students is this print/watercolor regarding again, the subject of Koinonia, and one aspect of that word, 'sharing'. I decided to share some of the wealth of what I have seen in Baltimore thus far. But other than that, I have used the image of a dancer again (movement), and one of my favorite thoughts/phrases, the quote from the Joy Luck Club, written above.
Quoth the Raven - Carry
The titles are like a time stamp. "Baltimore-time". So I have again, used the Poe reference of the raven. I think of these pieces as metaphors for how I feel going into this 'Community Arts' masters program. I want to fly, and I want to help carry the weight of others. I want everything/everyone I see, and smell, and hear, and feel, to be able to SOAR to magnificent effect.
Well, thanks for stopping, now I have Artscape fun with my sites' Youth, I taught them collograph printmaking techniques, and they have BRILLIANTLY assimilated the process! Artscape is America's largest free arts festival, located in Baltimore, Maryland. YAY!
"I cannot consent to creep, when I feel the impulse to soar." -Helen Keller
We have had the first critique of our work, and it was very, very, different from what I am used to. For one thing, people actually responded, but I'll have more about this brand new (genius) process of critiquing later on in my bloggings.
We were asked to create pieces in response to our summer programming, our summer community site, and our experiences in Baltimore thus far. For all three of these pieces, the Greek word, koinonia (roughly, 'communion by intimate participation') was given as a key idea, at the request of our program director. It actually has many layers and facets to its meaning, and THAT is exactly what I like in a word. Needless to say, I was more than happy to start painting and printmaking again. Especially if it involved something issue-based, and it involved a cool word with multiple interpretations. Sign. Me. Up.
The first piece was to be based upon a 'call and response' theme, even more specifically. I kept my series with the birds going strong, because I think I have been focused on the same thoughts since I got accepted into the MACA program. Originally, when I found out that I was moving to Baltimore, my subject animal changed dramatically from a deer to a raven. I traded the ideas of loss and power, for that of freedom and movement. I think the raven is still appropriate.
This time I had little trouble finding a phrase with which to base my piece. I asked one of my high school interns to write out the above, Helen Keller quote for me. I wanted his mark on my piece, his handwriting rather than mine. I spent a lot of time thinking about my hopes, and dreams for the youth I was working with. I want them to feel the same freedom I felt and still feel. It's as if I can do anything in the world, that it literally opened up before my eyes. That's what I want for them, that is my call. Sky's (not) the limit!
Quoth the Raven - Soar!
And who lived in Baltimore? Edgar Allen Poe did. I so love him.
Last night, I had my opening in Harrisonburg, Virginia at the Blue Nile. I missed it. Why? The DC traffic was so bad on the way there that I hadn't even gotten to the Virginia state line in 3 hours of driving (When I finally turned around, it took me about 45 minutes to get back to Baltimore). What a tragedy of traffic patterns.
In that vein, I would like to announce the next exhibition I will unfortunately miss, in Milwaukee... The Terry McCormick Gallery of Contemporary Fine and Folk Art will be having a new exhibition starting on July 24, Gallery Day, from 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm. And look, my installation is on the cover of the postcard! If you are in Milwaukee, stop in! Evelyn Patricia Terry will take very good care of you, she's a fabulous artist and gallery owner/hostess.
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