Diambs

A series two-part tinkerings.

Dander Drawings

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For me, some of the more endearing images evoked by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan's biography of DeKooning come from the passages that relate the artist's habit of working on small drawings as he watched TV every night. I love the thought of this guy who steadily worked in the studio all day in a physically demanding manner finding comfort and relaxation by continuing to create on a small scale in his down time.

I'd like to fit in more bits of work into my lazing about in the evening. Generally when I settle down to relax in my chair, I'm nailed down by Eurydice whose persistent and insistent presence in my lap makes it difficult to do much. Today, on this Thanksgiving holiday, I decided make like the pilgrims and Indians and take advantage of the bounty provided by my surroundings.
I started a series of ephemeral fur drawings by combing and parting the cat's fur into different formations. She's an extremely steady surface, and each work is easily erased in anticipation of the next. It's a collaborative process really.

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I am available to do commissioned work. Pay me to come sit in your easy chair and collaborate with your pet or hairy relative.

Everything and including

I enjoyed a visit last weekend from Dianne Axtell, a friend and former neighbor back in Denver. Catching up with her prompted me to recall moments when I was actively engaged in forcing my creative impulse into the nooks and crevices of my personal environment - something that I've been thinking more of lately with my recent projects like Kamp Maykr, kork - and even WOMS from which I have unofficially retired as organizer.
Intermittently, over the course of a handful of years, I hosted an open studio event at my live/work space in Denver. The first open studio was held as a going away party for Sara Wolfe in June 1998. Sara's friend David Corell created the post card for the event, and I believe it was he that christened the event Kitchen Sink - and it stuck. The KS happened steadily for a while, then intermittently after 2001 encompassing areas both inside and outside and on the roof of my space, my neighbor Cole's joint next door, where the music would usually happen, and at times portions of the insurance agency's office two doors down. The final event was held in October of 2002 as I began preparing to move to Beacon.
I wanted to provide an alternative happening along with the other offerings of the monthly First Friday art walk in the Golden Triangle neighborhood, and I wanted to avoid the boring, unchanging open studio routine I'd seen other artists do. I wanted to mix things up, make it not about me, and get an eclectic energy rolling. I think we succeeded in doing that. Each event was different, with very different character.

The main constant in all of the KS's was the effort it took to clear out two of the three rooms in my apt/studio. Each time, as piled everything into my bedroom, I questioned why I was doing it, and after each event, I was already looking forward to the next installment (this M.O. has not varied much over the years).
Michael Dahl, Lisa Townley, Marc Willhite, Dianne Axtell, Chad Smith & Max Smith, Barbara Deeter, Phyllis Lerud, Desiree Stavry, Chris Nelson, Elizabeth Nelson, Cynthia Boteler, Sara Wolfe, Dean Yoder, Nancy Rossen, Marina Tito, Thad Jacobs, Mike Thamert, Julie Greason, Terry Womble, Angela Beloian, Angelika Rinnhofer, Phuong-Lan Nguyen, Mary Rosenberg And many others were among the artists that participated. There were many more who took part by designing the postcards, spinning, performing and bringing food for the potluck... At the moment, I don't have all of the information about each KS and everyone that participated, but in the coming months I will be collecting and documentation and archiving it all on my website.

A view of an installation that included work of mine, and Nancy Rosen and Desiree Stavry.

A kitchen sink in Lake Dillon.

Outside the Box Inside, at Hudson Beach Glass

Für Clairesy, 2008 used paint roller covers
I'll be participating in a group show in the gallery at Hudson Beach Glass (162 Main St.) in Beacon. The exhibit which opens this coming Friday, Nov 21 is called Outside the box inside. It's a box-themed show.

There will be an opening reception of Friday, the 21st from 6-8pm. The exhibit runs through January 15, 2009..

Above is my contribution to the exhibit. I really love these paint rollers. They refer to colorful plushy toys, but they're actually stiff, crusty, and a wee bit decrepit.

Other participating artists include: Emil Alzamora, Nan & Bill Bolstad, Jen Bradford, Joy Brown
Grace Gunning & Paul Butler, Rieko Fujinami, Steven B Levine, Susan Magnus, Margaret McDuffie, Kathy Moss, Alison Palmer, Elisa Pritzker, Kazumi Tanaka, Ted Timmer, Connie Verrusio, Catherine Welshman, James Westwater.

opening walls - closing windows

April
October

We started dismantling the Habitats for Artists located at Spire Studios last week. Above are images that bookend the existence of my hab. Below are images of the dismantling of the structure. Matthew Slaats helped me take it down. Interacting with Simon on this project has been rewarding. Time spent in my hab was less that I'd hoped, but it did provide some quality secluded time, and conveniently so. It has brought to the fore thoughts on the true essentials for my artmaking experience, as well as the nature of space, and ownership of space, both financial, and aesthetic. Also of paramount importance for me was the reflection on impermanence, as so much thought in life- and in art- is given to the importance of permanence. Permanence is simply an indeterminate impermanence, after all, and much of what is sold, including art, is accompanied by the illusion of permanence. I struggle with my own reliance on the security that permanence provides, but I feel it ever more important to me in my practice to strip away this crutch. If you buy something, you want your money's worth and you want it to last. If you spend your life in an endeavor [art], you want it to account for something, you want it to endure. Would it not be for nought if nothing comes of all this effort? Get over it. Nothing is, nor should be a precious as this very moment - except the one immediately following it. As I'm writing this I'm that this is one of the lessons of my time in my habitat over this Summer, and I think those lessons are present in the depletion drawings I made inside the space.


This first Summer at Spire was really the preamble to the project. As new habs are formed out of the recycled materials from this first group, and new artists are thrown into the mix in future incarnations (we delivered a reconstituted hab to The Fields Sculpture Park at Art Omi, where it will stay for two years, and another will be going to the Scenic Hudson site - Poet's Walk in the coming week.) will deepen and become more exciting visually, and conceptually as a vehicle for exchange between artists and communities. The structures themselves will embody the six degrees of separation paradigm in an unplugged facebook for artists, linked through the transitory experience in an ever changing space.

Video Memento from the hab that was.

As a sort of farewell to my habitat, I recorded some of the surfaces within and without the structure.