In the studio today

Walking charted territories

This long weekend has afforded the opportunity to execute a project I have long been waiting to get around to doing.  Advent 2011 was the final exhibit at kork.  I asked 31 artists to "rework" my 2001 painting THA - pictured above in this weekend's makeshift driveway studio.  Each participating artist had a 4x6" photograph of the painting which they manipulated, then sent to kork for exhibit as a daily advent calendar in December 2011.   Somewhat of an afterthought, I decided I would take the suggestions of all 31 artists as a possible solution to this image.  Over the past 3 days, I photographed the process of executing these artists' manipulations on the actual painting - essentially taking this painting through 31 days of collective imagination in just 3 days.

Though frustrating that it has taken me so long to get around to this, I appreciate the poetry of this moment falling on Columbus Day weekend, as I'm "discovering" terrain already tread by others as I reach a new state of this painting. 

This part of the task out of the way, I'm not completely finished.  The next step entails creating a documentation of all the artists' postcards in a publication that will include images of this weekend's painting performance.  I'll also be posting a time lapse video of this weekend's painting very soon. 

This all made for a full holiday weekend, but that's not all that I've had to fill these last few days.  I was at the Garrison Art Center's printmaking studio for the second of my three studio days, developing woodblock prints for the collaborative project between Matteawan Gallery and T17.  Fruits of this labor will be on view at Matteawan Gallery in November and December.  Below is one of my woodblocks, in its current state.