Comic Relief

Love yourself some comic books? Get your fix with some local comic events. There is gallery in Charlotte called Gallery Twenty-Two that has a "Fine Art of Comics" show going on from May 1st to June 4th:
After that, from June 4th through the 6th, is the annual Heroes Convention also in Charlotte at the Convention Center downtown. I recommend if you plan on going more than one day to definitely get an all weekend pass. If you only plan on going one day, most of the costumed people are around on Friday, which is always fun. If you wait until Sunday most of the good stuff is picked over, but you can haggle a little with the prices since the vendors are trying to get rid of stock. There will be tons of artists there for signings and selling their work. Some included; Tim Sale, Mike Mignola, Skottie Young, Bill Willingham, Brian Bolland, and many more!

Hope to see you all there!

Clothes-minded #1

For a while now, I have been interested in creating a variety of paintings based on the clothes I wear. I like the idea of incorporating the wide variety the shapes and colors in an artistic medium. One day, my etching professor, Lee Walton, gave me an assignment to create from the outfit I had on. With the influence of my color coded closet and some suggestions from multiple professors, I started my first in the series as a collage. My two studio classes for this semester consisted of a collage class and an etching class, and I decided to use both aspects. I dyed the papers by wetting and pressing them together, while at the same time embossing them with blank plates. I arranged the collage to moderately resemble the repeated shapes and designs of the outfit I had on. I plan on making more and thanks to my friend, Kevin, I have some of my outfits documented.

Tuesday's outfit

Etch-A-Sketch

Thanks to everyone who made it out to the gallery opening last night! The show should be up for a few weeks so feel free to stop by the Artery and see all of the amazing work.

Here is my piece in the gallery. It is an etching with a bunch of dry-point details added in. This etching actually sprung from another project involving place/memory in my Variable Topics class. My place was the alley way on Elm St. where the Simple Kneads Bakery is located. Entering this alley is like escaping into another world. This slightly eccentric homeless man gave me a slice of bread to feed the birds as well as a piece of coal and another rock. The coal was to be past down through generations for 4,000 years until it turned into a diamond. The rock was said to be the petrified gonad of a dinosaur. This interaction stuck with the me and added another whimsical aspect to the place. My Variable Topics collage moved more toward an abstraction, but I still wanted to portray this man. I had made a drawing from memory of him in my sketchbook, and then took it further this etching. I worked really hard on the hatching and texture of this piece. It is one of an edition of 5 and is priced at $50 (if you want the piece framed it will be around $70). Email me with inquiries!

entitled

"Feed The Birds"

YOU BESS BE THERE!!!

poster by the amazing Janie Ledford

That's All Folks!

I was looking in the printing making section of the library when I came across an interesting book called Folk Toys of India by Ajit Mookerjee. These toys are made from clay and papier-mâché and are painted with a heavy emphasis on line and selective color. The characters of these toys consist of milkmaids, lamp-bearers, drummers, and something as simple as a mother and child. There are also a wide array of animals ranging from pigs, tigers, horses, and dogs. This book also contained some interesting contour drawings of a few of these toys. These drawings inspired me to go through and do some drawings of my own. Here is one of the sketch pages of my study of the toys. The owl here can be associated the goddess of wealth and acquires sanctity. The little guy in the bottom left is the Jagannath, which is based on the famous icons of the Puri temple. To the far right is Nanda, which is part of a series depicting Krishnalila, and the last is simply a horse on wheels.I was surprised that this book pulled me in the way it did. I find the imagery fascinating and I hope to stumble upon more varied influences like this more often. One quote from this book stuck out to me:

"The form of expression, ranging from realism to abstraction, simplicity to fantasy, is as modern as it is timeless."

I feel as if in my work I am always dancing around these things in search of my range within each of them. What is my artistc pH? am I more abstract than real? am I simple more than fantastic? or maybe I'm a neutral pH of 7, half of each. Who knows, I'm still working on it!