Due to my recent visit to Miller Gallery, I wanted to try out Bruce Riley's technique by using polyurethane resin over layers of paint. It's taken a while for each layer to dry, and I only have two painted layers so far. Since I prefer using oil paints, I decided to use a small canvas to try out this technique. If it fails, I'll try again with acrylic paint. 

Step 1
create your first layer of paint

Step 2
Mix the polyurethane material with the hardener. Then pour it all over the canvas. Make sure you are gentle when you do this to minimize the bubbling.

Step 3
After the first layer of polyurethane is dry, add another layer of paint.

All you have to do is keep repeating this pattern until you are satisfied with your painting. 

How to make a small jar

This is a quick tutorial on how to make a small jar. I'm in a Wheel throwing class this quarter and it's the  first time I've ever tried it. It's much harder than my teacher makes it look! Because I think it's easier to understand by watching someone do it versus reading it, I found a great video demonstrating how to make a cylinder. The instructor in the video is Casey Oconnor. He also shows all the tools you can use which is wonderful! Click here to go to the video on youtube.

STEP 1
Wedge your clay really well so that you work out all the air bubbles.  When you are done, slap it in your hands to make a smooth, round ball. 

STEP 2
Throw your ball of clay in the center of the wheel as best as you can. Then, by using tons of pressure with your hands, center your ball of clay. (Trust me, you'll know if it's not centered because your hands with be jerking every which way). 

STEP 3
Stick one finger in the center and push down. Pull your finger towards you to create a small bowl shape. Once you have done that you can start to bring up the sides by pushing the coil up from the bottom in small increments. You don't want to bring it up too fast or you risk tearing the clay. 

STEP 4
Now you have a cylinder shape. Next take a round tool called a rib. Use it by pressing it against the outside of the cylinder and pushing your finger (from the inside of the jar) and running it from top to bottom against the rib. 

STEP 5
The basic shape of the jar is complete!


The last steps that need to be taken are trimming away the extra clay at the foot of the jar. Then you put the slip on it, then you put it in the bisque kiln, then lastly you glaze it and then fire it. 

Lightness of Being Exhibition at Malton Gallery

The Malton Gallery was showing an exhibition called Lightness of Being. This featured paintings from students who won Malton Galleries contest to show their work.  Abby King, a graduate of St. Xaiver's art program who paints, and Emily Sites, a University of Cincinnati DAAP graduate who works with bronze and forged metal were the winners. However, I will only focus this post on Emily.

Sites creates sculptures that seem simplistic in a way. The way she bends the steel metal creates these wonderfully thin, long lines that guide your eye in a flowing motion. She often incorporates fabric on her pieces. For example, she created an outline of a woman's torso and within it, she sewed black lace sparingly so enhance the softness of the curve of the hip. On another installation, she had these worn looking handcuffs hung from the ceiling. Inside the handcuffs layer fur. This to me was awesome because she took something so cold and hard and combined it with something soft and generally warm. My favorite pieces of hers would have to be the three sculptures of women's legs walking. Even though the legs in all three were basically the same, she created them all at three different sizes and then placed them next to each other, smallest to largest. This created such a sense of motion, I felt like I could see the legs walking right in front of me! I also really enjoyed seeing the whelding marks that naturally occurred. RAW POWER! Sites had a great number of pieces shown and I enjoyed how they were displayed. She had a large space on the first floor of the gallery and was able to use it well.

These are the only two images of Sites work that I could find. These were taken from the Malton Gallery Facebook page. There were no titles listed with these images and I don't want to guess.

Emily Sites
2011
These are the walking legs I described above. 

Emily Sites
2011
This is part of the "Three Steel Figures" collection

Malton Gallery vs. Miller Gallery

I recently took an adventure to two galleries I pass weekly and have always wanted to go to. These galleries I speak of are Malton and Miller Gallery in Hyde Park area of Cincinnati, Ohio. These two spaces are both commercial run galleries but they are very different from each other.

The Malton Gallery looks amazing from the outside, what with the floor to ceiling windows in the front of the building so that people passing by can easily see what they have displayed. I did like the majority of the work that they were showing, but I wasn't too keen on the marks on the walls and how some of the work was displayed. Some things that bugged me were how some of the paintings didn't quite physically fit in their frames. Now, I'm not saying that this was the galleries fault because the work I'm describing was the work of a previous St. Xavier art student and I can only imagine how expensive it would be to make or buy nice frames. However, I think that the gallery should have mentioned to the artist to clean up some edges and corners and try to get frames where the paintings would fit snugly in it--not where one edge is nicely done and another has a gap between the frame and painting. Putting aside the marks on the walls and the frames, the space was nice. In my opinion, it was an architecturally interesting space where I would love to show my work some day.  They had a wonderfully tall area when you walk in (great for large pieces, installations, and sculptures), and they had a quaint little space up stairs. One other thing that I really enjoyed was their sculpture garden right outside the building.  The staff was very friendly and knowledgable about the works they house.

I really enjoyed some of the artists they housed such as Terri Albanese and Mike Elsass. Albanese creates her own glass, cuts it, and then puts it back together again in these painterly arrangements. Elsass uses steel plates and acrylic in his work. He allows nature to rust the sheets of steel by burying them under ground. Then he pulls them out and paints on top.  His pieces are half made by him and half by nature, which is an interesting concept.

Terri Albanese
A New Song
Glass
8.5" x 8.5"

Terri Albanese
Wings of the Wind
Glass
21" x 21"

Mike Elsass
Tuscon
Acrylic on Rusted Steel
48" x 12"

Mike Elsass
Pit Series 1
Acrylic on Rusted Steel
48" x 12"

The Miller Gallery was smaller. They had great music playing, a gallery dog named Dexter, and their staff was equally knowledgable about the works they housed as well. I felt like the Miller Gallery was a little more professional looking, in the sense that the most everything had it's place. The walls looked clean and pristine, and they weren't all white. In one room, the walls were painted red. This room displayed an artist that I absolutely fell in love with, Bruce Riley. Riley is an artist from Chicago who paints these large, super colorful images of microorganism looking things. He does layer on top of layer of polymer resin.

Bruce Riley
Headlong
2011
96" x 48"
Mixed Media

I don't want to discourage any one from going to these two galleries--instead I would greatly encourage you to go! I had such wonderful experiences with both. The best part...even though I am a young student, it would have been very easy for the sales associates at the galleries to blow me off, but they didn't. They were happy to interact with me and give me all the information they could.

Here are the links and information for both;

Malton Gallery

3804 Edwards Road

Cincinnati, Ohio 45209

Phone: (513) 321-8614

If interested in showing work at Malton Gallery, email Sylvia Rombis at srombis@maltonartgallery.com or e-mail her at maltonartgallery@zoomtown.com. Sylvia is the owner and will be happy to answer any questions. 

Miller Gallery

2715 Erie Avenue Hyde Park Square

Cincinnati, Ohio 45208

Phone: (513) 871-4420
Co-Owners: Gary Gleason & Laura Miller Gleason
Gallery Director: Rosemary Seidner

How to apply to Miller Gallery:

1. Emailed submissions are preferred.

If you have a website, please include the URL.

If you do not have a website or images accesible online, please send small image files.

Submit to: 

Use artist submission in the subject line, or your email will most likely be deleted along with our daily spam.

2. All portfolios/slides/ materials submitted that you wish returned MUST include a self addressed stamped envelope with the proper postage.

3. Please include pricing, sizes, mediums, exhibition history and public and private collections as applicable. Any personal information and philosophy as it relates to your work is always interesting and reviewed.

4. Please include gallery affiliations, past and current with contact information.

Interview with Rachel Veeneman

I had to privilege interviewing a fellow peer of mine, Rachel Veeneman. You can e-mail her at veenemrl@mail.uc.edu or check out her blog, Roachie's Exploration. I've attached our interview below.

1.) How would you describe your work?

            My work is typically geared towards the darker side. My work isn’t really conceptual, it’s more of the imagery that I find interesting. I don’t want to make up a reason for it because there really isn’t a reason. It’s how I’m feeling or what I’m interested in. My art process is very cathartic.

2.) Where do you draw your inspiration from?

            I draw inspiration from my feelings and as mentioned before, interesting imagery. I also find Tim Burton, Audrey Kawasaki, Lee Bul, H. R. Giger, and Ernesto Neto inspiring.

3.) What’s your choice medium?

            Currently I’ve been involved in a lot of metal forging and welding with wrought iron. I have also added fabric to my sculptures to create this tension between the hard metal and showing this flexible material. It deals with contrast between materials.

            I also work with digital painting. I primarily use Photoshop. I like taking physical objects, like a piece of wood, as using the wood grain by enhancing the aspects of the physical object with the digital media. After that, I would print it out a plank of wood. I’m also interested in collage by taking 2D media such as lace, newspaper clippings, and photographs and then m.

4.) Where do you prefer doing most of your work? (studio, at home, or other?)

            I like being around people that I find stimulating and that I’m comfortable with. I find it more valuable to me. Location doesn’t really matter to me as long as it’s peaceful. I use candles, music, and incense in order to get this ambiance. 

5.) What is your goal?

            I want to be an art therapist because after struggling with depression for almost all of my teenage life and into my adulthood, I want to help people who suffer from that too. I wouldn’t mind working with prisoners or people who have suffered from some kind of sexual abuse. I would like to still continue with creating my own work and show my work within gallery spaces.

Untitled 

3’ x 2’ x 2’

Wrought Iron

Untitled (another angle)

3’ x 2’ x 2’

Wrought Iron

Untitled (another angle)

3’ x 2’ x 2’

Wrought Iron

Untitled

18” x 6”

Wood and digital painting via Photoshop

Untitled

17” x 9”

Mixed Media 

As I was talking to one of my professors, he directed me to this site created by Paul Behnke called Structure and Imagery. He told me to look at many of the works that are posted on Behnke's blog because there are a lot of artists that deal with layering and allowing pieces of underpainting to show through. I thought Gilfilen's painting below is a great example of what inspires me.

I'm doing a little reposting;

Tether, 2011, oil on canvas, 72 x 65 in.

Image courtesy of the artist. © Elizabeth Gilfilen

From the press release:

In all her work, Gilfilen’s interest in spatial complexity and layering is apparent. Her generous use of negative space serves to enhance the raw power that comes from the core of the painting. While the activity within Gilfilen’s paintings can be fierce and active, a closer look reveals great restraint and a very concise, specific set of visual cues that she uses to create these abstract representations. Her paintings can appear volatile and deliberate at the same time and piecing that puzzle together results in paintings that are anything but arbitrary.

Inspiration: Shanan Campanaro

 Shanan Campanaro is a distant relative of mine who is an artist in Brooklyn, New York. I love her work--her prints are beautiful and clever. She started her own company and sells her work through Eskayel which is a company that turns her paintings into awesome wall paper, prints, fabrics, etc. If you want to know more about her, about her business and success, you can listen to an interview with her at 2modern blog.

Bali Stripe Bay wallpaper

Inspiration: Mark Schwartz

I am 100% a shoe  girl. Always have been, always will be. I stumbled past Mark Schwartz's work one day and I fell completely in love! He's a shoe designer AND artist. His renderings are beautifully painted and quite inventive. He also uses one of my favorite mediums--india ink!

You can check out his stuff at his website, High Heeled Art, or you can check his work out at this DailyPainters.com

Mark Schwartz
Dream
16" x 20"
Watercolor on Paper

Mark Schwartz
Fluid Ballet
12" x 16"
India Ink on Plexiglass

While I love his artistic renderings, I have a book of my own where I design shoes for fun. I think I should start doing more painterly renditions instead of drawing it like I'm mapping it out. On the other hand, I like the fact that each one of my designs comes from a sketch book and looks almost sterile especially with my little notes thrown in on the sides. 

These are some of my designs:

Current Work In Progress

Part 1
4' x 6'

I've started an attempt at the largest painting I've ever tackled! I'm planning on using a process where I do many layers of painting on top of what I have previously painted and allowing windows of the under paintings to show through. 

This first layer has been somewhat therapeutic for me. I think it will be the rarest part of the painting. I've thrown paint at the board, hit it, scratched it, and graffitied all over it with representational colors and words. The first layer--the most hidden layer-- is about my battle with my Fibromyalgia and how the physical and emotional pain I feel every day affects my everyday life, my relationships, and how I feel about myself. 

Part 2
4' x 6'

For this next layer, I ended up going in with no plan. Instead, I just let loose. I let my hands and body do what they wanted and I let my eyes choose what colors I wanted. I tried using some paint thinner over parts of the painting, but it ended up getting muddy. Clearly, I need to apply the paint thicker!

Part 3
4' x 6'

I have started yet another layer. Once again, I'm not going with any plan--just going with my mood and letting the movement of my arm make the decision. So far, I see these rock formations covering up all the feelings in the background. I believe this will have a greater meaning when the piece is finished. As you can see, i'm planning on leaving parts of the under painting show through in the middle formation.

Part 4
4' x 6'

I've scrapped away little sections and slivers of the underpainting and I've painted some blue waves. I get a lot of inspiration from organic forms, textures, naturally forming material, etc. I feel like this is my version of an abstraction of a cave with tall rock formations and streams weaving through it. Not to mention, I feel like I subconsciously wanted to cover up the underpainting. I think I mimicked something I do all the time--how I pretend that I'm okay and I hide what really ales me. Maybe this is my way of breaking through all that.