ArtStyle: When did the “intellectual” component of your work begin to develop in your art?

Alan Lerner (AL): In the 1970s, as an undergrad, I started making drawings of actions I would fantasize about but not necessarily accomplish. Many of these planned actions would involve bad manners and behavior on the group level, leaving behind evidence in the form of dirty suburban interiors as a comment on the sterility and purity of the impossibly neurotic standards of daily life. I worked in ceramics for many years, and also designed and built furniture. These activities helped form my ideas of how objects function as art separate from the functional craft object. At the time I did a stint at security at the MCA and used the library there to help form my early experiences as an artist.

Alan Lerner. An Ocean Of Drink. Acrylic clipboards, paper,
screenprint ink, neoprene, 15’ x 15’.

ArtStyle: Where does your personal meaning show up in your work?

AL: I believe artists choose and create the contexts in which they operate in the world around them. I enjoyed art history very much as a study of artists’ roles in the times and strata of society in which they worked. My work is personal in that I am an individual in the large set of individuals who make up a society. Everything is personal in that each individual experiences the world differently through their years of experience that color their reactions to the group.

Examples of these conceptual meanings can be seen in my installation An Ocean of Drink. The associations of meanings and objects define my artwork, which can be diagnosed like diagnosing a person. Rather than being clear, the clip boards are screen printed and displayed with white paper underneath them. The clear plastic clip boards could be glass on a framed drawing or symbolize the process of looking through something or a human to see the internal makeup and psyche.

The conflict of nature and culture is a common theme in my artwork. An obvious symbol of drinking, the bottle could represent alcoholism and dysfunction. The screen printed blue orbs symbolize water and the ocean, which is an image of the ideal. And the white paper under the clipboards could also be seen as the thinnest form of a pedestal for displaying the sculptural work on the floor. In the background, a soft inflated clock functions as a reference to the subjective experience of time, and as a symbol for a bloated, abused self.

Alan Lerner. Fashion / Fascist. Screenprinting ink on
Stonehenge, 30” x 22”.

ArtStyle: Could you describe the dichotomy of fashion and the military in your screen printing?

AL: Fashion / Fascist is a still life composition, with the the background being the screen printed interior of a room with ornate patterned flocked wallpaper, a hanging chandelier, designer bag, and designer perfume bottle. The perfume container, with its form exalting a supreme leader, is based on fascist architecture. The handbag is stylized from high fashion that came out of Italy from the Fascist movement and leading up to and during World War II. “IL Duce” Benito Mussolini, with his ubiquitous image, covers the designer bag much like the Gucci icon or the Luis Vuitton bag does in high-end fashion globally today.

Alan Lerner. We Will Don Hats and Smite Them. Aluminum,
screenprinting ink, velvet rope, inkjet prints, gold rope, shelf
with aluminum molding, 7’ x 4’ x 6”.

ArtStyle: Could you give me an example of how your installation sculptural pieces are meant to be read by the pubic?

AL: My installation pieces are sculptural objects and images that are about the use of material and associations of the material to the objects. In We Will Don Hats and Smite Them, a velvet theater rope symbolizes authority and crowd control. A crowd is queued up until the rope opens for them to pass through. This is a manipulation of human behavior and is generally an accepted form of manipulation. The screen-printed images of red and white drum majors leading a parade in a civic ritual function much like the military parade as a demonstration of military might and pride, offering hubris as a means of identification with the nationalist urge. There is a farce being portrayed with the men clad in suits marching to the beat without drums. Like the emperor with no clothes, a symbol of our nation’s perverted and abusive use of power, torture and relating to George Bush‘s quotes of “Let’s roll” and “Bring it on,” which are statements for the invitation of mayhem. On the shelf above are paper mock-ups of naval military hats made from the images of the people murdered by war and terror. Worn sideways, they also refer to Napoleon and the impulse of imperialism, or expansion of the national ego.

Alan Lerner. Gurney of Discomfort. Steel, wood, vinyl, upholstery
buttons, wheels, 40” x 84” x 16”.

ArtStyle: How did you construct this piece Gurney of Discomfort, and what does it mean?

AL: I used upholstered furniture on a metal stand with wheels akin to a gurney that moves through a hospital. It is about the idea of treatment and cure, but it is also a critique of Western medical and psychiatric treatment. The V-shape symbolizes a double-edged blade, a mold of victory, or the peace sign. The form references the dichotomy of Western and Eastern concepts of healing. As a part of the technical work of construction of the piece, I checked out books from the library and taught myself how to upholster. To make the piece convincing as a piece of furniture, I also welded the metal frames, which are telescoping in length from smaller to larger, and can be custom fitted to the individual, even though it is a one-size-fits-all mattress.

Alan Lerner may be contacted at albomatic@gmail.com.

Technorati Tags: musician, screen printer, conceptual artist, street art, installation, sculptural, still life, furniture

Dianna Frid. Untitled #1 (Cloud, Mountain), from the series
The Vertical Shadows. 2007. Cardboard, wood, cloth, plaster,
plastic, paper, acrylic, wax and papier-mache, 5.5’ x 2’ x 2.25’.

Frid’s exhibition is a room full of enchantment, perhaps subconsciously influenced by the duality of two cultures (she was born in Mexico and lives in Chicago) and differences in weather. Her sculptures and wall pieces are both playful and serious. There is a “handmade” element that shows strongly in her work — materials such as cardboard, plaster, cloth, aluminum foil, paint, and wood cut — assembled to make intriguing sculptures full of bright colors and asymmetrical forms. There is also an element of pattern and design in her works that is intuitive and carefully thought out. Light, snow, and elemental nature give Frid’s work a structured narrative. Standing among her sculptures, I felt a sense of wanting to play and had to kneel down to inspect and see them from a child’s eye view.

Dianna Frid. Untitled #6 (Last of Fog), from the series
The Vertical Shadows. 2008. Cardboard, wood, cloth, plaster,
paint and ink, paper, acrylic, and papier-mâché, 48” x 47” x 24”.

Color and light are two key elements in Frid’s art, and the more time you spend with her works, the more phenomena appear. In one of her sculptural piece, a stacked box of triangles sits on a tree-shaped piece of snow. Thin blue lines criss cross in repeated triangles along the side of the form, and a solid gold band of triangles forming irregular diamond shapes in one line also appear. The more time you spend viewing the object, you will see an iridescent yellow glow on the snow shape. The top of the sculpture is painted a bright yellow with a shallow aluminum triangle hole at the very top. If you look inside the hole, you will be surprised with a subtle yellow light, similar to sunshine reflecting, and a tiny white snowball shape thrown in the bottom.

Multiple materials — wood, cardboard, metal, cloth, plaster, plastic, paper, acrylic, wax, plasticine, rubber, papier-mâché – and purposeful colors (blue, teal, turquoise, white, orange, yellow and green) make these sculptural forms become towers of intrigue. Standing nearly body size with elements of antennas and clouds floating about, the pieces interact well together and definitely are like toys for adults to see and experience with the pleasure and happiness of childhood being re-lived.

Dianna Frid. A Brontology Instance, from the series
Engines of Weather. 2008. Mixed media on paper, height 12” x 9”.

Frid’s carefully crafted collages on the walls are made with mixed media, such as aluminum foil, paper, tape, and paint to create pattern, lines, layers, geometric shapes, and color dealing with the theme of weather. The two-dimensional works are a fitting 12″ x 9″ in size and positioned well with the sculptural forms to create a dialogue of color, material, and shapes. The intense color, patterns, and line designs are whimsical, fun, and playful with many layers subtly allowing the viewer to see some of the process of creating. It is definitely true that Frid uses all types of images from life around her, and collages and assembles them into a fascinating creative world.

Frid’s work has been recently displayed at PS1-MOMA, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Drawing Center, New York; and CROXHAPOX in Ghent, Belgium.

Dianna Frid may be contacted at diannafrid@gmail.com.

For more of Dianna Frid’s artwork, click here ArtStyle Blog Gallery.

Technorati Tags: sculptures, papier-mâché, collages, mixed media

Chicago-based artist Howard Fonda, whose work is collected by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and by Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, is currently exhibiting a thorough body of work from the past 2 years in a solo show, Nothing to Live Up To, at the Hyde Park Art Center until May 4, 2008.

Howard Fonda. Self Indulgent Search for Meaning. 2007.
Oil and graphite on canvas, 40″ x 36″. Photo: Darrell Roberts.

Fonda’s breadth of work ranges from abstraction of repetitious color lines and flat geometric patterns to nature and unique portraiture. A sincerity is seen in his artwork through his own unique mark making — sometimes inlayed with text or imagery.

Fonda’s text almost never refers to a painting although he did title and sign one painting and then painted the text. His text includes simple statements, ideas, profundity — invented and borrowed — sometimes relating to a specific piece or larger theme.

Howard Fonda. Untitled. 2008. Oil on canvas, 40″ x 30″.
Photo: Darrell Roberts.

Fonda admires and respects aboriginal textiles — artifacts from which he derives his abstraction. He is interested in the layered history and content of the textiles, and describes them as pure, narrative, and utilitarian abstractions all at the same time.

Howard Fonda. Untitled. 2007. Oil on canvas, 40″ x 30″.
Photo: Darrell Roberts.

Nothing to Live Up To lives up to the body of work and ideas from people he admires, whether it is an image “appropriated” from the artist Toulouse Lautrec (see image above) or a book he is reading.

Fonda, a painterly artist, whole heatedly embraces his studio time and understands the artist’s need for solitude in his studio: he spends a lot of time trying to figure things out, painting, and editing. Fonda describes his alla prima approach as painting in one sitting — either it works or it doesn’t — and his works show the successes and failures.

Howard Fonda. Untitled. 2006. Oil on canvas, 40″ x 30″.
Photo: Darrell Roberts.

There is a duality in his work with portraits and nature: they are separate creations but at the same time they work harmoniously with each other. The simultaneous creation and mark marking are seen in every piece, forming a complementary body of work. Fonda’s works hang next to each other down a long narrow gallery that positions the viewer in the center of two walls with artwork on either side. The viewer is set to view a nonverbal story from each painting: There is a script with text, some readable and some not. A portrait tells a story of who is being painted, and when it is positioned next to a nature-based painting, a formal composition of a person and nature appears. Then a more existential contemporary dialogue is formed, and the story changes, the meaning changes, and what the viewer sees and feels changes.

Howard Fonda. Untitled. 2007. Oil and colored pencil on canvas, 28″ x 36″.
Photo: Darrell Roberts.

Fonda’s work deals with both beauty and ugliness, and he sees the good in both. He takes a painting and makes it a muddy brown, covers up some line drawing, leaves the raw canvas from behind coming through, and then completes his work by painting in gestures on a burnt sienna line drawing. Some people may think that something so spontaneous may seem cliched, but Fonda sees the beauty in the simplicity. Painting for Fonda is rooted in his search for value in all things, and it is his role as an artist to struggle with ontology: he describes his studio practice as saturated with his attempt to understand the human truth, existence, being, and love.

Howard Fonda. Another Secret, detail. 2007. Oil on canvas, 48″ x 36″.
Photo: Darrell Roberts.

A reserved individual, Fonda values all artists and their desire for creating art, whether it is a video, rug, totem, song, or poem. He is a self-confessed “romantic and dork.” He is inspired by love, romance, melancholy, and failure. While he acknowledges painting may be seen as archaic, useless, and “stuck” in too many academic art history discussions that dominate art schools and art making, he believes that the process of painting and paintings themselves can be very valuable and powerful. For Fonda, a humanist, painting is the last remaining philosophical sanctuary.

For more of Howard Fonda’s artwork, click here ArtStyle Blog Gallery.

Technorati Tags: geometric patterns, portraiture, aboriginal textiles, Toulouse Lautrec, alla prima

Aviva Alter, 53 years young, is currently exhibiting in Soft Life at the Hyde Park Art Center. She recently created pieces for the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project, which was on display at the Chicago Cultural Center last fall. Working in the fiber arts steadfastly for the last 3 years, Atler grew up in Waukegan but has lived in Chicago proper for the last 36 years, where she spent many years working with clay. She has upcoming shows featuring her textile art in Los Angeles, London, and New York.

ArtStyle: How do you see the process of working with clay relating to your fiber arts today?

Avila Atler (AA): I think of the art work I do in two different ways. The Crochet Coral Reef Project is very organic, and that is how I used to work with clay. I was mainly interested in color, form, and movement. I created mostly decorative objects such as sculptural pieces. My clay work was based on the figure and a lot of design work of the 1950s.

The second way that I approach my art is trying to take my personal life experiences and looking at them in more universal terms, rather than my own personal “woe is me.” The way I have approached dealing with that is by using clothing, which has a lot of personal meaning, such as uniforms my uncle wore in World War II. I have also constructed works based on the clothing of people I have known very well, such as a blouse my mom wore and a white lab coat my dad used to come home in.

Untitled Sorrow, detail. U.S. Army wool shirt, cotton floss.
Courtesy of Aviva Alter. Photo: Matt McCarthy.

ArtStyle: Where does the text on your pieces come from?

AA: It started after the death of several family members, and I started thinking about my place in the world: the losses I felt, the fact that there will be a definite end to my life, the realization I was definitely not the center of the universe, and the sadness and loss I felt other people were feeling and will feel in the future. I started thinking about phrases such as “My sorrow is no greater than yours” and “Comfort is not truth.” So the main issues I am dealing with is the human condition and that all actions have consequences. There is a responsibility with living, and that responsibility is to look at the way we live and are placed in the world as honestly and truthfully as we can. For me, clothing symbolizes protection and status and is a fitting place to stitch my thoughts.

Pain Measure. Polyester lace top, cotton floss.
Courtesy of Aviva Alter. Photo: Matt McCarthy.

ArtStyle: You also use army blankets from other countries. How did they become a part of your selected fiber material?

AA: The way it started out was really simple. I started looking on websites after working on my uncle’s army clothes. I knew because they were surplus they had an anonymous reference and symbolized struggle and protection — two forms of the human condition I am interested in.

ArtStyle: Your upcoming shows all deal with the Crochet Coral Reef Project. How did this project begin?

AA: This project was initiated by Margaret Wertheim, a mathematician, and her sister, Christine Wertheim, an artist. Both are originally from Australia. In Australia the Great Barrier Reef is one of the most beautiful natural habitats in the world, and due to pollution it is 30% dead and continuing to die. To draw attention to the environmental consequences of what is happening, they started a community-oriented project bringing women all over the country together to crochet forms that mimic the coral reef. Also plastic is integrated with the yarn because plastic in the ocean is killing the reef and all ocean life.

Cambrian Explosion. Courtesy of Aviva Alter.

ArtStyle: What are you crocheting?

AA: The pieces I am making are crocheted by continuously adding stitches, creating crenelated forms and fluted surfaces, which reference all organic forms including the coral reef. The pieces I make are about my obsession with crochet, color, and form. Instead of making individual crocheted pieces that would be pieced together to form a large coral reel, I started taking what I was crocheting and making one large ongoing massive form. It will be these forms that will be exhibited as the Cambrian Explosion through The Institute For Figuring, which the Wertheim sisters established.

Aviva Atler may be contacted at avivastitch@gmail.com.

For more of Aviva Atler’s artwork, click here ArtStyle Blog Gallery.

Technorati Tags: Coral Reef, fiber arts, Margaret Wertheim, Christine Wertheim, Great Barrier Reef, crocheting

Michiko Itatani was born in Japan and came to the United States in 1970 to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a professor of painting and drawing. Itatani (pronounced EE-tah-tah-nee) had aspirations to be a fiction writer, and in her youth studied philosophy and literature. It appears this early interest has fueled her current body of work, with scholarly subject matter. Her works are on display this month at Printworks Gallery in Chicago’s River North gallery district.

Itatani is primarily known for her mammoth-scale oil paintings, which become major installations when all hung together. She has created almost three decades of paintings in a celestially abstract style, which has also incorporated the movement of lyrical figures in some series. At Printworks, her small and medium-scaled works on paper — skillfully done in gouache, Prismacolor pencil and ink — range in size from about 10″ x 7″ to 22″ x 30″. They are just as compelling as her large-scale works, and are meticulously labored.

Work by Michiko Itatani. Permission by Printworks Gallery.
Photo: Darrell Roberts.

The dramatic colors heighten her interior theater spaces. She has intense orbits of color rings floating in the air, with elaborate chandeliers dangling from the ceiling, and oriental-like color, pattern and decoration, filling the theater walls.

Work by Michiko Itatani. Permission by Printworks Gallery.
Photo: Darrell Roberts.

Many of Itatani’s works deal with a library or reading room series. A great expanse of interior space fill the room with linear perspective from floor to ceiling. Rooms have the feeling that a great philosopher or scholar is present from the Age of Enlightenment. Globes fill the rooms on the floor, rows and rows of books fill the bookcases, and only a hint of postmodernity is offered with a laptop painted on a table. The wallpaper and ceilings are fanciful with Baroque-like colors, patterns, and designs. A hint of French Rococo fills the room with all its abundance.

Printworks Gallery, located at 311 W. Superior Street, Suite 105, is open Tuesday-Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Phone: 312-664-9407. Michiko Itatani’s new works on paper are up until March 29, 2008.

Technorati Tags: Art Institute, Chicago, Printworks, gouache, theater spaces, chandeliers, Age of Enlightenment, Baroque, Rococo

Shoreline Habitat. Lampworked soda-lime glass and mixed media.
Courtesy of Amy Lemaire. Photo: Cindy Trim.

ArtStyle: When many people think of art, glass works are not the first pieces that come to mind. How did you get interested in using glass as an art form?

Amy Lemaire (AL): I first began working with glass in 1997, when I took a 5- day glass bead workshop. I purchased my first torch at the workshop and have been working with glass ever since. About 5 or 6 years ago, I started thinking about sculpture and needed a way to document my ideas. I turned to glass as a material for sketching and discovered that all those years of making beads had paid off: I had developed an extensive glass vocabulary. Originally, I planned to use glass only as a means to sketch with, but ended up constructing the finished sculptures out of the same material.

ArtStyle: Could you talk about the importance of beads?

AL: Beads hold significance in many different cultures. They have been used as currency and as talismans for protection from evil, sprinkled over fields in hopes of a plentiful harvest, buried with the dead, exchanged in marriage ceremonies, and used as prayer beads to aid meditation. I draw on many of these stories for inspiration in my own work.

Glass Painting. Lampworked and fused soda-lime glass.
Courtesy of Amy Lemaire. Photo: Cindy Trim.

ArtStyle: Could you tell me how you got interested in the types of beads you make?

AL: The first humans to wear jewelry did so in order to distinguish each other easily from other members of the human tribe, which had grown so large over time. I often think of these first bejeweled humans and what their wares might have looked like. Today, the jewelry I make and wear has much of the same function. They are one-of-a-kind identifying pieces which set the wearer apart from the tribe.

Perhaps as an effect of cross-pollination of my sculptural pieces, my beads increased in scale at one point. Some of them are clearly too large to function as jewelry. Although I am ok with some of them being stand-alone sculpture without function, another use evolved out of necessity. My sculptural habitats involved submerging various live plant specimens underwater. The oversized beads were a perfect addition to these pieces: I shoved the plant stem into the hole of the bead and the specimen sunk to the bottom of the tank, submerged. Those bead forms refer to pod and cocoon shapes, which worked conceptually within the habitats as well.

ArtStyle: When you create sculptural pieces, what are you interested in?

AL: I aim to fill in the gaps in what nature has created.

Run on. Oil and wax on canvas. Courtesy of Amy Lemaire.

ArtStyle: How does communication and memory play a part in your work?

AL: At the moment, I am concerned with the co-existence of dominant and submissive languages. In my paintings, one language is disabled by interrupting the semantics only to reveal another. The scale of the works vary and refer to billboards and signage, postcards and printed matter/fliers, or television — all formats from which we expect to receive information. For this work, I prefer the medium of painting because it offers a vocabulary I find suitable for communicating the human condition.

The deliberate use of color refers to the way my own memory functions, tagging ideas and information with specific colors which act as memory triggers. Since there is no way to prove if it is possible to accurately communicate a memory from one person to another, we can only approximate using language, which poses the question: Do we ever truly understand each other?

ArtStyle: Your paintings have an intense use of color. Could you describe your process and the techniques you use?

AL: Color is very closely associated with memory for me. I use color to help me remember certain things. In my brain, people, numbers, letters, days of the week, situations, and emotions are coded by color. This is directly reflected in the paintings although my particular association with a color is not likely to be congruent with the viewers association with the same color. I add cold wax to the oil paint to dull down the sheen in order to view the color without the distraction of the shininess of the paint.

Speed of the gulls. Acrylic and flasche (vinyl-based paint) on
paper mounted on panel. Courtesy of Amy Lemaire.

ArtStyle: How has travel inspired your artwork?

AL: Most of the imagery used in my paintings originates from collages and drawings made while traveling, and I collect discarded printed matter and small objects I find on the ground. Often the colors on those little pieces of debris find their way into my artwork.

I consider my travels to be a supplement to formal education. These journeys have helped to broaden my perspective and allowed exposure to people and situations I might not have encountered at home. I have realized that we all experience the same set of human emotions, and these are what drive us. Our languages and cultures might be different, but the emotions we express with languages are universally human.

ArtStyle: What is the greatest thing you can say about color?

AL: A color is never a fact but always a truth.

For further inquiries, please contact Amy Lemaire at parakeetfarmer@hotmail.com

Technorati Tags: glass, bead-making, glass bead, sculpture, Lampwork, jewelry, sculptural pieces, Oil and wax, cold wax, oil paint, Acrylic, flasche, collages

With an MFA in painting and an MA in art history from the University of Chicago, Sarah Kaiser is a creative artist who changes her subject matter to keep her art making as alive as all of her intellectual interests. She has created multiple series of paintings dealing with subject matter as diverse as cartoons, geometric abstraction, observational still life, and conceptual pieces. Besides making art, one of her favorite past times is vacuuming.

ArtStyle: What motivates you make art and how do you keep it changing?

Sarah Kaiser (SK): I make art because I am constantly coming up with ideas for new paintings. I feel like I want to get them down on the canvas before they fade away or I get distracted. Sometimes it is difficult to concentrate with so many ideas in my head, and I feel like my “disk is full.” Getting something down at least preserves it so that I can revisit it in the future. It frees up more space in my “hard drive” for additional ideas.

Also, since I was an only child, I made art to entertain myself. I’m still a very private person who requires a lot of personal space. Spending time in my studio helps me to create my own sense of order and to construct a buffer zone between me and the world.

My work keeps changing because I have never been the type to tap into that buzz word called “continuity.” I remember when one of my professors in undergrad kept telling me that I needed more “continuity,” but I resisted the idea because I didn’t want to get too comfortable or make my work too predictable. Although it’s good to develop a recognizable style, I like to challenge myself. In summary, my work is dynamic because I enjoy setting up problems to solve.

Bazooka. Courtesy of Sarah Kaiser.

ArtStyle: I noticed you have cartoons and child-like imagery in some of your artwork. Could you tell me about your influences in these series?

SK: Every year I teach my students about Lichtenstein’s Bengay dot method. Around that time, I remember how much fun it is to reduce a complex image into a series of different-colored dots. Thanks to Hans Hoffman, I can teach the students how the warm colored dots push forward, while the cool colors recede. Plus, I found a large cabinet of old comic books in my grandmother’s garage. They are from the ’60s and are in mint condition. But instead of selling them on ebay, I enlarge individual frames. For instance, the Bazooka painting is 60″ by 60″. I often enlarge images with banal, lame narratives to show how random and pointless some of the plot lines in these comic strips actually are. Also, I like to find stereotypical images of women (or girls) in these comic strips and play with their representation. For me, it’s fascinating to compare our representation at that time period to how we are portrayed now.

Good Housekeeping. Courtesy of Sarah Kaiser.

ArtStyle: A common theme in some of your paintings is a pair of glasses. Is there a disguised symbolism used in these images?

SK: The glasses are a metaphor for clarity. I started working with eye glasses in graduate school. My advisor, Herbert George, suggested that I work with them. I was at a point in which my head was swimming with theory since so much of graduate school is about listening — and at the same time trying to absorb — the disparate ideas of professors. Herbert told me to “put the theory in a box” and focus on a simple pair of eye glasses. So for me, the glasses symbolize my ability to focus on the physical world around me: by holding still and focusing, I calm down and thereby escape the business and chatter surrounding me. Even though I do not wear glasses yet, the image keeps popping up in my paintings because I remember that I only bring my paintings to fruition if I focus on tangible concepts. I must hold onto them before they fly away.

Sterile. Courtesy of Sarah Kaiser.

ArtStyle: Other paintings seem to be formal abstractions dealing with light and paint. What is your inspiration in creating these paintings?

SK: Recently, I introduced my students to some of M. C. Escher’s tessellations, which are repeated patterns that do not overlap. I enjoy applying some of Josef Alber’s concepts of simultaneous contrast to these patterns. Since I do not have to concentrate on drawing, I can focus solely on the relativity of color. I pay attention to how the same orange hue is perceived differently when painted next to a purple and then next to a yellow. I also play with optical illusion.

Fit-in. Courtesy of Sarah Kaiser.

ArtStyle: Some of your other works include embroidery, text and social issues and seem to be more conceptual. Could you tell me about the issues you are addressing in these works?

SK: I’m addressing concepts of masculine and feminine in the embroidery pieces. I am embroidering masculine images onto muslin and crotched doilies, a predominately feminine art form. Using this surface intentionally plays into the notion that embroidery is the past time of grandmas and housewives, and has been belittled as a “craft” instead of a painting, which has been traditionally regarded as a work of “high art.” So, to touch upon this idea, I embroidered appropriated images from an instruction insert that I found in a box of Trojan condoms onto the doily. Consequently, the originally feminine craft comes with a shot of irony.

Instructions. Courtesy of Sarah Kaiser.

ArtStyle: What other social issues have you addressed?

SK: In July 2007, I participated in a conceptual project for Pathogeographies, an artist-collective that emphasizes the “emotional investments, temperatures, traumas, pleasures, and ephemeral experiences circulating throughout the political and cultural landscape.” Together, we created a “suitcase project” that involved packing our suitcases with “tools” that volunteers could carry around the city of Chicago “to incite, create, collect, and record political or emotional scenes.” It was a literal take on the “baggage” we carry with us daily. My suitcase included “Smart Pills” intended to comment upon the pharmaceutical industry which attempts to get us hooked on substances meant to cure our depression. In reality, the “Smart Pills” were only “Smarties” candies. My vision was to elicit a placebo effect to prove that we can live without these expensive little pills. I am doing small drawings of these “magical” pills, and working with the positive and negative space of pill bottles.

Otherwise, I really don’t get political in my work. I think that just the idea of devoting one’s self to art production and instruction is a political move in itself since art making — at least for me — is not a means of mass production. So, in a Marxist sense, I am not an alienated laborer working on an assembly line. I am lucky enough to be in charge of the fabrication of an object from start to finish. I use my own two hands, and am not a “cog in the wheel.” (I am sure someone could challenge that since I still buy art supplies and am thereby contributing to the capitalist state, but I do what I can.)

ArtStyle: How does text become important in your work?

SK: If text is in my work, it is just a whisper or a mumble. As opposed to screaming or shouting out a word in a large font with bold letters, I will scribble a word or phrase onto a drawing or collage a tiny bit of text into a painting. I think I do it because so many of my teachers would not permit me to use text in my paintings while in art school. Maybe I do it to comment upon all of the jumbled sounds and images we have around us in urban life: sirens, people talking on cell phones, Muzak. It’s possible that the text is just background music. Since I am a fine artist, and did not focus on graphic art, text is definitely subordinate to the image and must not interfere with the composition. However, occasionally I collage bits of poetry into my work. Some of it was written by me, my friends, Wallace Stevens, or Rainer Maria Rilke.

ArtStyle: How do you address a painting starting out and how would you describe its final outcome when dealing with the act of painting?

SK: Before I start a painting, I normally do a series of thumbnail sketches to make initial decisions about composition, color, and subject matter. It is at this stage that I can work with cropping. I can also tell at this stage if I will eventually grow bored with the subject. If that is the case, the drawing never makes it past the drafting table. Once I get something that I wish to enlarge, I do some math and figure out how I will enlarge the sketch. I normally will enlarge it by 3 to 5 times the size of the original. I scale up the sketch by dividing it into quadrants. After I stretch the painting, I start sketching, and eventually end up drawing with my brush. My paintings are not a far stretch from my drawings because I integrate the graphite into the paint, which is reminiscent of Giacometti’s drawings and paintings.

Over time, I build up the paint in a series of glazes. Currently, I work with oil in the summer –when I can open the windows — and acrylic or watercolor in the winter. I keep my glazes translucent and diaphanous by sanding them down or wiping them with rags. Stains of color intrigue me, and I will only use impasto paint in small areas that I wish to accent, highlight, and serve as focal points. In the end, there is still a lot of searching going on. Even though I normally start with sketches, I can take a 180 degree turn before I finish. I might start sewing pieces of cloth onto the canvas or rip it. I might paint over it and start something completely different. Although I try to have a plan, I know that if I get too formulaic my work will only be manual labor.

Anonymous Boy #2. Courtesy of Sarah Kaiser.

ArtStyle: You have done portraiture work and are working on a new series of people. Could you tell me who these people are and where you come up with your images?

SK: Portraiture is one of my strengths. In the past, I have painted portraits of family members, friends, and students. Currently, I am working on a series of anonymous portraits. Surprisingly, I found some abandoned albums of family portraits at Intuit Gallery last summer when I visited their recycled sculpture exhibit. I bought several of the little black and white snapshots and have been using them as source material for a series of drawings and paintings I am making of “Anonymous People.” They have yellowed over time, and are images of small children playing. I wonder why the photographs are no longer in the family and am intrigued by the fact that somebody let go of these family heirlooms. It’s a melancholy, sad attraction I have with this concept, and I think I am cherishing them mainly because of their “neglected” quality. If the young boy in this image (Anonymous Boy #2) is still alive, he should be about 64.

Sarah Kaiser may be contacted at sarahkaiser@hotmail.com.

For more of Sarah Kaiser’s artwork, click here ArtStyle Blog Gallery.

Technorati Tags: cartoons, still life, conceptual pieces, Lichtenstein, Hans Hoffman, Bazooka, abstractions, Escher, Josef Alber, embroidery, Pathogeographies, suitcase project, Giacometti, Portraiture

Rebecca Ringquist takes traditional domestic craft materials and alters them with imagery by aggressively stitching them and embroidering her narrative stories on them. What she integrates is one part artist labor and the other part done by unknown women who crafted the original material. Her pieces push the boundary between traditional craft-making materials and contemporary art.

Garden Gate. Courtesy of Rebecca Ringquist.

Garden Gate, Detail. Courtesy of Rebecca Ringquist.

ArtStyle: When did you get interested in fiber art?

Rebecca Ringquist (RR): I found myself taking a very forward-thinking feminist art history class as an undergraduate at Cornell College. Women in Fabric, Fiction and Film explored the role embroidery played in colonial and Victorian times in the development of girls’ lives and the inculcation of femininity. Further, I spent a lot of time studying the feminist art movement of the 1970s.

Before this class I was very reluctant to sew, but I became interested in embroidery as a conceptual way to represent ideas about femininity in a subversive manner. I was so excited by the idea that the material could convey its own very important history and meaning.

I then attended the Art Institute as a grad student in Fiber and Material studies and began exploring these ideas further.

ArtStyle: Where do you get your material and how do you approach making your pieces?

RR: I used to get all my material at thrift stores, but after hauling home bag after bag of ill-fitting clothes as a result of spending way too much time at the Village Discount, I have come around to using eBay. I can get a lot all at once and spend more time in the studio instead of traveling from thrift to thrift accidentally shopping for bad pants.

Usually each piece starts from a drawing or quick sketch. However, sometimes I will find a really cool piece of embroidery and get excited about working back into it, so it works both ways.

In either case it’s important to say that this work is slow going. Garden Gate, which I just finished, took over a year to complete. So, often the imagery changes over time and I try to be open to working organically. From the beginning I am cutting up old cloth and I usually continue to add on layers and cut away other bits until it’s time to send it off to the gallery.

Although I began working with embroidery largely for political or conceptual reasons, I continue working with fabric and embroidery and stitching for a more tangible reason: I like the way it feels. I love the thickness of cloth and the way I can make it drape and bend with intense repetitive stitching.

Untitled. 2003. Courtesy of Rebecca Ringquist.

ArtStyle: Where does the imagery come from in your work?

RR: I look at a lot of books: old dictionaries, nature guides, autograph books, old valentines and fairy tales. I make a lot of drawings and gouache sketches and small studies. Big pieces take a long time, so I’ve always got a lot going on at once in the studio to keep myself interested and fresh.

ArtStyle: How do you come up with your narratives?

RR: A lot of beginning points in my work lately are coming from an old autograph book of my grandmother’s from the 1940s. I found things like “Don’t make love over the garden gate, love is blind but the neighbors ain’t” or “If in heaven we do not meet, hand in hand we’ll stand the heat!” I’ve been interested in thinking about these sayings from different perspectives. I think they are weird for 1940’s teenagers to have written and they are great suggestions of irony and innuendo when skewed and presented with my own imagery. I’m serious about what I do, but I am also interested in playing with language and with turning old notions on their heads in ways which make my audience think twice or chuckle a little.

ArtStyle: How does your stitching alter the cloth?

RR: I think the violent way that I have of machine stitching conveys a sense of speed and aggression that really alters the meaning of all this cloth that’s been carefully hand stitched by others. Most of the embroidery that I collect has been stitched by women using iron-on transfers. These are decorative cloths used to spruce up the sofa, the dresser top, the bridge table. There is an overabundance of it in circulation. By stitching over it, I am really changing the meaning. I’m taking it off the table, off the sofa, into a conceptual place where I can begin to tell my own stories while referencing ideas about domestic contentment and decoration.

ArtStyle: What different types of stitching do you use?

RR: For a long time all I was doing was machine stitching over the top of found embroidery and other fabrics. However, last summer my sewing machine broke for a while and I started hand stitching and embroidering and got really excited about it. Two of the pieces at The Hyde Park Art Center are completely hand stitched.

Rebecca Rinquist Talks About Her New Embroidery Art

ArtStyle: When you start a project do you have a strong idea of what you want the final piece to look like or do you work more intuitively?

RR: I have an idea of what it will look like — sometimes even a really clear and concise idea — but it almost never remains exactly the same. The necessarily long time that is required to complete this work leaves it open to change. I really like that. I am most influenced by artists that the art world might label “intuitive” or “outsider” and I try to be open to working organically or intuitively — being willing to change or accommodate or shift is important.

I want my work to be the opposite of hesitant, the opposite of minimalist. I want it to go over the edge of reasonable embellishment or decoration.

ArtStyle: Is there a duality in your creations?

RR: I think especially in the big piece Garden Gate there is a duality of speed and time. The harsh difference between the rate of speed and mood with which all that old “fancywork” was stitched by careful methodical hands is a sharp contrast to the application of imagery over the top. Although the machine stitching is very labor intensive, it also conveys a sense of violence and aggression, which is perhaps reflective of the chaotic world in which we live. The thick orange flames, which lick up at the bed suggestively, are quite different from the sweet daisy imagery that lies beneath.

My work is at times careful, contrasted with moments of fast machine-stitched recklessness, expressing implicit and explicit intensities, and alternating between innocence and restlessness.

ArtStyle: What type of topics do you address?

RR: I am interested in addressing stories about my own life and my relationships. I am excited about telling veiled or fractured narratives. I use imagery that conveys a sense of a fairy tale or a fable. I don’t want to give away the whole story; I want the work and the images to insinuate something, to complicate an existing idea. This recent work suggests something deeper than what the original quotes suggested.

While these projects could exist as short laughs or one-liners, my way of making art conveys a sense of authenticity. The obviously labor-intensive method that I use to create my work conveys that I am serious and invested in the subject.

Rebecca Rinquist can be contacted at rebeccaringquist@yahoo.com.

Technorati Tags: Hyde Park Art Center, fiber art, embroidery, feminist art movement, Fiber and Material studies, thrift stores, hand stitched

In the last few years, I have had several artists ask me for tips on applying to grad school, applying for grants, and submitting work to galleries, among other topics. So I have come up with a few answers I would like to share with all of you.

Q: How can I stand out when applying for grad school, a grant, or a gallery?

The best advice I can give you is to have an excellent set of slides and digital images; many places accept digital now but some still accept only slides.

Never have a bad image — no yellow or blue slides or hard-to-see images.
Have well-lit shots of installations.
Have perfect replications — crisp, close, and clear — of individual works such as paintings.
If you can’t photograph the work yourself, hire a professional photographer, even if it costs you hundreds of dollars.

After having slides made, you can have copies made. You can even have digital images made into copies; one place that has been good for me is iPrintfromHome.com.

You should have a well-written artist’s statement as part of your portfolio. It should be no more than one page. Be very precise with your wording and do not use a lot of jargon the general public would not understand.

You are only going to have a few seconds for someone to look over your work. Remember, hundreds — no, thousands of people — are submitting for the same applications as you are and less than a single-digit percentage will get an offer.

Q: What do I do if I get rejection letters?

You will receive hundreds of them in your lifetime. Apply again next time with a better package and portfolio. Some people apply for 3 or 4 years before receiving a specific grant, residency, or even getting into grad school. Remember only a small percentage is chosen.

Q: How do I find out about grants?

CAR (Chicago Artists Resources) is an excellent Chicago website with many artist opportunities, such as grants, housing/studio space information, and many more listings.

Ana Fernandez has some good advice for applying to grad school on the CAR site.

A second professional site to subscribe to is Art Deadlines List for announcements, competitions, jobs, fellowships and more.

Q: What is involved in applying for a grant or artist residency?

If you are applying for a grant/project, remember to be able to tell the committee what you are going to do, and when, how, and where you are going to do it. If you are requesting money, you will need to submit a budget with expenses, cost of supplies, and what the supplies are: canvas, paint, 2′x 4′ boards, digital equipment, or whatever types of material you need for your work and travel (air, car rental, shipping of materials).

There are many artist foundations out there; some accept applications while others are by nomination only. Some foundations that accept applications include:

The Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation
The George Sugarman Foundation
The Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation
The Puffin Foundation
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation
The Guggenheim Foundation
The Fulbright Program

Artist residencies also help your professional development. Make sure you sign up for email alerts for upcoming applications at res artis, a site for worldwide artist residencies.

If you are going to be applying for college teaching, you may want to become a member of the College Art Association, which holds a yearly conference in a major U.S. city, where hundreds of colleges interview applicants. Also, check out The Chronicle of Higher Education for job postings.

Q: How do I start showing my work professionally?

Many artists want to show their work professionally, and it is very competitive. When approaching a gallery, you should visit it first and go to some openings throughout a year to see if the work they show would be a good fit for your work. Remember galleries often represent about 15 artists so one of the gallery artists will only be able to show with the gallery every two years. I have been told that many galleries get 20 or more applications a week. Also, sometimes galleries see your work in other group shows and then invite you to show with them.

Some other ways to get exposure is to show your work in coffee shops and bars in trendy neighborhoods; this can get you a lot of exposure. Also, show at alternative spaces, such as in someone’s home or a storefront. Many art centers and culture centers accept proposals for exhibiting artists. The Hyde Park Art Center has an excellent guideline for submissions on its online exhibitions page.

Q: How do I afford to pay for art school?

The average cost of an education for undergraduate and graduate degrees can easily be a hundred thousand dollars or more. Apply early in the year for financial aid and government assistance. Make sure you fill out a FAFSA (Student Financial Aid) application each year, many months before your classes begin. Many students acquire a debt along with their education. Always keep up with your paper work. If you are in debt, I recommend consolidating your loans and locking them into a fixed low-interest payment with William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program. If you can’t afford to pay, you can file for a forbearance or deferment, and if you are just entering the job market, you may want to file for income contingency so that your payments are based on what you make and is affordable for you.

These are all tips school advisers won’t tell you, and many of you will find out through the school of life. Best of success to all of you.

If you have questions you would like answered about the art profession, please comment, and I will answer them in comments or in future posts.

Technorati Tags: digital images, artist’s statement, grants, artist residency, artist foundations, college teaching, gallery artists, art school, art profession

I have just finised a 4-week artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. I am very grateful to the Dedalus Foundation for providing my full fellowship and the George Sugarman Foundation for providing me a grant for the purchase of paint and enrichment of my artist career over the next year. One of the best gifts that can be given is the gift of time and by doing a residency, artists are given a studio, living space, and 3 meals a day so they do not have to be distracted from anything but their work. Over 50 artists — visual artists and writers — a month are at the Vermont Sudio Center.

At the Vermont Studio Center, I was given a large studio with skylights in the Wolf Kahn Barn. There were many artists in the building to hang out with, discuss work and of course imbibe in the different flavors of Vermont Beer. The meals are served in the Red Mill dinning hall. Houses and old town builings have been bought in the vilage for artist studio buildings and housing. The studio artists have open studios twice a month for everyone to see the creations going on. The writing artists also have a couple of nights of readings. There are also slide shows of the work of resident artists, professional visiting artists, and writers / poets after dinner once a week.

This month, Tony Hoagland and Mark Tucotte were visting artists for the writers, and each read from his work one night. I was very fortunate to have excellent visits with artists Mary Hambleton, Sheila Pepe, Loren Madsen and Joe Fyfe. Meeting many new artists and friends and having this shared experience was an amazing creative experience that will last a life time.

Photo Credit: Darrell Roberts

Technorati Tags: artist residency, Vermont Studio Center, Dedalus Foundation, George Sugarman Foundation