I finally read some of the ads on my pages and since the ads relate to the text that I have been writing it appears that faux brick and brick panels are quite common in the construction industry. I am not surprised, but I am surprised by the way that I now have these items being promoted on my own pages. Is this a part of the new interlocking world we live in where the information and products that you need simply come to you if you just list your thoughts on a blog? Maybe.
I have been working on my fresco brick panels for some time, but I am sure that my techniques are different that what the professionals are using, but the end result may not be as spectacular as I have imagined when you consider what is for sale already online. The brick panels shown online fit together and can be assembled for use in a way that I won't ever be able to achieve, as well as, the realism that they convey is better than a real brick in many ways. The materials that the faux brick walls are made of appears to be polyester resins, which isn't a plus, but for production I am sure that it makes a lot of sense to use those types of resins.
Does this dampen my motivation to continue to create the brick pieces that I am making? Not really. I am simply moving in a direction and it doesn't really matter what I am making so much as there is a theme and if anything it reinforces the practicality and usefulness of faux brick in the real world. The last thing I would want to do is to make a useful brick interior or exterior wall that would actually be in someone's home. By seeing successful companies that are already in that business I can remain focused on the artistic aspects of my craft and leave the business to the pros.
I did notice that some of the brick panels are available in a fireproof, or Class A rating material, at an extra cost. I wonder if these brick panels are made of the hybrid plaster materials like the Forton MG, which is less flamable than the polyester resins. All along on this project I have felt like I was being pulled back into my boat building days and the materials that these companies that are selling the faux brick walls are using seems to support that idea. Essentially they are plastic shells made in a mold, painted and sealed. Although I am interested technically as to how they are made, it's most likely no more glamorous than how I make a t-shirt. The weight of these brick panels isn't that great either, which is a plus and if I had to make a bunch of brick panels I'd probably end up making them the same way, or just buy them from the company and slap a frame on them myself.
If I wasn't so distracted with making my own stuff I could see a way to use their brick panels in a practical way, like the previously mentioned spray paint wall or some such realism versus craft endeavor. However, I am way too gone for that, the brick has taken over my being as an object that hardly represents a brick any more. It's just an idea. A rectangle, a red outlined box, a simple thing, sort of golden rectangle, but not, a monolith.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Simple, Repetitive, Ubiquitous - Le Brick
A final coat, a sealant, will be required in all the materials that I use and this has allowed me to accept a wider range of substrate materials to work with for my fresco binder in making these framed brick pieces. I have switched to a pre-mixed gypsum based plaster that has an acrylic polymer and micro-fibers already in the dry powder. This Tufstone may be the perfect medium for me, literally.
I have also stopped worrying about the thickness of the substrate as a way to make something durable. Every time I mix in different materials to strengthen a piece, as with back filling a frame with FGR 95 or Forgon MG I create new problems. I end up with leeching white stains on the front of the pieces once they are exposed to water without a sealant. Thus the rationale for the sealant as mentioned above, although I have not sealed the items from the back too, and I have been warned that if there is no way for moisture to escape then that in and of itself can cause problems. In the end it seems that different materials layered onto each other eventually crack or leech color and therefore I can't just use mass as a sealant and increased mass is not a requirement for a finished piece.
Weight has always been a factor in my product development, so by reducing mass I am reducing weight, which is a good thing. I even converted some of my mess-ups to stickers and gave them to my kids so that they could have some fun putting them up in places. Instinctually they started drawing on the brick stickers with random slogans and sticking them in places, so I am happy to say that I continue to see no bounds with this project. I am using a pressure sensitive adhesive on the back of the thinly casted pieces, and when I say thin, I mean thin. I can't imagine any piece of ceramic being able to be used in this way. As a result I am confident that I have found a way to argue that these gypsum based products are more applicable than ceramic for my use. I have heard that ceramic technology is in use in many things we use in our day-to-day lives, like even printed pages in magazines may be coated with a sort of ceramic matrix, but I don't really know this to be true. So when I refer to ceramics I am referencing the typical crafted ceramics that are used with glazed images and designs. Boring, but long lasting in that they are crystaline and rock-like in there atomic form.
Half a student I was and indeed I only learned half the information; just enough information to be dangerous to myself and others, so watch out. Historical Geology, Archeology, and Mineralogy taught me a few things about the archival nature of our world. Unless something has a solid internal structure it won't really survive because the compounds that make up our world are easily subjected to immediate decay. Without serious efforts being made to preserve an item over an extended period of time it won't be around to convey information and since our relative time in existence is miniscule as compared to the geological record it is a crap shoot to wonder what will last thousands of years.
Our skulls will be more important, historically speaking, in the long run versus our art since it may be preserved for a longer period of time as a result of the calcium bone structure than our art. But our art will contain information beyond what our physical body can preserve as to the relevance of our existence. There will be millions of skulls left in the soil for future generations to examine, but for every unique piece of art that is created during any specific period of time, there need be only one. Each unique piece of work contains information beyond our understanding that is outside of even itself, as far as the relevance to our times, so the more unique an item is the more important it could be from a historical perspective.
Bonding my frames to the simulated brick walls is still an issue and the frames are serving dual purposes now. The frame is in essence the strongest part of the pieces I am making since the veneer of brick has become so thin. Some of my current pieces have just crumbled when I release them from thier mold. I think this is the result of too much pigment in the binder and the powdered and liquid silica work against the internal strength of the fresco material I am using to make the frames and brick. This repeats the theme of sealant, since the more color I add to the fresco dilutes the strength I have started making the frames without color and painted them with an airbrush later. This should provide a stronger frame with better bonding characteristics than heavily pigmented plasters.
Finally I have accepted that I will need to use polyester resin or epoxy as a bonding layer to firmly adhere the frame to the brick wall because I can't come up with anything better, other than pouring both pieces at the same time and this reduces the flexibility of the textures that I can create using the fresco material. The entire point of the fresco is the textural quality of the finished work, and if I use a mold for the frame simultaneously with casting the brick wall I lose a significant amount of the texture that makes a brick wall brick. I have testing using the photo-fresco techniques to create the brick as a photograph in the plaster, but without the texture it fails to work for me. Other image based things work well as the photo-fresco, but not le brick.
I have also stopped worrying about the thickness of the substrate as a way to make something durable. Every time I mix in different materials to strengthen a piece, as with back filling a frame with FGR 95 or Forgon MG I create new problems. I end up with leeching white stains on the front of the pieces once they are exposed to water without a sealant. Thus the rationale for the sealant as mentioned above, although I have not sealed the items from the back too, and I have been warned that if there is no way for moisture to escape then that in and of itself can cause problems. In the end it seems that different materials layered onto each other eventually crack or leech color and therefore I can't just use mass as a sealant and increased mass is not a requirement for a finished piece.
Weight has always been a factor in my product development, so by reducing mass I am reducing weight, which is a good thing. I even converted some of my mess-ups to stickers and gave them to my kids so that they could have some fun putting them up in places. Instinctually they started drawing on the brick stickers with random slogans and sticking them in places, so I am happy to say that I continue to see no bounds with this project. I am using a pressure sensitive adhesive on the back of the thinly casted pieces, and when I say thin, I mean thin. I can't imagine any piece of ceramic being able to be used in this way. As a result I am confident that I have found a way to argue that these gypsum based products are more applicable than ceramic for my use. I have heard that ceramic technology is in use in many things we use in our day-to-day lives, like even printed pages in magazines may be coated with a sort of ceramic matrix, but I don't really know this to be true. So when I refer to ceramics I am referencing the typical crafted ceramics that are used with glazed images and designs. Boring, but long lasting in that they are crystaline and rock-like in there atomic form.
Half a student I was and indeed I only learned half the information; just enough information to be dangerous to myself and others, so watch out. Historical Geology, Archeology, and Mineralogy taught me a few things about the archival nature of our world. Unless something has a solid internal structure it won't really survive because the compounds that make up our world are easily subjected to immediate decay. Without serious efforts being made to preserve an item over an extended period of time it won't be around to convey information and since our relative time in existence is miniscule as compared to the geological record it is a crap shoot to wonder what will last thousands of years.
Our skulls will be more important, historically speaking, in the long run versus our art since it may be preserved for a longer period of time as a result of the calcium bone structure than our art. But our art will contain information beyond what our physical body can preserve as to the relevance of our existence. There will be millions of skulls left in the soil for future generations to examine, but for every unique piece of art that is created during any specific period of time, there need be only one. Each unique piece of work contains information beyond our understanding that is outside of even itself, as far as the relevance to our times, so the more unique an item is the more important it could be from a historical perspective.
Bonding my frames to the simulated brick walls is still an issue and the frames are serving dual purposes now. The frame is in essence the strongest part of the pieces I am making since the veneer of brick has become so thin. Some of my current pieces have just crumbled when I release them from thier mold. I think this is the result of too much pigment in the binder and the powdered and liquid silica work against the internal strength of the fresco material I am using to make the frames and brick. This repeats the theme of sealant, since the more color I add to the fresco dilutes the strength I have started making the frames without color and painted them with an airbrush later. This should provide a stronger frame with better bonding characteristics than heavily pigmented plasters.
Finally I have accepted that I will need to use polyester resin or epoxy as a bonding layer to firmly adhere the frame to the brick wall because I can't come up with anything better, other than pouring both pieces at the same time and this reduces the flexibility of the textures that I can create using the fresco material. The entire point of the fresco is the textural quality of the finished work, and if I use a mold for the frame simultaneously with casting the brick wall I lose a significant amount of the texture that makes a brick wall brick. I have testing using the photo-fresco techniques to create the brick as a photograph in the plaster, but without the texture it fails to work for me. Other image based things work well as the photo-fresco, but not le brick.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Nuclear fission as waste last longer than most art.
Permanence is an issue for me in that archival is a term often used to imply that something may last a long time. Nothing last forever and the things you don't expect to last may be the ones that last the longest. I spend my time working on objects that I can make permanent because most of the things I have made in the past have been destroyed with a slight exposure to the elements over long periods of time. Par example, a print I made of my wife, before she was my wife, on canvas of her body, painted of course, as she rolled around on canvas has not survived well in our basement and when I attempted to stretch it out some 20 years later it was stinky with mildew and fell apart in chunks. Not so good from an archival standpoint.
My respect for work that has lasted for extended periods of time comes simply from the point that it may have outlived the other works from those same periods, regardless of the artistic quality of the works themselves. This implies that the better engineer is the better artist. Now that I am comfortable with my basic materials that I am working with as being "permanent", as compared to the other materials in common use for decorative pieces these days, I am forced to think of something that is relevant that I should make.
Nothing is permanent and especially if nobody keeps an objet d' art around for other generations to see and enjoy. There are several ways to gain permanence with a crafted thing. One way is to make an item so popular that everyone has one of the "things" during an era that it becomes ubiquitous for the period of time and therefore collectible and synonomous with the times, such as vintage lunchboxes or popular slogans. The second way is that create something so unique and special, like a giant ball of twine or piece of toast with the image of Jesus on it that it is preserved by the elite and documented as a special object to the culture itself. The third way an object can be made permanent is by the luck of the enviroment it is left in; some things are "found" as remnants once a society has been gone for a long time and then the object is analyzed by future generations as having been representative of the times that it was made in, without being judged on it's unknown artistic values. This third archeological method is my method of choice in that the oldest art we can find is cave drawings.
A cave wall is but a wall, a or was it a part of a home/gallery/meeting place that was displaying the imagery of the times, that was forced upon the inhabitants to view. Was it communication or historical documentation? Was it art or publication? Did it remind people there of the past or of the artist him/herself that made the drawings? I don't know that we really car one way or the other as historical viewers of archeological art, we just feel lucky to have found the work itself. The only thing that is important to me about cave drawings is that they are still there to be seen today. With the right materials and the proper environmnet the perfect "archival" environment can be created on a wall, as proven, inside a cave, with nothing more than colored dirt. Why then is "archival" such a big deal when it comes to modern art and the materials that are made to make art?
Personally I understand the problems that are associated with the harsh realities of "archival" and this is why I cannot put a lot of stock into a single piece of work to survive. The materials and the methods must be cohesive and compliment each other, as well as, represent the time of their creation. My data suggest against the probability of a single piece surviving, or being admired enough to be "kept" by the museums of the world, if only because of the simple fact that warehousing and storage is a problem even for the most well-intending collectors. My opinion is that you just can't count on one thing being special enough to last. Sad but true.
My respect for work that has lasted for extended periods of time comes simply from the point that it may have outlived the other works from those same periods, regardless of the artistic quality of the works themselves. This implies that the better engineer is the better artist. Now that I am comfortable with my basic materials that I am working with as being "permanent", as compared to the other materials in common use for decorative pieces these days, I am forced to think of something that is relevant that I should make.
Nothing is permanent and especially if nobody keeps an objet d' art around for other generations to see and enjoy. There are several ways to gain permanence with a crafted thing. One way is to make an item so popular that everyone has one of the "things" during an era that it becomes ubiquitous for the period of time and therefore collectible and synonomous with the times, such as vintage lunchboxes or popular slogans. The second way is that create something so unique and special, like a giant ball of twine or piece of toast with the image of Jesus on it that it is preserved by the elite and documented as a special object to the culture itself. The third way an object can be made permanent is by the luck of the enviroment it is left in; some things are "found" as remnants once a society has been gone for a long time and then the object is analyzed by future generations as having been representative of the times that it was made in, without being judged on it's unknown artistic values. This third archeological method is my method of choice in that the oldest art we can find is cave drawings.
A cave wall is but a wall, a or was it a part of a home/gallery/meeting place that was displaying the imagery of the times, that was forced upon the inhabitants to view. Was it communication or historical documentation? Was it art or publication? Did it remind people there of the past or of the artist him/herself that made the drawings? I don't know that we really car one way or the other as historical viewers of archeological art, we just feel lucky to have found the work itself. The only thing that is important to me about cave drawings is that they are still there to be seen today. With the right materials and the proper environmnet the perfect "archival" environment can be created on a wall, as proven, inside a cave, with nothing more than colored dirt. Why then is "archival" such a big deal when it comes to modern art and the materials that are made to make art?
Personally I understand the problems that are associated with the harsh realities of "archival" and this is why I cannot put a lot of stock into a single piece of work to survive. The materials and the methods must be cohesive and compliment each other, as well as, represent the time of their creation. My data suggest against the probability of a single piece surviving, or being admired enough to be "kept" by the museums of the world, if only because of the simple fact that warehousing and storage is a problem even for the most well-intending collectors. My opinion is that you just can't count on one thing being special enough to last. Sad but true.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Assume Nothing - Get Everything
Is there a general assumption in life that it all works out in the end? The great equalizer is death, but is there any suggestion that somehow all of the struggles in life will somehow be actualized through death? I must say that there is this sense of death-actualization that isn't necessarily religous false hope. It may simply be the fact that you don't have to deal with life's day to day bullshit once you are gone and that somehow all the things you did mean more once you are dead and can't do anything else anyway.
I am fitting in this sense of false hope that surrounds me with the environment we live in and with my own efforts to make money and create things. Underlying each new project I sense a value towards reaching a goal that is not clearly defined. There is no guarantee that these things fit together, but there is a sense that one thing will prove another and that I must continue my work. I am surprised at how each project has ended up fitting with each other, but that may simply be my own projections and rationalizations of my efforts. The same false hope I see in the economy is what I feel in my work, that somehow it will make sense and achieve a goal that will make sense in the end. Why I should believe this or allow this to be my motivation is the question as I am begining to feel like it is a trap.
Much in the same way that we are trapped in our economic realiities I may be trapped in my own manufacturing cycle of doom. My investments are always in the next piece, but I never quite achieve what I am after. Before I complete any project a new twist or turn makes the last project seem immature and pointless, except that it was a stepping stone to my current project. I have reached a new level in my work, but I am without a sense of completion in that I have not pushed this work out of the incubator that it was created in. I must do that next, but I don't want to fixate on finalizing a task when I am not sure of the relevance of the techniques.
Let me assume that the economist and predictors of our well being no more than we do about the future of our prosperity. I have a dark understanding and feeling that our culture of consumption has been and is being exploited, but our exploiters are also in trouble now that we have reached a peak of consumption and productivity. Basically if our keepers are competing for a reduced amount of consumption, then by taking what they can from us before their competitors can is the only way to find closure for themselves. What this means is that we, the consumers, will be pushed to the brink of destruction while being fed delusions of false hope. Eventually, as the sages of the economy know, the system will no longer be able to support the weight of itself without significant growth.
We are witnessing the collapse of one government after the other in the Middle East and don't be misled to think that Democracy is the goal or the result of the events that are unfolding. Economic disparity is stoking the fire and change is only happening because the people en-masse have nothing left to lose. I do not feel that we will be that far behind in the United States. I don't want to complete my own work as it seems to beg for a new rationalization on how things are good, when they are not. I feel the oppression and it is not as obvious as a government tyrant, but more like a socially acceptable medical condition that has us all wishing for better times. The symptoms are the sickness and only defiance is the cure.
I am fitting in this sense of false hope that surrounds me with the environment we live in and with my own efforts to make money and create things. Underlying each new project I sense a value towards reaching a goal that is not clearly defined. There is no guarantee that these things fit together, but there is a sense that one thing will prove another and that I must continue my work. I am surprised at how each project has ended up fitting with each other, but that may simply be my own projections and rationalizations of my efforts. The same false hope I see in the economy is what I feel in my work, that somehow it will make sense and achieve a goal that will make sense in the end. Why I should believe this or allow this to be my motivation is the question as I am begining to feel like it is a trap.
Much in the same way that we are trapped in our economic realiities I may be trapped in my own manufacturing cycle of doom. My investments are always in the next piece, but I never quite achieve what I am after. Before I complete any project a new twist or turn makes the last project seem immature and pointless, except that it was a stepping stone to my current project. I have reached a new level in my work, but I am without a sense of completion in that I have not pushed this work out of the incubator that it was created in. I must do that next, but I don't want to fixate on finalizing a task when I am not sure of the relevance of the techniques.
Let me assume that the economist and predictors of our well being no more than we do about the future of our prosperity. I have a dark understanding and feeling that our culture of consumption has been and is being exploited, but our exploiters are also in trouble now that we have reached a peak of consumption and productivity. Basically if our keepers are competing for a reduced amount of consumption, then by taking what they can from us before their competitors can is the only way to find closure for themselves. What this means is that we, the consumers, will be pushed to the brink of destruction while being fed delusions of false hope. Eventually, as the sages of the economy know, the system will no longer be able to support the weight of itself without significant growth.
We are witnessing the collapse of one government after the other in the Middle East and don't be misled to think that Democracy is the goal or the result of the events that are unfolding. Economic disparity is stoking the fire and change is only happening because the people en-masse have nothing left to lose. I do not feel that we will be that far behind in the United States. I don't want to complete my own work as it seems to beg for a new rationalization on how things are good, when they are not. I feel the oppression and it is not as obvious as a government tyrant, but more like a socially acceptable medical condition that has us all wishing for better times. The symptoms are the sickness and only defiance is the cure.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Enter the Dimension
I feel like I've entered a new dimension with the latest "products" for lack of a better word. Vinyl has become my membrane of choice, a material that I have rejected for use in prints in the past, as a flexible thin durable layer for sandwiching between layers of goop. Getting materials that will bond with vinyl isn't easy. Making vinyl lay flat also isn't that easy. Sealing vinyl from UV also isn't easy, but there is something about this non-organic feeling stuff that works for me. I am even coming up with ways to remove the vinyl as the final step and thereby leave the print as something of an impression that was made on the vinyl as the "product". I keep thinking there may be a reason for keeping or leaving the material itself, but there isn't otherthan for weight. Structurally the strength of the piece may be increased by leaving the vinyl, even if the vinyl itself is hidden inside, but removing the original print from the final piece is fascinating as is the case when a mold is removed from the piece that is casted inside it.
The fact is that now I seem to be complicating matters beyond what is required and I simply need to get back to making pieces, production, not experimentation. The experimentation can go on forever from what I can tell. I have no shortage of fascinating ideas on how to apply these materials, but time is not on my side and my business requires more time than I have been able to afford it. The weather is also a bitch as some of the materials I am using, or want to use, require warmer temperatures than I can create in my working environment. To keep a space at 70 degrees F would end up costing me a fortune, so I keep going back to materials that will simply work in my not-so-controlled environment.
The entire reason I stay reminded of my goal is that most of the ruined pieces are laying around in my yard weathering as trash because of these environmental conditions. The reminder of constant failure is my motivation. I have work thrown in the mud that my kids walk on as bricks. Other finished pieces that I use as drip catchers for the new work that I am making. A large outside fireplace that is filled with broken plaster pieces. It is as if I am purposely breaking some of the work so that it won't have any value. EVERY piece I have made has a flaw and I can't really focus on trying to fix these flaws since everything seems just like a test run anyway. Why try to make something perfect if it is just going to distract me further from my goal of reaching a plateau and doing some production? There is no reason from my perspective, but I try to limit the obvious flaws.
The fact is that now I seem to be complicating matters beyond what is required and I simply need to get back to making pieces, production, not experimentation. The experimentation can go on forever from what I can tell. I have no shortage of fascinating ideas on how to apply these materials, but time is not on my side and my business requires more time than I have been able to afford it. The weather is also a bitch as some of the materials I am using, or want to use, require warmer temperatures than I can create in my working environment. To keep a space at 70 degrees F would end up costing me a fortune, so I keep going back to materials that will simply work in my not-so-controlled environment.
The entire reason I stay reminded of my goal is that most of the ruined pieces are laying around in my yard weathering as trash because of these environmental conditions. The reminder of constant failure is my motivation. I have work thrown in the mud that my kids walk on as bricks. Other finished pieces that I use as drip catchers for the new work that I am making. A large outside fireplace that is filled with broken plaster pieces. It is as if I am purposely breaking some of the work so that it won't have any value. EVERY piece I have made has a flaw and I can't really focus on trying to fix these flaws since everything seems just like a test run anyway. Why try to make something perfect if it is just going to distract me further from my goal of reaching a plateau and doing some production? There is no reason from my perspective, but I try to limit the obvious flaws.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
The weight of art - by the pound
I am now defining the quality of my work by the weight of the pieces themselves. The lighter the work the better. That is without sacraficing durability and strength. Less is Less is my mantra and if I can put everything I want into a piece that is as light as a feather then that is better than a block of concrete that cannot be displayed on a wall, safely. I am working between 2-4 lbs and 2.5 lbs seems to be an optimal weight for my final product.
The struggle with this work is the plane of reference, the printed/painted surface that holds the design. I have gone very thin and applied various layers of fiber and gypsum to thicken and strengthen the image area while simultaneously reducing the depth that is required as a substrate to carry the image. Then I have been mounted the image, thicker than paper, but thinner than glass, to a molded frame from a variety of materials including Forton MG, hydrocal FGR 95, surfboard resin and mixed versions of the above as a gel coat with atomized metal formed into the top layer to build up resistance to the elements. While I can cast the image or add the image into the mold of the frame I have worked away from this lately because I have been using a frame and bonding the image and outer frame to the inner frame by adding more gypsum plasters which simply make the pieces too heavy and unmanagable. So my latest incarnations of work have been to make the frame and add it to the piece separately, outside the mold, and therefore I have removed the need for thick heavy support pieces.
Ideally the light weight will allow more flexibility in display. As with any engineering project the structure often has as much to do with holding up the materials as with the actual purposeful parts of the structure, which preverts the engineering in many cases. This is the case with my artwork and the liberation I feel by working with heavy materials and including the effects of resistence to the elements, but by making them light I feel I have achieved a goal. Coating and sealing is still problematic, as well as, the content, but now I must settle on just how I want my production to begin. What should the final defining characteristics of these items be?
I can do photo-fresco, screen painting or stencil painting. Photo fresco seems like more of a duplicative process, just making more permanent copies of other works. However, I like the process and need to get better at it. Screen painting and stencil painting is the most satisfying of the styles, but stretching the frames to start more work is a debillitating task that I find hard to accomplish. I can't afford to buy the frames that I need to stay busy with hard cash and recycling the old frames that I have is very attractive, but it takes time and energy. Each time I finish cleaning screens I feel too tired to do any work. Restretching mesh instead of cleaning out mesh is the way to go, but I don't have a consistent regiment for accomplishing this. Tomorrow.
The struggle with this work is the plane of reference, the printed/painted surface that holds the design. I have gone very thin and applied various layers of fiber and gypsum to thicken and strengthen the image area while simultaneously reducing the depth that is required as a substrate to carry the image. Then I have been mounted the image, thicker than paper, but thinner than glass, to a molded frame from a variety of materials including Forton MG, hydrocal FGR 95, surfboard resin and mixed versions of the above as a gel coat with atomized metal formed into the top layer to build up resistance to the elements. While I can cast the image or add the image into the mold of the frame I have worked away from this lately because I have been using a frame and bonding the image and outer frame to the inner frame by adding more gypsum plasters which simply make the pieces too heavy and unmanagable. So my latest incarnations of work have been to make the frame and add it to the piece separately, outside the mold, and therefore I have removed the need for thick heavy support pieces.
Ideally the light weight will allow more flexibility in display. As with any engineering project the structure often has as much to do with holding up the materials as with the actual purposeful parts of the structure, which preverts the engineering in many cases. This is the case with my artwork and the liberation I feel by working with heavy materials and including the effects of resistence to the elements, but by making them light I feel I have achieved a goal. Coating and sealing is still problematic, as well as, the content, but now I must settle on just how I want my production to begin. What should the final defining characteristics of these items be?
I can do photo-fresco, screen painting or stencil painting. Photo fresco seems like more of a duplicative process, just making more permanent copies of other works. However, I like the process and need to get better at it. Screen painting and stencil painting is the most satisfying of the styles, but stretching the frames to start more work is a debillitating task that I find hard to accomplish. I can't afford to buy the frames that I need to stay busy with hard cash and recycling the old frames that I have is very attractive, but it takes time and energy. Each time I finish cleaning screens I feel too tired to do any work. Restretching mesh instead of cleaning out mesh is the way to go, but I don't have a consistent regiment for accomplishing this. Tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
It's beyond my control...
I know not what I do, but I do it. The world of fresco and making things has merged into a world of simply manufacturing, but in a good way. I keep pouring chemicals into molds and making things I sort of like because I don't really know what I am making any more. It's like the machine is in control and I am just the worker. The joy of being the worker is that I get to see the pieces before they are moved into new stages, the stages that allow them to be marketed as things. When I pull an item from the mold it is new and this is only once. No matter what I will continue to work on these items until they are presentable in some form and therefore their beauty is reduced to objects.
Because there is no home for this work I keep compiling batches of "frescos" and "screen paintings" here and there. Lately my favorite invention is when I salvage some piece from weathering, being left out in my backyard, and I clean it off, seal it and put it in a frame/mold. I like the effects of natural weathering on the pieces I have made, but there is no consistency with the items that I am making. I find myself lost in a puddle of poop-like things, dirty and ambiguous, but then when I look at them as something to work with they come back to life. I am hopeful that one of these pieces will be the essential way that I want to make new pieces, but that hasn't happened yet as everything appears to be so different to me. Any time I try to repeat a process it fails and ends up seeming like a waste of time.
I know it is delusional to look upon one's own work and see more than what it is, but I can't say I have seen anything that looks like this before. This is what it must feel like to be original, something that I have admired, but have spent my entire life printing other people's crap while avoiding doing anything original myself. This is why this feeling is strange, because I rarely get to enjoy this feeling since I have been a hack most of my life. My only regret is that I have not been able to see this clearly until now, later in life, when I don't have enough time left to do all the images that I think need to be done. Sure, one million different items may be just as good as one super item, but I don't think so. I need to settle on the form of the simplest version of my work and deal with it in the simplest of ways. I need to fight the complexity that tells me how to make it fit with every other piece of work that represents all of my skills and just go with the effects and simplicity of the item itself. I need to stop putting myself in my work and just let the inspiration be the work, but how?
The techniques are nothing without the context and the context is the skills as much as the inspiration. I like to think about the world of art as a cave wall brought into cities for the elite to admire the instincts of life, but I am interested in the wall as the art and I cannot pull my mind out of the wall long enough to focus on the art.
Because there is no home for this work I keep compiling batches of "frescos" and "screen paintings" here and there. Lately my favorite invention is when I salvage some piece from weathering, being left out in my backyard, and I clean it off, seal it and put it in a frame/mold. I like the effects of natural weathering on the pieces I have made, but there is no consistency with the items that I am making. I find myself lost in a puddle of poop-like things, dirty and ambiguous, but then when I look at them as something to work with they come back to life. I am hopeful that one of these pieces will be the essential way that I want to make new pieces, but that hasn't happened yet as everything appears to be so different to me. Any time I try to repeat a process it fails and ends up seeming like a waste of time.
I know it is delusional to look upon one's own work and see more than what it is, but I can't say I have seen anything that looks like this before. This is what it must feel like to be original, something that I have admired, but have spent my entire life printing other people's crap while avoiding doing anything original myself. This is why this feeling is strange, because I rarely get to enjoy this feeling since I have been a hack most of my life. My only regret is that I have not been able to see this clearly until now, later in life, when I don't have enough time left to do all the images that I think need to be done. Sure, one million different items may be just as good as one super item, but I don't think so. I need to settle on the form of the simplest version of my work and deal with it in the simplest of ways. I need to fight the complexity that tells me how to make it fit with every other piece of work that represents all of my skills and just go with the effects and simplicity of the item itself. I need to stop putting myself in my work and just let the inspiration be the work, but how?
The techniques are nothing without the context and the context is the skills as much as the inspiration. I like to think about the world of art as a cave wall brought into cities for the elite to admire the instincts of life, but I am interested in the wall as the art and I cannot pull my mind out of the wall long enough to focus on the art.
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