Progress
May 24, 2011
Southwest Virginia is entering full fledged summer mode–80 degree weather every day, brilliant sunshine interrupted by the occasional brief but powerful thunderstorm. I love it! Thankfully the studios and housing all have air conditioning so it’s easy to escape the sometimes thick humidity. But I digress. I loaded up the next tank full of new work this weekend–a waist piece and a head piece. Here’s some images of the waist piece in progress:
Focus…
May 19, 2011
I returned late last night (or early this morning depending on how you look at it) from a blitzkrieg trip to NYC. Am totally exhausted, but happy that I went because it confirmed pretty much everything about my move up there in just a few weeks–studio, apartment, and at least a temp job if not a full time one. Hopefully this means I’ll be able to set most of my worries aside and finally really focus on what I’m doing here in the studio, which includes:
Time Lapsed
May 12, 2011
After a week and a half at VCCA, I have to report that I haven’t had much time to work in the studio! Since it is my first time back in Virginia for more than a few days in… oh… 8 years? I’ve spent my first couple weeks splitting my time between visiting with old friends I haven’t seen in years and preparing for the move to Brooklyn. After my Monday arrival, I had just enough time to unpack and set up my room and studio before leaving on Thursday to see Cirque du Soleil’s Alegria in Roanoke with my family. Friday a friend visited me here, Saturday I met another friend in Lynchburg for drinks and Sunday my parents visited me so we could spend some quality Mother’s Day time together. Monday was relatively uninterrupted, then Tuesday I headed to Richmond to visit VCU’s Material Studies & Sculpture departments, crashed with a friend in Church Hill, then spent Wednesday with another friend I hadn’t seen in 7 years. Now that I’m back at VCCA, I have a couple days to do some more NYC job hunting (I told myself I would do it once a week, but missed last week because I just couldn’t make myself do it the few hours I was actually in studio!) and then I head to NYC this weekend to confirm my studio at Wayfarer’s Brooklyn, my apartment sublet in Bushwick, and to meet with a couple of job possibilities. THEN, I will finally have some uninterrupted studio time.
In between everything, I have managed to fill my first 10 gal tank with new work and fresh solution. AND set up a time-lapse video of the crystals growing in this new tank, so that’s something at least. Here’s some pics:
Kickstarter Success
April 30, 2011
Thank you so much to everyone who made a pledge and now a donation–the campaign was successfully funded on Monday night! I could not have hoped for such a strong response–the support of my friends is really astounding! This weekend I’ll be purchasing the first 200-300 pounds of sugar and deliver it, along with the rest of my tools and supplies, to the residency on Monday morning. I cannot wait to get started on this new body of work and to get my studio at VCCA up and running. In the last two weeks since leaving Vermont, I have done some preliminary work, but much of my time has been consumed with job and sublet searching for my arrival in New York after the residency. In the end, I decided to get a lot of the NYC prep work done now so that I can set those concerns aside and concentrate on the artwork. There will still be a lot of following up with contacts and opportunities, and probably a visit to the city to confirm those, but hopefully it won’t consume my next five weeks.
These “growths” are a first set of sketches, working out some ideas for forms that I may want to work with moving forward. None of these represent a final armature–they are literally just preliminary sketches. Once I’m at VCCA, I’ll be able to focus on pushing these and finding what they’re really capable of.