New butterflies over Prague

studio, dinning room, living room

Revisiting old friends

Adding On

clean clean sanitize

pre-package

mop fold iron

prioritize

fold pay attention get it right

prevent the inevitable accident

dust pay attention to myself but don't be too selfish

always give always give always give

pay attention monitor scrutinize swarm

manage

sweep encourage uplift

caretake

monitor mend careful of the cracks

another thing dirty another thing clean

encourage wash check up on

be calm be gentle be warm

scrub put away even out

feed

vacuum wash don't get too impatient

tend to this tend to that

wash fold apply

brush

referee dance make art

steady the hand

put away respond take calls

preheat

fold watch supervise

guide

respond collaborate nourish

counting not sleeping

pay write play

articulate

mop pay scrape

wipe

sanitize offer food take out trash

fill up the tank

manage support lifeline

disregard sleep

support uplift constant attention

constant supervision

uplift be uplifted accept

problem solve problem solve problem solve

always find a solution

mince brush take out the knots

press steam dry clean

inspire cut slim down

very good come here come here come here

brush cook stir

mend

cook inspire/be inspired wring chop

slice

wash water fix washer

oil is low

clip listen work

eat last

chop rinse work

put away

maintain pick bundle

we can never run out of coffee

rinse rip

First of Eighteen Layers

A Second Pass (in process)

"Within/Without Project"

I object to the texture of the paper. Your image feels velvety, like deep charcoal on a smooth surface, my interpretation has too much roughness. (I'm not sure why other's call this watercolor paper good quality. At the moment I had no other.)

In the image I feel within, within your run, your breath connected to the blue atmosphere surrounding you.
I use all the 'left-over' blue from the last session to re-cover the surface.

I'm interrupted by "mom"...
and a reminder by husband of laundry sitting in the washer.

Refocus.

I'm aware of the symmetry, of my own symmetry. I use brushes in both hands and lose myself in the woods. The two points of brushes guide one another.

It is not just to do with the painting of it anymore. It is this dialogue. (Need to get lost in your space. Scale of work therefore has to be larger for me to lose myself into.)

Done!

Completed application and emailed it today.

In advance of the Wednesday deadline!

x

NYFA Mark program application - draft

I'm applying to the NYFA Mark Bootcamp program, and have been working on the statements all day. Here's a peek - application is due at end of day on Wednesday. Wish me luck xo

ROUGH DRAFT EDITS:

10. Please use 100-250 words to state your goals as to why the NYFA MARK'12 Bootcamp is important to you at this time.

The NYFA Mark program offers an immediate boon to my active art practice. I want to improve my professional communication skills, gain access to a larger network of art professionals, and garner attention for my work. I am very interested to connect with other dedicated artists, and I could benefit from guidance and advice about the business.

For the last 15 years I’ve improved my technical and conceptual levels of art making. Many express that my painting skills are very good. Under mentorship of teachers Rosenclaire I studied art history extensively and its implications. It’s disconcerting to observe a lack of such knowledge base by many educated artists, as well as a market that largely fails to value that heritage. We should restore depth to contemporary fine art.

Although I’ve remained independent, produce my own exhibitions and sell privately, that shouldn’t preclude connection with professionals that help elevate my practice to the next level. I’m eager to employ new ways to promote, and my new studio space promises more production, so I’m inviting the exposure. I will hone my skills and improve the way I present my work to the world. I sincerely believe that the collective would benefit from access to my art, especially since it resonates with a motive to find meaning and integrity at a time perhaps when we need it most.
Please provide a narrative bio that details your artistic career (100 - 300 words)

I’ve been an artist my entire life. As a child, I participated in the Guggenheim’s Learning To Read Through The Arts program; my work was not only shown in the museum, but was chosen to be the poster for the program that year.

I earned my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1996, graduating with High College Honors. My junior year was intensely enriched at the Scuola Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence Italy, where I studied under Rose Shakinovsky and Claire Gavronsky ("Rosenclaire”). I have studied with the collaborative duo, via workshops and private residencies, in the United States, Europe, and South Africa. During many years of training, I have also continuously worked in studio, having been encouraged by selling early pieces in small shows and also to private patrons. Subsequently I chose to prioritize a deeper meaning of art over merchandising product by remaining faithful to the content of the work.

I have exhibited and performed both nationally and abroad. I was an Artist in Residence at the Michaelis School of Fine Art (Cape Town), in 2007, and participated in the Domestic Departures workshop (Santa Ana) the same year. In 2009 I was selected to join the New York Studio Gallery’s summer residency, and was in the Art In Everyday workshop (New York City). Recently, I performed atop Rosenclaire’s Soap Boxes in collaboration with the South African National Gallery, and entered two group shows; at Roos Arts (Rosendale, NY), and Linksoul Lab (San Diego, CA). My first solo show in the Hudson Valley was at Roos Arts in 2011. Currently I am curating an exhibition in an empty storefront in Kingston – to extend my exposure in the area, and in an effort to find the right forum for my work.

12. Please include your Artist Statement (work statement) here. This statement should talk about you as an artist as well as specifically reflect the work samples you've submitted and explains your work to the panel. (Up to 250 Words)

My paintings are an exploration of the human condition. I work predominantly with the human figure as the vehicle through which all sensations of life are experienced: love, heartbreak, loss, and the possibility of redemption. I draw from art history to underscore painting’s philosophical and alchemic lineage, and am interested in communicating deeper emotional states of being through the metaphoric use of color, brushstroke, and composition.

Beginning with experiences from my own life and then moving outward, I draw connections between my personal history and the stories of others. The subject of each painting may refer to my own individual pain or misfortune, quietly captured in a moment of stillness, but it is my intention to allow for a space of catharsis by simultaneously revealing an inner strength and endurance of the spirit.

AMAZING and right on...

http://ografologii.blogspot.com/2010/01/ken-robinson-zabiji-skola-kreativitu.html

Recent studio shots

Studio wall shot - about/face in process

The Fates in process. Part of the nine months series - thinking about life and death, personal mythology and the origin of imagination

The Fates (detail 1) The Weaver

The Fates (detail 2) Balance, the decider of the length of one's life

It's Always A Choice (sketch). Work after re-reading Thought Forms by Leadbeater.

In the hour a day I have in studio - after the little one goes to sleep and before I pass out from general exhaustion - I have begun to sketch. Putting things up on the wall, exercising the art muscles in my brain, is becoming more and more important. The below are sketches from a couple of years ago, that are becoming larger and more fleshed out.

Re:visiting three dimensional drawings

I had an inspiring conversation with C. last night about the Morse code beaded pieces I started so many years ago.

She had sent me a link to a retail website that is currently selling morse code jewelry for $59 - $160. I started to panic: did I miss my opportunity to sell my own? Why hadn't I ever done anything with my idea - from 2006? I was kicking myself. Time was fleeting; I felt run over, passed by by my own procrastination.

However, the conversation proved very informative and incredibly helpful.

After talking about my pieces in one way - that they were Morse code necklaces, talking about how to get them into the world of commerce, talking about aspects of retail, etc., C asked me to explain the original concept to her, to go back to how the pieces began in the first place. So I did: the idea was born at the mixed media and drawing workshop in 2006.

Before that time, I had a failed beaded jewelry business. My intention was there, but the drive to succeed in the world of retail was not. I had no idea about marketing, trends, or mass production. None of that made sense to me. It still doesn't.

That summer, I went to La Cip for mixed media and drawing. It was my first workshop since graduating from massage school, and over two years after I had stopped making work at all. I needed to reconnect with the artist that I was. Bodywork was/is great as a day job, but I'm an artist and that is what I should be doing. Needless to say, it was a very new experience to be there again after taking a leave of absence from my art practice. The art history lectures expanded my ideas of art in ways I couldn't imagine, and the drawing course proved to have a lasting impression.

The day the idea of using Morse code came to me, we were learning what elements comprise a drawing - dots, dashes, cross hatching, lines. Incidentally, I had brought some beads and string with me, and began making a small necklace after the lesson and before dinner. However, as I was working, I realized that the piece I was working on had no meaning. I began to question: why beads? Why string? What meaning did the material have, if any? What could they be transformed to say?

After dinner the questions were still in my mind, and I wrestled with trying to find a common connection between what a drawing was and the beads in my hand.

Enter workshop insomnia!

At around four in the morning, I finally found a solution that put my mind, and body at rest: Three dimensional drawings using Morse code. Conceptual drawings that can also be worn (as necklaces). It was important that they were worn around the neck, as communication and my relationship with language is important to underscore. Their weight became important; I was interested in transforming immaterial spoken words into objects that were in physical relationship with one's body.

Needless to say, explaining this to C. changed the way I remembered my own work.

I'm now more curious than ever to follow the questions that led me to begin the pieces in the first place. The piece you and I wrote together takes on a WHOLE new meaning.

More soon - off to studio.

x

Getting to Kassel/getting to Documenta

Throwing caution, and a large portion of reality, out the window - let's talk about going to Documenta this summer! I have no idea *yet* how we'll get there, but here's a plan: meet the group in Kassel, then go to Prague and visit with you and your family for a week. The last time Turu was there was in 1994, and I've never been.

What do you think?

Are you staying on for residency at La Cip after Documenta?

Let's discuss - flight prices increase by the day....

xoxo

New work in process

Hello Tereza,

I'm sorry to have been absent in recent days.

I've attached an image of a painting in progress - the first one I've started in eight months.

Some things feel familiar, some things feel very new; I'm interested in deepening my connection to whatever "this" is. I'll add more when they arrive - from my brain into the world.

There is something about working with the concepts of redemption, devotion, and beauty that are in the forefront of my mind. It feels like many things I've worked with in the past are right here in front of me (again).

The studio is practically done.

We've finished the insulation, drywall, electrical, and heat source (wood burning stove).

It makes me feel incredibly lucky to have this as a space in which to work.

I hope to give myself the gift of solitude, and get on with things already ...

x

(one essay in an 8th grade exam)- daydream

Last week my 8th graders were subject to a week of standardized testing. It brought me right back to sitting behind the desk with the black and white sheets in front of me, and all coherent thoughts leave me.

But as I looked over the test from the new perspective, of not having to take it, there were some interesting topics. One specifically caught my attention having to do with daydreaming. In the time the students answered their two essays, I wrote one especially since it had to be hand-written. Here it is:

In a daydream, I am lost in a pleasant space of nothingness. The temperature and feeling is just right albeit nondescript. It is a space I am both present yet at the same time absent. It is a lingering, a pause, a gap in time.

Within a rushed society, our run-around nature prevails--that continuous looking at the clock. Did we consciously construct this concept? Or is time slowly swallowing our inner nature wrapped in a daydream? The one that enjoys breath, the inhale and exhale with a pause in-between. Can just that be enough?

The daydream remembers. It remembers the desperate need for silence, inactivity, the breath. My daydream, at times brief, makes a substantial part of my reality, so much so that I call it my reality.

There are no particulars within each one, no recurring pattern. Patterns form from habit. In a daydream, particulars collapse the practice. It is a glimpse of colored thumbtacks, that are visual but also background. The focus is fuzzy. I am seeing and not labeling. I am in a state of in-between, a suspended mind.

My daydream has the feeling of meditation, a slowing down, a delicious void. It is where my eyes go to be still--a student's hand moving rhythmically across paper, a cross contrasted against a white shirt.

Time bends in these pauses or at least it is nonessential. The battle with the clock however is a hard one, as the ticking is continuous. Can the ticking clock become part of the dream? For now I choose to not own one and follow an inner rhythm.

Collapse of Distance- Project with Lisa Ulik

more information here: http://printzeal.blogspot.com/

along the Mississippi- by Lisa                                    roughly 4x5" watercolor and charcoal



Receiving images from another's perspective within their landscape, sending one's own, and translating their landscape, their view. Another lovely dialogue.

then there were three

next series of silhouettes to play with

Jaroslav Sustek, grandfather

Rewriting Contemporary Art History through facebook/internet

Today's sky, overlooking the Prague Castle

Dear Participants, 

While teaching art to grades 4-8, I would like to expose these young minds to contemporary art, not the one written in books, but the true contemporaries, ALL OF YOU. (Be it painting/drawing, environmental, performance, installation, mixed media, video, etc etc.) If you have your work online or could email me images with an artist statement, I will include you in our lectures. This way we can expose your work to this next generation.

Comment on this post if you're interested.

Thanks!

P.S. If you know of other contemporary artists whom you admire, please pass this project on.

A beautiful winter day

On this gorgeous winter day, I met with my grandfather for the last time. It was peaceful. I got to hold his hand for a few hours. He often looked up at forms upon the ceiling. I realized this as all journeys is just a passage.

a parallel

New Czech hit from Vaclav Neckar for this holiday season. (An icon from Czech history and film who suffered a stroke not too long ago.) The song talks of hope and comfort in times of fear of the unknown.

Love of/in a woman

(detail of gift, watercolor, 14"x12")

There is a lovely old photograph of a wedding couple, of my grandmother’s brother with his wife in which you can almost feel his devotion for her. As long as I had known them this chemistry was present. After something like 60 years of marriage and two sons, her partner left her side. Milan Tomastik died in 2008 leaving his wife for the first time since their teens. She in turn had a stroke which left her in a wheel chair and almost mute. Miraculously she has regained her speech and is quite self-sufficient and has recently celebrated her 80^th Birthday! I feel his presence and this love still surrounding her. 

                                                                 

                                                          Dagmar Tomastikova

We are still here

Yay! I am so happy to have just read your post about continuing on with our blog!

Admittedly, I was a bit confused about how you wanted to participate here when you started your own, but of course didn't want to push the issue since you were moving not just yourself, but your family, half way across the world.

And so, here we still are.

I am just getting ready to mail a piece to you - to work with, next to, on top of...whatever you dream up. It could be very interesting to work in this way together.

I am intrigued by the soap carving. It very much feels like the small paintings on eggs that you did 10+ years ago..There is a warmth and intimacy to the piece - please post more as you do them. I'd like to see what more transpires. Why are you interested in covering them with dust or charcoal? What does that signify to you?

I'll do the same - posting what I'm working on, I mean.

I just started working on an edition of 30 small pieces, each only 8cm x 8cm.

It's with others from the SAP group. The pieces are supposed to be white on white; I am using the horizon line as a metaphor of the Above and the Below. I take colors (whites ) from the everyday and place them in relation to each other. The horizon line appears and then suddenly disappears. It's very interesting - a new way of relating to work.

More soon - I have to go tend to Alessandro.

xo

Angela

Babicka

She left 120 soaps. I understand the wires, the china, the towels , the clothes, the books, the radio, the typewriter. But the soaps are a joyful/light surprise. Their touch, smell and feel are all lovely  to work in. (The carving tools are also hers, a knife and a manicure set.)  The carved portraits will need a layer of soot, I’m thinking of oil, or something that will combine with soap, (any ideas?)  and dust that is left in her room.  

dialogue

Let me be very clear that I have no intention of stopping our work together here. The dialogue is very much part of who I am and I cannot bare to lose that especially now that I cannot just pick up the phone and call. What is more I will need this forum for communicating and making clear those ideas that I need to translate into art form. (Clarity is not my strong suit so please do not give this up.)

(My Czech blog is more of a record for me to process the overwhelming totality of this new space and the new yet familiar experiences I find myself in.)

I think the solo show is an important step in both of our lives. I want to start coordinating (after the dust settles,) one myself for an intended space in Praha.