Dr. Sketchy's RVA Presents: Shiva & Kali

Prodigal daughter of John Berger et al.

I had my petition to graduate meeting with Craig today and he seemed pretty tickled by my work. He said he wasn't at all worried based on my images and my writing.

Chloe is working on her BFA thesis right now and called to ask me for some advice/resources/ideas, and I pointed her (as well as also pointing Kevin recently) to John Berger's Ways of Seeing. Tonight I busted out my copy and started in on it. I read it the first time my last semester of undergrad so I saw a certain symmetry in reading it again my last semester of grad school. Even though I'm doing mostly non-objective work, I knew there would be some relevant gems in there for me.

First, I had to laugh because the title page has a list I kept of pages with typographical or grammatical errors. Oh, me. This book is so saturated with good points that it's all marked up, but the first thing that really got me, and enticed me to get up get out my computer and type was this passage (page 11):

 The past is never there waiting to be discovered, to be recognized for exactly what it is. History always constitutes the reaction between the present and is past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past. The past is not for living in; it is a well of conclusions from which we draw in order to act. Cultural mystification of the past entails a double loss. Works of art are made unnecessarily remote. And the past offers us fewer conclusions to complete in action.

I think abstract work can actually give use more of span of time than a rendered scene. There is more record of a past in my paintings than a painting from life in a past moment. Looking at my work the viewer can't help but acknowledge a building up over time, one layer drying before the next is applied. However I am conscious of not letting that build up, that journey become to chronologically obvious, But one is aware that the painting has a past.

 I know I need to get "the present" and this relationship of the past to the present into my statement. This passage makes that even more apparent to me.

sketching - from Vogue, around town, and thoughts

I finally got around to shooting all the drawings I did this summer and so far this semester. I think they are important because it shows how much improvement I made working with Mark, and that I didn't just stop when the class ended. I think I finally got to what he was trying to get me to. I've always been one to incubate important stuff and then one day, BAM! I get it...

The first batch here are  all drawn from Vogue magazine. Some of these particularly express what I think Mark was trying to get out of me but I wasn't getting to. The fact that I never got there I think is why he gave me a B. That was the first time I got B and felt totally cool with it. I had worked my tail off for him, and totally grew and got better, but I hadn't gotten here yet. I felt on the edge of something the whole semester, and the night I drew these ones in blue ink I was like, "Oh that's it."

The rest are from all around. I posted the events when I did them, but these are scattered all over town and all summer long. 

Figuring for painting window at work

 I did 3 more of these but someone bought them right out of the book. Just walked up as i was working and gave me cash money! Gotta love that. 

The taps at Xtra's. I love this one. I've been straying away from color in my drawing lately but this limited use works. 

waiting for lunch at Cafe Gutenberg. 

 centerpiece at Mez

 ditto