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04/14/2005: "NYC 4: Hangin in the Hood"
The streets are full of people walking around without jackets. Those big furry Polish hats that look like a cat sleeping on some older gentleman's head have all disappeared. It seemed to happen over night. Spring has sprung in Greenpoint. One day it was hovering above freezing and the next it was 70 degrees. So now that the weather is nicer I've been visiting the studios of local artists the last couple weeks. Among my several visits was Wayne Dobson's studio on Clay Street. Wayne is a self-taught painter doing large abstract paintings. He creates a field of wet into wet textures much like the marbleized papers often used as end papers in handmade and high quality books. Then he paints back into these fields of color and texture finding interesting shapes and cutting positive negative relationships with flat color on top of the textures. The flat hue or tone become backgrounds flipping the field making what was once beneath feel like they are now on top—it is called reversing the field or pos/neg reversals.
He often allows his witty paranoic vision have free rein finding strange animals and other "terribiletas" or little monsters - strange creatures that soar, mock or grimace. But as often he'll create a sense of landscape or an oceanic space that is quite mesmerizing. In other works he lays in veils of subtle color and tonal change making very sensuous spaces. 
I was impressed by both the prolific nature of his output (seemed like hundreds of canvases in the studio and the hall leading to the studio as well as with the studio itself. The large space included an upper loft area above the studio and a north wall with nothing but floor to ceiling windows with a view of Manhattan and a deck out back. He had a clear view of the Trade Towers on 9-11 and showed me photos of a series of powerful monumental and dark tower images, images he said he just had to get out of his imagination afterwards.
Several of the artists I've visited here in the city found they had to do something with the horrific images stuck in their imaginations after that day now 4 years ago. I enjoyed the chance to see Wayne's work. Very inspiring.
I took a few days and flew back to Columbus essentially to sign off on our tax returns and spend a few days with my wife. I timed my vacation from my vacation to coincide with the Annual Art of Illustration Show organized and hung every year by students from my department at CCAD. Erika Steiskel is the director this year and did such a great job of organizing other student volunteers, raising money, hanging the show - this show was started 8 years ago by two seniors who wanted to do something to help get more interaction amongst students in Illustration while I was the chair. I told them it was a great idea but I wouldn't have time to do all the work. If they were willing to take advice and do the grunt work I'd support them. They'd have to find a place to show, jurors to judge the work, students to help hang the show and funders to provide prize money and other in kind donations. To my surprise they not only did all that but also managed to get an annual tradition going. Zak Pullen and Greg Swearingen are both making their living as freelance illustrators. Most of the students who directed the show from year to year are successful artists or have gone on to grad school to continue their careers. 
Chris Payne (with Erika and her dad in the photo above) provides his studio as the meeting ground for the judges to view slides. He has a number of contacts among successful illustrators in the Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania areas close enough that the kids can manage to convince about 5 artists, reps or art directors to show up to jury the show. From the beginning the students wanted someone from outside the department to judge the work-- a call I completely agree with. They need to hear from those who are out there working in the field. It was a good show thiis year. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. You did good Erika! And I had almost nothing to do with it-- except that little glitch with the lights on opening night.
Back in NYC I was invited to a fundraiser for Freewheels, an advocate group supporting Critical Mass, a group of earth friendly bicycle freaks who have been arrested recently for riding their bikes in large groups in New York. It an important issue as conservatives are using their muscle to mis-use the laws for their own ends—essentially to quell dissent. Local politicians and police have been rousting these folks including a mass arrest during the Republican convention. The money from the party will go to legal defense for a number of bikers currently locked in legal battles over their arrests with hopes of taking it to the supreme court on 1st amendment issues relating to the freedom of assembly. By the way their bikes were confiscated as well. They consider that a particularly low blow. At the party they had a funky marching band similar to the Hungry March band a young guy who took old protest songs and added pertinent lyrics related to the biking issues and a DJ. I met some interesting people. 
Here is a link to their web site if you want to learn more or make a donation to the legal fund.
www.freewheels.org
Yesterday I hiked over the Pulaski Bridge into Queens with Lindsay my studio mate to see the Greater New York 2005 exhibition at PS 1 and the Petah Coyne show at the Sculpture Center. It was sunny and warm and we both needed some time away from work.
The Greater New York show is jointly organized by PS 1 and MOMA and includes works by artists who have begun to immerge since 2000. There are about 160+ artists represented from the 5 Boroughs and New Jersey. Many have multiple pieces in the show. I recognized one by a former CCAD student named Kurt Lichtner. I can't remember if Kurt ever took a class with me but I think we’ve been in perhaps a couple of group shows together in Columbus. His was a huge Jungle like image with lots of trees and vines and other elements that created a tangle of color and space. It is perhaps the best and most original thing I think I've seen him do and his painting dominated the room it was in. Very impressive. Obviously being included in a show like this will be a high water mark for any of the artists included. It is such a great thing to see an institution like MOMA through PS 1 supporting local, living American artists. I wish there was more of that happening in other locales around the States. I think in Ohio we have the State Fair Fine Art Exhibition, which is less important than the cattle and sheep prizewinners and the subsequent auction. Now that makes the news every year. I can't remember a time when the Art Exhibition got any serious television coverage. In fact I think the Butter Cow, actually a sculpture of a cow in butter trotted out every year is more important to most Fair goers than the Fine Art Exhibition. I sometimes think when they use the word culture in Columbus they really mean yogurt. It is really gonna be hard to go back when my sabbatical is over.
You can check out the PS 1 site at:
www.ps1.org
Petah Coyne's work at Sculpture Center were more interesting than I expected. I'd seen a show of her work in Chelsea when I first got to Brooklyn in February. I guess I could say I found them pretty, but I wasn't attracted to them either aesthetically or intellectually for the most part. Some of that may have had to do with the space they were showing in. Some galleries are just not particularly well designed for the art that goes up in them. But Sculpture Center seemed to appropriate Coyne's chandelier like sculptures and bathe them in it's own spectacular if industrial light. The industrial space complemented the delicate waxed flowers with dead fowl, mud and stick, hay and stick sculptures which seemed to hang from suspended pulleys and chains that morphed into translucent umbilical chords closer to the sculptures themselves. In the lower level there was a piece made of braided hair that spread across the floor into a corner. At each end was what looked like a female form defined by the long hair that seemed to flow like a dark bridal veil from head, down her back and onto the floor where the dark coarse braids began to intermix with lighter grey brown braids then up the back of the other form facing the corner in the opposite direction. I had to get down on my hands and knees to see that each figure was actually a statue of Mary with her hands together in prayer. It was, like the rest of her work, very mysterious. I think I will have to change my opinion about her. I'll keep my eyes open for the next chance to see what she does. We were there on the last day of her exhibition. The next show opens around the middle of May. You can find more info at:
www.sculpture-center.org
My own work is progressing. I've now got about half a dozen works in progress some nearing completion and some about halfway along. I've shown an early in-progress photo of a piece I'm calling "Pesos por Besos" (loosely translated Money for Kisses.) Here are the most recent changes. 
If you go back to my last blog you'll see the drawing had been established in vine charcoal and just a bit of warm and cool tone on a raw umber ground. In the above state of the painting you can see those tones taking on a particular range of color including red violets, blue violets and greens. I've also redrawn the right arm of the female. It felt dislocated in the earlier position. The shoulder harness just seems to push backwards and the arm was originally further down between the left arm and her hip. 
In the next state above I've begun to search out the color of the sky and added some new elements, specifically the house shapes. The colors are becoming more vibrant but there is still something about the key of the painting that didn't seem right. I've been working on this and will show you more in the next installment.
Meanwhile it is a nice day for my walk back to the studio from my friend's loft in Williamsburg. I might even stop at the Mark Bar for a beer and some popcorn before working on a couple pieces that have been in the back of my mind all day.
