OCTOBER 10, 2007
this is how i remember it...

OCTOBER 9, 2007

three paintings in my collection: yvette kraft, washington, dc artist from the Studio Gallery (top left); pat goslee, also of washington, dc (top right); elana kundell, los angeles (bottom)

OCTOBER 5, 2007

the night before; the day after
yes, we did

OCTOBER 3, 2007

bury the dead in new orleans

going through a bin of journals yesterday that were damaged by the waters of hurricane katrina, i came across these 2 polaroids tucked inside a heavily-damaged one. its entries erased or bled through to the pages before and after. words survived here and there—hope, stolen, inspire, understand—stood out on pages virtually wiped clean. much like the blue ink on each page, the blue of the skies in the photos above also disappeared from these images.

OCTOBER 2, 2007

in no particular order and for not particular reason:

works in progress: poured paint on canvas (left) and paper

florida boulevard home, new orleans, la, 2007

my studio, today. open studios november 3-4.

left: "One two," cynthia ona innis, right: "away."

SEPTEMBER 21, 2007

some recent work i like to call "danglers." i like to think of them as that thing on the tip of your tongue you can't recall, or a sense of deja vu, or a dream you can't remember upon waking (10" x 8"; mixed media on canvas):

not to say this is all i am working on. i have plenty of pieces in progress.like the three below that are part of my exploration of landscape and beauty and destruction:

i'm really interested in the way paint is applied to these, the various tools one can use, and the control over the paints' surface. the top two pieces have paint applied w/brushes and knives and credit cards. the surfaces are scraped, pushed and then paint is lifted from the surface by flooding the canvas with water. the middle painting is the best example of this. meanwhile, the 3rd piece has been created thus far by scraping paint across the surface using expired credit cards.(top 2 paintings are 12" x 12" mixed media, bottom is 12" x 18" acrylic on canvas)

in other news, i have been selected to be a midcity artist, a group of some 40 artists living within the boundaries of what has been deemed "midcity" here in DC. most likely a term created by realtors. each year, the midcity artists have 2 open studio events. the next is november 3 and 4 and i will be participating. you are welcome to stop by my studio and see me and the work in person.

also, the hirshhorn museum has opened Morris Louis Now: An American Master Revisited. the show is up through january 6, 2008. i am excited to see this because it was the first exhibit i saw upon moving to washington dc years ago and it thrilled me. i also can't wait to reexamine his method of applying paint to canvas. it is influencing the choices i'm making now.

Previously...

DECEMBER 9, 2006

Tonight is the opening of the Vision Re:vision: Louisiana Photography 2006 photography exhibit at the Contemporary Art Center (CAC) organized by the New Orleans Photo Alliance, the CAC, and the students of the Art Administration Department Graduate Program at UNO. Make sure you check it out. the opening is from 6pm–9pm. it's a good survey of what local photographers are doing. my 9"x12" wax-coated print, "dorothy and doris" shown down below, is included.

on sunday, december 10, there is a panel discssion with jurists Jean Caslin, Roy Flukinger, and David Houston. it should be interesting to see how they made their choices and what they see in the future for photography in the new orleans art market.

  
stumped                                               split

DECEMBER 4, 2006

Today was the anniversary of my older brother's sudden death 2 years ago. i thought i'd wake up today and go about my usual business, but i found myself very upset all day. i had been dreaming about my brother for the last week.

my brother and i didn't grow up in the same house. my aunt and uncle somehow ended up his caretakers. my younger sister and brother and i would go over and visit him, play, and then leave. i never fully understood why he didn't live with us—none of us did. my mother has never explained it to us. somehow, it is a memory too painful for her to relive.

i only have one thing of my brother's. it is a bullet that was taken out of his shoulder when he was shot in a robbery. he thought i might like having it. and i do. i cherish it.

Cliff is in the upper right corner. the bullet was used in a collage, part of an exhibit called self:exam.

NOVEMBER 29, 2006

When i was writing my statement for my painting show a couple of months ago, i asked a good friend, fellow artist, to read it. in his response to me, he provided his interpretation of my work, past and present, with his comments. one thing he mentioned was that much of my work was about truth.

in my return response to him, i said offhandedly that i had forgotten about truth. what struck me after sending the email was that, indeed, i had forgotten truth. since that exchange, i have been thinking a lot about that and what contributed to the loss of truth in my work.

most people, i'd say, are uncomfortable revealing personal truths, and as a result we have little personal knowledge about our friends, coworkers, lovers. and people disassociate from the truth about their pasts, which i've seen firsthand.

i say all this, i guess, because i lived with a lot of shame as a child. as i grew into adulthood, i dealt with it and started telling more of my personal stories to friends. there was a lot of freedom in that. but what i've recognized recently, as i start making progress in my art career, is that i am once again confronted, not by shame, but by a desire for others not to know the truth.

i was visiting my family in bentonville, arkansas, for the thanksgiving holiday. i'm going to write about that and post it. it will be the truth.

NOVEMBER 19, 2006

Another recent project of mine, an installation called "project plowshare," was at the Warehouse Gallery in Washington, DC in a show called "Shock and Awe: artists look at war." Also known as the 5th annual peace show.

Installation with video, photography, and salt

"And He shall judge between the nations and shall decide [disputes] for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Isaiah 2:4

The installation, “Project Plowshare,’ is a reinterpretation of the old testament scripture in the book of Isaiah (also found in the books of Micah and Joel) and reaction to a little known project of the Atomic Energy Commission by the same name and the goals of the current administration for global dominance.

Funded from the late 50s to early 70s, Project Plowshare proposed to use atomic and nuclear bombs for “peaceful” considerations. In total, 27 nuclear detonations were conducted before the program ceased in 1977.

Whether or not these tests yielded any positive applications or useful information, the fact that they were conducted shows that even before our current administration’s drive for global and nuclear dominance, man still believed that you could harnass the incredible destructive power of a nuclear weapon.

NOVEMBER 17, 2006

the show is down. the 8 foot paintings still need to be delivered to my house. i have no idea where to put them. if anyone is interested in a 96" x 54.5" painting, please contact me.

next up for me is inclusion in the "vision/revision" photo show at the Contemporary Arts Center here in New Orleans opening december 9. this is the piece that was accepted titled "dorothy & doris:"

as one of the organizers of the exhibit said to me in an email, "photography has been the red headed stepchild here for way
too long." it's true that the new orleans art audience is not very receptive to photography. perhaps that is due to lack of exposure, among other things. a new group, the new orleans photo alliance, is aiming to change that with a series of upcoming events.

NOVEMBER 16, 2006

probably the wrong time to start an online journal is the day your show comes down. in my case, it's my show called "shift" at Palma Gallery in New Orleans, that has been on exhibit for the last 5 weeks. you can see images from the exhibit by clicking on the installation shots below. the sculptures are the work of lisa tahir, who shared the gallery with me.

shift ended up being the perfect name for this show because it represented so many changes that have occurred over the last 15 months.

before the hurricane, i'd been painting a series i called "lost"—an abstract group that represented man's willful destruction of his mental and physical landscapes. in many ways, i know now, it was a reaction against what many consider beautiful here in new orleans—the patina, the decay, of the old. all i saw around me was neglect, abandonment and that angered me and inspired me.

after the storm, my perspective shifted. i couldn't paint out of anger anymore. seeing the city destroyed, and experiencing firsthand the effects of the storm, made me seek out something different. while cleaning out my studio, there were some things in storage that i found. i hadn't looked at these things in a long time. i almost didn't recognize them as my own possessions.

it served as a reminder, though, that i had once found beauty in unusual places. it reminded me that somewhere along the way, i'd lost my voice, so to speak. from that persective, i began painting for "shift."

many times, i found myself questioning what i was doing. i'd finish a painting and look at it and find strange beauty in it. but at the same time, awfulness, ugliness. before, i would have kept painting, covering up what i thought wasn't conventional beauty. but this time, i stopped. and i accepted that what i'd done represented beauty to me.

i also changed methods. instead of the violent painting i'd once done, scraping, throwing, gouging, piling paint on a canvas, i began to pour paint, move it around calmly, purposefully. flooding canvases and letting the watered-down paint evaporate or drain. allowing myself to not control the process so rigidly. i also began to use wine and coffee in some of the pieces.

in a weird way, the storm opened me up to more possibilities in my work and helped me find a part of myself i'd boxed up. i'm going to continue to explore this notion of beauty in my work and see where it leads.