Sarah Gamble

One of my favorite Philadelphia artists has finally updated her website. It was a real treat to flip through the images. Check out Sarah Gamble's website here.

Details

I think it's done but I'm going to keep it a secret for now. I'll just share this sneak peek. I'm getting things ready for a big show in January. I don't know if this piece will make the cut. But just in case I'll keep it to myself. I'd like as many people as possible to have their first view of the work be in person. This is contrary to my usual "show everybody everything" attitude. We'll see how well I pull it off.

Who knows what the heck this is...

This painting is annoying the crap out of me. It may all end up in the scrap heap. But in the mean time I took a few close-up shots of things I actually LIKE about it. Here's one.

Caroline Lathan-Stiefel at Tiger Strikes Asteroid

Caroline Lanthan-Stiefel has a great show up at Tiger Strikes Asteroid. The intimate space really shows off her work allowing you to be fully surrounded by the quirky and beautiful installation.

More Crane Roses

Inspiring Textures & Beautiful Flowers

I took a few photos out in the rain today. The roses are out in Nick Kripal's garden in the Crane courtyard. They are absolutely stunning. Nick is starting a new garden across from the Crane which is already looking promising. Today the light rain really brought out the texture in the walls. And since I have what my sister calls "texture issues" I couldn't resist posting a photo of that as well.

Josh Dick

These are two images from a series of photos by Josh Dick. You can see more of his work at this site here. Very beautiful and inspiring.

Around the Studio

Amazing Tree

Believe it or not I still have more to say about the source of the spiral in my works. This post isn't showing up as part of that "source of the spiral" series because I just found this awesome tree last weekend. I don't know what kind of tree it is but it's amazing. While this tree may not have inspired the spiral pieces I've already made it will certainly inspire some of the ones to follow.

I Love This Painting

The best painting I saw today was not at the Whitney Biennial. It was down the road about 70 blocks in the Lower East Side at Julia Schwadron's studio.

Source of the Spiral, Part 4

My first experiments involved using a stone to form a divot in watercolor paper. This is a detail from a drawing I made while staying on the island of Møn in 2004.



It was interesting but still not quite what I was getting at so I put it on the back burner for a few years. The idea stuck in my head but also metamorphosed. It was altered by other forms that I saw around me, in particular a wild rose bush whose blooms were extremely abundant. So in 2008 I tried again. Also with paper. This time I used cut up water bottles to support wet paper into rounded forms.



This was getting closer but it wasn't until I switched to canvas and began to sew that it really took shape. Blue Cups is one of the earliest spiral pieces. It was made in 2008 not that long after the last paper attempt. It was organized like the bumpy cement patterns I saw on the street in Harrisburg.

Source of the Spiral, Part 3

The rock carvings in Tanum were painted red which created a striking connection, in my mind anyway, between the cup symbols in the rocks and the seemingly random dots that decorate the Elmelunde Church on the island of Møn, Denmark. You can see them in the two close-up shots below. Six dots circling a central 7th dot creating what looks like a little flower. But I immediately felt that those dots must have been drawn from the pre-Christian cup marks that, flattened into two dimensions, are dots. And it seemed to me that a simple, but powerful symbol was transported from one way of thinking to another. Brought forward in time even if it lost it's meaning shortly thereafter. This is total speculation on my part. The great thing about being an artist is that I can make a connection like that and run with it. It's not terribly important that I'm right (although I'd love to see someone follow up on that idea) but just that it gives me something to think about. In this case how critical symbols are maintained through major social changes like new religions and political upheaval.