you are beautiful... yes, you.

Last night was the opening of the You Are Beautiful exhibit at Flourish Studios in Chicago. We were handed stickers as we walked in which said you are beautiful. So everywhere you looked this message was being presented. I posted a couple of pics over on my facebook page, but I wanted to be able to include each artist's statement, and this seemed like a better format.

If you haven't been following along, the You Are Beautiful campaign seeks to fight media ideals of beauty and reinforce that we are all beautiful. Flourish Studios had a You Are Beautiful installation, created by 15 artists each making a single letter. This served as a counterpoint to Tiffany Gholar's Doll Project. It was a good project to be involved with. If you check through the YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL tags, you'll see in progress pics and lots of procrastination.

Y: You are beautiful - your wrinkles shout wisdom, your youth is your innocence, the colors of your flesh, texture of your hair, the fullness of your body, the curves that accentuate your frame, and the slender lean of your insecurity, presenting to the world - Whether broken or scarred, damaged or tethered, just the same as the wood and the buttons, the strength of your beauty is not in what the eye can see, but the spirit in which you celebrate what makes you rare, unique...simply beautiful. - Morgan Paige Brill  

O: Broken to whole themes my art, my life, and the motto of how I hope to empower others. I am constantly finding the beauty in the ordinary and unexpected and want to help others see their beauty within and all around. - Kathleen Warner

U: Mandy, a self taught artist, creates digital black and white photography collages which are sublimated onto canvas fabric. The process of sublimation turns the ink from a liquid directly into a gas when they are heat pressed on a canvas, where ink essentially becomes part of the fabric and allows the texture of the canvas to remain untouched. The sublimated strips are wrapped around the "U" shape with contrasting black fabric. - Mandy Adamick



A: The letter I created for this installation is symbolic of the essence of the project – the way media represents and affects young women.  I used a font similar to the Mad Magazine font because it supports the whole concept of the project – illustrating how maddening it is for young women to let media feed them negative messages about their bodies and their worth.  I constructed it out of cardboard because it seemed most natural and organic, but I added the lighter colored blue to the “front” of the piece to represent any alternations women do to themselves because of media-based societal pressures to seem more appealing and attractive.  The lace is an observation of the focus placed on what women chose to wear.  –Amanda Maglish Bratschie

R:This piece marks an exploration into what I am discovering as beauty. Beauty--and what makes us beautiful--are often those traits or characteristics that cause our insecurities. Beauty is coming to terms with those imperfections and embracing them. - Kaitlyn McQuaid

E: My art is about womanhood, expectation, limits. I use sewing patterns because they're so bossy - "cut two here on fold, " "shorten here, " but at the same time, when you sew, you make clothes to fit you, you are the beauty standard. Sewing patterns are my stand in for the body and society's expectations for the body. - Elaine Luther

B: My artwork explores my own collective identity, instincts, and balance, using symbols to discuss these portions of my identity, and allows viewers to see portions of my life and perspective, allowing them to reflect on their own lives and identities by comparison, and shedding light on the human experience. - Jennifer Hines       

                          

E: Standardized notions of beauty, and the roles of women and men are insidious in our culture. We need to find ways to force a shift in perception and rip at the seams of what is expected of people. Don't be afraid to destroy your own brand every day, and to constantly redefine the beauty of you. – Melissa Hamming

A: Self-reflection and personal acceptance are the foundations of my work. Through process, errors become as necessary as original intent. Thus, the experience of creating the work is just as influential as what is initially intended. Blemishes create a visual response to the beginnings of the work and create an abstract relationship between the forms that result. - Joshua Tabbia

U: Jennifer Moore

T: If you carry one thing with you today let it be this: You are smart, You are beautiful, & you are loved. - Giselle Gatsby

I: I chose black ink specifically because I wanted a gender neutral color. The shades of grey show there is no black and white ideal of beauty. We are all unique and that should be celebrated. Stitching together the drawings reminds us that we are many things united into a whole person. Furthermore, the repetitive nature of the writings referenced a student’s forced chalkboard mantra. Writing the words and repeating them mentally became soothing in a way I did not expect; I needed to hear these words no less than everyone else. I am beautiful. You are beautiful. We are all beautiful. - Dawn Diamantopoulos

F: Art is a tool, as an extension of written and verbal language it captures for us images.  The use of textures and colors can tell stories.  I make art because I simply don’t know how not to; it is simply a part of my vocabulary.  In my work, I love to generate discussion, exploration, share narratives, and communicate efficiently where perhaps my words fall short. – Courtney Lynn Coleman

U:Rozita Fogelman is a Russian contemporary artist, born in 1964 in Tbilisi, Georgia.  In 1975 she immigrated to Israel, and since 1998; she lives and works in Berkeley, CA.  Style of her work is mainly abstract expressionist, geometrical with emphasis on experimental use of unconventional painting tools and techniques.  The work’s primary focus is on energy, color with a great attention to texture and surface. - Rozita Fogelman

  

L: The origin of beauty, Like the origin of aLL Life, cuLture, Language and knowLedge Lies within Africa. Yet, the Media rareLy associates dark skin, wooLy/naturaL hair and fuLL features with beauty. My “L” is a chaLLenge to that ideoLogy.  -Lia Crawford



clear coat and silver thread

I got lots done yesterday. I am really getting very excited about this project! I was actually quite proud of how much I'd accomplished. I cut down the dowels. This was mostly impressive because I found a hand saw, and I wasn't sure I'd even be able to locate a hand saw. I was ahead of the game before I started! Yay, me!

So dowels were cut and resanded and given a couple of coats of clear coat. And, yes, I did it outside. Although it was breezy and I did inhale some of it and it was a weird feeling to feel like the inside of my mouth and lungs were clear coated. Plus, it made my coffee taste sorta gross afterwards. A couple of coats, more sanding, a couple more coats. On the last coat a huge wind blew all sorts of tree pollen into the wet sticky clear coat. *sigh* So instead of being done with that part, I am now going to need to resand the dowels to sand the pollen out of it. And then more clear coats are in store.

I also put another wash layer down on the drawings because I wanted them to be darker. I really am glad I went with black ink instead of a color. I didn't want to have any kind of gender perception built into the piece because I used a particular color. And after writing I am beautiful a zillion times over, I'm extra happy with the black and white choice because it reminds me of writing lessons on chalkboards. And after writing that last bit, I've gotten started on my artist statement!

I did some practice sewing to see how I liked the look of it. Decided that black thread was maybe too dark, after all, and then went out to JoAnn where I spent a good 10 minutes debating which grey was best. Turns out silver is what I was looking for.

And in between waiting for things to dry, I got started on the landscape based in part on the 4x6 Exchange painting, which is based on the ink drawing, which is based on a friend's photo. Just a little bit. It's 16"x20".

it's pretty much a wash

Still working on the ink pieces for the You Are Beautiful installation.  I decided my wash was too light and gave them a second coat. No pics because, really, it looks the same. Scroll down to the last post, and you've pretty much got it. The second layer of writing went on far quicker than I expected it to, considering the tiny little nib I was using. (Note: tiny little nibs are really sharp. I dropped a pen yesterday and it went right through my sneaker and stabbed me in the toe.) Usually the second layer is ink writing but I was only planning two layers for these and so I used mask. Almost done with those. I just gave the second layer a second wash, because, again, it's still really light. At some point yesterday I decided there would be more than two layers to these. I'm up to four, I usually do about 8. We'll see.

After the 4th layer's wash.

It's still going to need more layers to darken it up, overall.



In between drying time, I got to work on a little piece for the 4x6 Exchange for the Brooklyn Art Library. The Brooklyn Art Library does lots of cool projects and I've worked on several before: The Fiction Project, The Things I Dream About, and Mail Me Something... For the 4x6 Exchange, each participant is creating a 2-D piece of work that is, not surprisingly, 4"x6". Everybody mails them to Brooklyn, and then they are getting swapped. So someone somewhere will have my painting and I will get something by someone else. The postmark is due at the end of the month, so I need to get on this. This piece is based on a sketch I did of a photo a friend took and it's acrylic on watercolor paper. I'm looking to do a larger piece, 16"x20", so this is kind of the sketch for that later piece. I already had the canvas drawn out when I saw the photo and it's quite similar, so I will eventually be combining them.

best laid plans

All these works in progress photos I was going to regularly post...so, yeah. You know the saying about best laid plans...

Here's one! Wood dowels! They've been purchased! Still need to cut two of them down, sand them all and put them together. They will be the frame for some small ink drawings and possibly a few small paintings which I will sew and/or wire together to make the letter I for the YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL installation at Flourish Studios. There may or may not be some trace or Mylar involved. It's still a little bit almost entirely in the idea stage. I bought the wood dowels. That was quite a commitment, really. I've got three weeks to get this together.

I have completed a little painting for the Home Sweet Home Earth Day show next month at HAC. I forgot to photograph it in progress. oops. It's little, just 10"x10", so it went fast. This is a real deal landscape, not one of my imaginary figurative pieces. And not plein aire, which I am still wanting to do and should do before it gets actually hot, but a landscape based on the road trip I took to Wisconsin last month. It was just warm enough that the snow was melted on the south side of the road, but still covering the ground to the north. On the way home, there was a great evening haze. There was a distinct crispness in the front fields and an entirely different color in the background. Sort of like a bad blue screen effect, only real. Tentatively titled wisconsin road trip.

And, this brings us to today. When I was out over the weekend the willow trees were a lovely spring green. Most of the trees were still in bud stage, but they've practically all unfurled tiny little leaves now. Even the oaks, which were holding onto a fair share of fall leaves a few days ago. And today it is spring, even though it's been in the 80s for the last week. This is another small one, also 10"x10". I'm not sure if it's done yet, I need to sleep on it. I think it might need some more tension. If it's not done, then this totally qualifies as a work in progress pic. This is another, sort-of-real landscape, based on all the running around I did this weekend. Tentatively titled new spring. I had some bad news yesterday and I could really use a fresh start, soon.

you know, best laid plans.

artist statements: why bother?

I fully admit that artist statements are not my favorite thing to do. I get  it. I want to make art, why do I need to talk about it, too? This weekend two artist statement related things (ASRT)happened.

I had a deadline to submit an artist statement for an upcoming show in Chicago. This is different for me because I am making a piece that will be included in an installation with 14 other area artists. I am making the letter I in the statement YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. 

That's right, I'm putting the I in beautiful.

The tricky part of writing the artist statement for this piece is...uh, I haven't actually started making it. yet. I will soon. really. soon. really. I have a whole month before I have to deliver it, so I actually have plenty of time. I've thought a lot about it, and that's a good start. More on that in a future post. In the meantime, I sent a generic artist statement.

The second ASRT is I am now curating pop up galleries for my home town. (yay! I'm very excited about this. The more opportunities for artist to show their work and for the public to view art, the better.) To this end, I've been contacting artists that have previously expressed interest. I have asked for artists to send me a resume, artist statement and 6 jpgs. This is standard stuff.

So far three artists said they don't have resumes. One artist, a digital photographer, doesn't know what jpgs are or how to get his photos into his computer. And one artist sent me this:

I do not have a “style” or a “series” of paintings… I have no interest in constant repetition or doing variations of the same concept... for me that does not promote creativity and fresh ideas… I am here to create not to try and see how large my cash value will reach… that will take care of itself.

sigh. The point of an artist statement is to inform the viewer, to give a little bit of extra information. What drives you? Why do you do what you do? What inspires you? What media do you use, and why?

Unless your work is about money, images of money, the mortgage meltdown, the financial crisis, or the recession, you don't need to mention cash. Your artist statement isn't a bill of goods and services. This artist statement says: "I might be a painter. I don't care."  If you don't care, why should anyone else? Why bother?