Red Bean Paste & Apple Pie, exhibit & reception

The work is installed, and now I just need you all to show up!

Bamboo Mountain, Potato Hill
Diptych, gouache & acrylic on paper mounted on birch panels
12"h x 24"w
2012

First Unitarian Church of Portland, Fuller Hall
1034 SW 13th Ave, Portland, Oregon (enter at corner of SW 12th & Main)

Dates: November 4 - 25, 2012
Public hours: Sundays, 9am - 1:30pm and by appointment

Artist's Reception: Sunday, November 11, 2 - 4pm
There will be homemade goodies, but of course!

For more on the series, following this tag.

In and Out of the Box

Woohoo, I got into In and Out of the Box exhibit with The Medium is the Baggage! You can see some process photos here. The acceptance letter started with (paraphrase) "there were so many qualified applicants and unfortunately...", so I figured I didn't get in, but then it said "I am pleased to let you know that the juror selected your work to be included..."! So woohoo!

Here's a shot right before I packed it all up:



This was the statement I sent with the piece:

The Medium is the Baggage examines the reality of product vs. the medium it is packed in by inverting the relationship between the two entities.

Practical or aspirational, the products we purchase often have limited live spans – they break down, wear out or we simply move on to the next new thing; they are, in effect, disposable. In mail-ordering, we have found something that will last generations. With the exception of biodegradable starch foam & paper packing, most packing materials are various forms of plastic that do not biodegrade and recycling is limited. When recycling is available, the materials are recycled into other forms of plastic.

In short, these packing materials are the heirlooms that we leave for future generations. By presenting 20 packing materials in a clamshell box packed in shredded mail-order catalogues, The Medium is the Baggage puts product and packing in their rightful places within the historical context.

Made mostly from repurposed materials that had previously arrived by mail - one Amazon shipping carton, various packing materials and mail-order catalogs. Other materials include recycled paper, repurposed mylar and packing tape.

Now lets work on books for a bit

After finishing the last of those 7"x7" panels, I'm returning to books for a while.

Here's one that I thought would be a fun, quick project, but I sunk 40+ hours into it, most of that time was spent on researching the various packing materials that are commonly found in mail ordered products. I tried contacting materials scientists, I looked on the web, and I called a foam/plastic manufacturer.

Now I know the difference between polyurethane, polyethylene, polystyrene, expanded polyethylene and expanded polystyrene. Phew! I wonder how long that information will keep in my head...as opposed to how long the actual materials will keep, which is basically forever.

The book is made from mostly repurposed materials that had previously arrived to me via mail — an amazon box, various packing materials, mail-order catalogs (indirectly through a neighbor); and then there's also recycled printer paper, mylar rescued from the JWSC trash bin and packing tape.

I wanted to make a sampler box of packing materials. So here I'm putting together the tray.



Here's the completed clamshell box made from the amazon shipping carton. On the left is the index to the samples, and the samples in their little cubbyholes on the right.



The clamshell box will be shipped, packed in shredded mail-order catalogs.

Gallery 110 exhibit, Seattle, June 2011

Here are the four sculptural books I will be showing at the June exhibition at Gallery 110:



Clockwise from top left: Superfoodland!, Tenuous Connections, Random Cruelty and A Dog's Tale.

Exhibition details:

Past Journeys/Present Tense
Gallery 110, Wed-Sat, 12-5pm
Artists' Reception, June 4, Saturday, 5-8pm
110 3rd Ave. S, Seattle, WA 98104

You can read more about the three pillow books on my website following these links: A Dog's Tale, Random Cruelty and Tenuous Connections.

Process photos for Superfoodland! are here: gocco'ing the cards, painting the board, polymerclay utensils and polymerclay blueberries.

Process photos for the pillow books (among other things) are here.

Bright Hill 2010 Book Arts Exhibit

This is my lucky year! Exhibits have been falling from the sky and hitting me on the head, which is good since I've been so crazy busy with Portland Open Studios board duties that I haven't had the time to put my work out there this year.

So the latest is the Bright Hill 2010 Book Arts exhibit. I got invited to submit 2 books. They chose two, one of which was not available, so I was able to choose the other (which they accepted). I think these two work very well together. Although both are earlier work, I have always loved both and have always been sorry that they haven't been shown more. So here they are, brand new photographs from this afternoon.

Pocket Atlas for Travelers:



Left & Right:



And this was what I sent along:

Pocket Atlas for Travelers is the story of a 15 year seeing the world for the very first time, and coming to an understanding of the lies that we are often told in the cause of nationhood. Voices compete and contrast in different versions of this journey.

Left & Right documents a long civil war, most of which was fought in the battlefields of the mind. Having grown up on one side of this war, I was able to travel and see the other side as an American. Two decks of cards, 104 toy soldiers shooting at each other, each side telling their version of four stories, with a surprising twist.

20th and 21st, among other things

Escape Velocity, diptych in gouache (and acrylic surface to be added later).

[These were really the 21st & 22nd panels.]

So these two, and the two below of the monkey king, were cut up from this piece from back in 2006, which went from bad to worse to pretty much given up for dead. Although now that I'm looking at these old photos, I think it could've been saved when I was about half way through. So I cut it up into these 4 pieces (plus there are scraps left).

I'll mount these on boards before I finish them.



On other fronts...

I'm recovering from a long streak of work, work, and more work. Between organizing and installing the Collins show, getting the iPhone app together (and the Good Prince had to get involved too), and installing For the Love of Food (opened this past Tuesday), I had my first day of 'holiday' yesterday since mid-July. I sat around and did nothing...it was bliss.

Collins Gallery exhibit

This was an exhibit that fell into my lap 3 weeks ago. The original Collins Gallery exhibit for the time slot fell through; then the substitute exhibit fell through too. At which point, I was at the right place at the right time, and got the opportunity to put together this show.

We installed yesterday, and it all went very, very smoothly. I am very happy with how well it worked out, given that there was so little time to put it together. So in short—

I was asked if Portland Open Studios would take the slot. The board approved to do it that very evening. It took another week before we all agreed how to select the 11 artists (we ended up w/ first come first serve) and to send out the call. The slots filled in 24 hours and we had 10 different mediums covered. I ended up slipping in a 12th artist as well.

Then it was a matter of chasing down 12 artists for their statements and titles (which always turns out to be more time consuming than one might think), making a postcard graphic, putting together tour guide sales for the Friends of the Library store, scheduling installation times for everyone, writing up a contract for the artists and getting our PR guru to write up some PR materials. And installation.

We managed to wrap up early too. But of course, I forgot to take pictures. So maybe next week.

Thorns, thorns, thorns

The rose thorns I collected and trimmed on 2/7 have been drying for almost 2 weeks. I figured they were ready. So here they are, sitting on some of that putty stuff. They started out very black, but now look more of a dull brown.



Here they are, after the first coat of alizarin crimson (acrylic):



And here half of them have had 2 coats of the gold and the rest just one coat. I'm leaving them varied like that:



I'm not sure what exactly what I'm doing with them yet, but I'm planning to use them for the piece that will be in the 10x10 show at City Hall in March.

Me and Kara Walker, ON THE SAME POSTCARD!

Not only that, my name comes right after hers! You know, '...Walker, Wang...'

Exhibit A:



Yeah, it's hard to read cause I make the images pretty small, but if you click on the image, you'll get a slightly bigger picture and you can almost read it!

How did this come about, you ask? Well, a few months back, out of the blue, I got an email from the Exec. Dir of the NY Center for Book Arts, asking me if I wanted to be in this exhibit. Well, do I ever! So of course I wrote them back right away and said yes. I'll be showing Nigrum and and Pocket Atlas for Travelers.

I was thrilled to be asked to start out with, but then when I got the image of the postcard and started reading the list of artists in the exhibit, my heart just about skipped a beat. So how about that? Me & Kara, on the same piece of paper.*

*Assuming it's THE Kara Walker we're talking about.

On other fronts, mainly my current Relay Replay Press book

I'm getting ready to go out to The Dalles to spend a week there working with my senior. I went out for an afternoon visit on Thursday last week, and his wife had given me a lot of personal items to take with me—high school year book, old photos, etc; and I also gave him a replica of a Model T that I found at the Goodwill, still in its original packaging, and all metal parts. He has a Model A, and I thought maybe the two will be fairly close. As it turns out, the two were not all that close, but he was thrilled with the Model T replica because his family had one when he was little. 'The family car,' he said. It brought a big smile to his face.

The yearbook was also a huge hit. In fact, we spent most of the visit looking over the year book and we didn't have time to look at anything else.

I'm very glad for this turn of events, towards more personal items. Previously, I had been pretty focused on his navy career and his interest in all things mechanical. This is because, well, of course, I haven't known him for very long, and due to the long distance (hour and half drive each way to see him), I have only visited him 5 times or so.

This is very different from what I did last year, with the four women who were local—I saw them once or twice a week for six months.

But with the personal items that his wife found, we're having a different kind of a conversation, in addition to talking about ships and cars.

And remember that airbrush I bought half a year ago...

All so I can mount my paintings (gouache on paper) on board rather than framing them, but I want to give them some protection too. So I finally got that out of the box, put it all together, and put it through its paces—just some tests then followed by clean-up—so far so good, but I haven't gotten any further.

And those college students came back!

The Good Prince was predicting that they wouldn't be coming back, after their fist strenuous encounter with me (get your minds out of the gutter...which by the way, we're also having to replace). But come back they did, and they were clearly paying attention—last time, the only tools they brought were shovels, and so the only thing they could do was dig. And digging those bamboos was hard work.

This time, they came back with a variety of tools, and so there were more options. I set them to do some pruning, but there was still more digging to do, although perhaps not quite as strenuous as the last time.

And now I must go deal with the roofer...

Good enough to eat?

OK, two more batches of blueberries, lighter and lighter still compared with yesterday's first batch. In addition, I've put some white pastel on the blueberries by rubbing the pastel stick on the ends of my fingers and then rolling the blueberries between my fingers.

So here we have the combined 3 batches of blueberries in 3 different shades: on the left, as they come out of the oven and on the right, after I've rolled them in some white pastel:



Also, with the last batch of blueberries (the lightest shade), I've added bits of purple to the berries to more resemble how they really are—somewhat mottled.

I'm liking the white powery look a lot, although I think my sculpting of the tops of the berries are getting sloppy (now that I've made about 70 berries). So I need to get back to more careful sculpting, but otherwise, I think they're looking pretty good.

Met with the critique group today and we made decent progress on the Cedar Crest show—have the title nailed down and Anne came up with a great idea...a food confessional! I better come up with my 'game plan' (haha!) for my board game soon.

Maternal Legends

Tonight was the opening reception for Maternal Legends at 23 Sandy. There was a great turn out; in fact, it was too crowded to be able to look at the books!

Whirlwind Wednesday

Well, it's really Tuesday (still), and the whirlwind occurred Sunday-Tuesday, but I thought Whirlwind Wednesday sounded good. Besides, I seemed to have missed Packrat Tuesday this week, so I guess this is the replacement.

So, Sunday...

I installed the books and the folding screens at RSM, among the regular Sunday chores and prepping for Monday. Here's one of the screens:



Then, Monday...

In the morning, installed the little neighborhood coffee house show. It's me and 2 other artists right on my block:



And in the afternoon, installed Intersect/Parallel (the show of 5 engineers-artists) at the G&V Walters Cultural Arts Center:



And, Tuesday...

Finished up loose ends at RSM (labels), coffee shop (inventory list, and returning the nails which I took off their walls, stuck in my pocket, and walked off with them). And the opening reception for Intersect/Parallel in the evening:



At this show, I encountered something I had never encountered before. And in case Bob H. is reading this—don't worry, your "Please Do Not Touch" signs did the trick; I was watching like a hawk and nobody touched your books.

However, my "Please Handle With Care" signs did not seem to do anything at all.

Usually, people are so reverent about looking at art that I really have to encourage them to touch the work if I want them to handle and interact with them. So anyhow, I had these "Handle With Care" signs on the pillow books, but most people were paying them no never mind. The 2 ladies in the photo were very careful, I should say. But many would walk up, and without reading the signs or anything, the first thing they do is to put their hands flat down in the middle of the pillow books and give them a few pushes! Then they come around to the sides and give the books a squeeze or two!

One guy picked up one of the small pillow books and started squeezing it like it was a tennis ball!

Oh. My. God.

I guess you could say that those books are very tactile and inviting.

I asked the gallery director for new "Please Do Not Touch" signs.

Intersect/Parallel

OK, this exhibit, Intersect/Parallel, must feel like the little orphan, I've hardly talked about it at all, having spent all my time working on Relay/Replay. (Hmmm, do I have a thing for 2 word composite exhibition titles?)

But, I picked up the postcards today:



I thought they did a nice job with the design. This is a show I put together last year and proposed to the G&V Walters Cultural Arts Center, and was accepted. It's the five of us, all engineers by training but also work as artist. There's a photographer, a sculptor, 1 painter, 1 book artist, and 1 painter/book artist (that'd be me). We hang the show on Dec 1. I would've liked it if it was earlier in the fall so I don't have the collision with the 2 exhibits in December, but well, this is what always happens I suppose.

If this exhibit goes well, I'm thinking that we can do an open call for Intersect/Parallel II for next year!

And here are the screens for Relay/Replay. On the left side, I've oiled and buffed it with Danish oil; on the right, it's just the plain unfinished cherry.



Here you can see the size of the thing a little better, but it really feels much bigger in real life than what it looks like here. They'll get heavier too, way heavier, once I put all the images in the holes. The images will be sandwiched between sheets of plexi.

Relay/Replay, part I installed, part II...feverishly trying to finish

I actually have photos from the show installed at the John Wilson Special Collections today, but blogger is being a butt and won't upload them very quickly. And I just haven't got all night, you know! So maybe tomorrow.

Anyhow, Friday—installed the show. Saturday—labels went in, plus I saw the fine press show at Collins Gallery, and the Shiva Ahmadi show at PNCA (another person was showing too, but I went for Shiva Ahmadi's work). Today—oiled and buffed one of the room divider screens, I should be able to do the other tomorrow.

And also on Saturday night, saw Fidelio...can't say that it's going to be one of my favorite operas, but must mention that the lovely gl from the scarlet letters was a 'townsfolk' in the production! (And I didn't make any faces at you!)

And I just realized today that I'm on a collision course as far as installation goes. On Nov 30/Dec 1, I'm supposed to be installing 3 different shows!

Making art as a comedy act

There I was, having lunch while flipping through this weekend's NYT magazine (all about food), when I came upon this picture:



Which instantly reminded me that I have yet to stain the cotton cloth with my grapes, which I'll need to have stained and then laundered before this Friday. So off I went to clip some grapes off the vine. I threw the cloth in the tub (which was still covered in the coffee grounds that I used to stain it last week) and proceeded to rub the concord grapes all over it. Then I noticed that only the skins of the grapes stained the cloth, the inside did nothing.

So, not wanting to waste the fruit itself, I decided to eat the grapes before spitting out the skins on the cloth and rubbing them all over. As I picked up my little container of grapes, somehow my grip slipped, and grapes tumbled out and into the bottom of the tub, still covered in coffee grounds. Hmm.

Well, no matter, I decided to proceed. Eating the grapes, I mean. So there I was, sitting in the bathroom eating coffee grounds covered grapes, spitting grape skins, then rubbing them all over.

I ate so many grapes that I got a buzz from the sugar. Oh, the sacrifices I make for art!



And here it is, hanging up to dry.



Still trimming paper

On my last Relay Replay book, Sheila—I'm still trimming paper. In fact, I gave myself a kink in the neck and numb arm from being bent over for half the afternoon. I decided to quit trimming for the day.

On Intersect/Parallel

The show in Hillsboro in Dec/Jan—met up with one of the artists to select the prints he'll be putting in the show. I think it will be an interesting (diverse) group show.

Other projects that need tending to

Believe it or not, I actually have other things that I do besides working on my Relay Replay books! So some of them got dealt with this weekend.

I interviewed Laura Russell for a profile on the Portland Open Studios blog. She participated in Portland Open Studios a few years back and has said that the event helped her get started in Portland and ultimately, helped her start her gallery, 23 Sandy. So that sounded like a good story, although I probably won't run it until after the event in mid-October. And actually, I have another artist that I'd like to interview before the event, but I'm running out of time here.

Then we (Roslyn, a different Laura, and me) went out to Hillsboro to check out the gallery at Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Center for our Intersect/Parallel exhibit in Dec/Jan. There will be 5 of us in the show, all software/hardware engineers and artists. There's a sculptor, a photographer, 2 painters, and 2 book artists (I'm the one in 2 media).

And today, we (Shelley, Kindra, and me) went out to Milepost 5 to see the 20+ artists of PAO at that location. They have some really wonderful artists, although the traffic was pretty slow while we were there. That was the only location we were going to visit, and one of the artists said that many people said that. So some people might've had a pretty quiet weekend.

And no, we didn't wear disguises!

23 Sandy exhibit opening night

And I forgot to take pictures, again. It was a good crowd, but I didn't know many of the people who came. I think most came to see the photography show in the front room, but hey, I was happy to have any spill-over traffic.

At one point, this guy I did recognize walked in, and I thought, "hmmm, he looks familiar...why, it's Ewan McGregor! OMG, Wow! Ewan McGregor is here!" I was star struck & speechless. I held out my hand to shake his, and he leaned into me and said "Harrison."

Oh right, that's why he looks familiar; I know him, and his name is Harrison. I never noticed that he looked just like Ewan McGregor before. And just to prove that I'm not crazy, I pointed this out to a few people later, and yeah, hey, they thought so too.

MiT, 1st senior, day 17

Met with my 1st senior yesterday. She wasn't quite ready, and I'm not sure that she was really quite in the mood for her watercolors either. Took me about an hour to get her ready and out of her apartment, and she painted for half an hour before she petered out. And actually, I was pretty much done for too, having taken so long to just get her going.

And I still had plenty to do to get ready for my exhibit at 23 Sandy — finish packing, making the inventory sheet, preparing labels. And one thing leads to another, I had to get the class descriptions done so I could send out the exhibit and class announcements all in one. Finally got that done shortly after midnight last night.

Today was a whirlwind of activities too — hanging the show, and going out for a rare 1st Thursday outing. Both Rachel and Anne are having their openings today (and we all got our grants at the same time!), so I made the effort. Ran into lots of folks that I haven't seen in a long time. I guess that's what happens when you don't do 1st Thursdays, you just don't see people. (A plug for Anne's show — at Powells on Burnside, 3rd floor gallery; and Rachel's Cycle Seen, all over town.)

Not sure if it's just 1st Thursday, or if it's a combination of that and the Rose Festival, but there were sure a lot of drunks out in Portland tonight. I know this because there were a lot of men who smiled and said hi to me. Now that! is worth writing down.

And since this is Rose Festival time, there are plenty of sailors out and about. One man walking around said very loudly, "what are these soldiers doing here, I thought the war was in I-RAN."

So I have to report this: how often have you enjoyed one half of a cell phone conversation that you overhear?

Coming home tonight, I was sitting in front of some guy talking on the phone. Didn't sound like it was a romantic thing (yet), but he was talking to a woman. He was talking about his aspirations, why he chooses to do what he does, and how he would like to travel around the country with the job. He was trying to motivate her too, about work, and encouraging her to spend time with family, asking after her nieces and nephews. He just sounded like a really nice guy. And that put a smile on my face.

I'm ready for the week to be over now

Another long day today, preparing for tomorrow. Packed for the Atkinson Elementary school thing. Packed for the City Hall event (thank you Gretchin for helping me out, once again!). Packed for the Chinese Garden event. I went ahead and made the screen for the Garden demo, otherwise, if the weather is bad tomorrow, I may have trouble getting a really good screen made.

I think I'm all ready for tomorrow now. Went to the PDX Panel preview tonight (first night it opened). By the time I got there, the pieces I had had my eyes on were mostly sold, and they were certainly all sold by the time I made my way all the way around the 300 panels. 4 of the Portland Open Studios artists' panels had sold (not mine though). One of them I had my eyes on. Too bad. There are still others that I'm interested in as well, but I'd have to think about them more (which of course means they'll be sold by the time I make up my mind!).

I'm glad the day's over

Lots of running around in foul weather today. Although the high winds did not materialize, it was most definitely a very wet day. 217 northbound was completely closed in sections, southbound had 1 lane closed. I-5 southbound had something going on around Multnomah Blvd, so I exited early. When we were hanging the show at Print Arts this morning—and I only heard bits of this conversation—someone reported that there was a crew out there on a boat (!) trying to unclog something. I assume she was talking a road.

So, the running around part — in the morning and early afternoon, it was hanging the exhibit at Print Arts Northwest; got home with enough time to grab a snack before I had to run off to my serger lesson; then it was an early dinner with Mike before I ran off to the Portland Open Studios board meeting.

Not only was there a lot of rain, there was a lot of bad driving too. I was stuck behind this car that would get stuck in the middle of an intersection at every intersection! And when the traffic would start moving again, it would be 5-6 seconds before it would move. I finally got around it, and get this — I came to the MAX tracks, waited until I saw that there was room for me up ahead before I crossed the tracks and stopped. And this car pulled up right behind me, which could only mean that it was on the tracks! Shudder.

APA Compass on KBOO

Una Kim and I were the 2 interviewees for the APA Compass program on KBOO this morning. It was a brand new experience for me, live radio, with callers too. They don't have a podcast that you can listen to, which might be just as well.

In the afternoon, after visiting the Chinese Garden with Josephine, we went on to see Helen's exhibit at the Portland Art Center, and then to 23 Sandy to see the Photo+Construct exhibit (nice exhibit, btw, go Mrs. 5000!). Finished preparing for this weekend's Gocco class. My first class that I'm holding here, we'll see how it goes.