Lil' Update

I apologize to my two devoted readers (my mother and someone else equally kind and long suffering) for my hiatus from updating this blog of the happenings in my artistic "career" in the past couple of months. I have a few updates.

I finished this piece for the annual Kayo Gallery members show, Round 7. The title is "Transitionary Beings." It will be up for a little bit longer, should anyone be inclined to see it in person. It's the finished version of this.

The top half of my face was featured on the cover of In This Week Magazine. It was for the magazine's cover article on the fact that Salt Lake City was rated the 7th most bohemian city. Along with several other local artists they interviewed both me and my friend, Laura Decker.

Coming up on July 9th is the 3rd Annual Alternative Press Festival at the City Library. Planning has begun! As we did last year, again with our devoted and ever patient ring leader, Ryan Perkins, my friends Whitney Shaw, Valerie Jar, Laura Decker, Max Kelly, and I will be making the posters again this year. We will do our best not to disappoint! Our apple beer and spiked cider fueled poster planning meeting was especially fruitful.

I've recently started participating in the Foster Art Program, organized by John Sproul. The artist talks for the spring, 2011 session were at the Salt Lake Art Center auditorium on Saturday, March 2nd. In my talk I attempted to sum up my current philosophy of my own art. I think I made a little less of a fool of myself than I did when I spoke in the fall, 2010 session. See: I'm learning. Or, at least I like to tell myself I'm learning. Should someone be so inclined to read on, I've posted my talk below. I finished writing it as the talks began, so it's not polished. However, I did not feel comfortable to just wing it, as some artists participating did. I needed the crutch of having something written down to read to feel confident to speak.

Foster Art Program talk, Spring, 2011:
My work is mainly of animals. I do sometimes depict humans, but usually in relation to animals. The world of animals has been a lifelong fascination for me. I view the animal world as somewhat separate from the human world. While there are some overlapping aspects, as, obviously, we ourselves are animals, they are different from us. They are more connected to the fundamental being of the planet. Their motives are pure. I believe animal emotion would be more trustworthy, pure, and intuitive than human intelligence and emotion. All of these aspects put animals on a different level of consciousness than our own. It makes them otherworldly and mysterious. This, to me, makes them wiser than us.
Because of my views on animals and the world they live in I believe the study of animals leads one closer to the understanding of one's own fundamental inner being. I seek to understand myself and my own emotions and motivations through studies of the natural world and the animals within it.
I often use reoccuring patterns in my work, which represent a group or inner consciousness: a connectivity to oneself and the world around you. Some of these patterns are partly inspired by a pattern I see when I experience vertigo or close my eyes and rub them: I see a pattern of swirling triangles.
This recent series of portraits was for a show of my "wolf pack." This wolf pack is not of a literal pack of wolves, but of a group of individuals who look out for each other. Who are spiritually connected. My wolf pack is comprised of both humans and animals: all significant to me. I made the portraits into a pack of cards, with the intention that you'd carry them with you.
When working I work best in an unplanned state: in that I allow myself to not plan out the piece as a whole. I react to what I have previously placed on the paper. Working in this way is freeing for me. It allows my intuition to develop the piece: for better or for worse, making it a product of my own consciousness.
All of my pieces start out as a drawing, usually in graphite, colored pencil, watercolor and guache. However, I'll often turn my drawings into prints produced with the letterpress. I work at the Book Arts Program, so I use our letterpresses to produce my prints. I utilize several different media on the letterpress: carved linoleum or cintra, photopolymer made from hand-drawn negatives or negatives made directly from my drawings on paper, and sometimes pressure print which involves a matrix made from cut paper. I like to develop a print in the same way I draw: allowing the piece to unfold as I work.
The size of my pieces is on the small side: the largest being 2' x 3' framed down to quite small: 2" x 3."