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“Any Day: Artists on Death” | August Exhibit at Gage Academy

August 7, 2014 by Iskra 2 Comments

Gage Academy hosts an unusual exhibit this month guest-curated by talented artist Elana Winsberg:

“Any Day is dedicated to the sensitive exploration by artists who are compelled to make work illuminating the many facets of death, life before death and life after death.” The exhibit runs through September 19th, and the opening is Thursday August 14, from 6-8 PM.

Gage Academy of Art

1501 10th Avenue E.
Seattle, WA 98102
(206) 323-4243

When I was asked to be part of the exhibit I initially told Elana I had nothing to offer on the subject. Ha. This must be denial at a pretty strong level, since I have done several bodies of work on the theme, both from a personal and political perspective. With a little bit of coaxing I submitted a piece from “What Does Heaven Look Like” and two others of a more personal nature from “Drawings in Dust.” This is a great opportunity to show among artists I admire greatly. Participants include Mitch Albala, Josie Furchgott Sourdiffe, Sam Hamrick, Emma Jane Levitt, Kathy Liao, Greg Lundgren, Memuco, Pamela Durga Robinson, Kurt Vance, Margaret Swanson Vance and Elana Winsberg. Greg Lundgren will present a lecture on ritual, legacy, memorial and the role of the contemporary artist Thursday, September 18 at 7:00PM. Greg is an innovator in the field of contemporary memorials and monuments and this will be a lecture not to be missed.

You will have to attend the show to see my three drawings, (suspense….) but here are some additional ones from the series I did on mourning and loss, using the vehicle of the decoy as a resonant object.

Cygnet_charcoal_dust_pigment_drawing
Cygnet, charcoal dust and powdered pigment, 13″ x 21″

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Drawing, Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past Tagged With: Any Day Artists on Death, cygnet drawing, decoy, Drawings on death, Gage Academy exhibits, iskra upcoming shows, metaphor in art

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Media studies. Addition and subtraction. Media studies. Addition and subtraction.
Somehow, between checking the news and the usual d Somehow, between checking the news and the usual distractions I managed to complete a drawing. Going back to the beginning: drawings in dust. 9.5 x 12” Charcoal powder, compressed charcoal, charcoal pencil on Moleskine. I feel peaceful for the first time in weeks.
The train tracks that go along Golden Gardens and The train tracks that go along Golden Gardens and pause briefly at the locks create a rupture in the city landscape. When the trains go by, the roar and squeal is like a thousand wild animals let out of their cage, and the ducks in the pond at the edge of the park shudder and dive under the water. A little farther north at Carkeek there is someone every year who steps in front of the train and whoever witnesses that is never the same. 

Sometimes the cargo containers are filled with coal, uncovered, and I have been part of demonstrations, which included polar bears and Orcas, objecting to that. Now, as we are being asked to casually accept nuclear reactors on every block as the price of having artificial intelligence, coal and its simple visible dust might look a little more friendly. The train brings with it economics and politics and life and death and class and all the people on the beach are just trying to have a moment in the sun. And the boaters at the marina, if they have finished polishing and descaling and mending the sails are lying back with a guitar and getting lost in the mountains. If you are willing to live right next to the train tracks, you can pay a much lower price for your home, but your dreams will change. I have lived next to the train tracks when I was very, very small and every night I woke up screaming and ran across the floor in the beams of the streetlight looking for safety. I have woken up in a train yard on a bed of cardboard and gotten on the train in the dark. Only when you do that, do you know just how hard metal is.

I’ve been drawing recently from life and this study was done from a photograph. It drove me crazy trying to see details that I couldn’t really see and feel them with the pencil. I’ve abandoned the drawing for now, but I learned a great deal about perseverance and obliteration and re-perseverance. Also how machines pretend that they are perfectly symmetrical and are not. And when you don’t draw them with perfection, they look just plain wrong so you have to make them more perfect than they are, at least when they are in perspective.
Tonight’s abandoned bird. The next one will be bet Tonight’s abandoned bird. The next one will be better. I’ve never tried to draw a Robin before. I’ve been obsessed with them since David Lynch sent them over to my childhood house, where they spent day and night getting drunk on the holly berries outside the kitchen window. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about google Laura Dern, Blue Velvet. And the Robin. It’s a hymnal to the good and the normal, done absolutely abnormally. I am learning all kinds of amazing things about how Robins build their nests. They start with mud. I did not know this. And in a drought, they will drag straw into a birdbath to get it wet and then drag the straw over a wormhole. Robins build their nests in the most unlikely places: drain spouts, highway overpasses, really bad motel parking lots. It’s kind of like how people find third place in community, even in the bleakest places. A franchise McDonald’s where people become regulars and always get the fries and just the fries because that’s all they can afford is a similar statement of naive valor: people talking to strangers and becoming known and taking shelter where they can. And if they leave a shredded napkin out there by their car, it will end up woven in with the straw and the leaves and the cigarette butts perched up there in the nest on the backside of the billboard.
Waking up. Waking up.
What if there were no mistakes? What if there were What if there were no mistakes?
What if there were just infinite possibilities?. . .

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