It's back to reality time for me.  I love summer because it gives me an opportunity to be extra productive in my studio.  I am a full-time artist but I'm also a full-time art educator.  "Back to Reality" means that school is starting and I will have less time to be in my studio.  The college course that I teach at Elmira College starts in exactly two hours and my public school job starts up again tomorrow.  I do however, manage to fit studio time in every week.  I have learned over the years that I have to make it a priority.  I also keep my sketchbook handy so that when an idea crops up, I can record the idea and address it when I have time.  Artist as time manager has made my studio practice successful.  I work hard to keep myself on track.

Last week after my gallery opening for Sticks and Stones and Bits of Bones, I relaxed with a friend who is also an artist and is a retired art teacher.  We compared notes about how to keep working when there are distractions and responsibilities that conflict with studio time.  I shared that I make myself go into my studio and sit several times a week for a minimum of a half hour.  I do this regardless of having something to work on or not.  Once in a while I just sit there, do my time, and then go on about the rest of my life.  In those cases it just gives me 30 minutes to reflect on possibilities for future work.  Most of the time I find myself immediately pulled into a work, either in making the initial scans, building a model for a future scan, or correcting existing scans.  There is usually something in progress that can be worked on and the half hour usually grows into several hours. I often get lost in the time.  The main thing is that I put myself in the studio.  Whether of not I'm productive depends, but the first step is always showing up. 

One of my favorite painters is Chuck Close and I think he sums it up best.  "The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration.  Inspiration is for amateurs;  the rest of us just show up and get to work.  If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work.  All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.  Things occur to you.  If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens.  But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction.  Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive.  You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case."   - Chuck Close 

Chuck is right.  Inspiration or not, I will keeping working.  What do you do to stay on track?
 

My solo exhibition, Sticks and Stones and Bits of Bone is currently running at the Loomis Gallery in Allen Hall at Mansfield University.  The formal reception for the show is this Thursday, August 30, 2012, from 5:00 - 7:00 pm.  I will be giving a gallery talk that evening.  I'm looking forward to that.  Being in a room, surrounded by your work is somewhat like being surrounded by your own children.  Each piece has come through you, but it now lives it's own life. I look forward to seeing people interacting with each piece and finding what each piece means to them.  

The piece on the left is Pikermi © 2012 and it is one of the last pieces that I completed for this show.  A Pikermi (pronounced “pee-KER-mee”) is a running term, describing a race with a distance of 13.1 miles, also known as a half marathon.   The term Pikermi, comes from the historic olympic marathon.  The town of Pikermi was the halfway point from Athens, Greece during the original 26.2 mile run.  There is a movement in running communities to give the "half marathon" it's own name because the accomplishment of running a race of 13.1 miles should not be diminished by describing it as "only half" of something else.  As a runner I like this idea and Pikermi, as a title reflects that.  This image is 14" x 20" and is an archival aluminum print.  It's in an edition of 10 prints, each available at $380. They are float mounted and ready to hang.

I recently ran the Catherine Valley Half Marathon.  This piece was created about two weeks prior to the race.  Whether you are a runner or not, I can imagine that you might understand how daunting a distance 13.1 miles is.  Particularly if you consider running it.  I trained for my race for about 20 weeks.  Prior to that, the longest distance I had ever completed was a 10K race of 6.25 miles.  A half, is over double that distance and to me it was extremely daunting.  This piece, for me, is representative of those feelings.  There are 13.1 sticks in the bundle which are neatly tied together to form a single unit.  Notice however that all the sticks are not the same because all miles are not equal.  Some miles run uphill on loosely packed trails while others are downhill or flat in terrains that are solid and groomed.  Miles at the beginning of race can be run with relative ease while those at the end are fraught with pain and struggle.  I suppose those 13.1 sticks could represent any obstacle in life as much of life is like this.  We "mark time" with sticks or slashes as imagery.  The stopwatch in this image hangs, suspended, on the starting point.  Every hand is pointed at zero.  It represents a beginning.  We might be in a race with other people but we always are really running against our own clocks.  Again, one could make up many stories about what this work represents about life.  Running is rich in its metaphors and analogies.  For me, this piece is about running and the challenges presented by the half marathon but it is also about the challenges we meet and explore in life.  A very good friend of mine, recently reminded me of the importance of exploring the challenges that confront us as humans.  Both the challenges we choose for ourselves, and perhaps even more importantly, the ones that have been chosen for us.  What does this image mean for you?

In two days I will be working on the big installation of my solo show at Mansfield University:  Sticks and Stones and Bits of Bone.  There are so many details.  I have packed the majority of the work but I am awaiting the last piece via an overnight shipment from California.  I have my metal prints produced there and it is always nerve wracking awaiting their arrival.  The one I am awaiting was damaged in the shipment that came on Monday.  I'm hoping the new one is perfect.  Loading the car for the trip will be my project tomorrow.  It's like a giant puzzle to fit an entire show of 25 pieces into my small SUV.  I will also be assembling the ever important kit of small tools and supplies that I anticipate needing to do the installation.  I picked up the vinyl wall lettering today.  The wall tags are ready to go and hopefully I haven't forgotten anything important.

The piece on the left, From Once Broken © 2011, is in this show.  This is one of my favorite pieces, perhaps because to me it is a piece that represents hope.  We've all been "broken" from time to time in our journey through this world.   However, as this image suggests, if we start anew from our brokenness, we can grow our way back to a fresh start.  

The work in Sticks and Stones and Bits of Bone is work that examines the human experience.  I have taken time to think about our common experiences in this life and have represented them through still life imagery.  The show runs from August 20th - September 22nd and is in the Loomis Gallery at Mansfield University.  It is quite an honor to have a show there as for me it will be a true homecoming to my alma mater.  The opening is on August 30th from 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM.  I'll be doing a gallery talk at 5:30.   I hope you can come and enjoy what promises to be an interesting evening.

Sticks and Stones and Bits of Bone

August 20th through September 22nd
Mansfield University:  Loomis Gallery, Allen Hall
Opening Reception:  August 30th 5:00-7:00 PM
Gallery Talk 5:30 PM

Mansfield University Art Department

135 Stadium Drive 

119 Allen Hall

Mansfield, PA 16933

As I said last week, there has been a flurry of activity in my studio.  I have been getting ready for a major solo show at Mansfield University.  Above is all of the information and three of the new images from the Common Valor Series, for the show.  I am excited to have this opportunity and I am feeling positive about the way the body of work has come together.  This show brings together 25 pieces of recent and brand new work.  In conjunction with the show, Exhibit A Contemporary Art (Market Street, Corning) is putting together a "Van-Delinder Art Excursion" to travel to the opening of the show.  Tickets for this fun event are $40 and include some amenities.  You can purchase tickets with a credit card by calling 607-259-1008.  I will be riding the bus back to Corning with you after the opening. I'm sure this will be a fun time for everyone!  Please come out and help me celebrate.

My apologies for not posting last week.  My hometown, Elmira, NY, was struck by an F1 tornado last Thursday afternoon.  This is most certainly not a common event for our area.  The damage was widespread around the city.  Many trees were literally twisted off or uprooted from the ground.  I rode out the tornado in my basement studio, beneath one of my studio tables.  I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a bit terrified for about five minutes.  Fortunately and amazingly there was no loss of life, although 16 homes are no longer fit for habitation.  I had no power, Internet or electronic devices for a period of several days, thus no blog post.  Unfortunately this also meant that I couldn't work in my studio once I had exhausted the charge in my two laptops.  Now, I'm a little behind in preparing for my next show.  Because I am behind, my studio is a whirl of it's own "creative tornatic activity".  I have several pieces to finish.  Needless to say it will be a nose to the grindstone kind of week for me.  The piece at the left is one I finished today.  It's title is In Rapunzel's Tower © 2012.  It is another work in my Sticks, Stones and Bits of Bone Series.  I really enjoy the contrast of texture in this work as well as the very balanced composition.  Some pieces feel very satisfying when completed.  This piece gives me that contentment.  What does this piece evoke for you?

Yesterday was a fun filled day checking out the local arts scene.  I began my day at the annual Hammondsport Art Show.  The Keuka Lake Art Association holds its Annual Art Show every July in the village square in beautiful Hammondsport, New York in the Finger Lakes region of New York state. There were plenty of artists there and lots to look at.  My second stop was at Beulahland for 61 Hours of Art.  It's the best backyard art party ever in the town of Thurston, NY.  Hosted by Jennifer Fais (in honor of her 61st birthday), Amelia Harnas and Noel Sylvester, one could participate in making art.  I personally helped to construct a hopefully world record breaking God's Eye and used a pink bee bee gun to shoot up a bunch of aluminum cans which became part of a kinetic sound sculpture.  Fun stuff and amazingly satisfying.  Last stop was Elmira's Annual Street Painting Festival sponsored by Elmira Downtown Development.  Artists took to the streets to create some amazing chalk art.  There was live music and everyone seemed to be having a great time there.  So what does any of that have to do with my frustrated sculpture thought?  Well.................. All of that art viewing and activity made me anxious to get to my studio.  I have quite a few shows coming up and I need to get into "crank out some art" mode.  

I practice an art form known as Scanography.  This of course is not exactly a common term and it generally conjures up thoughts of medical imaging, not fine art processes.  So what exactly is Scanography?.  The short answer is Scanner Photography.  The long answer is what follows here.

Scanography or Scanner Photography is the process of capturing images using a flatbed scanner with a CCD (charge-coupled device) array capturing device.  Although technically considered to be a subgroup of traditional photography, Scanography differs greatly in process and appearance.  There are essentially two types of scanners commonly found on the market:  document scanners and photographic scanners.  For Scanography, a photographic "flatbed" scanner is required.  Fine art Scanography differs greatly from traditional document scanning.  The subject (which can be 2D or 3D) is laid upon the glass platen and an image is made from that item or items.   I scan objects (usually altered natural objects) to create my works.  In this approach, the lid remains open, although light can be blocked using cloth or simply by darkening a room.  Scanography also differs from standard photography, due to the nature of the scanner's operation.  Instead of a single lens, the entire mechanism (mirrors, lens, filter and CCD array) make up the scan head. The process records extremely fine detail with a rather shallow depth of field and produces a high, optical resolution, digital file (or "digital negative") for printmaking.

Fine art Scanography requires a much broader skill-set than just basic scanner operation.  To create works of art one must often use devices to secure subjects into place.  I use a variety of these devices including but not limited to scientific clip stands, weights, tape, suspended string, wire.....I think you get the idea.  Composition is tricky because you have to imagine that you are actually laying beneath the glass platen looking up at your subject.  It requires a certain ability to imagine the subject from that angle and create the vision by building it from front to back in layers.  It takes a great deal of patience and ingenuity at times.  Subjects are limited by the size of the scanner platen and the actual cumulative weight of the objects.  Knowledge of image resolution is an absolute must in order to produce pin sharp images that are able to be reproduced at the desired size.  It is also necessary to be able to use image editing software with precision.  I use Adobe Photoshop as a digital darkroom to edit and manipulate my images.  Sometimes my images are formed from a single scan but often the images reflect a composite of several scans.  This is particularly true when I juxtapose items that differ greatly in scale.

The art of Scanography is relatively new.  Some early artists in the field worked with photocopiers in the late 60s to capture and print in a single step, resulting in the field of Xerox art which is considered to have proceeded Scanography.   Early artists include Harold Feinstein, Joseph Scheer, Darryl Curran, Ruth Adams, Stephen Althouse, Christa Kreeger Bowden,  Valerie
Mendoza, J. Seeley, Rhona Shand and Maggie Taylor. 

  

As an artist, many people often tell me that they would like to start buying art and/or start an art collection.  However in the course of the conversation, these same people often confide that they feel too intimidated in a gallery situation to ask questions about buying art. Often when pressed, these otherwise very educated people, express concerns that they don't know enough about art to buy art.  The transformation from art appreciator into the realm of art collector may in fact seem quite scary, but it can be a very exciting and satisfying path.  I have a small, eclectic collection of art by a variety of artists that I have acquired over the past 30 years.  I bought my first piece in college.  My most recent acquisition was made as a supporter of an artist's Kickstarter project. I currently own 36 works by 27 artists.  Each one was acquired slowly and thoughtfully.  This small collection includes paintings, drawings, hand-made paper, photography, sculpture, glass art, ceramics and one of a kind jewelry pieces.  Each piece speaks to me.  Most pieces are small and were very affordable.  Most importantly, each piece has particular meaning to me. Some were purchased while traveling but most were acquired in my own diverse, regional art community.  I acquired them because I loved them and being surrounded by those works brings a certain type of happiness into my life. 

An art collection begins with a single purchase and will grow at its own pace.  Visiting small galleries in your own community can be a great place to begin.  These galleries periodically host art "openings" where you can view the latest exhibitions, meet the artist, hear a short presentation about the work and mingle with other guests over a glass of wine and hors d'oeuvres.  These free social events give those new to art appreciation and art buying a way to learn about works without feeling intimidated.  You will quickly find that one doesn't have to have vast riches to afford art that moves you.  Choose pieces by artists that interest you and pieces that you will enjoy living with.  If you want to know more about the artist of a work you are interested in, ask the gallery owner questions about the artist.  Sometimes the gallery owner can arrange for you to see other works by the same artist or can arrange a studio tour for you.  Many artists, including this one, are happy to answer any questions you have about their work and welcome your curiosity.  If price is what intimidates you, most galleries will also arrange a payment plan so you can make your purchase over time. 

I encourage all of you to consider making that leap from art appreciator to art collector.  In doing so you will open the door to surrounding yourself with objects that hold unique and particular meaning to you.  You will create personality in your living space.  And, by doing so you will also support the arts in a meaningful and purposeful way.