This is a photo-drawing combination piece I recently made similar to the ones I was making at Artomatic. Instead of rushing it, however, this one took several days and was my first real attempt at making a “finished” piece using this technique.

The portrait is of Amanda Fucking Palmer (of Dresden Dolls fame) and the photo I used was one I took of her in Los Angeles at a secret show she had for 30-50 twitter followers the day before Coachella this year.  She twitters links to “art of the day”about her or the Dolls every day and I was hoping she’s tweet this one out – which she did! (stoked!).

The photo was projected on paper hanging on the wall. I used a variety of pastels, paints, markers, and some charcoal in the drawing.  I like how her hair glints from the gold metal paint, and I used some white paint to cover up more serious “oopses”.  I’m not entirely happy with it – it feels a bit forced to me – but it’s a good start. I’ll definitely be doing more.

You can find out more about the project described in this post by going here:

http://jackwhitsitt.com/installation-and-concept-art/#num1

Repost from artdc.org:

I finished yesterday. For once – despite last minute technicaal glitches – I wasn’t there until the last minute of the last day. Just the last day.

The space is clean, cables hung (although, its still pretty ugly…maybe ill cover it with a box friday at noon), the laptop is DUCT TAPED to the projector for lack of a better solution (it is in the cage bag, so if it comes undone, it wont break), and the projection is mostly in-line with the drawings and frames.

I’m still not sure if it will (and this is important) a) turn on when the show starts or (less important) b) play music. I made a last minute decision to use internet radio instead of mp3’s to avoid broadcast rights issues, but there are some technical hangups with that that I wont get into.

This also means I’m typing this from a $300  tiny Eee PC laptop which will be my only personal home computer until AOM is done.

I do count myself lucky, though. Poor idiolect (rebound design’s bf) lost his HD -the last day of install-. It crashed. He weathered through it gracefully and put an “out of order” sign up. Hopefully the AOM gods will let him come in to fix it off-hours – he did everything right and it’s just pure bad luck that the drive crashed.

It’s been lovely getting to know my fellow AOM-ers (mostly, heh) and I regret being so focused on getting my own shit working that I havent been as chatty or social as Id have liked. Trust me, it’s me not you. I think many people have stepped up this year and I really enjoyed walking around and looking at the art yesterday.

I can’t wait for opening night, meet the artists night, and zombie prom and being more focused on having fun and lss narrow mindedly self-centered about gottagetthisdonegottasgetthisdonegottagetthisdone.

I also adore how my wife’s wall came out. I know Im her husband and all, but Im truly a fan of the pictures  she put up from Vietnam and Cambodia. She is two core walls over from my space, so please check her stuff out.
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Finally, this year I’ve felt like Ive really been able to come into this and use past artomatic and art outlet experience, take a broad vision, execute it, deal with and change my plan as it starts to flesh out into reality, and still come out of it with a piece that im happy with, still has roots in the original vision, and remains a satisfactory  progression of the rest of my art this past year.

I want to make special thanks to: Lexi, Sherill, Sean, Stephanie, Paivi, Barry, Caitlin, Justin, and Tom – all of whom made specific, repeated, concrete contributions to my art, my sanity, and my ability to get it done this year.

(edit: added lexi…she’s been super helpful. i knew i forgot someone important.)

Pics:

Where have I been?!!? Such old news here on this site! Well, I’ve been getting ready for Artomatic – the semi-somewhat-annual DC universalist, almost immersive art festival. Artomatic opens April 13 and runs through May 20 at 2121 Crystal Drive in Arlington, VA just off of the Crystal City Metro Redline stop. The event is taking over two floors of an office building undergoing rennovations and will feature over 400 artists.

 What’s my involvement?

I have a space on the 6th floor, Section A, Room 44 (Room 6a44). I will be featuring three different groups of art on my wall: Individual framed traditional work (my portraits), a collection of photo prints of every drawing Ive done in the past 15 years arranged in chronological order (like a visual diary or self portrait!), and I will also have a section of digital photo frames, prints, and a canvas print of my data visualization and Second Life work.

HOWEVER! The coolest thing is that I will also, through Dorkbot DC’s courtesy, be projecting my Second Life 3D world SintixErr Gallery for DC Artists into the digital arts room! Not only that, but since they have WiFI, I’ve been working with Claudia Vess (in charge of the digital room) to broadcast various live (music, poetry reading, etc.) events into the Second Life gallery as an extension of Artomatic into the virtual world! That’s pretty cool

This is all very last minute. After having heard of Artomatic in the background for ages (I wasn’t around for the last one), it really didn’t make my radar for a long time. Everyone else, though, was really excited and the enthusiasm spread eventually! I ultimately registered and got a space, thanks to Angela Kleis who volunteered to grab me an area on my assigned day while I was out of town seeing the Cure. (Yes, Paivi and I went to see them play – I was the first one past the gate at Ultra and was front and center the whole time – saw Porl play for the first time! – at the Ultra dance music festival in Miami..I might write a post about that later). 

So far, Ive been at the building every night this week, and a few last week, volunteering or setting up my space. It’s a deep red with off-white molding (you know, opulant victorian). It’s a very powerful color and is the only one that’s NOT in any of my framed work. Im in the process of framing the wall itself with black curtains, covering the ugly blue carpet with gold material, getting pillows, etc, etc, etc. It should be gorgeous – or at least tacky (Im often a bit over the top). My only gripe is that Ive absolutely destroyed my last good pair of pants (long story) – Im a really messy painter.

All of the set-up, though, has also given me the opportunity to spend some time with and get to know better a number of people I like and don’t normally get to see often (or just met) – Angela, Mr ArtDC himself (Jesse), Sean, Michael, Rebecca (although she still hasnt met me for coffee yet, pshaw!). 

 Angela also interviewed me a few weeks back about my Second Life work and you can find the link HERE.

During all this, we’ve also introduced two new artists to the SintixErr Gallery in Second Life and worked out the arrangement with Small World galleries (affiliated with a real life NYC gallery). I sent over the works of a number of the artists at the SintixErr and the Small World people are doing an outstanding job with them – 5 of the artists I sent over have sold work there  – and they’re not even open yet! Amazing, Im thrilled!

 Luckily for me, Artomatic had provided a good break from Second Life, but Ill be back in-world extensively later this week prepping the area for the next month’s artomatic stuff!

…and what amazing things a little bit of shine does for art. Yesterday morning, I braved the not as cold as I expected weather to head over to framer’s workroom to get another couple of pieces framed for upcoming shows and entries. The two pieces – Almost Like Stars and Smear Painted Wax Faces (renamed in my head from Pink Hat Cowboy) – look amazingly better framed. There’s a “finished” look behind glass that paper works just don’t have otherwise. Both were framed with the same, simple dark wooden frame (a departure from Gun Appeal, for which I used an incredibly ornate frame to highlight the intended feel of the piece). The matting for both of them (ALS’ is a beige, flesh color and SPWF has a speckled off-white) really brings out the colors I wanted them to.

SPWF, in particular, benefitted from the surrounding color. His green eyes really pop out more than they did before. There are so many other colors all over that piece that they apparently really needed a firm, bright anchor around the piece to enhance the contrast. I can see his eye color from here, ten feet away. I’m not sure if I would’ve been able to otherwise. It’s a great example of what to look for in a matte…not just a color that looks good, but one that brings out the features you want to highlight in particular.

ALS, on the other hand, already has a lot of contrasting solid sections of color. Those didn’t need enhancement. What I was looking for, instead, was a softer color to help group in the contrasts and tie them together. The beige is almost (to my eye) an average of the rest of the colors in the picture. I was originally thinking of just using a neutral white, but one of my favorite features of the piece is the unfinished white area in the bottom right section of the drawing. It’s part of the whole experience and a white matte just wouldn’t have accented that at all. Going with something darker helps to reign in that big expanse of nothing and keep it part of the whole picture.

I had forgotten how big Almost Like Stars (left) is (30″ high with frame) and Smear Painted Wax Faced (right) ended up being smalled than expected (21″ high with frame).

In the next several months, it looks like we (speaking with an artoutlet.org hat on) are going to be having at least two more shows that we’ll be looking for artists to participate in. One will be a self-portrait focused event and the other will revolve around more “active” art: anything that moves, shines, has electrons flowing through it, involves live performance, thinks, connects to the internet, or is in any way interactive.

The self-portrait show I expect to be juried and I’m not sure about the other event – details are at their early stages. I do believe, though, that we’re going to have a different taste and style from other shows. So, if you’re in the area of greater Washington, DC (or want to show your artistry here) and happen across this post, feel free to contact me  or info@artoutlet.org (until the artoutlet page has something official up) – even if you haven’t considered showing before. I’m very much interested in finding interesting, moving, fascinating art – regardless of what the art world in general is doing or has done. If it works, it works.

(Bear in mind this is still tenative and I’ll put out a more formal call here when things are firmed up – but I’d still like to hear from you in the mean time. These are community events, first and foremost, so your questions and comments are absolutely considered and welcomed.)

My my my…what a week. I’m sitting at the Starbucks near the Danville auto body shop waiting to move furniture and I’m *completely* falling-down-the-stairs exhausted even before we start. What did I get myself into? Figuring out how to hang 24 pictures while holding down an actual job is way more complicated than you would think, on the face of it. No matter, everything is coming along nicely.

My final 24 pictures for the Flux art event in Arlington were selected this weeked, Ive begun writing stories for them, and have also made a lot of progress “finishing” some older work. That’s really what the title of this post is about: I’ve been working, today, on a number of drawings that I thought were done 6,7, and more years ago. A couple of them were started in Finland before I was married. It feels odd to revist those – they’ve been such a huge part of my headspace family. Imagine if your sister, who had always been 200lbs with brown eyes, suddenly came home at 110 with blue? Maybe not that quite intense, but the feeling is still similar for me.

Additionally, picking the 24 has felt like Im curating my own show. There is so much I would -like- to put up, but only some of it fits thematically together. To make it worse, a lot of what I cant put up is really my better, more mature work. Since Im looking for vignettes and portraits, fully articulated stories (paintings) just won’t do. (You can find the selection in my Flickr pictures, but there’s not need to include it here in this post).

The artdc monthly dinner gathering was also this weekend. It was nice to run into Michael (Arty4ever) again, and poor brad got stuck next to me yet another night

It’s still all about the art, though , so Im going to close this out before I ramble on too much longer.

Oh! Wait! I know what I wanted to say:

The Pink Hat Man / Cowboy is turning out to be one of my all time favorites. Ive said that before, but not why: Expressiveness through excessive color. There are no fewer than 21 distinct colors in that pictur. It’s amazing how putting a stray stroke of a color that has nothing at all to do with the surrounding colors in that area of the picture adds to the balance of the piece over all! It’s a simple face…very little body…only the hint of a touch of background..and yet it tells a story about a specific life. It has a story – one that no one else does. Thats what Im going for in my art.

Just finished this last piece (although I might change the scarf color). It reminds me of something I wrote a long time ago…and of a friend naked in an Indian head dress in my brothers room being mollested by Saint Kimberly Insane (long story).

The snippet of writing is:

“Oh, but NO! Can’t you SEE? You’ve HAD your day and your little-boy-play..and again..NO!…the show is QUITE over, and all the actors can finally go home — with their smear painted wax faces — to their dirty little beds and overworn shoes. Because, after the play, it ends up all the same…and when the makeup sweats off, and all the colours are all gone, you’re left with just me…”

ARTISTIC VISION

People are interesting. For every life, there is a fascinating story to be heard.

Some stories are larger than life, grandsiose, beautiful, heart wrenching, or just outright fascinating epic works. These lives are the ones that get the most attention – they’re easy to show, easy to present, are somewhat obviously interesting, and are glorious in their own right.

 The other lives, though, are smaller, might not have any striking affect on the world around them, or just don’t plainly fit into what we think of as a well defined story. That does not make them, though, any less interesting or varied or less worth hearing about…they simply need to be given the right space.

 And in the end, no matter what our story is, whether we’re beaten or torn, pristing or dirty, large or small, well sketched or just scrawled, we (all of them) ultimately share the same fate and are part of the largest, simplest story of all: To be lit, to burn our time, and then to finally fade out.

The goal of my Vignettes in Flux installation on January 27th in Arlington is to show you these stories together: To bring into paralell, through 24 portrait sketches and small works, done over 15 years,  a variety of disconnected  lives and stories and the single fate that we all share. You will be able to look in through dusty windows and see short glimpses of the lives of these lonely pieces of art. By selecting the appropriate tracks on 2 provided CD players, you will be able to hear the artist tell the story behind the faces you see. How they came to be, Who they are, and why they exist. Some stories will be about the art, some the subjects, and sometimes you will hear both – there often isn’t any different in the artist’s mind.

Although they will begin the evening lit, these vignettes will all eventually fade into the darkness as the night progresses, their stories over.

INSTALLATION TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION

I’m going to be using one of the garage doors at the Danville Body Shop to present these 24 pieces of art as vignettes. While most would not stand on their own, I think they are more together than they would be apart.
There will be one picture per garage door window. These pictures will be hung inside the building facing out to the parking lot so you have to look in to see them. Each one will be individually lit (using glow sticks) so you will be able to see 24 glowing windows from the outside. Each glowstick will be opened randomly throughout the day before the show so that, as the event progresses, the lights in each window will slowly start to fade one by one…dimming until they’re effectively out altogether. At the end, they should all be dark or close to it.
The pictures themselves will all be hung a small distance from the window (1 foot back?) with black wire so they appear to be floating in the air behind the windows in the light. I believe they will all be matted. The area behind the pictures will be backdropped with something black and not very reflective to give some illusion of empty space behind the art.

Id also like to provide 2 cheap ($10/$15) portable cd players mounted in front of the display. Both will have the same CD in them. A viewer will be able to select a track # based on the windows of the portrait they want to hear about…and will be presented with quick stories about the art like the ones you all heard the other night.

I like the idea of giving these sort of pieces a viewing…there normally isn’t a place for them, but I think together in this context it will come across very well….

The following link has two images of a full-scale cardboard/plexiglass mockup I did of 2 windows:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sintixerr/sets/72157594482149189/