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!

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.)

 This is actually two posts in one. First of all, I have some new art in progress (left). It’s going to take some time to finish with all of the install work and other things going on, so I thought I’d put it up now. The source material is another one of skyvillain’s photos, but Ive significantly changed the color scheme and feel of it. The more time I spend with it, the happier I am.

 This next image (right) is old (1993), but is new again to me – it has a great lost and found story: This picture is one of my favorite sketches that I’ve done ever ever ever ever. It is -dear- to me. But until tonight it had been LOST for years. I mean, it has been at least a decade since Ive seen it in any physical form. Also, somewhere around 1999 or 2000, I lost access to the digital copy of it. Tonight, searching around webarchive.org for something -completely unrelated-, I found my old geocities web page (which I could NOT find on purpose, btw, I’d looked for it) …and this image was linked in. The webarchive hardly grabbed half of the linked images on that page but THIS one, this LOST one, was saved. How often does that happen?

It’s hard to destroy information and always has been – even from ancient times. This is a great example of that.

(Apparently, I should caveat that old geocities link. The content was mostly created when I was still in High School. It’s terrible and kind of scary – go figure. It was an ugly time.)

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/

This is one of my younger brothers (2 of 7, I’m 1 of 7). As discombobulated as it might appear, this 2 minute sketch is instantly recognizeable as him – the expression on his face is what does it. I could have given him long hair and breasts and, with that expression, it still would have been him. And, really, in the end, the uneasy uneven at-odds mishapen contradictory look of the drawing really reflects who he is as well. This is a man who has been at war with himself for a long time (and I love him).

As far as the posting title goes, it’s from graffiti on the inside of the Bethesda Barnes & Noble men’s bathroom door (upstairs). I mostly couldn’t think of another witty subject for this post

I do have some art news, though. There’s a pretty cool event called FLUX going on in Arlington this coming January 27. It’s a Salon-style events where a number of artists (myself included) will be displaying their work. There will also be live bands and other activities going on in and around that area (specifically, there’s something going on at Dr Dremo nearby). Check out Art Outlet’s site for more info.

I’m at the tail end of a long (9 episodes, can yah hear me!) marathon of watching Nip Tuck on DVD. I had only seen one episode before, so it was all completely new. Outstanding series, but I bring it up only to introduce the two sketches I did tonight -one in pen, the other in pencil. (There’s a third in charcoal but Im still playing in the sandbox with her.) Both were of old pictures I found in an art magazine, so the subject matter isn’t original, but the look and feel of the finished works are uniquely mine (I particularly like the girl on the bottom left of the pencil drawing…she’s mine and me).

What I find interesting is how much more I love my sketches than my fully planned, large, art pieces that need quotes around the word “art” when I describe them. In some circles, it’s all about the artist’s vision and what he has to say. But, at least in my case, I find that what I want to “say” is just what I see. Not line for line, shade for shade, angle for angle, but how things are to me. How is that different you might ask? The former (my vision) is a whole lot more intellectual. Art done for that reason tends to use the medium for expressing the brain. Maybe it’s all about how your hear feels at the outset, but it still has to be filtered through that analytical engine upstairs – the part of your brain that is the Ticktockman to Harlan Ellison’s Harlequin of your heart.

But with sketches…I get a chance to put on paper (as maybe you do as well) what my heart and soul see. When you work that quickly and just -don’t care-, your brain takes a nap…or plays interstellar golf with God or …something. Why should such a big, important organ participate in idle doodles?

My brain never had that much interesting to say…and I think that’s true of most people. Really, it’s just a pattern recognition and prediction engine…a big calculator. It might be good at slicing and dicing my rawhumanity into forms more palatable for every day (Walmart) use, but that’s not very interesting is it? Not -unique- and not -me-.

At any rate, Nip Tuck let me zone out with its exquisite prefab’d entertainment, my brain went away, and I got to sketch today. I love it.

Soooo…the come-click-on-me subject line of this post [Edit: I changed the subject. I figured "girl-on-girl action!" showing up in logs at work all day would be a bad thing] isn’t exactly untruthful, just slightly misleading. Last night I hit up MOCA DC’s monthly introduction to the DC Figure Models Guild. It went (as far as comfort level) far better than expected. Everyone was extremely friendly and professional. Apparently there were a number of new models that night and all of them did really well. At some point, two of the girls (I forget their names – I meant to write them down and didn’t…I will next time) got together for a really soft, beautiful pose that was the highlight of the night.

As far as the “Jack’s Art” perspective goes, I found that without a detailed backdrop (it was just curtains and a futon in this case), I can’t draw figures -quickly- to save my life. The longest poses were only about 15 minutes, and most were 5-10 minutes long. I sucked at getting things down on paper that quickly. I’m so used to sketching something over and over and over on the same page until the form I want reveals itself that I couldn’t quite accomodate the do-it-right-the-first-time requirement of short poses. There was that and I also always put some amount of pressure on myself the first time I’m in a room drawing with a new group of artists, which hurts my drawing.
That said, the one picture that I did last night that I think came out really well was of a rather heavy man, but his poses were interesting and he was a lot more interesting to draw than a couple of the others

A girl to my left was doing these posts in -watercolor- on the fly and they were coming out just perfect. I was so jealous, but impressed! What a talent!

I didn’t find most of the men who modeled all that interesting…there’s a fluidity and a languid feel to what I like to draw that the men just didn’t exhibit.

During the course of the evening I worked in various flavors of pencil, charcoal, and pen and found that the best medium really depended on the model and the pose.
I’ll certainly be back again, but first I’m going to be hitting up the Wed. sessions at MOCA where they do long poses!