The Seven Below Arts Initiative outside of Burlington, Vermont has been the perfect grounds for sowing the seeds of this project. It wasn't until I arrived that I realized how inappropriate the studios were for painting. Beautiful hand-planed wooden floors and one hundred year old timber framed and exposed wooden walls should not fall victim to paint spills. (It was also a little too dark in the room to see what colors I was mixing.)
After a failed experiment, which "self-destructed" before it could be documented, in a new approach to make paintings, I realized that this was the perfect opportunity to try some radical things that moved away from painting.
The last round of applications (January of this year) got me thinking about creating my own period rooms instead of simply painting rooms I have visited. What a wonderful opportunity to use the enormous roll of Lenox100 paper I bought while still making large charcoal drawings in school! So glad I've been lugging it around with me everywhere...
Anyway, here are the results:
This is the full chair. Jimi disagreed with me; he thought it was a success. What a positive guy!
This ain't no trick photography either. This thing is wonky.
This is the chair, from my eye level. Yes, I'm leering:
And some blurry detail shots:
What Craft!
What did I learn from doing this?
Sometimes, I need a break from painting. I really enjoyed working with my hands in this different way. It reminded me a lot of Foundation year at school in terms of the materials. It was also great to make something in such a repetitive way. There was the idea and the execution. Two steps (sort of). It seemed a lot more "pure" than any of the paintings I made in Providence this summer. I was trying to intellectualize too much with the paint. While I don't think that this chair is a total success, it feels fresh and open.
I wonder how I would install a room full of furniture made similarly and also how the paper furniture would interact with my paintings. I think the chair relates best to the paintings I have made of singular objects, such as the door painted on a door or the painting of the mirror with the ornate frame (which now hangs in New Hyde Park, Long Island in the reception area of a New York Life Insurance Company Office).
I don't know how interested I am in inventing new rooms and furniture as I felt like I used to be. The shitty paper copy of the Windsor chair in my studio fits more in the context of adoration and desire. The premise, I think, is that I appreciated the Windsor chair so much that I couldn't help but make a copy of it for myself. I couldn't afford to buy one and I don't have the skills to make an actual copy, so this is the best I could do. I t is also a tribute to the chair. It also obviously talks about the simulation of period rooms and the artisan's role in making them, i.e. remaking an object from a photograph of the original room that no longer exists and placing it amongst original objects from the room.
What else did I take away from this experience? I did get this wonderful scar from my glue gun- perfect donut shape. Image to come soon...
2 comments:
wonky? maybe.
failed experiment? hardly.
what feels unsuccessful was obviously a learning experience and the outcome has what i think are some pretty intriguing angles - particularly the issue of our artistic attempts at recreation of what we love, the often-inherent impossibility of perfect imitation, and the resulting beauty that arises out of imperfection.
no?
i love the shape that the chair took, and maybe this is the craftsman in me , but it shows off (and proudly i would say) your hand in the whole matter, and isn't that what trying to make YOUR own historical rooms are kind of about? i can see so much of how you view the art historical restoration thing right there in your windsor, and i believe that is the point in all of this?
also that second picture IS SO TOTALLY RAD! it looks like the chair is streaming from (spewing from?) jimi's mouth like from the wall down to the chiars seat, and that shape that object thru space is so great. maybe cheezy questions but yes, what is a chair, what does a chair do when in space to the space and how can these ideas be pushed above and beyond...
i hear you on mixing it up and needing to take a break from just doing one thing all the time.
this i believe to be a successful and wonderful start to what i hope will continue. make!
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