Living Glass

Driving back from Taos to Rio Rancho I caught out of the corner of my eye what I thought was a table full of 'slag glass' for sale at this really cool art gallery. I got Mark to turn around and go back and lo and behold, it is! I took a ton of close ups of the glass and in looking at it here at home, it almost seems to be alive. As to whether or not this is slag glass, I have my doubts. I Googled slag glass and it described something very different from this. All I know is that this is probably the discards from the bottom of the glass vat from the glass manufacturer's (they are really big chunks of glass).

Eye candy for me!

Anyway, the name of the little area that this is in is called Rincon. The name of the gallery is called Rift. Stop by and see them sometime and make sure you have some spending money. They have really beautiful things.

And yes, I did buy some glass...

Living Glass

Poe Poe

An image done during my Intaglio II class. We had to do a plate that was 18" X 22"; the whole point to the assignment was to work an image size that is beyond what you're used to. Etching a plate of this size for the first time is intimidating...

But first, you start with a sketch. For some reason, this is the image that came out of my imagination. Poe poe is Hawaiian for (and I'm sure that things get lost in the translation here) round, shpere, globe, to gather together, circular, compact. Scientists (vulcanologists) use the term as a way of describing certain lava flows. Either way, the image reference does seem a bit primordal to me...

The image is etched, aquatint, softground and drypoint and chine colle was done in the printing process (yeah, I know, Greek to most everyone). Inking up a plate this size with several colors took about an hour and a half. I only printed one in color like this. Perhpas someday I'll go back and strike more prints.

The Year of the Golden Pig

Yes, yes, I know that's not a Golden Pig! But, it is glowing!

Today marks the beginning of Chinese New Year. It always begins on the second new moon after the winter solstice. The celebration or preparation for it begins on the first full moon after the winter's solstice. In China, people take 21 days off from work to travel the long distances to reach their families as it is important that they celebrate the coming of the new year together.

Why is this year called the Golden Pig? Well, there are 12 zodiac signs (of animals). With each zodiac sign, there are four traits; wood, water, metal, fire. Therefore, the complete cycle of the zodiacs takes 48 years. The pig is the last of the zodiacs and fire is the last of the traits. This year marks the end of that 48 year cycle. Oh, and since it is fire, that is why it is golden. Next year, the cycle will begin anew.

Anyway, I researched all of this as I was wondering about the signs and how it all worked. It's really quite interesting; especially all of the traditions that go with the days leading up to the new year.

The other image is of green tea; I paired it with the joss paper which is used in celebration of ancestors (the paper is burned and released in the air). I wanted to convey representations of what lies ahead and what has gone before us.

I like celebrating this new year's better than ours; ours is too soon after Christmas and our traditions involve debauchary of all sorts. The Chinese traditions are steeped in spirituality and philosophy.

Here's to a new beginning! Kung hee fa choy (I'm certain that is not the correct spelling since I spelled it phoenetically)!

Contemplative Girl...

I love this image yet I know very little about it. It is a glass negative I purchased from an epherma collector (Laura's up in El Dorado). She had aquired a large number of glass negatives. All I know is that they are from a photographer based in Albuquerque during what might be early 20th century. I imagine that most of the negatives were considered to be 'rejects' by the photographer. As you look through the pile of images (Robbie and I sat on the floor sorting through it all for several hours), you can't help but wonder who these people are, what happened to them and the story behind the photograph.

Anyway, Robbie and I did a pretty good job of reducing her inventory that day.

My fantasy is to curate a show on these images. I hope to include as many people as I can that bought these negatives from her. It would be fascinating to see what each artist has done with these images...

Resolutions

The topics we pick for each month's ATC (Artist Trading Card) theme is random. Feburary's theme was, "Resolutions". Funny that should be the one for the start of the year (hey, it's Chinese New Year this month, so that makes it even more relevant). I picked 3 resolutions and did about seven cards with each resolution written on it. The one that I am going to focus on the most is, "Use what I have". That's what this card is about: I had some paper I made about 6 years ago sitting around. I have a slew of hand carved stamps. I have colored wax for encaustic art, copper wire for my jewelry making projects. I need to focus on what I have, huh? And just use it. It's not going to be easy to stop myself from buying things I think I need. The lesson here is so universal too, in a much broader sense: FOCUS ON WHAT YOU HAVE (and stop longing for what you don't). I'll have to keep renewing this one each year!

But, is it ART?

Ahhh...the age-old question of, "what is art?". It is not possible for two people or more to answer that question without getting into some kind of debate.

This is the question that my first art professor, Duane Preble at the University of Hawaii started out his Art 101 lecture with. There were 300 students in his lecture hall, so a short discussion of this took easily a half an hour. I can only conclude that there is no definitive answer to that question. He published a textbook for his class (Introduction to Art) which was aptly titled, "Man Creates Art Creates Man". Pretty cool title, don't you think?

Any guesses on what this image might be? Take some good guesses before you read on to see what it is.

Give up? If I didn't take the picture myself, I would have NO idea what the heck it is.

It's the inside of a plastic trash can that was in our dining room since our ceiling began to leak after the huge snowstrom dumped all that snow on our flat roof. The water must've met up with something that was iron; witness the 'rusted' patina in the bottom of the can. I only did a minimal amount of tweaking in Photoshop (fixed the contrast a bit so that it was more 'readable image' and a little bit of the accented edges filter).

So, can this image be called art?

You tell me.