Meditation on the horizon line by way of the map

In the continued effort to pair down materials and use what things I already own, I've been recycling some paper I made several years ago into collages called "Meditations."

I call them meditations because the process is repetitive and structured. Repetition within a structure not only requires a certain amount of patience but allows for the mind to occupy itself... and thus open up to new possibilities. In that respect, I see these pieces as objects in their own right but also as a sort of clearing out which will make way for other work that has yet to be conceived.

Meditation on the horizon line by way of the map, 2008
handmade paper, wax, acrylic and other media

And an image and link to an earlier "Horizon Line" performance:

Performance, Endurance, Monika Weiss and Baptism of Water

I've started another blog, Endurance Studio, to document a long life/art endurance project. Actually, document isn't entirely accurate because the site will become a piece of net art in itself as the narrative unfolds.

The purpose of the project is to organically narrate my shift away from material objects, which has been happening in my work and life for several years. The unburdening process is slow, often uneven and not necessarily a progression.

We shall see where the project goes and how it brings itself into form over time. For now, consider the performance work of Monika Weiss:
baptism of water

And some writing by George Quasha about her work, endurance and the body: conceiving body

March First Friday: Meditations on patchwork, collage and the grid

First Friday has come and gone without much event, which is not to say that the evening wasn't busy or that we didn't have lots of visitors.

In the midst of other projects, I've been working on some hand-made paper collages that I call Meditations (one was hanging for First Friday). I don't have any photos to post yet because the work is being professionally mounted for re-framing (and as prep for a decent photo). The Meditations are grids of inch squares of handmade paper layered on a painted ground. They're a bit like paper quilts but with a mixture of wax and other paint media.

The process and ideas are extensions from the aerials made from paper / cloth covered panels and the stitched aerials. The difference is a more structured and limited format (the grid). But all of these modes are still about the construction of a surface built from a body of coalesced materials that are molded together (almost sculpturally). There's lots of polishing and finishing that draws from ideas in painting though the processes are very different than most painting or drawing in that mark-making, the hand and image are less relevant than the surface and the object itself.

Working with similar ideas, though polishing the surface through photography, Gwenn Thomas arranges fabrics into patchwork patterns and then uses photography as her finishing tool. Here is an untitled piece where the depth of the fabrics and the shadows they cast contrast in relief to the flattening medium of photography. As such, the arrangements become representations of an object that never was constructed.