dearest all,
As of the beginning of June 2011, I am no longer posting to this blog. It will stand as a record of my time in Iceland, sure, but if you want something that is getting updated, head on over to the small blue cat.
best,
eric

older posts

here is what i said. [roughly]

dearest all,
a quick look at what happened at the artist talks, along with some new work.




here's the brief retrospective of my work:
about a year and a half ago, [because anything earlier is too long ago to remember.] i am making sculpture [strictly ceramic] about very specific things.
make it once,
make it again
and then make fun of it...














being so specific, there is little room to change or experiment with the concept. [all of the experimentation is strictly technique.] the results are often less than satisfying, and so i take the same idea and try again- try to get it 'right.' [as you can see here, i tried again in not so sculpture-y media.]
not much ceramic here,
relatively speaking
this approach is pretty tedious, and though the technical experimentation was good, i realise that i need to change my approach to sculpture, and the entire creative process.

i begin to do work that is open ended, that i do not know what it is about or will be about. work that can progress more organically. work that can be expanded indefinitely as a series without getting stale. [well, that is the hope, anyway...]
along with this new approach, i begin introducing new, non-ceramic elements into my sculptural practice.


this new approach even leads to a few videos. [which can be found here.]
for a more comprehensive view of my senior show [yet to be titled] go here.

during this time, i find it necessary to increase the amount of writing i do, simply to keep the idea straight as they develop. i end up doing a lot of free writing, and occasionally will write stories and anecdotes.

this writing, interestingly enough, became my primary mode of creation along with illustration when i graduated and moved away from the studio environment.



when i decided to try writing in earnest, i first developed a sort of cast of characters, and wrote very short stories or anecdotes, [i called this false families, and it can be found here.] and some of these expanded into much longer stories. [one of which, a familiar story, you can find here.] sometimes the story precedes the illustration, and sometimes the illustration is the impetus for the story. often, they'll happen simultaneously.

now, i am back to some ceramic work, and it is interesting. getting re-acclimated, some things are just the same, but the feel is a bit different. i think that maybe my focus has shifted a bit, due to these months of writing. where the focus used to be on the figure, it is now on the character, though the tone is quite similar, and the topics are still about coping with and hiding emotions; measures taken to feel safe in a world that is not. these topics are often seen through relationships in which the distribution of power is not even.

i like to describe my work as having a 'car wreck aesthetic', where the viewer is not sure what has happened, or will happen; disturbed by what is seen, but somehow entranced by the scene just the same.
it seems where the work was societal in the past, it has become more psychological, but maybe i am just saying things...

in closing, it might make sense to project where i see myself in the future, but i don't know, so i won't.

and that was that.

here's some of the newer wall pieces:

this guy wears a mask. it makes him feel much better about himself.

a top view of the fox-hat
guy.
front on. [my what nice teeth!]
and another look,
just for kicks.





















this guy wears a beard, it makes him feel much better about himself.

i'm going to add
some spikes to the top
of this old
blind guy's head
you can tell that he is blind because he
has x's instead of pupils. [handy, isn't it?]
not so sure what this one is, but i
like these goaty ears.





















i think that is all for now, my dearest all,
with warmest regards from iceland,
eric

2 comments:

  1. gooood talk.
    fox max looks great as do the goat ears. i'm curious to see how this stoneware looks once it's fired

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  2. Ja, nice job! I also must say that the smirk of the one who wears the fox seems perfectly done. He really does feel much better about everything when he wears that mask doesn't he!

    ReplyDelete