T plus 40 days

Photo by S. Evans

For this last post in this series I'll be reviewing the work in my show. I was inspired to do this by reading about how Zadie Smith wrote and published a pretty harsh review of her own book White Teeth after it came out.

The strongest part of my show was how it captured the frantic and all-over quality of how I make art. I was concerned that having so many small groups of things (pencil drawings, big drawing, sculptures, little collages) in the show would make it seem like a flabby hodge-podge - I almost bagged the idea and was going to just show framed drawings. It worked however - the myriad of things held together and did a good job of reflecting me and how I work.

On the bad side I do see that many of the works could have used another layer or two of exploration, meaning and just plain drawing. I'll touch on some specifics later, but many of the pieces seemed to be almost there, but not quite. Using collaged drawings, and even making drawings that used lots of white space with a semi-early modernist, semi-cartoony style of rendering seems to me to be dangerously close to a lot of what I see in galleries all over, and though I do think the work stays true to itself, it may be lost out in the world among the gallons and gallons of glitter and glue pouring from Brooklyn and L.A. What hopefully carries the work over this hump is the quality of the actual drawing, and the skill of the applied collage color and texture. I know I can do those things reasonably well, but in service of what? I draw stuff and try to represent and even compete with the real world. That's where I hopefully can stand out from the crowd making work similar to mine - by trying to make the work an honest interaction with the world, not just a clever juggling of cultural signs and symbols.

Another weakness in the show was craft - some of the framing was shoddy and the glue I used didn't hold some of the paper as it should have in the collages. It wasn't too bad a problem because the work has a rough edge home-made look to it, but it annoyed me when I saw it.

I'll break out the smaller bodies of work seperately:


Photo by S. Evans

Big drawing:
While it's a good try, and it does show how a greater scale can make a strong impact, it ultimately doesn't work completely. The chunks of drawings glued on are good, but don't hold together with the strength that some of the smaller work does.


Photo by S. Evans

A new solution needed to be found to the up-scale problem, but I just tried to make it work as I would a smaller drawing. It does have a presence though, one that begins to overwhelm and fill one's sight if one is close to it. As a piece it's a little weak, but as a pointer to further work it has great value.




Photo by B. Landon

Medium collages:
Two of these are older works, the best of about 200 other pieces done at this scale. These work well and are strong because they embrace both the raw drawing and the collage aspect of themselves. Each becomes a story that tells itself, though I get a little troubled when I have to explain them in detail. There's a part of making them that I don't understand, and I don't know if that is ok or not...




Photo by S. Evans

Pencil drawings:
These are in a sense collages too; I drew from many different photos to make them. They have a quiet, almost somber quality at odds with some of the more frenetic collages I showed, but that placidity and almost gentle tone worked ok. They hold up well for what they are but they also don't reach as far as some of the other work - there are really nice passages with some great exploration of how pencils can make marks and how those marks can make images, but at times they seem to be made without struggle, without battle. I know I can crank these out and while most of them are really good, I need to be sure I'm not coasting.




Photo by S. Evans

3D drawings:
To me these are the stars of the show. They represent my pushing myself the farthest - I was really not sure they would be anything at all until the last minute. They make sense - collages come off the wall, highly aesthetisized action playsets - but were still a stretch and a risk for me.


Photo by S. Evans

I do think the same issues of craft and complexity are here though - they needed better putting together and they could use more drawing on some of them. These pieces hold up well though, and like the large drawing they point to more complex and meaningful direction for my work. I'm very excited about making more of these.




Photo by S. Evans

Small collage/drawings:
This wall of smaller work came out really well. While some of them could use some more work (and will get that work now that the show is down), as a whole it held together and became much more than the sum of its parts. My favorite aspect of this piece is its flexibility - I sold several of the components during the show, but I can continue to add (and subtract) from the piece and show it again because of how it works in its grid. Things can move and that changes (and hopefully refreshes) the piece. It also comes closest to reflecting the way I work in the studio - non-linear, all-over and multi-valent.



All in all, this show was good for me, despite my criticisms, because I was able to really push my work on a few fronts. Only the medium collages and the pencil drawings were the same as they were last spring - all the other work was the result of further exploration and battle. While its obvious that I wasn't totally happy with all my work in the show, I do know the value of trying to find new ways of making and showing things. I have a few shows lined up for next year, including a solo one next fall, and want to continue to forge ahead, especially in the 3d drawings, while adding more polish to my presentation.

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This is a post in series counting down to my solo show True Defenders of the Craft at Second Street Gallery. See previous posts: T plus 27 days, T plus 25 days, T plus 7 days, T plus 3 days, T minus 0 days, T minus 1 day, T minus 2 days,T minus 3 days, T minus 4 days, T minus 7 days, T minus 8 days, T minus 9 days, T minus 10 days, T minus 11 days, T minus 14 days, T minus 15 days, T minus 16 days, T minus 17 days, T minus 18 days, T minus 21 days, T minus 23 days, T minus 25 days, T minus 28 days, T minus 29 days, T minus 30 days, T minus 32 days, T minus 35 days, T minus 37 days, T minus 38 days, T minus 43 days, T minus 44 days, T minus 46 days, T minus 49 days, T minus 51 days, T minus 54 days,T minus 55 days,T minus 56 days, T minus 57 days.