My new work is up at Fiber Artspace. The show is Innovation: A Collaboration and consists of three fiber artists working with different kinds of artists to create new and collaborative pieces. My chosen artist was poet and friend Tina Misite. You've got to check out the show, but here's one of my favorite pieces:
Type
relief, screenprint, and handsewing
available for purchase through the gallery
I've finally registered!
Mid America Print Council Conference, October 1 - 5, in Fargo, baby! One of my favorite cities. With my all time favorite burgers.
I got a cool opportunity to carve on one of these blocks for 6 sides 2 every story, an international collaborative project. The cubes were sent out to artists and printmakers everywhere by Candace Nicol in Nevada. The six sides of 100 cubes will be carved by different participants... leading to 600 different 2"x2" prints! Each cube tells one story six ways.
I have my cube this week and am pondering the story my cube was given by Margaret Craig. Each participant will eventually receive one of the edition of 8 from their block when all the carving is complete. Check the 6 sides blog for updates on the progress of all the cubes.
Here's an interesting Florida-born artist by the name of Lee Stoetzel. His sculptures are absolutely appealing due to their use of innovative materials and large scale. I'm personally quite intrigued with the citing of detritus as the impetus for creation.
Also, I really like the Jeep.
If you live in San Antonio, pick up this week's 210 SA and check out the incredibly cool full page article on my show at Fiber Artspace.
Many, many thanks to Jessica Belasco for the interview and for making me sound coherent!
Robert Rauschenberg has died.
No limits on art, a story from the Chicago Tribune.
I had a great opening reception thanks to all my wonderful friends. In fact, I had the best opening reception night that Fiber Artspace has seen since its inception! Also, having sold 2 pieces on my opening night was beyond awesome. Thanks, J & L. You dudes rock, too.
During the First Friday opening, Larry Lange and the Lonely Knights announced my show several times during their set. That was pretty wonderful, and all I had to do for that great promotion was give them some cold Lone Stars. They played some really nice tunes.
Thanks, guys!
As a follow up to all this show madness, I have landed an "artist spotlight" in 210 SA, a local newspaper thing. The artist spotlights, I think, are great because they don't always do the usual folk-- it's people you might not catch if you're not a First Friday worshipper. This makes me so excited! I'm being phone interviewed.
More soon!
May 1 - 25, 2008
Fiber Artspace, Blue Star Arts Complex
From the promotional copy for the show:
Printmaker Nicole Geary has been printing on surfaces other than paper for several years. Feminist issues such as body image, equal rights, and gender discrimination often influence Geary’s work. In point, pattern, print, Geary continues to highlight these struggles, delving into personal and sometimes painful issues women have with their bodies throughout their lives. Various printed images are bound up by the needle and thread, and a new image may appear from the pieces of another.
At Southwest School of Art & Craft is a yearly juried show. This one is happening now through June 15th. I have two pieces in this show, so go check it out if you are in the San Antonio area. The SSAC galleries and studios are pretty great.
The guidelines for this one were pretty simple: Edition of fifteen 5x7 inch prints in the printmaking media of litho, screenprint, intaglio, relief, or any combination of those.
Prints to be collated and sent back out in late spring!
Yesterday afternoon into evening, I was "editioning" my stone. I use the quotes because, as I know is always possible with lithography, the stone gave me the go ahead sign, but halfway through, she decided we weren't gonna see that project all the way through. I started to get spots in my image from the chine collé paper I was using, spots that I could not snap roll out. My image began to fill in in some areas-- areas that I found critical enough to pull out the white flag.
"You win, stone. I'll call it a day."
And this is the part that's hard to explain about my weird and intense love of lithography. I've worked that stone for several months. I pulled a first state image off it in July, counter-etched and added work back into the image, and then etched it a few more times (possibly not hot enough in some areas). I laboriously cut 31 chine collé papers, tore down my editioning paper, etcetera, etcetera, and in a matter of a few hours, I lost the edition.
I understand now the phrase "the tyranny of the edition." Before, I'd always quite liked having a little bunch of something, but one stone with some wonky chemistry can quickly turn tyrannical.
Anyway, it is hard to explain an intense love of something that can so quickly turn its back on you, but I really respect this process that is, let's say, 5 parts chemistry, 3 parts skill, and 2 parts a prayer to the printmaking gods. Ask anyone with a fair bit of working knowledge of any printmaking process -- there are printmaking gods, and you dance for them.
A monoprint from June. I'm not sure that I'm expressly interested in monoprints as much anymore, but I thought this was interesting just the same. I might be more into experimentation than anything.
I didn't realize until I looked back at my pictures, but this ghost print has a vague quality about it that resembles the pictures I took of the big Texas sky earlier that day. Kinda neat.
Guadalupe Street Coffee
May 2 - June 9, 2007
From the artist statement for the show:
My personal battles in the artmaking process are not so much to give contextual meaning to my imagery, but to find the best visual vocabulary for the ideas I need to express. Sail On, Sailor embodies the culmination of several years of printmaking experiments that achieve “the best visual vocabulary.” The work represented revolves around the theme of loss and the sea: the Biblical tale of Jonah being swallowed by a whale becomes a surrogate for the incredible insignificance of one person inside the vastness of the ocean. I’ve translated the story incorporating screenprints, spray paint, acrylic, felt, and wood to create imagery with a tactile experience.
For this exchange, I hand-printed "Sweet Fortune" on rice paper with a baren instead of using a press. It probably went much quicker than trying to find the right pressure since the lino was mounted. Not to mention, I was in a studio with other people printing intaglio, so changing the pressure every time for my block would have been a pain. The ink is a little sweeter pink than I usually mix up, but cookies and sweetness are okay for this image. I got several awesome prints back from the exchange, including a fragrant woodcut from Puerto Rico.
Or at least, the best apron ever:
I tried printing one day without this apron (because I didn't know I was even going to be printing!) and I just can't. I've got to have those pockets, and it ties around my waist just right. Everything about it is perfect. Also, it's been broken in with love. You can't go printmakin' without good tools.
