Praeterita

"in their clothes", branches, shrink wrap, tape, 12' x 18' x 14', 2015 Oak Park, famous as the home of the young Ernest Hemingway and the slightly less young Frank Lloyd Wright, is a separate township about ten miles due west of downtown Chicago, though it merges almost seamlessly with the city in a way that makes you feel you’re visiting a leafy Chicago neighborhood. Speaking of leafy, Josh Garber ’s installation at Terrain , Oak Park, consists of tree branches and limbs connected by shrink wrap and tape that clamber up off the ground and claw spikily at the air, denuded of foliage but seemingly revivified into a new stage of growth. Titled “in their clothes,” the sculpture is 12 feet x 18 feet x 14 feet, and is placed like all of the exhibitions at Terrain on the streetside lawn between two houses, opposite a local school and open to all weather which on the day I visited was warm, but not enough to melt the piles of surrounding snow. The whiten...

Since I merged two studios into one last year, I've gradually been going through crates of etched steel and copper plates that I've amassed over the years, unwrapping them from their protective layers, cleaning the rust-proof gel off them, and seeing if any of them can be reused. (When I first started to learn intaglio processes in the 90s, large sized copper plates could be had for about $10 each. Now they cost more than $50, because of the rapacious demand of the smartphone industry.) The plate in the photo above is 12" x 14". I covered it with an acrylic resist called Z*Acryl, and drew the image with a drypoint needle. As I was drawing, I noticed that the line wasn't clean and straight, but slightly fuzzy. When I etched the plate in a tray of ferric chloride, I could tell that the lines were not going to be narrow and thin, which holds the ink in a more uniform way. My first proof of the plate after I'd cleaned off the resist, inked it, and print...

From last Thursday through yesterday, Sunday, I had a weekend that was filled with lots of good art, and a feeling of advancing significantly with my own work. The fact that the clocks went forward in the USA and that the temperatures rose after a horrible February helped, too. First was the A+D gallery, for a group show called Scaped that included an artist whose work I know, and whom I am acquainted with personally: Neha Vedpathak . I met her via the Paul Klein art advisory seminars, and her stunning work is in good company in this show organized by curator MK Meador. Neha is an artist who is clearly going somewhere big, so make note of her name now. Next, on Saturday, I had a great studio visit with curator Teresa Silva , who is writing a catalogue essay for my upcoming show at Corner . It's not just that she's a great person to talk to: she says things that reflect your work back to you in a way that makes you subtly improve it.  On Sunday, I met someone w...

Then watch this Tate Gallery, UK, compilation of archive footage of the great man:

After I got back from Paris on January 18th, I tried to cure some of my withdrawal symptoms (NB: didn't really work, but please read on) by creating a Google map of my 16 days there. Each point on the map has some notes attached, most have photos with them too, and there's a video I shot from a moving Metro train. I also discovered fun functions like being able to trace and highlight different walking routes, each with its own colour of line. For some reason, the photo links work best when you click on a point in the left-hand list, rather than the point on the map itself. Anyway, I had a blast creating it. It's kind of like an alternative photo album of a short and intensely-lived trip.

Me outside the Bateau Lavoir, and (top) the building in about 1905. You know those people that are completely obsessed fans of Star Wars, Game of Thrones, or any other kind of chronicle/team/celebrity/et cetera? The ones who secretly hoard collections of memorabilia, who consume everything created by the object of their obsession or written about it? The ones who, when asked a question about their pet subject, find it hard not to start gabbling wildly, trying to tell everything they know as fast as they can, in a way that makes the person who asked the question freeze with a ghastly smile on their face and wide, unblinking eyes that cannot hide their deep regret at starting a conversation with this complete and utter nutter? That's me, when it comes to Pablo Picasso and his early years in Paris. Picasso on the Place Ravignan, in front of Le Bateau Lavoir, in 1904. Thankfully, it started with his paintings, and later the other kinds of art he made, so at least my ...

Me outside the studio building. I didn't go into the Louvre during my recent Paris trip. But I did visit the Musee Delacroix, which is in the house-garden-studio occupied by Eugene Delacroix at the end of his life, between 1857 and 1863. Even if you don't know Delacroix's work that well, or you only know him as the painter of the big historical canvas Liberty Leading the People, it's still worth visiting, for a variety of reasons: You get to see some fine smaller paintings and statues. You see sketches and sketchbooks that give you a glimpse of his working process. You see lots of the personal objects he collected, particularly from his life-changing visits to north Africa. You get to stand inside his studio. And all this without the crush of crowds inside the Louvre. From top: two of Delacroix's painting toolboxes, including a palette; one of his sketchbooks For someone like me, who feel in love with Delacroix's work shortly after I left...