High Contrast Grey.

30x15cm

Acrylic, ink, and graphite on found canvas.

Millard observation.

20x10.5cm

Dinner for one.

18x13 cm

Windy coffee.

Inspired by watching a girl walk by window of my bilingualism class.

4” square. Watercolor with pen and ink.

Me (as a painted Tintin figurine) regarding Otto Dix and Christian Schad.

Centre Pompidou.

The next floor we went to was much more my style and interest. As we had aldready spent a lot of our time on the first floor I tried my best to quickly make it though this floor but was constantly finding myself having to stop in my tracks with paintings and art pieces in styles and movements I had only read about or seen obscure pieces of before which were now in front of me. So close my breath could fog the glass if I so pleased.

In the description of the Otto Dix before me it stated that watercolor had been used although I wasn’t sure for what part..

It is sad just how much destruction was caused by the second world war and even in the hypothetical where the art movements that were flourishing became derailed and scattered. If such movements had been allowed to continue and mature I wonder what changes the art world would have seen.

Centre Pompidou.

I like Olympia in Black Face. (1970) Larry Rivers.

The first floor we were allowed to explore by means of our wily talking skills was filled with oeuvres of movements from the 1960s. Lots of art pieces that existed more so as “ideas than art pieces” as put by Fulya. It was pretty dense to get though because almost every piece required reading a rather lenghty back story, well all of the pieces that included back stories.

I still need to come up with a title for this one…

The consensus so far has been that it is kind of creepy. Which provided an interesting critique in sculpture class. Instead of discussing my process for creation or what my percentage of changing my found object the critique instead focused on what the piece could mean.

I would like to find a way to make the baroque-esque filigree appear more so that that is what they are. I am thinking about perhaps coming back with some fancy thin ribbon to give detail.

“Self-Portrait ca.2011” iron casting, acrylic.

The semester has ended and I have left Missoula. Like when I left Seattle it was raining, but of course the weather is not dependent upon my moods.

Billings has been like how Billings always is. At one point in my life I would like it that I will never have to end up back here. I am already trying to think up new places to run away to. Perhaps finish out university in Missoula, which should hopefully only take one more year after coming back from France, then grad school in New Orleans? I would think that there should be a university there that should have a pretty interesting architecture program, with some French architecture influence which I would enjoy. Assumptions.

The absinthe bar has been finished…

Although I still need to ink in the hinge on the window. (shhh…)

Out of all the paintings that I had hanging in the show, I was surprised this one wasn’t the one that sold, but it is my latest so I still feel the most attached to it..

It has been a rather lackluster winter session, in terms of working on art. Although it seems that Billings always seems to remove any inspiration or desire to work on art, I have since come back to Missoula to become distracted by a redhead.

A pleasant distraction.

I still hope to finish at least one of these two paintings before the end of the break so I can display them with the artwork of other members of the university artist collective. I am liking how the street scene is coming out. I seem to have a better understanding of layering every time I paint another watercolor, which is really helpful with trying to achieve a night like atmosphere. I seem to have misplaced my ivory black and had to go and buy a new one from Michael’s. They were locked up but I slipped my hand into the side of the case and retrieved the tube of watercolor. Part of me felt like just walking off with it as a repressed anger to the frustration of working there back in the day, but I suppressed the desire.

As a gift to myself over the break I broke down and bought the bottle of absinthe I have been eying via a liquor store website based in New York. La Charlotte with a slight green tint only from the herbs and no additives. Quite delicious. Although it doesn’t seem to soak into the sugar cube as nicely as the last and makes lighting the sugar cube on fire to caramelize the sugar a bit more difficult.

The universe decided to give me an ironing board (read as adjustable table for the living room that is long enough and skinny enough to function as a couch table) for the holidays. Shortly after making it to my apartment it was covered in artworks.

C’est tout.

Four layer relief woodblock destruction print.

I am now done with all my art classes. Insert great sigh of relief. Because they are art classes and everyone involved would rather ‘fuck off’ for the final time we used the last class time before finals to clean up the art rooms. Now all that I have are two finals left, French and Architectural Art History, thankfully far enough from one another that studying won’t be an issue. Sadly part of that is because the Architectural Art History final is on Saturday, but amongst all the groaning about it, it isn’t like I was planning to do anything, or needed to go anywhere. My mum is in the process of trying to convince me to come to Billings for the holidays because I can then go to Seattle for New Years. The only thing that is making me really not lean towards doing that is that I have a feeling that I will get stuck in Billings due to the weather, which has happened way too often. Meh.

Work in progress.

I should actually be working on school work and not my own personal art, but over the weekends as I get stuck in my apartment and not wanting to brave the freezing weather the large acrylic painting calls to me. Now if only I could work faster and not get caught up in all the little details, but then it wouldn’t be my work. I am rather curious as to what the final mood it will put off as it is the largest piece I have painted and I am able to get it much closer to the darker that I am searching for that my watercolors seem to subdue slightly.

Huzah.

There is a tickle of sore throat beginning that I hope I am able to stave off… But finals are coming up quickly so knowing Murphy and his law, this is going to suck.

Two days of work, although most of the detail flattens out into the dark and the dark doesn’t show any of its gradual changes… artist nitpicks.

It seems to be coming along quicker than the last acrylic painting that I did. Which of course is always the fact with working on art. Well until the curve has been accomplished and then insert all the new ideas and techniques to slow it back down. ..The air here is really dry and my paints keep drying up quite fast no matter what I mix into them, so I have been experimenting with having the lid off of my kettle as I have the burner on low so that it will evaporate and add water to the air. It seems to be working, but it could all just be in my head.

The more I work on this with all the blinds closed the more that I forget that there is snow everywhere outside and I almost trick myself into thinking that it might be nice out. I have been playing my music in the living room while painting and I can’t tell if the person who lives above me is stomping because they want the music turned down, or if they are just really not graceful or light of step, or if they just weigh a lot and it is unavoidable. Meh..

I have finally finished the painting for Amy. Or so I keep telling myself. Give it a little while and I will probably find something that I need to add. It never fails. One of the final things holding me back from calling this done was that I wanted to give Amy an chandelier earring like those that she wears so often and my idea for how to accomplish this was to use a gel pen that can go over the black ink that I had already laid for her hair. But of course I didn’t really want to spend the $2 or whatever it is for a purple gel pen, so I took the painting by Michaels and just used one there in the way that they have them out so that they can be tested. I felt quite clever about this technique of being a cheap artist using my surroundings to my benefit. Better to be clever than beautiful and even better to be clever to create something of beauty.

My painting that I did last summer of Noir Marché is in a show at the moment at the university. The president of the university asked to have the artist collective show some pieces during the regent’s board meetings and we jumped at such an offer.  That will only last until Friday, but at least this gave me the push to finally get it framed. I still need glass and to give the character a belt buckle, but right now it is all about baby steps of progress. Although I found out that the file that I had to keep track of all the shows that I have presented in is on my broken external, so now I just need to push myself to call those people up on Friday to complain and hopefully get that fixed for something less than a grand.

On yet another good note for the day, I had a meeting about the study abroad program so the lady who seems to coordinate the program at my university could meet me and figure out my plans et cetera and she told me today that my application was great and I shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Late December I should know more about what is going on, which at this point is really not far away at all. She told me to not be on ‘pins and needles’ about this, but I have a feeling that I still will, probably up until the point that the plane lands in France…

After a long stint in Billings being uninspired to do much work on my art it is nice to be back in Missoula with my café to work at. Although it seems that I have come to an impasse of working on this painting until I figure out the angles and poses for the person crossing the street and the one sitting at the café.

Cassie came to visit for the weekend so we wandered about Missoula and relaxed. I have found that my living room does function rather well as a sitting room to hold conversations in. I haven’t really had any guests since Dan moved out so I have yet to have a real test of that function. Although I should be expecting the new roommate any day now so that aspect of the room might dissipate soon. Porcelain and silver back into my bedroom. Meh.