August 7 2006

Style Council

Julie Bernard asked me to come on Art Focus at KBOO again, this time to talk about the Oregon Biennial. As she is doing panels of talking heads all month, centered on this event, I could actually create my own panel and did. It is scheduled for the 17th, a Thursday at 10:30am.

This made the idea more appetizing. To be frank, biennials have never changed my life. No doubt when you are in one, things will change, at least for that year. But I've seen a lot of biennials - 11 years worth of Whitney ones alone - and I can't recall the time one ever made me change the way I made my art or even the way I regarded it.

Perhaps the closest I got to that was the Whitney Biennial of 84 or 85, when it was packed to the gills with the East Village art scene. This show was universally panned, but of course all of the 'bad' art was part and parcel with the East Village temperament. The village had all of the punks and wayward poets, so I enjoyed that show - even all of the 'bad' art. It is indeed a sobering thought though to realize how many of those people are dead now.

There have been a few appearances that did change the way I thought about an artist, for better or worse. It's weird what one image in just the right (or wrong) place can do to you. You might never want to go to a particular artists' show again, based on the one powerful pitch that the Whitney throws at you. But thankfully I am someone who can change her mind.

So my panel is sort of a style council: Richard Speer, Lisa Radon and TJ Norris were invited. No doubt they will make the half hour go by in a flash.

August 3 2006

I walk the line

TJ Norris has posted something called Fiery Lake regarding my Take Off. After so much time spent in a basement - aiming, basically, to create the sun - I love to hear reaction. I could say a lot more, but maybe this is the time to just take it in and not make pronouncements.

He did mention my new small ones though (as did A. Spring) and said that Crimson (see above) was his favorite.

You know, these small pieces are easy street in some ways and something I have to sweat in others... the long line, wobbly, alive, the mark of the horizon, the place where I exist. Even as I ditched the line, I walk it.

July 26, 2006

The studio

Mostly what has been on my mind is the upcoming show at Augen. Everything was delivered yesterday and now I guess I am just supposed to wait.

As a diversion - and because I need to - I go visit artists in their homes and studios. I had to add the 'home' bit because not everyone has this exclusive place just for art making. I understand Paul Klee made a lot of his work in the kitchen.

Like I told TJ Norris, art making happens mostly for me in my mind, and thus, everywhere. I do have a place upstairs for cutting and pasting and a place downstairs for painting, but the process doesn't end when I leave those places.

July 23, 2006

Infinity

In my talk with TJ Norris, the word infinity comes up a couple of times. But I know from asking around that many people do not care to ponder just what this may be or what it looks like, feels like, etc. I did ask Anna Skibska in her interview about endlessness (via Brancusi) as regards her own work and she said: "What is that?" Maybe just the vastness of no end is something most people don't want to consider.

But as I went through a recent personal process, it all came back to that. Not as an art thing necessarily, just as a thing that is. I was asked about my spiritual self. I was asked about the inner core, which we all have - something we are born with and something which never leaves. And I knew exactly where she was and where she had always been.

I see an infinite space and a force of which I am but a small part, but still a part. There is the sky above and the water below and everywhere, the radiance of nature. There is so much I could say about this expansion, from which I will never leave, but I realize this kind of talk is not for everyone. It is however this endlessness which informs everything I am painting now. Mind, you can't take a person out of their time and I wouldn't want to leave it. Hence, a love of Pop Life (though not necessarily 'pop culture').

July 21 2006

Getting closer to Take Off

TJ Norris has a column in the Oregonian weblogs called Is It Art? It's on my links page. Today he presents an interview we did together regarding my upcoming exhibition at Augen: Take Off. Thank you TJ!

July 3, 2006

'Why have there been no great women artists?'

TJ Norris has an interesting post up, a ménage of couples in which both are artists. They inspire, exchange, support. Both careers are equally respected. I've known a few like that but think it is actually very rare....

January 20, 2006

What I show__Last night someone said rather arrogantly (as though I need their approval - and I don't): "I'm glad you're showing photography." I said yeah and walked away as I would spend no time at this reception explaining to them what I'm really showing. Which is art. __Not that I can't hail the photograph, and God knows I do, but I did not see this new exhibition as some breakthrough to it, or as some new alliance or statement coming from us as a gallery. We showed TJ Norris just a couple of months ago and that was a photo-based show. But first and foremost, it was great art.__A friend was inviting someone new to the space, a photographer, explaining to them: "She doesn't usually show photographs..." -Hold it right there, I said. And this is the crux of the matter: I don't usually show anything, save the good and (often) underexposed.__Some spaces or curators are known for a specific style or era or medium. I could list them off here locally but won't. But Chambers started with a collage show from the younger and the older, moved to two abstract painters, then straight-on portraits and TJ and then, the unusual approaches of Wid and Abi. I'm interested in going to many places and if there's any other uniting factor beyond the quality, it's the surprise factor. Let's not get bored or pinned down. And one thing I've never done is show an artist even remotely similar to my own work. (Not that there is anyone like that here.)___

October 12, 2005

Nucleo

I asked Jeff what his favorite medium or genre was and he told me that he liked work which blurred the lines - photography that looks like painting, paintings that stand like sculpture, this kind of thing.

I think you can apply that kind of criteria very easily to TJ Norris and his exhibition which will open tomorrow night at Chambers. The pieces are originally photography but they don't come off like that at all. Having said that, they don't look like paintings either. They are in a class by themselves and the reproductions I have tell a fraction of the story.

October 8, 2005

Is it art?

Next week a new show opens at Chambers. One of the artists is TJ Norris, who does a heck of a lot more than just make art.

I first met him when he was running SoundVision, a space devoted to both. Music-wise we liked a lot of the same things, though he knows so much more of what is going on now. He was working with sound artists from all over the world and really brought something unique to Portland.

His own work spans several disciplines. He can paint, he can make objects, he's a conceptual artist (actually, I think any good artist is) and he is a photographer.

As if that all wasn't enough, now he's started a blog called Is it art?

Well, we always need more writing here, 'cause there's so much going on.

September 30, 2005

TJ

Here is the piece TJ Norris contributed to Fresh Trouble.

September 28 2005

The next show at Chambers

Slowly I've been constructing pages for both Randy Moe and TJ Norris. Neither artist's work is that easy to get across digitally. Randy's work has many marks and unless it is scanned, many go missing. In the case of TJ, I know that he is taking over that whole back room and the photography (like above) is just part of an installation that will include sound. He's got a triple-whammy these days. He is also in Fresh trouble and the new issue of Portland Modern will feature his work. Plus he also began a new art blog.

June 27, 2005

Georgia

A friend was wondering if every female artist had a thing for Georgia O'Keeffe -- and was it sexist to suppose so? This might apply to an older generation more than a younger one. Sometimes it almost seems like Cindy might be the Georgia for the younger ones...

I think it's one of those "it is what it is" situations. You just can't get around her, especially if you're an American female and a painter of any sort. I was with TJ Norris the other night and he went off on how important O'Keeffe was for him -- I was actually relieved to hear it.

Sometimes it feels like she became a guilty pleasure, something you might not admit to, of just how important she was for you. And I'm not really talking about the paintings per se.

I felt her a lot when I first arrived in New York. We were the same age when we first moved there - 29. And we both went to the Art Students League. But there, the similarities must end, for it became my own private joke that I never found my Stieglitz.

I'm not alone there. Who else has the story of Georgia O'Keeffe?...

May 6, 2005

Strap it On

Last night as we were driving up to Seattle (more on that fun trip later), I was telling TJ Norris my story of why I made a bunch of big paintings.

You can get caught in between a rock and a hard place. I had made paintings for ages but believe it or not, had never been reviewed for them....

In fact, when the painting first showed at the Haze Gallery, several painters came up to me and said: "Gee, Eva, I didn't know you could paint like that." Uh huh. I know they meant it as a compliment and also it is possible that it just took me a long time to get to my holy grail, but by then it was privately a really loaded matter.