posted: March 19, 2012

Detail :: Entitled "Birth" : Inks, handmade pigments on clay board panel : Artwork is 9"x12" with frame 18"x20"

I will have this piece in the upcoming “JUXTAPOZ TURNS 18”  art exhibition in Santa Monica this coming Saturday and looking forward to traveling out to the show.  It opens with a reception, Saturday, March 24, 8:00 – 11:30 p.m. at

Copro Gallery-Bergamont Station : 2525 Michigan Ave, Unit T5, Santa Monica, CA 90404 : Ph: 310.829.2156

Dates:   Exhibit runs:  March 24 – April 14 , 2012

The show was curated by Gwynn Vitello (publisher of Juxtopoz) and Greg Escalante (director of Copro Gallery) Nice to be showing with such a great lineup-including Robert Williams, Shepard Fairey, Mark Ryden, Todd Schorr, Marion Peck, Camille Garcia, Kathy Staico Schorr, Suzanne Williams,The Date Farmers, Jeremy Fish,Tara McPherson, Shag, Tiffany Bozic, Scott Musgrove, Neckface, Elizabeth Mcgrath, Laurie Lipton, Souther Salazar, Luke Chueh, Ed Templeton, Dennis McNett, Isabel Samaras, Charles Wish, Jeremy Lipking, Steve Olson, Don Pendleton, Mike Shine, Retna, Kevin Ancell, Andrew Schoultz, Brian Bowen Smith, Skinner, Rico Deniro, Craig Stecyk, Herbert Baglione, Sandow Birk, Mike Giant, Morgan Slade, Ron Lipking, Sage Vaughn, Deanna Templeton, Bill Dee Williams, Estevan & Eriberto Oriol, Michael Carney & many more

The exhibition celebrates JUXTAPOZ magazine’s 18 year anniversary. This art gallery show will feature artists from Juxtapoz’s past , present and future. Since its inception in the early 90′s Juxtapoz has been a major factor in setting art trends and helping to make them a world wide phenomenon with its vast publishing empire and International circulation.
Juxtapoz Turns 18 opens on March 24, 2012, at Copro Gallery, Santa Monica, 8PM. The show runs through April 14, 2012.

posted: February 2, 2012

I began this large-scale visual journal in mid July this past summer. I have been fortunate to be able to work in a renovated church, Convivium 33 Gallery in Cleveland when the opportunity is available (for a few months this year). Each panel is 50"x170" on Stonehenge paper with kaolin clay and graphite, small amount of ink (lyra pencil 9B and powdered graphite). 
Reflecting on the subject of where I left off from my Butler museum show “Becoming Human”, I am exploring our relationship with nature, both past and present and the consequences we subject ourselves to through what we value as a culture.  I became fascinated by the origins of our human survival and the development of a code of ethics dating back to the epic poem of the seven virtues, written by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (c. 410) called the "Psychomachia" or "Contest of the soul". The poem describes a battle between the heavenly virtues and the earthly vices. Reflecting on the dualities and tension that exist in resolving complex problems; observing both sides - good vs evil, love vs hate, diligence vs giving up, seduction vs restraint etc. I hope to gain clarity and dispense my fear of scale through working very large  and in my most comfortable medium-graphite and inks with kaolin. 
I am attempting not to overthink these, but to gather starting points sometimes from past work and at other times, inspired by something subconciously. I feel as if I am up high in a tree looking down on a human nature, drawing in a visual journal, exploring our past and present, in a feeble attempt to understand where we are going. Ultimately, they seem to be celebrateing beauty: beauty in chaos, beauty in human form, beauty in believing, beauty in resolution- after all I am a relentless optimist I suppose. We will get past this difficult time we are living in...we always have as we have repeated our behavior over and over again since the dawn of mankind. Creating modern day myths is part of what we all do here as artists, but this personal exploration has really pushed me in ways I never imagined. 
As long as we continue to explore what we do not know, we will flourish.  It is such an exciting time we live in, don't you think?

posted: January 23, 2012

It was an honor to be selected to do one of the covers for the 100th Anniversary issue of Poetry Magazine and especially to be the first one.  Felix Sockwell, fellow Drawger already did a fabulous post and piece previously, so you might want to check that work out as well.
The assignment was to draw the infamous Pegasus in any way, shape or form as long as it could be overprinting the 100 design produced by the wonderful art director, Alex Knowlton of Winterhouse. 

I happened to have the good fortune of finding myself in my hometown this past fall and in the neighborhood of Poetry magazines new offices.  I took a chance and gave the editor Fred Saski a call to tell him I was literally around the corner.  He invited me up and after I navigated myself through the entry (The architect decided to disguise the entrance, just like a poem...when you think you clearly understand where to enter you find that you cannot and you have to search further for an entry point).  Through another courtyard I found the door and Fred gave me a grand tour of their new offices and several covers highlighted in their collection including Thurber and Chicago artist,Tony Fitzpatrick's. 
Particularly interesting was the famous Eric Gill cover and as you can see the two covers are very similar. My work has an affinity to wood engravings of this era, so naturally this piece was of some influence and inspiration.  The sweeping fluidity of line attracted me to the original cover, but I wanted to push that idea further, adding the singular line sweeping into the entire cover (which was not in the specs for the assignment…but I got away with it).
Gill had to redo the cover per Poetry magazines request.  They apparently wanted a sleeker tail but from my observation he also added more detail in the wings and then something particularly bold to his southern parts  -perhaps Gills way of getting back at them for asking for the changes?
 

Here is a sweet piece from 1924 and one that Fred particularly liked as well.  Forgive me for not knowing the artist.

posted: January 20, 2012

The reinvention and evolutionary process in ones career has always fascinated me so when I discovered Houtin's work at the Cleveland Print Fair presented by Chicago gallery Richard Reed Armstrong I was immediately struck not only by Francois Houtins fantastical etchings and draughtsmanship but also his background as a landscaper.  No doubt his prior career as a gardener, floral decorator and then landscape architect have influenced his new direction as a superb printmaker.  His work reminded me of my childhood fantasies of the perfect habitats to hide within the immersion of a mystical albiet utopian, forest. I also found a similar affinity to his personal history within my own mother's artistic talents. I grew up observing endless drawings by my mother Virginia Bleck, influenced by her passion for trees.  Aside from raising nine children, she worked as a landscaper for her father's tree nursery, where we also resided and then later in life, she also like Houtin began to explore her personal work inspired by her work in landscaping with a similar direction of fantastical landscapes but in watercolors and pen and ink. There are some pieces of art that we are drawn to that serve as a metaphor for our own personal goals as an artist as well as fulfilling lasting impressions of our imaginations explored and then fulfilled…Houtin's work is all of this for me.  I purchased this print and one for my amazing mother who also by the way was one of Hallmark cards first freelancers from the age of 48 until 72 years old. 
This Friday, Jan. 20th my Houtin print, "12 Cabane de Jardinier" will hang at Zygote press, "Collected Gems ll : Zygote Memebers Collect"

French, born in Craon en Mayenne, France on August 25, 1950.
Etcher and Draughtsman.
Lives and works in Paris since 1971.
Learns printmaking with Jean Delpech at the Ville de Paris printmaking class.
Starts his career as a gardener, a floral decorator and a landscape architect at Jacques Bédat
and Franz Baechler in Paris.
Became a full-time artist, focused on imaginary garden landscapes in 1979.
He was awarded the Prix de Gravure Lacourière in 1981.
He was awarded the Prix de Gravure Florence Gould in 1986.
Became a member of the Société des Peintres-Graveurs Français in 1991.
He also worked on such prominent projects as the renovation of the Jardin des Tuilleries in 1991.

My son James had a fascination with waterfalls when he was little so my mom picked up some of my scratchboard for the first time and produced this tiny gem for him. I wish I had some more of the fantastical pieces she has done on forests.  Perhaps I will add them later.