posted: January 30, 2010

Gina and I have been working on some patterns lately. This is the first time we've sat down and made patterns that actually repeat. It's had me thinking of the influence patterns and textiles have had on our work over the years. It's come up in a bunch of jobs, but really, I've been thinking of how it played a role in the early parts of our personal collaborations.
Just before we started working on paintings together, I was working out this idea of weighing mechanically reproduced methods against hand reproduced methods. I had these screen prints that would be intentionally imperfect, and then repeated oil paint areas that were as near to identical as I could get them. I had painted about a dozen of these paintings on my own, and thought they were done.




Then we had the idea of working together. To get started, I handed these paintings over to Gina. She added an entirely different dimension, and things became more than a simple one-two comparison. This is how some of that work looked by around '01 or '02.

Over the years, we've continued to draw upon repeats and from textile examples for various reasons. At some point we figured out that gender issues would be inherent in anything made together by a boy and a girl. I liked the way that, by using paint that referenced textiles, the issue was imbedded right there in the material.

We've cooled out on gallery shows in the last few years, but the last one we really threw ourselves into was at 222 Gallery. There I made a seemless screen print that covered a whole wall. I posted about it back then on Drawger. This got me interested in making some patterns that could actually be repeated on fabric. Kind of coming full circle from just looking at fabric to make paintings, we're now making paintings that we're envisioning as fabric.

Here's some of them.

We've got a large batch, but I like these best so far. I'll be posting more later.

posted: November 23, 2009

This post has been a long time coming. This is a detail of a painting we did for our friends Jim and Tina of James Restaurant. When Gina and I first moved into our house in South Philly, Jim and Tina were just moving into their restauant space. Their kitchen door is right across from our house, so we got to know each other as we fixed up our places.

They picked up a painting from us for their dining room, and came back with an interesting request. Tina is a master decorator. Their bar is a place that's perfectly laid out, and always puts me at ease. When she asked for a painting to go on a long wall connecting the bar and lounge, we were pretty honored. Their place is such an expression of themselves, Gina and I were touched they would ask us to be a part of it. Then we had to figure out how to make it happen.

We decided it should be a 1 foot by 10 foot canvas, and I was presented with my first hurdle. Back in school I would make some crazy canvasses, but this one was still pretty tough. A lot of supports and heavy weight canvas later, I had a very long canvas with absolutely no bend. It was a happy start. I then went in with some sanded textures and a few Motherwell and Kline quotes.

Gina did a drawing of their front door design and I burned a screen of the drawing. I printed this in a few spots as we began to get a feel for how we'd compose something with such unusual proportions.

Then we decided on our focal points. Tina always has great flowers in the place, and one night by the bar some tiger lillies gave us inspiration.

Gina added some wind and foliage and things were on their way.

We needed something to further guide the left to right movement. We decided on Bluejays partly because of their color. We also love that they seem so striking, but if you keep your eyes out, they're not too hard to spot around here.

Then Jim and I hung it up. It's been there ever since today when I decided to test the limits of Photomerge.

I've always been interested in food, but getting to know Jim and Tina has taught me so many things. They've wrapped their lives around their art in much the same way as we have. Their schedule is the only one more crazy than ours. Their hours, outlook and passion give them the same disconnect from the straight world as we often feel. They do it all as a couple, which is the only way I know how to do things.

There's been a lot of good news in the last few years. For one, Jim's been on the cover of Food and Wine. And now we're both juggling new little babies. I hope the next few years are just as good.

The painting is a little hard to see online. To see it the way it's supposed to be seen, you'll have to drop by for a drink.

Oh, and the title of this post is partially borrowed  from the great food and art blog  kept by some other great Philadelphians, Kris Chau and Hawk Krall .

play, work

posted: October 12, 2009

I've been meaning to post on this article that came out on Gina in DPI magazine a few weeks ago. I'm pretty lucky to live and work with someone who inspires me so much. Looking over these pictures is like a little retrospective of the last 5 years or so. It made me look back to when she was in Print's 20 under 30 back in '02. The work she's doing today is a little different than the stuff in DPI, and the stuff in DPI is a little different than what she was doing during the Print article. I love it all, and could look at it all day. In fact, that's what I do most days.

posted: September 14, 2009

Last Spring we got a call from Lauren McCutcheon about the Fall issue of Philadelphia Home Magazine. This is an offshoot from Philadelphia Magazine which we subscribe to, and enjoy reading each month. She asked to come scout our house, which made us laugh right away. I'm pretty proud of my house, but I know the homes usually featured in the magazine are sort of mansions. We warned Lauren about the degree of humble in our humble home, but she wanted to come anyway. Turns out, she's super nice, way funny and wasn't deterred by our house being non-mansion-y.
She came back over the Summer with a photo crew and spent the day making our house look good. I haven't been on a photo shoot in a while. The photographer will shoot with an attached laptop showing the images in real time. The Photo Director, Photographer, Assistant, and Stylist then critique the image and adjust the composition, lighting or whatever accordingly. This may be old hat to anyone who does this all the time but for me, it was really neat to watch. I was kicking myself afterwards for not taking behind the scenes pictures. I do have the article spreads though, and here they are:

Thanks to Lauren for writing such a nice article, and for reaching out to us, to Micheal for helping us to be a part of how our house fit in to things, to Barbara (the stylist, what a title!) for making everything look good, and to Trevor Dixon for taking these great pics and for being quite a nice guy in the process.

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