The Most Pure Nonironic Models In Life, However, Are To Be Found In Nature: Animals And Plants Are Exempt

The most pure nonironic models in life, however, are to be found in nature: animals and plants are exempt from irony, which exists only where the human dwells.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/how-to-live-without-irony/

The Crows Screamed Overhead.

Iinocut print, 18" by 24" black oil based relief ink on Reives BFK White (just like almost all of my student work)

this was one of the three prints I whipped out at the end of my BFA year. as to what's going on, you remember that Hunter Dude from before? yeah, that's him in a tangle of limbs at the bottom having his intestines eaten by wolves and his arm gnawed on by deergirl. 

one of the first prints I made of her, was of her feeling very trepidations at her first taste of meat, and that was the meat of an animal, and here Deer Girl is complicit in the death and devouring of a human being. but again, it's not that the wolves are bad, they're wolves. they have wolf morals. this carcass is one of many who have encroached on their land and are in conflict with their folk, and they would not consider it to be in any way to be wrong to eat any living being who is not another wolf or honorary other wolf. (and that one has to be earned one way or another, mostly it's a linguistic thing, like many cultures, my wolves will accept anybody who can speak their language and might respect anybody who tries)

wolves have carnivore morals. it's not "evil" just because it's different.

deer girl on the other hand, despite being half beast and half human, is not usually a carnivore, despite her human-ish omnivorous dentition. for the wolves eating meat, and the death of others is a part of what they are, for her it is a choice. she's choosing sides in a conflict with no winners, and no good guys.

the 21 crows are reminiscent of the "evil avians" in the fellowship of the ring who are the eyes of the dark lord, they are a jury casting watchful judgement over the scene and also clamoring for blood themselves.

the culmination of the wild hunt.

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this is also a print I thought would absolutely never ever sell, it makes the rest of my cutesy little forest scenes look edgy and I like how it's composed, but I never expected to sell even one of these. it's not commercial, it's not cute, it's not all that pretty, it's about devouring your muse and betraying what you thought were your principals.

not exactly art for over the kitchen table.

I sold one at modsock to these really nice older couple who were absolutely taken with it. I had to keep myself from blurting out "Really? That one?  the one with all the cannibalism? I only keep it around to distract people from the more overtly psycho-sexual themes in the others. you can't possibly like That one, let me sell you something else" Instead I said "really? and answered their questions.

it is the best thing to have people buy something I made from my own creative soul because they love it so much they have to look at every day. That, o' best beloved,  is the heady wine of professional validation.

alright, so we talked before about how the relief printmaking class I took was an unending anxiety nightmare for both me and my professor/adviser Ben Moreau. this piece here is one of the reasons why.

it is an eight-color suicide block in an edition of somewhere around 15 depending on how many of the messed up ones you count.  it was my first time working with Medium Density Fiberboard (or MDF as I will call it) as a carving media, and my first time working with wood instead of linoleum.

lemmie tell you right now, carving-linoleum cuts like butter in comparison to this compressed weetabix wafer made of sawdust and glue. everything about working with MDF was painful and it did nothing but fight me the entire time. add on top of this, the problem that I absolutely could not come up with an image that I needed to make in color.

voices yelling at me at the time, both real and imagined, were nothing but tormenting whispers of "aren't you so glad you're working with wood now like a real relief printmaker? I mean linoleum is a good student media, for beginners, but wood is so much more professional" and "don't forget everything you do this year has to be focused on things for your BFA show, so this would be a good project to make a nice colorful centerpiece for the whole thing"   with a heaping lump of  "fucking up on this project will mean you don't belong in the program, you didn't deserve to get in anyway, and you're not good enough to stay, you do nothing but create filth for other people to clean up and destroy equipment in the process"

so yeah. whenever I managed to get a little sleep (and mind you this was also when my back was starting to really have problems as well, so it was hard enough to sleep) I would dream the same horrible anxiety nightmare. I would be in the print lab trying desperately to make prints and every time I did anything I destroyed everything around me and also disappointing my friends and angered Ben. I would dream of being screamed at as I pulled print after ruined print, each wrong in a different way, each fucking up the equipment in a different way.

I talked to Ben at some point about this and it turns out he was anxiety having nightmares about me ruining everything too. (and I did end up accidentally printing on the blankets, but they weren't exactly ruined [unlike some other parties who will remain Drew, who accidentally shredded a blanket trying to Chine-collé on the wrong press] so whatever)

for all that though, this is not a bad print.

the idea was a gift from Christine who is much better both at color and catchy titles than I am. the title is "she brings the rain" and is a commentary on my Debbie Downer tendencies.

Rabbit, Colored version, currently cherished in private collection.

(that's right I sell things)

How are you so good at Lino printing? I'm trying to self teach myself!!!!

Short answer: Thank you so much! I really like making all of my art and I've had a lot of practice.

Long answer: I went to school and spent roughly 6 years doing nothing but learning how to skillfully make art, how to know the world how it really is, and how to have big cohesive thoughts and opinions about anything given enough time to write it all out. College! I recommend it.

I spent a lot of 2010 to 2012 working on the pieces you see here on my tumblr and if they were organized chronologically, you'd see how much I improve from one project to the next due to the feedback I received from my friends and teachers both in critique and informally when I asked for help.

Printmaking is very process oriented, if you want to get better at the process: you should try taking a class or at least watching a demo at an art supply store, that way you can see somebody do it live and ask them questions as they go along. Ideally you'd get to use a press too, I may be stuck using a spoon to print with now, but nothing beats a press for making it easy to print big.

But, if you think you've got a handle on the process (hint, warm up your linoleum a bit and it will become easier to carve) the rest of it is just practice, and figuring out what you want to make and how you want it to look, before you try and do it, without getting bored because you over-thought the idea, or paralyzed by fear that the finished product won't be as good as it already is in your head.

The trick to that is also practice.

The other thing that allows me to create interesting art is that I had to find my center to know what I wanted to talk about in my art. I think everybody goes through this, you’ve got the tools, you know the procedure, now what? what do you want to draw?

Finding your center, your genius-sprit, your idea-particle detector, your muse, your omnivorous all devouring cultural trash compactor, or whatever you call the place where the ideas come from, is important, but everybody already has it, you just have to practice using it.

If you don’t have it yet, or don’t think you do, write out a list of things you’d like to draw normally, things you’re interested in learning more about, your areas of expertise (be they archeology or pop-culture hair styles) things you wish you’d made, things you know you could make better than the original, the things (or people) you obsess over.  What is the best of your life? The worst of it? What can you not stop thinking about?

The things that itch at me, the stuff I absolutely have to shout from the mountaintops, are the things I make art about. Sometimes if I don’t think I have anything I go chase ideas. I drink scotch with friends and talk, or stay up late until my feet feel too comfy and the birds are chirping at the sunrise, or I stare at the computer screen at my job and have a pang of angst and I keep a sketch book and I draw any and every little thought that comes into my head.

And then I do my best to take the little fluttering light of an idea and manifest it right. Sometimes I manage it, other times I don’t do as well as I’d hoped. But there is always next time.

Oh, and also.

If you don’t manage to print square on the paper, either make a jig to hold everything in the right place, mount it right  when you frame it. or use enough paper so that you can cut it square after the fact.

Somebody somewhere will love everything you do.  If you have something genuine to say it’ll speak to somebody. No matter if you don’t think it’s good enough or not. There’s no such thing as perfection, there is only hard work and being true to yourself and your idea.

Thanks again for the compliment, it means a lot to me.

 Happy New Years and good luck to you.

These Hips Don't Lie 18/24 Linocut, edition of 5.

this is a break from the deer girl sequence entirely. this piece was made for a prompt "the body in pieces" from my mixed media class. it is a self portrait in that all of the anatomy is either from female references from anatomical drawings, or drawn from pictures of my face, or from looking at my hand and toes. the text is made up of things that apply to me.