Pencil in the Studio

Matt Jones

2012-02-15T19:36:00.002-08:00

On the edge of Williamsburg a couple weeks ago I walked over to do a visit with artist Matt Jones in a building I had yet to explore. I was greeted with a firm and friendly handshake at the front of the building by one of Matt's studio assistants, Josh Freydkis, early that morning. After winding our way past what seemed to be a fashion shoot in the works, we got to the entrance of Jones' space. It was packed floor to ceiling: scattered with primed and ready canvases, bicycle chains, light tables, a batman figurine, and remnants of his earlier works and installations. I was then introduced to Jones' other lovely assistant Emily Means. Instantly digging the jovial and animated vibe this trio was giving off, I knew it was going to be a lively day of drawing and making. Finding a spot in the corner, I watched their studio day unfold. The first step was to send Josh out for some more paint and of course, more coffee. As they talked over what colors to buy I couldn't help but chime in, remembering fondly my own days of being a studio assistant.

There are many different types of work under the umbrella of artist Matt Jones. The day I was there Jones was preparing to work on a group of paintings he will soon recreate abroad for a two person show with Kadar Brock at Horton Gallery in Berlin that will open February 25th. He met Kadar in 1998 where they shared a studio wall between them in their senior year at Cooper Union. Jones explained that he likes to make the work for an exhibition while in the place where the exhibition will be. Given that he calls this particular group his "Energy Paintings," this seemed more than appropriate. Conjuring up a form of this physical energy (be it cosmic, supernatural, or just plain kinetic) in this super-real step of pre-installation gives the work a particular kind dynamism. It is as though a surging force is carried from Jones' studio in NYC to its new home on the canvas in the gallery abroad -- like a magic trick. I saw the show he was in last month at The HOLE and could totally feel the sublime energy that the paintings give off: in the dizzying motion of the mark, the slippery glossiness of the surface, and their garish aurora borealis-like colors. By getting to know Jones' spirit as well as his work during my time in his studio, it was clear that his intensity of humor and outlandish behavior carry through into the work as well.

Once Josh returned with the paint, Jones and his crew mixed up several containers of color before Jones began to pour the paint down on a large sheet of plastic. He danced around the plastic, gesturing above it slowly in order to be specific in each color's placement. There is a real fine art to pouring and Jones has a certain finesse for it. As his assistants and I watched on, he kept up his comedic banter, entertaining us all while he worked. Once he finished this step he began to put the canvases (prepped with black gesso) face down on the paint. He then stepped on the back of the canvas to insure that the paint would take to the surface, leaving behind colorful ghost-like sneaker marks on its underbelly. With each one, he used a different flick of the wrist to raise the piece off the plastic, leaving each canvas with a distinct personality. Later, once they have dried, he will coat them with a water based polyurethane, slicking them up in their final steps of completion.

Another group of work that Jones makes is based in photography. He takes photos of himself as a character or personality. These personas sometimes arrive in costume, giving melodramatic stances, or making freakishly outrageous expressions. Jones then reduces them to a black and white photocopy in order to continue their transformation. He might then blow them up very large to make cutouts of the figure, later placing them in the center of a gallery. He also lays them out on a light box with a piece of paper on top in order to directly recreate them as ebony pencil drawing soaked with paint thinner. Jones' work seems to relate to mass production, both in its execution and its reference to the zines and music flyers of our younger years, so heavily coated with inkjet black. Above all, laced with humor and horror, this body of work has a really active and improvisational presence, as though each piece is a personality in the fantasy world that is Matt Jones' art.

Matt and Studio assistant Emily at work.

This is another body of work Jones' took out for me and one of his many visitors that day to look at.

With all the energy that was swirling around in the studio I ended up heading out before the rest were ready. I was totally spent, jaw hurting from laughter. I was told they were missing a crucial member that day, main assistant Eric Wiley. This dude's ears were surely burning, they talked about him quite a bit. Jones ordered a pizza at studio half time and we all sat down to watch an episode of Walking Dead. They caught me up on what was going on, jokes flying of course. I had a real blast with them that day, even as an onlooker. Check out more of Jones' rad work at http://mjones.info/.

Rob Nadeau

2012-01-28T18:27:00.000-08:00

For the third time now, I headed to Sunset Park to give a studio visit in the building that also hosts the studios of Hauser, Heidkamp and until this past summer, Wozniak. This time I was happy to be visiting with Rob Nadeau who has come to the building from Dumbo. These spaces are super sweet, always a nice amount of room for storage, fabulous windows for daytime light and famed sunset, and more then ample wall space. In the far right corner, bellow a couple of windows outlining the fast pace of the BQE, Nadeau had a keyboard and a bass guitar set up. Stuck on the wall behind the keyboard where some words with musical notes written out above them. His space acts, not only as an art studio, but also a music studio. What a great thing to be able to go back and forth from painting to playing in just a couple of steps. I imagine it would keep you active in those oh so frustrating down times in the process of making. Nadeau had up several pieces on the wall that where fairly new and had one piece laid out on the floor, a work in progress.

Nadeau's new works, with their array of hyper-subtle paint strokes, appear much bigger then they already are when looking at them for the first time. It is easy to feel your body engrossed by their otherworldly expanse. The pigments he uses are often laced with flecks of metal be it graphite or metallic paint. The surface glistens at times, its high and low lights changing depending on the stance of the viewer. It brought to mind the wash of water over a bed of mineral infused rocks or, as Rob spoke about quite extensively, the effects made by a step in photo processing. It is as though the large canvas had been agitated in a development bath, where the light and chemicals played on the surface, leaving behind flowing traces of movement.

Nadeau explained that he often works on the canvas on the floor before stretching it. You can almost see the action of the swing of his arm in the marks. There were a bunch of rags used for this swing piled on the floor next to the painting. Rob and I talked about the time it takes to live with a painting when the placement of the paint can take seconds, but the next move can take weeks. You have to use a special kind of restraint to make this kind of work, in order to leave behind the details most important untouched. Nadeau has got it down.

He shared with me online images of the two sculptural-painting installations he had done a few months ago, one at Georgia State University in Atlanta and one at The University of Tennessee in Knoxville. It was a busy fall for Mr. Nadeau it would seem. For both of these shows he shipped completed work down from Brooklyn and went foraging to various locations around the two cities he was visiting to gather the rest of the materials for the installations. City site specific.

Installation view, Georgia State University, Welch Galleries in Atlanta, GA

There was so much to look at in Nadeau's studio, I wanted to lift up every piece of paper or drawing, to find the one underneath. I was lucky enough to have him bring out some small drawings he had made while teaching a semester at UT. He said he had used graphite stones from the shore of the Narraganset Bay in RI for much of these small works, drawing with the stones. One of them looked like it could be a ten foot tall painting as I held it in my hand gently not to disrupt its faint marks. I didn't get to hear Rob play his music during this studio session, but had heard him play weeks prior when he busted out some tunes on a piano at a party we were both at. Man can he jam, and so can his paintings. Please check out more of Nadeau's work at http://www.robnadeau.com/.

Joe Ballweg

2012-01-14T10:36:00.000-08:00

Pre-holiday craziness, I made my way to Ridgewood, Queens to visit the studio of Joe Ballweg. He has a very large ground floor storefront space which had previously been a knitting factory. The building was sold to Joe and his two friends as the company was moving to South America, romantic in its history. The studio is organized for both the viewing and making of his work, a helpful step in any practice. Joe, being partial owner of this two floor building, not only has the cozy upstairs apartment to retire to, but also a tranquil backyard complete with bonfire. I was stoked to see several new pieces and the new directions they have taken. We talked over these new works, and had an extensive chat about the pop-up shows he has started to have in his studio. The second of these shows having just happened a week prior. Once he puts away his own work, there is a nice amount of wall-space for these exhibitions that he curates with artist girlfriend Andrea Bergart. He explained how he likes to show artists that don't already know one another in order to facilitate new connections between them.

Joe's paintings strike me at first as a kind of collage that operates without any actual foreign matter being attached to the surface, an optical illusion of sorts, the kind of illusion found only in the history of the work's process. Thoughts of maps, silhouetted figures, or meandering river beds also come to mind when looking at his sometimes intensely colored canvases. By butting one large winding form up close to the next, Joe leaves the viewer to decide which space operates as the negative and which as the positive, creating a charged vibratory line in-between the two. By playing with multiple abstract fields subtly, but with obvious direction, he allows the surface to capture these carefully considered lines, letting them act predominately along side of the other formal elements in the paintings.

Each slight movement of the brush on the canvas, be it a splatter or a swoosh, showcases as a satisfyingly whispered detail. While I was there, he had laid flat a painting on a couple of sawhorses. Mixing oil colors on the palette next to him, he gave the surface varied and exploratory gestural movements using multiple tools. My interpretation of the paintings resembling collage was confirmed when I saw that Joe does in fact layout pieces of paper on the painting's surface (as well as cut pieces of tape) to block out one section while working on another. By doing this, it is like he is working on more then one painting on the canvas at a time. And, later, at the end of the process, the two seamlessly come together as though worked on simultaneously.

Close up of a painting

As the visit winded down and we prepared to go upstairs for tea, Joe and I had a talk about our contemporaries, where we are as artists and how charged the scene in Brooklyn feels. His charmingly sarcastic grin reminded me that you have to take it all with a grain of salt to get the work done in the first place. Later, we were off to a yearly POI holiday party with White Elephant gifts in hand. Joe and I had a couple of swaps within this gift giving game. I ended up with the pure maple syrup I wanted after convincing Joe that the scarf I had been swapped out for would suit him better then me. Thanks for being a good sport, Joe. To see more of his lush oil paintings go to http://www.joeballweg.com/Home.html and keep an eye out for the next pop-up show in his studio.

Jay Gaskill

2011-12-07T08:01:00.000-08:00

I have been following Jay Gaskill's work through all three years of his time at Hunter. As he approached his MFA thesis show, I had the chance to head uptown to make that stressful leap across Dyer Ave to the Hunter graduate studios to see one of his paintings in its final stages. It was during open studios, but fittingly, his door was closed and I was the only viewer allowed in that day. His space was surprisingly tidy, but I could see the remnants of frenzied production. The final painting Jay was working on is 8 1/2 by 18 1/2 feet in size; it swallowed me up as I entered the space, leaving me to only imagine the extreme anxiety that there must be on the maker's part in pulling off such a large piece, but Jay, as cool as a cat, was perfectly calm and focused, as expected. We walked around as he showed me other works he had made in his final year. And then, as there was a lot for both of us to do, we got down to it with our Balentines in hand, "Hunter style," as he put it.

Jay's pieces are extremely well considered; they would have to be for how seamlessly they are painted. I spent quite a while gazing at the one that he had just completed prior to beginning to work on his thesis. I found there to be a vast amount of visual navigation to do on the viewer's part. Does this corner's formation mirror that of the others'? Does the center act as a mandala or are there breaks in its repetition? How is the white used? If not as a background, then as its own color? Tricking my eyes with its twists and turns, I occasionally arrived at somewhat familiar imagery. It was as though I was finally making sense of the pattern, the colors themselves subtly bringing to mind palettes from another era, the forms reminiscent of graphics familiar yet elusive. But alas, to my increasing bewilderment, the images would begin to blur into the background or be quickly pulled away from the vibrating surface. If this was a maze, I was happily lost, all the possible conclusions put before me quenching my intellectual thirst. Unsolvable can be so gratifying.

The corner of the studio had accumulated a pile of acetate that had obviously been used somewhere in his process, as Jay pulled out a few large sheets to show me which matched what painting it became clear how complex his process is. Obsessively deciding how the piece will be laid out, he paints onto the acetate possible patterns and then holds it up to the canvas. Not always satisfied, he might repaint the acetate and hold it up once again. He repeats this action over and over, making new configurations each time, until, in a moments notice, the right composition is found. Jay explained to me how much deliberation there was in working out his largest painting yet, -- the one he was propped up on a ladder for while I was there. Stupefied by this act, I realized how completely he is using time-honored systems of painting.

There is nothing quite like the juiced-up energy that exudes from an artist about to finish up a program. Jay warned me he was going to be working hard and late. He told me that I was welcome to stay as long as I wanted, but that he would be there well into the evening; he was right, I tuckered out after only 6 hours. I had such a fabulous day there with Jay, talking about our art, the art world, and our busy lives. He also filled me in on some crucial NFL developments. We took a break to walk around and visit some other studios, stopping to talk to various students in the hallway. It was obvious that everyone was as much a fan of Jay and his work as I am. I can't wait to see his thesis show next week! It opens on Wednesday the 14th (6-8pm) at the Hunter MFA Thesis Exhibition. Be sure to check out more of Jay's rad work at www.jaygaskill.us.

Jess Fuller

2011-12-01T08:14:00.000-08:00

I used to rent a studio in Greenpoint where I had the opportunity to get to know the artist Jess Fuller. I was stoked to head to Clinton Hill the other week to visit her very spacious live-in studio. Her work and materials took up nearly every part of the apartment, hanging from the walls, made into mountainous-like piles in the corners, and organized factory style on the floor awaiting their next step of production. It made the place feel more like an installation than home or studio. As I was introduced to her lovely cat Buster, we sat down to have the tacos that she had prepared for us. It was a soft fall evening and as we put away our dishes and got out our respective art materials, Jess began to walk me around the place, sharing with me her studios' most recent developments. She was preparing to ship her work to Denmark for a two person show with Sam Moyer at Galleri Tom Christoffersen that opens December 2. She is also currently in a group show at SOUTHFIRST in Williamsburg.

Jess' current work wonderfully embraces and wrestles with one of the most common materials used in painting: the canvas. She delves into this historic fabric, meticulously tearing it apart with a gentle hand, freeing it from its usual two dimensional form and allowing it to arrive, anew, three dimensionally. Many things come to mind when looking at the "marks" she has left; they might create a downward swooping gesture (as though the piece is taking in an exuberant breath), or form a pendulous open-mouthed grin, or mimmic torn skin where letters are spelled out from the scarring left behind. While I was there Jess was sitting in front of her couch methodically pulling away thread after thread from the center of a small sheet of canvas. This is just one of the many steps she takes in arriving at her works. Before she begins this part of the process Jess adds pigment to the material, canvases might be fully coated (as in the large black piece that hung ominously in room behind us), or hit with hints of color, as a wink to the minimalist gesture. Jess then puts it through a wash at the local laundromat to further frey the edges and distress the color.

Photo I took at the group show TEXT/IMAGE at SOUTHFIRST

Lately, Jess has moved away from putting her altered canvases on stretchers which she had done in the past. Instead, she is using glue as a starch to stiffen the space around the canvas where the stretchers would regularly be. This, referencing the the ridged formations of the wood, while allowing the paintings to settle into themselves, giving the work an even more animated, or anthropomorphous feel. As one painting's body slouched down from the wall I couldn't help but touch it, captivated by its life-like girth.

Buster and art

Installation view of Fuller and Moyer's work at Galleri Tom Christoffersen, 2011

This was an evening visit, and before I knew it we were well past the midnight mark and onto the next day. I so enjoyed talking to Jess, looking up at each other from time to time as she expressively told me about all her life, where she grew up, her connection to the ocean and her endless travel experiences. I am totally taken by her work and excited to keep following it. Please go check out the group show TEXT/IMAGE at SOUTHFIRST and check back with Pencil in the Studio soon, I will post some pictures here of the show at Galleri Tom Christoffersen .

Ivin Ballen

2011-11-13T13:48:00.000-08:00

It had been years since I had visited Ivin Ballen's studio in Clinton Hill. You enter the space by going through a very well equipped wood shop, with various machines and wood shavings covering the floor. Beyond the wood shop is a smaller studio space where Ivin paints his work after finishing it up in the shop. There is a long table in this room, of course handcrafted for its specific needs, that is covered with containers of Golden paint as well as the signature metallics he so often uses in his work. Above the table hung two box sculptures, some of the only few left in his studio. Ivin has been in multiple shows this season, he currently has work at Regina Rex in Bushwick, and Allegra LaViola in the Lower East Side. I was excited to get a peek at what he is up to now.

For several years Ivin has been making exquisite Trompe L'Oeil objects that appear to be made of the same packing materials that you might find in a studio, gallery, or museum. It is like he is doing studies of the tossed away materials that are used to take care of the art work as it moves from one place to the next, an interesting way to comment on the banal goings-on backstage in the art world. With all the necessary tools of a carpenter, Ivin begins to work on his meticulously crafted sculptural paintings. First, he creates a composition with the found materials, and then very carefully casts them. He described to me the trickiness of this casting system, how he has to build various armatures to hold the delicate parts of the cardboard in place. The two shown above were made for the body of work up at Allegra LaViola, they are pretty literal renditions of simple boxes, you almost have to touch them to be convinced they aren't real. When he paints these aquaresin and fiberglass pieces, the tape becomes a more glamorous version of itself and the drab brown skin of the cardboard is elevated to an array of gratifyingly gradated colors. In other pieces, Ivin uses more than one kind of packing material, making found object-like sculptures that are painted with patterned motifs and strong, boldly colored shapes. These works are often partially covered in curious yet familiar textures that come well off of the surface. They are intriguing not only for their use of color and traditional minimalist compositions, but also their bizarre interpretation of everyday materials.

An install shot I took of the work up at Regina Rex.

While I was there, Ivin was making rubber triangle molds for tiles, which he has since brought to Pittsburgh to make casts of. He is working with a company that manufactures alternative, ultra high performance concrete tiles, among other things: http://taktl -llc .com/. He showed me the different textured surfaces he will explore, cardboard and wood being two of them. It was interesting to see what goes into this kind of new process experimentation. He was building a crate that would fit the molds, just so, in order to get them to PA, and explained to me how the box would hold the slabs by taking up the exact amount of space needed so as not to be wasteful. A carpenter at work.

This is a picture Ivin sent me from Pittsburgh of the first casting batch.

I liked drawing with the noise of the band saw, a fall rain shower, and music steadily streaming from the background. It was so active and hectic in there. We both looked up periodically to comment on a tune or two that was playing (Ivin shared a lot of his musical interests with me). There was the great energy of the unknown in his studio that day as he worked on his new ideas. Please go to Regina Rex and Allegra LaViola before the shows come down and be sure to check out more of his work at http://www.ivinballen.com/.

Christine Heindl

2011-11-03T07:23:00.000-07:00

While taking the 7 train to Jackson Heights a few Sundays ago I was getting pretty fired up to see Christine Heindl's new paintings. Nestled inside of one of those distinctly Queens-like apartment buildings is her studio. I am always struck by how much space there is, two sizable studios, a bedroom and a perfectly warm yellow kitchen where she greeted me with a cup of tea and some very tasty baked goods. As I stepped into the first studio room I was immediately transformed by the hypnotic vibrations that emanate from her work. She explained to me the feeling that she gets from being in there for so much of her time, she said sometimes it feels like the walls are closing in on her. After several hours spent drawing, I got that same feeling, in such a very good way. Enveloped by her art.

As we began to talk, draw and paint, I kept thinking about the painting that was hanging on the wall behind her. All the small colored triangles in this work collectively form lines, various larger shapes, or subtle changes in the color field except for one, a glorious peach triangle that is left a singular hue, a tiny difference that acts like a key for the rest of the piece. Once you discover this, it begs you to unlock all the paintings' hidden secrets. Something that has always drawn me to Christine's work is this kind of visual leap the viewer takes from one viewing distance to another. The closer you get, the more of the intricately painted canvas is revealed and the less you are aware of the boundary between your body and the painting. The bizarre spacial makeup of these works make them seem as though they are hovering, not quite making contact with the wall or even keeping still.

I spoke to Christine about her process. First she attaches paper to the canvas in order to create an ultra smooth surface. Then she begins applying paint with a thin brush to tiny spaces of pattern across the canvas in a grid-like format. Sometimes she defines this grid beforehand and sometimes not. When the grid is not defined the lines appear to be undulating like a sea of calm waves. The next several steps in her process can be fairly intuitive, when she is beginning to paint in the different shapes over the patterns, be them diamonds, squares, or triangles, she lets the painting tell her where to go. Christine explained that she came to the HE spelled out bellow by seeing it begin to appear in her painting and deciding to help it along, reminiscent of a Ouija board's job of pushing you to go to the letters you are suppose to read. Occasionally there is other text in the work that she has previously decided on and will sometimes paint in a calligraphic hand. A simple capital Q, a row of As or letters spelling out TO THE. Recently a face emerged in one of the squares as she was painting it; now she has begun to use this motif in other works. The faces, with their different expressions, create a surreal viewing moment. At first, from afar, you don't see them, but after approaching the painting you begin realize you are being stared back at.

Christine works flat on a table that takes up nearly half the studio space, covered with sheets of paper, tubs of paint, and little creatures. She let me arrange the group of them bellow to draw. I was betwitched by one friend in particular, Dorothea, a large soft Leopard who seemed to be holding court. I suppose when working on things this detailed, time consuming and eye blurring, it is good to have someone on your team. Studio friends are the best.

We listened to the games as we worked and talked about the art world and our studio practices, nothing more cozy on a Sunday afternoon than the light sounds and flickers of football in the background. Before long it was time for her to put down her paint brush and me my pencil and hit the culinary scene of Jackson Heights. It was so pleasurable to spend a studio day there in Queens. I have been looking to Christine and her paintings for many years as a source of inspiration, I can't say enough good things about her and her work, please check out more at http://christineheindl.com/home.html.

Tamara Gonzales

2011-10-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

I spent one of the last summery days of Brooklyn doing a studio visit in Bushwick. Walking down an outside pathway next to an overgrown garden that smelled of the end of the season, I came upon the studio of Tamara Gonzales. Entering her space was almost like walking into one of her paintings. The studio was filled with large works saturated with vibrant colors and patterns and the floor was covered with a collection of fabrics embellished with the same patterns. The whole place oozed with Tamaras' unique sensibilities. I quickly began to put together the pieces, imagining her spraying paint through the fabric to arrive at her kaleidoscopic works. We talked about her studio's setup as she toured me through the space, showing me work from previous years to help illustrate the buildup to her most current body. As she pulled various delectable paintings from the racks, I felt a rush to begin my drawing process. True to my suspicion, these elaborate canvases have been hands-down the hardest to draw yet. Staring at them made me feel pleasantly delirious, totally getting the full impact the paintings can have on the viewer.

Tamara collects the lace, which she uses as a stencil, from various thrift stores and dollar stores. We discussed the effect that the woven pieces that are made by hand have on her. She talked about how they hold the vibrations of a human's touch and how she liked to think about their makers and the making process. Tamara's paintings, with their heavy saturation of hues and jutting bars of light, are reminiscent of the phantasmagoric qualities of a festival. On one piece of canvas she is able to capture the energy and vivacity of any given number of religious or cultural celebrations, be it a parade or spiritual ceremony. Tamara told me about her multiple trips to Mexico in the 90's during the Day of the Dead and, later, her time spent in India at the Sanskriti Kendra artist residency in 2002. It is obvious how heavily her travels have impacted her work. Her description, particularly of the churches in Mexico, with their elaborate colonial architecture mimicking the Baroque Cathedrals of Spain and altars filled with collections of contemporary objects and grotesque renditions of the Crucifixion, was so vividly narrated I could almost close my eyes and see it. You could see this just as easily in the work.

Tamara had hung a photocopy of an Egyptian figure next to the sculpture above. She explained to me that she had been holding onto this image for a long time, later discovering its relationship to the piece she is currently working on. I love how the studio can hold the artist's secrets. Tamara's three dimensional works have the same celebratory and mystical quality as her paintings, as well as the many installation pieces she has also done. She showed me how at one point she was putting various objects right on her canvas. I thought of it as a way of humanizing these abstract works, like giving a gift to the painting, or making the painting an altar within itself.

There wasn't a single section of Tamara's space that wasn't filled with some sort of curiosity adding to the spectacle that makes up her killer collection of odds and ends. Her space is a real visual playground.
What an enlightening time I had in Tamara's studio, listening to her stories about her travels and multiple experiences at different residencies, watching her work on her paintings and sort through things. When I had decided to draw the large figure she was currently working on, she let me pick which head to put on it. It was so cool to have this choice -- an extraordinarily macabre way to help dress the figure for its portrait. Please explore her website, there is so much more to discover. http://home.bway.net/durga/

Elisa Lendvay

2011-09-29T19:36:00.000-07:00

I visited Elisa Lendvay's studio most recently. She has a space in Greenpoint in a building chock full of artists. When I first thought of doing this project Elisa was at the forefront of my mind. I had found her sculptures loosely entering my painting which sparked the idea of drawing the work I am drawn to. It was just as I had hoped it would be when I entered her space. Shelves overflowed with sculptural artifacts, grouped together as though they were lined up to be studied, the floor scattered with stacks of flat constructs, large freestanding pieces in the center of the space hit with sections of bright color, and walls jutting out with painted forms having been arranged just so. All of the work appeared animate in its liveliness. It was begging for a still-life rendition.

While I was there Elisa showed me what she had made while staying at the Albee Foundation residency in Montauk for the month of August. I immediately saw the residency's proximity to the ocean as an influence on her newest work. The work, with its cool whites, winding structures, and fence-like shapes looked salted and worn. Elisa, sometimes using found objects and often constructing things under the influence of the shapes she has gathered in her mind and studio, tells the story of a moment, a memory, or a single thought. She depicts these ideas by using repetition of form, color, and material almost obsessively as though it were a song she can't get out of her head. Currently, she is using a scalloped, shingled, or echo repetition in different aspects of her work, be it sculpture, painting, or drawing. It brought to mind sound or water waves and vertebrae. One of the materials Lendvay uses is a type of papier mâché, which adds to the organic look of her configurations. The paper mimics heavy hardened sand, but mysteriously leaves the piece light to pick up.

There is a special energy to Elisa's work that gives it the feeling of being in motion. It seems like if you turned your back on a piece it might move or re-adjust itself. As I as was drawing, this happened quite literally. Elisa was dancing around her space placing one thing next to another, creating and recreating an impromptu installation. She kept telling me it was almost ready. I would be drawing and at a moment's notice something would have moved, leaving me to start on the next section of my paper. This was totally invigorating. It gave the visit a spontaneously interactive feel. She was installing as I was drawing, a race to the end of the her space's organization and my graphite filled paper.

Elisa talked about the importance of moving the work around and studying one piece's interaction with another. She gathers information this way. It felt like her studio was set up like a scientific lab, with her specimens being arranged in hierarchical structures and classification schemes.

A view of Elisa's Studio at Albee

Elisa and I had a hard time stopping the chat on a few occasions so that we could get back to the art making. I missed her while she was away at the Albee residency. I was going to visit her there, but it was the weekend Irene decided to visit instead, and we thought it was best for me to not get on the train. I liked to think of her in the barn-like studio she described, hiding out with her sculptures fighting the winds, but I was glad to see her back with all her work intact ready for me to draw. Please check out more of her Elisa's radness at http://elisalendvay.com/.

Kees den Breejen

2011-09-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

Also while in California I got the chance to visit Kees den Breejen's studio in Oakland. He is the father of my first Pencil in the Studio visit, Erik den Breejen. I spent the afternoon with Kees (pronounced "case") talking to him about his paintings and profession through the years, learning about his ancestry and life spent in California. He had some fascinating stories for me. His studio is nestled in their wonderful home in the Montclair Hills with a great view of the bay and all of its activity. We even got the chance to visit the Legion of Honor museum together for the exhibition Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. I saw many connections between this show and Kees's paintings. Kees, having moved to California (by way of Canada) from Holland (Delft to be exact), comes from a long-standing tradition of painting.

Kees's work spawns from his interests in history, his extensive travel, his love of photography and his daily life in the bay area. While I was there he was working on finishing up a self-portrait from a photo he had taken on the subway while visiting NYC. He is currently working on a group of paintings that depict various transit systems. A painting of a trolley car in San Francisco stood out in particular, again reminding me of some of the Dutch paintings we had seen earlier that week. They are like Kees's contemporary take on the Genre paintings of the 1600's. There is a concentration on narrative and theme. This painting depicts a man and a woman crossing the street in front of the trolley, portaits of an urban society, regular folks. We also talked about his influences, from Thieboud to Vermeer; from Van Gogh to Oakland's Anthony Holdsworth. Kees's work deftly combines elements of California realism, Impressionism, and Golden Age Dutch painting.

His illustrations are just as impressive as his paintings. He explained how for many years he had been making cards for people at the office. Once he made his first, the requests just kept coming. I was so delighted when he made one for me, a "Jenuwine Kees Kard." What a talent to have. I asked if there were other artists in the family. He told me that when his father first moved to Canada and couldn't speak English he would draw pictures of the things he was looking for at the store in order to ask for them.

Kees's father, also named Kees, or Cornelus, made the clock on the right by hand, down to the gears.

Kees Jr. helped by painting the face.

Kees worked in the graphics department at The Oakland Tribune and, later, The San Francisco Chronicle for many years before retiring, and now concentrates on painting. He explained how things changed from one decade to the next, remembering when they first set an Apple computer in front of him and told him that this was what he would be using from then on, with no word of it beforehand. Can you imagine? The year was 1988; he was also studying painting with Holdsworth and (with help from his father) rebuilding the family house they have in the Sierra foothills. A real Renaissance man!

Rotterdam Haven, 1970

I adored my time spent with Mr. den Breejen, as I always do. We got the chance to visit the house that he rebuilt with his father in the 80's. In the midst of loaded blackberry bushes there is a petanque court. As always Kees schooled me in a game of it. One of these days I'll take the court. Heres to one of my favorite painters and petanque players! To see more go to http://keesgraphics.com/Paintings/Home.html.

Jovi Schnell

2011-08-28T08:48:00.000-07:00

I recently traveled to Northern California and while I was there had the unique opportunity to do a studio visit with Bay Area artist Jovi Schnell. She lives and works in San Francisco and is presently teaching at the California College of the Arts, which she has been doing since 2004. In 2010 she completed her first public art commission in a new public plaza in the SoMa district of San Francisco and has another in the works for June of 2012 in a skate park between Mission & Valencia. This is so thrilling, installation art that will past the test of time. Her studio is located in the Mission in a great big brick building. Jovi's space, found at the end of a long hallway, is very attractive, with its high ceilings and vast skylight. I couldn't wait to get the opportunity to meet her and view her work in person. We had loads to talk about as I drew and she painted: what led her to a move back to Cali in 2004 after spending many years in NYC, the way the art world opperates in San Francisco, and what she draws her inspiration from.

Jovi makes groups of paintings at a time and explained to me the processes for a couple different bodies of work. I was totally taken by these processes -- beautifully tangled systems that quite literally allow the throw of the dice to determine which way the paintings go. First she pointed out one of her studio walls tacked with papers holding lists of phrases and words. Jovi names this collection her "Brain Dump," where she drops language she has collided with. The next step in Jovi's process is to number the list and come to a particular word on the list by throwing a multi-sided dice. Jovi then finds the colors for her paintings by entering the words the dice has chosen in a search engine that brings up a palette corresponding to each word. When starting the painting, she again throws the dice to determine when and where to use each color from the palette, when to use a particular image, or how to build the blocks that form her paintings' grid-like layout. I found Jovi's application of chance to be extremely poetic; playing out a game that uses paint, color, and composition as its pieces. What fantastic results this game gives way to. The colors are perfectly harmonious and the movement of one square or cubby-hole to the next seems nothing less than meant to be.

Jovi does use a few constants in her paintings. It could be a blue she can't get away from or a lexicon of images that appear in the painting's many boxes. One image I was drawn to in particular she called her "Breath Star," which she explained originated from "Viscous Fingering," a scientific study she first came across in a series of books by Philip Ball called Nature's Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts, which includes Branches, Flow & Shapes. She makes the star by breathing down on the paint in its center. Jovi shared lots of information similar to this with me. The conversation was so rich. She is very in tune with what is important to her and what she channels through to use symbolically in her work, be it a tree viewed from both sides, a galaxy telling us where we are at a given point in time, or the simple beauty of chance.

Another current body of work incorporates a system that allows movement to inspire the chance. Jovi paints a string and then slowly lets it drop to a piece of paper, later transfering this mark to a black ground. She continues to paint on this "knot," leaving a maze of color in the center of the black paper like a concise reflection on movement. She worked on one of these "knot" paintings while I was there. I was captivated by the sound of the dice being thrown in the background as she chose the colors for it.

Above is her public art piece entitled Evolves the Luminous Flora

The time flew by in Jovi's studio. I wasn't ready to leave, but the last days of travel were beckoning me to see the ocean one last time. I have barely scratched the surface when it comes to talking about her work. She spoke a lot about her work dealing with locating oneself and being present. I took away with me these thoughts and hope to apply them to my own way of living. Please check out more of Jovi at http://www.jovischnell.com/_new2/gallery1.php. And also look at a video on her public art piece here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ctqi7M3gZA.

Patrick's Point State Park, California

Liz Ainslie

2011-08-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

I visited Liz Ainslie in her studio in Williamsburg recently. She had a totally relaxed rejuvenated feel about her, having just returned from her time at Millay Colony for the Arts in Austerlitz, NY. Ainslie shared the experience of being away; nowhere to rush off to, no sticky train to hop on, left only with time to spend in her studio. Dreamy. She has a great set up here in Brooklyn too. Her studio is in a loft apartment that she also lives in. Liz has a large working space with a desk for doing drawings and a space off of it that is dedicated to her paintings. Living with a writer and another painter, the loft has a totally creative and dynamic vibe about it.

Ainslie shared her newest work with me, a group of paintings that she has titled "Stick Lines." She has extracted portions of her previous body of work to use in these paintings, lines that either float on their own or act as a barrier between different values or colors, thus creating shapes that drift in and out of our understanding of perspective. Studio visits give me the chance to compare one group of work with examples from earlier ones, going as far back as the artists would like to share, in a way that an exhibition can not. I get to act like a detective, finding the evidence of a particular painting's motives by looking closely at a painting made at an earlier time. Liz's studio was a great place for this.

We talked about her influences: Guston, Vuillard, Bonnard... It is like minimalist sculpture meets post-impressionism, which makes for an exciting, unexpected juxtaposition. Patterns of the paint's marks sometimes build simple free-floating shapes that speak of a portrait by the way the painting is oriented, but ultimately portray simplicity and purity of form.

Liz: I really like 70's minimalist art too, but I think it's about the shapes.

While I was there, I was able to witness a painting being made from the ground up, nearly to its conclusion. I have to say I have always been curious about how she approaches her work -- I suppose because they do seem like paintings of fictional sculptures. Ainslie explained that she first applies a very bright underpainting to the canvas. In this instance she made luscious brushes of fuchsia. Then she begins to mark in the lines and colored shapes. She worked fluidly, with unwavering confidence in where she was going. Lovely to watch.

I couldn't help but draw her drawing.

Above are two pictures Liz took both inside and out of her studio at Millay.

It was a splendid day with Liz. I enjoyed hearing about her time upstate and was salivating at the amazing opportunity it gave her to release all of the tensions of living in a city. And she came away from it with some fantastic paintings. We hurried off for some Thai food and a beer post art-making. We beat the heat in a shady backyard garden. To explore more of these fab works go to http://lizainslie.com/paintings/.

EJ Hauser

2011-07-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

This week I visited EJ Hauser in her studio in Sunset Park. I had only just met EJ a couple weeks ago and was immediately drawn to her personality as much as I had already been drawn to her work. Her studio is something else -- dreamily spacious, stocked with a library that makes you want to pull up a chair and stay for awhile, and occupied by an artist brimming with drive and vivacity. It really got me excited to sit down and draw.

EJ: I think of myself as a sculptor who makes paintings.

Although EJ's work incorporates various ways of approaching painting, it all lives within a world that is very clearly her own. We spoke about how the studio is like a playground for the artist, moving from one corner to the next, climbing up and around all of the artistic possibilities. She expressed to me that she believes you have to keep close your childhood interests when in your studio. How right she is. EJ has enabled this by how she has organized her space. I adored listening to her talk to me about all of her studio's different zones, referring to one section as her "kitchen," where she cooks up ideas and lets experimentation take her to new places within her work. Both large and small paintings were cooking up there. Another area of her studio was left for viewing. A few large paintings were given the space to be seen on their own -- as though they had no relation to the rest and had just shown up on the scene. This was in contrast to another section of her studio, which was thick with works from the past and present, here conversing on the wall, informing one another as well as the artist.

EJ utilizes text in her paintings in a variety of different ways. It can be used as a springboard for creating a lusciously surfaced multi-layered abstraction, a way of presenting the viewer with a single word or phrase that begs to be spoken loudly, or yet again as a way to give homage to a poem or lyric she has been undoubtedly drawn to. One new painting reads "ROOKIES" in bold text across a tree full of confused looking birds. I wondered who these rookie birds were... all of us, I suppose.

EJ told me about a Charles Burchfield quote that was important to her:
Before starting work go thru all the formal material
many things of vital importance have been lost sight of.

One body of work she spoke to me about happened by collecting paint brush tests on sheets from SUPERPAGES, an all yellow-pages directory. She recently showed this body of work at LUMP in Raleigh, NC. These wave-like formations, also using text, but now as a foundation, breathe cooly next to one another and pop up throughout the studio. It is clear that EJ is constantly looking around her, taking in the world in and outside her space.

EJ pulled out books to share while doing some delectable DJing as we discussed just what exactly it meant to give your life to this thing called art. As the hours flew by, I listened, learned, looked, and had a wonderfully collaberative day drawing with her. At its end she took me to the roof and showed me why they call this part of Brooklyn Sunset Park. We waved at the Statue of Liberty and watched the Staten Island ferry go by. Another solid Pencil in the Studio with a totally fantastic painter and person. To see more of her work go to http://www.ejhauser.org/.

Mike Olin

2011-07-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

This week I visited with Mike Olin in Bushwick, where he has been painting for the past twelve years. I am lucky enough to visit with Olin quite often, but it was a whole different thing to sit with him and learn (by watching as much as talking) how he makes and approaches his work. His space is something else: loads of suculants reminding him of San Diego where he grew up, huge windows opening to the west, plenty of summer sunlight filling the space, and a serene sense of calm and pleasure in the attitude he holds towards his practice and his life.

Mike: They were painted at different times of the year and looking back you can kind of tell...I've enjoyed how repeating an image makes influences like that more noticeable.

Olin's most current body of work, which he titles "Human Highway," consists primarily of many duplications of a very small image he found in A Field Guide to Early Man, a science textbook on paleontology from 1987. His fascination with this illustration and the ideas that he has drawn from it have compelled him to make work ranging from small drawings to very large paintings. The image itself is of a leopard preying on a particular early man, Australopithecus Robustus to be exact. The leopard has taken his prey up a tree and has enveloped the human's head in his mouth. It was fascinating to hear Olin describe the picture to me. He kept saying how tender it was, how peaceful. At first viewing, it seems quite different -- pretty brutal, actually. However, after spending time around the numerous renditions of the same image, and studying it for my drawings, I began to see what he meant. This scenario, which existed before the pressures of any kind of society, shows the basic needs of human and animal life. There is a comfort in knowing we weren't always at the top of the food chain; we gave and received as equals at one time, truly being one with earth. It is thoughtful and generous of Olin to put this idea forward, presenting it with innocence and subtlety. This is a topic we should all keep at the forefront of our minds.

Olin uses copper-plated tacks when attaching his canvasses. He demonstrated this and let me have a try. Satisfying! He then puts multiple layers of gesso on the surface to get it just right. I appreciated his sincerity in emphasizing this. His work has a tactile and visceral quality that is apparent from the use of these processes.

Mike: I try to overlap ways of seeing when making the paintings, offering the viewer many ways to approach it.

Mike also begins each painting by placing what he calls "trash" on the canvas haphazardly. He then goes back and attaches it with gesso. One type of debris he uses time and time again is a handful of mustard seeds. He told me that these seeds suggest spirituality, as they appear significantly in many religions.

What a fabulous visit. Mike and I spent a relaxing studio day together. It was also in celebration of school ending for the summer (Olin is a middle school art teacher in the Bronx and a damn good one). We shared a tall boy of Sixpoint and talked over our summer plans. Both Mike's spirit and his artwork are a true delight. To check out more go to http://ps1.org/studio-visit/artist/mike-olin. He is also in a group show opening Friday September 16th at Edward Thorp Gallery called "Assembly", be sure to check it out!

Karla Wozniak

2011-06-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

On Monday evening I visited Karla Wozniak's studio in Sunset Park to have a chat and do some drawings. It was perfect timing too, since she had not only just packed up a bunch of her paintings to send out west for a show in San Francisco, but is also currently packing up her studio altogether to move to Tennessee. She just got hired as a painting professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Cheers to that! It was a splendid visit with Karla, talking to her about her work, her move ahead, her time in NYC, and her travels.

Karla: I try not to take pictures while driving, but I have been known to do that.

Wozniak's paintings are based, in part, on photos she has taken while on road trips to various places across the country. As soon as I stepped inside her studio loads of questions came to mind. I love it when new paintings evoke that kind of inquisitive feeling. Did you take the photos yourself? Are these all trips you have been on? Is each one a specific place or are they composites of different places? Yes, she takes the photos. Yes, she gets to go on all these fab drives. And each painting is either one specific view or a handful of views of one trip, combined into a single painting. It is like Wozniak is sharing the experience of being in a moving car, passing by all the sights that have caught her eye; giving the viewer a blurred, playful sense of the memories of her travels. The views of the road weave in and out of perspective by way of her use of light and space. Adding to the excitement of her work is the fact that Wozniak is no stickler: she lets the paintings speak to her as she is making them. For instance, a highly abstracted flat form can lead smoothly to a cleanly painted road sign that juts out from on top of it.

The road signs in the paintings act as not only a marker for where she has been, but also as a commentary on the ugliness of capitalism when juxtaposed with the beautiful landscapes that make up our United States.

While there, being a pencil in the studio kind of gal herself, Karla drew me drawing her paintings.

Referring to the unfinished mountainous drawing on the wall behind her:

Karla: This one is of Shasta, you are driving down highway 5 and then you see this huge mountain appear out of nowhere.

I felt lucky to be able to catch Karla before she made it on the road to Tennessee. I look forward to seeing her next group of paintings. BBQ signage perhaps? I really really dig her work. It gives me a lot of what I want from a painting, fantastically varied use of paint and pencil, luscious and vibrant abstracted fields of color, and a little day dreaming about where she was when taking the photos. In some ways, Karla is sticking to a long-standing tradition in painting: she went there, she saw something interesting in the place, and she painted it. Hey, if you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair, and go see her show at Gregory Lind Gallery opening June 29th-August 12th. Also check out the rest of her amazing art here: http://www.karlawozniak.com/index4.html.

Mernet Larsen

2011-06-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

My next visit was with artist Mernet Larsen in Jackson Heights, Queens. I have known Larsen's work since I was about three. She was a professor of art at the University of South Florida for some 35 years, where my father was teaching theater. Larsen has also taught at a handful of other universities: Yale, Montana State, and the University of Oklahoma to mention a few. It was quite something to come to her now as an adult and fellow artist. Not only was it exciting to see her second studio in Queens (her first being in Tampa, Florida), but such a thrill to hear of her travels, teaching experiences, and memories of an earlier New York City art scene as a participant of the Art Students League and beyond.

Mernet's current work is, among other things, a humorous and unadulterated look at what it has been like to be involved in academia for as long as she has. Often, her paintings use a more than confusing and extremely engrossing two point perspective. She leaves the viewer at the end of the vanishing-point by putting the larger figures in the back of the space and the smaller figures in the front. It somehow tricks the eye into thinking this is how the space actually operates, a visual flip of what we all know to be correct perspective. The viewer becomes an almost invisible part of the equation, having no place at the end of the vanishing point. It made me feel like there was no right position to stand in while looking at the paintings. Maybe there is also no right position to stand in while attending a committee meeting? Ha!

Faculty Meeting, 2008, Acrylic, mixed media on canvas, 58" x 40"

Larson: I am still using the same book I have been using since 1985.

A lot of the perspective space she uses in her paintings have been taken from art images she has found in a handful of books she had gathered from her travels to India and Japan in the 80's. For example, one book she showed me was of japanese scroll paintings. She considers herself to be using the techniques of a Rorschach test to find spaces within the paintings that captivate her. Larsen does this by flipping the books in all sorts of directions and staring at the image until it starts to become something other than what it is. She has been using this technique for some 25 years.

Committee, 2007, acrylic, mixed media on canvas, 36" x 68"

I haven't even gotten a chance to touch on all that we explored in our conversation. Larsen had so much information to share; I just couldn't stop asking her questions about not only her life as an artist, but also as a teacher and fellow woman. Mernet told me about one of the first teaching jobs she had gotten in Oklahoma. When hiring her, they didn't know she was a woman. They told her that they wouldn't have hired her if they had known, but would keep her on as a teacher anyhow. Larsen said to me, nonchalantly, that she was so glad to have gotten the job it didn't bother her. No shit?! She is so cool. This story blew my mind.

It was such a delight to spend the afternoon there in Mernet's studio settled in the beautiful tree lined streets of Jackson Heights. Reconnecting with her and re-exploring her multiple bodies of work was a truly joyful experience. If you have the chance, please visit Vogt Gallery in Chelsea where she is currently in a show, The Fitting Room, curated by David Cohen. Also check out more of her totally fantastic paintings here http://www.mernetlarsen.com/.

Andy Cross

2011-06-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

My next visit took place over two days at Andy Cross' studio in Bushwick. I can't say that I am unfamiliar with Andy's work or studio, it is even possible that I stop by once a week for a brief chat and update, but it was very rewarding to stay for awhile this time with my pencil and paper. It was almost meditative. Andy has a wonderfully airy space filled with vibrant color and positive energy. And boy does he have a lot of work! From week to week it often seems like whole bodies of work are produced.

Andy lets one group of paintings lead to the next as he moves in and out of different thoughts and ideas. He is constantly experimenting and pushing himself in new directions, which is so refreshing and uninhibited. He travels a lot and the influence of this can be seen quite clearly in his work. His journeys have ranged from camping trips upstate with easel and paint in the back of his van to adventures in Asia with packed canvases in his bag. Images of landscape, mystical figures, people he has met, and animals appear repeatedly in his paintings, all of which are distinctly Andy's. He also listens to a lot of talk radio. From Democracy Now to This American Life to Krista Tippett on Being. I think this is channeled in his work in all sorts of ways. He is constantly streaming audio information. And when he talks, he intermixes this information with stories he tells of his own life.

When I was there we listened to Amy Goodman's podcast from that morning's show. It was somber news, but, as Andy put it, he is always searching for the truth and Democracy Now is where he can find it.

Andy: I used to think I had to illustrate what I was learning, but now it hits an emotional center that comes out in the mark making, like what kind of brushstroke I make. At times, an overall sadness comes out.

Knowing my secret love for drawing animals, Cross set up a still life of various creatures he had painted.

Andy: Its kind of a throne of a chair, but I don't sit there that much. It is a throne for anyone who sits with me.

Andy's peaceful outlook on life and others around him gave this visit a special kind of artistic healing power. We listened to several different segments he had come across online that spoke of the importance of looking within. We sat and worked on our own in silence as we listened. It was like being in Andy's world for an afternoon. A world that is self reflective and concentrated on creating and understanding.

At the end of the first day of my visit we watched the sunset as we barbecued with artist Erik den Breejen on the roof of their shared studio building. It was Memorial Day and a fantastic sunset. Andy worked on a painting of a Buddhist Monk meditating. What a great way to end that session.

You must go see the show he is in this month, LANY organized by Mario Diaconoi. It opens on the 8th of June at Peter Blum. Here you will be able to see all of what I am talking about. I have witnessed the growth of the four very large paintings that will be on display from the ground up. Let me tell you, they are really something to behold. Also check out more of his work here http://andycross.org/.

Joshua Abelow

2011-05-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

Just up the street in my neighborhood of Williamsburg I did a studio visit with Joshua Abelow. I first met Joshua while drawing the installation of GOLD RECORDS, a show at ART BLOG ART BLOG, the space he is currently running in Chelsea. I have seen his work around town for awhile now, so it was with great pleasure that I dropped by his studio for a chat and a drawing session. Abelow's paintings and studio go hand in hand; both are approached systematically and with care. I just got the best vibe down there in his basement space.

His work brings to mind familiar painting traditions without feeling stuffy or contrived. Instead, it feels incredibly alive. At first glance, his medium to small sized paintings on burlap seem similar to one another, but on closer viewing they become individually captivating. I instantly became intrigued by them. Abelow went into detail on how he arrives at the color combinations that he uses in layers on his paintings. He has been keeping a journal of these combinations for years, making notes of the ones he likes the best. On the back of each painting he also writes down the particular combination he has used for it. Like a mathematical equation he can quickly go back to if he ever wants to replicate the paint's effects.

Abelow's drawings also play a major role in his practice. He has developed a comedic character loosely based on himself that he draws in different scenarios. This references the artist ego in a jokey lighthearted fashion that really hits home; it is humorous, but also true. He also looks to various images he has found, from stills of a film to things he has stumbled across on the Internet, for other characters in the drawings.

Joshua: I think an artist can be a transmitter and receiver of information.

This idea also manifests itself in his very popular blog, ART BLOG ART BLOG.

Joshua: Do you know the book, Peter Halley: Utopia's Diagrams? I read it when I was 22 and I still think a lot about the content of that book in relation to my work.

Parts of the drawings are also layered on top of some of the paintings. Or Joshua may simply refer to the artist character in the drawings by writing his phone number over a painting, a farcical way of restating himself as the artist making the art.

Here Abelow shakes a canvas to create a wind blown effect on the numbers he has painted on top of it.

And then there is Georgia, his lovely little dog that he has been making art next to for 7 years. I just couldn't resist doing a drawing of her.

Abelow's intern, Carlijn Potma, preparing some canvases for him. It was great meeting and talking to her as well. Here is her blog http://journalofthelikeminded.tumblr.com/.

At the end of the visit we parted ways until we met up again at the opening of Ctrl Alt Delete, a show put on by HKJB. It was terrific to get to know Abelow and his work in such depth. Fab visit! To check out more go to http://joshuaabelow.com/images.html. Or go to James Fuentes LLC to view the installation of the show he had there in January.

Vince Contarino

2011-05-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

This week I went to Vince Contarino's studio in DUMBO. He is a current participant in the Marie Walsh Sharpe Studio Program. Vince has one of the big spaces in the center of the building. It's enough to make your mouth water. Contarino's work really shines in there. It was such a treat to spend the afternoon drawing it.

As I sat down to draw, Vince began to work. His paintings are very concentrated on the presence of the hand without an overt self consciousness on the mark making itself. I was fascinated. It is almost like he takes turns expressively putting paint on the canvas and diligently cleaning it up. The tension of this push and pull tells a certain story of abstraction.

Contarino had made a kind of altar using works of his in black and white, photos and printed matter. His flat file acts as the centerpiece.

We listened to a lot of rock and roll while I was there. He talked about music's role in his studio, getting him into the zone.

Vince: I have to have music on while I am working. I can't work without it.

Throughout the afternoon Vince and I discovered all that we have in common besides our love of painting. We both grew up in the same part of Florida; fishing, hanging by the beach, and gater spotting. The Gulf Coast is a very special place.

Vince: When I visit Florida my family always flies me home with a bunch of fish that they caught; there is nothing like it.

His color is thought out, but not over-worked, just like the paintings themselves. I love the collection of colors he has mixed and keeps track of on a grid-like list on a pillar in his studio.

Vince: My steed!

We also got to talking quite a bit about his various other projects. He told me about the show he had just put together with Kris Chatterson through their joint blog Progress Report. The show was called The Working Title and was at the Bronx River Art Center. He shared with me this really cool catalogue they made for The Working Title, with Jon Lutz's questions for the artists and opening comments. You can find it at blurb.

Contarino expressed how wonderful it has been for him being in the Sharpe Studios. I would say he is totally thriving in there. I am excited to keep following his work after my close look at it. You can see his paintings at http://www.vincecontarino.com/. Also check out KCLOG, another art related blog he works on with Chatterson and others. Go Florida!

Jon Lutz: GOLD RECORDS

2011-05-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

This week I had the unique opportunity to do a drawing session during the installation of a show curated by Jon Lutz of Daily Operation at ART BLOG ART BLOG, a fantastic new space run by Joshua Abelow in Chelsea. I have been a follower of Lutz's work for some time now; he is definitely a curator to watch. Lutz's approach is truly conceptually innovative, bringing a breath of fresh air to the young contemporary art world.

Patrick Brennan, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Patrick Brennan, Max Schumann

For the show Gold Records, Lutz has chosen a handful of artists he had featured on his former blog The Old Gold. The artists are: Ron Amstutz, Erik den Breejen, Patrick Brennan, Ned Colclough, Stacy Fisher, Jaime Gecker, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Christopher Knowles, Max Schumann, J.D. Walsh, and Wendy White. Jon chose these artists based on their works' connection to various aspects of culture from the 60's on. He is making a record of artists that are making records of society's sights and sounds.

Wendy White

Jon: Josh tell me if you think this wall is too crowded or if the work is too high, I wanted the paintings to meet at the top.

Joshua: No, they're not too high, I think it looks fucking great!

There's nothing quite like watching a curator install their show. This is where Jon's art happens. Where to put what and how high to put it? Jon was moving things from one wall to another in order to get it just right. The space was filled with vivacious anticipation for the opening night. I watched Jon as he unveiled the art that was all wrapped up from delivery. I loved seeing how delighted he was as he reconnected with the pieces he had picked weeks prior in the different artists' studios. I was delighted to see them too. This is going to be one rocking show, I thought.

J.D. Walsh

And then at the end of the week I went to the opening celebration. It was a great party, everyone was really stoked on the show. As was I. You gotta go see it.

ART BLOG ART BLOG

508 W. 26th St. 11th Fl., NYC

Opening: Friday, May 13, 6-9 PM

Closes: Saturday, May 28

Open Hours: Wed-Sat 12-6 and by appointment

Wendy White, Erik den Breejen, Jon Lutz, Patrick Brennan

Ron Amstutz

2011-05-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I visited Ron Amstutz's studio in Long Island City. His work contains elements of performance, painting, photography, and video that come together in service of his truly unique vision. It was a great pleasure to see where the magic happens. What a charged space. Not only did I get to spend time with Ron, but also his two lovely daughters, Celeste (5) and Audrey (8).

Amstutz is deep in the production of a new project. We sat down to take a look at his progress so far as he explained to me his multi-faceted process. For this work, he first recorded the light spilling through his studio windows onto a stage he built in the back of his space. He did this by taking photos at different times of day using a variety of different camera angles -- 9 to be exact. Next, Amstutz painted the reflection of the window's light onto the stage, choosing 21 different photos from the numerous ones he took to work from. This series of photos represents the passing of time through the changes of light. Ron is in the midst of painting the stage 42 different ways corresponding to the 21 photos he has chosen. 42 because he is doing one set in grey scale and one in color, using a very subdued color scheme so as not to overpower the piece. Once the stage is painted, Ron takes meticulous photos of himself in costume while striking many different difficult poses. He is also experimenting with posing in the mirror image of these gestures and taking yet another picture, which adds to the overall visual complexity.

Ron: This is a way of doubling, repeating it without actually repeating it.

These poses will eventually be put together to make a stop-motion video, creating a wonderfully subtle and awkward choreography. Keep in mind he is repainting and reposing for each still he has chosen from the original pictures of the light spilling through the window. I can barely do this project justice by trying to explain it. It is extremely elaborate and cared for. Amstutz is making magnificent references to the light we use in painting and the feeling we have as artists when making.

Adding to the obsessively systematic nature of the project, Amstutz paints a mark on his costume after each completed phase the stage set goes through. There are two costumes, one black and one white. I love the presence of the character he has invented. It makes for a delightfully bizarre narrative.

Ron: I have one idea and then another one that complicates it, and then another one that complicates that and so on and so on.

As an added bonus I had a couple of drawing partners sitting by my side, the daughters. We had a blast working together. They had quite a bit to say about the project. They are very bright girls. Here are their renditions of the stage:

Above is Audrey's drawing of the stage.

Celeste to the left and Audrey to the right.

Above is Celeste's drawing of the stage.

What a great ride it was to spend time with Ron and his ladies. I am so looking forward to seeing this piece at the end of its production. Ron's intense thinking and layered way of working makes for a truly fantastic experience.

Amstutz is going to be in the group show Gold Records which opens this friday May 13th, (508 W 26th st 11th floor). He will be showing one of his previously made videos. You should also check more of his work out at http://www.ronamstutz.com/ and WALLSPACE.

Daniel Heidkamp

2011-05-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

I visited Daniel Heidkamp's studio in Greenpoint last week. I was so glad to finally see his work in person, and I even got the chance to have my portrait painted by him. He made it clear that when you come to his studio, you take the time to sit in his favorite chair while he busts out a painting of you.

I was quite drawn to a large yellow canvas that he has visitors sign in oil on their way out; a record of all of his meetings.

Among other things, Heidkamp is currently working on a group of portraits he makes by asking artists to sit for him while they are visiting his space. Some of them are then repainted in a more stylized fashion after the sitter has left. Sometimes, he takes this process even further by repainting a painting yet again as part of a "portrait" he does of his own studio. Super meta. We talked about what happens when you use a painting as a still life in terms of appropriating an image. The conversation took many turns and was quite stimulating.

Dan was delightfully animated as he talked about his work.
Dan: These portraits are like a hushed cheering section or a mute chorus. Now you're in the grandstands too.

Dan: Tables are turned now, you are in my studio -- this is my favorite part!

He then asked, in turn, if I might like to draw him. He sat in his beloved chair with a portrait of the chair above him and I busted out my own portrait of an artist.

We had a funny chat about the mechanics of an art studio, where to put things and liking them to pile up. He told me a story about a shelf that collapsed, how he then just ended up using the boards from the shelf and some crates to stack into a pile. What a rad stack.

It was really nice getting to know Heidkamp and his dynamic paintings and personality.

Check out more at http://www.danielheidkamp.com/.

Joy Curtis

2011-04-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

Curtis had just taken down an outstanding solo show at Klaus Von Nitchssagend a week before I came by. It was like a homecoming studio visit. Her sculptures were all wrapped up in blankets, adding a special calmness and warmth to the space and our time together.

Joy: It looks warm outside, but don't let it deceive you, it's just the sunlight. Spring isn't coming.

We talked over the show, her sculptures to come, and how she approaches new work. We spoke about what kind of materials she is thinking of for her next project and the adventures she will go on to find them. Joy can tell a story and when she does it is like you are living that story with her. She had a perfect kind of nervous excitement in her voice, the kind that can only come when you are ready to make your next big move. I asked questions about the different things in her studio. Curtis explained various processes and showed me what she does with her excess plaster. She rolls it up into balls, which she collects in a bucket. I thought that was really cool.

Joy: Have you seen this salt bath? It's crazy. This guy was sitting in it for a long time. Here, look it's still growing.

Hiding away with her cats, she sat down and drew with me. Both of us focused on tables and shelves covered in her plaster pieces.

Lappy stole my seat when I got up to take some pictures.

Joy: I love having an excuse to buy another vice grip. I think all sculptors do.

I was hoping she would make me dinner, and at the end of our time in her studio, this turned out to be true. I was a lucky visitor. I chatted more with Curtis and her husband, painter Mike Olin. We talked about a backpacking trip they were getting ready for in the Shenandoahs. Sounds like a sublime way to wind down from a solo show. And the dinner was a truly lovely way to end the evening.

To see more of Curtis' work go to Klaus Von Nitchssagend. Also check out this great interview with Hrag Vartanian at Hyperallergic, Sculpture Today: A Discussion with Joy Curtis and Rachel Beach.

Kelly McRaven

2011-04-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

My next visit was with Kelly McRaven in Williamsburg, I was lucky enough to have two sessions there. Kelly's studio is so satisfying. Maybe it's the array of colors on her palette or the many cans of brushes, or all of the paint tubes with their ends in the air. Most likely, though, it's just the wonderful paintings that inhabit her space.

Cluttered painting tables make the best still lifes. They all look so familiar, but are as different as each artist they belong to.

Kelly: Look at this one, I just bought it. Sometimes you just get tired of how small some brushes can be.

McRaven is working on two large scale paintings and a set of smaller ones. Oil on canvas. She uses found imagery, magazines or random photos she finds. They act as a springboard to her melodically painted abstractions. She shuffled through to find the pictures that matched the paintings. They were all torn and stuck together with paint. She told me their stories. Sometimes she will paint the same image over and over again. A curiously obsessive act. By the 5th time, the guy in the painting below is looking very peculiar. A blur of the truth. He becomes a new, even weirder character then the one she started out with. I love that. Those multiples get me everytime.

Kelly: I picked this picture because of it's symmetry or because of how much I like his hands. Look at his hands!

I was lucky enough to see her make a big move on one of her larger works, it was like observing an animal in the wild; when you get to see them doing something that you know they do, but could never imagine witnessing.

Kelly: I find that when I finally let go with a painting it gets a lot easier to paint it.

We talked about how hard it is to figure that out and how wonderful it is when you do. My time in McRaven's studio was perfect. She is one of my favorite painters to talk to and learn from. And the paintings themselves, dude, they are really fantastic.

Check McRaven's paintings out at http://kellymcraven.com/

Erik den Breejen

2011-04-10T15:09:00.000-07:00

My first visit was to Erik den Breejen's studio in Bushwick. This was before I even knew this was going to be a project. One cold Sunday afternoon I decided to come by, hang out and do some drawings of his space. We often like to work together on Sundays. It dawned on me that this would be a great way to do studio visits. Both artists are concentrating; conversation comes sporadically and with ease. No questions, just talk. All while they are making, or fusing, or rearranging. Plus, I totally love drawing other peoples' studios. These places are so specific and weird and spatially fucked up. I should take this show on the road, I thought. So here is my first post.

Erik: One of my teachers gave me this butter knife when I was an undergrad, it is like my lucky charm of painting. I use it to scrape out paint cans.

We listened to a lot of The Beach Boys album Little Deuce Coupe.

Erik: They took all their previous songs about cars and put it on this album and Brian Wilson had to write eight new songs and they recorded them all in one day. It became a car concept album.

Den Breejen is currently working on a new group of paintings about the lost Beach Boys album SMILE. His work is full of text, rich imagery and vibrant color. His energy level is through the roof, moving from piece to piece and album to album. He is always asking which album I want to hear next or what kind of music I am in the mood for. Generous DJ. His knowledge on the subject of music and art never ceases to amaze me. You can see it in his paintings.

find more of him at Freight and Volume.

8 MONTHS LATER...

I am adding to the very first post I did many months later to show a couple of shots of the solo exhibition at Freight and Volume that Erik was working on while I visited his studio. It was so wonderful to see this glorious body of work in its completion. Out of the studio and into the gallery, the paintings proved extremely powerful. A true and impressive reflection on the SMILE album. Go see it before it is down December 14th, 2012.