New Image- "FULL SERVICE"

Here's my latest.... This picture really caught my eye for the interesting shapes, patterns and bright colors. I'm not 100% on the boys yet but I'll try to retool things a bit before the January residency. As always, feedback is appreciated-

Semester Review Paper

This semester of work has been very challenging. From my reading and writing I
have learned much about the cultural identity of the 1950s. In the studio,
I've had moments of great creativity and moments of unbearable frustration.
The most difficult task for me has been incorporating the feedback I received
from last semester's work into my new paintings. It took me three months to
discover that I was making work to fulfill those suggestions, and in doing so
had lost the joy in making the work I wanted to make. Ultimately, this
difficulty has made me stronger, and though I am not 100% satisfied with the
body of work as a whole, I feel I'm moving in the right direction.

When I left the last residency in June, I had a lot of great feedback to work
with. Sorting through such a wide range of suggestions was hard because they
concerned so many different aspects to my work. The first aspect was the
content itself. My work from the first semester was scattered, using reference
imagery from both advertisement and candid family photos. I knew that the new
work would need more focus, so I made the decision to avoid advertisement and
posed photographs all together. From an idea standpoint, this forced me to
consider the deeper meaning of my subject and to seek images that were
open-ended.

I started by working exclusively from old family photos. At first, I found it
freeing to work in a way that was at least partially autobiographical, since
these photos depict my extended family in the 50s. However, after a month of
working with them I started to get tired of seeing the same people and feeling
a sense of attachment to them. I felt constricted to the photo and found
myself worried that my family would see them merely as portraits. Through
this, I've discovered that its much more beneficial for me to work from an
unknown source, one which can be altered if needed. I've discovered that much
of my work is about the unknown story behind the characters in my paintings.
Knowing the story somehow takes the fun out of making them.

I worked hard to make improvements to the technical application of paint and
surface. My first semester work was very thin and far too transparent. At the
time, I was painting on store-bought stretchers and using a wet on wet
technique my previous mentor suggested. I liked painting with thinned paint.
It allowed me to work quickly and capture energy in my brush strokes. The
finished product though, was very flat and I knew that I had to use much more
paint and add greater texture. I was encouraged to work on gessoed birch
plywood panels, which I did at the beginning of the semester.

As for my palette, my 1st semester paintings relied heavily on ochre to imply
faded color photos and tie the pieces together. I was challenged at the June
residency to avoid the color this time and look closer at the true palettes of
old photographs. This has turned out to be a great suggestion, as my palette
has become dustier and also more vibrant.

My mentor, Patricia Canney, had some good early suggestions. She agreed that
the ochre in my previous work was too strong and that I needed to use much
more paint. She also echoed a lot of what was said at the residency, namely
that my study works from semester 1 were a lot more interesting than my
paintings on canvas. She felt that the under painting on these studies made
the difference, especially the little bits of rough color that show through
other layers.

I decided early on to paint the surface with shapes of color before adding
thicker paint. On my first 2 paintings, I filled in the surface with layers of
underpainting and then used a palette knife to add textured paint. While I was
pleased with the colors I was achieving and the compositions I was making, I
found that working thick changed everything. My natural tendency with thick
paint is to overwork areas of contrast and detail. The problem is that I just
haven't had enough experience with thick paint to know what to do. My mentor
and I came to the same conclusion: I just needed to paint a lot more to learn
how to do it.

After almost 2 months of work, I found myself very frustrated. Among many
failures, I had two 18" x24" paintings that I found mildly successful. The
rest were stiff and simply didn't work at all. My frustration took a toll on
my creativity, and for a while I felt completely lost. I didn't know what I
wanted to do or how to do it- all I knew was that applying all the new
suggestions to my old ways of working wasn't coming together at all.

In the 2 or 3 weeks that I felt unable to work, I went back to notes from the
residency and pondered a roadmap to my thesis. While the thesis is still not
set in stone, this helped me to see what wasn't working and focus on a new
direction. To start with, the birch plywood panels were a source of
frustration. While far superior to pre-made stretchers, they were heavy and
time consuming to prepare. I was spending a lot of time making them, only to
make bad paintings. I decided to use gesso board panels. Though pricey, they
are a beautiful surface and they saved me a lot of time. The birch wood panels
will eventually get reused.

I also decided to approach scale differently. After the June residency, I was
set on the idea of working at least 18" x 24" if not larger. I agree with
others who have noted that my images would work differently if they could be
huge, and I still see this as a possible direction. After feeling blocked in
my work, I realized that the larger scale would have to wait. Larger paintings
aren't any better if the work is poor. Instead, I went smaller, which I
anticipate will bring a strong reaction in January. The new work is 16" x 20",
and one painting is 9" x 12". I fully expect to work larger down the road, but
for now, I need to paint and advance my ideas, and working smaller has allowed
me to do that. I don't regret the decision in the least.

I talked extensively with my mentor about cropping and composing images. She
is quite good at identifying great composition, and she gave me some great
suggestions for zooming in and out to make the images more interesting. I
searched for new images, and from thousands of stock pictures on the internet
and in old books found interesting compositions that worked. Finally, I looked
at a lot of working artists for inspiration. I discovered a painter who primes
his canvas in bright red before painting cityscapes. When he is finished, the
red is almost completely gone, except for small bits that remain in the
outline of shapes. These miniscule areas of red, though almost unnoticeable,
make a big difference.

With these new ideas, I started work on 6 new paintings simultaneously. In the
past, I have often worked each piece to completion before moving on. This
time, I bounced from one to the other, which allowed me to avoid much of the
frustration I had been feeling. A huge discovery from my mentor along the way
has been Galkyd Gel, which increases the lucidity of the paint while allowing
it to retain texture. It also dries much faster than adding oil. Using the gel
allows me make larger easier strokes. This is where my studio work is
currently at. I am enjoying the process of making new work, and had to fail a
few times along the way to understand what I didn't want to do.

In addition to all the work I've been doing in my studio, I've also been
reading and writing for the academic component. I spent most of my first
semester researching contemporary artists that were new to me. This semester,
I was anxious to look at artists I really admire, including Hopper, Beckmann,
Wood, N.C. Wyeth and Rockwell. While I enjoyed reading books and looking
deeper into these artists, it was tough and a little bit of a stretch to apply
their ideas to my work. I learned the most about Rockwell and his way of story
telling.

The best insight came from reading selective essays on 1950's American
consumerism and watching the TV series "Mad Men". Reading "The Man in the Gray
Flannel Suit" was also most helpful. These sources helped me to see the
disconnect of the period; the way consumerism changed people's priorities. All
of a sudden, people in post-war America had money and access to whatever they
wanted. This led to an outward display of contentment and pleasantness that
was at odds with much of life. This disconnect is something I'm very
interested in, not just as part of the American 50s but in how it relates to
our world today. This has added a fresh perspective to my work. I hope that in
some way my future work can speak to this idea in more significant ways.

My work addresses the American myth of the nostalgic 1950s. I'm interested in
comparing reality to that myth and exploring how it appeals to people. I am
not interested in criticism of the period or politics in relation to the idea,
but rather in presenting an image in an appealing yet vague way that begs
viewer interaction. The difficulties I faced in working these last months
have taught me much about the creative process and helped me to further refine
my ideas. I cannot wait to get feedback on these new paintings and start the
process again with a greater understanding of my abilities and intentions.

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New Image- "EASTER SUIT"

Here's another new one just finished- I know it's tough to tell from the photo, but I am most pleased with the texture and thickness of the paint here. My mentor has suggested extending my paint with Galkid Gel, which she uses to achieve lucid paint that covers and maintains texture but isn't chunky. This is the first time I've tried it, and it definitely allowed me to paint in a way that's more natural to my style. It does speed up drying time, so it also forced me to mix all the colors in an area and paint them quickly. It's a fun way to work and a step in the right direction I think. It's way to easy for me to over-work things to death.  As for the image, it gave me an opportunity to push the vintage color palette and experiment with some busy-ness in the patterns. I also got some better flesh tones out of it. I'm pretty pleased- it's my favorite painting so far this semester. I have 2 more at about 50% done and another 2 to make by January- 

Weisman Show

So I answered a call for artists and was accepted- The show is a group show at the Frank Ghery designed Weisman Art Musuem at the University of Minnesota. The pieces accepted are from my second semester works- the ochre paintings of the "Buisness Types" and the "Sunbathers". This is a rather large group show of current artists and I don't expect much to come from it, but I am very excited to be able to say that my work hung in the Weisman. It should look good on my art resume.

New Image- "BOARDWALK"

Here's a painting that I've been working on for 2 months and just finished. I'm not super happy with it, but at this point I'm moving on. The image is from an old family photo and I found it pretty funny. The people were obviously posed to show the ocean but its such an unflattering photo. They seem almost disinterested, and the scenery isn't much at all- just a bar of color across the back and wooden boards. This is a poor photo, but shows a little bit of the new color palette I've been using; almost no ochre and instead dustier colors inspired by old color film. I still have 5 paintings in various stages of completion- more to come.

New Image- "ORBIT"

After ditching a few total failures I've reevaluated some things and set a course. I have about 6 paintings at 50% complete, so my goal is to finish 1 a week into December. This carnival image was one that I made a study painting of back in February. Based on feedback both at the residency and on my blog it was one of the more successfull images. What the study painting has is an energy and gestural quality that changes everything. It's something that gets lost when I paint bigger and with thicker paint. I tend to over work things until they become a huge mess. That's been on my brain in finishing this painting. It isn't quite there for me yet, but getting it to this point feels good. Comments are appreciated.......

November Paper/ The Disconnect of 50s America

THE DISCONNECT OF 50s AMERICA

 My aim as an artist through my recent work is to view American nostalgia through a 21st century lens and present my images in a way that provokes greater thought and challenges modern perception. For this reason, I am looking deeper into the cultural history of the American 50s in search of a greater understanding of the period. The 50s represent an unprecedented time in history were the idealization of the family and the pursuit of the American Dream were at odds with the reality of daily life. It was a decade of great disconnection, where positive perception of the good life existed in conjunction with the Cold War, McCarthyism, racism, and sexism. It was also a time of insecurity for an America in the midst of enormous changes. The goal of this writing is to examine the relationship between advertising and the ideal 50s in hopes of further defining my work and answering the question, why use 50s images?

Post War America was an era of unparalleled growth and consumption. Personality and the self became commodified products to be bought and sold during the 1950s. America immerged from WWII the richest nation on earth, with 24 Billion dollars worth of new factories and millions of workers to fill them. All at once, the majority of Americans had the money to buy whatever they wanted. All they had to do was switch from making tanks and airplanes to cars and refrigerators. In his memoir about growing up in the 50s, Bill Bryson recalls how his neighbors would sit around for hours discussing new appliances.  “There was a wonderful simplicity of desire. It was the last time that people would be thrilled to own a toaster or a waffle iron” (Bryson 6). The rise of consumer capitalism gave birth to modern advertising, which looked for ways to separate the buyer from reality and make them believe there was more to a product.

The American dream is itself already a commercial aspiration. Americans are led to believe there is always more and always better and if they can afford it, and they deserve to have it. In the 50s advertising had a profound affect upon domestic life. The focus on the housewife in advertising wasn’t on the elderly housewife; it was on the young glamorous housewife and all the products that would bring about that kind of idealized world. Adds often featured happy well-dressed women cooking and cleaning. Many housewives at that time were young. Advertisers realized that these women were mainly at home and some not so happy about their lot in life, so by glamorizing products used in the home they were able to infuse mundane household tasks with purpose. The message was buy our product, have a great household, make the man in your life happy, and you will be a very proud and accomplished housewife. “It was all meant to convince women that the role of housewife was natural and fulfilling, and that to step beyond these normative roles was in some way abnormal, even deviant” (Abrams 128). 

It’s no surprise, notes Bill Osgerby, that the central figure of Hollywood films in the 1950s was the white, middle-class breadwinner. In his article entitled “Muscular manhood and salacious sleaze: the singular world of the 50s macho pulps”, Osgerby explores the roles of men and women as defined by advertising and products, particularly men’s adventure magazines. “During wartime, entry into the labor force or living it alone as a wife or mother had been an empowering experience for many women. In peacetime, however, such independence was seen as a threat to the stability of the traditional sexual order, and government and industry united in a campaign to return women to the home and the secure confines of the nuclear family” (Abrams 127). The macho pulps constructed a hard-boiled and aggressively masculine universe where wholesome white American men bravely saved scantily clothed white American women, often from Nazis or wild animals.

Osgerby believes the macho pulps were about regaining a position of dominance for traditional American manhood, and were a reaction to a declining patriarchal structure. Conformity was also seen as a challenge to manhood. In his book “The Lonely Crowd”, David Reisman saw conformity as an “emasculation, post-war America seeing the rise of an ‘other-directed’ man who followed blindly the lead of those around him in a desperate search to belong” (Reisman 26). It was this fear of conformity that was seen as a threat to individualism. Indeed, though the 50s were a period of great prosperity there was a deep seeded feeling of insecurity on multiple fronts.

In his book “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit”, Sloan Wilson captured the mood of the generation. The main character, Tom Rath, is a typical ‘other-directed’ New York businessman with a home and young family in the suburbs. In a defining chapter in the book, Tom wrestles to make sense of the society he feels stuck in while suppressing the horrible memories he has of his experience in WWII.

“The trick is to learn to believe that it’s a disconnected world, Tom thought; a lunatic world, where what is true now was not true then; where Thou Shalt Not Kill and the fact that one has killed a great many men mean nothing, absolutely nothing, for now is the time to raise legitimate children, and make money, and dress properly, and be kind to one’s wife, and admire one’s boss, and learn not to worry, and think of oneself as what? That makes no difference, he thought- I’m just a man in a gray flannel suit. I must keep my suit neatly pressed like anyone else, for I am a very respectable young man” (Wilson 98).

Sloan Wilson’s novel was most useful in understanding the heart behind the 50s. There is no idealism to “Flannel Suit”. The characters fit into a world where pleasantness is the norm and wrestle with real life. It was refreshing for me to read a work that while fictional, sheds light on the real disconnect between advancing 50s culture and the day to day lives of people. Tom Rath struggles to appear as if everything in his life fits into the realm of happiness, but in reality, his life is messy just like everyone else.

Bill Bryson talks humorously about the 50s disconnect on the most basic of levels. As a child, he learned to read by reading the Dick and Jane books, which in simple words portray the absurdity of idealized America. In the Dick and Jane books, Father is always called father, never Dad or Daddy, and always wears a suit. Mother is always Mother. She is always on top of things, nicely groomed in a clean frilly apron. “The family has no last name. They live in a pretty house with a picket fence on a pleasant street, but they have no radio or TV and their bathroom has no toilet. The children- Dick, Jane and little Sally- have only the simplest and most timeless of toys. No one ever shouts or bleeds or weeps helplessly. No meals ever burn. No dust ever accumulates. The sun always shines. The dog never shits on the lawn. There are no atomic bombs. Everyone is at all times clean, healthy, strong, reliable, hardworking, American and white. Every Dick and Jane story provided some simple but important lesson- respect your parents, share your possessions, be polite, be honest, be helpful, and above all work hard” (Bryson 146).

In terms of my own personal work, understanding the disconnect of the 50s is enormously helpful. In my previous body of work, several of my sources were from posed photographs used in advertising, while others were candid shots of families. At the time, I almost saw them as one and the same in representing the time period. The posed photos, while not realistic, do speak to the nature of advertising and the idealized view of the 50s. I’ve since changed my photo reference to personal images that reflect a real snapshot of 50s time. I’ve also embraced those images that have a sense of ambiguity or vagueness about them, so that I am not making a personal statement or advocating a specific issue in comparing the past to the present. I am more interested in the open-ended functions of painting. If anything, understanding the disconnect present in every aspect of 50s life brings an entirely new element to depictions of housewives and breadwinners.

In my research, I’m reminded not just of how different things are today but also how in many ways they remain the same. It has been estimated that we are exposed on average to 3,000 advertisements every day. Perhaps we are more aware of the ads, but we still are drawn to those products we feel a personal connection to. Advertising has even turned presidential politics into a visual media, a commercial game of who comes across best and who identifies the most with people as a product. Even now we are living with the consequences of an American Dream where we can have all that we want because we deserve it, even if we can’t afford it. The disconnect is still there for many people in American society, and will remain for as long as people find their identity in products and in denying the reality of life. I hope in my paintings I can address this disconnect as it was in the past and still in some ways is today. I’d like to think that perhaps we are starting to wake up from that dream.

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