BS Radar April 9, 2011

Thanks to my studiomate Angela Dominguez, I heard about an upcoming juried show at Arc Gallery in San Francisco, the title of which is “Flow: The Essence of Paint”.  My work seemed like a good fit for an exhibition that explores the liquid quality of paint, given that most of my works harness the chaotic qualities of water (and ink)  in motion.  So I submitted three pieces for their consideration (my first such submission to a juried show), and am happy to report that two pieces were selected – one for the show in their physical space, and one for their online exhibit!  The one that will be hung in the gallery is a newer piece, from the “Viscera and Effluences” series, so I was pleased to see that it was well received at its debut.  It’s called “Release #1″, and it’s one of my favorites:

The “Release” pieces that I create involve adding acrylic inks to water and then rolling the liquid around on the surface of the polypropylene by tilting it. This creates chaotic “channels” and paths of ink that serve as an initial structure around which I build the rest of the composition. I enjoy the challenge of having to work with marks that I have very little control over, and then building order into and around it, much as we create meaning and structure around those things we can’t understand or control in our lives.

It’s interesting to watch my mind’s inclination toward order, and the satisfaction that arises from successfully navigating that process.  And it’s also interesting to be aware of the equally strong inclination to then destroy the structure, or impose yet more chaos over that hard-labored illusion of safety and solidity.  Who knows where that comes from?  I think it’s a BS radar – too much settled, measured balance and some itchy feeling develops somewhere in my body that wants to yell “Bullshit!” (sorry Mum), because experience has taught me that nothing is ever as secure as it might appear.  So then I go back to swimming about in ink.

“Viscera: Stomach” will also be appearing in their on-line exhibition. More details to follow…..

Onward. March 12, 2011

The reception at liquid spaces was fantastic.  So many people came out to support us.  I met a lot of interesting people, including Jonah Burlingame who’s work I have admired for a few years now, and got to introduce my work to new friends.  I’m always amazed and touched at how many of my friends will make the effort to attend receptions, and buy work.  I am a very lucky girl

Friends At the Reception

 

After Party

So, now that I have officially made my entrance into the San Francisco artosphere, what’s next?  Doing this show and winning the Artslant contest have led to a lot of interest in my work from various people – gallerists, private collectors, art consultants etc, and I feel poised to take the next step.  Whatever that is.  How do I choose a path from here?  What are the pitfalls I should avoid?  Who do I trust?  Until now it has felt as though I was stumbling around in a dark room, trying to find  the door to a career as an artist. Now the door has been opened I’m both excited and overwhelmed by the possibilities that lay ahead.  Unlike Alice, I’m not the risk-taking type.  No white rabbits for me please.  I need a map to help me find the best way through the woods, avoiding big bad wolves and witches with gingerbread houses.  I think the appropriate motto is slow and steady wins the race.  Right?

I’m one of Artslant’s 10 round #1 winners! February 28, 2011

I entered one of my Viscera pieces into Artslant’s juried showcase contest, and lo and behold, I was 1 of 10 winners!  My piece won in the “drawing” category.  You can read about the contest here.   Basically, I’m now entered into the annual Artslant competition, about which I’m very excited but not very hopeful…  I was amazed I was even selected for the first round!

So, this has spurred me on to enter some other contests.  Watch this space…

I’m also starting work on a new series that incorporates some gouache into the drawings.  Will be posting in-progress photos soon.

Toodle-pip!

Here’s the winning piece – you’ve probably seen it before:

New Year, New Websites, New Show! January 13, 2011

To kick-off 2011 I have redesigned and relaunched my website.  You can still find it at the same url: http://awilletts.com, or by clicking the “my website” link on this blog (to the right).  The new website will allow me to upload current work more often, and it groups my work according to year and series.

I’ve also decided to venture out into illustration this year…. Here’s a link to my illustration website, Muddy Puppets.  The illustration work is completely different from my fine art, but serves a very important purpose in my creative process.  I’ve discovered over the years that when I work only two-dimensionally and only in one medium, on one series, the tendency is for my work to become very tight and for me to become creatively blocked.  Alternating between media and working on different ideas helps me to stay “loose” and fluid.  I could make a diet analogy here – a varied diet keeping one regular and all that – but that would bring a whole new meaning to what “blocked” might mean, and frankly, that’s gross.  To this end, I’m also considering taking up ceramics again, or some other 3D art form (besides puppet-making), possibly even installation work.

Finally, this weekend I’m installing 4 or 5 art works in a small group show at Liquid Spaces.  The show will open sometime after January 15th and I’ll keep everyone posted on when and how they can see this work (if you’re interested).  It’s a non-profit, non-traditional art space at one Union St in San Francisco .  Here’s a link to their blog.  I’ll be showing with two other local artists – Bernadette Jiyong Frank and Jeong Im Yi.  The show is titled Marking Time and it examines our experience of time as both an ever-present moment, as a linear progression from the past to the present, and in relation to memory.  I’ll post more details here as they become available.

In the meantime, here’s one of the larger pieces I’ll be showing in the Marking Time exhibit.  It’s called “Large Grid”.  It’s about 36″ x 36″.

Fall Open Studios October 14, 2010

I admit it.  I’ve been a slacker.  It’s been a while since I’ve participated in open studios, but with a new studio and a new, very motivated studiomate (check out her work here), it is time to get serious again!

So here are the details…

When:  This weekend!  Saturday October 16th and Sunday October 17th.

Where:  South Beach Artist Studios, 3rd Floor, Suite 300, room 3, 340 Bryant St, San Francisco.

Times: 11am – 6pm both days.

I’ll be showing all my new work, plus I’ll be selling some older work and some sketches at a discounted price!

As usual, I will be serving Bloody Marys (until they run out) and we’ll have some other light refreshments.

You can see more photos of my work here: photos

Drawing Breath (revisited) October 14, 2010

Many years ago in the early days of my blog, I published a post called “Drawing Breath”.  It was all about the beginning of my explorations into automatic drawing processes.  Much time has passed since then, and I find myself revisiting the theme of connections between drawing and breathing.  With open studios looming I’ve been thinking about the questions I am asked frequently about my work – where my ideas come from, how my process works etc – so I’ve been reflecting on how my practice has evolved and my thoughts came back around to breathing.

It goes something like this:

My ambition in all of my drawings is to find that moment when the process of drawing, and the actual image created, come as easily as breathing.  There is a natural movement in drawing that is neither strong and deliberate, nor fragile and  hesitant.  Overthink the process and the resulting image looks belabored or contrived.  Let loose completely and no longer pay attention to what is unfolding before you, and the drawing dissipates and becomes unfocused.  Like breathing, drawing actually comes naturally if you let it find it’s own pace and expression within your body, and then enjoy the process of allowing it to flow through you.  Not surprisingly, I can usually tell when my drawings are not going well because  my breathing becomes hesitant, shallow and caught.

But this is not to say that finding that moment is easy.  It’s a constant struggle to remember not to get trapped in my mind – that the work is happening out there on the paper, and not up here in my head.

Anyway, here are a couple of glimpses of what’s going on in my studio in these last few days before open studios.  The photos are not great because I took them at 10pm with no natural light, but you’ll get the general idea…

And here are a few more images: photos

Photos March 3, 2010

Sometimes when I’m stuck in a rut or frustrated by my current work, I like to take a brief detour into another medium, just so I can experience the joy and excitement of art-making without the pressure of having to perform.  This week I discovered the hipstamatic app for my iphone and have been enjoying the results.  Yes, it’s kind of cheating, but oh boy it cheers me up.

T-shirt design contest! Please Help! January 20, 2010

I just entered two designs in the Threadless.com 2010 design challenge. Here they are.

If you’d like to help me win (please do!), you can link to here or here and score my designs, and leave a comment. My online name is oddego. Go figure.?

Hope you like ‘em….

Hormones and Neurotransmitters November 13, 2009

Latest series of small and medium sized pieces:

Estrogen

Melatonin#1

Progesterone

Prolactin

Testosterone

Dopamine

Viscera

Kidney

Heart

Lung

Stomach

Ms Willetts and the Miasmal Mists of Doubt. August 26, 2009

Since last open studios I have been staggering about in very familiar mists of doubt and frustration.  My work has taken a turn away from acrylic painting, toward something I don’t understand, yet.  It is very uncomfortable being in this foggy nowhere-land, and it drains my energy.  There is much clasping of the forehead, staring blankly at the wall, sighing loudly (to the annoyance of my studio pals no doubt), and a general bad attitude.  It affects every aspect of my life, as I seem to carry this feeling around in various tensions throughout my body.  It also colors my self-image, my ego being particularly agitated by the possibility that I may not be as talented as I’d like to be.   After all, don’t Really Great Artists know why they’re doing what they’re doing?  Don’t they use their super-powers to navigate skillfully from one body of work to the next, always cognizant of what they’re doing, where they’ve been, and what it all means?  Don’t they possess that special sense of clarity that allows them to connect the dots and then drag the dots to a whole new place where they acquire new meaning?

I’m not saying any of this to win pity or sympathy.  I suppose I’m stating it because it is a part of my creative process, and my intention in writing this blog was to document that process;  and my process involves a lot of this huffing and shuffling of feet and losing of confidence.

So I’ve done some reading.  Agnes Martin said :

What does it mean to be defeated. It means that we cannot go on. We cannot make another move. Everything that we thought we could do we have done without result. We even give up all hope of getting the work and perhaps even the desire to have it. But we still go on without hope or desire or dreams or anything. Just going on with almost no memory of having done anything.
Then it is not us.
Then it is not I.
Then it is not conditioned response.
Then there is some hope of a hint of perfection.
Without hope there is hope.
And without desire there is hope.
We do not ever stop because there is no way to stop. No matter what you do you will not escape. There is no way out. You may as well go ahead with as little resistance as possible – and eat everything on your plate.
Going on without resistance is called discipline.
Going on where hope and desire have been left behind is discipline.
Going on in an impersonal way without personal considerations is called a discipline.
Not thinking, planning, scheming is a discipline.
Not caring or striving is a discipline.

I’ve been trying to remember this advice.  Just keep going.  Let go of the desire to succeed and get to a point where my ego is lost.  Keep showing up at my studio and keep moving the brush across the paper.  And maybe, eventually, the work will find itself without me interfering.

Another interesting book I’m reading is by physicist F. David Peat.  He’s of the opinion that many artists and scientists go through periods of nothingness – of unproductivity.  Not to be mistaken for a creative “block”, these periods are actually part of the process.  An empty space in which the work can become manifest before it is expressed in the physical world.  And he describes both himself and others as experiencing a similar physical sense of tensions being held in the body during this time.   I’m not sure my stumbling around in uncertainty and doubt is quite the same, but I do have a feeling that something is trying to manifest itself.  It just hasn’t made it far enough through the fog for me to be able to define or understand it yet.

One unusual development that has occurred with my most recent work is that I suddenly started drawing/painting the major internal organs of the body, albeit in my usual abstract manner.  I had been mindlessly adding lines of movement to a shape I’d made and realized that it was beginning to look like a heart.  Not a chocolate box heart, but an actual pumping blood-soaked heart.  Sounds a bit gory right?  But it wasn’t.  So I started drawing other organs.  Here’s an example of a stomach:

Viscera

And here’s something resembling a kidney (though obviously the comparison is very loose).  I haven’t added the lines of movement yet, and I’m not certain if the “bubble” shapes will stay, but you can at least see how the process starts with a loose and somewhat “accidental” shape:

Viscera

I think the physical and visceral aspects of these drawings/paintings is what appeals to me.  At a time when I feel doubtful and lost, there is something comforting about big slabs of meat and blood and the knowledge that they know what to do even if I don’t.  Somehow my body keeps working, every organ doing it’s job without me having to direct it or understand it.  I know one day they’ll fail and disintegrate, but for now, in the moments when I’m making the work my organs keep me grounded in the physical world and stop me floating off into the miasmal mists of doubt, as I am wont to do.