5/24/10: More blog love
Few people have been quite as supportive of my work as John Haber and his site Haber’s Art Reviews. Just yesterday, John updated a long article he has about me and my work, which spans the last five years.
It’s a little crazy for me to read an article that considers all the NYC shows I’ve had. The last five years have been nuts. I’ve barely had a chance to slow down and really think about them. I found it a little overwhelming to see this article, but also of course really wonderful and I’m so pleased that John would consider my work so seriously.
His lead story on his site is about the show I have up right now at BravinLee programs (is now a good time to point out that the show is up til June 5th?). Thank you so much, John.
West Thames Park project is over
I just got a call from Karin that the park is now ready, and the construction guys have officially removed my installation around West Thames Park. In many ways, this is sort of terrible timing, because I have a show opening this Wednesday at BravinLee programs, which is the completed drawings for that project, and it would have been nice (and it was the plan) to have them both up at the same time. On the other hand, this is just the way these things go. It’s a construction site, first and foremost, and only a place to see art as a very, very distant last place. It was great to have the opportunity to have my work up there for as long as it was, and now it’s on to new things.
Including… that show I mentioned! If you’re in NYC, come to BravinLee program this Wednesday from 6-8pm and check out the full drawing in the project space (Douglas Florian in the main space!). Details:
Amy Wilson: It takes time to turn a space around
BravinLee programs, 526 W26th Street #211
April 21 – June 5
Opening: Wednesday, April 21st, 6-8pm
Hope to see you there!
Some new drawings for BravinLee
I’m going to have some work up in the project space at BravinLee in a few weeks. It’s the large drawing that I did for West Thames Park, only totally completed – which is to say, with all the text filled in. Here’s a preview, but the full drawing is huge…
It’s all ready to go… except I don’t want it to leave my studio just yet. I want to fuss around with it a bit. I have been on such a tight schedule the last few years, I haven’t had the luxury to really just work and work on something, and then walk away for a few days, come back, work some more, take a break, etc. I’m happy with it the way that it is, but since I have a little extra time (it’s not going to be framed, which means I don’t have to rush it to the framers) I’m going to take it. I don’t expect to make any major changes, just little tweaks – but it’s fantastic to finally have the time and space in my life to do that sort of thing.
Almost-new website
Yesterday I took a leap forward towards refashioning my life as something other than a person who merely treads water all the time: I bought a new computer. As I explained to some of my freshmen, the last time I had a new computer, they were in middle school. And then today, I started out on Part Two – redesigning my website.
Good god it’s a huge job. For starters, not having a decent computer for so long means I haven’t documented a lot of my work; and then there’s also the fact that I seem to work 24/7, so there’s so much stuff to be caught up on – we are talking literally a couple of hundred images that need to be added. It’s pretty overwhelming. Then add stuff like press, student work, texts… and well, there’s a reason why I’ve put this job off for so long.
But I almost have a decent start ready to go and premier to the world. My hope is that I’ll be done by this weekend and able to launch it, and then slowly chip away at what’s missing. I’m cheered by the fact that I will have an actual live, human intern this summer (well, I’m convinced she’s going to be offered an amazing and well-paid full time job the second she gets her diploma, but in case that doesn’t happen immediately I have her for a little bit) who I can have help me with this task.
I tend to torture myself with these endless questions of What am I doing with myself, what do I spend all my time on, am I accomplishing anything, and so forth. After sitting down and digging through all these images I feel like wow, well… I guess what I’ve been doing with my time is working. A lot.
It’s up! West Thames Park!!!
My installation is finally up at West Thames Park!
Photos courtesy Katie Armstrong. More available here.
And more info on the project, including a copy of the text that will accompany it available free for download, here.
Downtown Alliance info
Here’s some more info on the organization that sponsored the public art project I just finished. They’re sponsoring a variety of different artists’ projects – going to see them could make for a nice walking tour through lower Manhattan when it gets a little warmer out!
My project goes up Tuesday, weather permitting.
What I did on my vacation.
To make a very long story really short…
The good news is that I got a really awesome gig to make a huge “mural” (basically, a digital printout of a drawing made for the site, which measures 5′ x 130′ and wraps around a scaffolding).
The bad news is that between the craft fair and school, I had about two weeks to come up with the image.
Yikes! That’s a lot of drawing for two weeks! I worked straight through the holidays and I’m still catching up on rest and my life and so forth. But I got it done. I did a scaled down model of the site (seven panels at 10″ x 40″) that has been scanned and will be printed on vinyl the final size.
The site is the perimeter of the construction of a children’s playground in lower Manhattan. It will start to be installed next week (hopefully – the weather has a lot to do with these things, I have learned) and I’ll post the location and pictures of it and such when I have them. The work is a little different for me because it doesn’t have text – it’s basically what my drawings look like before I’ve 100% finished them. I get to keep the final drawing and do whatever I want to with it, which in this case means to work on it further and add text, which I will be doing really soon. Also, I will be making the text that should accompany the piece available for download so that if anyone wants to print it out and bring it along with them when they go to look at it, that’s an option.
Making the work without text was a compromise, but I feel ok with it. I like that I can say whatever I want on the downloaded text rather than having to submit something to be reviewed by a committee. My writing isn’t ever really “controversial” but it is personal – having a group of people I don’t know go through it and say that some things can stay and some should go would be weird. And given that the piece is about fixing up a garden and the compromises you have to make back and forth when doing that, it seemed really fitting to compromise on this.
Anyway. Here’s a couple of the panels. More pics soon!
(I have no idea why, but when I post these pictures online the color gets all screwed up. Sorry about that – they’re your usual Amy colors. I have no idea why one of the hills looks magenta.)
New book: Middle, 2008-9
This is a book that I started at least a year ago (may have been longer, I’m not sure) and only completely finished just now. It’s strange for a project of mine to take that long, but this one went through so many different changes as I learned more about book-making and pop up books. There is a real ceiling when you’re making things where your abilities and your ideas sort of clash; for me, that ceiling of ability kept constantly changing (I’d learn something new and it would go soaring up or I’d totally screw up another project and it would scare me enough to basically have it clamp down). And I am really, really trying to find a way to combine this idea of the pop-up, which I absolutely love, with my work so that it’s not just gimmicky or cute but instead refers to this interior space which is infinite.
Anyway. At very long last, here is the book.
The cover:
Side view:
Here is a picture of my gimpy hand opening it (not sure why I always show my hand in these pics but I do so why stop?):
Inside the cover:
Then you turn the page and you reach this part you have to assemble:
So it’s not a pure “pop up” in that you have to do some of the work, but it is incredibly easy to assemble. The five-sided cobweb basically comes out at you and all you have to do is latch the side into a little perforated latch I created. When you do, and interior part naturally falls down and it looks like this from above:
…and like this from head-on:
You fold it up to read the rest of the story, but from there on it’s just symmetry in terms of the design part:
and the last spread:
I worked like crazy trying to get the hinges on the pages so that it could be opened and assembled over and over and over (100s of times) with no worries about damaging it… and in the end, I think it has to sort of remain a fragile work of art.
Ok, I’m excited! I think this is a big step!!
What my better half is up to…
Ok, I had to plug his project, sorry!
Me, I’m off being obsessed with tunnel books. Tiny, tiny tunnel books, that open up like a little world in the palm of your hand. More on that very soon…
New drawing (7/27)
This is part of my ongoing experiment in working large:
…and a detail, not that it tells you so much more:
I’ve done now several larger drawings and I think I’m finally ready to go back to working smaller. What’s great about working big is that you get to focus on color and technique and really working with the materials. And what’s unfortunate about it, is that you lose the intimacy and, I fear, the focus on the writing. I like to think of my work as whispering into a stranger’s ear, and I fear that I’m losing that sense a bit in the larger works.
I bought a new pad of watercolor paper ($35?!? It’s been a while since I had to buy more since I had such a surplus for so long and I totally forgot how expensive it is!!) and it’s about 10 x 14. It will be interesting to see if I can bring some of the things I like about working larger into the new small works. Anyway, that’s the plan.
working 