3rd Street artist residency, day 5 (4.20.12)

3rd Street artist residency, day 4 (4.19.12)

Reinvention

The blue painting mentioned in yesterday's post has undergone quite a transformation. It is now a scaled-up version of some recent smaller paintings that I have been working on for the past few months. 

3rd Street artist residency, day 3 (4.18.12)

Same panels from yesterday being worked on.

The blue painting on on the right in the above photo didn't make it after I'd spent some time on it. The strong pattern combined with the painting I did on top simply did not work at all. The painted areas were clumsy at best and everything was off. Sometimes, you just have to start again. After letting this coat of paint dry, I spent the better part of an hour sanding it down to allow some of what is now under painting to show through. I'm much happier with it now

Large paper piece ready for more work. 

Two new collages I did after putting the paintings aside for the day. 

3rd Street artist residency, day 2 (4.17.12)

 The shots above show the very beginning stages of three pieces that I worked on today. 

Detail of a small painting that I finished today

Had a greatly productive day.

I had to run some errands before getting to the studio, but once I was settled in, I spent about 8 solid hours working. I generally tend to eat as I'm working, but I did take advantage of the great weather when I took a short break out on the fire escape during the late afternoon.  I was in a much better state of mind because I slept better last night than the night before, so I didn't have to spent most of my time fighting sleepiness and trying so hard to focus on what I was doing. I also didn't think about my job at all. I'm already feeling like I won't want to return to work after this project is over. 

I finished a couple of small paintings that were begun prior to my residency and began work on two large panels and a large work on paper. Having the ability to complete something and to move right into new work is one of the things that I'm enjoying about being able to do this residency in-studio as opposed to having the experience in a different place/space. A couple of people have asked whether I feel like I'm missing out on communing with other artists as I would if I were to attend a residency elsewhere, and honestly, no. At this point in the development of my new work, I just needed to create a space for more time and continuity in the studio. Being able to focus in on what I'm doing in a deeper manner, both in the making of the work and conceptually, is shaping up to be the main benefit of doing this. 

3rd Street artist residency, Day 1 (4.16.12)

Organized...for now

I arrived at the studio at 10:20am and tired at hell. I didn't sleep well nor long enough. Thankfully, the excitement of getting going on this project compensated for the lack of sleep. I did a bit of organizing, including my paint table (above). This is the best that it's going to look because tomorrow the real work begins. Once I felt comfortable with the organizing, I continued work on a couple of pieces that were already in progress.

One of the biggest hurtles that I had today was getting my day job out of my head. I had to remind myself that I didn't have to start winding down as the usual time for leaving the studio to go to work was approaching. By late afternoon, I was firmly in studio mode and happy that I didn't have to wait another two-three days before returning to a work in progress.

Ready...

Studio 4.13.12: Panels prepped for use

I'm super-stoked for my in-studio residency beginning tomorrow morning. I spent some time the past couple of days moving things around and getting finished paintings away from my main working area. Tomorrow, I'm going to finish up a couple of small pieces that have been in-progress for a while and begin work on some new things specifically for this project. I haven't a clue as to what that will be until I'm done. Now, all that's to be done is to get to work...

Some Distant Truth

"Some Distant Truth", 2011, acrylic on panel, 24" x 24"

"Glitch..."

"Glitch (indeterminate passage), 2012, acrylic/collage on paper, 50" x 38"

Sketchbook notes

"Aesthetic Dogma", 2011, water-based writing media on paper, 22" x 22"

text: "Maybe I'm getting too bogged down with a self-imposed aesthetic dogma"

"Failure of Creativity", 2011, water-based writing media on paper, 22" x 22"

text: "Maybe it was a failure of creativity on my part, maybe not. I was tired of the work I was producing and needed to move on"

"I've Painted Myself...", 2011, water-based writing media on paper, 22" x 22"

text: "I've painted myself into a corner and I'm not having much luck finding a way out"

"The Main Thing", 2011, water-based writing media on paper, 22" x 22"

text: "The main thing I have to do is to keep making the work."

The first thing that I want to say about these pieces is that they represent a major leap out of my comfort zone. As a viewer, I have had a very difficult time with a lot of text-based artworks that I have seen over time. A lot of text-based art just isn't that interesting aesthetically, so most of it fails for me on that issue alone. I think that my issues with it stem from associating text works with political/social statements and at the other end of the spectrum, completely vacuous, bad attempts at irony and stating the obvious in uncreative ways. However, there is a sweet spot somewhere between those two extremes, where the work of people like Glenn Ligon exists. Ligon's work deals a lot with specific racial identity issues, but his approach to the aesthetic realization of his text-based pieces makes them much more interesting to me as art (more about Glenn Ligon's work here). 

I have been in the practice of keeping journals for sketches and notes since I was in school. In fact, I've been told over the years that parts of a student journal I kept during my time at Temple has been used as a teaching tool for students there on how to approach keeping an art journal. The first time that I heard about that, I was flattered, but felt a little self-conscious about it at the same time because I know that a lot of the writing in that journal left a lot to be desired. That said, the habit of jotting down notes and references for myself has remained a big part of my studio practice. 

Over the years, I have thought about making text-based work, but could never find a way into it that seemed logical for me in terms of what I was doing otherwise in my painting. I had a very tough time getting past that disconnect until last year. What changed for me was that last summer, I was into the second year of investigating the possibilities of going down multiple creative paths at the same time. I had begun altering my thought process to "allow" myself the freedom to seriously (and not so seriously) pursue ideas that I might have rejected outright in the past. Making text-based works was one of those reject ideas that I viewed with fresh eyes and went for it.

The pieces reproduced above contain direct quotes from different sketchbooks of mine that span the last 5, 6 years or more, even. Although they spring from a visual art practice, I think that the content of these quotes is applicable to any creative practice and at least one of them covers broader ground. I chose these quotes because they stood out to me as being fairly representative of some of the thought processes that creative people might be able to relate to in one way or another. Even though the thoughts are somewhat universal, it was important that I made them more personal. I wanted to keep the feeling of my actual journal in the works, so I chose to use thick water-based pencils to write with and wrote in my own handwriting, leaving crossed out mistakes and all (see "Aesthetic Dogma" above). The crossing out occurred on the actual piece, not in the original sketchbook, but that sort of thing happens all of the time when I'm writing in the journals. I'm always crossing out wrong words, false starts and other writing gaffes. 

This is part of an on-going series, although these are the only four, so far. I think that I might like to do a large installation of these "sketchbook notes" in some form or another. 

Divided By Zero

Divided By Zero, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 40" x 30"

3rd Street Art Residency

"16-A" (studio door)

Back near the end of January, I posted about doing a search for artist residencies that I might want to apply for in the near future. I noted that, during said search, time constraints and financial obligations were ruling out the idea of doing a residency away from my home base in Philadelphia any time soon. I still wanted to do something that would involve having a block of time in the studio working, away from outside obligations and distractions. I took a walk down DIY Lane and figured out a solution that would work for me. The two main ingredients of my plan were that I have a studio space and that I can use vacation time off from work.

That's all I needed to get the ball rolling. The very next day after posting about it, I signed up to take two weeks off from work at the end of April. So, from April 16-29, 2012, I will be participating in the first artist residency at the 3rd Street Artist Residency Space, aka, my studio. The plan is fairly simple; I'm going to spend at least 8-9 hours daily working in the studio and doing things related to the making of artwork. 

The goal is to use this concentrated time in the studio to produce a body of paintings and works on paper that continue with several threads of experiments that I have undertaken lately. The longer term goal is to use the works produced during this two-week period as possible starting points for paintings and other works that I will exhibit in May, 2013 for my next solo exhibition at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery. 

I will be documenting the residency, but don't look for anything substantial about it until after it's completed. During the process, I'll be more interested in living the experience than posting about it online at the same time. However, everything is fluid, so I might post more than I think I will now...it all depends. 

I'm really excited about this project and can't wait to get started!

Photographer Ian Ruhter converted an old delivery truck into a giant camera and is going across the country in it, producing his one-of-a-kind large format images. Ruhter uses an old wet plate photography technique that involves the use of silver and other chemicals. The images he captures are pretty amazing, not only in their beauty, but also for seeing the passion he puts into his work and the high stakes: Every image he makes comes at a cost of $500 to produce.

More about Ian Ruhter:

Ian Ruhter Photography on Facebook

Ian Ruhter on Tumblr

"Crowned", part I

"Crowned I (interior)"

"Crowned XIV (introspect)"

"Crowned IV (voices)"

"Crowned V (the call)"

"Crowned" is a new series of self portraits that I shot in my studio recently. I was in the middle of working on a couple of small paintings when I opened an unmarked bucket of what I hoped was white paint. The paint was white, only completely dried and stuck around the sides and bottom of the bucket. I peeled the paint out and couldn't resist using it as a prop. 

Ch ch ch ch changes...

Change is good, yes? Well, in this case, it is...

What this means is that I now have a brand spanking new "proper" art website were images of my work will live on their own and not have to compete with the randomness of this blog or my other social media outlets *cheers and applause from the artworks*.  For this minor miracle*, I have to thank the wonderful people over at heavybubble for developing some really nice, clean templates that compliment artwork, are super easy to edit, and have no ads. You can also try a "bubble" free for 30 days. You can see mine here: Tim McFarlane.com

(*I resisted the urge to have a dedicated art website for a long time, because I didn't want to have to depend on someone else to edit and update a website for me-I wanted more control than what has been available until recently. Plus, I've seen some god-awful, poorly designed art websites...)

Now for the tedious stuff: 

Beginning today, if you type "www.timmcfarlane.com" or "timmcfarlane.com" into your browser address bar, you will be directed the website, instead of here, my blog. That said, my blog address is now timmcfarlane.blogspot.com (no "www" in front). If you happen to have my blog listed as a link on your blog or website, you might need to change the url. Thanks in advance and I hope you are all enjoying summer so far...

Tim McFarlane.com

heavybubble: websites for artists

Published!

"Blum Store" ©Tim McFarlane, 2011

On February 27th, "Philadelphia's Golden Age of Retail", by Lawrence M. Arrigale and Thomas Keels, was released and contains a large black and white reproduction of my photo, "Blum Store", shown above. The book is a great read for anyone interested in Philadelphia's rich retail history and what made it a leader in department store innovation. 

Philadelphia's Golden Age of Retail is available through Amazon.

I was contacted by Lawrence Arrigale last year and asked if I would be willing to let them use this photo for the then-upcoming book. I agreed, but had to actually re-shoot the photo last fall because the original file I had was too small to print. A few years ago, I had an interest in capturing images of what was left of old and faded signs of old business that still existed on the walls of center city buildings. This one, for the Blum Store, can still be seen from 13th Street between Walnut and Chestnut Streets. On the upper left side, you can get a glimpse of the upper floors of what is now Macy's, but to most Philadelphians, that will always be John Wanamaker's. 

The lab (3.02.12)

  New works on paper on the wall and a couple of sheets of stenciled parchment paper on the floor ready to be used for something or another. 

Gorky's Granddaughter

    


Studio visit with painter Deborah Dancy on Gorky's Granddaughter. I just found Gorky's Granddaughter.com last night, thanks to a link that someone posted on Carol Diehl's art blog. This is just the first video that I watched on the site. I didn't know anything about Dancy nor her work before seeing this, but after watching it, I'm really interested in watching more. There are a ton more videos on the site and they seem to average between 10-25 minutes in length. 


Gorky's Granddaughter is a great studio visit/interview blog that is part of a documentary art project by Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting.


Gorky's Granddaughter.com

From the lab: corner (2.23.12)

There's all sorts of mad, ridiculous happenings going on at the moment and that's a good thing. I'm connecting with the work in new ways that I'm really excited about. It's great when you allow room for different perspectives and approaches to live and breathe all at once. What's to come out of this mess is anyone's guess, but that's the fun part.

From the lab: 2.10.12

I just found out about Robert A. Lowe, aka, "Lichens" via Bowerbird. Lichens creates beautiful, mesmerizing music with voice, guitar, and modular synthesizers. He's going to be playing live in Philadelphia on Friday, Feb. 17th at the Rotunda, 4014 Walnut Street at 8pm and it's FREE!

Studio 2.02.12

Things are humming along in the lab. Breaking a few beakers along the way...

DIY art residency

Great minds think alike. I just read Joanne Mattera's latest "Marketing Mondays" post ("Do It Yourself") and was very happy to see some the same thoughts that I've been having recently validated on her blog. The post is all about taking the DIY approach to getting the things you want to have happen with your work and art career: do your own solo shows, curate exhibitions online or in physical space, publish your own monograph, and the one that spoke the most to me at this time, create your own art residency, like sculptor Laura Moriarty did.

This past Sunday night, I was looking around the web for artist residency opportunities and kept coming up against time constraints and monetary obligations. I continued mulling over residency ideas long after I should have been asleep and slowly came around to the idea that I could create a residency in my own studio! I honestly don't know what took me so long to come up with this idea for myself, but I'm glad that I did.

So far, I've come up with a time frame of roughly two weeks full time (at least 8 hours per day in the studio) to be done in either March or April 2012. There are details to deal with, but, yeah, I think that this will be a good thing to do.

New BMG website

My Philadelphia gallery rep, Bridgette Mayer, has just debuted the gallery's new website. It has taken a while to get together, but is very nice and has a bunch of new features. Check it out : Bridgette Mayer Gallery

One of the new things to check out is this "studio visit" video featuring me going on about some stuff that I do: Tim McFarlane, Studio Visit, 2011

Digital musings

ecp 120511.1 (digital drawing)

ecp 120111.2 (digital drawing)

ecp 120711.2 (digital drawing)

Three drawings from an on-going series that I am developing paintings from. The titles reflect the file name in Photoshop, the date, and the order in which the drawing was done on that day. 

I'm on my computer a lot when I'm home and, of course, I get flashes of ideas that I want to explore. So, in addition to writing or sketching in my physical journals, from time-to-time I will also tap into available tech to experiment with. My habit has been to use Photoshop mainly for photo-editing. I rarely get the urge to see what else I might want to do with it, preferring to pursue my main painting and drawing explorations in the studio. 

One thing that I forget from time-to-time is that my studio is always with me 24-7 in my mind. Making art is as much a state of mind as it is physical. Like the saying goes, "Wherever you go, there you are", so wherever you are, so is your art. When I can't physically be in the studio (working, traveling, sick, whatever...) I'm continually turning creative thoughts over in my head. If I have been working on a painting, you can bet that before my next session in the studio I will have gone through several versions of it in my head. The painting will still turn out differently than anything I might think of, but engaging in that on-going thought process is always rewarding.

Wanderlust

Wanderlust, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 72"

Last complete piece of 2011. 

Onward

All suited up and ready for the "winter sessions" in the studio. I'm looking forward to exploring a lot of new ideas and sending new works out into the world in the coming year. No resolutions needed, just continuing to work and keep the creative fires burning as bright and hot as I can.

All the best for a great, productive, inspiring 2012, no matter what you do.

Happy New Year!


-Tim

Art: the mourning after

"Art is for the living. If someone has lived creatively and you are grateful, for goodness sake, write them a letter, or create a website about them; get an article about them published if you have the opportunity, or if you are an editor, commission tributes while she or he can read them. What is the point of making a fuss when they are gone? It is morbid and to me it seems inauthentic...Instead of lamenting the lost, we should be celebrating their achievements, and saying thank you, while they are still among us. So stop this saccharine artistic morbidity. Instead, pick your favourite living creative artist – and write them a fan letter."
-Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, UK


Full blog post here: "The mourning after: why we should celebrate artists while they are alive"


In his latest blog post, The Guardian's Jonathan Jones writes about the loss of Cy Twombly, Lucien Freud, and Ken Russell. His overall point being that the rush of the arts media to heap praise and tributes on the recently departed artists comes too late. Now, the people Jones mentions were hardly unknown and did live to see their work exhibited or seen by wide audiences. I think that it's the lesser-known people who should have a chance to have an encouraging note or two, especially from people that they don't know and may never meet. 


I come across a lot of images of artwork on the web and when something strikes me in a particular way, be it art, design, photography, or music, I'll often find a way to let the artist know how I feel about their work, mostly via email and sometimes by posting about their work either on this blog or elsewhere. 


I don't do this to "network" or to gain some other in-kind favor or notice, I do it because something about their work grabbed me. I do so for the same reason that Jonathan Jones mentions in his blog post for the Guardian; that we should celebrate artistic achievements while artists are alive and can appreciate the thoughts and accolades from peers and others.  

The art of time/the art of lithography

 "The Art of Time" is a documentary about Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Inc, founded in Los Angeles in 1960 by the late June Wayne (1918-1911) to prevent the demise of lithography. "The Art of Time" (top) focuses on the more emotional aspects of lithography, while "The Art of Lithography"(bottom), a slightly different cut, focuses on the more technical aspects of lithography. "The Art of Time" and "The Art of Lithography" were directed by Marina Chamrad.

After watching these videos, I'm really itching to do some printmaking again after too many years away from it...

Mention in the Philadelphia Inquirer 11.20.11

There is a nice mention of my painting, "Constant Flux" in the review of the group exhibition "Karmic Abstraction" by Edith Newhall in the Sunday Inquirer. 

'Karmic Abstraction' will be on view at the recently re-designed and expanded Bridgette Mayer Gallery until December 31, 2011. There will be an Opening Reception on Friday, December 9th from 6-8:30pm

Charline Von Heyl @ ICA Philadelphia

Charline Von Heyl, Igitur, 2008. acrylic on linen, 82" x 74"

I saw the Charline Von Heyl 10-year survey exhibition at ICA-Philadelphia today and had a hard time leaving. I kept wandering back and forth in the exhibition because I couldn't get enough of her work. At once chaotic, serene, and very much about the materiality of paint, Von Heyl's paintings really deserve some extended viewing time. 


Besides the paintings, there is also a large selection of works on paper by Von Heyl that incorporate printmaking, collage, drawing and other techniques. The show is up until February 19, 2012 after which it will travel to ICA-Boston.


More images of Charline Von Heyl's work can be seen here: Charline Von Heyl via Friedrich Petzel Gallery

Back to now

Me in the studio earlier this summer. I'm sporting some old-school Cazal frames for a special photography project. When Cazals were really trendy during the 80's and popularized by hip-hop icons Run DMC and  you would not have caught me in a pair. Not only did I not like them, but there were kids and adults being robbed and killed for them. However, when they were presented to me as a prop for the shoot, I was instantly taken by...not nostalgia, but an instant connection to my teen years. 

This shot was taken by Iman Jones. To see more of his work, go to Iman Jones.net

Interview on Artblog Radio

The interview that I did a few weeks ago with Libby Rosof and Roberta Fallon of The Artblog is up, so check it out here: Tim McFarlane on Artblog Radio

There is also an audio slideshow of this interview on YouTube: Tim McFarlane Artblog Radio audio slideshow

It's so very strange listening to myself talk...

Christine Sun Kim: Sound and Vision

Todd Selby x Christine Sun Kim on Nowness.com.


This is a great video portrait of deaf performance artist Christine Sun Kim. Kim uses sound in her work as a way to make the audience "listen with their eyes".  There is an interview with Kim on the NOWNESS Facebook page. The video was directed by Todd Selby, aka, The Selby. Artist website: Christine Sun Kim Is Unlearning Sound Etiquette


About the video:

Cult photographer and filmmaker Todd Selby's latest short is a revealing portrait of performance artist Christine Sun Kim. Deaf from birth, Kim turned to using sound as a medium during an artist residency in Berlin in 2008, and has since developed a practice of lo-fi experimentation that aims to re-appropriate sound by translating it into movement and vision. "It's a lot more interesting to explore a medium that I don't have direct access to and yet has the most direct connection to society at large," says the artist. "Social norms surrounding sound are so deeply ingrained that, in a sense, our identities cannot be complete without it." 


Selby filmed an exclusive performance from Kim in a Brooklyn studio as the artist played with field recordings of the street sounds of her Chinatown neighborhood, feedback and helium balloons, and made “seismic calligraphy” drawings from ink- and powder-drenched quills, nails and cogs dancing across paper to the vibrations of subwoofers beneath. Working with sound designer Arrow Kleeman, Selby carefully choreographed the film's ambient score to reveal the Orange County native's unique relationship with sound. "Her work deals with reclaiming sound because it's a foreign world to her and one she's not comfortable in," explains Selby. "I wanted the film to act as an artistic conduit for her to tell her story to the world.”
(text from NOWNESS.com)

Artblog radio interview coming soon...

Mark your calendars! Next Monday, November 14th, an interview I did recently with Roberta Fallon and LIbby Rosof of The Artblog will be posted on Artblog Radio. There is a brief sample of the conversation with this link.