The List, Installment 9: Natalie Frank's Suggestions

These are the artists that stood out the most to me from her suggestions (she also mentioned Frank Aurbach, Glenn Brown, Leon Kossoff, and Robert Gober, as well as Elliot Hundley and Matthew Ritchie, both of whom I've already posted about):

Julie Mehretu:










Petah Coyne:





E.V. Day:



These are all deconstructed garments of clothing in tension

Highly Necessary Update

Wow, it's been a while! I've been extremely busy--the final show is fast approaching (May 4th from 5-7; we install on the 2nd!). So I've been cramming for that. I'm making a new piece, plus several auxiliary panels, all of which will be finished within the next week and a half. Yep. Will.

Let's see, what's been going on that's worth sharing...

I "finished" and named the giant white drawing. It's called "Come Closer". I don't have pictures to post really because I've been kind of putting off taking pictures of it. It's a pretty involved piece, and I haven't really felt like tackling it with a camera just yet. But it's ready for the show...sort of. I'm going to have to do this really complicated thing in order to move it from the studio to the gallery (it's too big to fit through any of the doors...). It's going to be a minor nightmare, but I'm kind of excited about it.

I had a studio visit with Natalie Frank! She was so lovely. My favorite moments were when she asked me if I had a background in figure painting, and when I told her yes, she said she could tell because it was like I was painting the body without actually painting a body (!!); and when she said it's like I'm painting with paper (!!!!). I felt like she really understood what I'm doing, which was a really pleasant surprise--I was sort of nervous about the visit because her paintings are so representational/content-oriented and mine aren't very much of either (they're not even really paintings anymore, if you wanna get technical...). But she was great--she gave me a hug after her talk and said she was genuinely excited to see where I take my work. Swoon! Oh yeah, she mentioned Elliot Hundley, Matthew Ritchie, and Donna Nelson during her visit, which was thrilling because I really like all of those people. She gave me many names actually...I'll have to do a List installment just dedicated to her suggestions.

Oh! Judy Pfaff gave a talk at BU! I adore her/ want to be her. Favorite moments include:

• Every time she talked about herself as a painter trying to work her way through/ figure out sculpture (oh the affinity)
• When she talked about color: "Everything alive is full of color. They think they've seen color, they ain't seen nothing yet". This was related to her feelings of being anarchistic/ "on a tear"/ a guerilla fighter without knowing who or what she was necessarily against: "How dare they think color is bad! How dare they think I'm like an explosion in a glitter factory. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!"
  
• When she talked about evoking sensation rather than any kind of graphic sensibility, and about learning through her work
  
• When she casually mentioned that she was married to a particle physicist at the age of 16 and said things like, "all glassblowing men are handsome", or, "that guy was so handsome I couldn't look at him for 2 years"
• Her story about buying all of the woks in a kitchen supply warehouse because the cashier told her that Frank Stella worked nearby and she was afraid he'd have the same idea.
• Just her voice

Yeah, she's awesome.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot--I decided to do the Post-bacc program next year, so I'm staying in Waltham. Forever. Hmmm, that would be funny if it weren't so ominously possible...

Well, I'm going to sleep now. I promise another List installment and hopefully some images soon, most likely after the show.