“Just start” January 19, 2012

(above) Self-Portrait No. 31, redo

Today was a better day in the studio than yesterday; I was overall less distracted and was able to focus and accomplish more.  I kept repeating to myself  ”Just start. Just start.”  (great advice from my former colleague Bill Flynn at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.) I started off the day with the etching ink portion of my last redo, which means that all of the last pieces are now officially in progress and I have no more that need to be started. I feel like I could do redos forever, but I’m now at a point where I look at each of the fifty drawings and feel that I am satisfied with each of them. I also finished No. 43 and a redo of No. 6 which felt great.

(above) Self-Portrait No. 6, redo (detail)

I’m starting to put together materials for the catalog, which will accompany my two solo exhibitions in March. One important aspect that I want in the catalog are details (such as the one above) of the pieces so that the smaller aspects of the technique  can be clearly seen.   From a digital image, my work is easily misread and people frequently make the assumption that these are charcoal drawings, and completely miss out on seeing transparent quality of the Dura-Lar. The cross-hatching with the exacto knife is completely lost as well, it’s just too small to be seen in a full image. The scale of the portraits is also really tough to read from a digital image; scale is never easy to discern anyway, but I think with a portrait it’s especially easy to picture it as being a life size head.

(above)Self-Portrait No. 43

(above)Self-Portrait No. 6, redo