Cyanotype test fabric becomes dishcloths in my Hong Kong Studio, 2008
Spring’s come to Sydney
But artists have no weekend
I pick up my brush.
* Proof I am not a haiku professional
Archive for the ‘Art’ Category
Artists Haiku*
Friday, July 30th, 2010Knife Village
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Lai Chau, Vietnam, on assignment for my book Sensual Papers: Through the Back Roads and Rivers of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
I’m standing by one side of the road as my guide pisses off the other. We’ve been chasing rumors of papermakers through the back roads of the province all afternoon but haven’t had any luck. I take off my helmet, wipe off sweat and sunscreen, and admire the view anyway.
My guide walks up next to me and shares a grin. “How about we go to the knife village?” he asks.
“Knife Village?”
“Yeah they turn car parts into knives. It’s famous throughout Lai Chau.”
If a province has no noteworthy features, why not make one up?
The road is lined with rickety open-air shelters, each strung with knives made by the family of blacksmiths who live in a house next door.
“These are all made from destroyed cars,” my guide says.
I picture the slender blacksmiths tearing apart car bodies.
“They use car springs, brakes, that kind of thing,” he says. I nod, as though I have an idea of what a car brake looks like, and pick up a knife. It is cold and rough, a pleasing weight in my hand.
“How much do you think they’d charge a foreigner for this one?” I ask.
“Let’s find the guy who owns this place,” my guide says.
We walk over to the house where an elderly man smiles at us through an open window. He reads through the mid-day heat, and his book catches my eye. It’s not printed in the Roman script of Vietnamese. Instead, its pages are covered in a hand-written script, neither completely traditional Chinese characters nor the modern version.
“This is a prayer book,” my guide says. “The man is from the Dao people, and this is their family’s book. The paper is….” he pauses to translate, “from China, maybe handmade, maybe not.”
I look through the translucent pages into the sunny sky. The paper fibers go in all directions. “It’s handmade,” I say. “Did he write the book himself?”
“He copied it from another book. No, this village doesn’t make paper anymore, there’s a road and they can buy everything they need from the markets.”
Except knives, apparently.
“Now he wonders how much you will pay for the knife. He can throw in a pair of handmade scissors for half price.”
Old Materials, Modern Tools
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
My favorite papermaker Supan Promsen with his niece and a woodblock printed on his paper, 1 x 2 meters
Each day I walk into my studio, and as I look over my work-in-progress, the paper I’ve been painting gives me a thrill. This unique paper is custom-made for my artwork by Supan Promsen, the man pictured above.
But while I like to use old-school art materials, everything else about the work is 21st century. Supan and I communicate by email, in English. He keeps me up to date on the progress of my paper as it’s being made, then FedExes it to me in Australia. I photograph myself and others with a digital camera as we model for my paintings, and use Google to translate text into Chinese, Thai, and Japanese for my current series.
Many times I’ve rued all the stuff it takes to make art. Usually when lugging artwork across town, or moving countries again. Easels and stretcher bars and large-format thick papers take up a lot of room. I’ve often wished I could be content with all my work being purely digital; it would make for lighter luggage, but artwork on an iPad wouldn’t give off that subtle mulberry smell that my paper does. Something like cornstarch. It’s an elixir to a materialist like me.
And that’s what keeps me working with all this stuff: the materials are a crucial part of the process: as I mold them with my ideas and hands, I transform them into art. Or [because nobody interesting agrees on a definition of ART anymore] something like it.
Beautiful Boats
Saturday, July 17th, 2010
Detail of painting on Thai paper, 70 x 100cm, 2010
This is the image many have of Hong Kong – a junk cruising the waters of one of the finest harbors of the world, sails spread to catch the breeze. But when I travelled around the territory searching for images to illustrate my kids book, I decided not to make any cyanotypes of beautiful boats like this.
Why? Because Hong Kong people don’t actually use them in their daily lives, and haven’t for ages. What they DO use is more prosaic: taxis, double-decker buses and minibuses, and the MTR [subway]. Yet there are still some ways to get around town like Trams and the Star Ferry that are unique to Hong Kong; they’re the most affordable way to travel, and you’ll literally rub shoulders with all strata of society. Passengers coast the seas or the streets at a leisurely pace, and experience the transition from one neighborhood to another.
And best of all, these ferries are still as photogenic as ever.
Tipsy Travelling
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010![[detail]](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4100/4793462184_9b4c701c34.jpg)
Detail of Painting on handmade Thai paper, 70 x 100cm, 2010
My life is split between two amazing cities: Sydney and Bangkok. At first glance they seem to have little in common besides loads of fresh produce and a generous dose of sunshine. Bangkok has double the population, ten times the pollution, and costs a fraction of what it takes to live in Sydney. But both cities are a haven for long-term travelers – and the travel industry that caters to them.
Last night the Sydney Travel Tribe met in the city’s CBD (Central Business District), and we talked late into the evening, fuelled by a World Nomads-sponsored bar tab. Most of us run websites – like the Travel Tribe co-founder Ian, who runs Travellr.com – or we write about travel online. It was an excellent chance to talk travel p*rn. I saw Stuart from Travelfish for the first time in years; met Brooke, a fellow American in Sydney; ran into Dina, who’s passing through town on her trip around the world; was bowled over by the character behind Brokepacker, a new discount hostel site; met several writers; and had a look at the BUG guidebook and publisher.
All of the websites at Travel Tribe have different goals. Their creators range from burgeoning travelwriters to seasoned guidebook professionals.
But one thing we all have in common: without exception, we’d all skimp on our hotel room for the sake of an extra beer.
Why I Can’t Afford Cheap Art Materials
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
Studio table
I’ve always been preoccupied with the materials I use in my paintings and prints. It’s been such an obsession I’m writing a book about my travels to discover different papers for artwork.
This week I stopped by an art store to replace some painting supplies I’d left in Bangkok. Past the oils and watercolors I found their acrylic paints. Most were Australian brands I didn’t recognize, followed by a rack of your international standard Windsor & Newton; while they’re a high quality brand, I’m always on the lookout for something more interesting.
“What are your best artists’ grade acrylics and gesso?” I asked the clerk, a hipster in his late 20s with floppy hair and a ready smile.
He motioned to the Windsor & Newton and Australian brands and said, “These are all about the same quality. As for the gesso, well, gesso’s gesso. It’s all the same.”
Er, no it’s not. Student-grade or discount gesso has cheap fillers and an uneven texture I wouldn’t let near the custom-made paper I use for my paintings.
When you’re a student, it’s fine to use student-grade or discounted art supplies. But if you’re selling your work, you can’t afford to buy cheap art supplies. The artist Kesha Bruce recently discovered her early acrylic paintings have been cracking on collectors’ walls due to the poor quality materials she’d once used.
A professional artist needs to know chemistry as well as the many other skills you don’t learn in art school, like writing press releases. Who knew?
Rooftop Blues in Bangkok
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010Some images from recent printing sessions at my studio:
Experimenting with new ways to apply cyanotype chemicals
Here are some Artists Proofs baking in the midday sun, quickly turning from green to dark Prussian blue then bleached by the sun into Prussian White.
These images developed in record time for me – just over ten minutes.
Prints developing on the rooftop, with neighborhood houses in the background
Directions for the photo chemicals say: “For consistent results, a UV lightbox is recommended,” and “best applied with a glass rod for even coverage.”
But I ignore these extra tools.
Every one of my cyanotype prints is the result of a unique juxtaposition of sunlight and humidity, acidity and images. I stroke chemicals onto paper with my paintbrush, held with confidence from years of training. It’s key to the variety within the blues of every series I make.
Rinsing the prints
The first time I developed one of my own images in a darkroom, I was hooked. “It’s magic,” I thought.
In the trays under my fingers emerged an abandoned building covered in ice from a spring hailstorm. Pure Gothic kitsch, and no doubt it presaged my Bokor series.
Rinsing cyanotypes is simpler than a series of darkroom trays -these require just 5 minutes under running water.
Highlights appear within a minute and the blues grow deeper as the image dries.
Later I scrutinize my prints and note the variety of borders on each one as they fade toward the paper’s edge: a water drop fallen on the drying print here, an extra stain from chemicals accentuate the image there. Other prints go into the recycling bin, their irregularities too much of a distraction.
Like the imperfections that distinguish all of us from one another, it’s these variations that makes each print a unique work of art.
Artist Abroad
Saturday, March 13th, 2010
Catching up with the NYC artworld from a beach bungalow in Thailand – discussions with artists via Jerry Saltz [art critic] on Facebook, and Edward Winkleman’s blog [gallerist]
Ten years ago as I finished my last year of art school, I realized that to ‘make it’ as an artist, whatever that meant, I had to move to New York City. And a few years later, I did, though I’d never even visited before.
I did a few things right once I got there: worked with artists and photographers in the gallery-filled Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea, went to museums and openings all over town, lived in the hipster neighborhood of South Williamsburg in Brooklyn.
And I did a lot wrong: didn’t make an effort to meet other artists, didn’t make any memorable work in the claustrophobic apartment I shared with two tense roommates, a place we’d rented sight unseen, where bars sliced up the view from our bedroom windows and fat cockroaches wandered our halls.
But really, I wanted to be somewhere else. Not back in the midwest with my family, but somewhere different, somewhere outside the Americas. I’d studied and worked in Europe and wanted to go back there for more. I dreamed of going to Morocco. Was intrigued by Asia.
But New York was where I was supposed to be. That was the only place to make it, went the refrain in my head. Then I lost my job in Chelsea after two planes hit two buildings downtown, and along with thousands of others I walked down Manhattan over the Williamsburg bridge to my home, which I now knew could never be home again.
I knew my future lay elsewhere, was finally able to admit that I’d never really been interested in climbing the Artworld Ladder. It’s a rat-race like any other, starting with University –> to Group shows –> to Solo shows –> to Gallery representation –> to Museum shows and Retrospectives and if you’re lucky, a spot in the art history books.
There are a lot of rules and assumptions along the way, and the most fundamental is that you live where the biggest art scenes are. Right now, that’s London, Berlin, New York and Beijing. But I’m not interested in following rules if they don’t match my priorities, and don’t plan to live full-time in any of those places.
So where’s my future? Eventually it’ll be in many places, but for now it’s on the internet, where I can talk to artists in New York and Melbourne and Shanghai, artists I might never meet otherwise. Best of all, thanks to Google Translate, I can communicate with people in dozens of languages that I can’t even speak – yet. It’s the next-best thing to Esperanto.
And best of all, it lets me work from different studios, anywhere in the world.
[Click to see photos of past studios here]
Painted White as Snow
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Gouache, Acrylic and Ink on handmade paper
Last week my sister and I were distracted by a TV ad as we rode the skytrain back to our hotel. Our car was cool and we relaxed after a hot afternoon visiting Bangkok’s Old City. We shared seats with locals from all over Thailand, in a range of sizes, shapes and shades: a few Isaan girls from the Northeast, wearing miniskirts and spaghetti string tanktops on their way to work in girlie bars; southerners who showed South Asian traces in their features; and Chinese-Thais from the city’s merchant class.
The TVs held everyone’s attention; no one in the car spoke as an ad extolled the virtues of an expensive whitening cream. On a half-dozen screens light radiated from the fingertip of a Eurasian model who leaned leggily against a heavenly background.
“Why do all the people on TV here look the same?” my sister asked, “when there are so many different kinds of Thais?”
Whitening creams are everywhere in Southeast Asia- there are even whitening deodorants.
But the TV ad we saw was nothing compared to one I saw the next day. It shows you how to get an engagement ring in a single week: use Pond’s Flawless White[ning] Cream, work as a painter’s model, and you’ll seduce a guy as he mixes in more and more white with your flesh tones.
Watch the ad Here.
New Beginnings
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010![Cures [Negative]](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4061/4338608429_971ee0fcd9_o.jpg)
Original Photo: New Orleans 2002, Printed 2003. Cyanotype on cold press paper
Light filters through an apothecary’s window display of abandoned medical panaceas
There are few sensations as exhilarating as a clean slate. Beginnings are fumbles in the dark, full of possibilities and pitfalls. Whether we’re a middle-aged man falling for an ingenue, a traveler landing in a brand new city, or a woman besotted with babies, we’re all attracted to the same thing: a fresh start.
Artists fall for new materials in the same way.
While sorting through boxes from the past, I rediscovered my first cyanotypes from 2003, made shortly before I moved to Asia. As I sifted through these prints on French, English and Indian cotton papers, memories come flooding back:
* Late nights printing with halogen and other lights, experimenting with angles and distance, melting negatives, reversing others, and overexposing most of the prints that made it that far.
* Entire afternoons spent at Kinko’s making transparent negatives: enlarging, inverting and adjusting contrast on their copy machines.
* Days devoted to printing in Boston’s feeble spring sunlight.
The images are from my travels through the UK, Cuba, Haiti, Morocco and more. Most of my experiments I destroyed, and some sold to casual collectors.
Click here to see the few early cyanotypes that made the final cut.
About Me
I'm an american artist with an Asian focus.
I paint sharp-witted women.
I print blue photos of disappearing places. Sometimes I work in Sydney, sometimes I work in Asia. You can keep up and connect with me on Twitter, and Facebook, and Flickr
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