#100daysofkaylieabelaart

The 100 day project is on. Today I'm working on day 13 (September 1st felt like a solid start date).  I'm definitely in an abstract phase that's a little weird, a little crazy, but I'm enjoying it a lot. Some design elements have been carrying over each day and some added. Right now I'm all about these small dashed lines and of course, the figure 8/butterfly form I have found to be a great "base shape" to grow abstract work around.

You can see the progress on Instagram at @kaylieabelaart.

Repairing Paintings

I wish I could say there was something relaxing and meditative about repairing old paintings, but there isn't. Now matter how hard I try to make it feel fun ("WOW! Look at that Mr. Clean Magic Eraser work!"), my attempts fall short. Repairing paintings is still a chore. Especially when your cat will not leave your side.

My studio is the small second bedroom of our apartment, and I need to wrap three large pieces in craft paper in order to move them into the basement and clear up some space to create new work.

Have you heard of the 100 Paintings a Day project? I'm thinking of challenging myself to that. I will need lots of room and resources.

@kaylieabelaart

Join the fun and check out my new Instagram page.

@kaylieabelaart NEW Instagram Account

After a lot of thought I've decided to separate my personal and professional Instagram accounts. If you already follow @kaylieabela please take a second to also follow @kaylieabelaart, which will be dedicated to news about my work, works in progress, etsy news, exhibitions, etc.

@kaylieabela is 100% kayls, but I think it's be too many things at once to operate in a professional capacity... it's sort of like: who is this person? A crazy cat lady? A regular Bostonian? A boutique manager? Or an artist?

So, now the artist gets her own platform. All posts will be art related with lots of throwbacks to earlier work and updates to new work. Enjoy.

Here's a bit of marketing I created to puff up the change.

Some Toils of an Abstract Artist

...On Saturation

Great art is everywhere. In our tech-induced lives, we have Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, and the annoyingly adorable way Google periodically changes its homepage logo. There's the watercolor bumble bee illustration on the stationary I bought from HomeGoods, the folksy recreation of a medical illustration on the cover of the book I'm reading, and the textured, intricate sugar skull design on my current bottle of shiraz. And (even more) ephemerally, there's the gusty sway of winter storm Juno outside my window, a closeup of my cat's clean, silky paw strewn across my face, and the way the head of a metallic pushpin can distort my surroundings into the tiniest, shiniest globe.

Everywhere my eyes land there's an opportunity to study someone else's project. So many artists and designers have come first and finished more. I wonder if they broke any rules along the way (probably not, I think. There aren't many left to break anymore.) I wonder if they sketched their ideas with a number two pencil first, or if someone in the other room asked them, "how's it coming along in there?"

And all of this stimulation precedes even reaching a more general category. With all these distractions, how do I reserve the stamina to research or discover talent specific to my focus? A handful of times this year, I've stumbled upon young painters whose work looks almost exactly how mine looks inside my head. How could I possibly avoid thinking I'm screwed. I stumbled upon it-- I wasn't even seeking out work similar to my own! Someone else made it first, and I can honestly say that I have absolutely no idea what my next piece would've been anyway.

...On Assignments

It's disheartening to find that some of my most endearing works were the results of school assignments. (It feels too strange and I'm too proud to say "best works," but I can certainly recall some endearing ones, as this blog post explains). In art school, we'd roll our eyes and bitch to our roommates about the impossible tasks laid out for us by professors who somehow never quite seemed to have enough merit to be telling us what to do. The creative freedom to develop our signature body of work at will that lay just over yonder was such a lure, assignments often felt scoff-able. 

I'd reluctantly forge something then toss it aside, not to be seen again until the organization or inevitable move of my studio. Then, after years with gaping holes in them devoid of creating anything worth anything, those old assignments suddenly look brilliant. Hindsight is tricky. Sometimes it tells the truth and sometimes it lies. The rediscovery of something old and never thoughtfully appraised appears exciting when juxtaposed with the literal nothingness that ensues during "the holes." The same way I imagine an indulgent meal that made you sick ten years ago would become enticing again if you were offered it several years into a jail sentence.

The inherent drama and reminiscence of rediscovery is most likely why old assignments seem enlightened, but what if hindsight tells the truth here? It feels like fantasy, but wouldn't it be nice to realize that perhaps my critical eye was just too underdeveloped to see the brilliance of those reluctantly-made pieces at the times of their creation?

...On business

I can't seem to still the urge to promote and then promote some more. Instead of creating progressive new artworks, I photograph old sketches. Usually, there are no ideas behind these works. They do not illustrate a perspective, opinion or even narrative. They're just dark, smooth curls of sepia ink on the heavy Bristol vellum I cheated on real printmaking paper with, or the bleeding edges of free india ink from a middle page of an old sketchbook. They are blind contour drawings that took no longer than two minutes, as blind contour drawings shouldn't.

I try to make these throwaway doodles look beautiful. It's a deceiving form of camouflage that I find comfort in. I'm proud of my deceit, impressed by my own ability to take something banal and make it look attractive to prospective purchasers.

I don't fully understand why it's important to me that these small sketches are recognized. But I'm inclined to think it's due to those aforementioned gaping holes I'm always trying to navigate. Photographing these otherwise insignificant artworks in a lovely way that makes them desirable, makes them significant. And when I'm not producing work, that's a very rewarding feeling.

Recent Subjects of Toil:

Deceived? Link to Etsy.

Threadline R1

This is one of my favorite new additions to my etsy shop. It started off as a bigger piece, then I cropped it down to 8x10, so it envelops a lot more of the page. It also introduces new colors. (Psst: There's another one from the same original big piece-- coming soon).

ETSY RECHARGED

My Etsy shop is back! After a short hiatus, lots of listing editing and rephotographing (with more planned), I have rolled out the red carpet for my shop's relaunch. Visit etsy.com/shop/kaylieabelaart for the full experience. Yay!

Changes...

The last few months have been filled with newness. Now that I have a new place (and consequently a work space), I'm eager to dive into the art world again. I'll be diving solitary for now... but dives are done that way, if you think about it. I whipped out my copy of Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art to get into the brains of some of the greats and encourage myself to think/write/practice more.

A reflection on Barnett Newman's The Plasmic Image (1943-45):

His first sentence is, "the subject matter of creation is chaos," something I agree with completely. I've always had an interest in chaos's role in the process of making art. To quote my own statement (which could use some updating),

I do not manipulate my media as it evolves, just as I cannot control inevitability in life ... The unpredictable nature of the irregular ice denotes unforeseen, inevitable change and acknowledges randomness as a contributor in the patterns of our lives.

As it turns out, his idea about chaos was closely related to how I feel about it, except for one thing. Newman writes,

The present painter can be said to work with chaos not only in the sense that he is handling the chaos of the blank picture plane but also in the he is handling the chaos of form. In trying to go beyond the visible and the known world he is working with forms that are unknown even to him. He is therefor engaged in a true act of discovery ... No matter what the psychologists say these forms arise from ... the present painter is not concerned with the process (26).

Surely it's obvious which statement I disagree with. I am very concerned with process-- my whole system is a process, one that I think balances my two needs for immediate gratification and a long opportunity to stew over what's happening in my paintings. However, pointing out Newman's take has made me wonder: Am I too concerned with process?

Almost every artist will admit, if they're being honest with you, that some of their best work was unplanned. Whether the work was made during a spontaneous creative urge, or under an influence, or simply not while trying, it's this work that oftentimes speaks loudest to an audience. Just this afternoon, I told a story about a drawing that is now hanging in my living room. I made it with dismay in a drawing class I despised in college. I thought the class was useless and wasteful of the time I could have been spending painting, but it was required so I had to show up to get credit. In class one evening I grimly scribbled a "wet drawing" (my cheat term for painting instead) of a pile of unused canvas that was on the table in front of me. The drawing is rough and unbalanced, but somehow wound up ...sophisticated(?!). My teacher was delighted and I was turned onto a new obsession for painting loose thread (see Threadlines). Now the drawing I couldn't wait to finish is something I admire.

Returning back to the question am I too concerned with process, this will be on my mind going forward. I've focused on a set of rules for creating my work and somehow became locked into parameters that may not be suitable for every particular piece. I'm struggling with two small pieces now because I want them to be similar to other recent pieces, but let me point out (you guessed it): those pieces were made with no special expectations or attention paid to them... they were supposed to be studies for a larger painting I was working on. "Studies" seem to work out well for me.

And this is why it's important to read the thoughts of other artists. If you're lucky, it'll make you question your habits, wonder about your process, and resonate on your past work. And if you're super lucky, sometimes it'll inspire something new.

Barnett Newman, Cathedra, 1951.

Heart Art

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, here are some little ones. 

https://www.etsy.com/listing/177791437/heart-art-small-watercolor-painting

Studies

I often get a more noticeable positive reaction from people for my studies--i.e. small(er) pieces of work that I generally regard as insignificant; merely a means of mainly color and paint interaction testing before moving onto the "real" piece or pieces. 

I wonder why this is?

Part of me suspects I may simply "post" these to social media at opportune times (however that is determined-- I don't know). There's also the plain fact that the small studies outnumber the large, complete pieces. And the final possible reason I'd prefer not to admit: maybe they're made more freely than the "finished" work (in quotes because I consider the studies finished too) made with more gusto and less trepidation. 

I resolve not to worry what the reason may be. A positive reaction is a positive reaction. Below is my newest popular study, made in conjunction with the pieces from my last post, which were installed on Boylston Street in Boston last week.