Artifact No. 3 is included in Adorn, an online exhibition. Check it out here!  The show runs through May 6th.

It's difficult to decide when you really start being an artist, but I started studying art in high school, majored in it in college, then continued with my MFA. I've been out of school and creating since 2010, so that's a solid eight years of professional artist time for sure. During that time I've noticed a handful of recurring patterns and forms. One of them is roughly funnel shaped, like a "V". I think about the shape differently as I'm creating it. Sometimes is the valley between mountains, a cross section of a canyon, a would, or, more abstractly, as a void between two solid masses. The form doesn't usually make it into my final pieces. It usually stays in sketches and under paintings.  This piece, Engulf, is probably the best example of this form in a finished piece. Even this example is not exact - the funnel usually closes at the bottom. 

Today I was going through some photos for inspiration. I found a lot of recent digital photos to use in my Artifacts series, but I wanted something for my Parks Project. I went through some of the prints I have from my old film camera and found this one from Arches National Monument. (Sorry for the quality, this is literally a crappy scan of the print from my 3-in-1 printer.) There's that form again. I took this picture at least 16 years ago. It's interesting how things get stuck in the subconscious. I plan to paint this at some point. Who knows, maybe this shape will make it into a finished piece.

I've put several more layers on the next piece in my Artifacts series, tentatively titled Remnant No. 2. Right now I'm in the process of sanding it down so that the pattern is visible again. Unfortunately I put way too much paint on it. I'm four hours into sanding it and maybe, MAYBE, halfway done. But I took lots of pretty pictures as I went.

I've been busy in the studio over the last couple weeks. I started off doing some house keeping. Montaña de Oro State Park No. 1 is officially complete. I put several coats of varnish on it. The only thing left to do is to get a good picture of it.

I also stretched a new medium sized canvas and did these three smaller ones using one of my drop cloths. My plan is to do some small botanical studies on them, similar to Sequoia National Forest No. 1. I want the surface to be really smooth for the studies, though, which requires lots of layers of acrylic medium.

As I was going through my drop cloths and waiting for paint to dry, I found a bunch of small canvases that I made a couple years ago and decided to do something with them. I did some small pours over them using the same container of paint. After I did one more, I added some new color to it for the next pour, one right after another. It was a fun exercise, and I was surprised by how bright my colors stayed.

Once they were dry I put another layer on a few of them. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, but they sure were fun to make.

One of my pieces is included in Site:Brooklyn's upcoming show, Painting in the 21st Century. The show is on view from September 21st through October 21st. If you're in New York during that time, stop by to see the show!

I've spent the last week or so applying metal leaf to the next piece in my Artifacts series. I decided to use variegated metal leaf. I think once I add the next few layers, the variation in the leaf will make the piece look more aged.

Here's my latest batch of glasswork. It's from a couple weeks ago but I still wanted to share it here. I fired the oval bowl I cut out a few weeks ago as well as some experiments. The smaller red and black circle is to experiment with some candle draping molds we got. The other smaller pieces are experiments in how small pieces work in a full fuse firing schedule. Here's the kiln before firing.

 And here it is after firing. Most of it worked, though there were a couple of failures.

Here's what the painting looked like when I went out this morning.

It was almost dry, just a bit tacky in a couple places. So I set to work taking the contact paper off. It was harder than I thought. I actually had to cut through the paint to do it.

It took a lot longer than I expected but I'm glad I did it when I did. The paint did leak under the contact paper in a couple places. It was still wet when I cut the contact paper off so i was able to wipe it off. If I had waited longer the paint would have dried. Here's the end result!

I'm really happy with how it turned out. I still need to put on a clear layer of acrylic medium, sign it, and varnish it. None of that will really change how it looks though.