Hands & Pants collab : Many ideas, one outcome

My friend John Casey has been doing a specific collaboration with artists from all over for years that he calls "Hands & Pants" because that's what you get when you participate: a hand and a pair of pants. The rest is up to you. I had the opportunity to do this last April when I received a 8.5" x 11" pen and ink drawing of a hand and pants. With the composition and size, I was sketching, sketching SO many ideas. I went to the several boxes filled with collage pieces and thought, "Oh this would be fun" since I hadn't done a collage piece in a while. Well, the piece I chose, the flower headdress, extended far beyond the paper's edge. After hemming and hawing for a while, dabbling with a few other ideas, I made the (in the back of my mind, a possibly regrettable) decision to cut the being out and adhere it to a watercolor piece that I had been working on around the same time. I think it turned out nicely.

Thank you to John for the experience. The next Hands & Pants show will be in the Fall 2019 at Faultline Studios.

Mardi Gras Mask-Making: Dark Water Sorceress

In October of last year, a friend of mine asked if I had ever been in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and when I revealed that I had never even been to Louisiana, it was decided that we were going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. With a group of people that I had never met before. And we all were to dress in a theme.

Challenge accepted.

After ideas were tossed around, we settled on a water/underwater theme. (It was so much fun and I highly recommend doing it) I didn't want to be a mermaid because that's just too obvious and since I hadn't created a mask in over a yea, I would make the mask the focus - have it do the work of the costume without digging myself in too much of a time/money suck. I created a dark water sorceress' mask from a blank and glued sea snail, oyster, and muscle shells as well as feathers and a few crab carapaces and appendages.* Oh, and "some" glitter. Never forget the sparkles, my friends.
 *all shells were organically harvested from various beaches after each creature's demise;)

Nearly completed mask

Thoth's Cookin' parade day w/ Mr. Mermaid Lounge Singer.

 

Ready to snatch dem beads with these fun ladies

Nailed

Another heart. I think about this piece now, months' after its completion, and I see the representation of a "total feeling," a complex physical, psychological, and emotional reaction. This was especially agonizing but even from the sketch it felt good to do. In a lot of ways, art works are some sort of picture diary. I'm letting you read pages  fom mine.
In life, we take the hammering because it is unavoidable, and after a certain amount of time one tends to acquire an extensive collection of nails.

Sometimes I feel more of the nails than others. Being sensitive will do that. Also, I find with huge failures, all of those plans, those beautiful dreams, the peaks and valleys, so much energy and work, all became nails driving into one spot, knocking the wind right out of me. And the big ones take longer to hammer in so it's a protracted and shocking process.

Now that I'm an adult, a good portion of the time I'm doing the nailing. Whether it's about perception, expectations, rules (including moral and ethical code), or personal character traits, I'm making most of the decisions. You hold the hammer, life just provides the nails.

Or maybe it's  just me? Wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

Nailed: DeScaibled: 2016

Mixed media gouache, ink, and colored pencil on prepped chip board.

Birthday Creation - The Gatekeeper

After what I have termed my "Wayward Girl" summer, I finally got things squared away and with that, a glorious shot of creativity. And the first thing I wanted to do was something special for my very inspiring, generous, wonderful friend. Happiest of birthday, Dwawn!

This is a 9"x 12" mixed media painting entitled, "The Gatekeeper."

Honeycomb Heart

Mixed media watercolor, ink, and colored pencil on bristol paper.

The Power of Surrealism: Laundry Clairvoyant

This piece was created from two very different times with no thought of them ever being one project, one piece.
The canvas surface was one I had used in school, most likely for an oil paining still-life study or some sort(I can't remember now), which I had gessoed and then affixed old black lace. I gessoed it again and then put acrylic paint on top. Once it was dry, I placed  it in a dark place and didn't think about it for at least a year, if mot more. Much later, I was tearing through an old Nat Geo mag and there was a photo of a village that did laundry. I tore one page and the rip was awkward, not straight along the binding. I looked at it then I stuck it on my wall and continued harvesting.
I saw a face in the laundry. A stoic, sad profile.
And the two separate pieces finally came together. Quite remarkable when you witness that.

 Laundry Clairvoyant

Mixed media collage and paint

9"x12"

Boxing inspired art

I have a piece in the Compound Gallery's boxing themed show entitled "Knockout." It is a great privilege to be chosen and also a relief, since this piece was created because of the gallery's open call. Here is the post card for the event and my piece, "Right in the Kisser." This is a mixed media acrylic paint and collage piece, with the mouth guard being created from an electron microscopic view of a diatom (dead algae). The photo is when it was drying in my studio space (centered).

Pink Week..."Ouch"

 

This is a post card sized piece of artwork for Sacramento's "Pink Week" where artist send in art where the dominate color is, of course, pink. This is entitled "Ouch" and was done in watercolor, ink, gouache.


 

Long Time No See

If you are reading this, fantastic! With all the blogs and bullshit to read, I appreciate you reading mine.

The Good News is a large commissioned painting is done. The varnish has cured and will soon be shipped to its rightful owner. It was a test in patience and self-love and I will be sad to no longer have it decorating my walls.

Universe Energy Conduit (Yggdrasil still lives) 36"x 24" mixed media

Song of the moment: "Pay No Mind (Snoozer)" by Beck

Color obsession: Black

Fun word: superfluous

A Valentine for my Valentine

Last year I made pretty elaborate valentine and decide never to do another again. Well, that was a lie that made itself true less than a week and a half ago when I drew some fiery heart designs and thought how great they would make for a valentine. This was much more complicated than I initially realized, but I'll be damned if I don't finish what I start. This is constructed from 90# and 120# watercolor paper. Watercolor, colored pencil, and some gouache. And about 10 hours of work.

But this was all for love. Unless the focus of your affections doesn't much care for these sorts of things. Then don't fucking bother.

Song of the moment: "Ready to Bleed, by Prayers
Color obession: Dove gray
Smart words: predilection

An (unfortunate?) Aspect of an Artist's Temperament

Wow. So, the last time I posted was back in February and one could assume that I had died or absconded to some strange corner of the world with no network connection, but I've been actually been buried in the mist of living life. And as always, it seems to get more hectic the moment I think I have a good handle on thangs.

I have fallen into an artist-specific trait of "Just Drawing/Painting/Sculpting" (basically working)and generally not following through with the well-intentioned updating of the website/blog/facebook or any socializing, although I have been better on the FB posts as it's usually pretty instantaneous and requires no real writing effort. And for reals, I know to be "viable" I have to update on a regular basis. But, really, all I think most of the time is "fuuuuuck that shit. I got some art to do." This is also present in Justin Sweet's recently updated site, which has new work and is, as always, so friggin' cool it's not surprising that he's a huge influence for me.

Anyways, here's some photos that I have posted via Facebook but will be a good li'l artist and post here as well.

ze tiga-a sketch that started somewhere else

"Be a Good Girl"

"Smoke Hyena of the Future Plains"

"Laundry Clairvoyant" in progress

"Tiny Senorita"

"Smoke Hyena of the Future Plains" is a mixed media acrylic and pencil painting. "Tiny Senorita" is gouache and water color on a 2"x3" trading card. "Laundry Clairvoyant," essentially one piece of collage, laundry drying on lines in the sun, on lace affixed surface, is an in progress work.

I will endeavor to be better about posting, although I will most likely fail.

Color: plum
Sound obesssion: Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album
Word of the moment: Hootenanny

Mask concept drawings-Buffalo

This is a concept sketch from about 3/4 of the way done to finish I did this past Monday (MLK Day) while hanging out in a café near my house.  I've been doing drawings of buffaloes a lot as of late, and my thoughts always turn to the way early American and European "sportsmen" decimated the American Bison population to the point of near extinction.  And, to add insult to injury, mainly did so just for buffalo hide leaving the carcasses to rot in the prairies.  Now, buffalo only roam on protected areas, such as ranches and preserves, their numbers not even close to what they once were.  I know why this bothers me.  It's the narcissistic, tyrannical attitude that people, especially in first world countries, seem to have in them.  I don't know why though, if you have a brain and a heart and aren't a psychopath, you wouldn't care that this has a history and continues.  So many creatures that make our world a really cool place to live are being brought to extinction, or near it, for what?  Delicious soup, a nice rug, a trophy, more land to build more structures that will remain mostly empty.  So many reasons and all of them bullshit.  It saddens and shames me beyond belief sometimes.

This concept I've called "Goodbye Buffalo" but have also been toying with naming the actual mask, if I make it, "American Domestic Policy."  My concept was to have a tired buffalo, with his head cover in blood and the beard made out of used rifle casings.

These were done in watercolor pencil, ink and gouache.

Music obsession: "Dulcinea" by Isis
Color of the Moment: Burnt sienna
Words that make ya sma'ta': Verisimilitude

Art Animal Interview...featuring me (HA!)

A little over a week ago I was contacted by writer Julie Davis, who I knew vicariously through her husband, former classmate and bad ass artist, Mark Simmons.  She writes for Art Animal Mag, a blog that features women artists and with her well-honed writing skills, crafted the below interview.

Interview with Mixed Media Artist Veronica Schaible

A skull-headed woman in a high-necked gown cries through the cracked eye socket where she just shot herself. A bright pink bunny slumps like a despondent teenager, surrounded by depressing swirls of gray. Winged hearts crack open, spilling objects like blood: timepieces, coins, cakes, architecture and sculpture — images that suggest both pleasure and pain.
Veronica Schaible’s artwork reflect both pain and whimsy. They’re personal works: raw and vivid and filled with emotion and color. Her latest, a series of sculpted masks, evoke some of her earliest memories of art in her family home — a welcome return to her roots after a difficult few years trying to rediscover her identity as an artist.
The youngest of four children, Schaible grew up in Southern California, drawing on notebook paper until the family’s stock was all gone.
“At a very young age, when someone asked me what I wanted to be, it was either a) an artist or b) a paleontologist,” Schaible laughed.
She ended up choosing art, drawn from evocative material such as the Dia de los Muertos, or “Day of the Dead,” celebrations and other motifs from Mexican culture as well as Native American work, from jewelry to war paint.
“My mom is quarter Cherokee, and there was always Native American artwork around the house,” she said. “Not like a bunch of dream catchers or feathers everywhere, but looking back, I definitely remember the prints and my uncle’s sculptures being Native/Mesoamerican.”
An aunt, who taught ceramics classes out of her studio in Topanga Canyon, exposed her to sculpture.
“I think [my aunt's] ability to teach a broad range of ages how to keep their creativity while still creating solid pieces was a gigantic blessing because most art teachers I’ve encountered sacrifice one for the other,” Schaible said.
She started to pursue art seriously after a stint at Fullerton Community College, where she met artist Justin Sweet, who was an Artist in Residence at the time.
“I was watching him paint in oil this book cover that was already past the deadline and I just felt, I don’t know, a click, or like something was switched on,” Schaible said. “I thought, ‘God, I really want to be able to do that.’ It was definitely a religious experience.”
Unfortunately, Schaible’s own formal art training was less fulfilling. A 2009 graduate of San Francisco’s Academy of Art University, she found herself disillusioned by a changing art market and a skill set that already felt out of date.
“I can draw and paint in various mediums but where the industry was going and where my portfolio was at the time were worlds apart,” she said.
After graduation, she didn’t draw or paint for nearly a year, and it wasn’t until she started sharing studio space with a former instructor who lived in her neighborhood that she became excited to create again.
“The charge was back,” she said. “I could be silly in my paintings or concepts and there was no critique. I finally stopped worrying about the critique from everyone else and let all the education I had acquired take over without any real thought. I can critique my pieces now and not feel a sense of doom because I own my pieces, I do something and there is a purpose behind it. People may not agree with or like it, but that’s why it’s mine.”
Quoting actor Gary Oldman, who she calls “a consummate artist,” she offered what could well be a motto for her current approach to her work: “What others think of me is none of my business.”

Art Animal: What draws you to sculpture? What’s the appeal of working in three dimensions as opposed to painting?
 Veronica Schaible: It’s very tactile. I like creating space and form in that way. Also, and I’m not speaking of Industrial design, but sculpture is the only visual art that doesn’t have a digital replacement. You can digitally paint what a sculpture looks like but it’s still just a painting.
AA: Can you tell us your current interest in masks?
VS: It stems from my love of Iroquois masks, totem poles, masquerade masks, face paint. Really, a way to hide the face people know with one they don’t. Masks have power, they are freeing, empowering. I think of Mayan culture and the sacrificial masks, war paint, Iroquois masks or to be more current, Halloween masks. The power and freedom comes from the mask so you can be completely frightening, intimidating, angelic, mischievous. You become someone or something else, and harness all the things you want and are to afraid to with your naked face.
AA: Would you say that you have particular topics or themes that you always return to in your artworks?
VS: I seem to always put a skull or something skeletal in my pieces. Some have said I have an obsession with death, which I guess is partially true, but how can you forget, really, that this is all extremely temporary?
I return a lot to change, impermanence, pain. I had a pretty rough start to life, so I think I’m always in some form or fashion returning to my concept of pain and change. It’s important, and people as a whole run from experiencing it, like it’s el cucuy (the boogeyman). Pain is the main agent of radical change. I find it absurd, this dance society does around pain, ignoring those mired in it, pretending that if you experience anything other than contentedness, happiness, being pleasant, then you’re a weirdo or a whiner.
AA: What are you working on these days? What are you excited about?
VS: I’m excited to finish up “Prolapse Murmur,” a large painting that has become one of my favorites. There’s also a new mask piece that I actually want to be able to wear, unlike “Transition,” which is too heavy and uncomfortable to wear. I’m mostly excited about how I feel. This is the first time in too many years I feel hopeful for an actual future in art.
AA: You’ve also worked in an art gallery. What did you learn from that experience?
VS: Galleries take risks with artists and artists take risks with galleries. They may not sell any of an artist’s work and it’s not the price point or the craftsmanship. It can be as simple as location and finding a niche market. Also, it’s a large financial risk, especially if you don’t have a buyer list or a location with heavy traffic.
AA: What do you think about illustration as a career? Has the digital age made life easier or harder for illustrators?
VS: The digital age, overall, in my opinion, has made it easier for bad design to overwhelm the market and lacks feeling. You can tell when most pieces are digital — speaking specifically when someone is painting in Painter or Photoshop for painting purposes. It’s sad because there is something lost in translation. I don’t know. For all the advantages of digital, the largest drawback for me is when files or layers disappear, systems crash or the computer dies. The work is just gone. Gone! It is so heartbreaking when you put so many hours and something you love and care for and it’s disappeared in some sort of evil magic. I think unless you have a special understanding of digital painting and own what you do, you should just stick to the physical realm.
AA: How are you developing your skills and building a career post-graduation?
VS: My career as it is has taken a huge back seat to my financial circumstances, which have been extremely depressing for me for the past three years; but things are turning around. I feel the sun peeking through all the thick clouds.
I’m finishing up a body of work that focuses on and deconstructs what the heart means. It’s become a very one-dimensional symbol but it’s so much more and means so much more to me. Plus, I’ve gotten back into sculpting, so I’m hoping to market a show with both paintings and sculptures to galleries soon.
AA: What advice would you give someone who wanted to follow in your footsteps as an artist?
VS: Do your research on art schools. Explore whatever you want, how you want and don’t think too hard about it. You know more than you think you do.

Interview with mixed-media collage artist Matthew Craven

In the last quarter of 2011, I was interning at Gallery Hijinks, and right before my time there came to an end I got to do an interview with Matthew Craven, a mixed-media collage artist who's definitely not afraid of pushing buttons, changing history, more so challenging the history we have set in our minds (it's like Mr. Craven's poking a big Red, White and Blue bear with an ancient broken stick, but I digress).  His re-purposed, loaded images along with texture and pattern allows focus to be brought back to not just America's roots, but the ancient roots of humanity, it seems, and what has become of the tree that has sprung forth.  
This interview is broken up into multiple posts on the Gallery Hijinks blog for his February show FRGMNTS.  For posting here, I have done some re-purposing of my own, publishing it in full.

VS:  Have you always been a pattern person?  Especially with your past work dealing with Native Americans, it sometimes looks and feels like your weaving a blanket (such as "Life Totem").  Is this meditative process?  What draws you to this as an artist? 
MC:  Yeah, I have always been a pattern person.  As a kid I would relentlessly draw/doodle/deface pretty much anything in front of me.  It was only as I got older that I focused that energy into something more engaging and thoughtful.  As a result i have been including many cultural reference into my work in the last few years ( i.e. the native American/masonic  influence in previous work). The Life and Death Totem drawings were a result of wanting to take what had been doing for years to the next level.  I have always found peace in drawing.  The repetitive nature of such work is very meditative and satisfying to my soul.

"Life Totem I" Matthew Craven 2009-2012

 
VS:  Is there a specific quality that you look for in your mixed media surfaces?
MC:  I spend hours/ days searching for images and materials. It has become vital to my work in recent years.  I am always looking for images with great aesthetic value.  I look for images with vivid textures and surface.  I only use outdated textbooks for source material.  These books have many properties that intrigue me.  Rough/ dry paper, color deterioration and even the smell.  All of my collages are constructed from resourced books. Even the blank sheets I mount my images on are taken from the front and back of old books, which typically have two blank sheets that usually are faded or stained.  This gives my collages another level of historical narrative.

VS:  I read in an interview that you base your decisions on aesthetics rather than narrative or commentary.  Does this still hold true?  
MC:  That's quote was not entirely true, sure aesthetics play a big roll in the composition of my work, but I was speaking in a larger sense.  The images that I use and inspire my work are also based on aesthetics.  I use images that depict patterns, whether it’s textiles, carving or architecture.  I am drawn to this history of the stylized/ decorative nature of mankind.  I find similarities between my own impulses, and those who have come be from me.

VS:  Has using the Native American/Settlers created problems for you in any capacity?
MC:  I use loaded imagery, I am well aware of it.  Sometime people get hung up on singular imagery and cultural ownership of such things.  I feel like its primarily based out of their fear of the unknown.  This country gets extremely uncomfortable with any race/ religion/culture other than their own.  I'm trying to point out where we ALL come from, and the history of mankind is singular.  The goal is to form connections between modern life and the lives of the people who came before us. 

VS:  What initially drew you to collaging/mixed media? 
MC:  I was in grad school, and  trying to redefine my work.  I had given up on painting at that point and wanted another outlet.  I have always loved working on paper much more than canvas.  When sourcing imagery and materials for my collages, books seemed a much more interesting way to find paper than an art supply store can ever offer.  It also allows me to incorporate this hunt for materials into my practice that bring me out of my studio and into the "real" world.

"Headstone" Matthew Craven 2012

 
VS:  Do you think that the medium one chooses to work in reveals the nature of the creator?  If so, what does collage/mixed media reflect or reveal about you?
MC:  Sure, like I hinted at above, it brought out another impulse of mine, which is to collect objects.  I think I needed that in my work, it is a whole other skill in itself.  

VS:  You mentioned in an interview that your current body of work is still new to you and you don't know where it's exactly going.  Do you have a better understanding of what your work is and where it's going than when you showed at Nudashank (November 2011)?
MC:  Yes for sure.  At that point I was just sourcing new imagery.  The imagery has led me to create a whole new series of collages and ink drawing I will be showing at Hijinks in February.  Like most artist you start with a feeling, and as the work progress you have time to really think and observe your own work.  I am thrilled at the direction of the new work, and feel like it is finally exposing the concepts and narrative my work only hinted at in the past.

VS:  What has been the best compliment(s) that you've received about your work?
MC:  People typically respond well to my work, but one time in grad school Jerry Saltz visited my studio.   After talking with me about my work he told me I was a "real artist." I don't know what he meant by that, but I figured I was on the right track.

 "Preserve" Matthew Craven 2012

Drippings Making Happy Happenings

So with all the holiday shenanigans and otherness that's been going on, I know I've been remiss in my blogging duties, so I am typing away, hoping to create some interesting reading for all y'alls.
I finally have photos (properly corrected, of course) of the large painting; from the first night laying down color-runs and then moving onto finding specific things in the canvas, bringing them out, and now, painting the actual focus.

So, there you go. 2012, already lookin' better than 2011...thank god. Oh and Gung Hey Fat Choy. Make the year of the Water Dragon, 'cause it's supposed to be a exhilarating ride.

Color Obsession: Pthalo Blue
Song Discovery: "The Heart's a Lonely Hunter" by Thievery Corporation
Words that make ya smarter: Pastiche