Last Work in Progress

Jessica made me think that I needed to try to add another piece to my submissions for this quarter. She did not like the Simple Glitz piece at all. I figured she wouldn't, but I didn't think she'd dislike it quite as much as she did.

I'd been tossing around the idea of doing an interpretation of my memoir poem (from Fall quarter) by taking the three separate dining out experiences and putting them onto canvas which would create a little series to go with my memoir. Jessica really liked that idea, so I started to work on the first one, but I didn't get far.

This was from the section of my po-emoir that reads:

"Wylie's Chinese American Cafe –

Even in daylight, it is dark

when the door closes behind.
Brushing crumbs off of cracked

vinyl seats,we slide into smoke filled

red booths and wrangle

quarters for the jukebox

out of mom’s sweater pockets.

In back, harsh words and brawls

spill from the bar between slats of

saloon-style doors that barely contain

stale alcohol and obnoxious men yelling

or comingto blows over loose women.

D-16:the jukebox blares,

and egg foo young sizzles

under brown gravy

while Steve Miller sings for our supper.

The record is rockin’and we sip Shirley Temples,

waiting for the chorus so we could chime in

with the only lyrics we know.

“Da da da dee-dah da-da-da-dona

blah blah blah to Tacoma!

Buh-buh-buh-ee-ya

buh-buh-buh buh-ay.”

A woman, high on cheap

tequila, staggers from

the bar. Her patterned polyester

shirt misbuttoned,

exposing her overflowing bra

and ample stomach.

Mom shields our eyes

with palms of her hands

and my brother returns to

constructing thick French
fry stacks. They line his plate:

a retaining wall around the burger

sweating beneath cheese.

Feeling cultured, I order “Chinese.”

My cup-sized bowl,

scrolled with blue dragons, holds a tasty

flat-sided ball formed by small
grains of sticky white rice; a side

dish to the thin slices of pink-edged pork

flowered around a hot mustard and

ketchup blossom. Small sesame

seeds sit and wait to be stuck

to the meat like pollen

transferred to my tongue."

The bbq pork was one of my favorite images so I thought that I'd use that on the canvas. I took Sculpey clay and shaped it into a pork tenderloin of sorts, then sliced it thin, laying it out on a small plate. I will combine gel medium and paint to create the ketchup and mustard, and then put sesame seeds on, coating everything with a coat of polyurethane spray.

That plate will be attached to the canvas which has a partial take-out carton adhered to it, as well as a mini-collage of paper/fortune/menu. The plate will go right above that, and then there will be some chopsticks and then a coating of "distressing" that will give it an aged look and add a darker feel to the whole piece.

Artist Date (part deux)

We to the Tacoma Art Museum for a brief visit this morning. Tim was really a trooper to have back to back weekend museum experiences, but I wanted to see the photo exhibit by Chuck Close with poems by Bob Holman.

It is sort of surprising that the TAM is so small. One of the galleries held a handful of recipients from the 2008 Neddy Artist Fellowship. There were some odd pieces on view -- the strangest being a statue of a naked man. To me it was strange because he had a creepy look on his face and the artist used real hair on the head of the statue. He also had really small hands that looked out of proportion to the rest of the body.

There was also an exhibit of Renoir (as printmaker). There were two of his paintings, which was really a neat experience to see them up close and personal. The rest of the exhibit was a collection of prints. He used several different methods of printmaking, so it was really interesting to see the differences between the prints and the methods.

The Close/Holman exhibit was interesting, but not as interesting as I thought it was going to be. I expected different pictures, but they were portraits of faces. He uses a special form of photography which focuses differently. There was an interesting technique he used with his digital images. He had a software created that would take the digital image and translate it to a loom -- weaving his photos into a tapestry. They were huge, and when you were up close, you could see the individual spots of color that made up the woven black and white image. It was pretty amazing. I was not impressed with Holman's poetry, although I was intrigued with the format he used for some of them.

All in all, we were able to get through the entire museum in less than an hour. I'm glad we got in free because I would have been disappointed to pay full price and not feel like I really had much of an experience.

Wings and a Kickstand

So Tim had to help me finish the last details of my totem. I had to make her stand up and thought that we'd just put her (lack of) feet in a wood block, but he thought that it would be better to give her a kickstand to help her out. He attached a narrow post with a hinge.

I had to finally attach her wings. I thought that I would end up adding some other collage-type items to her, but I can't think of what to add. :( I thought about putting words surrounding the theme of family (on her arms and legs), but I have run out of time.