I wanted to capture the actual scene of Sora and Virginia Rail all together, constantly moving out of view and back into the reeds. So I try to do what I can to learn them but to let the actual prints and paintings look spontaneous, or at least not constipated.įurther down on this page are some field sketches I did at Cape May a few weeks ago, mainly of Sora, Virginia Rail and Wilson's Snipe. On the other hand, especially with wildlife art and particular species, I can't very well just ignore the specifics. And I rebel against too much detail and too much adherence to what something looks like. Early state moku hanga proof by Ken Januski.Īll of my work desires spontaneity in some form or another. It took a long time to come to this decision but I finally did. But in the end I decided that I needed all of the lines. The proof below with minimal line was my attempt to keep the color fields and just use the most essential line. The proof without lines has a lot of areas I like but they just don't fit with my idea of the print. There is an aesthetic that says that this is just fine but it's not MY aesthetic. My long history with abstract art has taught me that you really have to be careful about precious areas of a painting, areas that can seduce the eye but that don't add much to the entire painting or print. The color field proof was done much earlier in the process and the linear one as I made the final edition. Another proof shows only color fields with no line at all. So below you see a trial proof of the same print using lines just on the cuckoo. This makes sense for various reasons, but I still miss line. Contemporary moku hanga has largely abandoned line for color fields. So.I'm just going to show some recent work here, though without a lot of theorizing.Īt top is the finished moku hanga print of 'Yellow-billed Cuckoo with Worm.' Traditional moku hanga includes very finely painted, carved and printed lines. It seems crazy to me that this has not happened but there's no doubt that is has not. But I used to think that eventually print, especially printed newspapers and magazines would make a comeback. So perhaps blogs will return to popularity. There is something there but it certainly isn't the more developed, thoughtful discursive material that is available in something like a blog. But Facebook reminds me of what I used to call 'snippet journalism', journalism whether in print or online or television that was too breezy and short to be of much value. I didn't like any of this but I finally decided to try it. I finally relented and joined Facebook a few years ago, mainly to have access to some artists whose work was hidden without a Facebook logon and perhaps a friend request. Of course a lot of this came about as social media became more popular. So I have no reason to write posts for hackers and others who just aren't interested in anything I want them to be interested in. This didn't use to be the case but it is now. The great majority are from countries known for their hacking, especially for the purpose of identity theft, or from sites that aren't legit. ![]() It's based on reading the stats of who visits, who links, etc. So a year ago or more I decided to limit my writing here.Ī newer motivation is both a seeming lack of interest from readers and moreso a belief that most viewers are interested for the wrong reasons: hacking or some other motive not related to my art. Though I obviously have an interest in thinking about things, especially artistic things, I often feel that is to the detriment of actually making art. One reason is an old one: I tend to write more than make art on this blog. It has been a very long time since I've posted anything here. I marveled.Yellow-billed Cuckoo with Worm. Chelstad is a very capable artist, and even though he knows well how ridiculous that exhibition was, he is such a social creature that he knew exactly how to play it for mileage. It was really fun to see that work presented in the context of Official Artdom complete with academically and institutionally correct labelling. The Sioux City Art Center recently mounted an exhibition of his graffiti things, commissioning a stenciled work for the exhibition. He moved to Sioux City, Iowa, his home town, where he now makes really fine murals on the sides of old brick buildings. Most of that stuff was frivolous in my opinion, but he did some fine things using stencils as a base. ![]() Anyway, he moved to New York in the Reagan era and quickly emerged as one of the graffiti artists up there. Once we ended up in Eugene, Oregon with $10 and a blanket. Hey Ahab, about graffiti, do you know of the work of Paul Chelstad? We were hobnobing buddies in New Orleans back in the 1970s.
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