The Metal Squall Drowned What Could Not Be Shouted

 This time I have set out to make a mask using a tool in some capacity in order to prepare for the class I am going to be teaching this year at Shake Rag Alley in Mineral Point (WI), Toolin'.

I decided to start with a flat wood surface, rather than a found object, so I selected a 10" X 20" cradled board. Using various mixed media techniques I got a background down on the surface.

Then I attached an auto license plate that I just found lying on a downtown Milwaukee street. Then I worked on that metal surface to get it ready.

My mask substrate is a piece of metal I found somewhere (but I no longer remember when or where). 

After I got the right tool (a sharpener that will be a nose) I also found a dentist tool for making teeth that I thought would be cool to use. The eye is some kind of electrical motor part and it still spins after being attached. 

Then it was time to do the final painting.

Thus we have The Metal Squall Drowned What Could Not Be Shouted. It consists of a Metal Find, Cradled Board (10"x20"), Sharpening Tool, Dental Tool, Electrical Remnant, Glass Eye, License Plate, Mexican Tin Heart, Tin, Nails (13), Metal Ban, Paint and Collage. It is 29"H X 15"W X 5"D.

2023 01 Self Portrait or The Winter of My Discontent

My first work of art in 2023 is a confluence of two things. 

The first is a show I saw at The Warehouse gallery in Milwaukee in late 2020 called I Am a Story: Self-Portraits. This show at The Warehouse featured 50 artist self-portraits from the collection of the gallery owners, Jan Serr and John Shannon. The artists in the show included Cindy Sherman, Jim Dine, David Hockney, Carrie Mae Weems, William Kentridge, Keith Haring, Edward Steichen plus more. What impressed me (once I got over whose work I was looking at) was how many different approaches there are to making a self-portrait.

The second is a continuing blue feeling I have over the current state of affairs in the world. Mainly, I thought we had pushed past the Covid-19 pandemic but more and more I realize the disease may be here for quite a while, the world has changed because of it and I am cranky about my wants and needs being limited by the experience (with apologies to those who have suffered real loses because of this disease). Also I am worn out by what appears to be my country's inability to govern itself. 

While I would not call myself depressed, I would say that I am not happy as I wish to be. So, why not make a piece of art to challenge my state of being. And, why not a self-portrait. 

I bought a child's sled and from the start it was tied to Rosebud and the great film, Citizen Kane. I knew some day I would make a piece of art with the theme of Orson Welles' film in mind. So I got that Sno Plane sled out for this project. 

Denice was kind enough to assist me in make a self portrait to use on the sled. 

Then, it was on to the art making. 

Thus we have Self Portrait or The Winter of My Discontent. My from a Sno Plane sled, two paint brushes, a metal star, a clock face, a strip of copper metal, foam core, four crystals and collage with paint. It is 39"H X 24"W X 9"D.