The notification call came December 22 - that I was selected for final judging, meaning I'm in the show at least. I should like to frame the work to express a bit of my thoughts on my medium. Something to this effect - "Paper is not a surface, it is my dance partner..."
"Lunch with a Curator" II is my submission to the 2008 Blank Canvass Benefit at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. The event is by invitation and helps support education & art programming at the center. Last year I did an oil painting for the same event. This year, I created a mixed media piece, complete with fork, brush, plate, clay sculpted into a "ship coming in," as the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey logo is expanded to have an artist with cap joined with a curator wearing a crown. I accented the regal moment as something very special and transcendental, fantasy-like. The piece asks - Can a meeting with a curator lead to something? Can an artist be catapulted out of his financial misery by a single win in a juried art show? It also says something about believing in the power of art. Visualize it and concretize it to actualize it. Believe in the power of art.
My drawing "Hey Whitney" continues its course, as it will soon make its way to the National Drawing Show at the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, MA. Academy Art Museum curator, Brian Young, says it appears to extend drawing. But words can't do it the justice that seeing it will. Rachel Rosenfield Lafo, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Decordova Museum and Sculpture Park, is this year's juror for the show.
A sense of mission underscores all these drawings that I submit to shows. I want to be the best I can be in expressing this flow, this dynamic poetic flow. But it is also a battle there, to keep this dream alive. And so, this pen is likened to a sword, and the quest is little different than Achilles' quest. He flowed with his instrument. He had a mission. He was fearless. My problematic "tendon" is by metaphor, the many distractions that try to tire me, and pull me from my ongoing mission. But that's what we carry a shield for. A shield of Focus, Skill, and Determination.
"Hey Whitney" itself was a drawing done in response to a rejection in the International Show at Summit in 2007. The juror was from the Whitney, from the department of Drawings. That drawing won recently in the Madison National Show in GA, juried by Sylvie Fortin of ART PAPERS. And it will continue shining.
