Welcome to White Rooster Studios: July 2017

Monday, July 31, 2017

Journal Project #11: Cathedrals... 31.07.17

I recently had to retire my 2003 Honda Accord… it was a very hard and drawn-out decision, but unfortunately, it had to happen.

One of the perks of a newer vehicle is that, for the 1^st time in almost four years, I have a working radio in my car. Music has always played a huge role in my art and with a working sound system in my car, I have been enjoying CDs I made a decade ago – which has inspired my latest picture for this series.

I have had a fondness for the band, Jump, Little Children, ever since their 1998 album “Magazine” was released. (If you haven’t heard them yet, please seek them out.) And over the past two months, I have realized that I have put their song “Cathedrals” on virtually EVERY SINGLE CD I burned in 2006/2007. I absolutely love the song and the images it inspires… and, recently, I have been thinking about how their references to home, and figuring out what home is to you, were slowly being equated to my studios and how no matter where I have lived, I have always had studio space carved out somewhere… and how important it is to me to have that space.

I used to dream of having a shared studio space in an artist community, believing that if I paid for the space I would be more inclined to use it and it would provide me with fewer distractions and more inspiration, but, over time, have come to see the benefits on having a “flexible” studio space. True, I am not experiencing the interaction I would get if I had studio space with other artists, but by having a “mobile” studio does allow me the opportunity to generate new experiences I may not have been exposed to.

I made a mental list of all of my studios and it looks like this:

In the corner of a bedroom
In a basement room in a house, and then in a town home, I was sharing
In the unused dining room in my old apartment
On a kitchen table
In accommodating and understanding restaurants and coffee shops with a fellow artist
- Note: This is a wonderful way to connect with the community, however, if you choose to try out this option, please speak with the managers first to confirm that it would be OK… we have learned that if they are not busy, most will not mind as long as you purchase something.
In a space carved out of my current living room
On my apartment balcony
And my personal favorite: whatever state park we find ourselves in

I guess the point is: like home, a studio is what you make of it.

That dining room studio that I used to have was the perfect size. I absolutely loved the space and was determined to spend as much of my free time as possible there. But I was suffering from artist block at the time and I didn’t utilize it as much as I wanted to. The same can be said for the two basement studios I had – I loved and appreciated the spaces that were carved out for me, but both of those studios were severely underutilized.

My current studio is actually a portion of our living room and is my favorite to date. Why? I have been the most happy and the most productive in that space: I completed my I Ching project, created several new projects (all in progress) and launched my VIDA collection. And I have been finding myself using it more than ever and WANTING to play more.

No matter what your studio space may be: embrace it if it works for you.

Current studio wall - top view

Current studio wall - bottom view with art table

Initial stage of "Cathedrals"

Completed "Cathedrals" picture

Funny note: It wasn't until I had completed "Cathedrals" and hung it on my studio wall that I realized that by adding the arch to the upper portion of the picture that it now resembled a stained glass window. At the time, I just thought overall the picture would look better with the arch.
Sometimes, things work out better than expected.

Monday, July 10, 2017

Journal Project #10: Monkey Gone to Heaven... 07.07.2017

The creative process is a fickle one – there are days in which every mark you make on your creative surface seems to magically fall into place and life is great… and then there are days, weeks even, in which everything… well, doesn’t.

For me, the last three MONTHS have been challenging - things just haven’t been going “right” and the past four pictures I had worked on were, let’s say, “less than successful”.

It wasn’t until recently that I came to the understanding that these pieces weren’t failures (not entirely), that these previous efforts were simply part of the evolution of my creative process and that even if the pieces were not successful as a WHOLE, there were PARTS of them WERE successful and could be utilized as ideas for future pictures.

It was also brought to my attention that I have not been posting any of these “less than successful” pictures on social media and therefore have not solicited any constructive feedback – what is working? What is not? What idea could be pushed further?

Without any feedback, it is difficult to assess any progress. So, in the spirit of full disclosure, I am adding the following pictures of mostly completed work that I found myself struggling with:

I seem to gravitate towards working on larger pictures, so I decided to design a Mandala series consisting of 20x20 inch pictures. The first picture of the series started off with some difficulty as I had decided to divide up the picture into four sections: one large area for the main picture, two border sections for the left-hand side and bottom of the picture and a square on the bottom left. Overall, I am attracted to the idea for the series, but I found that I was getting hung up on the designs for the panels and spending FAR (seriously, FAR) too much time worrying about them. In the end, I thought that the picture wasn't working because the main design seemed to be at odds with the panels:

There are sections of the picture that did seem to be working well - close up of main design (top):

Second attempt to get the Mandala series off to a start. I had high hopes for this one - I liked the way the overall design was evolving... but, in the end, it looked better before I started to block in the shapes:

This 8x8 inch picture intended for the Journal Project was abandoned after I had difficulty figuring out how to balance the overall design:

Another 8x8 picture intended for the Journal Project... this one has similar issues to the picture above.. just not sure where to go with this one... yet:

This is the latest 8x8x picture for the Journal Project - it's off to a decent start. I couldn't resist and divided up the space into two sections, similar to the idea used in the Mandala Series:

Journal #10 in progress

Journal #10 completed

Journal #10 Detail: Top

Journal #10 Detail: Bottom

And, just in case you thought I forgot: I named this piece "Monkey Gone to Heaven" after the Pixies song. Why? Because EVERY SINGLE time I hear it, it becomes stuck in my brain for DAYS and I heard it on the way to work while I was working on this piece. I love the song, but when it came time to write this post, I realized that I had NO idea what the Pixies were talking about.

Just in case anyone was wondering, according to www.songfacts.com: "The song's cryptic lyrics which many have tried to interpret are, according to the band, meant to be surreal and meaningless, built around the title."

In the end, the song title choice for this piece was far more appropriate than I had originally thought.

As artists, we need to keep challenging ourselves, to push our ideas and tools to their limits and, as such, there will be growing pains. I fully believe that I am on the threshold of my next artistic phase and what I am seeing now – the aforementioned “less than successful” pictures – are merely a product of those growing pains.

Here's to the next artistic phase!

Jenn White

White Rooster Studio