RALPH HUNTER-MENZIES

"abstract composition" 2012,

oil stick and oil paint on board, 21 x 30 cm

 

 

 

 

What are you working on in your studio right now?


I am working on a series of small works, all 21 x 30 cm and three works that are 60 x 42 cm. I find it is simultaneously productive and undermining to work on a series; each work informs the next and they create a conversation between themselves, but at the same time you have to be constantly trying new colour combinations and marks out, making sure they have their own voice. This is partly why I work on larger works at the same time; it makes me look and paint on a different scale, which makes it harder to just become comfortable with one size and therefore disrupts the likelihood of copying what you may have done in previous works.




Can you describe your working routine?


I find it beneficial to go to the studio two or three times a day, in bursts of about three hours. I also tend to go in some days and just sit there and look at the works, sometimes not making a mark for a few hours. I have spells where I will make works and move works on very quickly and then other times it might take a lot longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?

I am on the fourth floor of an old cricket bat factory looking North over London. The way the building is used and managed all seems a bit anarchic and I would say this has definitely affected the direction of my works in the sense that my painting process has become far looser. The energy in the building is incredible as it is filled with a few dozen churches, artists, a nightclub and a theatre group.

 

 

 

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.

 

 

I start working very quickly, putting down marks in acrylic paint. I then use oil sticks or oil paint and work around or on top of the lines that I initially made. This process goes on for months and the palette in the paintings changes numerous times. I find the whole process of making these works extremely optimistic as any mark can be changed and it allows me to be spontaneous with my painting.

 

 

 

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

 

 

I think the majority of the paintings I am working on fluctuate between being sublime or grotesque. This is a point in my works I long to be at because it lends itself to so many possible outcomes. I love being challenged by the painting, so all works are always a trouble to resolve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?

 

 

I go through periods where I will paint with just acrylic or just oil paints. I think not knowing or perhaps forgetting how a certain medium handles or dries is key to creating a painting that looks different. Essentially, it increases the likelihood for mistakes or unusual things to occur.

 

 

 

What does the future hold for this work?

 

 

I expect the unresolved ones to slowly, in a way, complete themselves. I need to spend a lot of time with them, looking and letting my eyes figure them out and bringing different marks in where needs be.

 

 

 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

 

 

Thank you Valerie, It has been a pleasure.

 

 

 

"abstract composition" 2012,

oil stick and oil paint on board, 21 x 30 cm

 

 

 

 

 

WARD SCHUMAKER

Blue Dot, collage, 10 x 6 ", 2012

What are you working on in your studio right now?

I’ve been working on a series of small painted sculptures I call Dumb Boxes. Back in 1965 I got my first apartment, in San Francisco, a block from Haight Street. I’d moved there from the Midwest after getting in trouble with authorities who’d threatened to jail me for creating pornography. Because of that, I stopped showing people my personal work for the next 35 years or so, and destroyed or lost most of it as the years rolled by. At any rate, the very first thing I did in the sixties was create a group of minimalist sculptures out of cardboard adding words and photos cut from magazines. Jump ahead to January of  2012: we got a chance for an apartment in Manhattan for the year and to celebrate, I decided to reproduce those cardboard boxes in wood. I dropped the photos, and instead I painted them with gesso and acrylic.  It’s been very satisfying to finish up a project started some 45 years earlier.

 
Can you describe your working routine?

Paint. Paint out. Paint. Paint out. Despair. Get back to work. Paint, paint out, paint—wait! I think that works. Stop.
As many hours a day as possible.  I try to take off Sundays.

"Dirty projects room" San Francisco studio

Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?

The studio in San Francisco consists of three small rooms: one for drawing, one for computer, and one for painting (we call it the last our dirty projects room, and it is very dirty). In New York, my wife Vivienne Flesher and I do our illustration in the dining room of our apartment and we have a painting studio in the garment district: 300 square feet with one window, no running water, no computer, no connection to the web. So in San Francisco we’ve got everything we’d want, including food, garden, place to nap, each other.  In New York it’s minimal, nose-to-the-grindstone, all attention on the work.  We’ve got no history here, no old paintings or sketches lying around, no friends asking to see the work. And that means focus is always on exactly what being done now. That can be both helpful and not.

   

New York studio

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.

I like to work on a very defined, consistent group (ex: the Dumb Boxes, a hand-painted book, large canvasses), then follow that with a group of things that veer wildly in different directions (ex: my collages). The first group is often defined by subject (names, a text, an image) or by the way I apply the paint. I work on as many pieces as I have space to lay out for drying. Most important and most uncomfortable is that once a direction is decided upon, I have to be willing to drop it when that Other Thing takes over––intuition, divine guidance, whatever you call it—that thing that almost everyone I respect seeks: the moment when one feels he/she is not in control, that something separate or higher or deeper or more knowledged has taken over.



What are you having the most trouble resolving?

As usual: finding out what I really want to see that perhaps I alone can/will make.

 

Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?

When I paint I especially like to use paste for a medium, I learned to use it at a book-making class and I love the syrupy fluidity of it, the way it changes as it dries: that change prevents me from every having complete control of it and that is something I appreciate. Lately I’ve really liked working with gesso on wood, there is something so quiet and absorbing about gesso and sandpaper

Group of dumb boxes in NY studio

Archipelago, 14 x 6 x 6", 2012

What does the future hold for this work?

George Lawson Gallery in Los Angeles has scheduled a show of these sculptures in November 2012 and I look forward to that, in part because I have such respect for the other artists that George exhibits.  But as for the work itself: I really don’t know.

 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

As an illustrator I always had an audience, it comes with the job; but as a painter who started showing at the age of 60, I feel a great appreciation for those who will take the time to look at my work.  So thank you for the interest.

Disappear, acrylic on paper, 48 x 34", 2012

TERRI BROOKS

Rising Sun, 2012, oil & enamel on paper mache, 94 cm approx

What are you working on in your studio right now?

I have just returned to Melbourne after a month based in Florence and Frankfurt . While I was away I visited many museums, the two that have stayed with me were the Kunsthaus, Zurich (for the Cy Twombly sculptures) and the Emil Schumacher Museum in Hagen. I got several ideas while I was away from the studio which are a development on the ideas I was working on before I left. So my current work stems from this. I also have a request for two big paintings, which is almost a commission, based on my earlier gestural work. So two lots of work are going on in the studio right now, which is a little unusual.

Two Diamonds, 2012. Oil, enamel, pigment

and PVA on canvas, 2x37x37 cm

Can you describe your working routine?

I paint for some hours nearly every afternoon. I do admin stuff at night or in the morning. As well as this I spend time thinking about painting and looking at other artist’s paintings on the web.

Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?

My studio runs across my property and is as big as I could make it. I also have a storage office room in the house. I built the studio (which is a shed) in 1999 as a place where I could make a mess. The natural light is not great and this affects my work during the change of seasons twice a year due to the reflected light.

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.

I walk several times a week for health reasons in my local environment or anywhere. In the studio marks I make remind me of marks I see in the environment and I start reflecting on what I have seen on my walks. Sometimes I get a flash of an idea, or a leap and this is what takes a painting to another plain. I work on several pieces at once and there is no one way of doing things. Some start from a thumbnail sketch of a clear vision and others come from a general conceptual space. Sometimes a better idea presents itself in the process and the ability to carry this through is the challenge, the excitement. Some flop when the idea is not strong enough and I get lost and it becomes a torrid affair that ends in the bin.

 

"‘slip board’ is the sort of thing that I am attracted to in my environment"

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

When a painting is resolved. It takes a lot of time deciding that. I have three places in the house where I hang works. Some works can sit for weeks while I ponder whether they are finished or not. If they go back to the studio it must be with a ‘prepared to lose what is there’ approach.

Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?

I need a changing muse of materials (to keep the experimenting and therefore the work interesting and alive). At present it is multiple panels, shaped canvases and paper mache.

 

Memory Sketches

What does the future hold for this work?

I am trying to capture the essence of my local place, but hopefully it is also a generic place, the city.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

The theme is always constant, and that is nature in the city, or nature reclaiming the made city and the random abstraction therein.

 

ZigZag, 2012. Oil, enamel and pencil on canvas, 153x153 cm

JOHN CRABTREE

Mnemosyne, mixed media on heavyweight paper,

65 X 48cm, 2012

What are you working on in your studio right now?

I suppose what I am doing at present is playing and experimenting. I feel the need to take time off from the painting as way of refreshing the way I use materials so using different backgrounds etc, I always liked the dynamic of foreground/background. I am using pages from children’s books at present so I suppose that’s what I’m up too, freeing up my approach and having fun and trying to find my creative direction and how I want to work in the future.

Can you describe your working routine?

My working routine revolves around my job as a bus driver, the job I do is sort of two extremes-full on with the demands of the job and the solitude and withdrawal into my creative world (I like the juxtaposition).Generally I get to the studio for about two hours a day-but generally dictated to by what I’m doing at the time so no specific routine. I have been down at the studio in the early hours if something comes to me concerning a painting, generally I work quite quickly, building up stages and layers-the latter stages I usually ponder and contemplate for awhile- if it comes it does if not I move onto something else and let it rest for awhile.

Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?

My studio is a mess. I just work better in chaos, the incidental things happen that way for me. I was reminded that Picasso commented if he was in prison he would draw in spit, possibly emphasizing the indestructible creative spirit. Maybe there is a bit of an anarchic element in me.

I love the fact that when we are working our perception changes as though we are waking up; we look around and see perhaps a mark or pattern that seems relevant-we say aha-that will do etc. I do understand the energetic dynamic of the studio and the 'temenos' thing-maybe that will be something for the future.

Alter to an Old God No4,

watercolour paper, mixed media, 65x48cm, 2012

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.

I don't really have an agenda so there is no specific work or plan, I tend to start from scratch. I usually start by setting up three to four pieces of heavyweight paper, my favored way of working is with blackboard paint generally thinned enough and applied with a soft brush, to get sweeping circles and lines; a sort of instinctual approach I love the sensation of the flowing paint. I don't usually edit, if it’s in my head I run with it so not much discrimination. I tend to think less and less nowadays. Thereafter it is a process of building up and deconstruction (more deconstruction really) until I hook into something, a mark or a colour etc. Generally it is an intuitive way of working, techniques and tools are the means whereby I can achieve a feeling or state where there is a sense of engagement and connection with what I am doing. I like the idea that we disappear, we enter a timeless state, the picture begins to talk and we respond in a way that we are alert, fearless and conscious. It is as though we follow instructions, the poetic and imaginal prompts to where a line goes etc., a picture morphs in many different ways, it changes us and' demands' of us something way beyond our conceptions and abilities at the time, that’s the magic.

I often see the parallels with creative practice and the meditative and contemplative traditions.  I do believe for me that painting is a path to self realization. I often do not know what I am doing and it can take many years for the 'penny to drop' and I know where a picture came from and the meaning and significance it embodies. A fully realised picture to me is one that liberates the heart that includes and embraces who we are; the spiritual and the human. Essentially a painting/surface is not one dimensional but a boundary between different realities, the mythic extraordinary and the mysterious. Paintings connect us to the universal and transcendental in context with the world it's suffering and joys. What appears in and around us gives meaning and bestows upon us an awareness of the present and the embodied reality in which we live. My work is more about signs and surfaces and the inner landscapes of memory and emotion. I love artifacts, fragments and schematics. The pictographs and petraglyphs of the indigenous people have been an enduring source of inspiration

When The Eye Opened Toby Disappeared,

55x45cms, print on lithograph paper, 2012

Toby insisted,can you make this Tortoise fly mister‎

55x45cms, print on lithograph paper, 2012

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

I think the difficulty in resolving a work is as Picasso commented, is finding a motif, an image that carries the creative momentum of the work into a new field of discovery and enquiry that is integral to the piece and brings everything into a working whole

Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?

I do sometimes, I love the oil sticks and oil pastel but tend to have a limited palette of colour. I tend to use what is to hand and is available at the time so yes I feel we need parameters-the materials we use often evoke different responses and ways of working in surprising ways-the tactile and sensuous-there is a synchronicity with these things.

What does the future hold for this work?

I am more confident about what I do and do enjoy the feedback-so exhibiting a little more might take things forward, it is a good thing to present your work as it can be a guide to and a re-evaluation of what we do. It is the realisation of what one does that is the most important.

Untitled, mixed media on heavyweight paper,

65 X 48cm, 2012

Is there anything else you would like to add?


I think artists are absorbers we take things in from the outer and inner worlds (the mythic poetic and imaginal) I think we go through a process of juxtaposing and finding a point of engagement where we connect then begins a process of translating the vision we have through our various idiosyncratic  filters into our own language and expression. My artist’s statement is I paint to 'dis-arm' myself. I like the fact that we can diffuse the' warheads' of prejudice and division. 'Disarming' and 'laying down your arms' is a surrendering and embracing of who we are fully and unconditionally, in the end we say it with paint and brush.

BRIAN CYPHER

untitled, 2012, acrylic on paper,11 x 15"

What are you working on in your studio right now?

There’s always a mix of drawings, paintings, and various works on paper in progress. I’ve been making smaller collage and paper constructions (which is a recent new tangent for me to explore). I started my first works on panel at the end of last year and I have a dozen or so that are ready to go. I'm really wanting to do some printmaking again... monotypes and drypoints. I really enjoy the surrender that happens when working with a press; you become a victim to the physics at work and the results are shared between intention and consequence. In general, I just really need to maintain several bodies of work happening at once. I don’t want there to be any down time or for any one body of work to monopolize my time in the studio. It’s a way to keep ideas in constant circulation.

Can you describe your working routine?

My routine revolves around creating as much as I can whenever I can. When I’m not at my full-time job or doing family things you can find me either working in the studio or out enjoying my surroundings. The studio is next to my house so that provides a very efficient way to maximize my time. Most of my weekends are spent in and around the studio. I have some time during the work week but it’s less concentrated and I use that time for things like work documentation, studio organization and just looking at the work. My most productive time is definitely from Friday evening until Sunday evening. I love working at night, into the next day.

Can you describe your studio and how, if at all, that affects your work space?

My current studio is a repurposed storage/workshop building on my house property. It was remodeled several years back and it's a rather small but functional space at 10 x 20 feet. When it was remodeled, I pushed the ceiling up and brought natural light into the space with windows and skylights. It really wouldn't have felt like a proper studio without it. It's quite a wonderful space to work in but I am starting to feel some growing pains with it. There’s one main wall that I use for painting and looking at work. The opposite wall contains two large flat file drawers that are stacked and the top surface functions as a workspace. I also keep all my books on that wall. In one half of the floor space, I have a long table that doubles as a workspace and a printmaking area. The rest of the walls function as places to put up images for reference and reflection. It's mostly a mix of recent work, older work and other visual interests that I’ve collected. The studio mostly affects my work because of the close proximity between it and my home. It's always there when I need it to be.

in progress

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.

On an existential level, it really begins with the impulse to create… the wanting of ideas to be actualized; to see that energy manifest into physical form. My process takes place when the observation of our surroundings begins to trigger a response and I comply. The brain decides how to filter all these various inputs and it makes aesthetic decisions based on what’s visually important to me. This is what really drives my pursuit, creating something which did not exist before but yet informs me about my world in some new way. The visual information of everything we process becomes an instigator of investigation and experimentation. That’s not to say that all things have an equal value or importance but that my decisions are made through the interests of what I want to react to. It’s simply a process of discovery and trying to describe anything beyond would never suffice. Ideally, everything has an opportunity to play a part in my process; if I can see it, experience it, then there’s a chance it may surface in the work. In terms of what I do physically, it’s all about making marks that echo my thought processes. It’s a constant reiterative dance between the idealized and the actual. Some ideas have natural endpoints, where others could stay in a state of perpetual revision.

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

I'm probably having the most trouble resolving the tangents that occur while working. Sometimes there are just so many possibilities of exploration that arise. Searching out every direction or idea is not a realistic or even feasible notion and that’s usually where I start to generate some anxieties. Choosing which directions to go investigate always feels like I’m sacrificing some unrealized discovery or something. I mean, I know that's part of the journey and experience of creation but still, I’d like to think I’m finding everything I seek. So, in actuality, there really isn't anything to resolve; it’s inherent in the creative exploration. It just comes down finding a balance between what's being realized and what I want those next steps to be and I know that the answers are found after the fact, in hindsight. I’m constantly driven by the act of putting all these pieces together that result in an experience and of course, the resultant object but that’s just evidence of creation, a visual container. I just don't want to leave any paths unexplored and that's a really nice problem to have as an artist.

Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?

I haven’t ventured too far away from the typical materials that are used for drawing and painting but I wouldn’t confine myself to only using those materials. I’m not actively seeking out different materials just to add bulk to the work. If ‘alternative’ materials find their way into my process then it will be because of what material does on some functional and/or aesthetic value.

What does the future hold for this work?

It’s quite open-ended and full of all kinds of possibilities. I know I’ll be happy just continuing on with what comes from my process of inquiry and realization. Ultimately, the artwork serves as a consequence of my thinking; physical objects of creation that leaves evidence of experience. In this respect the future of the work is to show me my past.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Thank you so much for the opportunity to share my work and thoughts. I’ve really enjoyed your blog over the past year and appreciate being able to be part it. It’s always interesting to see and read about what other artists are doing.

Sikuli, 2011, spray paint, sharpie

& china marker on opalux, 24 x 19"

TERRY GREENE

Untitled (P1100579), 2011, Acrylic, tape

& staples on canvas, 11 3/4" x 9 1/2"

What are you working on in your studio right now?

At the moment I’m working on several ongoing series of works. Some on canvas, these are small acrylic paintings. A series of works on gaffa-tape over stretchers, incorporating coloured tape and paint. I also have a series of works on found boards and which I think of as sketches or drawings, again employing acrylic paint. Each of these three series is distinct and autonomous but inevitably informs the others.

Can you describe your working routine?

I'm lucky enough to get into the studio every day to at least look at the paintings I’ve been working on. But first it's emailing or blogging, then breakfast and walking my dog. My workspace is the attic room and I get in for around 10'ish. I always have a number of pieces of canvas, paper and boards on the floor, in various states of beginning, collecting happy accidents, incidental marks and the occasional footprint. Other works are leaning around the edges of the space and one or two are on the walls - these tend to be the ones I’m thinking about and feeling are near some state of becoming or just bloody awful. I don't have a particular routine in the studio one of the ongoing pieces on the floor suggests a move and it all just begins. In productive periods I can spend most of the day in the space until about 4'ish.when I have to go to work (I have a part-time admin job). I'm back home for around 8.30 and either return upstairs to continue working or alternatively I like to make mix-media sketches on small bits of paper from cheap drawing pads.

Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?

At the present time the attic space is my studio. It's rather cluttered with lots of old computer monitors, camping equipment and suitcases for some reason. The space is a little chaotic but to be honest it works for me. Perhaps because of the cramped quarters I work on a small scale, but that feels perfectly natural and it enables me to work on lots of paintings at any one time. Also because wall-space is limited I work pretty much exclusively on the floor.

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.

I have stacks of (shop purchased) ready stretched canvases and in perhaps a critical act against my own intimidation (or reverence) for the “canvas” and its surface, I cut the primed cotton away from the stretcher. This has the added advantage of enabling me to work on both sides of the canvas until the moment one side wins out. I work across any number of bits of canvas littering the floor, adding and obscuring stains of colour and variously generated marks. My thinking at that point is, in part, that I’m engaged with drawing attention to the fact of the paint (or tape) on the loose plane of the canvas. Often tape is employed as little objects on the canvas while at the same time they are colour and light illuminating the ground. I’m particularly interested in exploring that moment between when the background and foreground don’t really meld or talk to one another and that split second that a real dialogue begins – however unrefined. Finally the canvas is re-attached to a stretcher in a rather provisional manner.

Untitled (P1110501), 2012,

Acrylic on canvas, 17 1/2" x 12 1/2"

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

I'm not sure I am really trying to resolve anything - just being open to the moment when some form of dialogue begins within each work. But then I guess there's always a small matter of resolving the decision of taking up a medium, and attempting to maintain a level of distance and ambivalence towards it’s grand narratives.

Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?

I think like most artists I like to push at any parameters from time to time, to explore some new territory and surprise myself. However at the moment a list of materials would include all the usual suspects: acrylic paint, canvas/fabric, stretchers, found boards, paper, pencils, marker pens, insulation tape, Gaffa tape, staples, wall paper paste and general studio mess/dust. These materials are combined or approached in a number of expanding ways - but all pretty much firmly rooted well within what would be thought of a painting practice.

What does the future hold for this work?

Well, I guess if I am honest I’m not really sure. I have some exhibitions in the pipeline. However, recently I’ve discovered I enjoy living with my work, not necessarily looking at it on a day to day basis, but rather that strange sort of "re-discovering" that takes place with a painting or drawing - when viewed weeks, months and years later. There begins a new and interesting dialogue which arises from the inevitable collision between the present and the past.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I would like to thank you Valarie for this opportunity. Also recently I’ve begun to notice a very creative community of artists, up here online, with whom it's possible to develop a real and expansive dialogue and one which personally I’m finding invaluable. And so thank you all.

Untitled (P1110492), 2011,

Acrylic and tape on canvas, 10 1/2" x 8 1/2"