musings

Transparent White, are you the answer?

2010-10-11T14:55:00.002-04:00

So I think Winsor Newton Transparent White may have changed my life…or at least my oil paintings. According to www.winsornewton.com it provides the “palest white glaze”. I have four days to find out if it can also provide the color and light that comes so easily with watercolors but escapes me in oil painting. This painting and three others will be finished, cropped, stretched, and perhaps even framed in time for Fort Point Open Studios this weekend. Come see! Friday 4-7 pm and Saturday and Sunday 11 am – 6 pm at 12 Farnsworth (next to Flour Bakery).

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life is art

2010-10-04T08:33:00.001-04:00

One of the greatest things about spending a weekend in NYC looking at art – high and low, in the gallery and on the street – is returning with the vision to see everything as art. Even this rainy Monday.

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A 3D painting for the pioneers of 3D rendering

2010-09-30T08:23:00.001-04:00

Tonight, my Fort Point neighbors at Neoscape are celebrating 15 years of creating breathtaking renderings, animations, interactive and design for the real estate and architecture fields. Neoscape President Rob MacLeod, and one of the pioneers in Experiential Design and Visualization, asked me to hang a few works for their celebration. He chose, “Undone”, my first experiment in cutting canvas to create a three dimensional object, for its obvious connection to Neoscape’s 3D work.

While Neoscape’s work is just plain cool and slick and mine is purposefully messy, there’s a similarity in the works…both are storytelling and an invitation to the viewer to imagine things that aren’t yet there.

Happy birthday Neoscape!

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a city plaza, life's canvas

2010-07-21T09:02:00.001-04:00

This is city life…this is art: Me on a bench in business clothes working on a laptop in a city plaza. Two young men in front of me juggling a soccer ball, beginning a 12-hour marathon fundraiser. A pile of blankets on the bench to my right with a dirty sock poking out. Adjacent to us, a slumbering, sunburned sailor with Patagonia clothes and the trappings of a past ‘good life’. The park employee cleaning the barrels hands a resourceful homeless man an extra trash bag for his possessions. Meanwhile, thousands of commuters stream by us, never picking up their heads. How can we not see each other on this great canvas of a plaza?

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It looks like a turkey

2010-07-02T20:04:00.001-04:00

People have said more degrading things about my artwork but “It looks like a turkey” was the first poultry reference I’ve ever heard…about my artwork, not me. (Full disclosure: I’ve been accused of talking in circles like a hen; My sister says the adorable messages I leave her in French sound as if a turkey hijacked my phone; and I have refined an excellent pigeon impression.)

The turkey comment came from a Boston police officer as my fellow artist/arts-activist/patron/friend and I walked through Chinatown last night with Soft Spore White in a clear plastic bag. I’d finally delivered it to her – a work from an installation she helped make possible in January 2009 – and suddenly, I wanted it back! It is the best conversation piece. Ever.

Imagine if you will, a 16” irregular sphere of iridescent white with 3” conical spikes all over it, which have been folded and smooshed up against the side of a bag. Its shape is not perfect and it sags into the corners like a lifeless fair prize goldfish at the bottom of a bag of water.

What is it?

A spore! And we’ll release it on you if you don’t stop staring!

One woman said it looked like a dumpling. I call it art. The whole thing…the piece and the interactions with people while walking through Chinatown, and later sitting by the Chinatown Park waterfall.

I have visions of creating one enormous spore and suspending it in plastic over the plaza…what would people say then?

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participatory nose making

2010-06-05T14:22:00.001-04:00

I added a nose to a community totem making project led by artist Judy Motzkin at the Cambridge River Festival. (the other side had a lovely face but the artist forgot it was a 3D object. )I love participatory projects...and I love saying that word, participatory.

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Soft Spore White

2010-06-04T21:40:00.001-04:00

Call it a pillow if you must. This sculpture, Soft Spore White, from an installation in '09 is heading to a client in Boston where it'll have a new life as a decorative bed pillow. Filled with microbeads, it's a fun, squishy companion while still being l'object d'art. Contact me if you're interested in your own customized sneezy, squeezy sweet dreams! (silk, thread, batting and microbeads)

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bring on your best "hmmm" and chin scratch

2010-03-02T21:43:00.009-05:00

You like free stuff, meeting new and interesting people, and you think my art is "interesting". So you will be at the opening of Deciphering the Divine this Thursday from 5-8 pm?

Deciphering the Divine – a solo show of paintings and drawings
Gallery at Fort Point Framers
300 Summer Street, Suite M4 (lower level)
Boston, MA 02110
March 3 - 31

opening reception: Thursday, March 4; 5 - 8 pm

Bring on the questions and chin scratching! (Ascots and berets optional. Extra points if you use some language from the last post.)

Deciphering the Divine

2010-02-23T23:13:00.003-05:00

The following is my artist statement for the upcoming show, Deciphering the Devine, at Fort Point Framers (Boston), March 3 - 31. Psst...secret here, and spoiler alert...I never know what the show is going to be about until the work is all together and ready to be framed.

::

My work is a visual account of my everyday experiences – a narration of the mundane and sublime in each day and how these seemingly varied experiences exhibit nature's transformative, restorative and live-giving forces.

The work in this show draws from two recent bodies of work, both using the human mind as a centerpiece and references neuroscience, meditation and the remapping of brain circuitry. While the subject of this show draws directly from my cognitive life, the abstract imagery references fragments of indecipherable characters and letters, as well as the natural world of aquatic organisms.

As I work, I try to tap into a state of flow and decipher something not immediately known. A secret alphabet may appear from the swoosh of a gesture line, or the shape of a human heart might be suggested by a crevice in a sea sponge.

All of the mediums exhibited in this show (watery inks pooled on paper or film, thinned oils, and human hair on paper) are difficult to control. This allows the mediums to come to life and exhibit their own natural properties, diminishing my power over the outcome. Working in this manner is like redefining how one interprets the world through cognitive remapping practices, such as meditation. The immediacy of finding a solution, or controlling the situation, seems to fade away and the richness of the details takes hold of the mind.

Kate Gilbert Miller
February 23, 2010

A life of letters

2010-02-20T13:23:00.003-05:00

As a teenager I fantasized about living a life of letters. I didn’t know what it meant but it sounded cool. I interpreted it as a life of scholarship and solitude; part organic spiritually, part rigorous intellectualism. Ultimately, I realized I wasn’t the scholarly type (thank you Doc. P. for pointing that out) and as much as I liked alone time, I craved socialization too much to be a Virginia Woolf type. (Plus it turned out I wasn’t mad, just a little bit sensitive.)

But I’ve hung on to the letters part.

I write every morning. I love communicating through letters and cards. I read everything in front of my eyes; license plates, graffiti tag, signs (always rereading the ones I see daily and adding commas or removing letters) and look for the hidden or alternative meanings.

So it’s no surprise that I choose the words around my studio carefully and use them sparingly. Up right now:

Painting is not about what you see, it is about what you don’t see - Bernd Haussman
To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now – Samuel Beckett
Originality is the art of concealing your sources – Benjamin Franklin

As I work, I try to tap into a state of flow and decipher or form something new out of the drips and accidents on the page…I try to find form in the mess. Describing this process and condensing it into a catching one-liner for my show title is proving difficult. It’s flow. It’s deciphering. It’s a struggle, but it’s also a joy for me.

I have a few hours to come up with something clever before the postcard ships to the printer. Maybe I’ll drive around and look at signs…

Any suggestions?

image above: messing around with colored ink and this "y" appeared

Moving forward

2010-02-18T22:06:00.000-05:00

Just now as I got off the station bench to board my train to the studio, the homeless man next to me -- who had not previously said a word -- grinned a toothless smile and professed, "You're a strong woman. You're moving forward, not backward". With his warm smile of insanity came a thumbs up...and precisely the encouragement I need as I enter a two week stretch to pull together the next show.

Recent Works (drawings and paintings)
@ Fort Point Framers
300 Summer Street
Boston

March 3-31

Opening reception: Thursday March 4, 5-8 pm
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

“Your work is sick!”

2010-01-18T15:56:00.002-05:00

“It’s like a dream. Like there’s all this thought crammed into it. I could stare at it for hours.” That was my favorite comment about my work last Friday at the opening of Dénouement/Indéterminé. It came from a young woman from California who swayed every part of her body while she talked (head and hips one way, shoulders the other, while her feet made their own pattern on the floor) in the most adorable and free way. The lithe Valley Girl was one of several dozen Kimball Union Academy students who came to the gallery for some free snacks and stayed to share their uninhibited thoughts on my work.

Each student I talked with was earnest and brimming with energy. Yes, some were shy and didn't really look me in the eye but they were all honest -- not yet capable of being disingenuous or saying nice things for the sake of saying nice things. So refreshing!

Admittedly, it was one of the oddest openings I’ve ever been to but I walked away feeling great. I’d shared my work with the next generation and in return they’d given me some honest and pleasant feedback. I also had a new found appreciation for all who teach. (Julie, your work is so important!) That’s all there is after all – inspiration and conversation – or the indéterminé of life, love and art.

Me and Mom in front of her favorite painting, Maggy, which was also a big hit with the students. Apparently it looks like a popular album cover but I don’t know which one. Do you?

Lend me your couch and I’ll paint you a picture: a year in the studio

2009-12-21T11:00:00.005-05:00

Setting: A slim man and his sister are looking at her artwork in a light-filled barn; sheets of drawing paper are spilled out across the floor; unfinished canvases litter the walls.

Artist: I’m using more color now.
(silence)
Brother: Huh.
(silence)
Do you look at your couch when you paint?
Artist: (sighs) I know. I’m using the same colors.
(silence) I can’t help it.

Somewhere in the back of my brain I knew my paintings and my studio couch were similar. Hell, it’s the only thing with any color in my studio. But I didn’t think I would paint pictures to match it and disrespect the fundamental oath of the contemporary painter: Never make art to match a sofa. Yikes! Not only does it match but I made it match.

This little couch (too small to call a sofa) was the first item I purchased for my studio when I moved in over a year ago. I love the colors. I love that it’s messy, a little wild, and so very unlike my decorating aesthetic. It was a little stake in the ground – my studio is finished, hurray! I survived three years of weekend construction and I allow myself to be creative!

In truth, the couch is rarely used in its manufactured function…I move around too much. I am incapable of napping. But it makes a handy place to store completed drawings, magazine clippings, exhibit postcards, and obviously plays a critical role in determining my color palette.

So if you would like to commission a painting to match your couch I will not be offended in the least. I could use a new color scheme.

Note: After seeing this picture I immediately removed the freaky viper head from the painting in the background that looks like it's going to eat me.

pumping iron to stoke the creative fires

2009-12-12T21:20:00.002-05:00

This is the second year in a row that I am preparing for a solo show during the holiday season. It blows. I’m missing out on the yule tide cheer, developing a reputation as the no-show, rapidly losing friends, and even irritating my otherwise understanding, go-with-the-flow, Kate’s-in-one-of-those-moods family members. Yikes!

My bank account is on a dangerous downward trajectory as I desperately point and click, sending presents and art supplies around the country like rapid fire. My carbon footprint is nearing Santa’s.

Yet despite it all, I’m saving just a little time for me to exercise and ensure my creativity index doesn’t nose dive. I’ve recently joined a gym and I LOVE it!

While I’m there I count my blessings:
1.) a sound mind (hey you, stop laughing)
2.) a strong body (I said, stop laughing!)
3.) use of as many towels as I want (think soft sculptures)
4.) free body wash (ooh, la la)
5.) someone else cleans the shower and
6.) one peaceful, yet challenging, hour to myself!

What gift(s) are you giving yourself this holiday season? And I'm sorry if I've been out of touch...

a slight but meaningful correction (indéterminé)

2009-12-02T20:34:00.004-05:00

My family is so talented. My sister pointed out that instabilité really means instability. Duh. And while I do like the unraveling thing that is going on, I really am not unstable. Nor do I want to project this image. (Unless it might help my career? kidding.)

So, the new title is Denouement/Indéterminé. Impermanence of the indeterminable variety, not instability.

Merci professor Gilbert!

Denouement/Instabilité

2009-12-01T23:04:00.002-05:00

So here I am working my second shift as the evening artist, writing a press release for a show that will open in 6 weeks…at a point in the process where the paintings are screaming, “We’re so ugly, hide us!”.

Ugh.

The upcoming show is about exploring new ways of being, and in the process exploring new ways of painting. I went to France this summer expecting to find this ‘new way’, knowing there was raw energy waiting to burst onto the canvas. I also expected to find something I couldn’t even define…let’s just call it happiness…but somewhere in the process I became unraveled.

It turns out the painting part was relatively easy. Finding happiness is a life-long process and the unraveling, well, there’s nothing conclusive about it...but it is sort of cathartic.

While still in France, I entitled the show Denouement thinking that by January I’d have all of the answers. I am an optimist. Now I conclusively know denouement is purely a fictional device. No problem or spiritual quest can be neatly wrapped up into a final outcome. At least not in real life…in my life…or in a short amount of time.

So I have re-titled the show: Denouement/Instabilité

Definition of denouement from the Meriam-Webster online dictionary:
1 : the final outcome of the main dramatic complication in a literary work
2 : the outcome of a complex sequence of events
Etymology: French dénouement, literally, untying

Instabilité means impermanence.

The new title suggests the balance of two opposites – a final outcome (a fictional device) and the reality of impermanence. It is a reference to life’s continual unfolding, unraveling and state of flux, and a reminder to loosen the grip.

I kind of like it. Vive l'instabilité!

Neurons that fire together, wire together

2009-11-07T10:08:00.006-05:00

I’ve been using a sea sponge as a starting off point for my ink paintings since late July. It was a simple prop Meesh lent me during class when we were directed to draw from nature. The rocks I’d been using were hurting my eyes with their severe angles. The rotting fruit I held hostage on my window was oozing a plea to be released back to the earth.

The sponge looked appealing with its countless circles.

I still have that sponge. I’ve collected a few others, but I still like that original one which I’ve folded, contorted into a variety of two-forming-one shapes, and studied from all sides. (As if a spherical object could have sides.)

I barely need to look at the sponge these days to complete a painting. It’s become a reference, a touch stone to keep me on track. Circle, circle, hole. Circle, circle, squiggly. Look at the object. Ad a big swath of white paint to suggest an edge. Circle, circle, circle.

The end result is anyone’s guess. And that’s what I love about these paintings. Is it a sponge? Something growing in a Petri dish? An extraordinarily ordinary doodle?

A brain?

As some of you know, I dabble in meditation. And thanks to some inspired people in my life who encourage me on my path, I continually challenge my own spongy brain. Breathe in, breathe out. Circle here, circle there. Here comes a thought…circle, circle, circle. Slowly, I am rewiring my brain and with enough practice hope to someday get to a point where meditation is as effortless as this series of paintings. As psychologist Donald Hebb put it, “Neurons that fire together, wire together”, and I’m doing some remodeling.

So while I’m working to rewire my brain through meditation and “mental hygiene”, the image of a brain starts appearing in my paintings -- especially since I started adding color. Is it just me, or do they look like brain scans?

Above and below are some recent sketches, testing different colored inks. Today for the first time, I searched “brain scans” in Google images. It’s a little spooky.

Three things I wish I could remember

2009-10-12T12:53:00.004-04:00

The following is list of three simple things I wish I could remember while preparing for a show. Sadly, I relearn them every time.

1. The work will surprise you in the frame. Sometimes it looks as if it stepped into its formal wear. It cleans up really well. Other times it looks like the contestants on Survivor when they’re back at the TV set. They looked better in their natural habitat, like the artwork on the studio wall. Leave it there.

2. Do more than you think is necessary. This applies to creating more work than you think you need. (See rule #1 because without a doubt something will not be ready for its prime time debut.) It also applies to framing supplies. Inevitably no matter how well you plan, something won’t fit. Or it’ll be broken (because the FedEx man delivers boxes to your door and then stops on them with a pivot as he sashays down the walkway). Or you hmm, surprise, didn’t measure right.

3. Though it may not be apparent during the height of show prep, you did choose to do this show/open studios/exhibition…and in the end you like a good challenge. (Leave that to the psychologists to figure out.)

The third attempt to have 16"x20" glass delivered to the studio in one piece. Cool to look at. Maddening when it is supposed to be in your frame.

try something rainy. go with the flow

2009-10-09T18:45:00.008-04:00

Life can't exist without water. I seem to exist surrounded by water. Therefore I exist...?

I spent the month of July in Pont Aven, France studying at the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art amidst fresh, undergrad faces. And enveloped in a dampness that permeated my skin, clothes, and soul. (I know I've admitted to liking drizzle, but not drizzle EVERYDAY.)

Plagued by a bronchial reaction to chemical solvents and irritated (exasperated!) by the dampness, both my artwork and lungs took on a watery quality. To keep up with the course load, I was forced to make work, any work, without much thought. I had to forget writing/thinking about my work...there was barely anytime to journal...certainly no blogging...and no time to create studies. I was forced to let it flow. And do it quickly.

Back in the states in the day job I thought I had left my little rain cloud in France. No. It came back with a vengeance on Saturday, October 3rd for Try Something New. Or Try Something Rainy, as we've nicknamed the Greenway fall festival. (Props to ALJ for the moniker.) I learned a valuable lesson that day. Actually, a few. One, waterproof clothing from high school is not waterproof 17 years later. And two, you can't fight mother nature...gotta go with the flow.

Since returning, my work continues to be an abstraction from the same source, executed in the same mediums. Though I am trying new substrates like film which is extremely hard to control. The work continues to evolve. It is about coming into, going out of, falling into and dragging yourself out of. It is about this and that, you and me, us and them. I've entitled the series "denouement" in recognition of the unraveling of life in the rain. And sort of optimistically foretelling the rain's final act. 'Cause it's going to start snowing soon...right?

Between conception and translation mode, or why I don’t want to go home

2009-09-13T19:42:00.002-04:00

This is the first time in weeks, since returning from France, that I've spent an entire day in the studio without actually making anything. Tired from a draining week at work, I spent most of the day doing administrative tasks (prepping for open studios), practicing yoga and reading. Times like this I know there is some sort of idea percolating and it needs a little space to develop. So I shift from the push, push, push of studio "realizations" to a neutral gear and give myself a little TLC.

Still, not “producing” is an uncomfortable feeling for me and I thus concocted an excuse for my “wasted time” while reading an interview with David Edwards in the latest copy of ArchitectureBoston (Fall 2009).

He is quoted as saying, “The hallmark of creative people is that they try to shock themselves. They try to go back to that state where they’re throwing themselves into an unknown environment.” He goes on to describe how he crosses back and forth from the artistic to the scientific environments, “like jumping into cold water”. (Like purposefully getting lost in East Boston? Or taking the primitive hiking path instead of staying on the beaten trail?)

He goes on, “I think that creative people are very sensitive to their dependence on environment, both the human, or architectural, environment and the intellectual, or creative environment. So they tend to put themselves in stimulating environments. Creativity seems to fall into phases: a starter or conception mode, a translation mode, where we’re developing an idea, and a realization mode. We gravitate toward the environment that supports those phases.”

So soon I will leave this tranquil studio and return to the cold waters of Boston where the frenetic pace of work and urban living feeds the fire of creativity. Hopefully while traveling between the two worlds tonight, I'll slip into "translation mode" and understand what comes next...

when life hands you rain

2009-06-24T22:46:00.003-04:00

I love the rain. Especially a light drizzle. I even like it inside, while I'm shopping. Or while wandering around Chelsea at night.

Tuesday afterwork I stopped in the Art Store for a few last-minute supplies for my France trip only to find the entire building surrounded by fire trucks. Truth be told, I paid no mind to the trucks, flashing lights, or sirens in the parking garage. It only vaguely registered in my brain that Panera (my ritualistic pre-art store bio break) was closed at an odd hour. I was in a blissful state of anticipation. Art supplies! France! Alone time!

Once inside mecca it did finally dawn on me that the entire shopping center was, or recently had been, on fire and sprinkler water was swiftly and naturally finding its way through all possible means to the basement -- the Art Store.

"Oh whoops. Sorry. I can see I'm not supposed to be here," I said to the tattoed clerk as he put down a grossly undersized paint bucket in a vein attempt to catch a deluge coming from the HVAC pipe. "Oh, it's no problem. Just shop at your own risk".

That's all I need, a challenge!

It turned out to be one of the most fulfilling shopping experiences ever. Not only was it a thrilling adventure to figure out how to get to the brushes I wanted without getting my paper wet, but it was also inspiring to watch the staff (all artists) calmly figure out what supplies they could use to stave off and sop up the water that was coming in at an alarming rate. (I was horrofied though, to see yards of canvas being sacrificed to sop up water. Use the stupid Learn to Manga books! And really, don't you have a mop!?)

And to my utter amazement I was asked not once, but twice, if I was finding everything I needed. Um yeah. But you have a bigger problem in here than me not knowing which paper to buy!

So tonight I find myself listening to the familiar sound of water falling on concrete and metal. I am locked out, hudled under my condo porch... and loving it! I took a stroll around Chelsea in the drizzle. Found a cute pink polish at the drug store, fastened a set of toe seperators out of a few mini pads, and gave myself a pedicure complete with suntan lotion foot massage. Cute little pink toes and some unexpected free time. Lovely.

Bring on the rain!

An evolving work

2009-06-08T22:39:00.006-04:00

One June 2nd, I finished the hair drawings of East Boston and Chelsea sidewalk cracks and soaked them in the river.

While they were still wet, I pinned them in a shadow box and sealed it with tape. I didn't exactly know what would happen, but hoped for some condensation or funk to grow. So far it looks like the only change/reaction has been some tightening and shrinking of the paper. The East Boston drawing has pulled off the pin in one spot.

Come see for yourself this Thursday from 6 - 9 pm at the opening of Connective Tissue, a collaboration of twenty eight artists from Chelsea and East Boston. Growing out of a desire to foster a stronger sense of community between the artists in East Boston and Chelsea, the organizers arrived at the theme “Connective Tissue” to represent that which holds us together, both as individuals and as groups.

Gallery @ Spencer Lofts
60 Dudley Street
Chelsea, MA 02150
www.galleryspencerlofts.com

final image courtesy of John Kennard

that which connects us, also divides

2009-05-25T17:22:00.004-04:00

I went on a mission this afternoon to photograph sidewalk cracks in East Boston and Chelsea, preparing for the Connective Tissue collaborative group show. (Showings June 11 and 28 at the Gallery at Spencer Lofts, Chelsea, MA)

On my daily commute, I walk over dozens of big spidery sidewalk cracks so I thought it'd be easy to cross the Chelsea Bridge and find similar ones in Eastie. No. Someone has gone and resurfaced every formally decrepit sidewalk. Go Menino.

I did finally find some on a big cement plaza in front of Umano Middle School and other areas where sidewalks meet curb cuts. And I assume a plow every once and a while? Like I'd hoped and assumed, the cracks are similar and unidentifiable as being from one city or the other.

Next up, I'll make hair drawings of the cracks using hair collected from participating East Boston and Chelsea artists. Later, I'll place them in the Chelsea Creek which separates East Boston from Chelsea and document the process of un-connecting.

That which binds us together also makes us unique?

Portrait of the Artist

2009-05-12T20:55:00.002-04:00

I've been trying to get back into reading fiction. It's not that I don't enjoy it. I just don't have a lot of time. Or rather, I don't make the time. So for Christmas I begged and pleaded with my (ahem, very generous) husband for the Kindle reader in anticipation of loading it up with fictional titles and spending late nights pouring over the new titles that get tossed about at dinner parties and lunch dates. (At which point I make a lame excuse that I am too busy to read.) Once in my hands however, I read title after title of non-fiction about subjects that pertain to my interests, and the content of this blog; namely creativity and happiness.

So searching for fiction closely aligned to my interests I queried "artist" in the the available Kindle fiction editions. One of a few results displayed was James Joye's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The title got me thinking. Who would typify the young artist today?

Gina Badger springs to mind; she is the contemporary portrait of an artist. Through my role at work I've been helping her permit her Little Dig project on the Greenway. In a role-reversing way I've been "the man". I've delivered "no" five times, "let me check" at least a dozen (and then taken weeks to get back to her), along with every piece of bad news or change-in-plan one project can endure. Yet she is out there today doing her artwork.

Now isn't this the definition of an artist? Someone who just keeps taking it. Each and every no. Each and every rejection. And keeps moving forward.

I applaud Gina and every artist, writer, musician, inventor, crafts person, cook, teacher, or person with an idea that s/he believes adds good to the word. Keep shifting, tweaking, perfecting, changing, whatever you need to do, to keep your vision alive.

Now, can someone recommend a good read?

"shhh, blastulas"

2009-04-28T21:38:00.006-04:00

Here it is, the (maybe? almost?) finished piece that will be exhibited in The Gallery @ Spencer Lofts during Chelsea Art Walk, May 30-31.

Tonight, I titled it "Shhh, blastulas".

I wanted to give it a phonetic title that suggested a sizzling noise, or the sound of the tide receding over sand.

My dad (handle: SuperScribo) suggested blastulas which I just love for the sound of the word -- say it, BLAS-chu-lahs -- and for the way it feels in the mouth. Plus, it doesn't hurt that the meaning is actually related to the subject matter. Definition: The usually spherical structure produced by cleavage of a zygote, consisting of a single layer of cells (blastoderm) surrounding a fluid-filled cavity (blastocoele).

So tonight, in a rather cheeky mood, I threw the two together and had a "you got peanut butter in my chocolate" moment. I enjoy that the title implies something very important is taking place, or that a great new concept is being presented (like "two great tastes that taste great together"), while in reality, nothing more than a painting with a lots of circles is being presented to you.

Nothing more, nothing less. I hope you enjoy the combination and see things in here I've never imagined.

finished or fearful?

2009-04-12T17:02:00.007-04:00

This 36"x32" oil on canvas painting has been in a near-finished status for months. I've become so used to it in its current state that I don't feel the normal compulsion to take it further. This could be a sign that it's finished. Or fear. This is the first oil painting I've completed since 2005 and I don't want to screw it up.

What's my motivation to open up this inner debate with fear and 'the critic' on a Sunday evening when I'd rather be chilling out? An opportunity to exhibit the work at a show during the Chelsea Art Walk in late May.

Painting with warm neutral glaze

Bringing a painting into Photoshop for experimentation is always helpful. Looking at an image in a few pixelated inches condenses the composition down to its essence. Flaws become instantly obvious. And the exercise always leads me to question the merits of digital media as an art form. Why struggle with oil and drying times when with one click I can 'step backward'?

Painting with green neutral glaze

With so little time to finish the painting for the show drop-off date, I can't layer it with months worth of circles like I might with an instant-drying gouache painting.

It comes down to a here and now decision. Glaze it with warm neutrals or cool neutrals?

As a friend keenly noted this week, I like to win. Choosing the wrong glaze might put me back. But stepping out of the game and calling it finished is worse.

20.65 to-dos

2009-04-04T10:39:00.003-04:00

I'm a list maker. And apparently I get a certain amount of comfort from having more to do than I can ever accomplish.

For one week I tracked how many times I added or removed major to-do items (requiring multiple steps) from my list using Mycrocosm. No matter how productive I was, I always had an average of 20.65 to-dos.

Mycrocosm, "a web site that makes it possible for people to use statistical graphs and other visual language tools for expressive social communication", is a research project of the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab. The site encourages users to creatively use the visual forms and "express whatever they may want about themselves or the world they are living in".

I expected my graphing to result in a visually arresting work that I could translate into a hair drawing...but so far it's just not that interesting. So, I'm moving on to track things that are more socially oriented. More posts and graphs to come.

On my list for the past month has been "write in blog". Check!

If image below is not working visit my project site

138 steps

2009-02-19T09:07:00.001-05:00

It takes me 138 steps to get from my desk at work to the restroom. How do I know? Well, I counted it a few times, as well as the number of wall panels, doors, lighting fixtures, and people I pass in the hall (usually 0). There's nothing to look at on the long march to the loo...

Now I have a machine to count for me! A pedometer was given to me during a sales pitch. What a cool little gizmo to help me connect back to my body during the hours of brain/desk work. Suddenly, I am fascinated with the movement of my limbs. Back and forth, back and forth, covering .7 miles in daily bathroom trips alone. Oh the monotony...oh the inspiration!

I'm reminded of some remarkable work by the SENSEable Cities lab at MIT and their tracking of population movement and cell phone usage during the '06 World Cup soccer game and a Madonna concert in Rome. See http://senseable.mit.edu/realtimerome/. It's a little creepy that our whereabouts can be tracked by our cell phone providers...but it also brings us a little closer together. We all go to the loo, like to follow our favorite teams/artists/heros, and we're actually quite predictable in our behaviors.

I feel more fodder coming along for the exploration into connective tissue...

lightening up

2009-02-11T20:47:00.000-05:00

First off, I wish I could write about my job and the people it puts me in contact with because they and the circumstances I find myself in are way more interesting than me. But that's just off limits. And besides, this is a blog about art and life; in particular mine, as boring/ exciting or weird/normal as it may be.

So I am returning from another invigorating trip to NY City and I am sitting in my train seat just amazed and humbled by the amount of creative talent in the world. And especially in awe of the risk- takers. Those who are so confident in their ideas and expressions that they put everything aside to "go for it" and they just...don't...give...up.

Usually, maybe always, these people have a conviction that what they are doing is somehow helpful to mankind. Whether it is a graffiti artist (thank you shepard ferey and others for waking/shaking us up) or the substitute junior high school teacher who used to teach us about the extinction of the Dodo bird (no matter if he was subbing math,French, or history), we depend on our convictions and passions to keep us fully alive and present.

I really don't know what my convictions are except to live my life as an artist; to inspire and spark something in you and me. How that manifests itself is still a mystery to me. Is it through traditional 2D work? Public art? teaching/sharing with children? or working in a non-profit?

Maybe its just a way of being? This excerpt from Tricycle magazine sums it up beautifully:

"When a candle is lit in a dark room, it illuminates the room to some extent, but its power is limited. But if you use the same candle to light another candle, the total lightness increases."

Maybe I just need to lighten up...

common denominator

2009-02-06T11:12:00.004-05:00

Title: Lowest Common Denominator
Post: "Can you all help me brainstorm about the basic links which ALL humans share?"

This post on an artists working group blog got me thinking about my older primordial paintings. (Plus, I am currently staring at three large blank canvas and wrestling with imagery. It's been a while since I worked in this scale.)

I started with the same "what is our common denominator" question in the primordial series. It quickly went deeper to what is the common denominator between all people and plants...then further, is there one common denominator between animals, plants, minerals?

From a scientific standpoint we're all just a bunch of carbon molecules arranged in different ways. And remarkably, the molecular structure for hemoglobin, human blood, is similar to the the structure of chlorophyll. (scroll down on that last link) In some areas of my last primordial painting (#6) you can see the compounds drawn out. (Detail above) Only a scientist or 8th grader would recognize them.

And lastly, to give reason for this blather of a post, I leave you/me/us with this reminder to eat our veggies.

"Chlorophyll is often described as the ‘blood of plants’ and chlorophyll-rich foods have been linked with increasing hemoglobin content. Tributes to the late Prof. Willstatter for elucidating chlorophyll’s chemical structure, and conclusively showing its close resemblance to human blood." Full article

Who wants a V8?

human catch basin

2009-02-04T21:17:00.004-05:00

Recently one of the brilliant people in my life called me a "human catch basin" in reference to my job situation. It was strikingly funny for its associated visuals (my mind wanders to the grotesque and morbid) and its relevance to my work life.

I felt the title must also be apropos to how I approach my artwork.

Possible definitions for Human Catch Basin moving from the morbid to positive:
a) A low point and filter designed to capture humans
b) A low point and filter designed to capture human souls tainted with debris and pollutants
c) A human through which all run off, debris, litter and pollutants are filtered
d) A human, in a low point or position, designed to prevent blockages and minimize the amount of debris others have to deal with
e) A human, in a unique position, who is able to filter debris and pollutants and allow common denominators to flow
f) A human, often with creative tendencies, who is able to sort through, disorganize and create a new flow or meaning

So what are you filtering?

thank you, John Updike

2009-01-29T08:58:00.002-05:00

(User error, this was not posted on the day it was written)

Yesterday morning I read about the death of John Updike in the NY Times.

During the day I received this beautiful email from a list serve:

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and he does it without destroying something else.
-John Updike, writer (1932-2009)

Updike was one of those writers I just "got" before I even understood a thing about literature or literary criticism. There was something about his poignant way of writing about the everyday and the mundane that made me tingle with recognition. It was melancholy and acceptance mixed with hope.

Its been years since I last read his work so I enjoyed reading some excepts online today. This one in particular grabbed my heart.

"A barn, in a day, is a small night. The splinters of light between the dry shingles pierce the high roof like stars, and the rafters and crossbeams and built-in ladders seem, until your eyes adjust, as mysterious as the branches of a haunted forest."

From the story “Pigeon Feathers.”

Thank you, John Updike.

decluttering

2009-01-23T13:04:00.003-05:00

The papers on my studio wall are starting to curl. The installation is up. Time to take down the support work and start again.

As much as decluttering might be about getting organized, today it feels a lot like the disorganizing theory. Every time I try to put something away I unearth a forgotten idea. Progress is slow.

Next up: prepare for a collective show called "Connective Tissue" with other artists from Chelsea and East Boston, MA. The theme is right up my alley. What are the objects, values, or the common denominator that holds us together, as individuals and a society? I did a lot of thinking about our common denominator a few years back with the erythrocyte series ('02-05) and the primordial series ('03).

Can't wait to get started! I've got a giant canvas ready to go...

disorganizing

2009-01-22T09:34:00.001-05:00

I'm writing from the train, on route to NYC for a meeting where I'm expected to present creative programming ideas in response to input I'll gather a few hours before the meeting and from data I'll interpret on the spot.

I sometimes think of my job title as the "human synthesizer". I just take it all in, sniff the air, and spit it out in an orderly fashion. The ideas are all there...they just need to be encouraged to organize.

What differentiates me from a computer? Apparently neuroscience can't yet definitively tell us. But there is a theory of self-organization that I'm learning about in The Creative Mind.

The author postulates that during the creative process the brain begins by disorganizing, making links that have not been previously linked. "Out of this disorganization, self-organization eventually emerges and takes over the brain." (Pg 78)

So maybe I'll take a nap at the lunch table and give my brain some time to disorganize...and just hope it all gets pieced back together in time! (See the Jan 15 entry for an example of my bad luck with rushed deadlines and putting the pieces together.)

is it done yet? 'cause I can't stand to look at it

2009-01-22T08:00:00.000-05:00

The creative process is ugly. My paintings are ugly for about 99% of their gestation.

Here's a glimpse at a painting that I really struggled with but ultimately added to the Something's Gotta Stick show because of its relation to the soft sculptures. It went through many painful iterations. Images below are from a camera phone so colors are blown out. No excuses. It's U-G-L-Y.

The final step was to put on my favorite WHITE-falling-circles layer as can barely be seen in this installation shot (also from my camera phone). The circle shapes are repeated on the wall with cut out white paper.

A note on the origin/inspiration for the shapes from "One Month, 21 Days":

Friday, 12.26.08 – Impermanence, interconnection, and random behaviors of subatomic particles. Bubbles in my paintings can be spherical, decoration, holes, etc. Objects take on the shape or quality of the viewer projects. They are subjective. Light can be a wave or particle. All is a matter of probability.

small packages/small spaces

2009-01-21T20:07:00.004-05:00

I took in a sharp, shallow breath when I first entered the gallery space at The Artists Foundation. I knew my project/exhibit room would be small...but this was tiny!

I'd made a mock up of the two 6' wide gallery walls in my studio and sized the work accordingly. But I didn't, or couldn't, take into account the feeling of the low ceilings. The gallery is the size of a bathroom. A 7' ceilinged bathroom. Without water. Or tiles. Ok, its not really like a bathroom.

The "good things come in small packages" phrase rattled around my head as I unpacked my things, but I wasn't buying it. My co-exhibitor seemed to be just as shocked. His response was to edit his 50 pieces down to 30.

I stubbornly charged ahead. Trusting that what I made on the studio walls would certainly work in the gallery - despite how tall it's ceiling was. Instinctively, instead of editing, I kept adding MORE. The same way I add layer upon layer in a painting until it is "done".

After about eight hours of just sort of futzing around and getting lost in the space (yes, that is ironic) I realized it was all OK. I'd created a little private corner tucked away from everything. An almost meditative space. It cries out for a giant pollen sculpture to sink into. (I'll have to start looking for another sweat shop; my assistant is on strike.)

So, maybe I do believe good things come in small packages...or small spaces...or from small brains.

It may all be true but I warn anyone who is claustrophobic and thinking about coming to the opening this Saturday to think again. A better time to come might be Saturday, February 7 from 12-5 pm when I'll be gallery sitting (perhaps meditating if it's slow).

WHAT:
1. Opening reception:
Saturday, Jan. 24, 3-5pm

2. me waiting to see you:
Saturday, Feb. 7, 12-5pm

WHERE:
Artists Foundation @ The Distillery
516 East Second St. 1st Floor
Boston MA 02127

The show is open every Saturday 12-5 from Jan 24 through Feb 14; by appointment (call 617-464-3561) or if you know the right people...I'm giving private viewings on Fridays and some evenings (kate(at)kategilbertmiller(dot)com).

the creative brain

2009-01-20T10:41:00.000-05:00

I just picked up Nancy Andreasen's book, Creative Brain. In the hopes that there is an explanation for how/why I come up with ideas.

While getting ready for the installation, I hired my mother to help assemble pieces of the soft sculpture pollen spores. At a dinner party she explained her deplorable sweat shop conditions and was prompted to explain exactly why I wanted to put pollen in an installation. After a bit of explanation, a guest said ,"Oh. Is this like a Yoko Ono thing?" My poor mother.

I glanced at one page in the book that said creative minds don't work in isolation. "...the catalytic substrate for that process is often interaction with others and intellectual exchange of ideas." So one might argue that my ideas are the product of nurture - years of loving support and the exchange of silly creative ideas.

Thanks mom!

Believe

2009-01-18T08:16:00.005-05:00

I am currently in the township of Buckingham, a picturesque Bucks County PA exurb of Philadelphia dotted with stone barns, McMansion farm homes, neo-colonials, and fast-driving cars that always appear just-detailed or right-off-the-dealers-lot clean.

I find this place fascinating for the number of thought-leaders it produces and attracts. If you grow up here and don't become a world renowned architect, environmentalist, tile manufacturer, guy who kills your friend while lost in the desert, self-selecting museum curator, or travel author you at least know how to: 1.) power into narrow sloping corners like a race car driver while expertly avoiding herds of deer or 2.)Sing the Philadelphia Eagles fight song from the bottom of your Yuengling beer. (For my artist friends, the Eagles are a football team.)

Today at three pm EST the Eagles play for a shot in the Super Bowl. Their song will ring through the fields and streams, "Fly Eagles Fly..."

I will watch the game paying particular attention to the commercials and fan experience. Especially intriguing is their collective enthusiasm for one thing - victory.

What would it be like if regions or cities picked their favorite artists and held an art-off? Too many flags and challenges would keep the game from ever being completed. And that's if anyone could ever agree on a set of criteria or ground rules. Process or product? Realistic or conceptual? Two things I know are for sure: 1.) the commercials would be outstanding. 2.) if the shock of it didn't kill them, artists would greatly benefit from the public support.

One of my favorite recent football commercials is a Payton Manning spot (for God knows what; Visa?) where he's cheering on average workers and their activities. In one frame he is in a museum chanting, "ART, ART, ART!"

This has become a defacto fight song for me and code among a few close friends for "just keep plugging away" or "I don't get what you're doing but I still support you anyway".

Many times during the creation of Somethings Gotta Stick I had to brush the dirt off my knees, give myself a pep talk and keep charging ahead...but on a different route.

Maybe the creative process and football aren't that different? You can't succeed if you don't play and you won't succeed if you don't believe.

Today I Believe in Green and always I'll believe in ART, ART, ART!

Author's not to CCD III and NEM III: "Originality is the art of concealing your sources." -Benjamin Franklin

I never knew

2009-01-17T23:14:00.001-05:00

Tonight after Januaryistmas (a super delayed Christmas/New Years/Presidents Day celebration) was over my father-in-law hugged me and said, "I never knew you were so much fun!"

Apparently for the last 10 years I have managed to repress my Christmas-induced childish side that loves to air guitar to Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas music.

Meanwhile my husbands' step niece was getting chewed out for her Dirty Harry routine in school: "You dirty twits aren't fit to be second graders". You can't make that kind of line up! But you can add to it..." Go ahead, make my recess."

So what does this have to do with my installation? Not much, except for these two Everything I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten principles:

1.) Don't take yourself so seriously that your family doesn't really know who you are for the first 10 years

2.) Say what you think, but keep your insults proper.

In other words, don't wait for the right time to do or say what you want.

I've been wanting to make a life-sized hair drawing for years now (maybe 8?), and to push the technique further. I started the practice in 1998. Today, I learned about yet another artist using hair in her work and taking it far beyond where i've ever gone.

The life-size hair drawing I made for the installation was a success for me because it fulfilled a dream (check) and I got it out of my system. Now I can move on to other things. Like shading with cross hatched hairs, perhaps? Or branching into "performance art" with the T-S Orchestra...

What are you wanting to say, do, or try?

need an idea? step into the shower

2009-01-16T10:12:00.007-05:00

Like millions of people across the globe I start most mornings with a shower. (Technically coffee and journalling come first.) And while in my little cubby of steam and hot water my brain kicks into high gear; inspired by the white noise of the water and possibly the lavendar infused scalp massage.

These 4-5 mins are my only hope at brilliance. Most days I emerge from the shower with a random, useless question which'll have me on google for 30 mins, a made up weird-al-yankevich-style song, or a plan of attack for controlling the chaos at work.

Occasionally I'll discover an idea that really sticks.

For one month I wrote down these thoughts and ideas. I even recorded a few of the showers. Shower ideas and recordings are part of the "Something's Gotta Stick" installation.

To hear a 30 second MP3 excerpt click this link: SHOWER

starting strong

2009-01-15T19:01:00.007-05:00

"You started strong," said my friend about the blog.

Yes. Writing and fiddling with photos was a nice distraction to actually working in the studio. Then, when the juices were going, paint was moving, and the deadline to install loomed, "update blog" moved ever further down the to-do list.

So now trying to be ever vigilant, I stopped by the gallery after work to photograph the show and start pushing the opening (sat 24 3-5 pm). But the door was locked and I am leaving town for a week.

That's the challenge. Now comes the creative process. Market an installation without words and with new tools. (I'm writing from a Blackberry in a pickup truck on I95).

Each day I vow to add one entry to describe the installation or process.

Tonight I start with this: PIECES. Pieces of a whole. Falling to pieces.

Each spore sculpture is made of 56 pieces of fabric, at least as many seams, and countless polyfil micro beads.each about 1/16" diameter.

I nearly fell to pieces when one of the seams burst an hour before finishing the installation. But it was beautiful to watch. Those staticy little buggers flew out and began colonizing the mountains of spore spikes. Drawing my attention to the power of the collective and yet another scientific principal to mess with my installation. Static!

Question:Can you draw with static electricity?

wintery commute

2008-12-17T09:44:00.003-05:00

We are housing some American Dreamwrights workers in the barn so I've been staying across the street at my parents' house for the past two nights. The commute to the studio is a killer. I have to cross the street and avoid the large puddle. There was some ice on the walkway this morning. Tough.

Insert "Why did the artist cross the road?" jokes here...

pushing around the line

2008-12-16T15:06:00.001-05:00

I've been practicing figure drawing for the past few days using old nubs of charcoal and newsprint. Subject matter: me falling or pretending to hit a wall. Someone stopped by the studio, laughed, and asked "why do you like to draw weird pictures of yourself?". I couldn't answer, I just laughed...

I'm still enjoying pressing my face up against the glass and photographing it. Trouble is, when I draw it with a simple outline (without shading which is how the hair drawing will be executed), the face just looks out of proportion. Not up against something. How to draw smooshed flesh? Hmmm. Guess it needs to get more detailed. Show pores and things? Sketches top left.

I hate taking the time to sharpen charcoal but when I don't I start loosing the line and get frustrated. I'm always drawing with a rag or eraser in hand and the pencil or charcoal in the other. I realized I draw like I paint. Put down a line, then rub it away with a rag to get it "right". Forget drawing. Why not just paint? Once I've got this smashing/falling figure down I'll start using hair which is a much easier line to control. Its always the same width and stays flexible for quite some time, until the glue dries. I can push it around with pins, tweezers and my nails until it shapes the line I want.

The drawing left top was done with a calligraphy pen and masking tape for the "mistakes". Another way I like to work...add and subtract by layering.

When not drawing, I've been unearthing scraps of paper and articles I've collected since I last had a studio. I found an article from the Feb 2005 issue of ArtNews on Tim Hawkinson and his Emoter, a collage of his face that moves in response to sensor-driven mechanisms. Apparently things stick in my head for a very long time. See http://www.artnet.com/artwork/424281454/423775681/emoter.html for images. This is how grotesque the figure's face needs to be for the concept to be successful. Otherwise its a floating figure.

up against the glass

2008-12-10T23:04:00.000-05:00

What would it look like if I ran into a plate glass window? Thinking about that and giggling the whole time, I sketched this image from my head. Later, I did more sketches of my face against glass.

What if I drew this life-sized? Out of my hair? This is what I'm thinking about for my upcoming show. Working title: Something's Gotta Stick. About how ideas come, often spontaneously, and what sticks.

The pic on the left is me snickering at my drawing...we did a photo shoot of the barn today.

sand and snow

2008-12-10T22:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went for a walk in the Avalonia land trust. Its a favorite spot of mine in the summer when the pines make for a cool, quiet walk. So different in the winter with crunching leaves, bare branches, snow covered ground...and a quickly setting sun.

The snow surrounding the leaves reminded me of the sand and surf around the rocks in Puerto Rico and the Playa Series I created there last spring. Could another series arise from this chance walk in the woods?

Not only was the snow inspiring but quiet helpful, as it guided me out of the woods by reflecting the glow of the near-full moon.

day one

2008-12-08T15:19:00.000-05:00

today is the first day of my sabbatical. i'm working on framing reproductions of my gouache paintings. i love my studio, especially the gray studio floor...