slightly wonky

Today, I went to the Davis Museum to see the exhibit of El Anatsui.  He’s an artist born in Ghana, who makes these amazing metal tapestries from discarded liquor bottle tops.  Totally crazy.  They’re a multicolored chainmail of trash…and they’re stunning.  He also does ridiculously amazing sculpture and painting.  Go see it now.  Seriously.  Why are you still reading this?

I keep thinking about this portfolio review.  It’s really made me stop and ponder…I’m not sure that I’ve come to any brilliant conclusions.  I just keep mulling it all over in my head again and again.  Tumultuous.

As a result, everything that I’ve been doing is tumultuous.  I started by just making marks in a “zen” sort of way…ended up with this weird garden:

Hmmm…a physical manifestation of the chaos of thoughts that I’m having…

I also made material for my collage class.  Here is what the pile looked like earlier:

It’s a mix of relief prints…gelatin prints…and other randomness.  I don’t think that I’m a big fan of gelatin printing.  I like the immediacy of it, but I am never in awe of what is produced.  I’m sure that I need to work on it some more…

I decided that I should attempt a couple of collages with this new material.  I threw caution to the wind, and came up with these two:

and:

I liked using these materials for collage.  I almost felt that I didn’t have to do too much to them, as they had so much character of their own.  Naturally…I did too much to them anyway.  Perhaps I’ve given up on restraint.  Restraint can be so boring.  Yes?  No?  Any comments?  I don’t even drink anything with caffeine, so you can’t suggest that I cut back a little.

One of the challenges that I’m having in general, is that I like to do so many different things.  I like printmaking…painting…drawing, etc.  I think that I should try to focus on one, but each time that I do…I wonder if I’m narrowing down unnecessarily.  I know that Picasso could make art with a potato and a dry stick, but the REST of us might do well with a bit of focus.  True?

So, the theme for today is: wishing for focus, whilst seriously out of focus.

Is it any coincidence that I’m going to the eyedoctor tomorrow?  I hope that those eye charts don’t start looking like my collages…