As an artist we have to keep our hands and minds moving, which is hard when pregnant and on bed rest. So I am starting a portable studio, not just a sketchbook. Not just a place of record, but to collaborate and conversate. I have had Keri Smith's texts, "Wreck This Journal", "This Is Not A Book", "Finish This Book", "The Pocket Scavenger", "Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes", and "How To Be An Explorer of The World" for.... well longer than I'm willing to admit!
And so here we begin with... BRING THIS BOOK IN THE SHOWER WITH YOU I have to say I LOVE the way the pages turned out, with the creases and ripples. They are visually stunning. *Originally published on Wordpress January 17, 2017
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I keep trying to decide where this image may be taking me. It was drawn from the subconscious mind, without a visual reference. I have resigned to the fact that perhaps she is trying to tell me to just enjoy the journey.
She needs a name… *Originally published on Wordpress January 17, 2017 The bends, valleys, and many newly formed faces that become the structure of a crumpled piece of paper. Incredibly difficult to replicate. Impossible to document even as a drawing or singular photograph. I love them, crumpled sheets of paper. I've made whole piles of crumpled paper balls, filled birdcages with them, and attempted to cast them in Bronze, just in order to further admire them. There are a great many things crumpling paper can provide, one is an unusual canvas to experiment with. It is a two dimensional surface becomes a three dimensional structure which can be altered and then returned to its two dimensional state. I had to play with this! I sprayed the paper with distress stains from a number of angles, once dry I coated the entire page in a thin layer of silver craft paint. I am really pleased with the results. It creates a tie-dye metal foil effect. Experiment success! Not to mention the deep satisfaction, it is almost therapeutic like breaking pottery or popping bubble wrap to, one sheet of paper at a time... Tear Out & Crumple *Originally published on Wordpress June 10, 2017 Back at it again! The past year and a half has been consumed with infants and pregnancy, new jobs, and moving.... My daughter is now 10 months old and we have a baby boy due in April. Making the transition is definitely a challenging one, especially for the Working Artist Mother. How and when will we get the time to be creative? Even when the chance arises.... What can we get done during a nap? What can we get accomplished and put away in these limited pieces of time? It was beautiful and fitting to find these two pages next to each other, thoughts of disassembling and assembling, ripping and attaching, tearing and gluing, so perfectly situated side-by-side. Definitely the perfect place to begin again, not at the end or the beginning but in the middle. How to honor the challenge of both but intertwine the two into a singular creative contemplation? And so with these thoughts swirling through mind and a need for a little glam, I got out all the gold and glitter and began to... TEAR STRIPS, RIP IT UP!&GLUE, STAPLE, OR TAPE THESE PAGES TOGETHER *Originally published on Wordpress February 10, 2017 "It's always because we love that we are rebellious; it takes a great deal of love to give a damn one way or another what happens from now on: I still do."
It has been years since I painted something that was completely non-representational. However I am a lover of mark-making. I enjoy experimenting and discovering the vast possibilities for making a mark. These paintings are a study of possibility. What has been made possible through experimentation. *Originally published on Wordpress January 17, 2017
CAITLIN MCCORMACK
It is two parts exciting and three parts nightmare managing social media as an artist. Exciting to have your work and process out in the world inspiring others and hopefully engaging other artists, or art lovers, but as an artist the additional energy and time needed to create and maintain such accounts after making and documenting your work can take us to our limit. Everyone has their own recipe for social media management success, but it doesn’t change the simple fact that it is one more item on the list of To-Do’s. Last year I attended more than one workshop that addressed social media for artists. I, myself, have signed up for and tried them all, almost… as it seems that there is one more social media app lurking around the corner, promising ultimate exposure and immediate access to “your” public.
After attending the workshops and recovering from all the “exposure”, I have gained a bit of advice and personal insight. I went in deep… here is what I have learned from my adventures in social media. They may appear seemingly obvious, but after taking a vacation from our alternate, web-based reality and returning with fresh eyes, I wonder how many of us are actually using these simple rules as a structure for crafting our social media presence. How often are we overlooking these important suggestions?
What I have found most useful is to decide what I want to showcase then find the social media platform that suits the content. Each platform then has its own specific “identity”, purpose, or function. Facebook is for Newsworthy information; events, finished products, some production information, personal milestones and achievements, content appropriate for sharing from other Facebook posts from related businesses and organizations, etc. Keep it professional and on topic. Twitter… I can’t say that I was a fan, as most users do not Twitter responsibly. It is too likely that your posts and even you will get easily lost and carried away in the current that is a Twitter feed. Others enjoy it, you may. Instagram is delightful. This is where I share work in progress, “in the studio” snippets, me doing what I do. This also includes the unfinished, the rough around the edges, the stuff without a place; including, what I do outside the studio that relates to my art-making, such as learning and teaching. It is a wonderful place to share your process. Remember to document as much as you can! Wordpress as a blog platfrom is what I have found to be the most comprehensive and professional. I have tried Blogger, Tumblr, Weebly, and Wordpress. The blog should be personal, insightful, introspective... This is the place to connect to your audience outside of the professional scope of being an artist, and I consider it a virtual/visual journal. It is a collection of personal thoughts, points of interest, an online document of inspiration, experimentation, and other musings; albeit digital and publicly available. This is for letting your audience into the mind of the maker, a place to share all the beautiful about art-making that happens behind the scenes. What I also enjoy about Wordpress is the ability to link accounts like Instagram, and your images appear in the sidebar of your Wordpress site with no extra coding skills or unneeded headaches. After numerous trials, reinventions, and relaunches of both my studio and artistic image, I can leave you with these suggestions: o Stay uniquely you! Don’t worry about adopting a bigger than life, big business online personality. You won’t be able to maintain it. We, as humans, evolve. Let you shine and your business will evolve with you. o Use social media accounts responsibly, your audience will thank you and your sanity will remain intact. You are one person, and more than likely not in a place to hire someone to Tweet their tits off all day long. Stick to what’s important and what truly relates to your art and practice, and your audience won’t feel burdened just trying to keep up while they desperately attempt to not miss anything. o Keep consistent and fresh. Provide the same character of content, but introduce new things along the way. Don’t feel obligated to keep anything around either. Take it for a spin, if it isn’t working don’t buy it. And if anything… just keep working, sometimes persistence is the only thing that determines success or failure. Tabatha Lendquvist-Grace, Artist/Owner Lendquvist Studio *Originally published on Wordpress June 6, 2017 "Amateurism is an emptiness and I accept it because it has no preconceived ideas or rules to be applied. This is for me a most welcome situation and I like to keep my students amateurs and dilenttantes."
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AuthorTabatha Lendquvist works from her private studio located in Walker County, AL. She is an Interdisciplinary artist working in various mediums to include painting, bookmaking, and poetics. Archives
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