Iowa Light

The aspect of the Iowa landscape that impacted me most was light. The winter sun never got high in the sky, long shadows changed direction but never shortened, and I had a feeling of living my whole day in the moment before dusk.

     I am interested in time based scale shifts, or gaining a sense of time travel by expanding my idea of the moment until it encapsulates all of human history, or all of earth’s history, or the universe’s. My description of this scale shift is borrowed largely from Brian Eno and the Long Now Foundation. I could also borrow the words of T.S. Eliot who spoke of a still point; or Shih-t’ao who spoke of a wholeness of spirit that goes beyond the intellectual, sensual, and emotional, “free and unafraid, into wholeness of universe.”

    

Land Ho! review

Very excited to have the exhibition that I am in reviewed in the Boston Globe by Cate McQuaid!
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2015/11/11/progressive-provocative-landscapes-view-fitchburg/09DDHaofJrSNVpjGENjk6N/story.html?utm_content=buffer892c1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Beland Art Gallery in Lawrence, MA

Land Ho! is up at the Fitchburg Art Museum

 

I am at 59 Wareham St, 2nd floor.

News and Events Fall 2015

Pink Iowa series

Upcoming Events

2 receptions this week!

After a wonderful year in Iowa I have returned to Boston for a very busy summer!
I have two receptions coming up this week.
The first is for a group show, Fitted to the Latch, featuring the four Artists-in-Residence at Gallery 263 in Cambridge, MA. The exhibition runs July 8 – 11, with a reception on Friday July 10, from 7-9pm (I will be gallery sitting on Friday beginning at 3pm) http://gallery263.com/exhibitions/current/
The other reception is for no hill and takes place Saturday July 11, from 6-8pm at SEEN Gallery, 38 East Ave., Pawtucket, RI. The exhibition runs July 11 to August 5th. https://www.seen-gallery.com/exhibitions.html

This fall my drawings will be included in a group show at the Fitchburg Museum in Fitchburg, MA. I will also have a solo exhibition at the Beland Gallery in Lawrence, MA. Finally, I will be participating in South End Open Studios this September as I will be moving back in to my old studio in August!

Starting my residency at Gallery 263 in Cambridge!

My exhibition return|beyond, with Serhat Tanyolacar, is currently on view at the Levitt Gallery, Art Building West, at the U of Iowa.

Drawing Beyond the Page

Recorded at U of Iowa in my Concepts of Drawing class.
Participating student artists: Zoe Webb, Melissa Schreiber, Laurel Protexter, Spencer Lundquist, Megan Hindman, and Sabra Cacho.

Installing return|beyond this Sunday at the University of Iowa

Follow this link for location and times:
arts.uiowa.edu/events/return-beyond-grant-wood-fellows-exhibition/2015-04-27

time

“Woe to people with a retentive memory: yesterday’s trusty tracks will be found to end up at blank walls or in quicksand today, and the habitual behavioral patterns, once foolproof, are likely to bring disaster instead of success.” 44 Letters from the Liquid Modern World, Bauman

Newly installed at the Ritz in Boston

      If you happen to be visiting the Ritz in Boston be sure to check out the Phil's Hill drawing that they just installed in the lobby. Later this summer you will be able to see my drawings throughout the hotel.
      I am very excited to have my work displayed in the new Ritz location on Washington and Avery Streets. A distant relative of mine, Charles E. Lauriat (my grandfather's great great uncle), opened the bookstore known as Lauriat's Books at 385 Washington St., in 1898. It is an honor to be bringing the family name back into the neighborhood.

possible house / ebla domo

house

pattern

tree

These three small pieces will be in the pop up show, possible house / ebla domo, curated by Amanda Lechner.

March 12

Off to Loras College and the Dubuque Museum of art for artist talks today!

lots of pink here in Iowa this winter

44"x30"

Some small and playful pieces on my studio wall. I look to them when making bigger works.

New old stuff in the studio.

I can't post images of my new work yet, as none of it is finished. I'm too excited to keep it to myself, however. Here is a transparency layered with cut paper, hinting at my new process and imagery.

Studio sneak peek

I recently switched studios. I am now working in the basement of my house at the Grant Wood Art Colony. As you can tell, it is a wonderful space. I couldn't be happier to be working here!

form the beyond|return series. About 55"x70"

a clump of trees by Coralville Lake, just below the dam. About 35"x55"

from the series beyond|return. About 55"x30"

Temporary Landscape closes this week!

This is the last week to see my exhibition, Temporary Landscape, at UMass Boston's Harbor Gallery.
There will be a closing reception and artist talk this Thursday, November 6th, from 3-5pm. I hope some of you can make it!

return|beyond?

           It's been hard to figure out what I will work on here in Iowa. I have been trying to foster a relationship with the landscape but it has been a little lackluster so far. In the past I have found images of flooding in the mid-west to be very engaging so I have tried using local flood images as an entry point, but it feels a little insincere. After a few dreary boring days where I wasn't sure what to do with myself I became aware that I was regularly, and somewhat creepily, staring out my windows. 

              For a while I had been looking at houses from the outside; noticing how they shaped the landscape around and between them, and imagining how the landscape looked before the houses were there. It was a strange blend of appreciation, jealousy, fantasy, disgust, and nostalgia. I looked at these houses while walking my dog in my parent’s neighborhood. We walked there because we lived there, in my parent’s attic, despite my age and degrees and effort and tenacity and, as my parents had always heard in parent teacher meetings, potential.

             As I looked at the modest colonial houses I both wanted and rejected what I saw. I wanted the stability and the comfort and the light, space and porches; and I rejected the order – and the stability. I’d imagine the commitment of having a mortgage and feel sick. To escape I would travel back in time and imagine what the landscape looked like before all the uncomfortably appealing boxes were built. A time when the systems of nature dominated, and people were rightly submissive to those systems. I had been struggling so long to gain a foothold in the unnatural systems we have created that I was nostalgic for a world with no penicillin and a very short life expectancy.

            Two months ago I moved out of my parent’s attic and into a house in Iowa City. I live in this house with 2 staircases alone and free of charge. I am a fellow and visiting professor at the University of Iowa for the year and the job comes with this beautiful house. So now I am on the inside looking out. I do not have a mortgage but for the first time in my life I have a car payment. I have this massive possession, which I do not own. I have a foothold in one of those man-made systems, and it has wrapped itself around my ankle.

My show at UMass Boston is up!

New series of small watercolors based on images of flooding in Iowa.

Temporary Landscape at UMass Boston

Iowa River Drawings