Tag: Blues

For Trummy

I have just finished my most labor intensive collage. Interestingly, it was far from the largest that I have ever done. I set aside my often used aesthetic of creating the feel of an open ended narrative for something that is just beautiful. I worked no digital magic on the piece, utilizing old school method of scissors and adhesive applied with a brush to photos which I personally took.

I was very pleased with the results of this piece and feel with every new work I learn something. My new camera was used for the photo which definitely helps to convey more of the intricacies of my works.

“For Trummy” (if we ever see each other again, I will look different, you will look the same) 11×14

 

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by Wayne Wolfson

A Million Ways to Die

For all my work regardless of medium, emotion is my main goal. One way to ensure this happens is fostering a constant evolution.

I received many great responses to my last collage and it is a personal favorite. For my next one, I knew that I wanted to do something as dense but also different.

I limited my color palette which I have done before but this time i went with darker, more somber colors. There is a return to a more outright sense of narrative in this piece too. The last piece was a beautiful scene but not story. To my core I will always be a city boy and now I have created another one to visit in my daydreams.

As with all my collages, there is no digital magic worked. I utilize the old school method of scissors & adhesive applied w/brush to photos which I personally took. (new camera for photo)

“A Million Ways To Die” 11×14  (the lines visible beneath pieces don’t mean anything , they were resting on piece scrap paper w/discarded sketch)

 

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by Wayne Wolfson

Blue on Blue

I wanted to make something beautiful but which also gave the viewer no hint as to its size. I will always eschew the standard poses and traditional idea of beauty. It is boring and all blurs together. For me, the real will always be beautiful. A true emotion, bodies and flesh as encountered in everyday life.

This piece is 5×8 Watercolor & Paper “Blue on Blue”

 

blue on blue

by Wayne Wolfson

Collage

There is a lot of precision in my drawings & paintings. I have always been serious about my sculptures but those are of a completely different process. They are largely improvised on the spot using whatever materials I have around. Often, they are not meant to last.

Collage is fairly new medium to me. They fall somewhere between my paintings & sculpture.There is an element of surrealism in them that does not appear in my work of other mediums. Ahead of time,  I always have in my mind the composition but i also leave room for some improvisations.

My first collages were really large 22×30 inches. They were not meant to last which made it feel freeing. Eventually being all the remained, the photos of the work would themselves become the art.

I used glue sticks and scissors to create my works. With my paintings, they need few days to dry. With the collages as soon as I was finished I needed to snap some photos as pieces would begin curling, bubbling or falling off.

Right out of the gate i got the same feeling of serving the process I get in creating my other works. People were interested in obtaining the actual pieces and not just prints/photos of them.

I invested in several pairs of good scissors and started using adhesive which also coats the works surface as well. In reading up on adhesives I found there is controversy over where images for a collage come from. Depending upon the  country, there are things which are illegal or if not that then despite semantics, a jerky thing to do. Were my images to be lifted I know that I would not be happy about it. This brought about my decision to largely use images from photos which I myself took. An added advantage to this is that it often feels as if collage is not taken as seriously stateside. Collage seems to conjure up images of of someone with nothing to do clipping pictures out of magazines while watching television. Using my own photos bolsters the legitimacy as art form and not mere hobby.

Painting, sculpture, collage, it is never an either or for me. All are part of the whole. I do find my painting helps my achieve more volume and mass in my collages. Now, all my works cross influence and inspire each other.

For drawing I constantly change up what equipment i use, the idea being that I can create work when on the road and in under far from ideal situations ( a waitress’s pencil, the back of a paper bag et al) . A lovely letter from someone compared my collages to jazz. This planted the idea in my head to start doing smaller sized collages as to be able to do them on the road.  I could do them all in pages of a nice notebook, initially using easy to travel with glue stick and applying adhesive once back home.

I enjoy going for the density of composition, which I prefer in all my works, without letting it get too muddy and reduced to visual babel. The initial challenge of achieving this in smaller collage was great fun.

“Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz”

22×30 inches
We are all living under a fluorescent sky temporarily. To stay productive is a huge help. Anyone who can create beauty, now is the time to do so as a reminder of what we will eventually return to. I named this piece after composer/musician (a.k.a Fantastic Negrito) whose work mixes a deep soulfulness with the lament of the blues and some funk.
Composition wise I utilize my preferred density regardless of medium along w/the feeling of a sort of open ended narrative.

 

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“Self Portrait” 11×14

These are all photos I took and my first smaller collage. I was very pleased with the results.

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by Wayne Wolfson

Green Clogs

The nature of fame has changed. Like a lot of things, it’s properties are no longer agreed upon facts. Where once it was tied in more with the possessor’s talents and the work put into achieving the abilities, now it is often more align with coveting the “fame”.

The reality star/internet influence is largely the ultimate ambition of an entire generation. A main element of this phenomenon is the “look at me/look at what I have” aspect. It allows for feeling good about oneself without having to really work (i.e practice to become the best guitarist et al). This new fame is done by of looking down on those without while also being watched.

Social media (Instagram etc etc) is full of postings of people showing others their fab lives even if it’s largely artificial. People taking photos of their tropical vacation, Parisian jaunts. (mostly) They are not trying to show you the poetry of the sights but rather what they have that you don’t, where they are but you are not.We should all try to be the best version of ourselves but this is perversion of that concept, people putting forth an idealized, artificial version.

There is a company now where you can rent a private jet by the hour, it doesn’t go anywhere, it is for photo ops, so you can post photos of yourself chin on hand gazing out plane window or leaning back in plush leather seat champagne in hand smiling at the start of your adventure to nowhere.

The zeitgeist? Immediately pre pandemic a celebrity gave her boyfriend half a million dollars in cash, putting it up on social media. Putting aside whether the money was earned, in what way is any purpose served aside  from “look what I have”? (although Marie Antoinette didn’t actually say it, and the proper translation is brioche not cake) if ever there was a “Let them eat cake” moment that was it. Art should inspire. Even bad art can inspire as the viewer feels that they can make a better painting, write a better song etc. There is no discernible culture involved in any of this. For now we all live in self imposed exile and the “celebrity” peacock(ing) to some extent continues, albeit from living rooms and bedrooms.

My studio windows face a new building with the same color scheme as mine. People go out onto their little Juliet balconies to drink coffee and smoke. They are too far away to talk to but we have now all become part of each others daily lives via our mutual observation. I can chat while painting but I am also simultaneously absorbed into the process so I do not mind being a show for neighbors.

It will be interesting once we are all through this, to see whose values change.

Of course I have no idea of their web presence and its content but I have yet to see anyone leaning back against the railings of their balcony glass champagne in hand looking up, duckbill faced to raised phone, snapping a selfie.

One of them, i have noticed seems to have learned my easel working hours. We have a tacit understanding, I do not mind her watching and I do not ogle her when, on sunny days she walks around in the nude. We sealed our social contract with a series of casual waves.

I have started working big. I will not switch the usual scope of my pieces but I like the occasional challenge to keep things fresh. I slip a larger piece into my oeuvre now and then. I am still learning my preferred paper, trying a new one with each large piece.   I do have my method down and size too. The large pieces are all 22×30.

Regardless of size and subject of my piece, I seek to convey beauty from the real.

 

“Green Clogs” 22×30 Watercolor & Paper

 

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by Wayne Wolfson

M Shelter in Place

The building across the way from my *studio, I had used images of it in my last large collage. I knew to Wait for no one to be around as to not have my phone being pointed in that direction misconstrued.

When it is my painting hours I am now sometimes watched by others  from their Juliet balconies. At first it was just something for them to do while getting some air, cup or coffee or smoke in hand. After first week of this i know there developed some curiosity about what I was working on.

Now, when I finish a piece I turn it towards the window so that they may from their concrete and steel nests, see it.

I am currently working on a large 22×30 painting. I must go slower as its new paper to me and the weather has been wet. So far I am pleased with the results.

During tough times I think it important anyone capable of creating beauty to do so. Not as a means of distraction but rather a reminder of what we eventually will return to once the crisis is over (beauty/culture). It is the reaffirmation that as long as the night seems, there will eventually be a dawn.

Beauty & culture also serve as a reminder during a crisis of who we are, not merely people trying to survive but a small part of a greater whole.

*I have live/work studio and am not breaking quarantine

This piece is 9×12 Watercolor & Multi Media Paper.

 

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by Wayne Wolfson

Sabre Dahnce

The shock on their faces as she broke into her famous sabre dance, then after we ate kabobs while listening to the soft laughter of the rain hitting the streets and the murmuring of a phone left off the hook.WWolfson

9×12 Watercolor & Multi Media Paper

 

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by Wayne Wolfson

Face Witness

 “This, the face in the mirror” he waved his hands in a soft circle as if starting a magic trick or trying to grasp an intangible abstraction.

“Your pencil getting all this boy?” I eyed the  chessboard, but my hand was busy. The pencil glides. I always did.

W.Wolfson

 

9×12 Quick Sketch

 

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by Wayne Wolfson

New Companion

I can borrow a pen from a waitress to mark up a paper place mat or the nubbin of a pencil and some scrap paper and be satisfied doing my thing. The results need not be frame worthy or even worth saving (after seven years,  having moved my long term studio, I am now of the mind that i need not save every single foot, hand etc woodshedding sketch that I do). The pay off has become the process.

Although I no longer feel the need to save every bit of visual minutia that I birth, ego does demand it still look good, even knowing that  some of it is mere exercise destined for the barrel.

I like to challenge myself by trading off what equipment i use, even for mere woodshedding, every few days. The (proven to me at least) theory behind this is that, regardless of what equipment I have on hand, I will be able to make something worth while as I am not rigidly dependent upon specific things to create.

Even with my flexibility, I feel out of sorts and naked were I to leave home without at least my trusty pocket pad on hand. I travel with various amounts of equipment and sized paper, the specifics being dictated by location and length of stay.

The constant is always my pocket pad. Called “The Passport” on account of its size, it is from Midori. Before seeing one in person, there had been a huge push on some of the sites i interact with, especially Flicker. There were beautiful photos of these notebooks sitting on a well turned out desk next to some great fountain pens and other accoutrements. Or on a bedside table at the Ritz by a pocket watch, brass Art Deco key chain and cigar cutter.

In each case, the photos made me want not  just the notebook but most of the things in the photo.

I have no idea if they were the first to come up with it but Midori notebooks used The Midori system. They were refillable, and highly customizable. You could get all kinds of extra sleeves, charms, pockets and all kinds of other things not all of which are necessarily practical if, like me you are going to constantly be using it off and on throughout the day.

They come in two sizes, the traveler (6x 4.4x 0.09) and the passport  (3.86x 5.28). I got the passport. Upon initially looking at it, I was far from enamored. The paper it came with was too thin for sketching and was not easy to get at the time nor cheap for someone who could easily go through at least a pad a week sketching.

However, the system itself was clever. It was a leather square folded in half with a slit at the halfway mark. Going down this slit was a thin elastic permanently held in place by a lead disc which has become a recognizable part of the midori aesthetic.  There is also a smaller elastic loop pushed through one side of the cover held in place by a knot. This loops around the book to hold it closed. Midori offers these elastics in all kinds of colors now.

The center elastic slips over the center page of the book where the staples are. You can add as many books as you want by pressing covers back to back and putting standard elastic through the center page.

As much as I thought that the actual notebooks looked far nicer in the photos and the paper was not a good match for me, I did like the system. I made my own booklets to slip into the cover, usually grouping them together in threes.

Midori offered among other things, plastic zipper pouches. They are attached the same way as you would a booklet. I go three booklets with one zipper pouch containing a bunch of pencil blenders and tiny Blackingwing eraser along with one extra elastic in case one ever breaks.

No matter where I have been in the world, at the end of the day my Midori has been in my pocket or resting at night by my bedside table. It gives me an odd comfort but also inspiration.

I have large collection now of pocket pads and while the midori is not the nicest nor any longer the easiest (I have many now where pad slides into covers and also lays far flatter than the midori which forever wants to close even as I use it) I would feel strange not having it on me even were I to have another pad too.

The Place Maubert market in Paris. There are great kiosks selling all kinds of foods. The scents of spices and meats takes one away to places even further afield than being there. Also to be found are small tables selling everything from typical flea market junk , to shirts and pullovers in  Breton Sailor style. Wedged between tables of cheeses being kept fresh by straw and pastries made from honey and rosewater are artisan tables.

This year I met a man who handmade leather journals. He did it all using old school hand tools. The styles wildly varied, some of it clearly aimed at the tourists. Regardless of size, they all snapped shut and the blank pads slipped into the cover/holder. The paper it came with is surprisingly nice, blank booklets.

We chatted a little. I showed him my little Midori. He pinched the leather cover between thumb and index finger and while he maintained  politeness he also seemed to feel sorry for me. I fought the defensive urge to tell him of my large collection.

One part of his table was full of comparably sized notepad. Being handmade, they were surprisingly inexpensive. He threw an extra blank pad in my bag.

Although it is a different manner of holding the paper than my midori, I was able to use a similar trick, slipping elastic in middle, to have this new pad hold one of midori zipper pouches. Seemingly this gives me the best of both worlds but I do not see myself retiring the midori ever completely as he has been too good a friend, having seen everything without shock nor complaint.

 

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by Wayne Wolfson