while I wait for Julie Karabenick to get back to me about Geoform, her curatorial project, I’m going to talk about two blogs I like. Both are by artists. One is a personal account of the everyday life of an artist in words and images; the other is motivated by community-based thinking. Everything about these blogs is in counterpoint: opposite sides of the country, personal and community, estrogen and testosterone--is that “Ebony and Ivory” I hear playing in the background?—but reading both gives you a rich picture of what it’s like to see out of artists’ eyes, to live an artist's life.
Daniella plays with her food. This is what she does with borscht. You should see the geometry she gets out of swiss cheese on a plate
Daniella Woolf, writing as Dotty Stripes, posts from Santa Cruz and other West Coast locations. In her blog titled Encausticopolis (City of Wax), she connects her dots in a personal and particularly engaging way. And dig her pix; the woman has a great eye for the sublime (and occasionally, the ridiculous). You can see her painting at www.daniellawoolf.com
writing his Romanblog from Philly, has been capturing much of his hometown creative energy on short videos showing artists in their studios. He also reports from the exhibition front. Someone give this man a huge grant to fund this work! Vince is a fine painter in his own right as well, as you can see from the work here:
Vincent Romaniello: Red and White Grid, 66 x 72 inches, mixed mediums on canvas, 2006
And while we’re talking about blogs, there’s another great blog coming out of Philly: Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof’s blog.Writing together or alternately, they cover the Philly scene in a way that other cities should be so lucky to be covered. Roberta is also the critic for Philadelphia Weekly. Both she and Libby are artists themselves, so the blog, like Vince’s, is an act of generosity as much as creativity. Waiter, we’ll have another grant, here.
Of course there are no degrees of separation between us. I have worked with Daniella on various personal projects and wrote about her work in an essay, “The Medium is the Message: Tracing the Arc Between Fiber and Wax" . Vince and I have shown together in two exhibitions curated by Julie Karabenick, whose Geoform, I will write about soon. Vince’s blog is listed on Dotty Stripes’s blog. Vince videotaped the opening of the the Order(ed) show in Philly that Julie Karabenick curated at Gallery Siano, the catalog for which Roberta wrote an essay, and Libby wrote about in their blog, and that Vince and I both participated in.
Here's Vince (center) and me (right) hanging together at the Order(ed) show in Philadelphia. Tim McFarlane is on the left. Below: an installation composite of the show, taken by Rick Barnhart, one of the artists
Here's a full-on view of my painting, visible above obliquely and in the far distance, respectively:
Joanne Mattera: Uttar 135, encaustic on panel, 36 x 36 inches, 2002-2005
You say incestuous. I say interconnected. This kind of relatedness has always existed between and among artists, but the Internet has made it possible to a degree never before imagined. We are all the better off for it.
Speaking of Internet interconnectedness, just a reminder: Head on over to the blog I write with my Oakland buddy, Chris Ashley, Two Artists Talking. We’re just getting started, so take a look and then revisit when the mood strikes. As we get up to speed, we’ll be posting a couple of times a week.
Next posting, more interconnectedness: A little chat with Julie Karabenik, painter and curator, plus pictures and links.
