Watercolors

Dearest Internet,

I've been working diligently on these sweet little watercolors for a couple months.  Each is small and framed to a the size of 8" x 10"  I will have a show at the Indie Artist Colony in Indianapolis in the month of October.  As well, several Skull Tree paintings at Orchard Gallery in October for their Halloween Show.  I've also applied to a couple small works juried shows on the east coast at Arch Enemy gallery and Maryland Federation of Art.

Enjoy!

Abraham Lincoln Watercolor

"Whatever you are, be a good one."

Watercolors

More Watercolors

New Watercolors

Nigh the end.

Hello, fellow interneters.

Ok, maybe life is a big circle and there is no beginning nor end.  However, the end of my academic/student career at USF is close.  Yesterday I presented my thesis to a hollering panel of three and demonstrated my prowess with a power point presentation.  It was all pretty anti-climatic.

My thesis show opens on June 15 at USF in the Ian and Mimi Rolland School of Creative Arts building.  Everyone is invited, even Ian and Mimi.  As soon as the show opens my diploma will be activated and I will become a magical master of arts.

Now for a picture:

   

This watercolor was originally going to be an oil painting.  But due to the raw state of my nervous system and sake of time, the oil painting was abandoned and I made this nifty watercolor instead.

As promised, my thesis will be on public viewing on the contact page of my website.  You can link to it here.  This paper is very revealing.  It speaks to my life and my art making and how I arrived at this moment in time.  There are many topics touched upon in this thesis, each them could have their own thesis written about them (and perhaps they will). However, the paper is a good survey of my life as an artist.

Q: "What are you going to do next?" A:  "10 years of indentured servitude to the public."  There is a nifty program the government has in place that forgives student loans after 10 years if you work in public service.  For example: a tax exempt non profit may qualify, such as Artlink.  (Deb is a little too excited about this.)  I hope to YHWH I am able to bust this popsicle stand before the end of my 10 years, but who knows.  I will be 40 years old and Ezra will be 15.  

On Being a Woman Artist.

I was invited to participate in a "Woman's Work" exhibition that opens next weekend in Roanoke at Katharos Art.  They asked me to write a paragraph about what it means for me to be a woman artist.  I hope they don't regret that decision. Hah!  I'm posting the piece and paragraph(s) here.  Enjoy!

On being a woman artist:

“We believe that feminism is a transformative philosophy that embraces the amelioration of life on earth for all life-forms, for all natural entities.  We believe that all oppressions are interconnected: no one creature will be free until all are free—from abuse, degradation, exploitation, pollution, and commercialization.”  --Josephine Donovan & Carol J. Adams in Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations

As a professional woman and artist, I am thankful for all the women that came before me and worked to bring the issues of women into the national dialogue.  That being said, I am not interested in being known as a “woman artist” and I have only the ladies who fought for feminism to thank for that.  I wish for my work to be viewed as good art, nothing more or less.  I feel privileged that gender does not need to be considered in the evaluation of my work, nor should it be for any other artist working day to day.  I believe that Feminism stretches far beyond women in general.  Feminism needs to fight for all creatures that are oppressed, as the highlighted quote from Josephine Donovan and Carol Adams expresses. 

There is still a bitch or two left in the fight for the rights of women and I am happy to be one of them.  Though we have been gaining ground, there is no time for rest.  The level of power our birth right affords us is dangerous.  I think this same danger is posed to women of my generation: what will we do with the power and comfort we did not earn? I believe we need to continue to work for the rights of all creatures, regardless of gender or species. 

And with that: a few lines of the poem “Song” by Edward Hirsch: “Listen, this song is for you even if you can’t listen to it or join in, even if you don’t have lungs, even if you don’t know what a song is or want to know.  This song is for everyone who is not listening tonight and refuses to sing.  Not singing is also an act of devotion.  Those who have no voices have one tongue.”  

Self Construction @ FWMA

I've got a few pieces up at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art now through August 22.  If you're in the area, go check it out!  Other artists include: Audrey Riley, Amanda Elizabeth Joseph, Alethea Gerardot, Emma Downs, and Holly Hardin-Clabaugh.

Here is an info link: Self Construction

I think guest curator, Dan Swartz, did a lovely job of writing about my work.  Here is what he had to say:

"Rebecca Stockert's highly intimate and symbolic portraits are simplified versions of the basic building blocks the personal traits in the people around her.  Stockert's conceptual practice his partially a response to her recently acquired identity as a mother.  Additionally, it has a base in these few simple tenants:
-People are the most important things.
-We are based on socialization.
-Socialization is expressed in our images.
By using these tenants, Stockert avoids the distinction between portrait and self-portrait; to her, they are both just reflections of humanity through the artist's eyes.  Each image evokes the universal human feeling of being an innately social creature, yet paradoxically finding oneself in an experience of isolation."

Bust A Move

sobald ich geboren war

Firefly mural est finis! For now.  This is the beginning of a long, intimate relationship with me and a wall...

...and a mixed piece.  Watercolor, ink, collage, and wax on Masonite.  If I were Bob Ross I would call it "a happy accident," but since I am not it's called a fuck up that somehow turned out to be a really cool piece.

tomorrow I will pay*

*in reference to 5 hours from now when the alarm clock sounds, not my credit cards (but the same applies)

existential freakouts

Hello, friends and comrades!
A couple new paintings, larger ones based on the myriad of smaller ones I've been working on.  They were a bit painful to create because they took so long, but I powered through. :) Actually, they both only took a day or two to create, but when a person is used to finishing a work in an hour...
I've decided to pursue a M.A. at Saint Francis.  A tricky decision...but, it is a step in the direction and now I am super excited about getting back in a group studio and under the direction of seasoned artists.  So, now I must produce.  My summer will be dedicated to learning screen printing and beefing up my portfolio.  Not a bad way to spend a summer.

Snap Crackle Pop

the vulgar mind ++

I've started working on the monsters again.  They had a near death experience but made it out alive.  Here are a few that I have drawn out, ready to paint!

They are drawn on wood in ink.  Gotta love the vulgarity.  There is something intimate and unassuming about them that is very attractive to me (and apparently to others, as well).  Many of these contain words or fragments of sentences. They are all things that I have heard come from the mouths of my friends that have stuck with me.

This is a piece I made last spring that I found in a file.  One of the new pieces are based on it (below).  It makes so much sense now.

A larger piece.  My friend, Daniel, wrote this to me in an email several years ago and it has since surfaced in several of my pieces.  Love it.

again with the nudes

Tonight's Artlink drawing session totally schooled me, however, I will post for the sake of accountability. :)



I couldn't draw the lady's face because she was looking directly at me in every pose and each time I tried to draw her head her eyes were fluttering around like she wasn't trying to make eye contact with me and it freaked me out. So. No faces.

I really liked the pose below. I wish I would have had more time to work on it. The leg on the right was really great. However, I didn't have quite enough time to finish it.



And, more with the feet.



A couple pieces for the show at Old Crown for Haiti Aid. In the same style as the Orchard Gallery boxes. I am really tiring of this style, but the masses keep demanding it and I, being the machine, keep producing it.

Pickin up

Things have picked up a bit since my last post. Not quite the Negative Nancy I was. :)

Here is the start of a self-portrait. I sanded and painted over a triptych I did shortly after Ezra was born that have been hanging around. I really loved the pieces, but it was time for them to go. To be reborn.



And, I scrapped the boxes I did first for the Artful Box at Orchard Gallery. This is my newest creation and all the boxes will follow suit in this style. I got the idea to paint watercolor over collage from Oliver Jeffers, he's a childrens book illustrator. While this is not a new idea, I liked the way he worked it and it caught me. I randomly saw one of his books at Ezra's day care when I was picking him up the other day. www.oliverjeffers.com

Winter Blahs

I don't recall ever getting winter depression. However, I fear I have fallen victim to it this season. The days are too short. Today, when I stepped outside my door I felt myself recoil and get instantly pissed off. Yuck. This too shall pass.

My succulent cuttings seem to have no problem with the winter. Here they are in all their glory, the survivors, anyhow. A customer at the Firefly works for the Botanical Conservatory and brought me a bunch of random leaflets. About 1/2 of them (shown here) have rooted. Hooray!



A random photo of some old stencils. Since I haven't blogged in so damned long, here's a little extra for you rascals who read this shit. :)



Below are a couple shots of a painting I've been working on for Jean. I really loved the way the oil looked next to the ink under-drawing.





I've been invited to participate in the Orchard Gallery's "The Artful Box" in March. Below is the third box I've started. The first two are being scrapped and can be seen in the background. I've got this crazy thing in my head about brown and complimenting it with pink, teal, orange, yellow, etc. So far it hasn't worked out so well. The first two were done in oil and the medium did not look very good on the boxes. The third is watercolor. I can dig it so far.



And last, but certainly not least, are some sketches from tonight's drawing session at Artlink. I am really happy with the hands below. Hands are a bitch to draw! So, for one of the sessions I focused only on the hands and feet. This pose was perfect because the model was bent over with his hands above his feet. Time ran out just as I was getting to the feet. This sketch turned out pretty well.






Ah, ran out of time for the penis. Dang. That's a pretty nice leg, though.