regulation pixley brown

Maiden Firing

2012-01-15T20:09:00.000-05:00

I have been itching for weeks to get the kiln setup finalized and fire it up. Waking up in the middle of the night to plot how I should create my molds. Waking up early in the morning to plot some more. My partner has become used to waking by the sheer intensity of my brain waves and adept at mumbling, "Still planning the project?" and falling promptly back asleep while my jittery brain rattles on. So goes solo show planning and kiln schedules.

Had a nice morning yesterday opening my studio up to the Cincinnati Art Museum's docents. About ten of them came on a very bitter cold morning while I showed them some prototypes, video and paper pieces and talked about my process and influences. Afterward, I ran home to check on the kiln at process temperature, and all seemed right in the kiln (and therefore the world). Worked the rest of the day and then had a lovely dinner at a local Korean restaurant and off to my belated birthday present: tickets to see The Civil Wars at the Madison Theater across the river. They are kind of gothic folk/alt country- great show!

Melting out the wax... Not quite as simple as I thought. I think I ruined the wallpaper steamer. Don't tell Eric.

The Civil Wars. Awesome. I felt old going to a show and then home before midnight. When did this happen???

Two glass casts right after I broke off the mold material.

Next up: making a clay shim and a latex mold for single antler #2.

DC & NYC

2012-01-04T21:11:00.001-05:00

Just returned from a week-long stint on the east coast, first to DC for a family Christmas, and then up to NYC for a brief visit to see some shows. We had a great time seeing my family and visiting the National Gallery of Art and the Hirshhorn museum with our friends, Maggie and Tim (and delicious pizza and wine too!). We survived hosting Christmas Dinner for 18 people- thank god that's over- and seeing a Russian theater troupe put on Romeo and Juliet without words. Both were excellent- the beef tenderloin turned out perfect, as did the only slightly goth interpretation of R&J.

Our trip to NYC was mostly uneventful on the megabus- stayed at a cute little hotel in Chelsea and I got to view the de Kooning exhibit a second time. The crowds were insane, though, I wouldn't go up there at that time again. Also went to the Met and saw many of their wonders there.

Bubbles....sigh.

2011-12-23T15:27:00.001-05:00

After scrapping two plaster molds, I've worked on two more that will seem to work. Never seen so many air bubbles in the plaster though- not sure if it's the plaster or the water, but I've never had this much trouble. I'll have to do some research...

wax birds

2011-12-15T16:41:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is the last day of teaching before I begin break and....
Teach a class at the CAC
Complete the final install of my kiln in its new home
Cast a few more wax birds and antlers
Make some molds
Cast my birds and antlers in glass
Go to DC and host Christmas dinner for 18 at my mom's house (a first for me)
Go to NYC with my dude
Back to Cincinnati
StudioStudioStudio
Back to teaching

I am really excited to be playing with paper again, changing up the shape and the color and adding a thick layer of clear acrylic seems to really change them from what they were before.

I found some terrific finds for casting at an antique store last weekend....

Crashing Headlong into Winter

2011-12-05T20:20:00.001-05:00

Busy days filled with too many work distractions, but I was able to order my new kiln, a Paragon, which is now sitting in the basement, awaiting it's new concrete pad. Here it is when it arrived shortly after it was unloaded from the tractor trailer.

I took my brother-in-law's advice and called my local taxidermist to see about borrowing some antlers. The taxidermist was very nice and I was able to borrow a small pair for a few weeks. Here is a very sloppy urethane mold before I created the mother mold.

Here is the successful wax casting! I'm ready to make several more, and I'll make some new molds for the kiln, and cast them in glass.....

Here is the collection pile of some of the elements going into my new wall-based piece which will.. fingers crossed.. be ready for a show in a few months.

Back to the blog

2011-10-30T20:11:00.000-04:00

I briefly left this format to try at wordpress. All my traffic died! So, I'm back, and luckily my blog information was still intact.
Here are a few things that have happened since July:
Lake Michigan/Cottage time
Teaching
New Work !!!
Kiln is ordered
Nominated for Corning Incorporated Award
Presented in NYC for my Surdna Fellowship
New Public Bike- it's orange!
1 year anniversary with my amazing partner

Here are some pictures of things I'm working on/ have recently done

view from my swank hotel during my fellowship presentation

video and glass work

projector light and glass mirrors

Un-edited papercut stop animations

2011-07-18T02:04:00.001-04:00

My first two attempts and stop animation- pretty basic! Here are two versions I'm working on- they are not edited and once they are they will be viewed in a small MP4 player beneath my glass cast mirror.

Pilchuck: Week Two

2011-07-18T01:59:00.000-04:00

This place is still crazy-hectic! We got our work out of the kiln, my piece should have had more annealing time, and it cracked across the handle. Hopefully, my second mirror will fair better. I've been working on cold working- mostly engraving, and also working on my paper cut animations. Also my second sculpture and a small pate de verre. See? HECTIC.
We had a great student/staff auction (silent and live) and I put my rayzist etched plate in and pledged an intaglio print and got some bids. THEN, I bid and one an editioned Bruce Mau embossment!!!! He and Catherine Chalmers are our AIR's here this session, and I'm super excited to have one. Below are some pictures from the past week.

Pictures of the second mirror positive and it's mold being cast

First mirror ready to be pulled from the kiln- a little spillage on the side right near where it cracked.

Packing my mirror with frit and soda lime billet chunks.

One of the prints by Bruce Mau!

Student/ Staff live auction with a costume dance party after.

Using grit on my mirror and polishing it by hand with a smaller, harder piece of glass.

My roommate bid on a personal rainbow and now I sleep beneath one.

The set up of my animation on the light table.

Pilchuck: Week One

2011-07-12T02:44:00.000-04:00

Whew! This place is sooo hectic! I arrived at Pilchuck Glass School a week ago and have been working non-stop. So much so, that I haven't posted any photos yet much less had a chance to enjoy the stunning scenery. Getting off the plane and seeing this hulking mountain in the distance, Mt. Rainier, was awe inspiring. Photos with the iphone just can't capture the scale.
Pilchuck and my class on glass casting and animation are amazing! It is inspiring to be here and I'm really excited about everything I'm learning- it made me realize that although I *feel* like I'm learning all the time, I really need a intensive training course to push me forward. So my next mission is to find out how I can hang out here next summer and every summer after..... Here are some photos of the surrounding landscape-- they are almost all sunrise and sunset- the two times I'm likely to be on my way to a meal or on a run.... The other pictures are from what I'm working on.

View from the top of Mt. Pilchuck during a lunchtime run. Pilchuck Glass School is in the middle of Pilchuck tree farm, so there is visible evidence of the cutting which is done when the tree are about 40 years old (although some stumps I saw were as big as cars, so...)

View of Puget Sound from the back of the Lodge/Dining Room at Pilchuck at dusk.

View of Puget Sound over the Cold Shop at sunset.

This is my mirror that I am sculpting in clay- it will be cast in glass and a mini LCD screen and my video will be attached to the back and visible through the front of the mirror.

My plaster/silica mold in the process of being cleaned out and ready for casting.

Filling the clean mold with glass chunks and setting it up in the kiln.

Work station still life with complimentary post-Pilchuck party hangover.

Tacoma Museum of art on our "day off"

Using plate glass to construct a small glass form and learning to engrave.

Engraving set up in the Cold Shop

Engraving of trees seen sideways. Hours of work.

Return from the Wild: Thank you Hambidge and the NEA

2011-06-13T10:46:00.001-04:00

I made it back from Georgia, it was an incredible experience and I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts and Hambidge for awarding me a New Artist Initiative grant for my residency. I met some wonderful artists and Hambidge is a beautiful place.

Next up: I will be working in my studio preparing for my three-week glass workshop at Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, WA! Thanks to supporting grants from the Surdna Foundation and Cincinnati Public Schools extended study program.

Last days at Hambidge

2011-06-11T15:20:00.001-04:00

I finally feel like I am making some changes, taking steps, etc. It's exciting! Ready for some serious studio time this week in Cincinnati. So I tried a totally new tactic and photographed my progress as I worked this morning. It looks pretty cool when you flip through them quickly, so I might play around and animate them. I feel like I got to a good point half way through and then started losing it. But, I'll keep plugging away this afternoon.

This is pretty different (and yet not different at all) from what I have been doing content-wise and process-wise. I'm excited! I have plans for my poison ivy tree (more on that later) too.

Bees and Worker Bees

2011-06-07T11:17:00.002-04:00

I was on my morning walk and run and went into the meadow to check out the bee hives. 31 bee hives! It is another beautiful day in the Gap. Saw some hawks and a couple of deer, too.

I worked late last night on my new paper cut piece- as much as I love tar paper, railroad paper will work a lot better. Tar paper is too floppy, but I love the way it's surface eats light. Working on poison ivy garlands today.....

Hambidge

2011-06-06T19:57:00.000-04:00

I am about a week into my residency, feeling pretty settled, but would like to be doing more work. I have been taking these amazing walks/runs in the morning- haven't come across any bear, but have been assaulted daily by bugs whose sole purpose is to nestle against my eyeballs. I don't really get that, but there it is. Shh!!! Don't tell the mosquitos about this part of Georgia!!! They seem to not have found it yet!

On my walk, there was a wonderful stream that had a swimming hole and this lovely little spring house- I think I would like to live in it like some old witch....

Took some more lovely pictures of the mountains before I headed back to my studio to bake my plaster molds a bit more and work on some new ideas....

I know, I know- every time I see a paper cut out of human form, I think about Kara Walker-- doesn't she basically own the intellectual property known as "the silhouette"? Well, whatever. I'm working through a thang. Hopefully it will not lead to the antebellum south (although I am in Georgia)...... Loving it here, wish I could stay longer.....

Hambidge!

2011-06-02T12:23:00.002-04:00

I'm at my residency at the Hambidge Center in Georgia! It is just over the North Carolina border. Had a wonderful weekend in Knoxville and Asheville with my husband and in-laws before that. Saw some great art and eric bought some amazing ceramic work from an artist and banjoist named Akira Satake. After we bought the work from him, I looked him up and saw that he had a workshop at Hambidge this summer! Small world.

I know the large crack in my windscreen is distracting, but I was following a trio of Brad Paisley trucks. Of course, this particular pass in the mountains is not a great place to try and snap a picture, and an even worse place to be stuck with three eighteen wheelers.....

This is the main building in Hambidge (named Lucinda's Rock House) where we drink wine and are served southern delicacies for dinner- (last night it was the most beautiful and tasty selections of okra, biscuits, black eyed pea cakes and tomatoes with baked peaches for dessert). Both well deserved after long, hot studio days (of which I've only had two, so I'm really thinking I'll be more deserving in a week or so....)

Inside the rock house. Totally lovely!

This is an example of one of the too-cute studio cabins.

Porch on too-cute cabin.

What my studio lacks in exterior cuteness in makes up in sheer interior space. Let's hope the bears don't want to share my space.

Hello, Brena studio!

Getting ready....

2011-04-25T20:50:00.003-04:00

So, I'm getting ready for a big shift in work combined with a serious work explosion in the next few months. It seems scary to start, but I think once I'm into it, I'll be fine. Well, once I'm into it!

I attended this conference about conserving video works like Nam June Paik's-- specifically Cinci-mix. It was really fascinating to learn more about the history of art in my adopted city and how artists and gallerists like Mark Patsfall and Carl Solway played such an integral part in the creation, production and exhibition of Paik's work. I also went because of the video sculpture exhibit that my friend Aaron Cowan was putting together.

The exhibit Aaron helped put together, Video Sculpture was really great and really helped me put my research in perspective as to what I want to make and how I want to make it. Two artists that really stood out to me are Amy Jenkins and Annie Strader. Both of these artists worked in ways that I find intriguing, and it was exciting to see some of the ideas that I like about sculpture, installation, video and sound being done in a really, really successful way. Annie Strader was even gracious enough to answer a (very basic, I realized shortly after I sent an email) question about her work which just reinforces my appreciation of my fellow artists, thanks Annie!!

I bought a used camera on Amazon-- a cute-as-a-button Canon Vixia, and I'm just starting to use it. now I need to lockdown a copy of Final Cut Pro (can i put that on my laptop, or does it need too much RAM- anyone?) and I will be set. I can't wait to get to Georgia and start filming and then start putting them together with mirrors, my sound piece and the glass pieces I expect to cast later this summer at Pilchuck.

Fellowships, Residencies and Workshops (oh my!)

2011-04-15T10:01:00.004-04:00

I will be at Hambidge in Rabun Gap, GA this June! I have been awarded a New Artist Initiative fellowship (from the NEA!) through Hambidge to work there for a few weeks in the mountains of North Georgia. I am particularly excited about this because most of my summers growing up were spent very near there in Lake Toxaway, North Carolina. This part of the world is one of my favorites and feels like home.

In July I will be at Pilchuck Glass School north of Seattle, Washington! I was awarded another fellowship that will support my studio practice this summer and fall as well as taking a glass casting class at Pilchuck for three weeks in July. I've never been to the Pacific Northwest, and am very excited to be in two different mountain ranges this summer!

Studio Update.... New Video "Moon"

2011-02-27T15:59:00.002-05:00

Studio Update

2011-01-16T20:37:00.004-05:00

New Studio Digs!

2011-01-09T23:28:00.002-05:00

So happy to be in a new studio! Spent the New Year holiday painting the walls and floors and installing lights. It's starting to look good. Now I need to get to work.

Still waiting for my January/Feb issue of Sculpture Magazine.... Of all the issues to go missing in the mail...

Sculpture Magazine review of "Nightfall"

2010-12-21T16:24:00.002-05:00

http://online.qmags.com/SM0111Sculpture Magazine January/February 2011
On p. 77-78, Jane Durrell reviewed the work in "Nightfall" exhibited at the Weston Art Gallery in December 2009- February 2010

Studio Visit Magazine has arrived!!

2010-08-26T17:22:00.001-04:00

Northside House images

2010-08-26T17:16:00.000-04:00

Ragdale Work

2010-06-29T08:04:00.001-04:00

Ragdale Foundation

2010-06-29T08:01:00.000-04:00

What an incredible place this is! I have just a day left at Ragdale, and am finalizing work, packing my studio, and documenting as well as I can with an iphone at 6:30 am. My studio (huge, amazing) is set next to a beautiful planned garden on the estate of Ragdale, an arts and crafts style house designed in the early 1900's by Howard Van Doren Shaw. His daughter Sylvia Shaw Judson, designed the "bird girl" scukpture that graced the cover of the book "In the Garden of Good and Evil"

New things

2010-05-11T23:21:00.001-04:00

So much great stuff is happening! Teaching is almost done for the year, and I have lots of great summer plans coming up. I was accepted for two summer residencies, one at the Ragdale Foundation and one to Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. I was at VCCA two summers ago and had a great experience and met many amazing artists, writers and composers. I can't wait! At Ragdale, there is an amazing studio in a Meadow that I am hoping is bestowed upon me....Fingers crossed.

I am also planning a trip with my family to the Lake District in England for a week- there have been some new additions to the British side of the family, so it will be nice to spend some quality time in such an idyllic setting. When I was there last, I was able to go to John Ruskin's home, Brantwood, which was one of my favorite parts of the trip, hope we can do it again!

And lastly, some more art updates, my exhibition, "Nightfall", is getting reviewed in a forthcoming issue of Sculpture Magazine! I'm pretty excited about that! I am also featured in the Summer 2010 issue of Studio Visit Magazine, which should be out in a month or so.

And finally, my website has been updated and looks great! Check it out!

Three Cool Things...

2010-02-19T19:46:00.000-05:00

My work has been selected by Dina Deitsch of deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum to be included in the summer 2010 edition of Studio Visit Magazine

I will be one of 20 Artists/20 Years in the exhibition at the Art Academy of Cincinnati featuring artists from twenty years of Cincinnati Arts Grants Recipients.
RIP, Cincinnati Arts Grants.

And last, but certainly not least, Mary Lenning of the School for Creative and Performing Arts is having her playwriting students write monologues in my Nightfall installation space at the Weston Art Museum next week. I can't wait to hear what they've written!

Pictures of Nightfall

2010-01-13T19:07:00.000-05:00

check it!

2010-01-06T19:21:00.003-05:00

Points of Departure

Three artists wonder as they wander in their work

By Matt Morris

.......

The three recently-opened exhibitions at downtown’s Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts couldn’t be more different, with Rick Mallette, Alice Pixley Young and Steve Zieverink each boasting their own flair.

Rick Mallette originates from Saginaw, Mich., and earned his BFA from Western Michigan University. He earned his Master’s in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he stayed on as a teacher until moving to Cincinnati in 2002.

His 21 paintings all depict grotesque, tragicomic faces alongside a vast wall drawing filled with nervously doodled cartoons.

A list of pan-cultural associations is seemingly suggested by his work — the images especially resemble the faces of spirits and demons as depicted on ancient Mongolian and Tibetan artifacts. But they could as easily evoke Mayan and Incan iconography, gargoyles or Italian Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s fanciful portraits of faces constructed from fruits and vegetables.

In other words, these soupy, sticky, colorful works feel elaborately informed by art history. The confectionary “Split” is smeared with wide, horizontal strokes and built-up layers that demonstrate the painter’s fidgeting search for a stopping point. “Green Teeth, One Eye” is the most vibratory, with roiling areas of knifed-on paint shoved into a generally facial configuration.

Mallette’s requirement for a subject onto which he can anchor his luscious paint adventures is not unlike that of Pierre Bonnard, another nearly abstract painter who used his wife, kitchen or cat as points of departure. (Incidentally, they both use fiercely acidic violet in small, well-considered places.) Mallette’s playful, gummy paintings are a sufficient cushion between two installations that couldn’t be further apart in concept.

Alice Pixley Young is a well-established force in the local art community; she is currently an instructor at the School for Creative and Performing Arts. Young’s Night Fall brings folk tales and horror films to mind (especially in the darkly lit, wrecked children’s bedroom that concludes the exhibition). Her artist statement’s reference to Carl Jung’s term “Hell Descent” is terribly appropriate.

While the exhibition begins brightly with silver-tape hexagons and burnished metal birds flashing across blue walls, night certainly does fall in a twilit space with a Alice Pixley Young’s Night Fall stylized felt, cardboard and Astroturf forest along the back wall.

The disorder of a nightmare and the dark beauty and intimacy of fairytales ensconce a central collision between Young’s focus on patterns of all sorts and her more literary, narrative-driven tableau. Geometric patterns painted directly on walls and paper lanterns sewn together with red thread foreshadow the haphazard quilt and upturned bed of the final installation. She has collapsed the various meanings of the word “pattern” in her investigations, making use of both pattern-as-instruction and pattern-as-repeated motifs.

In contrast to Young’s flight of fancy, Chicago artist and Unit 2 Art Collective member Steve Zieverink’s installation in the upstairs gallery is an educational experience through which he offers prescriptions for simpler living and information about the environmental crises along the coasts of Alaska.

To fully utilize Zieverink’s experimental classroom requires time, reading and listening. Those who look only to Zieverink’s aesthetics will find an environment like those of Conceptual artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. Central to his installation is a Living Station — a rugged self-sufficient shelter that he hopes to relocate to the outdoors after the exhibition. Inside and out, Zieverink provides reading materials, a documentary, a listening station and a table of preparatory work that preceded the barn he built.

These three exhibitions continue at the WESTON ART GALLERY (650 Walnut St., Downtown) through Feb. 28. A lecture and film screenings curated by artist Steve Zieverink occur Saturday at 7 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public. Visit www.westongallery.comfor information about upcoming artist talks.

more NIGHTFALL

2010-01-04T20:18:00.000-05:00

This is the finished Hex Wall. I'm waiting for professional pictures before I delve into the other two spaces....

Cloud Wall and Migration Wall

Some of the little Hex paintings....

Light box image from the "Nightfall" installation.... This lightbox is in a dresser drawer.

sneak peeks

2009-12-16T10:04:00.000-05:00

Here is a sneak peek at one of the walls for my show "Nightfall" at the Weston Art Gallery which opens this Friday.....

cutting, burning, dyeing

2009-12-07T17:56:00.000-05:00

cut metal birds ready for install (Kate Schmidt cut these for me!)

hexagons being burned, painted and taped

cut paper out of the dye bath

laser cut done!!

2009-11-12T21:31:00.001-05:00

Finished! This is one of eight to be installed at the Weston Art Gallery this December! This is a bad night-time studio shot against plywood, the wool's color is a really creamy white and is 47" x 47". Can't wait to see them all up!

Hexed

2009-11-11T16:27:00.000-05:00

Here are some more-- trying to keep it simple.... I always tend towards over-decoration. Or "ornamation" as an architecture boat tour guide in Chicago liked to say. Not a word, as far as I know!

The one that got away (below).... this is what happened when I got a little crazy with the art nouveau patterns... I end up with a coaster instead of an artwork.

cuts and burns

2009-11-09T11:38:00.004-05:00

Here is a test piece for my laser cutting project that will be at the Weston Art Gallery next month (December 18-the end of February). This industrial felt is such a gorgeous material-- and stinks like burnt hair when they cut it with the laser cutter.....

Some other cut pieces I'm working on-- very rough stage here! using imagery and stencils from some of my own patterns and then also a mixture of early 20th century textile designs.

Still working on this layered series on mylar..... Two pieces (below) were auctioned off at the Semantics Gallery Auction a couple of months ago....