ELISE RICHMAN

I am thrilled to feature Elise on this momentous day in history. Although she is no longer living in the DC area, Elise was once connected to DC when she was a graduate student at American University and for a short period there after. I recently met up with her in Seattle and was amazed how her work has evolved since we last showed together back in 2002 at The Warehouse in downtown DC. 

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Elise with Billy in her studio.

Born Seattle, WA

Elise currently lives and works in Tacoma, Washington. She is an Assistant Professor in art at the University of Puget Sound where a solo show of her new work just opened at the University's Kittredge Gallery entitled "The Island". www.ups.edu/x4542.xml

Inspired by her geography, Elise creates sculptural mixed media topographical paintings that evoke a time and place that is unique to the San Juan Islands which comprise the Seattle and 

Tacoma, Washington region. She writes in her statement "This series exlores the relationship between engaging in an artist process, evoking a sense of place, and expressing times passage."

 The Title Wall to "The Island" now on view at The Kettridge Gallery at the University of Puget Sound.

Elise:

"The process of stacking pieces of oil and acrylic paint, as well as scraping and thereby revealing underlying wax glazes, evokes geological phenomena that occur over the course of time. Each layered piece exhibits the history of its making, which acts as a layered metaphor for time's passage. Landscapes embody time just as psychological topographies bear the imprint of time passed through the course of generations." 

A close up detail of the layers and layers of dots.

 Some of the finished horizon works hanging and some in progress lying flat. 

 Please check Elise's website at www.eliserichman.com for more information on all her shows. Elise is also curating a show at the SOIL gallery in Seattle: www.soilart.org

PAT GOSLEE

Born San Diego, CA

After a long hiatus due to spring and summer craziness, I am happy to resume my posts with a studio visit I had this past spring with DC artist Pat Goslee. I was first introduced to her work back in 2002  and I was excited to see the transformation from the the textured encaustic pieces to now the layer upon layer of delicately painted forms oozing with tons of color on canvas and on gesso board. Combining water based oils with spray paint Pat talks about what makes her tick. You'll be able to see her paintings in person at three venues this fall including two solo shows. The first one at the McLean Project for the Arts www.mpaart.org opens on Sept. 11 and runs through October 25. The opening reception is on Thurs. Sept. 18 from 7 - 9 p.m. The second solo show will be at the District Center Arts Center (DCAC) in Adams Morgan www.dcartscenter.org.

See www.patgoslee.com for more details on these exhibits and her work. 

"I know only one thing, that I know nothing" -- Socrates

Pat:

"Some people can't tolerate this state. It requires a kind of intellectual courage in the face of questions for which there aren't easy answers. Questions that straddle the line between theoretical physics and philosophy. Questions about the nature of existence itself. 

At the same time, there's a freedom in the unknown. Freedom to operate through intuition, tapping into what Jung called the collective unconscious. "

"I never begin with an idea. Rather, I use what I call a shotgun method, working on lots of different paintings at the same time. Some days, I mix up only one color and apply that one color to 24 different paintings. Some days, I simply sit in my studio for a length of time. Because my studio is in my house, I can do this while brushing my teeth, in my underwear. The main focus of my current work is pattern, which I first came to through encaustics 11 years ago. At the time, I had been layering hot wax on top of various materials -- cheese cloth, mesh netting, etc. -- in order to build up surfaces to a sculptural level. Eventually, I put the wax aside. I just picked up some of the materials that I was using to build up the surfaces and I dipped those into paint and applied them directly to the canvas -- a kind of decalcomania, like Max Ernst used to do. In the layered patterns I created, I discovered a kind of infinity that was not just space, but energy. More and more people seem to be making this kind of work: Inga Frick, Carol Brown Goldberg. "

 Pat's garage, where she spray paints.  

Views of her works on paper hanging in her home and Pat talking about her work in her studio. 

"One thing that excites me is how pattern and layering represent how we store "stuff" (information, emotional bagage, awareness). What do we take in? What do we filter out? What layers need to be removed, or rearranged, in order to change? There's a lot of back and forth when I work. Foreground changes to back ground, and background pops in to foreground. I can get lost in the patterns, whether it's cutting stencils or just drawing with colored pencils on a painting on paper. "

Two paintings on paper hanging in her studio.

Showing me the kind of spray paint she uses.

A large painting on canvas titled "Charisma" which is on her website. 

Pat's desk.


 

Works in progress.

"The most important thing is to try and stay open. Knowing that I dont know, but letting knowledge flow through me. We are all energy conduits, blocked to a greater or lesser degree. My paintings are a way of visualizing that energy."

www.patgoslee.com

 

STEVE FROST

Born Northeast Vermont

Steve is a young mix media artist living and working in Washington D.C. His studio is a live work space which he shares with a few other people and his cat Fischer. He first moved to Washington in 2004 after finishing his undergrad at Alfred University. He now works as the Assistant Director of Admissions at the Corcoran School of Art. The mix media in his work is comprised of extensive sewing both by hand and with the machine, appropriation, transfer prints and paint.

Steve in his live work studio.

Examples of his pornography patches next to his sewing machine.


Why sewing? "I think a lot of it is to access a history of women in my family especially my mom. She wasn’t a seamstress or anything but she would just wing it and make something awesome.


“The way I describe this work is a ‘heritage without children’. Because when a gay man comes out of the closet it’s different than many other minority groups…it’s not like you’re born into a family of gays that raise you ‘gay’”. A lot of the ways you discover yourself is through media – so pornography is a kind of genre where you discover yourself or your community and it’s not just pornography, it’s through sex when you discover that you’re queer so that’s kind of where you start building your identity -- through your sense of sexuality. So it’s a really strange community with no real traditions…so I’ve started using these pornographic images in my work in a more subtle way to start talking about a history or a heritage and I use this badge symbol to imply a kind of family crest."


"I was using pornography verbatim and covering up the genital area---using the badges as symbol of censorship and suppression."








Above, some of hte badges he's working on and below, a large stash of badges that were discovered by a friend that were being thrown out.

His diverse scissors collection.... ....next to his jockey underwear art pieces.

The jockey underwear seems to be such an iconic symbol of being male which is what he was looking for. " I was looking for something that was singularly male".

The stairwell dons these two larger jockey pieces on canvas.



The view above his bed.


A recent piece above with stitching and Right, a photocopy transfer print.

I did a lot of prints…they’re photocopy transfers with charpak marker. “They’re really smelly. I did so much of theses and my roommates seriously had an intervention because the odor was killing them”.



Talking about the stitching in his work.


His T-Shirts for his upcoming project at the Ellipse Art Center.

Steve is currently working on a piece for the show “The Thread as the Line: Contemporary Sewn Art” at the Ellipse Art Center in Arlington, VA opening this May 1. "I’m going to be reupholstering the cushions with these t-shirts (above) I’m turning them into pillows which are going to be on a couch. I try to use fabrics that are from other things…they’re not bought per se….I feel like it has more history. This is why I started using fabric because it is more visceral." The t-shirts he's using for this project are his own screenprint creations.




Fischer getting comfortable on his ultra chic throne.

To see more of his work and his current showings go to his site: http://www.stevenfrost.com/

DING REN

Born: Wuhan, China

Ding is currently a first year graduate student at George Washington University. Before that she was the Program Director of the Washington Project for the Arts Corcoran (now Washington Project for the Arts). She grew up in Maryland and received her undergraduate degree at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Ding currently is a Fine Arts Fellow & Graduate Teaching Assistant at GW. She helps run the GW photo lab every week which is where she also creates her work and where our visit took place. Ding also writes and you can see her latest work by clicking on the links at the bottom of this post.




Ding in the darkroom talking about her projects.


Ding started out as a photography major in the GW program (see photos of the Cut Out Project below) but after having critiques that were not going in the direction she wanted, she began to veer into more performance and conceptually based projects where the focus was on the process and not the final product. Still using the cut out idea, she decided to take it a step further by doing a large scale installation in the hallway of her school. She counted how many tiles were on the floor, then cut out squares and lined the hallway with these cut outs. She hung the negative section on the walls and put the positive on floor. In the end she had cut 1200 squares.





The Cut Out Project seen installed in the landscape and afterwards collected and boxed up.



The amount of time to cut out these squares created a dilemma which transitioned to her “Replacement Performance Project”. She decided to hire someone to go to her class in order that she could do all the cutting herself.



“When they came in and sat as me, I was creating squares which enabled me to complete the project. I also wanted to bring in a fresh perspective into the critiques….it was the first time in the program where I felt really comfortable with what I was doing and it was interesting how one person could change the dynamic. There were some strong responses in regards to the privilege of being able to purchase labor.” But her response is that it’s the same as purchasing art supplies. “This brought up notions of affecting boundaries and what does it mean to be in the context of an art school, a sheltered environment, so I got interested in pushing that further.”



She also started exploring what she would present as “proof” of these events other than the photograph. This led to the signed and framed contract. Everything else from the performance would exist as a dialogue and in the memory of witnessing the performance.”




The Contract, one in the frames and another that I was about to sign.


This semester Ding was presented with a number of opportunities. In order to be able to do a number of outside projects in conjunction with her graduate work, she decided to combine them in to one performance called

“The Extracurricular Project”. She had me sign a very formal and seemingly legal contract akin to one a gallery may present to a new artist who is willing to make the commitment of being with them for a given time period.



“The contract basically stipulates that you, the client has requested that I participate in a project that you’re working on and that you’re allowing me to use this interview and the final product as part of my studio practice that is considered as a piece of art work. I will frame the signed contract and put it along side the final product of the client and in your case your blog”.



“I purposely try to make it formal”.


Another example of Ding’s transition from the photograph to the performance was her “Asian Tourist” performance. She happened to be at the Jefferson Memorial working on something else last spring, when a large group of Chinese tourists approached her to take their photograph. They spoke to her in Chinese and she responded back in Chinese.







Ding in the printing room showing the photographs from The Asian Tourist Project.



This sparked her interest in engaging with the stereotype of Asian tourists taking photographs of themselves posing in front of anything and everything and often times in large groups. “I’m Asian so why don’t I make art that is perpetuating the Asian stereotype of Asians taking photos? (Ding above showing photos of these events).



I went back to the Lincoln Memorial and approached Asian tourists that were photographing themselves and asked them if I could take their photograph as a group so no one was left out of the shot…. so I was extending a kind gesture…I wanted to document the process of me taking their photo and me handing the camera back…so that moment of contact was documented. I wanted it to be an ephemeral moment.” Not everyone accepted her offer, but most people did. She hopes to do it again this spring.



Ding in the Hallway connecting the darkroom to the printing room.


“I Wish I Had Thought of That” project evolved from doing research for a critical theory course. She found herself in awe of mainly conceptual artists and literally thinking to herself: “I wish I had thought of that”. Ding recreated pieces by Stefan Bruggemann: the ‘nothing boxes’; Yuken Teruya: taking designer shopping bags and cutting out an intricate tree into it, and Martin Creed: blowing up balloons (and in the end popping them one by one--see her website for the real time popping) and placing them all in one spot.





The popped balloons and now installed in a corner of her darkroom.


This month Ding has two pieces of writing published:one can be read online here:

http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?issueID=58&sectionID=4&articleID=891

and is also in the print version of Urbanite March issue. Urbanite isan arts & culture magazine based in Baltimore.Another is an essay on the constraints of language and experience for Locus 4 (an arts publication that her friends from UMBC started)http://locusartmagazine.org/

You can't read this online, but she’s about to post it on her website at www.dingren.net where you can also contact her directly.

BRIDGET SUE LAMBERT

Bridget has been showing her photographs in the DC area since 1994. She lives in a combined live/work space in the Logan Circle neighborhood of Washington, DC. This is where I met her on one of the coldest days in January.

Her prints include tiny plastic train set figurines which explore relationships. (check out how tiny they are, above!)

“They’ve always been a little bit about relationships—trying to make light of relationships. The titles I get from self help books. I don’t really read them myself, but they have really funny titles. The first one I was looking at my roommate’s brother wanted her to get married and sent her a book called Ten Steps To Finding The Man Of Your Dreams…This one (referring to the image with a woman in red) is “Make a Thorough Assessment”…I try to make the titles funny.”

BRIDGET SUE LAMBERT

Referring to interior shots of the dollhouse:
“These were for her solo show at Hilyer called “It’s Not You, It’s Me”(last year). It’s about the aftermath when someone leaves. These are from the dollhouse my grandfather made for me when I was a little girl. He made all the furniture too. I thought about using the dollhouse again. I hadn’t seen my dollhouse in ten years…so I decided to start taking pictures setting up the spaces where there were leaving clues that people existed in them but without the figurines”.