Open Studio 11/2016 (Documentation)

Open Studio June 2014

Featured Work: "Volume" 

       16 panels varied dimensions
       exhibitions: Honfleur Gallery, WDC November - December, 2014
                        New Door Creative, Baltimore, MD  June, 2016

January 2015 - November 2016

context: "Volume" completed. St. Elizabeths East public art project successfully installed. nothing pressing coming up. think volume think triangle think space. recycle. exercise. study. experiment.

process: stitch, weave, collage, draw, paint
materials: paper, fabric, thread, wire, string, metal, wood

influential opportunity: invited by curator Molly Merson/Gallery Krom to participate in a group show about the environment 

Featured Work                               

Toxicity in the Air Installation 

4 works on paper (2016)
exhibition: District of Columbia Art Center, January/February 2017

"The Red Menace"
acrylic, handmade recycled paper, vinyl cord, bamboo and rose wood

"Urban Runoff"
acrylic, cotton, linen and silk dryer lint, purchased acetate boxes

"The Toxic Air We Unknowingly Breathe"
handmade recycled paper, lint pulp paper, acrylic,cotton thread
exhibition: June-July 2016 Proto Gallery, Hoboken, NJ




"Industrial Smog"
lint pulp paper, acrylic, bamboo, vinyl cord, tar paper, plastic coated pine rod

Current Project: Painting on Quilt Batting

"Walk in the Park: Apartment Living"
9 Panels (varied dimensions)
acrylic, cotton thread, plastic coated wire, cotton-poly batting
exhibition: Prince Georges County African American Museum and Cultural Center Winter-Spring, 2017

work in progress not pictured:

series of 10 small wall hangings with exterior linear element

Ongoing Exercise: "3sides"

recycle old work, make 3 sided standing elements

a) "The Black Army"
acrylic, graphite, vinyl cord, rag and recycled paper
b) "small soldiers"
acrylic, graphite, cotton thread, recycled paper










"Water Meditation Tool"
acrylic, ph neutral drawing and Japanese papers

"Red Line Study 2016"
acrylic, vinyl cord, Japanese and ph neutral drawing paper











"The Chase"
acrylic, ink, rag, recycled and Japanese papers



not pictured:
"Ghost Ships" (7 standing panels)
acrylic, coloring pencil, graphite, joss, recycled and Japanese papers, vinyl cord, bamboo

"The Elite Guard" (4 standing elements)
acrylic, graphite, cotton thread, steel wire, recycled paper

"Suspended Animation" (3 elements)
acrylic, cotton thread, vinyl cord, rag and recycled papers

going into 2017

 Influential Opportunities

Artist Residency to make new work in Paducah, Kentucky
(become a Residency Angel here)

(tentative) Participation in group show "Reconstruction" with large format work

(Curator: Michelle Talibah/New Door Creative, Baltimore)

Mastry: An Opportunity for the Art World to Talk About Skill

Kerry James Marshall is flavor of the month in the art world right now with "Mastry" at Met Breuer in New York.  It's a singular occasion-- the first black American honored in this way since Jacob Lawrence in 1960 at the Brooklyn Museum, if one does not count Romare Bearden, primarily a collagist, at the National Gallery of Art in WDC in 2003.

 Last century painting was declared "dead,"  a mantra embraced by the art world that allowed it to veer towards Duchamps' philosophy that everything could be art. I haven't seen this show yet but I did see several of the recent canvases and drawings at the National Gallery of Art in 2013. There is clear narrative, clear intent and lots of language in these works. Marshall's retrospective proves that painting is alive and well if an artist is willing to work but above all, has something to say.

In the reviews, there is a lot of focus on the importance of his black figures and contemporary black life referencing art history and the void these works fill in traditional Western Art. Many talk about how adept he is at storytelling and interspersing references to the famous painters he admires within the confines of these magnificent black images. They mention his obsession with skill but seem to all end up describing the images and pointing out references to the great white painters they contain.  One reviewer thought the show got too much buildup and needed editing. I suspect she (like many others will inevitably do) gave the work a superficial glance and just looked at the pictures instead of looking at the painting, painting being a verb.

Looking at how the images are rendered reveals an expert's understanding and manipulation of all the techniques developed by painters over the last century to create a cohesive picture that makes one focus on the work's narrative and intent. Who else has done this? Cecily Brown has been admired for creating figurative paintings that look like abstract expressionism; Marshall's work is so subtle, you might not see these inclusions without dismissing the narrative to focus on the composition and architecture of the work. Reviews that do not discuss his technical prowess in depth imply that he is important simply because he made black figures powerful in western art.

Marshall is doing soooo much more for western art than filling the color void. He's raising the bar for all artists everywhere to make art that introduces us to new ways of seeing with the tools we've always had at our disposal. It's a challenge for both representational and abstract painters.

If the art world continues to focus on how skillfully Marshall paints black people in situ, and keeps declaring that he is a great black painter, it loses an opportunity to take a stab at the institutional racism embedded in art history and the contemporary art world. This is an opportunity to alter the narrative of what makes a painter great and take us back into an arena where we appreciate and value the skill of execution over subject that can bring real criticism back into the art world.

Like Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso or DeKooning, Kerry James Marshall is not a great black artist. He is a great artist period.

David Adjaye and Theaster Gates @ the Hirshhorn 9/21/16

                                        David Adjaye and Theaster Gates 

having extemporaneous convo 
at the Hirshhorn
complex, profound, totally cerebral

you had to be thinking to follow this conversation

it was all about tangible ideas 
being translated through practice into art,
the work being present, and inhabiting place 

the importance of narrative 

a methodology to engage

clarity of intention

authorship

in the absence of a language
the necessity to MAKE language 

they discussed world travelling 
and coming to realize
where you come from 
your most powerful art will come from

Theaster talking 'bout 
his Sensei Sister and the permeating musK of cooking greens... 

this was an incredible dialogue between an architect and an artist
without art-world pretense
talking about making work that embodies, exemplifies and honors 
the nuances and history of how we have lived and live now
philosophically
taking black culture out of the realm of spectacle
and away from the burden of being "ART" about identity

Oh, 
Man!!
It was beautiful!

(nuthin' but the truth)

Ecstatic to bear witness September 22, 2016

When is race NOT a spectacle in the art world?

OuTtheCube

re: blackness-in-abstraction-- An Objection to the Use of the Phrase

Blackness in abstraction is NOT appropriation of anyone's philosophy! Contemporary artists add to the work of Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis, Joe Overstreet, Alma Thomas, Sam Gilliam, Jack Whitten, Howardena Pindell, Ed Clarke (etc) 
without creating references in written statements 
relating to the black id'entity the art-world understands. (think PostBlack) 
Sam Gilliam was recently described as undefinable with "art-world catch phrases!"(Washington Post)

in 2000 I coined a term acknowledging the role of black artists in expanding the language and boundaries of abstract painting. It's defined as a way of working, not as a way to classify black artists: 

blackstraction (blak-strak’ sh-n) n.

1. the objectification of  painting;

2. nonrepresentational drawings and paintings stressing formal internal relationships at times employing craft techniques and three dimensional presentation.  blackstractionist n. an artist engaging therein…

blackstraction (blak-strak’ sh-n) v.t.

to make markings with color on diverse surfaces that relate to each other and their environment in two and three dimensions   blackstractioned, blackstractioning

Blackstractionism (blak-strak’sh-niz-m) n. Fine Art

a style of emotive non-representational painting which appeared in the United States in the late 20^th century employing craft techniques and sometimes three dimensional presentation  b) theory and practice of blackstraction

  (pass the word on: Blackstraction)

not surprising there is not much research readily available around this topic because artists working like this have a tendency not to define their work by race, generally are not well known and do not do well in the art-world. 
   
artists and dealers both recognize the financial  and critical benefits of "other" in whatever capacity - ethnicity - gender - etc
when the artists'  "subject" is depicted 
the way the art-world expects it to be...
which is why Sanford Biggers' work referencing
Fat Albert** will never be attributed with the power
of contextual ambiguity that would allow
a multiplicity of readings outside race! 

not really odd, though...
it's how ART in the 
ART-world 

is 

branded

marketed 

identified
  
(race art) 
(gender art)
(not white art)


                                                                               


 
**Introduction to the term can be found in this excerpt: 
blackstraction-blak-strak-sh-n-n.

Project History:
blackstraction-putting-the-word-out

***http://www.artnews.com/2016/07/11/black-bodies-white-cubes-the-problem-with-contemporary-arts-appropriation-of-race/

Eradicate Cultural Sharecropping

Up until the last 50 years or so
fine art collecting was strictly 
a past time for the wealthy--
it has never been questioned 
that what is important in 
art is decided by their selection:
a vision sustaining western philosophies
that have evolved to include staging,
psychology, voyeurism, copying
and social work in an attempt to diversify 
yet maintain control of market supply 
and demand
as the number of artists and art appreciators grows steadily
and permeates all levels of society...

Jean-Paul Sartre:
I was not the one to invent lies: they were created in a society divided by class and each of us inherited lies when we were born. It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lies: it is by eradicating class by BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY (Malcolm X) 

Promoting art appreciation and patronage
outside the white-cube/art-world 
creates an avenue for public participation
in the art making process and 
a social responsibility for the artist 
to create art that is legible and referentially 
significant for all society beyond its time of inception. 

Now is the time to bring new meaning to the term Public Artist!

Introducing OuTtheCube

I'm Sheila Crider  
independent artist based in Washington DC
one of many fine artists 
self-managing successful careers
outside and on the fringes 
of a very exclusive 
and mostly white domain,
the so called "art-world."

Welcome to 
OuTtheCube!

a bi-monthly 
(more or less) 
creative writing platform 
citing articles, exhibitions, 
notable experiences in the art-world,
discussions of how "art" is looked at
who it is "destined" for, 
a poem or image here and there
and what ever else captures my attention  
possibly of interest to 
like minded
artists/philosophers/collectors/curators/appreciators/patrons/ingenues
anybody 
into abstract painting 
critically 
aesthetically 
and object wise
outside (and inside!) 
traditional art markets 
and venues...

Now IS the time to bring new meaning to the term Public Artist!

Patricia Cronin (advice-to-young-female-artists)
"March to your own drummer, don’t follow the crowd, focus on making art history, don’t focus on the market (they’re only interested in boys anyway) and be the best advocate for your work. Eyes on the Prize."

A S A

Artist Seeks Audience

among the people 

I come from 

the people I cross

and interact with

everyday

we speak the language

I use to make abstract art

it does not need an art-world 

explanation

we come from all walks of life.