Exquisite

Welcome to the Exquisite Corpse

The Exquisite Corpse Festival officially kicks off with an opening night party on Saturday, July 9th at 7:30 at Space on White in NYC. The collaborative visual creations of over 30 artists, from print to sculpture to fashion design, will be on display. The exquisite corpse is not the work of art itself, but a game played by three artists, who may or may not know each other or even see each other. Each artist secretly creates a piece of the same whole. One takes the head, another the torso, and a third the legs. They collaborate not through negotiation but through trust. Originally executed via a drawing folded in thirds, Exquisite Corpse Festival expands this idea to a vast aray of artistic mediums- from music, to plays to taxidermy.  My partners in exquisite crime were John Borrero and Stephanie Rubiano. Together we created a mixed media sculpture, although we worked on our assigned parts separately. John made the base and legs, Stephanie made the torso and wings, and I made the head.

Without further ado, I introduce you to our very own exquisite corpse...

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She is approximately 2 feet tall. Her head is made from heavy gage wire and vintage book pages with greek text from 1820. Her torso and wings are made from soldered wire, gampi paper, and encaustic medium (beeswax and damar resin). Her base is made from a wooden found object and her skirt was created from several different vintage silks.

The Exquisite Corpse Festival will run from July 9th to August 2nd. Space on White is located on 81 White Street (off Broadway) in Tribeca. The gallery is open 7 days a week from 10:30am to 10:00pm.

Let it Shine

Earlier this month I posted an update regarding my collaboration with Bridgette Guerzon Mills and Jen Wordon. Our project began in early 2009 and is in the process of winding down. We each created a book structure that we would all work in, with the main idea of the collaboration being to challenge ourselves creatively. 

My recent post showed the pages I made for Book of Trees, Bridgette's book of plaster pages. I continue to work on the last sets of pages in Contexture, my own book of paper pages, and I will highlight these on my blog in the near future. Today's post is all about Shine, Jen's metal pages. The three pages, back and front, that I contributed to her project follow...

All three projects from the collaboration will be exhibited at the end of July as part of the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival in Chicago. Specific details about the exhibition will be posted soon.

An Object Found

I am happy to announce that my handmade artist book, An Object Found, will be featured as part of the 36th Annual Printmaking Center of NJ Member Exhibition. The exhibition runs from June 11 to August 20. This book will also be exhibited at the New Jersey City University Gallery from September 15 to October 26. 

An Object Found was created for and featured in Pam Carriker's book Art at the Speed of Life. An image of the cover was included in her book but the inside pages are being shown for the first time.

a sudden shower

raining down

a surge of power

an object found

 painter's palette

splattered stains

filled with rhythm

endless chains

An Object Found is also being featured on Top Artists' Directory, where I am Artist of the Week as of June 6th. Thanks Kim!

Available for purchase. Please send email to shap97@gmail.com for additional information.

Collaborative Completion

Anybody who has followed this blog will know that I am usually involved in many collaborative art projects, all at the same time. Well, all good things come to an end and that is about to be the case for my collaboration with artists and friends Bridgette Guerzon Mills and Jen Worden.

Back in 2009 we began this project, where the main idea was to challenge and experiment with our creative skills. I created a handbound, vintage paper book with the theme Contexture. Jen created a series of loose metal pages with the theme Shine. Bridgette created a book with plaster pages with the theme Book of Trees.

We each now have our own projects back and are in the process of finishing them up. I plan to share each of the final projects on the blog and first up is Bridgette's Book of Trees.

Photograph by Bridgette Guerzon Mills

Bridgette's gorgeous cover was an enticing start and a great inspiration for my first attempt at working on plaster pages.

Reflection - Page published in Plaster Studio

Branch

Grow

Head on over to this post on Bridgette's blog, Contemplating the Moon, to see images from every page in her book and to read about her own personal experience with the collaboration.

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I thank Bridgette and Jen for their talent, friendship, patience, and inspiration throughout these 2 1/2 years. And the icing on an already very sweet cake:  we are all very excited that all three projects will be part of an exhibition curated by Jane Michalski in July called Come Together as part of the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival in Chicago. Details to be posted soon.

Price Points

New York is a city of extremes in many areas, and the art field is no exception. I recently visited two venues that prove this point. I attended the preview of the Affordable Art Fair, which showcases contemporary art.  Of course 'affordability' is relative but all artwork in this show ranged in price from $100 to $10,000. At the other extreme, I visited the exhibition at Sotheby's for their upcoming Contemporary Art auctions on May 10th and 11th, where the highest estimate for several pieces is $20/30 million. Regardless of price, amazing art was to be found in both locations.  

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The Affordable Art Fair

Gabriel Daujotas

Tom Lewis

Deborah Donelson

Jeff Fontaine

Fernando Alday

Many more artists and images, as well as links to the artists' websites and galleries, can be found in my review post on NearSay.

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Sotheby's

Anselm Kiefer

Jean Dubuffet

Mark Bradford

Joseph Cornell

Jackson Pollock

Gerhard Richter

Jean-Michel Basquait

See more images from Sotheby's in my post on NearSay.

The Sketchbook Project

Are you familiar with the The Sketchbook Project hosted by the Art House Co-op? Participants in this project were provided with a blank Moleskine sketchbook with its own unique bar code. They then selected one theme from a list provided and completed the sketchbook with that theme in mind. Completed sketchbooks were then returned and became part of a collection that will tour the United States. Over 28,000 artists from more than 90 countries received blank sketchbooks and approximately 10,000 books were completed and returned.

The opening of the travelling exhibit was this past weekend at the Brooklyn Art Library in Brooklyn, NY.

All visitors to the exhibit checked in and were given their own personal library cards, which granted them access to the sketchbooks, two at a time.

You could request books based on artist name, artist location, or sketchbook theme. The whole process was amazingly smooth and fast despite the large crowd and the large number of books...

...books...

...and more books!

I did not participate myself but was able to look up the sketchbooks from some artists who might be familiar to you.

A page out of the sketchbook of Chris Miser.

Joan Rowlands sketchbook from Australia.

From Kathryn Dyche Dechairo's sketchbook.

A spread from the sketchbook of Juana Almaguer.

From Pat McNally's sketchbook.

I know most of you will not get a chance to see this exhibit so I hope you enjoyed the view from your computer screen.