Artist Talk - LVAA's Food for Thought

Kat Squared - tintype from digital positive 2007

I'm no stranger to stage fright, that's why I choose to be behind the camera instead of in front of it. So I surprised myself by agreeing to do an art talk for the Louisville Visual Art Association (LVAA), now which I find myself in preparations for. Artist talks are truly wonderful and I really love to hear about inspiration, motivations and the subtleties of craft from people who amaze me with their work and visions. So now I’m in this role and I have to admit that while I’m confident in my work, I’m a little nervous about following last month’s speaker Jim Grubola who did an intelligent and interesting presentation at LVAA’s Food for Thought. Jim’s talk was truly inspiring and covered his art historical inspiration, his love of grids and rendering reflections as well as photographic images of his real-world references for his art making. Not to mention that his speaking style was warm and unpretentious, and possessed an element of humor that left the audience with a good sense of his artwork and techniques. Indeed he will be a hard act to follow.

Still, I’m look forward to my presentation and know that the bar has been set pretty high. I believe I’m up to the task with only slight apprehension about speaking to a room of art-lovers and connoisseurs. My talk will focus primarily on my photographic work in historic processes and I hope to be as engaging a speaker as my predecessors in this Food for Thought program.

For more information of the Louisville Visual Art Association and the Food for Thought program visit:

http://www.louisvillevisualart.org

And on James Grubola:

http://louisville.edu/a-s/finearts/faculty/grubola.html

Cat and I

This is a picture of me with a photo of my cat Gabriel. I love this cat in a crazy cat lady way. I don't kiss his little gray lips or anything, but some of the finest moments in my life revolve around making Gabe purr. Once while I was doing work for my Tattoo/Fetish series my mother, who is normally adores contemporary art, asked me why this series (www.vividblack.net/tattoo) was so disturbing and why couldn't I just take pictures of kittens on glass tables. I struggle with the kitten-art thing because truly I would love to be taking adorable pictures of cats all day long, but that doesn't seem like a good path for a contemporary artist. Maybe I'll get a chance with some commercial art someday, but it seems like mostly dog fashion (Collars and Couture) is what I get the opportunity to do. I'm not knocking the pups at all, I love doing that stuff, but it seems there should be fashion industry ops for cats too, ya know?

Mariposa Study #2 - painted photograph

Owl butterflies from Key West sanctuary. They look like little cosmic tree fungi with big eyes.

Mariposa Study #3 - painted photograph

I'm a bit obsessed with butterflies and took a slew of pictures down in Key West at a butterfly garden. Over the last couple of years I've used the images over and over again in various art pieces but have never just printed the single frame images. Several months ago I was leaving for an art residency and looking through my photo archive. I was struck again by the beauty and vibrant colors of the butterflies and thought I should really do something with these in bold, vivid color - but what? I printed a few out and started to play with some fabulous inks I got for Christmas from my beloved's mother. What a fun way to spend a residency! I love the combination of ink with the photographs and thrilled to start combining my love of photography and illustration.