Greatest Weakness

Dearest Blog Readers,

My greatest weakness is grammar. Please bear with me. Thank You.

PS-If you would like to edit what I wrote, I would appreciate it.

Artist: P. Buckley Moss

http://www.pbuckleymoss.com/

Artist P. Buckley Moss is known for her paintings of Shenandoah Valley landscapes and illustrations of the Olde Order Mennonites and Amish. Moss is from Waynesboro, VA and her museum is ten minutes from my parents house. Every office, waiting room, cafe, lobby, nursery, hospital, library, public building, school, etc in Augusta County, VA has one of her prints on it's wall. She is a town Icon.
I have truly grown up inside of a Moss painting. Her illustrative style uses calligraphic trees, and simple 2D perspective mirroring the simple livelihood of the subjects which gives her works a folk art (Grandma Moses) feeling.

Often when standing at the crest of hill and gazing out upon the rolling hills of the Shenandoah with her Blue Ridge Mountains rising off to the side, it all looks as if a two-dimensional painting flat upon the horizon.
In my opinion, which I am a local "Shenandoan", Moss really does translate the soul of the landscape in each work.

Artists: Romare Bearden & Grandma Moses

I am aware that we are supposed to be looking at Working Artists Today, however this entry is focused upon to Artists from the past which are strong influential Icons of the Art World Today. *Google them both

I was looking at the Artworks of Romare Bearden and Grandma Moses since I was little. They are very strong influences to the work I have been making this semester. Bearden was the first collage artist introduced to me in middle school and I consider him the "Grandather" of collage.

Moses was a self-taught folk artist and her paintings remind me so much of the Shenandoah Valley.
I have a much older cousin, of whom I've never met, who was a self taught artist that painted landscapes in the Rockfish Valley of Nelson County, VA.





Romare Bearden (1911-1988)





Anna Mary Robertson "Grandma" Moses (1860-1961)

New Work

Revearsal James GRIFFINDREWDAVIS.2009


As a proud Virginian I feel that no other river epitomizes Virginia and it's cultural history more than the James River. I have been following the James from the Allegheny Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay. It saddens me greatly to see nature ruined by Man however the river is doing a lot better because of efforts to stop pollution are stronger than ever, yet it seems to me almost near impossible to fix now after near 200 years of continuous growth since the Industrial Revolution. All We can do is our best to keep things clean and hopefully in time nature will fix itself. A lot of Cities were built on top of naturally special places that are now ruined probably permanently...

This piece represents for me a progression through reversal. It is possible to travel through time in our dreams and sometimes to move forward you need to go backwards.

The waters of the James ran backwards until all of the Ocean was swallowed up by the Mountains. As the River ran backwards in time it took with it all the blasphemies of Man in order to restore Order. Finally the floodgates were released and all the Waters of the World flowed back down the James to the Sea.

New Work

LONGO GRIFFINDREWDAVIS.2009

Over the summer, I had read Lewis Carroll'sAlice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass. I was recommended them by Tom Adair whom informed me of the nature of the books being a "play on words" and becoming aware of the "Language Games" within. *Lewis Carroll was also an established photographer

Working with notions of dreams, psychology, language, and being influenced by reading Carroll's literary works, I wanted to create a piece inspired by Alice's decent down the Rabbit Hole. I have been shooting with my Holga to create photographic dream-based narratives.

LONGOis 8"x60"(5ft long)

Unsure of how to mount/frame/present this yet.

IDEA: Collaborative Tarot

Amber O'Hara and I have been talking of doing a collaborative piece/project for awhile now. Amber is really into Tarot and other forms of spirituality and since we live together we influence each other. Thus I have been introduced to Tarot. In the classic Rider-Waite deck each card is chock full of symbolism. The main aspect of Tarot is not fortune telling but communication with the subconscious through symbolism and meditation. The cards are supposed to help you realize what you already know.

Over Thanksgiving I was at the Farm and found an old book Dogma and Morals of the Freemasons it was published in 1919. Freemasonry is wrought full of symbolism and code which is meant to make sense only to those who know what the symbols mean, however, the more I read the more I became aware that numerous symbols of the freemasons were present on the Tarot Cards of the classic Rider-Waite deck. I chose some cards^^^whith which incorporate strong symbolism. Dogma and Morals
was hard to read and understand because symbolism is used as a code which I am still investigating.

I wonder if there is a code within the Tarot ?

Amber and I were standing beneath the Carillon in Byrd Park and was looking up. I was reminded of The TOWER card and thought we should create our own Tarot Deck. There are hundreds of different versions of artistic Tarot decks. I had been thinking of making a photographic based Tarot, but with 78 cards it would be too much. I figure Amber and I could divide and conquer to create a Tarot deck using photography, collage, painting, drawing, etc to create our own Tarot that we could maybe one day publish and sell. Who knows? an IDEA.

ARTIST: Matthew Cusick

Born in NYC in 1970, Matthew Cusick attended the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, BFA, 1993. Cusick has been exhibiting his work since 1996. Cusick is a multimedia artist whose collages using maps are intensely intricate. He creates portraits of people and landscapes using Maps in a Collage. Cusick also employs book pages, coffee, magazines, ink, etc. The pieces are gorgeous at first glance and then upon closer examination I was mesmerized by the intricacy of the lines of the maps he used to compile his compositions, fascinated by the new worlds the many maps created within the imagery. Cusick also has some digital videos and drawings on his website. His drawings are in a series called "Defacements" where he had "defaced" his old text books with drawings.

VMFA & COMPETITIONS I ENTERED

ARTIST: Eleanor Wood

Eleanor Wood is a young artist whom I am having trouble finding information about on the net. She is in her mid-twenties and creates collages inspired by dreams. She is currently in Brighton, UK. She has a blog which she doesn't keep up with-I assume she is too busy making art to keep up with her blog www.jolly-good-show.blogspot.com
Arlie found this artist for me and despite the lack of info I can find I really enjoy her works. Wood's work is simple yet it resonates and I love how she incorporates the sleeping dreamer into her works. Wood's imagery is almost cliche with the dreamer and then the dream cloud, but they work and speak about more than dreams-for me I think they become psychic manifestations of thought rather than just dreams. Also each piece has a circular object or shape which I believe refrences the moon or another celestial body and I believe that to be important since I do the same thing-being incorporating the heavens into the dreamworks

I AM THE ROAD

I AM THE ROAD, 24x8, GRIFFINDREWDAVIS.2009


I was literally raised on the road. My father has traveled across the globe and has made his living as a Truck Driver since before I was born. As an infant, of less than a year old, Mom and Dad took me with them on a cross country road trip. Growing up, Dad was always on the road either for work or for the love of it. All my memories of our family together has been in an automobile. We would ride with Dad in the Trucks hauling wood-chips and sometimes even ride down to Florida for produce during the winter. The Blue Ridge and Shenandoah Valley is nationally known for it's scenery and as a family we would just ride the back roads.

I feel the safest in a moving vehicle.
I love to drive places I never been.
I am obsessed with maps: Jedediah Hotchkiss, Google Maps, US. Geological Survey.
By the time I am 30 I plan on having the entire Commonwealth of Virginia's Roadway System memorized-All Towns, Cities, Routes, State Roads, National Parks, Local Cultures, History, sights and sounds.

Page Bond Gallery: Diego Sanchez, Mary Scurlock

Chomsky’s idea about discovery is the overarching concept that drives Diego Sanchez’ artistic process. Surface, repetition, color and spatial relations are carefully developed onto each canvas. Sanchez is constantly re-inventing his approach and technique. His intent is for the psychical qualities of his paintings to posses as much significance as the formal and representational elements.

Born in Bogota, Columbia, Diego Sanchez lives and works in Richmond, Virginia. He received his MFA and BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University. His work has been exhibited in Virginia and internationally. His work is in
many private and public collections including, Capital One, Media General, First Market Bank, and the Federal Reserve Bank.

Mary Scurlock is interested in memory and the transformation and distortion of an event as it is recalled in our minds. Her recent work on panel is of layers of facts and projected truths that develop into memory. Her chosen medium, encaustics, reveals
the environment of these abstract concepts. Embedded beneath the surface are images that reference both the past tangible experience and simultaneous internal perceptions.

Mary Scurlock lives and works in Richmond, Virginia. She received a BFA in Arts Education and a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University with additional studies completed in Toulouse, France. Her work has been exhibited throughout the east coast and is included in numerous private and
public collections including, Federal Reserve Bank, First Market Bank, Markel Corporation, Media One, and Capital One.
(Facebook-Page Bond Gallery Event)

Diego Sanchez mentioned how he began his process by choosing a color with no preconceptions and then building upon this through gesso layerings and then becoming happy with the piece and then continue building more layers. He would employ grids, lines, drafting sketches, geometry, 3D forms, lines, patterns, and language within each painting. His subjects would be focused on Architceture (The Coliseum), furniture (chairs), and boats. Sanchez employed BOLD colors and uses symbols from other cultures. His goal is to find a happy middle ground between physical representation and geometric pattern with a main focus on "building surfaces"
Sanchez began adding elements called "floaters" which represent the floaters of light in one's vision when dizzy. Sometimes his work is planned and sometimes it just happens with an emphasis on space and how he approaches space. Sanchez likes to take something mundane, make people look at it so it becomes special.

Mary Scurlock began working on paper employing painting, pastel, graphite, and mixed media. She had a hip operation which changed her processes and she moved away from paper and onto panels. when first creating her panels she included paper in the process, but move away from this. Her imagery focused on trees and she used subdued organic forms in her works. During her operation she told the therapist that "one leg felt like glass and the other leg felt like wood" This is represented in her process. Scurlock builds up gesso layers(5) then digs into the layers to create her forms, adds wax, then sands it back down giving the image a glossy or "glassy" sheen. Her trees and there forms were from intuitive memory with no direct refrences. She is still working on her process.

Leonid Meteor Shower

Leonids are bits of debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Every 33 years the comet visits the inner solar system and leaves a stream of dusty debris in its wake. Many of these streams have drifted across the November portion of Earth's orbit. Whenever we hit one, meteors come flying out of the constellation Leo. The first stream crossing on Nov. 17th comes around 4am EST. The debris is a diffuse mix of particles from several old streams that should produce a gentle display of two or three dozen meteors per hour over North America. A remarkable feature of this year's shower is that the Leonids will appear to be shooting almost directly out of Mars. It's just a coincidence, this year, that Mars happens to be passing by the Leonid radiant at the time of the shower. The red planet is almost as twice as bright as a first magnitude star, so it makes an eye-catching companion for the Leonids.

Amber, Tawny, Nathaniel, and I drove out to the Blue Ridge Pkwy to view the meteor shower ontop of Raven's Roost in hopes that the Mtns would break through the cloud cover. It was perfect up there and we did have an amazing view of the night sky with the new moon(no moon) I saw about 6 faint meteors and 5 "holy cows"
We were viewing the shower from 3:30am-4:30am arriving back in RVA at 6am.

Meteor showers, Astronomy, and the Universe all remind me of how insignificant we are on this little blue planet, however at the same time the overall chances of our existence here now is a million to one and that is very significant. For a moment Life was put into perspectives that faded away on the drive home...

Artist Lecture: Jeffrey W. Allison & Kevin Morley

VMFA Paul Mellon Collection Educator
Jeffrey W. Allison, a VCU MFA Graduate, works for the VMFA as the Paul Mellon Collection Educator. The Paul Mellon Collection was funded by Paul Mellon-philanthropist/millionaire/art collector- who built and funded the new wing opening in 2010. Allison does lectures, workshops, events, juries shows, curates shows, teaches studio school, and has traveled 25,000 miles for work last year. Allison is the "worst writer in the world" yet is in charge of writing the labels for the artworks. The artist statements are required to be written at a 9th grade reading level and cannot be no more than 250 words.

Allison was contributing expert for Photobook: "Show Me America-Dorothea Lange". Organized the "Poverty In Virginia" Exhibition at the Scott House in Richmond. Allison had a solo show at Nesbit, a hair salon here in Richmond and was in a show at Mary Washington University, "Artists that Still Make Art though they Work in a Museum" Next year at the VMFA will be the year of the Woman Artist, "Minds Wide Open" and will be showing the work of photographer Sally Mann, who is from Lexington, VA.

Kevin Morley: Richmond-Times Dispatch

Kevin Morley is one of 6 Staff Photographers for the Richmond-Times Dispatch and has been for 25 years. According to Morley a photojournalist takes pictures that tell a story and his goal everyday at work is to take at least one strong photograph. A photojournalists job needs flexible creativity, always prepared for the unexpected, and needs to be able to write. Photojournalism has its perks such as a company car, paid for equipment, 401K, get in free and get to sit up close, tuition assisstance, and a decent salary, however it can be dangerous. Morley's assignments range from everything good, bad, happy, sad, and requires lots of travel. Morley also gives himself personal projects to accomplish in his free time, such as photographing his kids everyday for the first year of their life and creating a personal work of art.

A photojournalist's dream is to be invisible and to capture a wide emotional spectrum.

ARTIST: J. Phillip White

http://www.opensewer.com/artists/white/index.htm

"Much of my art deals with the subject of man's inhumanity to man. My artistic aspirations are to heighten the viewers awareness of what has happened and what is happening to the human condition today as well as to raise pertinent questions and, ideally, to evoke an emotional and thought-provoking response. Admittedly, there are some scenes that may confront the psyche as shocking at first, but my hope is that upon closer examination and after further contemplation, these pieces will reveal themselves in the positive way in which they are intended.

I believe that everyone has the capacity to respond to art, although that capacity is not always activated. To truly respond to a work of art, it is necessary first of all to suspend all labels and prejudices and not to lock yourself inside the walls of your own ego. Be open to what the work has to offer you and let the work speak to you without setting up preconditions, without in any way defending the fragility of your own ego. True works of art sometimes teach us things about ourselves we have no desire to know. Art can take you into another's vision only to bring you back to your own truth." -J. Phillip White (an excerpt from his artist statement)

White attended Gainesville Community College and the University of Georgia. He works with mixed media, collage, found object, found image, pinhole photography. White has been exhibiting his works since 1984 and is a member of the Visual Arts Guild of Athens, Athens Art Association, and the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation.

Visiting Artist: Shimon Attie

"TIME BURNING THROUGH THE FACADE OF TODAY"-ATTIE

Attie graduated from Art School with a degree in Photo in '91 and moved to Berlin. While in Berlin he began his first project, "ghostly projections" where he would research buildings in East Germany's Berlin and project photos of Jewish life from pre war Germany circa 1930's onto dilapidated buildings which survived through to today. This project lead to 20-25 installations in Europe and the US.

In Coppenhagen in 1995, Attie was hired to do an underwater lightbox photography installation in the city's main canal, "Portraits of Exile" The project consisted of 9 lightboxes at dimensions of 9ftx9ft at 3ft deep in the water of the canal. The project was about the Danish Jews that escaped the holocaust by fleeing Denmark into Sweden days before Hitler invaded juxtaposed with modern refugees in Denmark today.

His first US project was in Manhattan's Lower East Side where Attie interviewed 75 long term residents, most being immigrants from Ellis island, and projected their handwritten statements about memories, dreams, history,etc. onto the buildings. There were four main languages; Spanish, Mandarin, English, and Yittish.

Another project was in the Welsh village of Aberfan where a accidental man made avalanche of coal runoff consumed their only elementary school killing all of the village's children in 1966. To comemorate the 40th Anniversary of this tragedy he made a piece about the Villagers today and how they must cope with the tragedy while being caught in the media for their loss. Attie took the villagers and placed them on rotating stages, each villager represented their stereotype or "community role" Examples being: village dancer, hardcore singer, preacher, mayor, all male quartet, boxer, waitress, family, etc. This project commented on the fishbowl experience of being caught up in the media for a huge tragedy and the trauma which caused the stopping of time for the village yet time never stopped for they are plunged into the media. His goal was to "normalize" the village again.

Attie's work consists of site specific installations which all try to transcend time by bringing the past to the foreground.

Visiting Artist Lecture: James Siena

I attended the Painting and Printmaking departments visiting artist lecture: James Siena
Siena's paintings deal with line, pattern, rule, breaking rule, natural math, color. His designs range from many different workings of choosing a "rule" or equation/pattern to follow in order to create his compostitions. One major rule of Siena's was that lines could never touch, yet periodically he will, for some reason unknown to him, break his own rule. Perhaps by breaking his own rule he is subconciously commenting on the nature of nature. Siena also likes to repaint paintings or do alterations to and create numerous paintings with the same "rules" yet he would create a different variation to the same idea. Siena mentioned a few times that he was "existentialist" in his beliefs and I couldn't help but see the mathematical equations repeated in each work, for example the fibonacci sequence and the nautulus spiral is all I can see when looking at the painting of the rectangles devided into 1/8ths, or even one painting becomes the honeycomb of beehives, and for me it all speaks very much so of the mathematical patterns found in nature such as DNA, etc. which also speaks to me of Existentialism, down to each paintings core.