Jeanne Beck Blog Moved to jeannebeck.com

Change is good, right?! That’s been my motto in art and life, even when change has chosen me instead of my choosing it. But choosing a new CMS website option to manage and update totally on my own has been high on my wish list for a while.
 
So I shifted my blog and website to WordPress in March. I’m slowly trying to learn it. Also have thousands of images to delete or name and organize in my hard drive. Happily, I’m making progress with both and hope to get up to speed and fully functional in a few more months.

I’m currently able to post to the blog but am having a tough time editing the gallery pages, which currently just have placeholders. The website editing plug-in called PixGridder is what I'm having a hard time learning. There may be changes in my design template ahead and possibly lots of weird looking web pages you'll see as I work through the Word Press.org learning curve. Please bear with me.

Meanwhile, the new blog works as an excellent studio log to share new ideas and works in progress with you.

Please visit the new blog site to say hi and share your thoughts and comments. Thanks!

Rusty Nails and Inspiration

 

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

Maya Angelou

Yes, these are indeed rusty nails, 2” with square heads, pulled from boards in a circa-1905 Victorian home. I just purchased them from an Etsy shop. God bless Google searches.

So why are rusty nails so exciting to me today? They’re a demonstration of how much inspiration fuels my work. At 4:30 AM this morning this idea woke me up. The little rusted hand-made paper and wire sculptures I’m currently constructing could hang from rusted nails instead of bent copper wires. I wasn’t even trying to find a replacement for those copper wires! Now it seems the most perfect way to hang them, so I hope it works.

I love these surprising bursts of insight and inspiration most about being a creative. Do you ever experience such flashes of new ideas when you’re engaged in a project?

Here are some of the works in this installation, now nearing the finish line. Will the rusted nails work? I love the suspense of wondering while I wait for them to arrive in the mail.

Urban Wall Art/Creative Muse

 

 

One day last summer I took my usual drive down East Main Street in Rochester to my studio building and this wall mural seemed to just have suddenly appeared on the Fedder Building (I’m sure it took longer!). When I did actually notice it, I did a total WOW-what-IS-this. Now I pass by her every day as I drive to my studio. She has become something of a personal creative touchstone in a neighborhood of old warehouses, rundown buildings and homes divided into numerous apartments.

She is one of many murals that have been painted around the city of Rochester since 2012 through WALL/THERAPY, which its website describes as “a community level intervention using mural art as a vehicle to address our collective need for inspiration.”

And inspire my three-story lady does. Perhaps she is not quite the face I might have imagined for my creative Muse, but that is exactly what she accomplishes for me each day I gaze up at her while I drive  past. She does more than just lift my spirits, though, she radiates a transforming presence in an area that needs an infusion of creative energy. Seeing a building wall thus transformed reminds me of the potential visual art has to surprise, uplift and delight through all of life’s circumstances and challenges.

For a view of the other wall murals now currently creating a new landscape in urban Rochester, please visit the WALL/THERAPY website.

Off the Wall!: New Small Sculptural Works

 

Jeanne Raffer Beck, “Dialogue”, 4” x 4” x 13”; wrapped wire, handmade pulp & paper, poplar base.

My first small, free-standing, sculptural wire and paper piece debuted in my studio a week ago. Most people see these forms as bonelike and ancient. I’m still debating price, which led to some surprising and enjoyable conversations about what people might pay for small works like these. The poplar base and slight rusting on the hanging forms and paper-wrapped wire holder all work together well. Two more single pieces are in progress, which you can see in the picture below.

in the meantime, I’ve been creating and stockpiling organic shapes for the multiples I’m creating now. If the finished piece is successful, I’ll enter it into Memorial Art Galllery’s biennial juried exhibition.

By the time I closed shop yesterday afternoon, the whole space looked a bit like an assembly line. Yesterday was also our building wide Second Saturday at Hungerford but with storm warnings and snow, traffic stayed light. Still, I enjoyed great conversations with the people who did visit and made the most of the quiet; couching sheets of abaca paper and applying them wet over the remaining 6” x 9”  wooden panels for my 24 pieces. As the paper dries and shrinks, it will totally adhere to the wood surface.

Many thanks to my good friend Christina Laurel for sending me the darker value chai tea bag papers – a great surprise that arrived in a little package in the mail this week. Friends help take the chill away in winter!  These will join my other carefully saved papers to be collaged on their surfaces when I return to my studio this week and start to compose and collage.

Seeing, Feeling, Expressing

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens. --Carl Jung

After enjoying hundreds of visitors who came to my studio last night for First Friday, I realize just how much of an equation there is between making art and sharing it. That exchange feels magical when what we make is well received by others. We encounter that energy in concerts, in live performances and sporting events. Athletes, actors, dancers, musicians all perform to audiences and whether small or large, our creativity comes full circle when shared. 

For many of us who are makers, our creative selves are always reaching. I’m feeling an internal desire now to focus on emotional content in new work.  What is it that makes some pieces evoke a deep emotional response?

Colors, shapes, lines and textures can communicate feeling, either what the artist feels internally or their responses to the world around them. The Abstract Expressionists of the 1950s believed the best way to express pure emotion was to create nonobjective or totally abstract artworks. They saw the use of colors, shapes, lines and textures as vital to expressing deep emotional states.

What feelings or emotions do you wish to express through your works? How do you choose color, shape, line and textures to communicate those? 

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen. ~Leonardo da Vinci

Exploration: Sculptural Forms

 

Three-dimensional forms are my current focus – O.K, more like a fixation.  I’m working on a new series to combine wire armatures and handmade paper – using either freshly couched, wet sheets  or dipping armatures into paper pulp. The high shrinkage of 4-hour beaten abaca pulp from Carriage House Papers  lends itself to this process. The results are incredibly durable, even though they look very fragile.

 

. Jeanne Beck, Layers, 6” x9”, wire and paper sculpture mounted on hardwood covered with handmade paper, tea bag papers, gesso. I’m researching sources for a thin drop-in frame for these. Any suggestions for sources? My husband hopes you will please share them to get him off the hook for more R&D assignments!

Freshly dipped wire forms, drying on a wooden rack in my studio. The drying process takes three to four days. The moisture rusts the ungalvanized wire I use. Some pieces may be dipped, partially dried and dipped again several times to accumulate layers.

 

My resident R&D department has been helping to design stands to provide another presentation option for these small works.

 

My vision for this series – much like my current fluttering pages pieces – is to work with repetition. I visualize rows and rows of them hanging together.

I’ll  work this week to complete 11 more pieces. That will allow me to see how they look as multiples. If successful, then I’ll create 24 in this first series to hang 6 across and 6 down. If not successful, then back to the drawing board. Ideally, working with multiples will allow galleries and collectors flexibility for purchasing and presentation. More ideas for combining and hanging these together are evolving.

Special thanks to two excellent workshop teachers, Mo Kelman and Melissa Jay Craig, for providing so much excellent information and assistance in starting down this trail. Melissa is teaching 3-D papermaking again at Women’s Studio Workshop this summer, if you are interested.

A Shiny Winter Tonic

 

Main Street Art Gallery, located in a picturesque two-story building in Clifton Springs, NY, decided to counteract winter’s chill by inviting an eclectic mix of artists (my absolute favorite type of show) to participate in Solid Gold, a celebration of glowing 2 and 3-D works featuring ceramics, sculpture, painting and mixed media. All works incorporate metallic paint or gold leaf on their surfaces.

The opening was great fun, one of the best ones I’ve been to, friendly and down to earth and the perfect tonic for a cold, dark January day. 

Main Street Art Gallery also invited me to contribute a post to their Inside the Artist Studio series and I hope you will click the link and take a look.

Confession. I haven’t blogged in over a year. I was questioning so many things about being an artist including what place art has in our culture. Then I realized my job is to be true to my own inner inspirations and share that with anyone who is interested. I can’t control or often understand what’s happening in the rest of the world but I can choose to live my own life each day connected to my spirit of adventure and creativity.

So creating – the research, experiments, failures, explorations and victories that all go into turning ideas into form – are where we’ll go this year on these pages. Comment, share, join in the dance – those who love creating are a tribe and I’m eager to meet more of mine.

Mindful Marketing Practices, Step One

 AUDIENCE 

       This image is from http://www.flickr.com/photos/chicagogeek/4333114156/

 Since I’m endlessly curious, clearing my mind to practice mindfulness is important to me. So are setting intentions. I started this year with a personal vision quest – eight full days -- through snowstorms and subzero temps (in Chicago, I’m told, the zookeepers even brought the polar bears indoors!). 

 My retreat unfolded this way. First I happened onto a self-inventory called "The Gifts of 2013" from Susannah Conway. I spent New Year’s Day writing until I had filled it all out.  When I reviewed what I had written about the pluses and minuses of 2013, I savored the confident, positive woman I saw reflected back to me.

 A few days later I met with two fellow artists with long corporate careers and much expertise to discuss our desires and directions for 2014. I acknowledged that I am very savvy about marketing for others but not on my own behalf.  Could I change that mindset and still be true to my own values? Indeed I can.

As I take steps this year to make my work more visible, then my audience -- those people who will invest in my works -- will find me. How can people purchase my work if they don’t know it exists?

Just who is my desired audience? As I visualize them, here's what I see:

• You appreciate contemporary art. It ignites your interest and delights you. You surround yourself with original art in your home and office.

• You have confidence in your taste. You trust your instincts.

• You're informed. You learn about the artists who interest you.  If possible, you visit their studios and connect with them personally.
• 
  
•  You're comfortable with contemporary art. You make it a point to visit museum exhibitions and gallery shows because you enjoy learning.  You spend time with a work to really see and appreciate it.

• You share your enthusiasm for the arts and artists with your friends, family and co-workers. You may be low-key about it but you are definitely an advocate for artists. 

• You think for yourself. You enjoy purchasing art that will increase in value but you don’t make your purchases based on profits. Today’s stars come and go in contemporary art as in music and movies; you choose to buy art that captivates you rather than follow trends and passing fads.

• You are a genuine, compassionate and interesting person. You probably wouldn’t find visual art appealing if you weren’t!

My audience is out there – and since I  have a clearer idea of who they are, it will be easier to develop ideas for how to reach them.

 

 

New Explorations: Chapter 1

So many of you have expressed interest in what my new directions will be. The core of my ideas and concepts are not changing, I’m just not using dyes and silk as my materials.

I am still deeply committed to considering the effects of time and aging on memory and personal identities through my “fluttering pages” series.

But yes, a new series of pieces using paper pulp is now underway. Raphaela McCormack, a talented artist and friend, is teaching me about working with it. Do go to her website and look at her work; I love her sailing vessels and canoes.

            First, Raphaela showed me how to form basic sheets of paper.

             Then we set up the wet room to dive into testing out a few of my specific ideas. On the right is a sample threadwork memory map dipped into and layered with pulp.

My first “paper and threadwork” sculptural sample hangs on my design wall. So much potential!

Like every first try, my eye sees issues to resolve for the next ones, but it’s an exciting beginning.

Hungerford Artists: Thaw 3 Delivers Diversity

For the third year, artists from the Hungerford Building combined forces March 1 –8 to show their work in “Thaw 3”. “Thaw” exhibits have taken place all over Rochester and surrounding areas, a collaboration of Regional Gallery Directors’ Forum at Roberts Wesleyan College.

The diversity of mediums and subject matter in the Hungerford “Thaw” shows are always inspiring, but more so are the commitment and focus evident in the artists’ works.

 

Even with over 20 artists displaying multiple works, this huge studio space in the building could have held more! Here is a small selection of the works in this years THAW 3:

Robert Rogaliski’s (studio #222) wonderful imagination comes to life in this mixed media work, titled “Falling Leaf”.

Detail, “Falling Leaf”, mixed media, Robert Rogalski

Cody Kroll’s “Chadogu – Tea Utensils”, an installation featuring vessels using 16th century and modern American shino glazes.  Cody writes in his artist statement at his website, “In the last few years I have become fascinated conceptually by the "living" nature of clay and themes of impermanence.” See a full view in the image at the top of this page.  Cody’s studio is #228.

 Larry Moss and Kelly Cheatle, “Light Snack”, Airigami, studio #234, silver halide print, young girl with balloon sculpture.

Hungerford is home base for Airigami, where Larry Moss and Kelly Cheatle design balloon installations for venues all over the country. They’re currently awaiting publication of two children’s books they’ve written and illustrated with – of course -- their innovative balloon works.

One of my favorite artists in the building is Michael Pigett, who paints cloud paintings that are gentle, sensitive contemplations of light and movement. I left some the background surrounding this painting in because the two interact in such an interesting way. 

Michael Pigett, “Clouds”, oil on canvas

Olivia Kim, “Walking Woman”, studio #335, hydrocal and encaustics. Olivia’s love of the figure and her supreme attention to realistic detail inform her body of work.

Many thanks to Constance Mauro and Jennifer Buckley for coordinating the Hungerford Thaw 3 exhibit.

 If you live in the Rochester area, please visit the Hungerford Building, 1115 East Main St., Rochester, NY,  on First Friday Gallery Nights (go to this page for a listing of the studios open each month) and enjoy offerings of art and craft in every conceivable medium.

Visiting First Friday at Hungerford combines adventure, inspiration – and good exercise! – all in one convenient indoor location.

Parking is crazy on First Fridays, but here’s the way to avoid the crowds: Just park across the road in the bank parking lot or half a block down on the same side of East Main at the Greenovations building. Plenty of room in both! And do make sure to come visit me in studio #366!

 

2013 Niche Award and JGK Galleries’ Art ROC Showcase Winner

 

This excellent week started with discovering that Book of the Ancients 8: Bethel Park Elementary, won a 2013 Niche Award in decorative fiber. My piece, among 40 professional and 19 student winners, will be featured in the spring issue of Niche Magazine. This was the first time I entered Niche, so I was doubly pleased, first to be selected as a finalist and then to receive this prestigious award for my work.

My Book of the Ancients pieces consider the effects of time on memory and personal histories.

But that’s not all the delightful surprises this week brought.  Last night Bob and I attended the closing reception for JGK Galleries’ Art ROC Showcase, which features 12 regional artists. This juried exhibition offered a first prize of gallery representation and a solo show for one of the artists. Last night when the winning name was announced, it was – mine!

JGK’s space is warm and inviting with brick walls, gleaming hardwood floors and generous wall space, as well as ample room for 3-D works.

Out of twelve artists, Renee Simone-Lee and I were the two women selected to exhibit in the JGK Galleries Art ROC 2013 Showcase. Of course we rock!

Tonight will be the last night to see JGK Galleries Art ROC Showcase 2013, which will be open for First Friday gallery night in Rochester. Check out JGK’s Facebook page and you can see work by all 12 artists in the exhibition.

If good things come in threes, that means I can look forward to one more bit of good news arriving. It is fun to imagine all the good things that might be!

 

Janet Echelman: Imaginings

 “When Inspiration finds me, she will find me at work.”  Picasso

Today I’m writing a press release for the Surface Design Association’s upcoming June 6-9 In-ter-face Conference in San Antonio. Janet Echelman is our keynote speaker; her lecture title, “Taking Imagination Seriously.”

Janet, a 1987 Harvard graduate, started her art career as a painter. As she describes in her TED talk (below), she applied for and received a Fulbright to travel to India in 1987 and create paintings. The artist arrived, but her paints did not. As she watched fisherman weaving their nets along the beach, a new idea emerged, to create a three-dimensional woven structure that could move and float in the air. That initial project has evolved into designing massive floating sculptural installations for urban spaces around the world.

While I am awed at the scale and fluidity of these forms and impressed at how they animate and engage the steel and concrete environments and human populations that surround them, what impresses me most is Janet herself as a creative. As the TED talk reveals, Janet has candor, humor and a passion for creative process and the power of imagination that are contagious.

In this new year, as I challenge my own imagination to be bolder, more daring and confident, this artist is the first one I am choosing as a touchstone. The above image of Janet seems to encapsulate her energy and creative vision.

I am drawn to the communal nature of Echelman’s work.  Rendering her ideas into form engages experts in engineering, science and even aeronautics in a collaborative process. When artistic vision mingles with science and physics, all contribute to a creative process that leads to awe-inspiring results. 

Janet broached this same subject as a TED talk in 2011:

I am eager to hear Janet speak more fully on imagination at the Surface Design Association conference. This artist/imagineer, her history, ideas and experiences as a maker will be a fitting launch for a conference that always inspires and informs my own creative practice.

(For more, read this Huffington Post interview with Echelman.)

Art of the Steal at Hungerford Studios

The time has come to let go of many of my experimental surface design works and samples along with my dyes, silks and cottons, both undyed and dyed and printed -- and all of my sundry collected-over-15-years assortment of books, magazines, tools and equipment. It's a mega letting go and I'm excited. The old "one door closes, another one opens" adage fits here. I am committed to my new body of work and the directions it is leading me; these materials no longer fit.  

                     The piles for pricing keep growing and it's amazing how good it feels to let it all go.

This shift has meant pulling everything out of storage areas in both my home and studio and piling boxes and bolts and etceteras in my soon to be painting and printing space.  I'm pulling out the stove, washer and dryer to paint the walls and set up additional work space.  

As I prepare for the sale, I am visualizing a lovely clear space in my artistic life that is making room for new ideas and new works.  I am ready to pare down, let these much loved and carefully collected raw materials move along to people who will actually USE them!

The sale is mushrooming from my personal studio sale to a building-wide January clearance sale. Turns out that a whole lot of us need to let go of the old as we usher in the new year!

So if you are in the area and want to help me make this shift, please come to Hungerford Studios' "Art of the Steal Sale" on Friday, January 25 and Saturday, January 26, 11 AM - 4 PM.  

Hey There’s Nothing Wrong with the Old, But…

 

IN WITH THE NEW!! It’s 2013!!

A New Year always brings the energy of change and new directions with it and I love the feeling.

For years I’ve been a goal setter and list maker – every day checking off and adding to a never ending list. It feels great to be action-oriented and productive, but all my to-dos started to feel like an endless sea of chores. This year, after reading, reflecting and opening to new ideas for the past few months, I have a new focus: I’M FOLLOWING THE GOOD FEELINGS. That’s it. That’s my compass and map for the year.

How to set that exciting new energy into motion?? Make a list, of course! Here it is and I love it:

My Awesome Desires for 2013

Read more juicy, brilliantly written books that inspire and uplift me and transport me to other lives and times

Enjoy my body. Dance, swim, stretch, walk, bounce and skip through all the seasons and enjoy a limber, fit and trim body.

Savor delicious, healthful foods that nourish my being and delight my senses. Make eating and cooking adventurous and live-enhancing.

Laugh and play more every day. Sing my favorite songs.

Spread kindness, generosity and laughter. Lots of laughter.

Discover wonderful artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers and appreciate their creative offerings.

Practice hope and positivity for myself and for the world. All is well.

Share my thoughts, dreams, hopes and discoveries through my my art and my writing.

Delight in my creative process and make ample time to explore, research and flesh out exciting new works.

Speak about and to myself with kindness, love and nurturing.

Think and speak and practice positive thoughts and words about others. Share laughter and joy and appreciation with each member of my family.

Travel to fun, stimulating and exciting locations and find the best that each has to offer.

Update and refresh my home and studio environments so they truly allow me to feel open, expansive and fully at home, at ease and nestled snugly in comfort and beauty here.

Bring more art into my life. I've added some new pieces to my home in 2012; let this continue in 2013 and fully enjoy the process of selecting each piece. Love and appreciate each one and surround myself in beauty.

Enjoy discovering and purchasing wonderful new clothing and jewelry that convey my love of all things creative and artistic.

Thrill to new discoveries and growth in my body of work so it continues to be become more visually compelling and irresistible.

Accept and appreciate my authority and expertise as an artist, writer and wise woman. Radiate confidence in all that I do.

Connect with my inner compass and trust what it tells me.

Innovate and experiment feeling confidence and trust in the creative process and my connection with my inner compass.

Affirm and bless the gifts that my life brings me each and every day and appreciate how wonderful my life is.

Let my spirit soar and boldly express in every thing I do.

I wish you a joyful New Year filled with many creative adventures. We’re on our way!

Transforming a Yellow Spot into the Sun

 

There are painters who transform the sun

into a yellow spot, but there are others who,

thanks to their art and intelligence,

transform a yellow spot into the sun.

PABLO PICASSO

 

Isn’t this a wonderful quote from an incredible artist? I found it in The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life by John Daido Loori, which I spent this past weekend reading. I had just finished an intense period of creative work last week when a wonderful new friend passed along her copy of this book to me. The timing was perfect; I was tired and stressed and somehow the thoughts and ideas that Loori shared helped me release some of the tensions that had built over the past month.

Here’s what happened. In June I had three works to enter in an international juried fiber exhibition with an August 31 entry deadline. I looked forward to taking the whole month of July off from studio work.

Then two of the works sold (who could complain about that?!) and the third one went out on consignment to an art consultant. That gave me four weeks to create three new works to meet the submission deadline. Each piece normally takes me close to a month to complete.

Somehow I did it! A key ingredient was serendipitously finding an excellent studio assistant to help. In less than four weeks, I completed three new pieces in the Book of the Ancients series and made the entry deadline!

The works in this series continue to be inspired by remembered bits of personal history,  considerations of how and what we remember over time. I’ve returned to the photographer who is able to capture the truest representation of the luminosity and colors within each work.

Jeanne Raffer Beck, Book of the Ancients 8: Remembered Teachers, 2012, 36” x 48”, composition gold leaf, spun polyester, fiberglass window screening, acrylics. Screen printing, gel medium transfers, cut, stitched and constructed.

Detail, Book of the Ancients 8

Book of the Ancients 9, 2012, 36” x 48”, composition gold leaf, spun polyester, fiberglass window screening, acrylics, oil stick. Screen printed, cut, stitched and constructed.

Detail, Book of the Ancients 9

Book of the Ancients 10, 2012, 36” x 48”, composition gold leaf, spun polyester, fiberglass window screening, acrylics, oil stick. Stenciled, cut, stitched and constructed.

Detail, Book of the Ancients 10

Photographing New Works: Your Opinion, Please

I work with three photographers. One doesn’t have a studio to photograph my larger works so I have to pay for his travel time and set up in my studio; another has a studio but it’s a two hour drive away. I took this latest work to a third photographer who has his own studio and he shot it a bit differently. Here’s your chance to take a close look and share your opinions about how it turned out – I would greatly appreciate it if you do!

We had to jury rig a hanging device for the piece. Since he is a Photoshop wizard, he was able to remove all signs of the orange clamps from the final image. Because of the slope of the hanging mechanism, the piece listed a bit to the right.

Jeanne Raffer Beck, Book of the Ancients: Memory 2, 48” x 48”, 2012

That’s the final image above. The reflectiveness of the piece by photographer #3 is less visible than the one in the piece below done by photographer #2. Here is the question:

Jeanne Raffer Beck, Book of the Ancients 3: Memory, 36” x 36”, 2011.

Which photograph best holds your attention and interest and makes you want to see more?

Hungerford Artists Open Studios and ACC Member Showcase 2012 this First Friday

 

Please join me and my guest artist, Christina Laurel, as we show our work together this Friday, August 3, 6-9 PM at the Hungerford Building First Friday Open Studios, 1115 East Main Street, Rochester, NY, at my studio, #366 on the third floor,  5 –9 PM.

Christina Laurel, Black and White Fan #14, mixed media; collaged, layered, found and prepared papers.

In addition, one of my silk and thread constructions, “Pages 7”,  is in the Arts & Cultural Council Member Showcase 2012 Exhibition at 277 North Goodman Street, a short walking distance from the Hungerford Building. You’re invited to this opening as well this Friday evening  5 – 9 PM.

In total, ACC received 204 submissions from 73 member artists. The exhibition jurors selected 20 pieces from 19 artists, so I am delighted my work is among them. The exhibition runs August 3 – 30.