Beehouse Projects

Impossible folds project - a series I started a couple of years...

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 23:38:36 -0500

Impossible folds project - a series I started a couple of years ago, that I am picking up again. More to come!

“Illuminate” Original silk screen print used for...

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:23:42 -0500

“Illuminate”

Original silk screen print used for album cover for Hospital Garden.

My artwork + awesome music! One of my best friend’s band,...

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:12:39 -0500

My artwork + awesome music!

One of my best friend’s band, Hospital Garden, commissioned me to make another album cover for them! This is my second piece of artwork on vinyl… couldn’t be more psyched about it! You can pre-order and stream the album starting March 21st!

There is also of course a story behind this print: In 2003, I was visiting my cousin in northeastern British Columbia. One night, I had a dream in which I was told to go to the top of a skyscraper… there was something up there for me. I get to the top floor, the lights are off. I look up, to find an illuminated cube, floating, mid-air. It started floating down towards me, so I raised my hands in order to catch it. I became completely captivated by this pure and bright light. As soon as it settled in my hands in front of me, I was told that I would find out later what it meant. End dream.

There were two dreams following that were similar, however different shapes of light. These three dreams, being the most vivid dreams I have ever had, have since overwhelmed my being with mystique and what felt like pure joy. There has since, always, been a yearning to find that again, this year being paramount for me.

Flash forward ten years, almost exactly. It is amazing to think about all that I have done and how I have grown in a decade.

Secret Codes, Human Error An installation inspired by Vosges...

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:04:38 -0500

Secret Codes, Human Error

An installation inspired by Vosges chocolate trays. Since May, this installation has found its place on walls at three different venues. Most recently, at Anchor & Eve, a vintage clothing, furniture, and skate shop turned gallery and music venue on Lake and Desplaines.

If you are interested in my thought process behind this piece, here goes…

The original plan here was to lay out approximately 25 trays at a time, drop X amount of one color in to each tray and when I arrived at the last tray, I would start over with the next color… dropping X amount of that color to the end… and repeat, until the trays were full. By the time I got to the end, I noticed myself faulting. It became something almost out of my control. My hand worked in an almost mechanical movement through working in such a repetitive nature. My memory in turn was put to the test, and I noticed my mind and hand as separate tools, in this case working against one another… but I was okay with that.

I tend to want to cover entire walls or rooms full of things, and to be more specific, objects that I have collected in masses that once held something. When I put them up on the wall, they became something completely different than what I had personally experienced while creating the piece. Hundreds of trays lined the wall, each paint dot next to each other, different in shape and color. The trays became an audience, a population. As time passed, trays began to fall. This created a landscape, a city scape, full of people. But really, this piece is about what happened… the in between. I am very interested in imperfections and in seeing my art change over time, through a variety of circumstances. I strive to explore what happens between the viewer and the actual piece of art; how our environment and things unseen, can affect change. In many cases the outcome comes as a surprise. In this particular installation at Anchor & Eve, the trays were affected by the vibrations of sound.

Photo

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 02:58:56 -0500

Inside

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 02:57:18 -0500

Inside

Paw Paw leaves….

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 02:48:43 -0500

Paw Paw leaves….

Installation at Hauser Gallery for the More is More Group Show...

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 02:47:32 -0500

Installation at Hauser Gallery for the More is More Group Show curated by Claire Molek

See Through You Acrylic and Paint Marker on Canvas

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:49:56 -0500

See Through You

Acrylic and Paint Marker on Canvas

Connect Acrylic and Paint Marker on folded Rives BFK

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:41:49 -0500

Connect

Acrylic and Paint Marker on folded Rives BFK

From the Bottom, Things are Looking Up Acrylic and Paint Marker...

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:38:37 -0500

From the Bottom, Things are Looking Up

Acrylic and Paint Marker on Canvas

Between Oil, Acrylic, and Paint Marker on Canvas

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:35:07 -0500

Between

Oil, Acrylic, and Paint Marker on Canvas

Beginnings, Life Hand sewn artist book, pencil on vellum...

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:19:40 -0500

Beginnings, Life

Hand sewn artist book, pencil on vellum drawings

Book of Lamentations Silkscreen and Monotype Print with Soft...

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:17:18 -0500

Book of Lamentations

Silkscreen and Monotype Print with Soft Pastels on Rives BFK

Dripper Oil, Acrylic, and Paint Marker on Canvas

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:13:25 -0500

Dripper

Oil, Acrylic, and Paint Marker on Canvas

If you know me, you know I collect things. I frequent the...

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 22:49:57 -0500

If you know me, you know I collect things. I frequent the “Free Stuff” section on Craigslist. (I can’t take credit for this particular find, a friend sent me the link… thanks Jessica!)

The lady showed up with an ENTIRE station wagon full of different shapes, sizes, and colors of styrofoam.

This is my first window installation at my studio. I plan on switching it out every month or so. This one is still in progress… at least it will help keep a little bit of the heat in this winter! I do feel a little bit like a hoarder, no lie.

Hand-built, stained, and carved plank wall for the the backdrop...

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 22:45:31 -0500

Hand-built, stained, and carved plank wall for the the backdrop for the Wild Ophelia station at the Fancy Food Show held in D.C., June 2012.

I will be adding on to this structure, for the Fancy Food show this winter, held in San Francisco.

I am currently working on 31”x 37”x approx 8”...

Wed, 30 May 2012 16:26:00 -0400

finished product

finished product

step one, build box

step two, coat box

step three, make plaster

step four, pour plaster

step five, pour lots more plaster

step six, transfer image

step seven, carve away!

silicone mold from finished product

I am currently working on 31”x 37”x approx 8” (at its highest point) hand carved plaster mold of the Vosges logo. The images above describe my process. I have used seven 25lb bags of plaster to fill the box. Each pour (approximately 1.5 bags) I let sit for a day and after scoring the surface, I mixed more plaster and then poured another layer on top. This process was repeated, until the box was filled. The next step is to remove the box surrounding, so that I can carve in more detail and chip away at more of the excess plaster. I had someone help me make a silicone mold of the finished outcome, so that the sign can be replicated. Update- reworking sign to bring in more detail

Mural at the Armitage Vosges store.

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:10:00 -0400

original idea, quick painting

Mural at the Armitage Vosges store.

As a part of Offwhite Gallery’s “Ground Teeth”...

Sun, 20 May 2012 23:47:54 -0400

"Mandalalalala"

"You Live, You Learn"

As a part of Offwhite Gallery’s “Ground Teeth” Group Show, about anxiety, I carved fifty oranges. Why oranges?

For a while, I was bringing an orange to work with me every morning because I have a bad habit of not eating breakfast. I was trying to break my habit, and start a new one to replace it with. More often than not, me and my coworker, who has become one of my best friends, talk about our anxieties, ranging from love to being unhappy at work, etc, every day life encounters, basically. One particular day, as we were talking, I remember being overly anxious about whatever it was that I was telling him. I am among the many who show their anxiousness by nail biting, pealing labels off of bottles, tearing up pieces of paper, destroying whatever it is in front of me…. this time it happened to be an orange, with a flimsy plastic knife. I started carving the orange. At the end of the day, the orange had yet to be eaten and my manager told me it reminded him of a mandala. I put in a little research behind the mandala, and believe that a lot of my artwork in one way or another is very representative of a mandala.

From my Mandala research on Wikipedia:

“The psychoanalyst Carl Jung saw the mandala as “a representation of the unconscious self”, and believed his paintings of mandalas enabled him to identify emotional disorders and work towards wholeness in personality.

Within Hindu meditative rituals (sadhanas), a yantra is a two or three dimensional geometric composition that is thought to be the abode of the deity. Each yantra is unique and calls the deity into the presence of the practitioner through the elaborate symbolic geometric designs. “Yantras function as revelatory symbols of cosmic truths and as instructional charts of the spiritual aspect of human experience”.

In Buddhist practices, a sand mandala is ritualistically destroyed once it has been completed and it’s accompanying ceremonies and viewings are finished to symbolize the Buddhist doctrinal belief in the transitory nature of material life.

These oranges are my own personal mandalas, my “Mandalalalala”. The stream of my own unconscious thought carved in to the oranges. At the opening, as part of the installation, I invited people to eat them; in a way, a ritual act like mentioned above. The peels left over (“You Live, You Learn”) from the process of carving and later eating, represent my belief that thoughts are physical. All of the left over oranges that were not eaten, will be juiced tomorrow.