Ellie Hogeman is an excellent photographer who makes BEAUTIFUL pictures and I used to make prints and books, remember? So we're going to stack up our piles of images and disseminate them. Come to the 5th year studio at Ruffin Hall, comb through some paper work, and bring some cash!

56 | Taut is up now - April 15 - 19.

Flocking is a mysterious and wonderful substance. It essentially makes a surface velvety by using colored adhesive and super-fine fibers. The process videos do a better job explaining than I can. My rocking jig and haphazard drop cloth/plastic might seem hilariously inept to experienced flockers. To that group of 45 people - I salute you and your consummate craftsmanship! I tried. Jill from DonJer is a great person to call; I posed many questions that she answered expertly and kindly.

Mitch shot these process video for me/you. Louise Dechow was my beautiful assistant and is a bad-ass fiber artist. Audio provided by WTJU rock marathon and the air compressor. Thanks to all!
Come to the show and touch the giant wall of flock (there are five panels). And come see Mitch's work. Kid is going places. I'll post installation shots and artist statements soon. Here is a phone photo during set up.

I've got a show coming up with the talented Mitchell Oliver. Progress shots are imminent. Things progress, dudes. Big geographic // life choices upcoming as well. Stay tuned.

Some unaltered source images I've been working with this late winter - probably in anticipation of spring.

Here are some shots of the installation at WVTF on the night of the opening. There is a large space for lease next door to the radio station studio and we set up two large projections of these videos. It was way fun. Thanks for coming out, everyone!

If you're in Charlottesville for First Fridays, want to see some prints and drawings, or sample food and wine - stop by the WVTF/Radio IQ studio tomorrow night. New City Arts Initiative curates the space and provides gorgeous art-hanging-experts/organizers. I'm excited!

The images are an inkjet/colored pencil print (20"x26") and the back of the postcard.

xxxxx from hbare on Vimeo.

grasses from hbare on Vimeo.

It has been a while. I'll admit my attention strayed elsewhere.

Here are some videos! I'm doing a series about the huge grassy hills alongside US 29 around Lynchburg.

Here are pictures from the show!! The beasts are steel armatures with flax paper wrapped around the armature. The flax paper is made from raw Type R flax beaten for 8 hrs. I ordered the pulp pre-beaten from Carriage House Paper because the old, giant paper beater's long happy tenure in the University of Virginia's papermaking studio ended this semester. RIP. Happily, we are getting a new, smaller beater this next week. The prints are made from abaca paper, beaten for 2 hrs. I screenprinted the circle/moon forms on the paper and collaged the pieces together. The projected work is a collaboration with Elizabeth; her video work is projected on my paper collage.

Thanks to Mark for taking these installation shots. And thanks to my whole lovely family for helping me assemble and disassemble my show. I couldn't have done it without the team! xo
There are more pictures on my flickr, just click on the images here!

I've been lax about taking in progress photos on my printed work, but I'm busy! Expect some good pictures after our show is up. For now, here is another sneak peek of the show. Prints, y'all!

P.S. thanks to the sweet people at New City Arts Initiative for putting our show up on their rad website. Check out the Forum: it is guaranteed to be inspiring. I believe you can still register during the next week!

I am busy working on my thesis show! These are the beasts sitting pretty in the papermaking studio. I love them so much that I put some carts in between the tables to block people from touching them. It looks like they're toddlers trying to get out of those baby gates.

April 9-13.

I put together a corner of recent/unfinished work for a critique three weeks ago. Hopefully the future beast is more visible in these pictures.
I'm busy planning a collaborative thesis show with my friend, Elizabeth. We chose our show date recently: our work is up April 9-13 and our closing reception is April 13. I'll give more details soon. Preemptively: come one and all!
For a full picture of the prints click on the photos.

Untitled from hbare on Vimeo.

I took a video of myself making paper the other afternoon!
I made about 25 good sheets of abaca paper: I overbeat the abaca for about 8 hours. The old beater in our studio doesn't really do more than saturate the pulp fibers because the blade height can't be adjusted, but the paper still ended up being delicate and translucent. We're getting a new beater at some point this spring. Look out, world!

This past week I worked in the metal studio welding beast armatures! I have been MIG welding 1/8" rod together and angle grinding the joints.
I'm glad to be back in studio before classes start. I've been hanging the beast's torso on a giant hook and strapping on the lower limbs - taking massive amounts of real estate. Next steps: fitting the limbs onto the torso in some detachable way, adding wooden limb-ends (feet), and testing out paper skins.

The first photo is the back leg + torso.

Hello! Sorry for the semester-long radio silence. It was pretty busy!

I took an amazing class (perhaps the best of all time): Natural Systems and Plant Ecology. It was in the landscape architecture department. We met every Tuesday, Sunday and one Saturday to learn native Virginia flora. These photos are from our Saturday trek to VA beach's First Landing State Park: cypress knees and beach grasses!

* I'll post some pictures of the journal we did for the class too - drawings of every plant & descriptions.

We visited the High Line while we were in the city, twice! It is an amazing reuse of space and a generally beloved spot by the citizens of NYC. The park was originally a raised railway line that carried things into the city; the train's final cargo was frozen turkeys in 1980. The patches of grasses and wild natives (mountain mint: second picture) are my favorite sections. The park continues to expand (final picture); seeing the space grow during the next few years will be interesting.

This past week I traveled to New York City with my beau, Mark, to learn more about papermaking and urban green spaces. Success! We visited Dieu Donné, a paper studio where artists create work using handmade paper and are enabled by an outstanding crew of papermakers. I didn't take any pictures at Dieu Donné, sadly. But I did learn some great new pulp pigmenting and drying techniques from the lovely Amy Jacobs, DD's studio manager. After visiting DD we popped over to Brooklyn to see Carriage House Paper's studio and museum. The pictures above are of the museum: paper aardvark/elephant balloon, Korean floor paper, vegetable paper. Shannon showed us around the studio a bit and gave me some excellent advice on sculptural papermaking. Now I'm itching to get some flax pulp and start working in studio!

Books! This week I'm taking a class as an Undergraduate RBS-UVA Fellow in the Rare Book School that is located at the University of Virginia. I'm taking "Printed Books since 1800: Description and Analysis" with Tom Congalton and Katherine Reagan. Tom is an antiquarian bookseller and Katherine is a curator and assistant director at Cornell University's Rare Books and Manuscripts Division. I've been learning all about rare books. My independent research focuses on these two rare 1867 and 1878 books: Gardening for Profit and The Farmers' and Mechanics' Manual, respectively. The details of the tool and horse wood engravings are from Manual; how stinkin' amazing. Check out the muddy water stain on Gardening; some of the leaves are dog-eared, too. Well loved.