The Lee Bontecou exhibit impacted me almost as much as the Smithsonian internship did; I have drawings from it, perhaps I'll show a few tomorrow if I can decide which ones to use. I almost bought the catalogue there, but I would have had to use that week's lunch money. I was still scrambling, at the Tribeca gallery mainly, but the entry fee was totally worth it. Every piece spoke to me, I walked the exhibit three times. What I got most from it, what I basically stole, were the rimmed but hollowed out mouths and the mismatched eyes. One concave socket with a rounded internal orb, the other eye smaller but raised; which these close-ups of the Sparky and Puddin' sculptures show. It took a while for it to translate into the paintings; and yes, I eventually did get to buy that fabulous catalogue.

This is Puddin', don't know why, front and back. perhaps the most ambitious of the papier-mache sculptures, he is certainly, at 2 feet high as well as across, the biggest. He's companion to Sparky, who I posted February 19th. I did them after seeing a mind-boggling Lee Bontecou exhibit at MOMA when it was in Queens. Did a lot of sketches when I was there, gave me lots of ideas about eyeballs, among other things. 

Another mask, gouache this time, I actually made a version of it that wraps around my face. This was in both of my solo exhibits; and later, in a show I had in an Off-Off-Off Broadway theater lobby. I like his little down-turned mouth, his look of vulnerability instead of howling.

So here's Lancelot, with his broken leg. There was a string running through his back to hang from, but that snapped and gave me a valuable lesson about how fragility of papier-mache. Then another sculpture was also damaged, which made me rethink the process. Now I make a foundation with empty water bottles and old bubble-wrap; and since I cover the armature with newspaper, there's something nice about how much of my material is recycled. I remember that when I was shaping Lancelot's face, I was watching Hugh Jackman singing the role of Curly in a London production of Oklahoma; do you see any connection?

Lorelei, hard to photograph for some reason, maybe too metallic, was done right before I left for the Richmond exhibit. I thought about taking her and her companion, Lancelot, but I decided they were too fragile for travel. I did put them in the smaller solo show I had in New York when the artwork came back in July. Lancelot fell off the wall after that show and snapped off his leg, but maybe I'll shoot his  fabulous face for you. 

Another post-Smithsonian mask, it's actually coppery, although I like the way the photograph of it looks like leather. Too literal for the angel collection, I did not include it my solo exhibit, it still has that archetypal connection since the buffalo was, is, sacred to the Southwest tribes.

Silver Cloud, which I use as my blogger ID, was done during the build up to my solo exhibit in May. The exhibit took place in Artspace, a very interesting gallery in Richmond, where I went to college. The event was all-consuming; even when I was at my part-time jobs, I was thinking about the floor plan the gallery sent me. By the time I shipped the art, I knew exactly, to the inch, how it would hang. I even packed it in order so when I opened the boxes, I didn't have to think about what to do.