Jane Fulton Alt: Creativity

Showing posts with label Creativity. Show all posts

Monday, September 16, 2013

between fire/smoke

between fire/smoke from Jane Fulton Alt on Vimeo.

“between fire/smoke” is an unfolding visual and textual journey through a landscape of liminality – leading to a place where all that is unresolved is imaginable…

Jane Fulton Alt – images, text and unique mixed media encaustic

Teresa Pankratz – structure and design

Printed and hand bound by the artists

Detailed description:

The limited edition artist’s book is hardcover, bound in light grey (“smoke”) Iris book cloth with silkscreened titling. The structure incorporates left and right covers with a magnet closure which, when opened, situate the text block as the center panel within a triptych of white space (Canson Ingres end sheets). The opening portion of the text block includes 4 sections (alternating between single and double-page construction) sewn to an exposed internal spine with a modified continuous pamphlet stitch. (Single-page sections are archival pigment prints on Hahnemühle photo rag; double-page sections are archival pigment prints on Niyodo Japanese paper). The attached back section of the book is an adhesive binding mounted on an internal “frame” constructed of laminated 4 and 8 ply archival Rising White mat covered with Niyodo Japanese paper. Unfolding left and right are, first, two three-panel archival pigment prints on Hahnemühle photo rag, followed by a series of four text and image single-page archival pigment prints on Niyodo Japanese paper. The final unfolding reveals a unique, mixed media encaustic mounted (on black Stonehenge) within the internal frame. The book is housed in a slip-case constructed of an archival pigment print on pearl gray Murillo by Fabriano.

Dimensions, closed: 8.5” x 8.5” x 1”. Edition of 18. 2013.

For more information, please email me

JaneFultonAlt@gmail.com

Thursday, March 07, 2013

Book Updates

I always try to plan for the expected...because it usually happens. This morning I hoped to make a dent into creating the unique encaustics that will be encased in the limited edition, artist made book,

BETWEEN

Fire/Smoke

I was working away and the heat gun began to smoke and the coils on the inside turned an angry red...pretty scary. The studio smells like a burn but happily, I unplugged everything and found myself with time to update the blog.

I can hardly believe it is almost spring. The sun just came out after 4 days of grey, snowy, wintery days and it feels wonderful. One thing I love about living in Chicago is that nothing lasts forever, the seasons are in constant flux which keeps things interesting.

I have been spending the last 2-3 months preparing files for my upcoming book, The Burn. It will be published by Kehrer Verlag is will be released this coming fall. After great struggle, I finally decided to write the book essay with the help of many eyes and ears. It was a true collaboration.

Natasha Egan of the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago helped me to sequence the work. Her first question was ..."what would you like the first and last photograph to be?"
Everything else fell into place after that. It was an amazing process to see how her keen eye could sort thru 60 some photographs and restore order and grace to the work.

Walker Blackwell of Latitude ran some proof prints for me. Once the final design decisions are made, he will make another set to send to the publisher for color corrections. I turned all the proofs and text over to Renata Graw and Jeremiah Chiu of Plural, a design firm in Chicago. I can't wait to see what they come up with!

And now I am focusing on a very exciting new venture, creating a limited edition handmade artist book with interdisciplinary book and paper artist, Teresa Pankratz. Teresa has created an amazing structure and design for this book, which is really more like an art object. It is pure poetry.
I am really thrilled with being able to make / create this with her and look forward to the actually assembly of the book. The unveiling will be this coming May 17th...stay tuned.

All of art making is a labor of love and I feel so luck to be in the throws of the creative process.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Gregory Crewdson : Brief Encounters

It is not often that one has the opportunity to see the process of an artist's practice. A new documentary that was just released on Gregory Crewdson offers the viewer insight into what drives Crewdson to construct elaborate sets for the one moment of narrative. It is a stunning documentary and not be be missed.

I love the fact that the film follows Crewdson over several years and shows the influences on his art from his childhood into the present day. His father took him to a Diane Arbus show in NYC when he was 10 years old. Exhibitions in NYC of Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger were important in forming his work while he attended graduate school at Yale. His father was a psychoanalyst and had an office in the basement of their home. Crewdson grew up knowing there were "secrets" contained in the office, not unlike the "secrets" contained in the orchestrated images he constructs.

Beneath the Roses, a stunning body of work, taking 8 years to complete. I think he may have started it after a divorce (they did not go into this much in the documentary). I can't help but wonder
how much of the longing and sense of disconnect that permeates his images over those 8 years was an outgrowth of his own pain...

The film is playing at the Gene Siskel Center in Chicago this weekend. If you don't live in the city, look for it playing near you.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Mark Rothko ~ The Formula

Mark Rothko ~ From a lecture at the Pratt Institute, 1958.

The recipe of a work of art—its ingredients—how to make it—the formula.

Burn No. 29 © Jane Fulton Alt

1. There must be a clear preoccupation with death—intimations of mortality...Tragic art, romantic art, etc. deals with the knowledge of death.
2. Sensuality. Our basis of being concrete about the world. It is a lustful relationship to things that exist.
3. Tension. Either conflict or curbed desire.
4. Irony. This is a modern ingredient—the self effacement and examination by which a man for an instant can go on to something else.
5. Wit and Play..for the human element.
6. The ephemeral and chance...for the human element.
7. Hope. 10% to make the tragic concept more endurable.

I measure these ingredients very carefully when I paint a picture. It is always the form that follows these elements and the picture results from the porportions of these elements...

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Space In Between ~ An Awesome Project

Transform a vacant space into a community asset in the Chicago/Gary/Milwaukee metro area....2012

Monday, July 16, 2012

Beasts of the Southern Wild ~ The Movie

Beasts of the Southern Wild was a tour de force. Many people spend a lifetime trying to give expression the "all of it." I came out of the theater last night speechless and profoundly touched. New Orleans, Louisiana, life, death, and art all rolled into one. BRILLIANT! Clearly the muses were at work during it's creation. It is a most eloquent expression of what it means to be alive. See it...and see it NOW!

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Commencement Advice

There was a wonderful article in the New York Times this weekend with excerpts from various graduation speeches that were delivered this season, titled Familiar Faces Offer Advice, Idealism and Humor.

Northwestern University Hat Toss

MR. GAIMAN “Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. I.R.S. on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil, or it’s all been done before? Make good art.”

soooooooo, go ahead and make some good art this summer!

Monday, May 14, 2012

Nina Katchadourian

I have been traveling a lot this month so thought it appropriate to introduce the work of Nina Katchadourian. Her creativity is inspirational and hysterical. I love thinking of her making these images in the tiny bathroom lavatories as she is flying thru space.

Seat Assignment: Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style

In her words...

Improvising with materials close at hand, Seat Assignment consists of photographs, video, and digital images all made while in flight using only a camera phone. The project began spontaneously on a flight in March 2010 and is ongoing. At present, over 2500 photographs and video, made on more than 70 different flights to date, constitute the raw material of the project.

While in the lavatory on a domestic flight in March 2010, I spontaneously put a tissue paper toilet cover seat cover over my head and took a picture in the mirror using my cellphone. The image evoked 15th-century Flemish portraiture. I decided to add more images made in this mode and planned to take advantage of a long-haul flight from San Francisco to Auckland, guessing that there were likely to be long periods of time when no one was using the lavatory on the 14-hour flight. I made several forays to the bathroom from my aisle seat, and by the time we landed I had a large group of new photographs entitled Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style. I was wearing a thin black scarf that I sometimes hung up on the wall behind me to create the deep black ground that is typical of these portraits. There is no special illumination in use other than the lavatory's own lights and all the images are shot hand-held with the camera phone. At the Dunedin Public Art gallery, the photos were framed in faux-historical frames and hung on a deep red wall reminiscent of the painting galleries in museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Improvising with materials close at hand, "Seat Assignment" consists of photographs, video, and digital images all made while in flight using only a camera phone. The project began spontaneously on a flight in March 2010 and is ongoing. At present, over 2500 photographs and video, made on more than 70 different flights to date, constitute the raw material of the project.

Nina's website has many interesting projects to explore. The site of a creative mind.

I will be traveling for the next week and a half...thinking more about what is possible when in transit.

Stay tuned!

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

On Collaborations

Thank you for all who have participated in the Creative collaborations. It has been really fun to organize and see creativity at work with the multitude of interpretations. I have decided to include all 3 rounds in this post as a finale.

Enjoy the show!