A New Year or Holy Shit it's 2014 Already

"Gosh where has the time gone?" I am clearly not the only one asking this question. I am behind in updating this blog, but I have my reasons, all of them good.

Right now I am getting ready for classes next week and catching up on correspondence. It's freaking cold here, not usual for Mississippi to stay below freezing for the whole day.

I was in the Netherlands for 16 days over the holidays, it was a wonderful time, as it was last year. I am still getting over travel hangover.

Some of the good things...

Homes for Everyone is going to the Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center in Virginia for 2014.

The six Garden Boats, not going into the Mississippi Museum of Art permanent collection, are going to the Kemp Center for the Arts, in Wichita Falls, TX for 2104.

I made good progress on my cloud series pieces, but honestly the studio is too cold right now for my hands to work so I'll take a short break. These are so far, finished in many coats of sanded gesso. It's taking a long time and I clearly have made no decisions on the final colors, if any.

I also got a new webpage up and running. www.jentorres.com is still the same name and address as the old one just a new website host and updated design.

Color

Construction of my daily compositions, as a friend calls them, has slowed down a bit, as expected. For two reasons; our summer semester started, and I had to slow down as I needed to start doing more composing of the forms.

The first group of works were kind of like 3d gesture drawings, I jumped in not knowing or really planing where I was going. As forms, commonalities, and relationships began to develop I knew I wanted to slow down and make deliberate decisions about where to go next. The hard part is not losing the freshness and spontaneity apparent in the first works. So far so good. I started adding larger laminated sections and fabricated parts that required clear decisions and planning in the construction phase. I like how things are going, and they are getting bigger and stronger. I also decided it was time to start experimenting with finishes. Hand painting was not going to work, too may inaccessible spaces for a brush and many of the works will not come apart to paint individual pieces. So I tried spray paint and although it requires great patience the results have been very pleasing, and I am getting the bold saturated colors that I want. I have an excellent spray system, but right now I am using too small a quantity of paint in any one color to justify the expense of the paint itself, and there are so many excellent spray paint choices.

Right now I will be doing more of my daily compositions in clay, mainly because my intense summer teaching scheduled will keep me in the USM studio pretty much 40 hrs a week straight for the month of June. I will have several hours a day to work side by side with some of my upper level ceramics students and so far it has been rewarding, and they seem to be getting a lot out of seeing me work too.

I'll still work on the wood ones, but at a slower pace and probably on weekends. My goal with the clay and the wood is to get bigger.

Back to Work

Not that I ever left. But I needed to focus on my furniture class for a few weeks and the weather was ass-kickin' hot so I took a break from the hot shop for a bit too. Two more of the village homes mostly tack welded together. Still have bases to make and plenty more to do. Here are a few images from the past week. Probably will get much more work done at the end of the month when classes are over and I can get in real early to work. It's so hot here in the afternoons.

Homes for Everyone

Homes for Everyone is a new sculpture installation that I am working on this spring and into summer. This outdoor sculpture work is generously funded by a faculty research grant from the College of Arts and Letters at The University of Southern Mississippi. In brief the grant will supply all materials, tools, hardware and installation needs for the work. I plan on having the sculpture installed on campus for one year starting in September 2012, and then hope to exhibit the work at other outdoor venues around the country after that.


Here are a few sketches of some of the "homes".

The homes will be made of aluminum plate and tubing and there will be 6 to 7 of them in a range of sizes and shapes, they will be bunched together in a make-shift village. This work is a part of a series I have been working that addresses my own personal experiences of the inadequacies in affordable housing and issues of lack of safe homes and the number of foreclosed homes in today's negative housing market and poor economy.


Viewers will be able to interact with the works by getting up under and in some of the homes to read statistics about the current housing crisis.


I will be fabricating the works myself at the USM sculpture studios over the 2012 summer.

One of the fabrication layouts for the larger of the "homes".

Busy in the Studio

Working in a university Art and Design department has many, many perks. So I really can't complain. But one thing we do have to deal with is lots of office work, for me that translates into position search committees, six for me this year, designing a new course for on-line, and a bunch of normal stuff like annual evaluations and never mind teaching, and I am also the library liaison, responsible for making sure we spend all of our library allocations. 

In additional to all the above stuff I also must (it's part of my contract) continue to be creatively active, have shows, make work, etc. I wanted to make this a bit easier for me this year, I knew it was going to be a mind numbing semester and decided during the Christmas break I would clean out my office and carve out some space for working in clay. I normally do this at my home studio but getting green-ware into my truck and over to the studio to fire is a nightmare (especially since I got rid of my electric kiln). My office isn't big, but I manage pretty well. Classes started on January 17 and I have spent every spare hour working on my sculpture. Some of these pieces will act as models for larger stuff, some of them are for an exhibition, but all of them are working out ideas I have had rattling around in my head for some time now. Eight of them are bisque fired, two of three I did this weekend are still wet and I have a bit of cleaning up to do before they can dry completly. There are both "ships" and "homes". The smallest ones are about 6 inches tall/wide with the largest boat coming in at over 24" long. I will be testing some glazes and other finishes soon, so hopefully in a month or so I'll have finished works to show you. Here are some images of the work in progress.

Packing it All Up

Oh what fun! Not! But I did get some help for the day, one of my more enthusiastic students, Grace K. came and worked with me packing up all the artwork. So much easier when you have extra hands, especially since some of the works are awkward to handle. We got everything done and now I will finish up with a few pages of installation instructions. USArt will be here with their truck on Wednesday to pick up the work. It will be nice to get my living room back.

My flight reservations are confirmed and I will be in Moscow, Idaho on Monday, February 20th afternoon until late morning on Thursday, February 23. I am very excited, it's always fun to visit new places and be a part of local art communities.

Lots of Boats, mostly wood, some steel

Cast iron Greenland style paddles, very heavy

Oops!

Shipping Work

Next week USArt will be here to pick up my sculptures heading out to Idaho. This is the first time I am dealing with pro art shippers. Usually I am the one responsible for shipping and I build a crate and send it off via my FedEx account. So far I have never had any issues with them. But this time the gallery decided to pay for all shipping. Good thing as the works they wanted are to big and heavy and there is no way I could have afforded that expenditure.

 It's pretty exciting when a gallery really wants specific works and is willing to spend thousands to ship it. It is a bit of an ego booster I will admit. The pieces going include eight 96" long boats and eight cast iron paddles weighing some 45 pounds a piece as well as a few other steel pieces and a cast iron house. Apparently the shippers have what is called a courier service that allows for work to be soft packed, so no crates. Phew, that is a relief. However I do need to soft pack very carefully. After a search of local businesses I was able to find Newell Paper and can get a 4' x 250' roll of corrugated cardboard and 4' x 250' roll of bubble wrap for decent prices. I never use packing tape as it totally destroys plastic and bubble wrap. I use that shrink wrap stuff that comes on a roll ready to use. I will make sure I include some with the art works so the gallery has no excuse to use tape when shipping back.

Fresh painted "boats" ready for packing and shipping to Idaho.

Packaging materials are a big expense that many artists just swallow when doing shows, No one realizes that it can cost hundreds of dollars to get work ready to ship. Nothing is worse than getting your work back only to find that every square inch of it is covered in packing tape. Evil stuff! This happened with my last show. I had to throw away almost all of my bubble wrap. This time I will make a special note and even speak personally with the gallery staff about not using tape. I don't think this will be a problem though, so far Roger Rowley, the Pritchard Art Gallery director has been super professional and very helpful. It has been an excellent experience working with them so far.


Next week will be packing week and then the expected pick-up date will be Feb 7-8. All the work has been freshly painted and oiled and is ready to go. As it turns out I probably will be able to go to the opening on February 22 and even get there a few days early to do some grad studio visits and see the area. I am very excited as I hear that part of Idaho is extremely beautiful.

Exhibition Up-Date

It's been a busy few months! I can't believe I have not posted in so long but alas the life of a busy artist and teacher can get in the way!


Right now I am getting ready for an exhibition at the Prichard Gallery at the University of Idaho in Moscow, ID. Here is an early gallery announcement-

February 22 – April 7, 2012Reception: Wednesday February 22, 5-8pm
Uncommon Rivers
Gail Seigel Exhibit Curator
Gail Seigel is the Prichard’s immediate past director and curator of “Uncommon River.” Work by artists Christine Destrempes, Christo & Jeane-Claude, Raymond Ghirardo & Megan Roberts, Philip Govedare, and Jen Torres are included. They explore the concept of rivers from a variety of perspectives. Rivers touch all lives directly or indirectly, but particularly so in the Pacific Northwest and Idaho where agriculture, industry, commerce, energy, recreation, tourism, transportation and countless jobs depend on rivers and where rivers are central to public policy debates on water rights, endangered species and wilderness preservation.

Honestly I did not know I was in a show with Cristo and his late wife Jeane-Claude until I read the announcement, very exciting! We are still working out what sculptures will be in the show and the gallery will ship the works in February. I still don't know if I can make it for the opening, it would be nice but it is a very busy time of the year for me and funds are tight.


I'll keep you all up-dated on how things go with the show.

The Welder from Hell

Things progress well on the museum commission. Well, for the most part. I have been having considerable problems with the mig welder. It does not like stainless steel. Funny this should happen now after I have been using it for weeks without problems. I promise you there is nothing out there that I (and several other people) have not tried in attempts to fix it. Even the welding supervisor from Mississippi Tank came over and tried to help. Of course it worked for a few tacks and then it was all over with. Every one has been so kind in offering suggestions, but now it is time for a pro repairmen. My friends at Airgas will get thier chance on Monday.


The annoying part is that I really wanted to start integrating stainless techniques with my upper level sculpture students this fall and I am not sure we can do it with the problems I am having now. It looks like a new mig welder may be on the books, with this one relegated to carbon steel.

As far as the commission, I have the main sculptures made, all nine of them. I have moved them out of my field of vision into the "gallery". I need a rest from them. Later I will pull them back into the shop and work on them as a unit, adding or taking away elements, if needed, to make a more complete statement.


Right now I am working on the poles and attachment structures for the bases. I made a jig to keep the poles upright for welding and various templates for cutting the shapes. We do not have a CNC cutter so it is all being done by hand with the plasma torch.

Jig for holding pole upright for welding base plate and gussets.

Tacked together assembly it will later be secured to a pre-poured concrete base.

As of yesterday (Saturday) all the parts are cut out for the bases. I got one base tacked up (before the welder bird-nested again) and all looks good. Except of course I can't continue any welding! Argh! My next step, is to get all the parts cleaned up and do any grinding/sanding needed. That will take a good day for sure. Next, I should be receiving my seamless tubing and can get the sleeve bearings made up for the top part of the poles. After that I will have to have the welder problem solved or I will be seriously behind schedule and I can not afford that. Hopefully I can up-date you all soon with positive welder news. 

Installation Complete

Here are a few images of my work installed at the gallery at the student center at East Carolina in Greenville, NC. It's an awkward space in that it is a three-sided "U" shaped space, but it gets lots of people coming through it, which is what I liked the best. A few last minute adjustments to my plans and the show went up very well. My friend Ed, who came down from NJ to be my art slave for the day, and Andy, the grad student gallery director, were a huge help in getting everything done in a timely manner.

These are a few cell phone shots taken after the installation but prior to lighting. Sorry for the crappy images. There are a number of pieces not represented here but you get the feel for it. I'll take my pro shots when I visit for my lecture and closing reception on November 5th. The show is called, "Ghost Ships and Villages".

New Work

Check out new work on my web site, http://www.jentorres.com/

More Work

Getting closer to installation day. Some new works finished and painted, rust on the new swamp shacks, and some new paint on one of the large boat frames. A few things are in the kiln now for a cone 10 reduction firing and that is it for new stuff. Now comes the work of cleaning, oiling and taking inventory and then packing all the works for the installation. Phew.

More New Stuff

New Swamp Shacks, had to get in pre-dawn in order to beat the heat. Still have lots more work to do and need to consider what kind of finish I want to use.

More Stuff In-Progress

Parts of new Ghost Ship sculpture pieces as I am working on them in the shop.

Updates

Ahhh, classes are finally over. With summer classes being every day of the week the work load is pretty amazing with little or no time to do my own work. I now get a two week break to do as much relaxing as I can and try and get some sculpture made. I have two ghost ships in the works in the school shop right now (it has AC!) but my work has been punctuated by many other little tasks that have come up and need to be taken care off. So I get a few hours and then I have to run off, come back for an hour and then I am off again. Oh well at least I am getting something done. I would really like to get some metal work done , but with the 100+ heat indexes we have been having I am simply not going out to work in the shop.

I finally got my contract for the North Carolina show and after studying the images and layout of the space I think I have come up with a good idea for the installation. I am excited! Physical help will be minimal so I am thinking about something that does not have a lot of hanging from the ceiling involved. I will probably do a wave effect; boats coming off the floor, in a tightly knit grouping that waves up onto the wall and back down again and so on and so forth. Of course their will be houses in their as well, of course.

In the fall my teaching schedule goes back to two killer studio days a week, Tuesday and Thursday all day with Wednesday being my office day. Friday many times ends up as a meeting day. I have a lot of work to do this fall, the early part devoted to this big installation in North Carolina and the later part of the winter and early spring devoted to the show in Florida. And somewhere in there will be the museum commission for up in Jackson. Whew! I am tired just thinking about it. It was interesting when I was talking to my students about my job and was explaining to them about how making work and having exhibitions was actually part of my job and that if I did not keep up with it I could lose my position. Most people don't understand that. They think that us faculty members have some cush life, teaching a few classes, making some "fun" art. Most people have no idea of the pressure we are under to perform, so to speak. Luckily I love what I do, even if the pressure is substantial, my love of my work and making that work outweighs all the negatives.

Here is a PR image from the Majestic National exhibition, you can see my work on the bases in the background.

Been Busy

Oops, it's been a while since I had a chance to post. Been busy with summer teaching duties and trying to get some studio time in. Since I work in steel and wood and my studios have no AC it's been difficult to convince myself to put on jeans and work boots to go out side in 100F temps to weld. I digress! I have been working on some ceramics projects, as that is inside and it's what has my interest right now. I do need to force my self back into the wood shop for a bit as I do have that big show coming in October in NC and want to have new work for it. I guess I will use the shop at school, it's cool there!

I have a few ceramic sculptures about to get high fired and glazed this weekend so I'll post pictures of those when they come out. I am experimenting with some new glaze colors so they might be just disasters but hey, that's they way it works.

Since I last posted I was excited to find out I got into a very sweet national juried show in Berkeley CA at the ACCI Gallery. It was a fast turn around; they contacted me one day then I built my crate and shipped off the work, Swamp Shack I, a day later. I like to have a little more turn around time but when dealing with commercial galleries you sometimes have to jump through a few hoops. I have been trying to get some work onto the west coast and with this show I can tag that one. I am now hoping I can do more in that area.

Well that's all for now, hopefully I'll have some pictures soon of those new ceramics works. Cheers!

What Have I Been Up to?

It's been a while since I posted. As usual the job gets in the way in the late spring as we get busy with end of the semester activities. I am also teaching classes this summer and due to the compressed nature of the summer schedule it is a crazy time that keeps me in the studio with my students for long hours. But that is actually OK as I love the summer semester exactly because it gives the students a real view of what an artists life is like, especially the 4-5 hour studio session, every single day! It's hard to keep your mind on the same thing day after day, so I encourage my students to work on multiple projects to keep their minds fresh and open. Something I always have to keep reminding myself of as well.

As far as my work is concerned, I haven't been making much right now. Mostly I am doing the office stuff; entering shows, taking images, doing some website updating, etc. I am starting to get some materials and sketches done for new work, as soon I will get back into the 'making' mode again.

Good news has been coming way however-

• As mentioned before I am doing a solo exhibition at East Carolina University in October and will give a lecture as well.
• I was also formally awarded a fabrication and design job by artist Martha Ferris to work with her on a major commission at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson MS. We are hoping that will take place starting right in July when I will have additional studio space and free time for nearly two months to work on it. Right now we are waiting to hear back about exactly when the money that has been awarded will become available.
• I have a signed contract with The Ormond Memorial Art Museum in Ormond Beach, FL, for a three person show in April of 2011. It's a beautiful location with a very active arts community; I am very excited about this one.
• Right now I have work in a national juried show at the Majestic Galleries in Ohio. This show is from June 35 to July 18. Unfortunately I don't think I will get up there to see the exhibition. I got two works accepted into the show, Ghost Shop 0903 and another vessel, Kickstand.
• And the best news is that I have been contacted by a museum of art that interested in putting up an outdoor work of mine in their gardens. I will not mention any names at this time until all the details are worked out. I am very excited about this as I received a really nice email from them and they seem to really like my work. As soon as I have details I will be sure to share them!

More New Work

Here are some images of my last larger "home" or I like to call it the Swamp Shack. It's four feet tall and made from sheet metal. In all actuality is more like the shacks you see down in coastal Mississippi and Louisiana, often lived in by fisherman or trappers. Made on stilts to combat high tides and storm surges. It seems that these days they are keeping high from oil leaks. I have seen whole villages that are on stilts, for some reason the images are stuck in my head. Disasters like the Gulf oil spill and hurricane Katrina keep imprinting them even deeper. I have a feeling they will be a part of my work for a while in some form or another.

New Sculpture

It's been a busy few weeks! Here are some updates on what's going on.

Jackson Museum of Art Project- It's been a while since I up dated this one. As you recall I am working with an other artist who is designing a fountain/splash pool for the new garden project and I am the head contractor and fabricator. The project keeps changing. A lot. I initially got paid for working on a model and driving up to the artist studio where we worked on the project for two days. Since then the model, which came to rave reviews, has seen numerous changes. All requiring new budgets and materials research. And the size of the project keeps getting smaller. It went from something big enough that I could employ a few folks with some summer work to now me maybe getting enough work out if it to survive, maybe. I have probably about an additional $1000 in additional billable hours and travel expenses but I can not invoice for any of it. It is also possible that the all the sculptural objects could get cut and then I am totally out in the cold. Which is why I am still working on it, in hopes it will come to fruition. Keep your fingers crossed! I am still loving the project and that is an even better reason to work on it.

My Business Plan- I have not mentioned this before, but I have been working on the many details to make my studio a real business. Most likely it will end up being Jen Torres Sculpture LLC. Sounds cool, right? But it is much work. Luckily for me the Mississippi SBDC (Small Business Development Center) is very active here and I have access to some great people (for free) who will work one-on-one with me to learn the ropes and get every thing set up. I went to my first class and am all jazzed, I know this is something I can do. My basic goal is simple- I eventually want to get out of teaching (love the students, hate the administrative BS) so that I may design, fabricate and sell my own work. This part, setting up a real business, is just the start; I have no intentions of quitting my job for many years. Writing up a business plan is hard work but very rewarding, I look forward to the rest of the journey.

My Sculpture- I finally got my last wax cast in Georgia. It came out OK, but the casting has a lot of burn in and I will have to do a lot of work to grind off the sand embedded in the surface. On another front I finally got time to photograph all of my other 'houses' for my web page, which I will up date in a week or so. So above I post for you a few of the many "houses" that are fast becoming a major part of my portfolio. It's important to remember that these range in size from 6" tall to over 17" tall, some are wood and some are iron and generally are shown in a grouping of 3 to 10 pieces or what I like to call a Village.

My Shows- I am waiting for my contract from East Carolina University for my solo show in October, all the details have been pretty much ironed out so things are set and that will act as a good goal date to work towards. I also just received an invitation from the Ormond Memorial Art Museum in Ormond Beach, Florida. It is a three person show in April of 2011. This is a tough one, as it is a very cool place to show, but they offer no compensation for travel or shipping. My work requires that I be present for installation so there could be some real expenses for a show that is a ten hour drive away. However, there is a good possibility for sales with this show and that might be the deciding factor for me as I forge ahead with my business plans. There are always risks, I just have to decide if I can afford this one. Anyway it might be a cool excuse to go visit the beach!