daedalsmith

(dī¦namik ′simətrē)

2011-10-07T16:34:00.003-04:00

Dynamic Symmetry, October 7-Oct 30, 2011, featuring the work of Kimberly Convery, Patrick Corrigan, Karen Gelardi, Clint Fulkerson, Max Leon, Katie Schier-Potocki, Alex Rheault, and Shoshannah White. Featuring a musical performance by AWAAS (Zachary Howardand Eric Brackett). The show opens from 5-10 and there will be food from Tandoor of India, Brian Boru and beverages from D.L. Geary Brewing Co.

Hope to see you there for the opening Friday October 7, 5-10 @ 3 Fish Gallery, 377 Cumberland Avenue, Portland, Maine.

Scatterplot, 2011, 10" x 10", Graphite on Paper Mounted to Panel

Intimate Abstraction at Rose Contemporary

2011-09-02T16:28:00.005-04:00

Featuring work by Judy Allen, James Chute, Clint Fulkerson, Jessica Gandolf, Penelope Jones, Tanja Kunz, Greg Murr, Bridget Spaeth, Ling-wen Tsai, and Henry Wolyniec.

Opening Reception Friday September 2nd 5-8pm

Show runs through October

Rose Contemporary

492 Congress St

Portland, Maine 04101

207-780-0700

Open Wed through Saturday 1-6

www.rosecontemporary.com

Triangle Cube Ink Painting

2011-08-18T20:03:00.003-04:00

I sharpened the end of my watercolor brush to a point so I can drop just a little ink into one corner of each wetted triangle area. The alignment of the parts is imperfect because I didn't sketch anything out at first, I just went at it with a brush- one end for applying water, the other for dropping ink. I started out thinking of a different form entirely but it's exciting for me when my initial idea changes as a piece grows.

Ink Painting

2011-08-15T20:00:00.001-04:00

Water Lilies Ink Painting

2011-08-07T09:33:00.005-04:00

Just a tentative title for this painting I did yesterday.

15" x11"

Sketch of Kate and Karina

2011-07-24T20:01:00.000-04:00

Filter

2011-07-09T00:39:00.001-04:00

on cardboard

Four drawings I made at work

2011-06-25T23:53:00.003-04:00

I made these four sketches in the past few weeks. I've been saving drawings like these (made on the back of 'spoilage report' sheets from my optical lab job) for over four years and I have about 2000 of them. Not all of them are good, a lot are just grocery lists or random ideas.

I'm compelled to record my thoughts during the spare moments between verifying eyeglass prescriptions.

Mobile Ziggurat Garden

2011-06-22T22:01:00.001-04:00

Arcology

2011-06-21T22:18:00.001-04:00

Viking on a hover pad

2011-06-20T21:49:00.003-04:00

Flower Medal with Pollen

2011-06-16T18:33:00.000-04:00

Today's sketch.

Dwellings On The Edge and Multi-faceted Vortices

2011-06-15T21:27:00.002-04:00

Both are drawings I did at work today.

Colony on the edge of a biscuit

2011-06-14T22:14:00.001-04:00

I made this drawing at work today, it's 5 1/2" x 4 1/4".

Amusement Park Planet

2011-06-11T16:22:00.003-04:00

Another "bitmap" drawing

2011-06-10T22:24:00.002-04:00

One of the rules for making these is that squares and rectangles can only touch at the corners.

second drawing today

2011-06-09T22:18:00.001-04:00

I have so much fun designing these as I go, using a calligraphy pen.

drawing

2011-06-09T18:28:00.002-04:00

New drawings based on the square, instead of the triangle

2011-06-08T23:01:00.002-04:00

Last Wednesday I participated in Draw Your Face Off #2 at Space Gallery. I sat at a table, drew whatever came to mind for three hours. Each time I finished a drawing I walked up and clipped it to the wall, and then people could just take it off the wall and buy it for 20 dollars. I did this again on Friday the same week because I had a lot of fun the first time. I made 11 drawings total and at least 8 have sold so far and I have no record of any of them.

These drawings here on this blog post were made just after DYFO2. I feel like the live drawing event pushed me into new territory. Not very far forward, maybe even a step back into 8 bit video game land, or into two bit land, a world of black and white, (or one thing and another thing.) I've been using black and white for a while but now it's really real.

...even if brown is the new white.
I have no idea where this is going but it's definitely going.

Draw Your Face Off 2, Space Gallery, June 1 & 3

2011-05-29T19:32:00.002-04:00

These are some sketches in preparation for the second Draw Your Face Off event at Space Gallery. I'm not sure if I'll make drawings like this, but it'd be nice to do something quick and new for me.

Also, I think using little squares is a natural progression from using little triangles.
I like how much these look like early computer graphics and video games, also like Conway's Game of Life, which is always in the back of my mind.
I use the width of the marker as the smallest unit of measurement, and build from there.

Exciting DOTS!

2011-05-17T23:34:00.002-04:00

This is another layer upon what I did the other day. The addition to the program is: leave no dot unconnected, try not to leave any lone white dots if you can.

stippling experiments

2011-05-16T22:33:00.003-04:00

These aren't really experiments, I just called them that because it's a new method for me. These images are details of one drawing that I'm making using one inch squares as different fields, and each field has different rules for placement of dots using an ink pen on paper.
The bottom left square's rules were: place dots in a random array, continually assess the visual qualities of the dots for the emergence of tonal density or imagery, avoid overt imagery but make a pleasing formal arrangement. Basically, just doodle with dots.

The upper right square's rules were different, they were: place dots evenly until uniformly dark value is achieved. Eventually individual marks will leave pathways and subtle areas of extra density, without much focus.

I've got a dozen or so squares to fill with dots in various ways, and I think in the end this drawing will be a rewarding exercise and an interesting piece.

second stippled drawing done

2011-05-15T22:33:00.001-04:00

Zaxxon, my first video game

2011-05-10T22:50:00.006-04:00

This picture of me says so much. I guess I'm 3 or 4 years old. 1983 or '84. Wheaties and Zaxxon on the table. I'm either making beautiful music on a plastic lute or sucking on a pacifier beyond "okay". I clearly have to pee. Yes, I am wearing robot pajamas.
Zaxxon must have been enjoyable, maybe even a formative experience after looking at these pictures my Mom just brought over. I really don't remember the game at all. Here is a description of the handheld version I'm playing with from the handheld museum.

water dripped on my monitor, white background

2011-05-07T21:12:00.002-04:00

I always forget that when I see white on a screen it is a balance of RGB. I see black in there too, which holds it all together, but until now I thought that was a CMYK thing.

This is just a close-up photo of my monitor with my generic point and shoot camera. Water automatically acts as a lens.

turn this into a font

2011-05-04T22:51:00.000-04:00

Stippled drawing finished- Genus 4

2011-04-27T19:38:00.003-04:00

I'm thinking of each repeated form as representatives of different species of the same genus. This is an imaginary taxonomic chart.

This is the first piece in the Genera series, unless I abandon the whole thing. It's called Genus 4 because there are four forms, and I'm thinking Genus 1, 2, 3 would be displayed before this one in an exhibit.

new population maps

2011-04-21T18:23:00.004-04:00

The map of the world has been redrawn in a new atlas which uses population rather than land mass to illustrate the size and shape of each country. Researchers from the University of Sheffield created the online atlas of 200 maps using distribution data to demonstrate population distribution and density.

Worldmapper's website is here:

http://www.worldmapper.org/countrycartograms/

I found out about this by Googling 'us population map' and ending up at the Rockstar blog here:

http://anhngu.tumblr.com/post/206517754

Stippled Drawing- in progress

2011-04-20T22:52:00.005-04:00

The way I look at it each dot represents a population of one thousand people on this weird map. You can only imagine what they're going through.

Portland Phoenix Article

2011-04-14T17:15:00.005-04:00

There's an article in the Portland Phoenix about the PMA Biennial, my drawings are mentioned, here's what they said:

"Clint Fulkerson's graphite drawings are gorgeous. His 'Division Series' meditates on the process of mitosis and is suggestive of broader binaries. These contained works really emphasize the artist's hand, his ability to infuse structured and mathematical forms with an organic vitality with unwavering control."

asymmetric Rorschach test sketch

2011-04-07T18:56:00.004-04:00

This is a sketch I did at work, figuring out a different way to systematically develop density starting with a geometric framework. I think it looks like a camel, a map of an island, and like a deformed roasted chicken.

six unique bodies from similar initial conditions

2011-04-03T23:01:00.002-04:00

Window installation, First Friday, Pickwick Press

2011-03-31T13:54:00.002-04:00

Here's me hanging my acrylic on polyester painting the other day. It looks kind of like a shower curtain but I still like it. The Opening for this exhibit at SMFA is 5-8pm during the First Friday Art Walk:

Also stop by Pickwick Independent Press at 526 Congress Street for our grand expansion celebration! I haven't been as active at the press as of late, but I am still a proud member and hope to see a lot of folks stop by!

New baby and art shows!!

2011-03-30T15:57:00.007-04:00

Life is exciting after the birth of our baby girl Karina. She arrived six weeks early and after ten nights in the hospital we're home to begin our new family life together.

Now that we're home I've been finding minutes between our three hour feeding schedule to run up the hill to the studio to work on last minute art obligations, which are now finished. I made a large two layer acrylic painting on polyester film that is hanging in Susan Maasch Fine Art's window, to promote an April exhibit of my ink paintings and white pencil on black paper drawings.

Here it is hanging in my studio, it's 72" wide and 80" tall:

And here are some of the pieces as they are at SMFA:

Look for an image of one of my pieces in the 2011 Portland Museum of Art Biennial in the April Art issue of Maine Home And Design

Be sure to check out the shows at SMFA and the PMA if you're in town during April!

Ink Painting

2011-03-15T22:29:00.005-04:00

Here's a detail of one just finished:
And below is a digitally recomposed version of the above image. It looks kind of like a brain. The actual piece is just a plain old oval.

New Nebula Drawings

2011-03-14T22:50:00.003-04:00

These are drawn freehand, white pencil on black paper, 30" x 22". These will be exhibited in April at Susan Maasch Fine Art, along with about 10 other new pieces and a window installation, to coincide with the 2011 PMA Biennial. More stuff later when April is closer.

I'm disappointed to report that no one found my previous post by searching for "Justin Bieber's hair". Most of the traffic to this blog comes through my own website, facebook, and quite a bit from Nicholas Felton's Blog, Feltron- http://feltron.tumblr.com/

Justin Bieber's Hair is Worth Every Penny

2011-03-03T23:17:00.004-05:00

How much would his first pube be worth?! OMG!!

Sorry about all that, I just thought I'd get more hits that way, but I'm sure it will increase my bounce rate ten thousand-fold. This is a kind of Google Analytics test in a way. But Google knows this and may thwart me . ,. , ,. , . , . ,

Who cares about art, and especially this art? Five people, me included.

These first two images show the progress I made in three hours. I really want to make animations of these ink paintings because I think a time-lapse video would be really interesting in conjunction with a static final product.

detail:

Another painting at or nearing completion:

-------------------------------------------------

This is a decent article:

http://the99percent.com/articles/6994/Inside-The-Painters-Studio?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=ALL&utm_campaign=MIH+Mar+2+2011

Spiky Sea Cucumber and friend

2011-02-27T21:58:00.004-05:00

These two paintings are a slight departure from the consistent blob clusters I've been making by dropping ink into wetted triangles. This time I'm dropping ink into the corners of the triangles, and the overall forms are left unconnected, precarious, and spiky. I imagine them as diagrams or patterns that could be cut out and assembled into bulbous forms, like they are flattened polygons of computer generated 3-d Models.

I've spent some time looking at patterns for making Paper Models of Polyhedra, and I guess I'm more interested in the look and layouts of the flat patterns themselves than the 3D forms.
I'm tempted to cut out this bottom painting and try to make a paper sculpture, but maybe I'll do it with a digital print in the future.

Progress on my geometric blobby ink paintings

2011-02-20T18:51:00.007-05:00

This first one I've been working on for awhile. I'm painting areas of the paper the same light ink wash over and over to make darker lines as they overlap, but the whole thing is pretty much the same gray from a distance. It's not quite what I had in mind, but since the progress is slow, I'll have time to readjust my technique as new ideas arise.

This next painting is made by dropping ink into lines of water. It's not quite done, but close enough for a picture. This is a new approach to making blobs out of geometric shapes, which are formed by long thin blobs.

I really enjoy using wet media, I feel like I'm working with the fluid dynamics that govern action in much of the cellular world.

closeup:
Three blobs, just finished:
In this next one I'm leaving white spaces, then filling them in, fractal-like. The pattern is something like a Sierpinski Triangle (also gasket, or sieve).

Here the paintings are laid out tile-like, as I think about a display method for showing some of them at Susan Maasch Fine Art in April, concurrent with my Division Series on display in the 2011 Portland Museum of Art Biennial. This reminds me of Cassie Jones' display for the 2010 Center For Maine Contemporary Art Biennial. I want to make several more in this series in the next few weeks, so I can choose five to seven of them to show.

Snow Day= Studio Day

2011-02-02T17:20:00.007-05:00

I didn't have to work in the optical lab today, so I had a chance to work in the studio and make two new graphite drawings. I actually like the narrow focus detail images more than the actual pieces. They give a sense of what I was seeing as I drew, my nose 3 inches from the paper. I like not being able to see the whole thing, up close they seem more immersive to me.

As I was drawing, I imagined that I was making maps for some imaginary landscape, and each line was a road or pathway connecting possible destinations. The changes in density could relate to population.

Here's the second one:

Anyway, I'm glad I have this blog so I can share things like this the same day they're made. In a week I might hate these and they may or may not ever be seen in public.

Space Gallery Wall

2011-01-31T18:52:00.004-05:00

Dissipate, 2010

This no longer exists.

Photo by Jay York

Surface Detail fractal animation

2011-01-21T18:15:00.001-05:00

Surface detail from subBlue on Vimeo.

Algorithmic Worlds post

2011-01-18T20:10:00.004-05:00

Artist and theoretical physicist Samuel Monnier made a blog post about my recent sculptures, (which were made collaboratively by Ian Henderson and me, photos by Ethan Bickford):

http://www.algorithmic-worlds.net/blog/blog.php?Post=20110118

Polyhedra Opening

2011-01-06T19:51:00.005-05:00

If you're in Portland tomorrow for the First Friday Art Walk, stop by Space Gallery at 538 Congress Street for the opening for Polyhedra. I did this big-ass wall drawing and I have 2 paintings in the show as well. Also during the art walk, there's an exhibit of Rackstraw Downes' work at the Portland Museum of Art and Daniel Meiklejohn's work at Fore River Gallery.

This is what decadent pastries look like in front of my drawing, from Icing, Space Gallery's New Year's Eve bash.

New painting I'm working on

2011-01-03T22:41:00.003-05:00

I like how I can draw lines by abutting areas of ink wash.

Short video of me working on various projects

2010-12-31T15:32:00.003-05:00

Day three- drawing on Space's wall, all done!

2010-12-20T21:44:00.003-05:00

It looked a lot like this yesterday, but I did another layer all day today, ultimately using 11 markers. The size is 10 1/2 feet tall by 32 1/2 feet wide. This is a bartender's view of it.

The opening for Polyhedra is January 7th during the First Friday Art Walk, but stop by and see it in person starting this Wednesday, or for Icing, Space's New Year's Eve Bash.

Day two- drawing on Space's wall

2010-12-19T22:19:00.003-05:00

I've never done anything this big before, but thankfully my current inclinations are infinitely scalable, I just have to change the size of my marking tool and I'm good to go.

If anyone wants a mural in their home like this, or in color (which would be different and fun) please let me know, I only charge a gazillion dollars per hour...

Day one- drawing on Space's wall

2010-12-18T23:26:00.005-05:00

Things are moving along quicker than I expected on this wall drawing. I'm almost done with the first layer, if I work another 12 hours tomorrow I might be done.

Choosing to use markers instead of india ink and a brush was a good call, probably makes me twice as fast. I'm using Permapaque markers, which are water based double ended felt markers that work really well, the line width on the chisel end is about 6mm, and I'm using that exclusively. I've gone through 5 markers so far, I don't quite use them until they're dead, but they get "different" and I set them aside.
This drawing is part of a group exhibit entitled Polyhedra at Space Gallery, and will be open for viewing December 22, through January. Other artists participating in the show are Katrine Hildebrandt, Peter Jackson Huffey, Irina Skornyakova, Kyle Downs, and perhaps others, curated by Jenny McGee Dougherty.

sketch for a wall drawing at Space Gallery

2010-12-17T23:47:00.003-05:00

Here is a 30" x 22" drawing made as another practice piece in preparation for a much larger wall drawing at Space Gallery. I will begin work on the mural tomorrow and have four days to fill about 300 square feet of wall space with dense line work like below. I have a more interesting composition in mind for the actual piece, I'm just experimenting with the markers, patterns and density in this sketch.

In the next few days, there will be more images of the actual wall drawing, so stay tuned!

like a self portrait from a desktop screen capture

2010-12-15T00:18:00.002-05:00

new ink paintings

2010-11-27T19:52:00.003-05:00

I just finished some india ink paintings I've been working on in preparation for Open Studios next week.

This is a detail of an ink painting on a 30" X 40" piece of paper:

This is ink dropped into wetted triangles on 22" x 30" paper:

This large painting is actually a practice piece done in preparation for a large (12 foot x 30 foot) wall painting I will be doing at Space Gallery in mid-December. I did this painting to test the brush size, gauge how much I could scale up the patterns I usually use, and estimate how much time something big will take to make. This probably took me 4 or 5 hours to make. I'll have 4 days to work on my wall painting, so I think I won't get overwhelmed, maybe just tired.

I'm in the picture for scale reference.

Upcoming Events

2010-11-22T21:31:00.004-05:00

Please stop by for these upcoming events:

Conversations with gallery artists at Susan Maasch Fine Art, 567 Congress Street, Portland, Maine, Thursday December 2, 2010, 6:30-8:30PM

Participating Artists:

Anne Ireland, Tom Butler, Kate Russo, Jemma Gascoine, Elizabeth Jabar, Clint Fulkerson, and Jan Pieter Van Voorst Van Beest

Open Studios at The Artist Studio, 536 Congress Street, Portland, Maine, Friday December 3, 2010, 5-8PM

Participating Artists:

Greg Day, Kelly McConnell, John Knight, Lisa Pixley, Tina Purves, Sage Lewis, Joe Begnaud, Christopher Campbell, Lucinda Bliss, Stephen Benenson, Tim Clorius, Tim Keeshen, Roz Gross, Annie Larmon, Clint Fulkerson, Pickwick Independent Press, Cat Jensen, Jenny McGee Dougherty, Edwige Charlot, Kim Convery, Hilary Irons, Shoshannah White, Sean Newton, Kate Cleaves, Martha Miller, Carol Morrissette, Kevin Moquin, Elizabeth Chapman, Catherine Lo, Greta Bank, Jim Lynch, Kris Johnsen, Timothy Wilson, Joshua Loring, Edie Ware, Sean O'Brien, Devin Dobrowolski, Maria Wolf, Michelle Livingston

Two more drawings just finished

2010-11-08T19:22:00.003-05:00

This is the fourth ink painting (or drawing) I've made by dropping pure ink into wetted triangles and having the overall form look like clustered cells. This time I made the ink droplets around the same size, to help make a gradual value change from a distance. I also used slightly gray water for the triangles to ensure that the overlapping edges would show up as light gray lines. You can see these in the second image:
For this second drawing, I made a preliminary layout to space the placement of my starting points or "seeds". The spacing is based on the porportions of the paper, and dividing areas in half.

I hardly ever make layout guides, but for this drawing I wanted things to start out regular and end up more irregular by way of compounding small scale inconsistencies. The drawing isn't quite done, but looks close enough to done for a blog post. The edges will get denser with a couple hours more work.

New ink painting

2010-10-30T17:25:00.002-04:00

Here's a freshly dry ink painting on my drafting table. It's 22" x 30".

Finished drawing and my steamrolled print

2010-10-24T17:42:00.003-04:00

I think of this as a drawing but it certainly skirts the line between a drawing and a painting. It seems painted because I used wet media exclusively, but doing it on paper in black and white makes it look like a drawing. Maybe it has more to do with using color or not, rather than based on wet or dry media, because people tend to "paint" with pastels. In the end it doesn't really matter to me what I call it, but I do plan on cropping it somehow and mounting it on a wood panel.

And here is one of the prints made on September 12th using a steamroller, printed on canvas 50" x 48" hanging up on my studio wall. A tentative title is The First Seven.

Working on two drawings

2010-10-15T21:29:00.003-04:00

In the first one, I drop ink into wetted triangles and pack them into a big overall blob that is about 18 inches in diameter. I like the challenge of trying to keep fluids in a geometric framework, but have the end result still look like some sort of bacterial culture.
The second drawing is a donut shape about 18 inches wide drawn with white pencil on black paper, and it's internal patterning looks a lot like that in my big steamroller print. I really like the immediacy of drawing with dry media and I'm so happy I found a brand of colored pencil that does not break every 5 seconds (Prismacolor Verithin), because I have to press pretty hard to get these lines.

Both of these should be done in a few days.

Space Block Party Video

2010-10-08T20:25:00.002-04:00

2011 Portland Museum of Art Biennial

2010-10-07T07:36:00.002-04:00

A full series of 7 of my drawings were chosen for inclusion in the upcoming Biennial Exhibition, I'm so excited! Below was taken directly from the museum's website.

2011 Portland Museum of Art Biennial

April 7 through June 5, 2011

After receiving more than 900 entries for the 2011 Portland Museum of Art Biennialexhibition, the Portland Museum of Art is pleased to announce that 66 works by 47 artists have been selected for the show. This past summer, artists submitted more than 3,600 works of art to be considered by a panel of three jurors: Jim Kempner, Owner and Director, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York; David Row, a painter based in New York and Maine; and Joanna Marsh, the James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. The jurors spent a weekend in September viewing images and selecting the work for the upcoming Biennial.

Each Biennial is uniquely formed by the jurors' collective vision and the work presented to them. As a series, the Biennial exhibitions create a visual record of Maine's evolving contemporary art scene and testify to the profound influence that the landscape, traditions, and people of Maine continue to have on living artists. Maine has nurtured artists for centuries, and its influence reaches far beyond its borders.

The majority of Biennial artists are full-time Maine residents and a number of them are part-time or have spent significant time exhibiting, making work, and studying in Maine. Of the 47 artists chosen, only nine have participated in previous Biennial exhibitions. Their work is created in media ranging from painting, drawing, printmaking, and photography to sculpture, installation, and video. This blend of influences and experiences enriches the state's artistic community and defines its art scene as one that reflects a diversity of traditions-both established and new.

A full-color catalogue will be published in conjunction with the exhibition and will be available in the Museum Store next spring.

2011 Biennial List

Stats:
902 applicants
47 artists selected
66 works
9 artists have exhibited in previous Biennials
*denotes participation in previous Biennials

*Mary Aro (Sargentville, ME and Grosse Pointe Park, MI) (2009, 2007, 2001, 1998)
Carol Aronson-Shore (Portsmouth, NH)
Jeremy Barnard (Friendship, ME and Georgetown, MA)
Kim Bernard (North Berwick, ME)
Natasha Bowdoin (Lyman, ME and Houston, TX)
Philip Brou (South Portland, ME)
David Caras (Portland, ME)
Avy Claire (Blue Hill, ME)
Thomas Connolly (Portland, ME)
William Cox (Auburn, ME)
Jon Edwards (South Freeport, ME)
Alicia Eggert (Portland, ME)
Sarah Faragher (Stockton Springs, ME)
Clint Fulkerson (Portland, ME)
*Kathleen Galligan (Bristol, ME) (2001)
Marissa Girard (York, ME and Goffstown, NH)
Carly Glovinski (Berwick, ME)
*Alisha Gould (Kennebunk, ME) (2005)
James Groleau (Sorrento, ME and Oakland, CA)
Tyson Jacques (Providence, RI)
Michael Kahn (Coatesville, PA)
Rachel Katz (Portland, ME)
Siri Kaur (Los Angeles, CA)
John Kelley (Cumberland Center, ME)
Mark Ketzler (Kennebunk, ME and Scarsdale, NY)
Selena Kimball (Brooksville, ME and Brooklyn, NY)
*Colleen Kinsella (South Portland, ME) (2005)
*Sarah Knock (Freeport, ME)
Lesley MacVane (Portland, ME)
Robert Monroe (Portland, ME)
Lauren O'Neal (Vinalhaven, ME and Cambridge, MA)
Heath Paley (Arundel, ME)
Michael Penney (Durham, NH)
Beverly Rippel (South Easton, MA)
Rebecca Rivers (Searsport, ME)
*Liv Kristin Robinson (Belfast, ME) (1998)
Gavin Rouille (Portland, ME)
*Michael Shaughnessy (Windham, ME) (1998)
*Robert Shillady (Brooklin, ME) (2007, 2005)
Suzannah Sinclair (Greenville, ME and Brooklyn, NY)
Andrew Thompson (Farmington, ME)
Richard Veit (South Portland, ME)
August Ventimiglia (Gorham, ME and Wellesley, MA)
Don Voisine (Brooklyn, NY)
*Mark Wethli (Brunswick, ME) (2003)
Ellen Wieske (Deer Isle, ME)
Deborah Wing-Sproul (Cape Elizabeth, ME)

Focus and Eligibility
The 2011 Portland Museum of Art Biennial is the seventh in an ongoing series of exhibitions showcasing new work by living artists connected to the state of Maine. All artists who have spent significant time in Maine during the last two years (since January 1, 2008) were invited to submit images in any medium for consideration by the jurors.

If you would like to be added to the Biennial mailing list, please email Sage Lewis with your mailing address.

The Portland Museum of Art Biennial is made possible by the William E. and Helen E. Thon Endowment Fund.

--------------------

The announcement on the Portland Museum of Art Website, www.portlandmuseum.org.

The press release in the Portland Press Herald, www.pressherald.com.

The 60 wpm review by Lori Waxman

2010-10-06T16:11:00.004-04:00

During my scheduled 20 minute time slot, Lori Waxman looked at 10 pieces of artwork, then sat down at her laptop to write. The review was projected behind her as she wrote and when she was done, an assistant posted a printed version on the wall.

Feel free to review this review in comments or e-mail me.

Here it is:

Clint Fulkerson draws and paints and prints geometric abstractions. That sounds simple enough. Yet his works are anything but. Imagine Bucky Fuller’s geodesic domes as if they were viral structures gone wild. Picture a sprawling city seen from above, at night, dotted with glowing centers and crisscrossed by the lines of endless roadways. Fulkerson’s forms cluster and spread, multiply and divide, pop an recede. They’re organic and mathematical, precise but improvised, flowing but utterly tight. In all these contrasts, his forms prove themselves as complex and dualistic as living things—despite looking, at first, superficial glance, to be the repetitive doodles of a scientific hand. Which they may be, in part, but what, after all, isn’t worth at least a second glance? That’s one lesson of these works, though it’s not the pleasure of them. That should never be a lesson, but rather an experience to have, for oneself, thanks to the generous nature of artists like Fulkerson who put such strange, surprising work out for the looking.

-Lori Waxman

You can read All 30 reviews written during the 3 day performance at the Portland Phoenix Website.

60 Word per Minute Art Critic

2010-10-01T07:26:00.003-04:00

I have an appointment to have my artwork critiqued at this event tonight at 6pm during the First Friday Art Walk at Space Gallery:

Lori Waxman is a Chicago-based critic and art historian whose reviews and articles have been published by The Chicago Tribune, Artforum, Modern Painters, Gastronomica, Parkett, Tema Celeste, as well as the sadly defunct Parachute.

In her three-day performances as the 60 wrd/min art critic, Waxman makes herself available on a first-come-first-serve basis to local artists seeking succinct and opinionated reviews of their work. While a receptionist processes each artist’s submission, Waxman churns out one review every twenty minutes, the texts of which are displayed live on a nearby monitor for artists and observers to read. As each one- to two-hundred word review is finished, the receptionist will “publish” a physical copy to a nearby wall. Eventually all or some of the reviews are published in a magazine or newspaper.

The format of the 60 wrd/min art critic brings artist, artwork and review into the same space simultaneously. The performance raises questions about the interaction of critic and artist, the value of on-demand criticism, and the effect of a solitary writer working in public. What emerges from the experiment is a literal and comical grappling with the idea that there are too many artists and galleries, and not enough critical venues to cover them all.

While the reviews aren’t guaranteed to be positive, Waxman insists they are thoughtful, critical and informative. For artists who have been reviewed carelessly, who have never been reviewed, or live in a city where there is little local criticism, the performance presents an opportunity for honest, informed criticism at the same time it questions the role of criticism itself.

New Drawing

2010-09-26T18:17:00.004-04:00

This is yet another approach to explore these patterns and forms I keep coming back to. Now there's less emphasis on the triangles, and I'm giving the inky centers more presence. This looks like a messier negative of pen and ink drawings I did several years ago:

There's something so satisfying about dropping ink onto wet areas of paper, watching it spread like a little contained storm. What happens within the triangles is literally contained chaos. I set it up and let it go. The whole result looks 3 dimensional to me, like a faceted paper sculpture with holes in it.

New Drawing

2010-09-18T18:22:00.004-04:00

This is a new way of working from the basic triangular array, using different values and precisely chaotic patterning; it's graphite and ink.

Steamroller Printing with Pickwick Independent Press

2010-09-14T16:36:00.005-04:00

Two days before our big steamroller printing extravaganza, I had a mad rush in the studio to finish carving my block of MDF. The whole block was designed on the fly directly on the block. I had no idea what to do on the outside of the "knobby donut" so I decided triangular rays would be striking for a public event, and a simple way of fading from white at the edge of the form to black at the edge of the block.

The grey part is acrylic paint used to seal the parts of the block that hold the ink. MDF is so porous that it will just soak up the printing ink, so this makes it so oil-based ink rolled onto the block will sit on the surface.
This past Saturday we set up on Oak Street at about 4pm, and started printing at 6pm as part of the Block Party organized by Space Gallery. We made 15-20 large prints using a steamroller to press canvas onto inked blocks. The response from the audience was amazing, and they applauded at the revealing of each print.

I was on the inking team so I was considered "dirty handed", which meant I couldn't touch any clean canvas. I ended up completely covered in nasty oil-based ink.
On Sunday, the day after the Block Party, we set up in a nearby parking lot to print the rest of an edition of three of each print. Sponsors to the event get one good print, the artists get one, and Pickwick Independent Press gets one. We were there for 9 good hours printing away, doing some on muslin.

I had decided the night before that I wasn't going to be an inker. I had to wash my whole body with vegetable oil and scrub in the bathtub for a good long time and I decided I was going to be "clean hands" on Sunday. But as soon as I got to the parking lot, I picked up a previously inked block and got all messy so I was like, "F#ck it, I'm an inker today".

The three closest prints below are by Cat Jensen, Delphine Sherin, and Erin Leon:
These left to right are by Abigail Swartz, Corliss Chastain, and Josh Eckels:
These are by Cassie Jones, Sage Lewis, and me- Clint "Super Mario" Fulkerson:

And here's a closer shot of my print:
To see more about this event, check out these links:

Lisa Pixley's Post, article on liveworkportland.org with an image of my print, article in the Portland Press Herald, Kyle Bryant's blog kylebryantart.blogspot.com, and Abigail Swartz's blog tiptoethrough.blogspot.com

I'll post links to videos as they're published. There were several people filming but I haven't seen anything out yet.

Working on a drawing

2010-09-06T21:48:00.003-04:00

I'm working on a new drawing based on my print Nodule 5, this is pencil with ink wash. Another layer of ink will connect polygons- I plan on leaving some white areas open so the whole thing doesn't end up mono-tonal.

Studio progress

2010-09-05T19:32:00.002-04:00

Here's an image of a corner of my new studio. This is where I plaster every inch of wall space with unframed finished drawings above and things not yet finished below (so I can reach them and modify them). A ten foot ceiling is a great luxury I'm not used to and I want to take advantage of it. At the bottom is my block in progress for the Block Party on September 11th. Looking at the block this way, rolled with india ink to actually see how it will look printed, I may want to preserve the look of the rolled edges messy and varying in value. It looks like a gravestone rubbing, which is exactly how my similar looking graphite drawings in the Division and Vergence series' were made- by impressing the paper with a hard pencil, then rubbing over that with softer graphite.

New print and a block in progress

2010-08-31T19:12:00.003-04:00

Here's an etching I just printed today and below is the block I am carving for the Space Block Party on September 11th. We at Pickwick Independent Press will relief print gigantic blocks (4'x4' and 4' x 8') in a grand public performance using a steamroller. People who help support the project financially will get either a limited edition poster for the event, or for a $300 donation will receive one of the large prints, a downright steal if you ask me, considering the quality of blocks I've seen so far. You can donate to the cause at our Kickstarter page.

Sketch of a sculpture

2010-08-29T11:59:00.003-04:00

I wanted to just sit down and draw an object from life today, something I rarely do. For a model, I decided to use a tiny unfinished wax piece I made that will eventually be cast in metal.

I was intrigued by the idea of taking a sculpture based on my drawings, then depicting it again as a drawing, completing a cycle.

I'd like to build models just for drawing reference, then destroy them. That way I'd preserve a version of an object that once existed and never will again.

Last week at Susan Maasch Fine Art

2010-08-25T21:55:00.005-04:00

If you're in Portland please stop by Susan Maasch Fine Art at 567 Congress Street to see 3 of my white pencil drawings and 4 etchings. There are unframed pieces in the back room that you can also see, if you ask!

Also, I just finished this drawing:

Branching Blob

2010-08-15T17:45:00.001-04:00

Continuing with my viscous branching experiments, this one is acrylic paint on glass.

Branching Monoprints on Mirrors: Part 2

2010-08-14T08:45:00.007-04:00

Here of some images of what these branch prints actually look like. It was difficult taking a picture of a thing on a mirror. I think when I do this for real I'm going do it on white glass or clear glass and then paint it white.

I'm not sure if these are actually monoprints. They are the plates and aren't ever printed onto anything else. I guess they are dried up potential monoprints.

These patterns are the result of simultaneous self-organization determined by the physical properties of the inks, plates and the force used to pull them apart. It's difficult to comprehend, especially since I'm used to intentional manipulation of my materials component by component, accumulating into something growing from a single point. These patterns happen everywhere all at once, as though each part knows exactly what every other part is doing and plans its position accordingly. But there is no planning, no deciding. Stuff just just does this, and it shows up everywhere in biology.

Branching Monoprints on Mirrors

2010-08-13T21:08:00.004-04:00

I almost crapped myself when I figured out how to do this today. The right viscosity of ink pressed between two smooth surfaces that are then pulled apart sometimes creates perfect allover branches. I'm so excited to have the new super power of creating natural-looking branch patterns at will. If I can control this technique it sure will come in handy. These are done on mirrors, scanned in and unedited. My scanner makes mirrors look this dark automatically and I think it looks rad.

Drawing for the Window

2010-08-02T07:37:00.004-04:00

Susan Maasch asked if I could come up with something for the window display during my little exhibit in August. This is the largest drawing I've ever done, based on my small print Conjunction. It is 58" wide by 48" tall, india ink painted on with a brush on paper.

As a reminder, the opening is 5-8 during the First Friday Art Walk at 567 Congress St. It will be an exciting art walk; I also recommend seeing Anna Hepler at the Portland Museum of Art and also Ethan Hayes-Chute and Yeshe parks at Whitney Art Works

Repost from Data is Nature

2010-07-25T15:04:00.001-04:00

Clint Fulkerson is one of a growing number artists dedicated to hand generating computer-like patterns, geometries and complex mathematical forms. The procedural aspect of mark-making Clint uses is derived from an auto-catalytic self-organising principle, a self-reflexive recipe that has as much in common with morphological systems as it does drawing.

‘I create my artwork through the slow application of decisive marks. As I draw, I follow a loose formula based on what I’ve already drawn, filling areas of the picture plane gradually, without making initial layout sketches. This makes the final product somewhat unexpected and emergent.’

In this sense the drawing could be seen to be a system in action whereby local agents (drawing marks) define successive marks to create global structures of complexity that are often unaware of their ongoing mutating configurations.

This emergent behaviour has been noted in morphological systems and biological colonies, at length. No surprise, then, that many of Clint’s drawings have titles alluding to the development of organisms such as meiosis and mitosis. In some some of the drawings Voronoi-like meshes appear to generate tensile forces of subdivisioning cellular activity.

See the original of this post at http://dataisnature.com/?p=575

2 new drawings

2010-07-22T22:06:00.003-04:00

These are white pencil on 22" x 30" black paper

Gallery Representation

2010-07-17T08:10:00.003-04:00

Susan Maasch Fine Art in Portland has offered to represent my artwork, and also exhibit 4 of my prints and two of my large drawings for the month of August. I'm so excited to find a gallery that seems like a good fit!

2 new prints

2010-07-10T08:34:00.002-04:00

Lattice:

Conjunction:

Quick video of printing an etching

2010-07-08T22:49:00.001-04:00

plate before etching

2010-07-06T21:27:00.003-04:00

I have 3 plates almost ready to etch and print within the next couple of days.

Aquatint added

2010-07-04T11:16:00.005-04:00

I used this plate to try out aquatint for the first time since 2000. I etched it longer than I wanted, making it a bit darker than I had hoped, but I was really excited at how the hard ground got pulled into the etched lines by capillary action and resisted the etch leaving white "starfish" at the major intersections. That was completely unexpected and I loved watching it happen.

I will probably keep working on the plate and printing the various changes, then display them in an animation-like progression.

New etching

2010-06-22T20:39:00.002-04:00

This is 10" x 7" approximately, printed from a 16 gauge copper sheet I found in the basement and cut to this odd but regular size with a hack saw. This was printed with block printing ink, but I didn't know until Lisa told me... it was really hard to wipe!

Colored Pencil Drawings

2010-06-17T07:41:00.005-04:00

These are the other colored pencil drawings on grey paper I did a couple weeks ago. I'd like to make silkscreen prints that look exactly like these, but I have to learn how to silkscreen first!

Prints from Pickwick

2010-06-14T21:38:00.004-04:00

I've been gradually working on several copper and zinc plates at home and at Pickwick Independent Press, and now I have several proofs to show. I'm always so excited to start new plates that I haven't printed an edition for any of these. These images are also on my website, clintfulkerson.com.

Drypoint, 7" x 4.5":

Same as above, reworked and reprinted:
Mezzotint, 7" x 4.5":
Etching with graphite colored ink, 12" x 9":
Etching, 8" x 6":
Etching, 9" x 12":

Coloring with Johnny

2010-06-05T19:00:00.001-04:00

Johnny is my 7 year old nephew.

colored pencil drawing

2010-05-22T10:52:00.005-04:00

I'm continuing with several drawings like this, growing geometric networks that look like cells or bubbles packing together. I'm starting them all similarly by laying down a triangular array and then building upon that grid in various ways using only straight lines without a ruler. I start at a single point on the paper and grow shapes to the edges of the paper, and I stop when I can't draw any more shapes without going off the edge of the paper. I'm thinking of the paper as an environment with a carrying capacity for life, and my little blobs are life. The edges of the paper are real boundaries. The paper is not just a window into some other world. It is the world. I think of it as a flatland ecosystem, and my drawn cells are some sort of dimension-challenged beginnings for life.

colored pencil drawing

2010-05-20T23:15:00.002-04:00

peas pass the please

2010-05-20T22:28:00.002-04:00

colored pencil drawing

2010-05-14T16:25:00.002-04:00

colored pencil drawing

2010-05-12T07:38:00.002-04:00

I'm beginning to use color again, and I like the results. I just don't have a very good pencil sharpener and I end up breaking off a lot of prismacolor pencil tips.

Patterns of Nature

2010-05-02T16:32:00.004-04:00

I have several drawings in a group exhibit entitled "Patterns of Nature" at Åarhus Gallery, 50 Main Street, Belfast Maine, 04915

The exhibit runs May 6-30, 2010, open Thursday-Sunday 12pm-6pm

Opening reception Friday May 7, 5-8pm

Exhibiting artists are: Mary Barnes, Kimberly Callis, Ingrid Ellison, Annadeene Fowler, Clint Fulkerson, Kevin Johnson, Lynn Karlin, Mark Kelly, Richard Mann, Andrea Martens, Jonathan Mess, Ed Moffitt, Ben Potter, Abbie Read, Wesley Reddick, Willy Reddick, Rebecca Rivers, and Patricia Wheeler

Postcard image: Clint Fulkerson Entrance, 2007, ink and colored pencil on vellum, 6"x 5"

new etching

2010-04-26T22:39:00.004-04:00

Today I printed 2 proofs of the first etching I've done in about 10 years, and I'm pretty excited about how it turned out. The print is 6" x 8" on 11" x 15" rives bfk cream colored paper. Here are some detail images:

More Exquisite What? sculpture images

2010-04-23T00:27:00.005-04:00

Palindrome:

Synecdoche:
Chaord:
Heliogabaline:
Dysphemism:

Cave Wall

2010-03-30T18:42:00.002-04:00

I am the featured visual artist in the current issue of Cave Wall, a literary journal of poetry and art.

more sculpture pictures

2010-03-30T17:51:00.001-04:00

Heliogabaline:

Chaord:
Synecdoche:

Exquisite What? detail images

2010-03-28T22:48:00.001-04:00

Exquisite What? Process

2010-03-15T18:48:00.003-04:00

My collaborator Ian Henderson has laid out the casting process used in the creation of our new sculptures quite nicely on his blog:

http://ianart.tumblr.com/

"Exquisite What?" now on exhibit

2010-03-13T14:14:00.006-05:00

"Exquisite What?"

Ian Henderson and Clint Fulkerson

Fort Port Arts Community Gallery

300 Summer ST Boston, MA

March 12-April 16, 2010

Opening Reception:
Thursday, March 18, 2010 5:30-8pm

Artists' Presentation:
Friday, March 26, 2010 7:00pm

"Exquisite What?" brings the spirit of blind collaboration into sculptural process, as the Surrealists did for writing and drawing with their famous game, Exquisite Corpse.

The Art is viewed under magnification in enclosed containers, which resemble the handling boxes used by scientists and medical researchers. Visitors reach through openings in the cases to handle the work and examine it from all sides. These boxes allow for an intimate connection with the work while still protecting the objects.

By touching and inspecting the work, viewers will explore their surfaces in a playful, inquisitive manner that reflects the spirit of their creation.

Here are some images of the sculptures. I'm very pleased with the results of our hard work, and I encourage everyone to come out to the opening reception and our presentation or at least to see the show.

All twelve pieces exhibited are sterling silver and are at most 3"-4" long

Pleonasm:

Chiliasm [detail]:
Dysphemism [detail]:
Chiast:
Bifurcation:

Exquisite What? March exhibit

2010-02-17T16:20:00.005-05:00

Ian Henderson and I are exhibiting our collaborative sculptures at Boston's Fort Point Community Gallery in March. Contact me with your address if you want a postcard. More e-info to come as the show nears.

wax

2010-02-10T23:59:00.003-05:00

Yes, I know it's slow and boring to watch it happen by video, especially in real time, but here is the progress on the wax thus far:

I swear it's not boring for me.

Wax Modeling Video

2010-02-07T16:57:00.002-05:00