still sketching

Last two weeks of sketching for the public commission now. I've arrived at the final modell building. These little trees are in scale 1:50 - and I must say my laser cutting skills are coming in handy!

photos from my exhibition

So many people showed up at the opening - Thanks!
Last day of my exhibition TO DO [laugh] was yesterday. Today I took some photos before packing it. 

sketching for public commissions

These are busy days, as always this time of the year. Right now I'm sketching for a double public commission - and preparing for two series of different workshops in the forrest. Both commissions and workshops are for preschools (my new focus group?)

My exhibition is still going on at Grafik i Väst Gallery, you have until the 1 of April to see it. 

TO DO [laugh]

Welcome to my exhibition
TO DO [laugh]

opening 12:00-16:00
Saturday 14 March

new moo business cards

For years now I've made a new set of moo business cards for every new exhibition. I've been printing some of the art pieces in the exhibition on one side of the cards (and my contact info on the other, of course) - like a selected mini version of the exhibit ... as you can print many different motives in the same batch with moo. Another reason is that the quality of the moo business cards is great. (no, I'm not being sponsored by them!). I'm a bit extra sensitive to the printing quality as I work a lot in my art with pinkish and yellow tones that can get really "wrong" in print.

Anyhow; this time it turned out to be even better - they've just started offering square business cards! All my screen prints for my up-coming exhibition To Do [Laugh] are squarish so I had thought this would be rather tricky - but now it was just perfect instead. In addition screen prints are very suitable for reproduction ... so my new little business cards look just like mini-versions of my prints! I'm very happy about this; I can easily try different combinations for hanging the exhibition. Let's just hope now that my artist colleagues won't pinch them all at the opening ...

about my workplace

I'm sharing some things about my workplace at Ada Sweden: details about my studio set-up, my working day and what inspires me. (The interview is in Swedish) 

studio stylish

planning land art workshop

Last week, when we still had some snow, I visited a little piece of nature close to a preschool.  I'll be giving a series of land art workshops there in April - but now it was hard to imagine what it will look like in spring. Last year's workshops looked like this (but that was in another location and with another preschool).

April will be full time out doors for me as I will give another series of workshops - like this one - to four more preschools. All-in-all 15 full days (+ preparations and test). I might have to get new rain clothes!

trying to get an overview

I'm sitting at the computer looking at some of the art pieces I made the last 12 months trying to get an overview. I have to make a selection of 10 art pieces for both grants applications and exhibition applications.

I actually have a lot to chose in between and wish I could pick more than 10. As I mostly work in series I want to represent each series with more than one-two photos. This is in many way a luxury-problem though ... last year I felt I had nothing, so this is so much better.

cutting out laughter

Right now I'm cutting out a lot of laughter from fashion magazines as a preparation for my next series. Before I've just tore out the pages, but this time I'm cutting the shapes as well and grouping the laughing women. This way I notice tendencies more than before ...

Women laugh when they dance, when they walk (often with a friend), when they get married, when they are training, when they splash water in their face (a lot!). This is the more "natural laughter". Then we have the interviewed laughter - the obvious posing - then sporty women laugh more often and female designers laugh (male not at all as much). And there are a lot more laughter in summer!

... just noticing ...

... and some close-ups

This is how some of the "post-it" screen prints turned out. To clarify; the yellow/pink post-it notes are screen printed as well ... In this post from October you can see what it looked like when I was playing around with the post-it notes (that time I had just screen printed laughing faces on post-it notes and was moving them around).

I know it sounds a bit complicated ... and yes, it has been a bit complex.

test-mounting

I managed to get the same print repeated in a diagonal, but I didn't notice until I saw the wall on this photo. The feeling is so very different when you stand there - in reality - next to all those prints. You notice other things.

playing around

there are som many possible combinations. I was thinking this way of working could be perfect for a commission for a preschool. I would love to make something that's not supposed to be outside. You can make so much more for the same amount of money and you don't have to think about vandalism in the same way - or the weather...

showing size

I've been trying out different ways of showing the size of my art pieces when taking photos (or in the case of the upper photo; the size of the hand tufted Christmas tree I made for home - which is not an art piece). For me the size is obvious, of course, but not to others. For example I recently found one of my big drawings (1 x 1,5 m) pinned on Pinterest with the comment that it was from my sketchbook. And of course it could have been that small. Many times it doesn't even help to write the size - people don't look or they just assume. Like with my huge watercolour paintings; I've been offered to exhibit those paintings in really small places because they just assumed they were small - even though I had stated the sizes ...

Anyhow, it doesn't always look effortless or natural when you try to add something - like yourself (and being the photographer at the same time it is just guessing and many trials before getting it right).

documenting

Last Friday I had a little photo session in the studio documenting everything I tufted last year and the screen prints I made in December.  This time I had properly prepared by filling all the holes on the wall and by re-painting it. Last minutes I got the impulse to paint a bit of the the floor too, something which turned out to be a good decision! I was also very happy about the the white but totally darkening blinders I nowadays have in all 4 windows in my studio - so easy to just pull them down for a photo session. 

Step by step I might be getting there; the perfect studio.

Summing up 2014; part 2

2014 was also the year when I learned many new techniques/materials; welding and metal construction, textil printing, hand tufting rugs and laser cutting. I find it very good to try new materials when I feel stuck with my art, but that was not the only reason I learned these things.

summing up 2014: part 1

It's almost the middle of January 2015 already, but in order to properly be able to start the new year I have to leave the old one behind - and what better way to do that than summing it up?

2014 started out as a very hard year for me with my own art. I had saved up some money (through commissions/teaching art) and had the time for concentrated work in my studio ... but everything felt utterly pointless. I was even considering giving up art, something I can admit now when it has passed. It wasn't until the middle of May that I really felt creative happiness and purpose again. I had decided to stop painting - which was very traumatic for me as I've always considered myself to be first of all a painter - and started concentrating on the process of drawing and erasing. Still working with laughter, but focusing more on the ephemeral part of it.

I then continued to work with the creative process and the making of art itself - as something that make up an important part of the art piece - with post-its. It felt great - I was getting so much into my work again. I finished the year by screen printing a series of post-it laughters. 

I'm still in that good place and looking forward to continue my work. 

now with artist statement

Yes, I finally did it - I wrote an artist statement I'm pleased with!
go check it out >

screen printing

So now I've started screen printing the series of post-it laughters. It has been - and still is - a long process arriving at those final 10 images. All together 3 months full time work I would say… at least.

printing post-its

After two days of test printing post-it colours and trying different approaches on layering and shadows - I finally felt I knew how I wanted it to be. This week I will first print one of the images in the series - to make sure I got the right size of paper etc, before I go for the other ones. All in all I will print at least 10 images with 4-5 layers, so I've better think before-  not after.