Paintings that bring a big breath of fresh air into your space
Last week artist CJ Howard and I had a great conversation about running a business as an artist during these crazy times. Listen or watch for insights on what it’s like to make a living as an artist and for plenty of tips for up and coming artists.
Watch the video below.
Listen to the podcast on any platform. Find all the links here.
Enjoy!
Looking for art & creativity coaching? Learn about what we can do together here.
Like a lot of artists, I use photography to document my work and to share my process with the world. I sometimes take photos as reference material for my work. And sometimes the photos make the work. In one of my newest works, Sky Project, I crowdsourced photos of the sky via Instagram to make a video projection. People from all over the world shared photos.
The project is a reaction to the outdoor experience as filtered through our phones. We take photos of everywhere we go and everything we do and share them on social platforms such as Instagram. Many people’s experience of the outdoors is entirely based on what is Instagrammable. So how do we continue to have unmediated experiences in nature with the constant distraction of telephones in our lives? Can we still do that?
While technology like our phones and social media connect us, they also sometimes broaden the divisions between us. When we go outside with friends and family, we can feel genuinely deep connections both with each other and the outdoors. Through Sky Project, I encouraged people to look up from their phones, toward the sky that we share with everyone else – to get outside and to look around. Ultimately, I want my work to spur viewers to get outside and experience nature for themselves. I hope that by doing this, we can forge more profound connections with each other and develop a deep appreciation of nature together.
See more of the project along with Paper Mountain HERE. You can see both projects at Elder Gallery of Contemporary Art in the exhibit “Beyond the Mountain” until April 26th.
Get a video tour of the exhibit on my blog HERE.
From now until March 2019, I am working on a project for Elder Gallery of Contemporary Art in Charlotte, NC.
This project has two parts, a very large paper mountain and a video projection of skies.
The idea behind this is to create an experience that evokes the outdoor environment. As a painter, my work is about the intersection of the outdoor experience and art. Because painting is inherently a two dimensional experience, this installation is a way to create a more immersive experience for viewers.
I’m looking for partners to help cover the costs of the project. There are the material and equipment costs to build the mountain and to create the sky project, staff to assist with the building of the mountain, and all the time and work I am doing between now and March to make the project successfully come to life.
On the website, find out more about the project, what it’s about, why it’s important, and different levels of support. I appreciate any level of participation.
If you want to ask me about the project directly, please email me at create@jessicasingerman.com. I’d love to hear from you.
I made a drawing of Tim last night and filmed the process. In retrospect, I should have lit the drawing from the left to minimize the shadow cast from my hand… I’m still learning.
Yesterday’s accordion book made me think of making a double-sided book with both sides interacting together, and the viewer able to change the resulting compositions by closing, opening, or turning pages on either side. I thought of the Surrealists’ game of the “Exquisite Corpse” and children’s books with flaps of various heads, legs, and bodies that could be mixed and matched by flipping through the flaps. Since this little book (well, any artist’s book for that matter) should be handled and explored to be fully experienced, I thought the best way to show it in this context was by making a little film. After seeing the film, Tim thought the experience of going through the book was like a dance between both sides. Tim documented my little stage set up on the dining room table:
