New Work

For the past two days I have made sure to spend extended time in my studio. I am seeing now that promotion of artwork and studio time are equally important at this stage mf my career, and both take large amounts of time. I have been so busy for the past few days sending out portfolios that I have not made enough time for creation of more Crateart. So, it was really delightful to return to my studio and see my new works and do a little Crayolaing.

After I worked a bit one piece, I took a few pictures of the newest works of Crateart, the Crateart in progress. These images should show my process, and I will continue to take more images as these works are made.

There are two Crateart pieces in works right now. The first one is titled “Noel Heberling as the Zeus of Manhattan and the Poseidon of Brooklyn”. I have written about this piece an earlier blog, so I will not give a huge detailed description here of what I intend for this piece to be when it is finished. What it is now is the beginning stage of a huge Crateart piece. The piece is 8 feet by 18 inches and almost the entire area, front and back, will be a Crayola painting, the largest Crayola painting I have done yet. This piece will take a long time to finish, as I complete on average about one square inch an hour.

The second piece, which I also have described in an earlier blog, is my old suit. This piece still does not have a title, and I am thinking that it may just be one of those pieces that the title is not known until it is finished. I have prepared the surface of this piece about a month ago. It is a beautiful surface. The next step in this piece is a Crayola flower still life. Then I will need to find the hanger to hang the suit on. While this piece seems in an early stage of production, it will be finished long before “Noel as Zeus” will be.

The last piece I want to show is one that was finished a few weeks ago, before I began all this promo stuff and while I was still full time working at the gallery. This piece titled “They Used To Call Me Ali Baba” is a piece that was specially created for a show. My friend in Prague, Jan Chovanec, who was the person behind “This is 7”, invited me to take part in a show he was curating on a tram in Prague. The title of the show is “Greetings” and the concept Jan had in mind was for 15 artists from 8 different countries to create work that gives a summer greeting to the passengers of Tram #17 in the dead of the Czech winter. These pieces, which are to be displayed in the top area of the tram, where the advertisements usually go, had to be flat, paper, and 32cm x 40cm.

“They Used to Call Me Ali Baba”. Is a picture of a bodega in Bushwick Brooklyn, which is a dreary neighborhood east of Williamsburg, and where I lived for some time. For some reason, everytime I entered the bodega, the guys behind the counter would greet me as Ali Baba (true story). I never found out why. When I moved away from Bushwick, to Carroll Gardens, I missed being dubbed Ali Baba. I painted this portrait of the bodega as a colorful and beautiful place, and it is my hope that the color and the objects in the window, which are faded, give a sort of pleasant memory feeling. This piece is about greetings and things that are gone and that you (only mildly) miss, like summer. It is Crayola and Elmer’s Glue on Paper.

The show in Prague runs from December First to December Tenth. It is on Tram #17.