ode to eva hesse

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IT IS SOMETHING. IT IS NOTHING. Ode to Eva Hesse.

crocheted sweater

angela simione, 2014

i keep forgetting to post this!  the first sweater of 2014!  it felt so good to make.  it feels like it's been forever since i made a sweater.  the process is just long enough to feel substantial, and quick enough to supply me with my fix of instant gratification.  :)

the text is taken from Eva Hesse's artist statement for her 1968 exhibition "Chain" which is taped to the inside of the front cover of my "sketch" book.  i took her last two sentences.  

"I would like my work to be non-work.  This means that it would find its way beyond my preconceptions.

What i want of my art I can eventually find.  The work must go beyond this.

It is my main concern to go beyond what I know and what I can know.  The formal principles are understandable and understood.

It is the unknown quality from which and where I want to go.

As a thing, an object, it accedes to its non-logical self.

It is something.  It is nothing."

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just the beginning

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over a year in production, The Blanket of DOOM is finally finished.   mostly.  a few small tweaks here and there, a few loose yarn ends to be woven in to the grain of stitches, and a ton of photographs to take before i can legitimately refer to this project as Done.  in fact, it could be quite some time before i see the end of this particular piece.  the photo up top signals what i envision for The Blanket: a life prior to finding itself on display in a gallery.  we'll see where we end up together.  :)

but it is a happy moment to see her in all her good glory.  so many long hours and evening spent hooking away at this piece.  it is an expression of dedication and faith that, even if imperfect, the idea was a good one and to chase it to the end.  there were plenty of times at the very beginning of this massive undertaking that i wanted to give up, unravel the entire thing, and focus on smaller projects.  there were plenty of weeks when i didn't touch her at all.  couldn't.  even hated the idea of working on her.  there were plenty of times when i dreaded the work that needed to be done.  it seemed so endless.  impossible. 

when i finally reached the half-way mark, my hope and strength returned and i felt committed to seeing the project through to the end regardless of how it turned out.  i no longer needed it to be any good and i just wanted to make the blanket for me.  i began to see it as a landscape...  a road...  a way to learn something deeper about who i am and the type of artist and human i want to be.  a poem to wrap myself in.

Lea had said to me once, "your work is so devotional."  her voice came back to me so many times while i worked on The Blanket.  what is Devotion?  what is it to devote oneself to something?  what does it require?  it comes down to an unspeakable trust.  i trust my work with all that i am and all that i've got.  i entrusted my entire life and self to it a long time ago and haven't questioned it since.  my road through this world might very well be different from others but it is a good one and my work has proven itself to be the very best map and guide.

the picture of me laying on top of the Blanket of DOOM was taken this morning in my kitchen.  she takes up the entire floor.   i'm 5'6".  each letter in DIE is taller than i am.   but the work has always been, and always will be, bigger than me and that has nothing to do with physical scale.  :)

 

so happy i could DIE

crochet

kingsize blanket

angela simione, 2013

a way to write:

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untitled
bleach on kingsize bedspread
angela simione, 2012

not a contest.

stare at me. i'll stare at you. there's something to it.









THOU SHALT DIE
hand-crocheted sweater
angela simione, 2011

value...

lately i've been thinking about the positive side of anonymity-
a form of protection, security, a safe warm place to be...

and though my portraits are generally about forced anonymity, this aspect is something i need to look at too... that, in some ways, these women are also protected, not objectified. they feel no embarrassing exposure. they can step forward if they want to. these women aren't harmed by me. not that i ever felt i was doing them any harm, but realizing that there is a positive quality to anonymity helps me proceed with a greater strength: i know they won't be hurt. i know they will always remain safe.

waiting pages...

while arranging and re-arranging and re-curating all of my many portfolios, i came across a pretty big collection of collages. these two really caught my eye and, as a pair, look so good together. seeing these again for the first time in months really got me itching to do some text-based work again (aside from the banners).




there's just such poetry in work like this and the repetitive action of writing the same word over and over and over again lends a healthy conceptual bend to the work... albeit, obsessive.



waiting pages
21" x 16" (irregular)
ink on collage
angela simione, 2008



waiting pages detail


available at black fence

the banner project moves forward... again

anonymous
angela simione, 2009


a crocheted L.E.D. sign in honor of the Anonymous Girl(s) series of paintings and drawings...
and sorta autobiographical as well.

lineage...

got up at 5:20 this morning and was in the studio working by 6:30. the day is off to a wonderful, happy, exciting start and here's why:


lineage
44" x 38"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2009

she's done! YAY! she's so damn pretty! excuse me while i toot my own tarnished horn but, i love this painting! love, love, LOVE! i'm going to spend the rest of the morning sipping coffee and staring at this canvas.

when i started it - always thinking of anonymity and loss, ya know - i thought about my own history... the history of all the women in my family, really... and realized that "cleaning women" are pretty much invisible. they have no voice, no real power... at least not when they're on the job. i've worked as a maid before. very few of the people whose homes i cleaned even looked at me, let alone spoke to me. you are required to be silent, a ghost moving unseen and unheard through the house... and don't make the client uncomfortable by highlighting your humanity at all...

this painting is made to honor such a lineage- a long, undocumented, "uncomfortable" history that isn't spoken of, the women who handle the messes, who have a relationship with dirt... it isn't polite to speak of such things.

proof... (in progress...)

i haven't posted a picture of work in what feels like an extremely long time. i talk and talk and talk about painting but where's the work, right? walk the talk, art jerk! here you go...


(untitled for now because i think it needs more work maybe, possibly, probably)
15" x 11"
graphite, erasure, and acrylic on paper
2009

back on the anonymity trip (as if i ever got off) and am very happy with the results. i'm definitely going to keep working on this one and do a few more drawings like this in order to experiment further with redaction techniques. i bought a roll of black duck tape today to see how that would read rather than the painted stripe across the eyes... plus, duck tape connotes violence and that's pretty much what i'm trying to get at: forced anonymity, robbed identities, stolen lives, victimization, murder... bad stuff.

looky looky!

territories 12
15" x 11"
embroidery on paper
2009

this is what i've spent the last three days working on. lovely! i've been so taken with how much the hanging strings on these pieces resemble a girl's hair so i tried to exploit that resemblance further by braiding it. i love it! and i think it really starts to push certain metaphors to the forefront of the work: body as landscape, traditional expectations or ideals of the female, the longing for a white picket fence childhood or life, etc.


detail

i think i may add a pink or black bow to the end of the braid to really bump up the little girl associations that this piece presents.

i'm still working on the jumbo version of this and it is going to take me a long long time to get it finished. the size that the last three of these have been is 15" x 11" and it's at least a good 10 hours of stitching. the jumbo one is 4 times the size so, mathematically, it'll be a 40 hour work week to get it finished and that's only if i work on nothing else. yeah right. i like bouncing back and forth between works in progress, applying what i've learned with one piece to another, testing ideas, and just exploring the possibilities certain materials offer.

paper is so versatile that while i'm working on one piece i get so many ideas for future works that i've got to stop for a minute and write the ideas down so i don't forget them. i've lost a great many wonderful idea by assuming my mind can hold on to every whimsical thought that passes through while i'm working. and these pieces in particular are so meditative that i lose track of time and get lost in thought quite easily. that's something i've always loved about sewing and cross-stitch and crochet... all the traditional women's work that i get caught up in. i'm just so attracted to using the lineage of these activities in an art context to talk about identity, loss, longing, day-dreaming, hope. there's an inherent poetry in these traditions that i'm trying to bring to the surface and highlight. i think i'm on the right track with these territories...

but i'm also thinking of changing their names. yes, there are definitely part of the entire territories series i've been working on for the past year, but they have been such a turning point for me that i really think they need a title of their own... they are definitely different than the earlier work and don't have anything to with notions of the decorative like the others do. there's something so quiet and humble in these last three embroidery pieces that i want to honor it. they need to have their own title. i've just got to think one up. :)

dolls...

YAY! a partially sunny day! i've been needing to get photographs taken of new work. here's one of the most recent - a throw back to The Paper Doll Project. i've been seeing more and more how closely tied the project is to my "regular" art practice. so close in fact that there's beginning to be almost no distinction between the two bodies of work. both deal with issues of loneliness, isolation, being lost in the masses, and the attempt to find some sort of comfort. in the case of The Paper Doll Project, the comfort that comes from copying an ideal...


doll collection 2
30" x 22"
ink on paper
2008

drawings like this actually take a pretty long time to do. each doll is hand drawn. i did not use a stamp. it's important in this work to have tiny variations between the dolls so that it's more an exploration of the ATTEMPT to copy... and the failure of not being able to really do so.


detail

i'm interested in how the attempt to copy (and the failure to to get it perfect) guides identity construction. we all have role models to look up to, heros, and ideals that we strive to meet. when the model is based exclusively on gender, what is lost in the process of trying to copy or conform? a standardization takes place and complying with that standardization is a loss in and of itself. that loss becomes a significant part/influence of a person's identity and their view of the world.

quiet...

i really like the documentation of the redacted book page project i've been working on... in fact, i think maybe they could stand on their own as photographs. there's just something so simple and beautiful about these pictures. i think i might actually like them more than the object...
they're just so humble, austere... poetic.

old loves and new thanks...

hi everybody! first off, i just want to send out a big ol' THANK YOU to everyone who's been reading the blog lately and commenting on the work. i really, really appreciate the fact that you've taken time out of your day to let me know what your thoughts are. it's extremely helpful to know what people respond to, what turns them off, and what might just make them smile. i am grateful and smiling and totally giddy. thank you so much!

so today i've been working on some small pieces, just sorta playing around and seeing what happens. sometimes it's a wonderful thing to just work as fast as you can and without a lot of thought - it short-circuits the self-censoring mechanism and you end up doing things you normally wouldn't, acting upon ideas you'd talk yourself out of, and the resulting images are evidence of learning in action. it's great! here's some small pieces from my art adventure:




Blackland #4
7" x 7"
mixed media collage on paper
2008



untitled personal indictment
6 3/4" x 5 1/4"
mixed media collage on paper
2008


obviously, my default aesthetics kicked in on these (my beloved black and white!), but i also picked up my old love of texture and disparate materials and just rolled with it: black masking tape, film negative (that's what makes them shiny), scraps of paper and a love of abstraction. it was fun and i really enjoy seeing that, though i was working quickly and not really concerned with what the results were, the primary ideas i've been dealing with are in this work as well. pretty ingrained, i guess! :) and that's a good thing!

Page 28 (Blackland 2)

15" x 11"
ink on paper
2008


i don't know what took me so long to get around to the idea of drawing my very own book pages but i'm sure glad i finally did. i guess i had been sort of turned off by the idea of my own hand writing being present in the work. thankfully, i got over that weird little hang up and here she is... Page 28 (named after my age). the text reads "black as her ribbons" and i leave it to you to interpret that fragment in whatever way pleases you best.

(click on image for larger view)

collection...

last night before bed, i spread out a small collection of drawings and paintings i've done over the passed few weeks and was really pleased with what i saw-
there is such a solid direction and cohesiveness to this work that i guess i was entirely unaware of until seeing a few grouped together.



protect
24" x 17 3/4"
oil on canvas
2008

my investigation of the need for protection and the pleasure of safety are leading me to see the new poetry that is born inside trauma and fragmentation... the loss we tolerate when we put up fences and wondering where i can find the space to build a site of hope within all this obsessive seperation and fear...




untitled haven
9 3/4" x 6 1/4"
mixed media collage
2008

of course, we need fences but when do we stop building them? where is the guideline that we can turn to and say, "oops! one too many, let's take that last one down. we've lost too much."




all my cages were empty
5" x 5"
ink on torn book page
2008

sometimes the desire for protection doesn't rise from a healthy place. in the case of the edited document, it's a need for protection from embarrassment and an unwanted, damaging exposure. it hides information angrily... maliciously... a sign of the corruption of the one who wields the big black marker.




Anonymous Girls study
7 1/2" x 5 1/2"
ink on paper
2008

but i'm trying to find beauty anyway... these delicate phrases that remain in spite of the obliteration i've done to them.




dust flower
8 1/4" x 5 1/4"
acrylic on book page
2008

how gorgeous is the fragmented phrase "a dust flower". stunning. poetic. destruction and loss turned against itself.




the penalty (detail)
13" x 10"
mixed media collage
2008

i feel like i'm on the right track.

anonymous girls....

Anonymous Girls #3
22" x 15"
ink on paper
2008

this has been a secret series of mine for about a year and a half now. only a few people have seen this work... until now! the gallery took this piece for the november show and i am so excited about it! it's work that people seem to feel pretty strongly about- they either completely love it or hate it more than any thing else. :) which i get a really big kick out of! when i first started this series, i was sort of just doing it to keep my hands busy and quickly ended up having a huge stack of little 8" x 10" ink drawings of girl heads. at the time, i had been really invested in the untitled sisters paintings... portraits of girls cropped at the neck (headless), and a classmate of mine made the statement that maybe this was where all their faces went. i really enjoyed his outlook and decided i'd let these drawings happen as they needed to and to not force them in any particular direction.


Anonymous Girls #4
11" x 7 1/2"
ink on paper
2008

it's been nice to have a low-pressure/secret project that grows and changes at it's own rate. i have so many that still need to be photographed. hopefully, we'll have a few more days of beautiful and bright weather... i've got an amazingly large (and constantly growing) pile of artwork that needs to be documented. i get so wrapped up in new work that i keep forgetting to take pictures! now that this project is no longer so secret... i'm anxious about what kind of reception this work will get next month during the exhibition... documentation will become quite important.

anyway...
any one else see the similarity between this work and the "black apples" series? a pretty nice partnership, i'd say! i really like seeing these pieces together... maybe i should make a zine of my own? definitely something to think about.


black apples (2)
15" x 11"
ink on paper
2008

poems, painting, and the problem of memory...

i've spent the day so far (up since 4:30 am) alternating between painting and reading the complete poems of anne sexton... which means i have also been alternating between moments of exquisite joy and the torture of reliving old, bad memories. nevertheless, a wonderful day!

the oil paintings are coming along quite nicely and should be finished sometime during the next 2 weeks. i also started a new canvas based on this study:




study for 'the fall'
11" x 7 1/2"
acrylic and graphite on paper
2008

the canvas is 3 feet square (so it'll be a few weeks before i'm done) and so much fun to work on. i've been wrapped up in smaller works on paper for weeks now and it feels wonderful to go big.

this image is largely inspired by another painting i'm working on for rana kelly's 'witch of the bayou'. i'm still so struck by her story that i feel compelled to respond to it visually. the task will be to do the story justice. the paintings need to be thoughtful. they need to mirror how gruesome, how beautiful, and how haunting the story is.

Anonymous Landscape 1

10" x 10"
oil on canvas
2008

my fascination with the collective human urge to protect, stake claims, and establish ownership has led me to consider land and our feelings toward it. recently, my friend heather and i were discussing the native american outlook on land ownership: that it makes no sense. how does one come to own land? it's the same as stating one can own the air - something free and shared by all. how tragically opposite this outlook is to the american perception of ownership.

i've also been thinking about land as a classified document in and of itself - it hides its history. when we look out at a landscape, the events that have taken place within its boarders are not at all apparent. trees and tall grass can erase the signs of war, and leave us with no signal of its true past. bearing this in mind, putting a fence around that landscape seems redundant - we'll never know what secrets the land keeps.

it is our fear that drives the desire to stake claims and put up fences: stranger danger. we're afraid our neighbors will take what we've worked for... and why not? the history of the world is full of conquest, pillaging, taking. we've shown each other that none of us can be trusted. is that cynical? or is it true? finding answers to these questions is what my practice is trying to uncover. i'm trying to show that, just as easily as we put up fences around a house or farm, we put up frnces around ourselves. we lock each other out. we wait to hear unknowable passwords instead of extending trust or compassion.

i'm trying to see what we've lost in order to know where to go.

playing in paint...

art-trades and the first batch of postcards are in the mail! keep an eye on your mail box. :)

i pretty much spent the day cleaning house and finishing up a few small drawings that have been waiting for my attention.


untitled (angela's backyard 2)
15" x 11"
gouache on paper
2008

HANG has the first drawing in this series.

i've always loved the look of gouache and, since the start of summer, have been using it more and more. i'm learning its' secrets and how to handle it. it's alot of fun and i'm happy to show the medium the patience it requires. i also lept back in to my oil paintings today so hopefully i'll have some images to show you soon. since i work in layers of stains, a large part of my practice is practicing patience... waiting for the individual layers to completely dry before adding the next. having such a quick-drying medium to turn to in the meantime has been great for keeping up my momentum.

i also made a few tiny collages on some edited book pages - tiny territories - which are adorable and minimal (work after my own heart)! just little cut out black fence posts, a glue stick, and play time:


(1)


(2)

i had such a great time working on these! i've got four so far, but these are my favorites. it's great to get an idea you can run with and i think they work well with the work i've been focused on the passed few months.

Present Perfect- collaborative works by eddie gesso and Analisa Goodin

If you're anywhere near San Francisco and have an affinity for conceptual art, I highly recommend stopping by The Spare Room Project to catch the closing reception for Present Perfect, a show of collaborative works by eddie gesso and Analisa Goodin. I went to the opening and had a wonderful time and, honestly, the work is worth seeing more than once. I was stunned by the austere beauty of the installation, the thoughtfulness (and seriousness) of the work, and tried not to cry in public when I realized that I was one of the artists who were mentioned as an influence.

here's the press release:





Present Perfect.
collaborative works by eddie gesso and Analisa Goodin
at THE SPARE ROOM PROJECT

Inspiration provided by the following artists (working): Sophie Calle, Rosenclaire, Léonie Guyer, Harmony Hammond, Eva Hesse, Roni Horn, Agnes Martin, Alfred de Musset, Robert Rauschenberg, Leah Rosenberg, Sappho, Angela Simione, Hadi Tabatabai, and Félix González-Torres.

Opening reception Friday, August 29th, 7-10pm
Closing Reception Friday, September 12th, 7-10pm
The Spare Room Project is conveniently located at
270 Anderson Street,
San Francisco, CA 94110 (in Bernal Heights)

The gallery is opened to the public by appointment only for viewing through September12th.


Present perfect examines temporality through a collaborative effort between two artists, and three temporal delineations: present, past, and future.

It is an abstract exploration into the translation of meaning through time. Present perfect is a grammatical term which illustrates a complex relationship between time and desire—it pushes the temporal boundaries of past present and future into each other. Everything we had said will have made perfect sense is one example of language as a manipulation of time in order to bend desire, wantingness, and expectation for a future outcome.

Failures in communication and slippages in the reception of language are our starting point for this exploration. Stretching the logic of language, and subverting its own rules into absurd structures offer a glimpse into the motivations behind our speak. We want to have been understood.

The Spare Room Project was initiated by a desire for more creative experimentation, more space for emerging artists to fulfill both physical and curatorial ideas, and the tight quarters that San Francisco allots the majority of us. SRP aspires to allow artists in the local community opportunities and exposure often reserved through more rigid tradition, and it hopes doing so will foster otherwise unrealized innovation, exploration, and growth. Through exhibitions, workshops, and group critiques, it serves as a vehicle for teaching, learning, communicating, and sharing.

The Spare Room Project is funded by The Alternative Exposure Grant Program through Southern Exposure.