This is just a quick post to point you to a nice interview with University of Kansas art professor Michael Krueger. You can see more of his artwork on his website.

Sub-zero wind chills here in Lawrence this morning. I think it’s safe to say that winter has arrived!

This is a collage piece that I recently came up with as a study for a different project. I ended up not using it for the project itself, but I had so much fun doing it, that I’d really like to try and do some more in this style, so stay tuned! A majority of the photographs were taken from the Library of Congress’ public domain archive on Flickr. That place is a treasure chest of interesting images from our nation’s past!

I just got back from a relaxing weekend out in western Kansas which was a nice escape from the hustle of everyday life here in Lawrence. The weather was perfect and I spent one morning canoeing out on Wilson Lake which was a lot of fun. I also (over)ate a ton of home-cooked food. However, one of the most unique things I came across was a beautiful sunflower field, so out came the camera!

Oh, and we were even featured on the front of a few newspapers you might have heard of:

From his artist’s statement:

The history of a place, as well as its land and inhabitants, are all vitally important in defining a community’s environmental and social conditions. In my prints I romanticize this idea with the use of rural landscape and landmarks. These rural devices serve to emphasize the ever-growing abandonment of small towns and farmland of the Midwest. With the medium of serigraphy, or screen printing, I can express the man-made qualities of rural architecture with a photographic stencil technique.

Justin is also a super nice guy and was recently kind enough to invite me over to take a look at his studio and talk about his work and his process.

Justin has a very comfortable workspace that is perfect for the type of work that he does. Serigraphy (silk screening) is a very labor and time intensive process and a typical piece takes around 3 weeks from start to finish. It can also be messy since there are a lot of chemicals, inks and water involved with the process, but he’s set the space up perfectly so that every step has it’s own area.

I loved seeing the stuff that hangs on Justin’s walls.

How cool is this pinball machine?

There are a few vital pieces of equipment that are needed for serigraphy. Aprons are certainly one of them.

And fuel for those late night work sessions is a must!

This is Justin’s exposure unit which is used for creating a photo stencil on a screen. These units make this process go MUCH easier! This particular unit was rescued from being thrown away and is still in great shape.

A light table is used for tracing and cutting out stencils. Justin’s is an old drawing desk with a glass insert and a lamp underneath and is probably way better than any of the commercial ones you can buy.

Brushes, of course, are useful for applying any number of things to the screen like ink and drawing fluid, or just for painting ink directly onto paper. As a side note, the colorful backgrounds in Justin’s silkscreens are all monoprints. This means that each one is unique and so, although the rural imagery might be the same for a run of 6 prints, the colored sky is unique in each one.

Justin also does a good deal of drawing and some of his newer works look at socially and environmentally responsible means of travel and living. He is a very eco-conscious person and is even considering doing some straw-bale construction behind his house!

Once a layer of ink is pulled through the screen onto paper, they are set to dry in these drying racks. Acrylic ink dries in a matter of minutes, but even then, these racks make it possible to do multiple prints at once.

A little bit about the silk screening process: first a stencil is cut out of paper or is made into a photo stencil using chemicals.

A photo stencil requires a high contrast image like the one above. Justin has his own method of getting these printed onto acetate, so I won’t reveal his secret . . .

The ink is applied to the screen and then pushed through using a squeegee.

Wherever there is a hole in the stencil, the ink will pass through. Here is a layer of white ink being lined up for printing on top of the colored background.

Once all the prints are made with that color, the ink is washed out of the screen with a pressure washer.

And the process is done!

. . . except not quite. Justin also has a woodworking area of his shop where he builds his own custom frames! Admittedly, not his favorite part of the process, the frames do look really nice hanging up in a gallery, so it’s well worth the effort.

These are images from the show at the Signs of Life Gallery. The colors are striking on screen, but really need to be seen in person to get the true effect. They’re incredible!

Justin has work up at the Signs of Life Gallery in downtown Lawrence, KS as well as at the Community Mercantile through most of the Spring of 2008. Go check them out and buy something if you like it! His website, www.justinmarable.com, also lists all of his upcoming shows and has a large online gallery of his work.

A huge thanks goes out to Justin for letting me into his studio to look around and watch him at work.

Joe’s studio is set up in his garage and contains just about every tool known to man. Some of them are quite old and some he made himself (like the vice on the table).

I’m so envious of his drawer of parts!

Many of the racks for his tools he made himself and even they have a lot of character to them.

This is the type of wire that is used for most of the pieces.

For the most part, Joe works on a fairly small scale with most of the pieces ranging from 5-12 inches in height. It’s amazing how much emotion can be conveyed through a washer and some wire.

Being a native Kansan, Joe has a real interest in western imagery which is one of the main themes throughout a large part of his work.

This is a replica of a windmill, similar to the one he had on his farm as a child.

Like the windmill, most of his machine sculptures have moving parts.

This is the Wright Brother’s airplane with Wilbur in the pilot’s seat.

A working trebuchet from the Medieval period.

Lots of great replicas of antique tractors and trucks.

Joe has also made some pieces for his home including picture frames and furniture.

Joe’s largest piece is a tribute to his childhood hero, Roy Rogers. This life-sized figure is constructed out of oil field pipe and sheet metal from large oil barrels and he actually has a skeleton underneath the clothes. He created Roy when he was living right off of the highway and he wanted him to wave to the cars passing by. Now he greets everyone that comes up to his home!

I’d like to thank Joe’s granddaughter Jenny for her help with filming the video clip and, of course, a really huge thanks to Joe Malin for showing me around his studio. He is an amazing person and his work is very clever and truly special.

Here’s a quick description from the official website:
“Started in 1958, the Maple Leaf Festival began as a community event inspired by Dr. Ivan Boyd, a biology professor at Baker University. He noted that the third weekend in October was the optimum time to view the changing colors of the Maple Leaves in the area and the perfect time to celebrate the successful harvest.”

This was the spokesman for the whole event. He’s a funny guy who made announcements and gave out free shirts to whomever could name the song that was playing over the loudspeakers. I should brush up on my oldies and country music knowledge for next year.

They had a few carnival rides. I love the visual overload on the midway. It’s amazing how you can see certain fonts and colors together and instantly think “carnival”.

Adult rides . . .

. . . and kid rides.

Carnivals can be pretty creepy and this monkey is no exception. On a moderately related note, there’s a great fiction book about a family of circus freaks called “Geek Love”, by Katherine Dunn. I highly recommend it if you’re into that kind of thing.

Like many small town fairs, they had a petting zoo with camels, pigs, small horses, this goat, and a lot of other things. The animal rights guy in me has a lot to say about this kind of thing, but I’ll leave it alone for now.

In terms of actual art at the fair, it was more in the “craft” category. They had some great photography that you could buy and it was mostly comprised of Kansas landscapes which can be some pretty stunning stuff. Outside of that, there was a lot of country themed “stuff” like these hand painted mailboxes (note the young festival love) . . .

These lovely signs . . .

There was also some “live” art going on which is always interesting to watch. . .

And of course “fair food” which is a culinary art in a world by itself!