Subscription

June 28, 2010 in Engravings, Galleries, Printmaking, Prints, Uncategorized | No comments

Just a reminder to all that this is the last week to get 30% off of the subscription of prints I’m offering.

Anybody interested let me know this week.  The cost is $650 which includes 6 prints and a case to hold them in.  3 of the prints are done so far.  I’ll be posting the 3rd image here in the next few days after I finish printing the edition.

Just email me or contact me through my website in order to find out more about the subscription I’m offering.  They’ll still be available to purchase and once complete available for purchase as a collection as well as individual prints.

Thanks.

Potential and possibility

May 21, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

I wonder sometimes about what makes what I do possible.  The fact that I make art, the fact that some respond to it.  Certainly my wife, who lovingly supports and makes possible my endeavors with time, as do friends who love and appreciate my work as well as all those who support it financially.  This support says to me, from those who give it, ‘your work has meaning and we wish to see more of it.’

As for ‘potential’, I believe it is a deceptive concept and potentially dangerous.  It requires extended focus on that which may only be – sometime in the future.  It creates expectations that may or may not be met.  About potential, I wonder… to me it is an idea that exists but not worth worrying too much about.  For instance, I like the idea that a piece of my art or an idea have the potential to touch someone in some way, but I don’t know how that might be or the extent to which it might happen.  More dangerous is when I think about my own potential, full of grand designs of success and all that I might someday accomplish.

I prefer the impossible (or improbable) and the problems that surround them.  It is the impossibilities and improbabilities that make life the grand worthwhile adventure worth living at all.  Much more exciting than all that is probable or certain… and really, let’s be honest, nothing’s for certain.

[this print is the finished print I spoke about in the 'winds shifted' post and is the first print in my subscription series]

The ‘Other’ Story

May 19, 2010 in Engravings, Musings, Printmaking, Prints | 3 comments

Sometimes I make a print or drawing with something specific in mind, like a character or action.  This print is an example of just that.  The original drawing was simply of the two squirrels… one reaching towards the heavens.  Redrawing the image on my woodblock revealed something else entirely as I had reasoned that the squirrel had to be standing on top of something.

All my work has a narrative streak and this one had in my head a narrative surrounding the squirrel at the top.  However, isn’t it always the way it is, that some person or story always seems to overshadow some other no less important story or character or idea.  In many ways I had placed myself in the character of the squirrel.  After all, art-making certainly centers around the artist and like it or not, I’m not immune to the narcissistic inclinations most artists have (or maybe it is just me).  The other story, the untold story is the impact that those seemingly unknown characters have on our lives.  The quieter side of our existence.  This is what I finally decided to honor with this print, though it’s certainly not to discredit the actions of the more active or ambitious.

It was quite a humbling experience really trying to place myself in the place of the stalwart musk ox.  I wanted him to be recognized.  I wanted to be recognized.  What a strong desire we have to be known, credited and appreciated.  The reality is though that this rarely happens, and so there are two ways to go from there…and the musk ox is no different.

Outwardly, there are multiple characters in this print, but the more I view it I start to think that these are two important facets of one self.  Two parts of a whole.  For what is one without the other.

More than anything else though, this print is ‘thank you,’ and you know who you are.

Deer Tao

May 6, 2010 in Drawing, Musings | No comments

I’ve recently begun the practice of Tai Chi.  My wife Katherine had prompted  me to do something for myself and I had always had a fascination with the practice of it; the elegant lines performed by the completely controlled and balanced movements of the body.  A sort of physical fitness for myself aside from carrying my daughter and digging in the garden.  Suffice it to say, after practicing for nearly two months I have found the practice to be much more than I originally anticipated.  Not merely a physical exercise ,but an emotional and spiritual one as well.  The start of this practice corresponded with an invitation to a drawing show at the Greenhill Center for NC Art in Greensboro, NC (which will be in September).  I don’t do much drawing aside from very rough preliminary sketches for my prints, and sometimes not even that… the drawing is done directly on the block so it is lost completely in the carving.  Anyway, I was excited about the idea of making a drawing as a drawing, and as no surprise to me my experience of Tai Chi and rudimentary understanding of Tao has bubbled up into it, or perhaps for the fact it is in the forefront of my mind I place my own understanding upon the drawing, after all, I didn’t start it with that in mind… either way, here it is.

I’m sure to make it into a print eventually as well.  What do you think?  Wood Engraving or Color Moku Hanga print?

what does it mean, the world in a fox’s tail?

April 29, 2010 in Moku Hanga, Musings, Prints | No comments

foxtailIt always seems to happen that the pieces of art that I do off the cuff are the more popular of my works.  I get a lot of response from this particular print, which was actually done as a part of a workshop where I learned the Moku Hanga water color woodcut technique from master printers from japan. I ended up sending most of these proof prints as gifts to the men and women who ran the workshop.  The print was never actually finished and I had only printed 7 of them as proofs.  Now I plan to finish it up… It was never that far off from being done and living with it for awhile has allowed me to grow to like it as is.  But one must move on.  I’ll post a couple of progress shots of the printing process when I’m done printing the edition (by the end of May… my own mini celebration of spring)

Art + Chocolate in video form

April 22, 2010 in Uncategorized | 1 comment

Thanks to Aaron Morrell for putting together this great video of an art and chocolate event I was a part of the other night at the French Broad Chocolate Lounge sponsered by the Art Mob of the Asheville Art Museum.

Asheville Art Mob & Andy Farkas from Aaron Morrell on Vimeo.

The winds have shifted…

February 11, 2010 in Uncategorized | 1 comment

Sketch of little bear guy walking on the tops of grass

Sketch for 'The winds shifted...'

The winds shifted woodblock sketch

The winds shifted woodblock sketch

I started a new print a few days ago as well as a new direction

for me…personally.  Starting now I have a renewed ability and desire to focus on creating artwork.  This print represents that shift.

In the coming months I’ll also be starting a subscription service, where you’ll be able to subscribe and receive 6 prints a

year as well as a discount on existing works and works created in the year of your subscription.  I’m still ironing out the details…so more to come soon.  In the meantime I’m reveling in my newfound liscence to create.  A little more freely than I have in the past.

More on this print too as it progresses.

a little crab

July 13, 2009 in Crab Book, Galleries, Musings | 1 comment

This book came from a wonderful collaboration with some folks at Bookworks in Asheville. It represents that duplicitous little voice in our head that speaks to our frustrations as well as our deeper loves, but the actual external expression is something altogether different…a little toned down…or hidden…and easily distracted.

crab4_image crab2_image crab3_image crab1_image

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river sketches etc.

July 10, 2009 in Galleries, River Book, River Gallery | No comments

Here are some preliminary sketches and watercolors as I was thinking about the book in the very early stages. This is how I usually like to work at the beginning of a project making little sketches and writing out notes.

fish riverstudy4 riverstudy5 riverstudy6

riverStudyMan rvrManDetail

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Peace

July 8, 2009 in Moku Hanga, Musings, River Gallery, River Prints | 2 comments

peace

The making of this print from the book “river” was pretty different experience for me.  Using abstract colors and color combinations to attempt to convey one of the more abstract ideas from the book.  At first I had felt like this particular print was a failure but the more I look at it the more it grows on me.  When I first showed the book at the Flanders Gallery in Raleigh I was surprised at the response to this particular print.  It seemed to garner the most attention and was many people’s favorite from the book.  It comes from a part in the story where the river is about to finally take a rest from it’s constant flowing.  In essense, the river is actively instituting its own peace for itself at the expense of everything around it.  When I first conceived the story, this pivital moment I likened to those moments of selfish choice in our own lives and the consequences they lead to.  Now looking back it forces me to re-examine the notion of peace I’ve become accustomed to and perhaps most importantly how that idea is connected to all other things.

I promise to post the entire story in the near future…check back soon.

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