Studio: Letha Wilson

Partially Buried, 2009, c-print on wood, 24" x 24" x 3"

Untitled View, 2009, c-print, aqua resin, paint, 16" x 20" x 8"
Sailor's Delight, 2009, c-print, wood, aqua resin, paint, 48" x 10" x 45"

Prism-Pyramid, 2009, xerox transfer, graphite, c-print on paper, 22" x 22"

Stained Glass Acadia, 2009, c-print, 24" x 20"

Golden Cairn, 2009, spray paint and c-print, 14" x 11"

Walden Pond Advent, (in progress), cut and folded c-print, 11" x 11"

I had the chance to stop by Letha Wilson's studio and check out what's she's been doing lately. Here a a few pics from my visit. Check out her show Lines Through the Wilderness, which opens at Hofstra University's Rosenbeg Gallery on Nov. 11 and runs through Dec. 14. Also see her website for more.

Elizabeth Blomster

Elizabeth Blomster is a Brooklyn-based artist and blogger. Check out her website here and see my interview with her below:

Photo Shape, 2004; Fine Pen Shape, 2005;
Shape Lines, 2007; Shape Snow, 2006

JL: Your work is very diverse, but there is a strong attention to materials that exists in almost everything you do. Have you ever been a painter per se, or did you earlier works always have this similar materiality/constructed element?

EB: I made some paintings with paint in undergraduate school that were still lives and models but quickly moved from using paints to gesso with photocopy transfers, a process akin to printmaking. I prefer to be a bit removed and act as a channel for the materials. This probably explains why I continue to be involved with printmaking, a roller making the mark instead of my hand.

Parameters xv detail, 2009

JL: How do you go about choosing what you will use? Are the materials found, purchased etc.?

EB: The materials are found and purchased. I choose things based on their capabilities- color, texture, fluidity or similarity to something else. For example, I mentioned making "bridge work" or "twins" where one piece is connected to the one before it or making a piece to connect two finished pieces. When thinking like this, I look for materials that mimic elements from the other pieces but I use the word “mimic” loosely. The fun in this system is that it’s structured, feels personalized and also promotes variety.

Pink Stack, 2007, screenprint monotype; Paper Shapes Group, 2007

JL: Why not just use a hard material like a rock or concrete when making a rock, instead of paper?

EB: I wasn’t actually trying to make rocks, I was turning some flat shapes from my prints into 3-D objects (but they ended up looking like rocks). However, the question still applies because I'd be unlikely to make rocks from rock. I prefer dualities or opposites-heavy/light, hard/soft, backward/forwards, natural/man-made. I guess I like integrating dissimilar elements and observing the amount that one thing differs from the next.

JL: What is gained here?

EB: What is gained here is amusement and a way for me to generate work. An open-ended system that I enjoy and can return to. The selection of materials I choose is personal, specific to me.They are disparate but imitate each other in order to form connections. Paper becomes wood, wood becomes sand, sand becomes glass and glass becomes tape. There is a term in psychology called mirroring. It’s when people make each other feel comfortable by acting similar like imitating someone's tone of voice or movements. It's a way to create kinship. The imitation or mirroring that happens in my work is a way to make all the unrelated materials fit together and communicate.

String Photogram, 2004

JL: In this case, why do you think you might lean towards making abstract works, as opposed to using figuration to hint more directly at this “kinship” and communication?

EB: This is a hard question. I guess I like the contrast of using inanimate objects to describe a human activity. My parents were/are collectors of antiques and the business of observing, evaluating and even anthropomorphizing stuff is a familiar one. But mostly, figuration would be too similar to the thought process I use for everyday living. I enjoy the departure from the known. I don’t think I explained this very well but it boils down to freedom.

Frame Wrapped with Tape, 2008; Striped Paper, 2008

JL: Are there pertinent art historical precedents in your work?

EB: Fluxus would be a historical precedent because I work with a lot of different materials that are brought together by my world view and I’m also wrapped up in simplicity over complexity, humor and absurdity.

Carrie Pollack

Abbreviated Natural Experience, 2004, oil on canvas, 18" x 18"

Just a little while back, I posted a few works by Carrie Pollack from Call & Response, which featured some other artists who have appeared here. I've since gotten to see more of her works and had the chance to do an interview with her. See her website here and the interview below. Also make sure to check out her new works in Perception as Object, which opens this Thursday, the 8th at Monya Rowe Gallery.

JL: The most impressive aspect of your work is its understated quality. They are often simple, precise, with minimal color. There seems to be a singular idea explored and they rarely have an all-over or painterly quality. If just hearing this description, one might think the works are literal or obvious, but they aren’t. Is this something that emerges with deliberation or is it more of an intuitive response to a source?

CP: I think (and hope) it is a bit of both. My goal is to make a painting with as little as possible, almost stopping short to keep it open. I want them to be quiet, slow and a little unclear. I think when this happens it becomes more of a conversation then a statement, maybe somewhere in-between deliberation and intuition. I react to specific things in the world. These things have similar qualities so the choice of source is deliberate. Once I have this catalogue of images I know I want to work with I just sit and look at them for weeks. Through the looking at these images I begin to see other things at play, I think I am intuitively responding and arranging images at that point.

JL: What is you’re impression of these 2004 works, looking back at them now?

CP: They seem far away. I think they contain the same thinking but the new works are made from looking at my own photos and the older work was made by using found images. I have more of a personal relationship with the source I use now and that seems important at the moment. I think I was really trying to make a good painting then and now I am more interested in making a painting that might be a good painting.

Cloud, 2008, oil and pencil on canvas, 16" x 20"

JL: Since the two earlier works, you have developed a kind of “frame” around your images where parts of the canvas are left blank. What purpose do you see this serving, if any?

CP: My work always seemed to be like a small snapshot of something larger, or a close up of something that extends outside of the painting. With the newer paintings I wanted to play with that idea of the edge, or alluding to something happening that you couldn’t see.

JL: What happened since 2004 that allowed that frame to emerge?

CP: When I saw the first prints there were all of these smaller images on a large roll of canvas. When I stretched them and they never quite fit or stayed straight, I remember thinking that I wanted to play with that. I am also still working from source material but now it is mostly my own photographs that I take throughout the day. When I take a picture it becomes framed by the camera and a lot of the time I am taking fast photos so the edge happens on its own.

Metaphor, 2004, oil on linen, 18" x 18"

Foil, 2008, digital print and pencil on canvas, 18" x 24"

JL: Speaking of sources, I really like how you have a source page on your website. It’s cool because it looks like you often take directly from them as opposed to picking parts of them. Is this really the case?

CP: I decided to put that page on my website because people were curious about where the work was coming from. I thought that if I revealed those things people would start to see these things around them and then they wouldn’t ask where the work was coming from. They would see that it was part of a language that comes from the world. This was also a big reason to use the photos in the work itself and not just make paintings from images that no one would see. I wanted to bring the source into the work directly.

JL: How has this changed over the years?

CP: I used to just collect source from anywhere but now I have to take a picture of it. I like to have the photo and not a clipping of paper. I think it reduces the sources to all the same thing. They become a part of this big catalogue. I love Gerhard Richter’s ATLAS.


JL: What role, if any, do the various non-studio activities like studio visits, writing artists statements, teaching have in what you make?

CP: I am currently teaching painting and drawing at the U of Tennessee in Knoxville. The students have amazing thoughts and ideas and are always saying things that I have to think about. Having this time to work out ideas with other people in the studio has always helped me. The exchanges that take place with students or artist friends are so important. Making work is a way of communicating so being able to do this in any way helps to think through ideas. I love going to other peoples studios. You can tell a lot from how people set up their spaces, what they look at etc. I am also a big note taker. I am constantly writing down things I hear or read and this also help me figure things out.

Call & Response: Carrie Pollack

Mirror, 2008, oil on canvas, 12" x 16", Diamonds, 2008, oil on canvas, 16 x 20

Fracture, 2008, digital print on canvas, 18" x 24", Betwixt, 2008, oil on canvas, 16" x 20"

Over the next week, I'm going to post a few images from each of the artist's in Call & Response, an exhibition curated by Gianna Commito at Kent State University. Unfortunately, I won't get a chance to see the show, but Jaime Keiter, of The Light Archive, took some pics. In case you're in or around Ohio, the show closes Nov. 21.

I started with Carrie Pollack because, as this is the first time I'm seeing her work, I'm really curious about what's she's doing. The press release says that she "photographs quiet, often 'accidental' occurrences in her Brooklyn neighborhood." These photos are then are printed or reproduced in paint on canvas. You can see more of her works here.

Jaime Gecker

I will do a typically Old Gold post and interview soon with Jaime Gecker. In the meantime, check out these fresh new works and her new website for many more. Also see her sculpture from The Longest Day and work in Perfect Strangers.


Renoir Times Two, 2008, ink jet photo,collage and spray paint on paper
12 ¼” x 8 7/8”
Geode, 2007, ink jet photo,collage and spray paint on paper, 4” x 6”
3 Steps, 2007, photo transfer and latex paint on canvas, 10" x 12"
Generation, 2007, polaroid film and collage, 4” x 4”
Ernestine, 2007, polaroid film and collage, 4” x 4”
Safari, 2008, photo transfer and latex paint on canvas, 12” x 16”