The first day that I got to start working with Michele in
her studio was Saturday, May 30th. When I first got there she gave
me a brief overview of the building, how her studio is laid out, and how
everything works in her studio. We also had a conversation about what she
needed me to get done today and what she needed me to do everyday that I came
in, like clean her brushes for her, sweep, and make sure everything stays
organized and neat.
Once that was finished I got straight to work. First she
had put away some artwork that was on her studio floor. Then I proceeded to
wash all the black graphite off her back wall where she usually photographs her
artwork. Once the graphite was washed away, I painted over the wall and the ledge
with a coat of white house paint.
Next I got to work with organizing and going through all of
her paints on her paint cart. I had to open each container, see if the paint
was still wet and usable, if so I dabbed some of the color on the lid and set
those aside. Dried paint containers had to be cleaned out. Once all the paints
were sorted through, and a list of which paints were gone that she needed to
get was made, I organized the paints on her cart by color.
After her carts were looking great, she started me on
organizing all these paint sticks that she had used in a large installation. I
was to try to organize them as tightly and as efficiently as possible. The end
result of the sticks together in the plastic storage containers was actually
quite beautiful. I didn’t get to finish going through all the
boxes of sticks that day, we ran out of time.
The next day I came in to work with Michele was Monday, June
1st. I started on finished organizing the paint sticks right away.
Once I finished with that she directed me to her supply shelf. I took inventory
of the type of tapes, glues, adhesives and fixatives that she had and what she
needed to restock. Once that was done I went to town organizing everything on
the shelf. Books, papers, artwork, materials, tools, you name it. When I
finished her shelf and desk, She asked me to take down a bunch of smaller diptychs
that she had done for a previous show done from her loft storage space. She was
unpleased with how the gallery space had wrapped her work to send back to her.
So she showed me how to wrapped them professionally and then I unwrapped all
the pieces, rewrapped them neatly and nicely, and labeled all of them with
their titles. After I finished them, I took them back up to
the loft space to store them. I had asked her about how she prices her work, so she told me all about how she does it and what her system is like. Which is very helpful because pricing my own work is something I struggle with. That was a wrap for that day!
Monday, June 8th was the next day I came in to
work. When I got in she taught me how to prep her wood panels. She had a large
wood panel in the studio that she let me prep myself. First Iapplied the Gac
100 and then wait for it to dry. Once it dries then you lightly sand the
surface and apply another coat and so on. For the rest of the day I spent my
time working on my computer while asking Michele questions and discussing art
related things with her. She helped me
get a lot of things done such as working on my artist statement, creating my
own website (still needs some work), enter some artwork into a contest to be
included at a show at Uarts, research how to write a bio, and research more opportunities
to apply to. At the end of the day I helped her hang some smaller panel pieces
for her to photograph.
Today when I came in I finished up the wood panel that I
started Monday. I sanded it down and them apply another layer. I repeated the
process once more was that layer was dry. After I finished the panel, Michele
gave me these British Art magazines called Elephant to read through. They had a
lot of really great in-depth bios about all the featured artists and articles
about their artistic processes and what painting is in general. I also got more
time to think about my artist statement and try to improve it. I spent some
time researching for more future opportunities to apply to. I also swept the studio floor today. Tomorrow Michele is
getting a large shipment of wood panels that she ordered, so the day will
probably filled with prepping them! I really enjoy Michele's paper chalk pieces and I got to see her working on them today which I was pretty excited about!
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