My Dad

This is a one-day-late Father’s Day blog post dedicated to my artist father.

For those of you who are regulars to this site, you know that I commonly link to his web page: lwurst.weebly.com

All of the photography & painting in this post are his.

To the man

who called me “poopster”

in the days when I listened

to mom’s spelling lessons

from the inside,

                                                                                                                                *

who was so nervous

when I came into the world

that as soon as it happened

he fell asleep

right there in the hospital,

                                                                                                                            *

who taught me to air drum

and sang funky versions

of “Blue Moon”

with me

when I took baths,

                                                                                                                                 *

Who set up

a tiny table

next to the big one

in his studio

so I could paint too,

who played catch

and went fishing

and laid on his belly

pretending to be an alligator,

                                                                                                                          *

who rescued my little sister

from the pond

while I hid in the car,

                                                                                                                                 *

who provided inspiration and buckets

for gathering nightcrawlers

from the gutter,

                                                                                                                                *

who I pestered and heckled

throughout high school art

making classmates wish

they lived at our house,

                                                                                                                               *

who valiantly coached

making us so proud

that after games

we’d run right into his arms,

who I called

from college

to talk art, politics and life

and be reminded

that “God smiles on fools like us,”

                                                                                                                                  *

who is my protector

my friend

and above all, my dad.

I love you.

Happy 50th Birthday and Father’s Day!

(New Video Coming Soon!!! <3)

i say hello.

I don’t know why you say goodbye…

Well, folks.  I’ve done it.  Graduated in four years with a triple major summa cum laude.  Can I get a whoop or two?

Here’s some updates on what the future holds for the characters of this blog:

My dear studio compadre Ross…

…will be attending Mundelein Seminary in the fall, starting his journey to the priesthood.

Kari, my other pal that stayed many a night in the studio with me…

…is going to be finishing up her final year of graduate school in physical therapy and will become Dr. Kari Lyphout.

Melissa McDonald, my best pal, singing partner and roommate,

(who actually graduated in the winter) is going to Graduate School in Iowa State’s graphic design program.

Munir Sayegh, master calligrapher…

is a Fulbright Scholar!  And will be studying Arabic Letterforms in Egypt next year.

As for me…

I am spending the summer in Nebraska and traveling the country in my brand new used Subaru Forrester (“Gump”) and then moving to Montana to work at the Pretty Eagle Catholic Academy in St. Xavier as a Jesuit Volunteer.

OZ is going to moved to another house next year, and yes, people will ACTUALLY LIVE in this old painty building, can you imagine?

…AND I am happy to announce that both “turtle falls” and “catch the moon” were purchased!

“catch the moon” will be hanging in the St. Ambrose University library and “turtle falls” will be in the alumni house!  ”emerging” found its rightful home with Ross and the other three are in my parents’ house for now…I am entering them in a couple of other shows.

This last week I have been occupied in moving home, unpacking, planning for the next stages…

And soon, yes soon, I will be posting all sorts of summer adventures.  Starting with my adventure in video editing the next VLOG!  I was watching Garfunkel and Oates videos like mad and decided to take Garfunkel’s (Riki Lindhome) advice and learn how to edit videos.  It’s been weird.  Here’s a still:

SUMMER ADVENTURES COMING SOON!  MORE UPDATES ALL THE TIME!  AGHHHHHHHHH!

Senior Honors 2011

Happy Near-End of the year!!!  Here are the final jpgs from the show and some other assorted gallery pictures.

kites, oil on linen, 60″ by 30″, $500

catch the moon, oil on linen, 60″ by 30″, $500

emerging, oil on linen, 60″ by 30″, $500

mushrooms, oil on linen, 60″ by 30″, $500

kaibab sounds, oil on linen, 60″ by 30″, $500

turtle falls, oil on linen, 60″ by 30″, $500

Shout out to Munir and Beth, congrats everyone and thanks to all of those who made it!

Discovering Oz.

Upon returning to school, I have been undergoing the task of moving into the Senior Honors Studio House, aptly named “Oz”.

Lessons I have already learned experimenting with new techniques:

It is IMPERATIVE not to stand too close to the canvas whilst attempting to splash a large amount of oil paint mixed with thinner onto the canvas (to create an atmospheric, magical background of course!)… Otherwise, the paint will indeed hit the canvas and splash and spill pleasantly.  BUT, it will also deflect off the canvas and back onto the artist’s face, hair, shirt and down her cleavage.  Which makes for an interesting vision for her poor studio partner in the next room…

The Master Calligrapher and Best Friend Munir Sayegh.  He’s doing his honors show on Arabic Calligraphy.  Check the comparison of his studio…

and mine…

 So…here’s some shots of the new place of worship, and some new thoughts.  ALSO- watch for updates on the Portfolio Page, I’m going to upload some new stuff from last semester.

Here’s the door to my studio, decorated by Marta Currier.  The studio I am in was hers and then Lisa Ford’s.  Talk about good vibrations.

Setting up.  My boots & things in the hallway.

Feet on our creepy bathtub.

Doodles covering the walls.

The other way down the hall.

Here’s a poem that’s really resonating with my work, and some new stuff:

H.D. [16]

 

Ra, Osiris, Amen appeared

in a spacious, bare meeting-house;

 

he is the world-father,

father of past aeons,

 

present and future equally;

beardless, not at all like Jehovah,

 

he was upright, slender,

impressive as the Memnon monolith,

 

yet he was not out of place

but perfectly at home

 

in that eighteenth-century

simplicity and grace;

 

then I woke with a start

of wonder and asked myself,

 

but whose eyes are those eyes?

for the eyes (in the cold,

 

I marvel to remember)

were all one texture,

 

as if without pupil

or all pupil, dark

 

yet very clear with amber

shining…

 

…coals for the world’s burning,

for we must go forward,

 

we are at the cross-roads,

the tide is turning;

 

it uncovers pebbles and shells,

beautiful yet static, empty

 

old thought, old convention;

let us go down to the sea,

 

gather dry sea-weed,

heap drift-wood,

 

let us light a new fire

and in the fragrance

 

of burnt salt and sea-incense

chant new paeans to the new Sun

 

of regeneration;

we have always worshipped Him,

 

we have always said,

forever and ever, Amen.

Some sites of interest:

Hosfelt Gallery.

Spector.

5 bottles of champagne later…

…we are done with our final critique!  Here’s a gallery of my studio still set up from the Open House and the process shots of the now completed Clock Painting!  I’m still working on the end title.  Maybe “Forgotten.”

a photo journal of my day in the studio

I am part or particle of God. -Emerson

I had the most glorious morning yesterday.

I went on a run/adventure in the cool fall nearly rain, and ended up finding a bunch of glass bottles and carrying them to the studio while they marvelously clinked and squeaked together.  The rain, the squeaky glass, the everything (as my sister likes to say, “Listen to this, and think about EVERYTHING.”) got into my heart and allowed me to reach the place I needed to in the Studio…

Things have been out of control.  I’ve been hopping around frantically like a flea and then crashing like, as my friend Cassie would say, like a soggy potato chip (ie. a potato).  I was in desperate need of fall, and now that it’s here, I’m doing a lot better in its cozy, dreamy, mysterious arms.

(Balancing eggs on the equinox in honor of my mother.)

Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera when I was over at the Studio, but I will share some updates and then some goofy other pictures from the weekend.

1. GOOD BRUSHES = LOVE.  I had been using this cheap set that I got for free at the Art Majors Meeting, and I finally got sick of them and got out some of the old trusty ones and just wanted to die from relief.  Trying to paint with a crappy brush is like trying to run on smokers lungs.

2. Have really gotten into the mood of collages 2 and 3.  2 captures so many emotions, the idea of embracing the environment, stepping out and being part of the world that we are meant to be.  I got caught up in the idea of plants made out of maps- how adventure is intrinsic to nature.  3 is taking on the memory of a particularly beautiful day by the ocean where my mom and I got way behind on a walk along the beach and she talked to me about her earliest memories involving an apple tree that was in her back yard.

Getting pretty excited… artist research/work updates coming soon!  Until then…

Here’s an abstract that I did, oh jeez, two years ago at this point.  One of my favorite things that I’ve ever painted.  It currently hangs in my living room.  I like to rotate it once in a while.

Here’s the clover in my living room window from the angle that I was looking at it while doing Yoga on Saturday- I thought it and the abstract made an interesting duo.

This was an extremely silly part of my weekend.  (Which was entirely made up of extremely silly elements.  Lots of jazz and dancing and windows were involved.)  This is a picture of a shoe, my roommate’s keys and a spatula that some of our guy friends froze into a pitcher in our freezer.  We found it today, laughed really hard, and decided to throw it out the window.

It was awesome.

Happy Monday everyone!  Extensive art updates soon, I promiiiissssseeeee.

Love will not betray, dismay or enslave you and will set you free…

Hello to all!

I am in the process of putting together a complete portfolio for my Senior Honors Application. Doing this, I ran across some completed paintings from last school year. I will link them on here and to my Portfolio Page.

lucho

This is a woodblock print that I did in 2009.  As always, if you want to know more about a piece I am more than happy to answer questions.  This one has a really creepy story behind it that I will only share in person.

valerie’s tree

This is a quick informative collage that I did experimenting with the affects of flat color and washes right next to one another.  It is also a memory painting- based on a morning in 2004.

This is an informative painting that I did for my larger painting a conversation between imagination and spirituality. I was trying to discover how a person would ride a dragonfly.

…and the giant final result of that.

half-sick of shadows

This is the painting I did for a show last year entitled Love, Lust and Longing.  As you may be able to tell from the title, it is based on a line from Tennyson’s Lady of Shallot.  Again, it is a memory painting based on a combination of events from my sophomore year of high school and college.  (Dig the top left corner.)

This was my first attempt into the realms of how unstable and transitory everything man-made in this life is.  The house is my Grandma’s in Boulder, CO, shakily made of only lines, so that the winds and starfields can blow through it.

invisible ink

This is my favorite painting from the semester of Spring 2010.  It stars myself and my “sister from the other side of mars”, my cousin Kate Kalal.  I was working with ambiguity, shift of scale, and the ties of a friendship that has been through the realms of the unreal.

Everyday I am closer to having my new camera in my hands… and then, you had better brace yourself for the ride of my wild and wooly addiction to art.

Until then, peace.

Previous work posted!!!

Hello everyone,

I would like to announce that, thanks to my best friend, Munir Sayegh, I have been able to post a bunch of my older work!  Check-check-check-check it out at my Portfolio page!

Here’s some highlights:

listen wind

2009, mixed-media on paper, 30 x 22 inches

their songs never cease

2009, oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches

desert energy

2008, oil on canvas, 36 x 24 inches