Tag Archives: process

Buy this robot zine.

AngerIssue2

It’s been a long January, friends. Michigan is cold, sunshine is lacking, the post-New Year’s blah is floating around, and for me, that has meant one thing: hibernate as hard as possible. As we approach February, a new month that is both short and closer to spring than the one we are currently in, I have decided to come out of hibernation to give you something: It is a robot zine. It is about feelings. I want you all to order one right now because they are small and I made them with all of my feels and love and they are only 2 dollars.

Here is where you click for the zine, aka a tiny little magazine made with paper and a copy machine and some staples.

This is the first in a series of little stories I want to tell. Robots are given the task of having feelings. They just get programmed to have them, and are left ot figure out what to do with them. Kind of like us, right? There’s some funny, there’s some real talk, and, in this issue, there are lasers.

Order one, tell me what you think, and keep an eye out for the next issue.

xo

AngerIssueAngerIssue3

 

Making friends

Happy New Year! I’m pretty happy that it’s a new year. New beginnings and all of the freshness of that. Lovely. So lovely, in fact, that I had to make some new robots to celebrate.

I’m working on a little project that I’ll tell you all about soon, but for now I’ll just show you my little series of “robots making thing” so far.

Want one of your very own? I’ve added a listing to my etsy site, so you can order your own little bendy, unique robot to stick on your desk/next to the coffee maker/inside the medicine cabinet. All of the details on customizing your robot can be found in the listing. I made these all with so much love, so I hope that you’ll feel a bit of that. xo

I’m slightly obsessed with furniture-making robot.
Robots love throwing pottery. Who knew.
Gang of weirdos.
Look at my fancy studio, you guys!

 

Why make the same thing over and over again?

ProcessWhy would you make the same thing over and over? Georgia O’Keefe endlessly painted flowers. Frieda Kahlo painted so many self-portraits. Chuck Close painted face after face, in a very similar style. Even so, we see change in them. We see growth and evolution somehow, when we look at their work as a whole. There’s something unique in every petal O’Keefe brought to life.  I wonder if they knew that when they were making each painting. I wonder if they ever thought “Why do I keep making these?”. I wonder if they ever felt a little crazy for the repetition.

Today, a friend of mine asked, “Why robots?”, and it hit me hard for some reason.  Maybe it’s because I’m hanging my first real show this month. The number of robots on every surface and wall of my home startles me every morning when I come downstairs. I’m faced with them, and I can’t look away, nor do I want to. I love them. So I felt like it was a good question, and one that deserved some thought. Why paint or draw the same things for years?

My initial response is that I went to school for Industrial Design, so I worked with 3-D objects, in perspective, and the robots came out of that. Years of drawing vacuums and toasters will h
ave an effect on a person. Also,  I loved someone who reminded me of a robot. He had a heart, I was sure of that, but he didn’t know exactly what it was for, or how to use it. I imagined that my made-up robots had hearts, and were also confused by them. That felt universal, in some ways. Having the ability to feel millions of different emotions, but not being able to have control of them, is frustrating. I felt frustrated with the robots in my life, and the robot that I was sometimes.

So, I know why I started making them, but the real question was, why didn’t I stop?

The answer that I finally came to was that the robots feel like home. They are the constant that I can come back to. My friend suggested that we create the same thing over and over again because it evolves and changes with us. Maybe there are small changes in the moment, but over time, there’s a really significant difference from where you started. Even as it changes, it remains yours. The robots are always mine, no matter what they look like. So, I make them because they are mine to make.  Like many things we think we need to over explain, the simple reason is good enough, because it’s true.

Losing control

My painting is getting messy. I’m making little paintings in preparation for bigger pieces. In trying to figure out certain gestural shapes and lines, these robots are all over the place. I picture robots rolling around in giant pools of paint, and when they get up, the floor is covered in paintings like this one.

20151027_122936_HDR-2

While I need to keep perspective and line weight and all of those cool things in mind while I’m painting, I’ve found that letting go a little, relinquishing some control in the name of experimentation, to be freeing. It feels like screaming into the waves on a windy day, or some other exhausting release. Assuming that a personal practice teaches us things about ourselves (I’m just going with that assumption) I feel like there’s something to learn from this act of letting go.

I hate letting go of control. I feel most comfortable when I can control myself, what I eat, what I wear, how I sound, how I appear. It’s tiring. Sometimes though, I can let go, and let things happen. It can be amazing and it can be scary. I don’t profess to have the answers here, on how to let go and not care, I just think that finding ways to let go, that make you feel good, is helpful. Painting works for me. There’s control and there’s a distinct lack thereof, all at once. The act itself feels rewarding, and I don’t get to hung up and judgmental with the outcome. I fall in love with it a little bit every time, and I don’t worry about where it’s going. I’m hoping it rubs off in other parts of my life.

So that’s today’s reason to keep painting. I get to let go, and give myself a break. That’s something we could all use a little more of, right?

xo

Making it up

Yesterday, my cab driver asked me what I do for fun. I said “um, I paint robots”. While I do other things, I realized that painting robots was the first thing that came to mind. I feel so much ownership over my creative practice now, and somewhat defensive of it. Painting and scheming up new things that need robots on them is something that I do for myself, that I give myself, and I don’t know what I would without it now. I feel like it’s pretty common to question yourself when you start dedicating time to something that isn’t making you money, or advancing your career, or bringing you whatever kind of recognition it is we’re taught to want. I feel silly telling people that I paint, as if I should tell them about my day job instead. I feel like I have to qualify “I paint” with “well, not for a job, like, I do it sometimes…I went to art school so…I have to do something creative or…” and crap like that. All of this is a roundabout way of saying that you don’t need to apologize for doing things you like, if you feel like it’s making you a happier or more content person, or it’s fufilling a desire, or it’s just relaxing. There doesn’t always have to be an end goal. If you don’t have a personal practice that makes you happy, you can make one up. Try stuff. Maybe you’ll really like making bread. Does that mean you need to open a bakery? Nope. You can just love making homemade bread in your pjs on Saturdays, and that’s it, but it’s enough.

Here’s a robot I painted last night. I can’t tell if he’s sleepy or pissed or what. I’m just happy that I used color and wasn’t scared of how it would look.

Red

xo

Fall days and robot updates

It’s gray and drizzling here in Michigan, which I feel to be a robot’s favorite weather. They’re gray, the sky is gray…right? I’ve put down my paintbrush for the last week and have been focusing my attention on getting some of these guys ready for screen printing, and card printing and all sorts of other exciting robot items for you to love on. I wanted to give you a little update, and am so excited to give you more information on an upcoming show here in Grand Rapids,  which I should be able to do sometime in the next week or so.

20151005_115832_HDR

robots at home

I’ll keep you posted, but in the meantime, custom projects are always being accepted! Let me draw you robots!

xo