Ivin Ballen

 It had been years since I had visited Ivin Ballen's studio in Clinton Hill. You enter the space by going through a very well equipped wood shop, with various machines and wood shavings covering the floor.  Beyond the wood shop is a smaller studio space where Ivin paints his work after finishing it up in the shop. There is a long table in this room, of course handcrafted for its specific needs, that is covered with containers of Golden paint as well as the signature metallics he so often uses in his work. Above the table hung two box sculptures, some of the only few left in his studio. Ivin has been in multiple shows this season, he currently has work at Regina Rex in Bushwick, and Allegra LaViola in the Lower East Side. I was excited to get a peek at what he is up to now.

For several years Ivin has been making exquisite Trompe L'Oeil objects that appear to be made of the same packing materials that you might find in a studio, gallery, or museum. It is like he is doing studies of the tossed away materials that are used to take care of the art work as it moves from one place to the next, an interesting way to comment on the banal goings-on backstage in the art world. With all the necessary tools of a carpenter, Ivin begins to work on his meticulously crafted sculptural paintings. First, he creates a composition with the found materials, and then very carefully casts them. He described to me the trickiness of this casting system, how he has to build various armatures to hold the delicate parts of the cardboard in place. The two shown above were made for the body of work up at Allegra LaViola,  they are pretty literal renditions of simple boxes, you almost have to touch them to be convinced they aren't real. When he paints these aquaresin and fiberglass pieces, the tape becomes a more glamorous version of itself and the drab brown skin of the cardboard is elevated to an array of gratifyingly gradated colors. In other pieces, Ivin uses more than one kind of packing material, making found object-like sculptures that are painted with patterned motifs and strong, boldly colored shapes. These works are often partially covered in curious yet familiar textures that come well off of the surface. They are intriguing not only for their use of color and traditional minimalist compositions, but also their bizarre interpretation of everyday materials.

An install shot I took of the work up at Regina Rex.

While I was there, Ivin was making rubber triangle molds for tiles, which he has since brought to Pittsburgh to make casts of. He is working with a company that manufactures alternative, ultra high performance concrete tiles, among other things: http://taktl-llc.com/. He showed me the different textured surfaces he will explore, cardboard and wood being two of them. It was interesting to see what goes into this kind of new process experimentation. He was building a crate that would fit the molds, just so, in order to get them to PA, and explained to me how the box would hold the slabs by taking up the exact amount of space needed so as not to be wasteful. A carpenter at work.

This is a picture Ivin sent me from Pittsburgh of the first casting batch. 

I liked drawing with the noise of the band saw, a fall rain shower, and music steadily streaming from the background. It was so active and hectic in there. We both looked up periodically to comment on a tune or two that was playing (Ivin shared a lot of his musical interests with me). There was the great energy of the unknown in his studio that day as he worked on his new ideas. Please go to Regina Rex and Allegra LaViola before the shows come down and be sure to check out more of his work at http://www.ivinballen.com/.

Christine Heindl

While taking the 7 train to Jackson Heights a few Sundays ago I was getting pretty fired up to see Christine Heindl's new paintings. Nestled inside of one of those distinctly Queens-like apartment buildings is her studio. I am always struck by how much space there is, two sizable studios, a bedroom and a perfectly warm yellow kitchen where she greeted me with a cup of tea and some very tasty baked goods. As I stepped into the first studio room I was immediately transformed by the hypnotic vibrations that emanate from her work. She explained to me the feeling that she gets from being in there for so much of her time, she said sometimes it feels like the walls are closing in on her. After several hours spent drawing, I got that same feeling, in such a very good way. Enveloped by her art.

As we began to talk, draw and paint, I kept thinking about the painting that was hanging on the wall behind her. All the small colored triangles in this work collectively form lines, various larger shapes, or subtle changes in the color field except for one, a glorious peach triangle that is left a singular hue, a tiny difference that acts like a key for the rest of the piece. Once you discover this, it begs you to unlock all the paintings' hidden secrets. Something that has always drawn me to Christine's work is this kind of visual leap the viewer takes from one viewing distance to another. The closer you get, the more of the intricately painted canvas is revealed and the less you are aware of the boundary between your body and the painting. The bizarre spacial makeup of these works make them seem as though they are  hovering, not quite making contact with the wall or even keeping still. 

I spoke to Christine about her process. First she attaches paper to the canvas in order to create an ultra smooth surface. Then she begins applying paint with a thin brush to tiny spaces of pattern across the canvas in a grid-like format. Sometimes she defines this grid beforehand and sometimes not. When the grid is not defined the lines appear to be undulating like a sea of calm waves. The next several steps in her process can be fairly intuitive, when she is beginning to paint in the different shapes over the patterns, be them diamonds, squares, or triangles, she lets the painting tell her where to go. Christine explained that she came to the HE spelled out bellow by seeing it begin to appear in her painting and deciding to help it along, reminiscent of a Ouija board's job of pushing you to go to the letters you are suppose to read. Occasionally there is other text in the work that she has previously decided on and will sometimes paint in a calligraphic hand. A simple capital Q, a row of As or letters spelling out TO THE. Recently a face emerged in one of the squares as she was painting it; now she has begun to use this motif in other works. The faces, with their different expressions, create a surreal viewing moment. At first, from afar, you don't see them, but after approaching the painting you begin realize you are being stared back at.

Christine works flat on a table that takes up nearly half the studio space, covered with sheets of paper, tubs of paint, and little creatures. She let me arrange the group of them bellow to draw. I was betwitched by one friend in particular, Dorothea, a large soft Leopard who seemed to be holding court. I suppose when working on things this detailed, time consuming and eye blurring, it is good to have someone on your team. Studio friends are the best.

We listened to the games as we worked and talked about the art world and our studio practices, nothing more cozy on a Sunday afternoon than the light sounds and flickers of football in the background. Before long it was time for her to put down her paint brush and me my pencil and hit the culinary scene of Jackson Heights. It was so pleasurable to spend a studio day there in Queens. I have been looking to Christine and her paintings for many years as a source of inspiration, I can't say enough good things about her and her work, please check out more at http://christineheindl.com/home.html.

Tamara Gonzales

I spent one of the last summery days of Brooklyn doing a studio visit in Bushwick. Walking down an outside pathway next to an overgrown garden that smelled of the end of the season, I came upon the studio of Tamara Gonzales. Entering her space was almost like walking into one of her paintings. The studio was filled with large works saturated with vibrant colors and patterns and the floor was covered with a collection of fabrics embellished with the same patterns. The whole place oozed with Tamaras' unique sensibilities. I quickly began to put together the pieces, imagining her spraying paint through the fabric to arrive at her kaleidoscopic works. We talked about her studio's setup as she toured me through the space, showing me work from previous years to help illustrate the buildup to her most current body. As she pulled various delectable paintings from the racks, I felt a rush to begin my drawing process. True to my suspicion, these elaborate canvases have been hands-down the hardest to draw yet. Staring at them made me feel pleasantly delirious, totally getting the full impact the paintings can have on the viewer.

Tamara collects the lace, which she uses as a stencil, from various thrift stores and dollar stores. We discussed the effect that the woven pieces that are made by hand have on her. She talked about how they hold the vibrations of a human's touch and how she liked to think about their makers and the making process. Tamara's paintings, with their heavy saturation of hues and jutting bars of light, are reminiscent of the phantasmagoric qualities of a festival.  On one piece of canvas she is able to capture the energy and vivacity of any given number of religious or cultural celebrations, be it a parade or spiritual ceremony. Tamara told me about her multiple trips to Mexico in the 90's during the Day of the Dead and, later, her time spent in India at the Sanskriti Kendra artist residency in 2002. It is obvious how heavily her travels have impacted her work. Her description, particularly of the churches in Mexico, with their elaborate colonial architecture mimicking the Baroque Cathedrals of Spain and altars filled with collections of contemporary objects and grotesque renditions of the Crucifixion, was so vividly narrated I could almost close my eyes and see it. You could see this just as easily in the work.

Tamara had hung a photocopy of an Egyptian figure next to the sculpture above. She explained to me that she had been holding onto this image for a long time, later discovering its relationship to the piece she is currently working on. I love how the studio can hold the artist's secrets. Tamara's three dimensional works have the same celebratory and mystical quality as her paintings, as well as the many installation pieces she has also done. She showed me how at one point she was putting various objects right on her canvas. I thought of it as a way of humanizing these abstract works, like giving a gift  to the painting, or making the painting an altar within itself.

There wasn't a single section of Tamara's space that wasn't filled with some sort of curiosity adding to the spectacle that makes up her killer collection of odds and ends. Her space is a real visual playground.
What an enlightening time I had in Tamara's studio, listening to her stories about her travels and multiple experiences at different residencies, watching her work on her paintings and sort through things. When I had decided to draw the large figure she was currently working on, she let me pick which head to put on it. It was so cool to have this choice -- an extraordinarily macabre way to help dress the figure for its portrait. Please explore her website, there is so much more to discover. http://home.bway.net/durga/ 

Elisa Lendvay

I visited Elisa Lendvay's studio most recently. She has a space in Greenpoint in a building chock full of artists. When I first thought of doing this project Elisa was at the forefront of my mind. I had found her sculptures loosely entering my painting which sparked the idea of drawing the work I am drawn to. It was just as I had hoped it would be when I entered her space. Shelves overflowed with sculptural artifacts, grouped together as though they were lined up to be studied, the floor scattered with stacks of flat constructs, large freestanding pieces in the center of the space hit with sections of bright color, and walls jutting out with painted forms having been arranged just so. All of the work appeared animate in its liveliness. It was begging for a still-life rendition.

While I was there Elisa showed me what she had made while staying at the Albee Foundation residency in Montauk for the month of August. I immediately saw the residency's proximity to the ocean as an influence on her newest work. The work, with its cool whites, winding structures, and fence-like shapes looked salted and worn. Elisa, sometimes using found objects and often constructing things under the influence of the shapes she has gathered in her mind and studio, tells the story of a moment, a memory, or a single thought. She depicts these ideas by using repetition of form, color, and material almost obsessively as though it were a song she can't get out of her head. Currently, she is using a scalloped, shingled, or echo repetition in different aspects of her work, be it sculpture, painting, or drawing. It brought to mind sound or water waves and vertebrae. One of the materials Lendvay uses is a type of papier mâché, which adds to the organic look of her configurations. The paper mimics heavy hardened sand, but mysteriously leaves the piece light to pick up.

There is a special energy to Elisa's work that gives it the feeling of being in motion. It seems like if you turned your back on a piece it might move or re-adjust itself. As I as was drawing, this happened quite literally. Elisa was dancing around her space placing one thing next to another, creating and recreating an impromptu installation. She kept telling me it was almost ready. I would be drawing and at a moment's notice something would have moved,  leaving me to start on the next section of my paper. This was totally invigorating. It gave the visit a spontaneously interactive feel. She was installing as I was drawing, a race to the end of the her space's organization and my graphite filled paper.

Elisa talked about the importance of moving the work around and studying one piece's interaction with another. She gathers information this way.  It felt like her studio was set up like a scientific lab, with her specimens being arranged in hierarchical structures and classification schemes.

A view of Elisa's Studio at Albee

Elisa and I had a hard time stopping the chat on a few occasions so that we could get back to the art making. I missed her while she was away at the Albee residency. I was going to visit her there, but it was the weekend Irene decided to visit instead, and we thought it was best for me to not get on the train. I liked to think of her in the barn-like studio she described, hiding out with her sculptures fighting the winds, but I was glad to see her back with all her work intact ready for me to draw. Please check out more of her Elisa's radness at http://elisalendvay.com/.

Kees den Breejen

Also while in California I got the chance to visit Kees den Breejen's studio in Oakland. He is the father of my first Pencil in the Studio visit, Erik den Breejen. I spent the afternoon with Kees (pronounced "case") talking to him about his paintings and profession through the years, learning about his ancestry and life spent in California. He had some fascinating stories for me. His studio is nestled in their wonderful home in the Montclair Hills with a great view of the bay and all of its activity. We even got the chance to visit the Legion of Honor museum together for the exhibition Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. I saw many connections between this show and Kees's paintings. Kees, having moved to California (by way of Canada) from Holland (Delft to be exact), comes from a long-standing tradition of painting.

Kees's work spawns from his interests in history, his extensive travel, his love of photography and his daily life in the bay area. While I was there he was working on finishing up a self-portrait from a photo he had taken on the subway while visiting NYC. He is currently working on a group of paintings that depict various transit systems. A painting of a trolley car in San Francisco stood out in particular, again reminding me of some of the Dutch paintings we had seen earlier that week. They are like Kees's contemporary take on the Genre paintings of the 1600's.  There is a concentration on narrative and theme. This painting depicts a man and a woman crossing the street in front of the trolley, portaits of an urban society, regular folks. We also talked about his influences, from Thieboud to Vermeer; from Van Gogh to Oakland's Anthony Holdsworth. Kees's work deftly combines elements of California realism, Impressionism, and Golden Age Dutch painting.

His illustrations are just as impressive as his paintings. He explained how for many years he had been making cards for people at the office. Once he made his first, the requests just kept coming.  I was so delighted when he made one for me, a "Jenuwine Kees Kard." What a talent to have. I asked if there were other artists in the family. He told me that when his father first moved to Canada and couldn't speak English he would draw pictures of the things he was looking for at the store in order to ask for them.

    Kees's father, also named Kees, or Cornelus, made the clock on the right by hand, down to the gears.  

    Kees Jr. helped by painting the face.

Kees worked in the graphics department at The Oakland Tribune and, later, The San Francisco Chronicle for many years before retiring, and now concentrates on painting. He explained how things changed from one decade to the next, remembering when they first set an Apple computer in front of him and told him that this was what he would be using from then on, with no word of it beforehand. Can you imagine? The year was 1988; he was also studying painting with Holdsworth and (with help from his father) rebuilding the family house they have in the Sierra foothills. A real Renaissance man!

    Rotterdam Haven, 1970

I adored my time spent with Mr. den Breejen, as I always do. We got the chance to visit the house that he rebuilt with his father in the 80's. In the midst of loaded blackberry bushes there is a petanque court. As always Kees schooled me in a game of it. One of these days I'll take the court. Heres to one of my favorite painters and petanque players! To see more go to http://keesgraphics.com/Paintings/Home.html.

Jovi Schnell

I recently traveled to Northern California and while I was there had the unique opportunity to do a studio visit with Bay Area artist Jovi Schnell. She lives and works in San Francisco and is presently teaching at the California College of the Arts, which she has been doing since 2004. In 2010 she completed her first public art commission in a new public plaza in the SoMa district of San Francisco and has another in the works for June of 2012 in a skate park between Mission & Valencia. This is so thrilling, installation art that will past the test of time. Her studio is located in the Mission in a great big brick building. Jovi's space, found at the end of a long hallway, is very attractive, with its high ceilings and vast skylight. I couldn't wait to get the opportunity to meet her and view her work in person. We had loads to talk about as I drew and she painted: what led her to a move back to Cali in 2004 after spending many years in NYC, the way the art world opperates in San Francisco, and what she draws her inspiration from.

Jovi makes groups of paintings at a time and explained to me the processes for a couple different bodies of work. I was totally taken by these processes -- beautifully tangled systems that quite literally allow the throw of the dice to determine which way the paintings go. First she pointed out one of her studio walls tacked with papers holding lists of phrases and words. Jovi names this collection her "Brain Dump," where she drops language she has collided with. The next step in Jovi's process is to number the list and come to a particular word on the list by throwing a multi-sided dice. Jovi then finds the colors for her paintings by entering the words the dice has chosen in a search engine that brings up a palette corresponding to each word. When starting the painting, she again throws the dice to determine when and where to use each color from the palette, when to use a particular image, or how to build the blocks that form her paintings' grid-like layout. I found Jovi's application of chance to be extremely poetic; playing out a game that uses paint, color, and composition as its pieces. What fantastic results this game gives way to. The colors are perfectly harmonious and the movement of one square or cubby-hole to the next seems nothing less than meant to be.

Jovi does use a few constants in her paintings. It could be a blue she can't get away from or a lexicon of images that appear in the painting's many boxes. One image I was drawn to in particular she called her "Breath Star," which she explained originated from "Viscous Fingering," a scientific study she first came across in a series of books by Philip Ball called Nature's Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts, which includes Branches, Flow & Shapes. She makes the star by breathing down on the paint in its center. Jovi shared lots of information similar to this with me. The conversation was so rich. She is very in tune with what is important to her and what she channels through to use symbolically in her work, be it a tree viewed from both sides, a galaxy telling us where we are at a given point in time, or the simple beauty of chance.

Another current body of work incorporates a system that allows movement to inspire the chance. Jovi paints a string and then slowly lets it drop to a piece of paper, later transfering this mark to a black ground. She continues to paint on this "knot," leaving a maze of color in the center of the black paper like a concise reflection on movement. She worked on one of these "knot" paintings while I was there. I was captivated by the sound of the dice being thrown in the background as she chose the colors for it.

Above is her public art piece entitled  Evolves the Luminous Flora

The time flew by in Jovi's studio. I wasn't ready to leave, but the last days of travel were beckoning me to see the ocean one last time. I have barely scratched the surface when it comes to talking about her work. She spoke a lot about her work dealing with locating oneself and being present. I took away with me these thoughts and hope to apply them to my own way of living. Please check out more of Jovi at http://www.jovischnell.com/_new2/gallery1.php. And also look at a video on her public art piece here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ctqi7M3gZA.

Patrick's Point State Park, California