Architecture wins

After trying every surreal idea I’m back to what I enjoy….architecture. I should have started there. 

Here’s an image I developed a long while ago for plastic bags. I love alleys and the plastic bags would be perfect for the building becoming transparent at the end of the alley. In fact this could start out as fabric in the foreground and go to plastic for the transparency. Of course the question is whether or not the buildings look like they are fading away or not. 

So what happens if instead of transparent buildings we have them break up into geometric shapes. So here are some images. Some of them I switched to purples and blues which are more dream like. I’ve stopped worrying about how surreal my idea is and will make what I want to make. These images will fit the show.

Landscapes of the Unconscious, scheduled for May-June 2027.

Inspired by the 20th-century art movement, Surrealism, this exhibition will explore the imaginative terrain of dreams, symbols, memory, and the subconscious mind. We encourage artists working in any medium to consider how their work engages with themes of mystery, transformation, symbolism, and the unexpected.

I know people think it’s because of AI that I’ve struggled so much with this. It is partly to blame, but I’ve always struggled with ideas. Most of that has been behind the scenes and not posted on my blog. You just didn’t know. I always have been over analytical. This is not a new thing. 

At this point I like the transparency idea the best.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

I’m in the state college magazine again

 Here’s the link to the article.

https://www.statecollegemagazine.com/articles/science-woven-into-art/

Thanks for reading

Chris

Nothing to do with art. Just 2 of our boys.

Understanding myself

I suppose this could be an idea

 I’ve been looking at a lot of so called surreal images online to see if anything inspires me. I find I’m at a loss. So I asked AI this question…..why do I find the surreal images I see online as either silly or not really surreal. Here’s the interesting answer.

I think it's because you have a fairly sophisticated idea of what surrealism ought to accomplish, and much of what you're seeing online doesn't accomplish it.

And I suspect there's another reason: you have a scientist's insistence on internal logic combined with an artist's sensitivity to composition. That's an unusual combination, and it makes you a demanding viewer of surreal art.

I think you're noticing three different problems.

1. Much of what is called surreal is simply strange

A giant clock floating over a city. A fish swimming through the sky. A staircase leading into clouds. A house balanced on an enormous teacup.

These things are impossible, but impossibility alone doesn't make an image compelling.

You recognize the trick immediately. There's often no reason to keep looking.

Surrealism isn't simply putting something where it doesn't belong. At its best, it makes an impossible situation feel psychologically convincing.

2. Some images are beautiful but not particularly surreal

We've encountered this repeatedly ourselves.

The snowy alley, the abandoned steel mill, and the atmospheric house on the rocks all evoke mystery. But a mysterious atmosphere isn't necessarily surrealism.

Fog, darkness, unusual lighting, and isolation can suggest dreams without depicting anything that violates reality.

You recognize that distinction immediately, too.

3. Some surreal images are intellectually clever but emotionally empty

This may be the category you dislike most.

An artist creates an ingenious visual contradiction. You understand it, perhaps appreciate the technical achievement, and then move on.

There's no emotional resonance, no deeper mystery, no feeling that the image represents something beyond its visual trick.

I think that explains why you've been dissatisfied with so many of our attempts. We've repeatedly invented impossibilities that were technically surreal but not particularly meaningful.

But there's a distinction worth making

Historically, surrealism wasn't limited to realistic paintings with impossible objects. It also included abstraction, automatic drawing, irrational associations, and attempts to explore the unconscious without deliberate planning. 

So some works that don't look surreal to you may legitimately belong to the tradition.

And some apparently silly works may be intentionally absurd. Humor and irrationality can be part of surrealism.

The important distinction is between an artwork being surreal and an artwork being good. Those aren't the same thing.

An image can qualify as surrealism and still be banal, derivative, poorly composed, or emotionally uninteresting.

What I think this means for your exhibition quilt

You've been approaching the problem almost as an engineering challenge: create a believable world, introduce one impossible condition, and make everything else obey the laws of physics.

That's a valid approach, but it's also why we've produced so many visual tricks.

The original Surrealists were often interested in something different: allowing unexpected associations, dreams, memories, and subconscious feelings to generate images that weren't necessarily rationally designed. 

I wonder whether we've been trying to invent surrealism logically when what you really want is to discover something that feels like a dream.

So then where does that leave me except at a loss? I could have said many of the things AI said before I asked it. But knowing that and coming up with a quilt idea I want to spend months on are two different things.

My latest ideas. The first is very subtle with unrealistic reflections. Will most viewers even see beyond the pretty picture? The second idea is much more surreal. At least there are no eyeballs or ravens in sight! And there are buildings…….

Thanks for reading. 

Chris

Conclusion

I think I hate surrealism…………….

I want something that avoids the cheesy, overused tropes of surrealism. I want it to rely on subtle psychological tension rather than a chaotic junk drawer of clocks and floating eyeballs. Up until now that was exactly what I was doing…..faces in trees, eyes in the sky, portals to nowhere, gold tears. Those are basically all the things I hate yet I was using them. 

I did hear back from the art museum. 

This is what they said, “ I want you to create something that inspires you. If it's something that's going to cause stress or anxiety, like the first submissions, then I definitely want you to shift your focus. Please continue with what feels right to you and I'm sure it will be amazing.”

Of course the problem then becomes where do I shift my focus? I’ve done a lot of reading about surrealism for people who hate surrealism. That’s my category. That means making something that does not scream surrealism. I guess something much more realistic with just a hint of something off. I guess that would be subtle surrealism. I don’t want to make something just to make something. This would take months of work. The show theme is Landscapes of the Unconscious which I view as dreams and illusions. Here’s my 2 ideas.

First a Hopper like idea. I love his work. I love the implied desolation.

The second idea is a Raven. I’ve worked on this one more.

I like both ideas. I finally quit asking if something is surreal enough. I want subtle. I don’t want faces where they don’t belong to just create something weird. I don’t want eyeballs or portals everywhere. Those things are not me. I did develop some trolley ideas, but I don’t want to do 2 trolley pieces.

What do you think? 

Thanks for reading.

Chris

I figured out why I’m struggling so much with the surreal show idea

I keep making images of human faces of women trees or eyes in the sky. I am not a portrait person. Sure I made one portrait that won the recycle show, but that’s not me at all. I like architecture. So the question is what was I thinking? Apparently I wasn’t really thinking clearly.  Plus the woman tree and eye in sky ideas are pretty cliche. I never want to be a cliche person. I would need something that fits my personality and these images that I’ve developed are not me at all. I think that’s why I’ve been struggling with this for so long and trying ideas that are all pretty much the same. That’s why nothing is working.

I wrote to the art museum and asked if I can change my idea from the approved ones. If not I will withdraw from the show. I can’t work on something for months that does not excite me. No wonder I’ve been making myself and you crazy all these months.

Here’s the latest of the current face thing and another idea I had along the way. Nothing original with either one….still faces and stairs and doorways.

Thanks for reading.

Nearly there

I’ve deleted all my other image ideas from my iPad so I think I’m sticking with this one for the surreal show. I just need to edit the images to get rid of AI cauliflower clouds. I don’t know which is worse….lollipop or cauliflower clouds. I would never do either. So here’s some images where I’m trying to stick with a lighter overall image. I want high contrast so it can be seen across the room. That’s one of the reasons I’m going with grayscale except for the door. And yes the clock numerals are purposely wrong. 

So decisions are things like….how many crows, what kind of clouds in the bottom of the quilt, do I need clouds at all in the bottom of the image, how to simplify the branches, should this be made at 30 by 40 or 24 by 30?

I’m done for now. I need to get plastics out for the recycle piece. 

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Maybe I should go back to the beginning of all of this surreal show stuff

My first instinct for a quilt was based on this image that I created years ago. I don’t know why I left that idea behind and moved onto the woman tree thing. I should have stuck with this idea I think. It’s not exactly what was approved, but it does have a woman, trees, and birds. 

Here’s the original and my first sketch. 

This keeps popping up in my mind so I just played with this idea some more. I thought the crows should be flying to the vortex.

So this has evolved into this one below. I think grayscale is good for a dream. It needs editing, but as art quilters we can do that. I would have to be careful with values.

So should I stick with the woman tree or go back to my first idea? Help appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

I have reevaluated

I was so sick of the woman tree with gold tear that I decided to move on from it and create something different. Why was I sick of it? I did not think it was surreal enough no matter what bird I tried. Believe me I tried many different ones….raven, barred owl, barn owl, heron, crane, puffin, ducks…..nothing was working. Here’s the original image. I just can’t relate to this image and the gold tear. I was done. 

Of course this idea as well as the big eye in the sky were approved for the show. So I have to stick with those concepts. So after a lot of thinking and research and analysis I have arrived at this idea. It’s still a woman tree, raven, and the eye in the sky, but I think it’s more surreal and dream like. The gold tear is gone. I wanted surreal dream storm clouds. I wanted her out of the water. I wanted the eye to not be a human eye. I wanted the reflection to be a vortex. So this is where we are. I hope you think it’s surreal. 

On a lighter note I made our daughter a glow in the dark skeleton. She loves it. Apparently her cat loves it.

Thanks for reading. 

Chris

The curse of being an over analytical perfectionist

I suppose that might be a good thing at times, but most of the time it probably is not. I suppose being a perfectionist leads to being over analytical. At any rate that’s what I’m stuck with when creating art projects. 

I started pulling plastic bags for my streetcar recycle piece and find I cannot possibly create a blue gray piece from blue plastic bags. The blue bags are generally bright blues like teal, royal, and baby blue. I do have the dark blue needed for the sky, but not the rest of the piece that was proposed in this AI image.

So since I have to work with the limitations of plastic bags I decided to try a gray and blue combo. I have lots of gray bags.  Here’s that scheme in an AI image. So that’s my goal. Plastic bags are limited unlike fabric choices. I think gray and blue will be very good. 

Of course the over analysis doesn’t stop with this project. I got to thinking about the surreal image again. Here’s the original idea followed by the new idea. The crow was just too ordinary in surreal art. Many readers liked the barn owl. Well he’s back……

Are you a perfectionist? Over analytical? 

Thanks for reading. 

Chris

What color scheme to use

I have 2 thoughts about what color scheme to use for a night time snow image for my recycle piece. Should I go with blues or grayscale. If I do grayscale the streetcar would still be red. Almost like it’s in an old black and white photo. I suppose the decision will be made for me by what plastic bags I have. That’s what I’ll be looking at today. 

Here’s the photo I’m working from and AI images showing the color schemes. I do like the blue one better, but blue bags are harder to come by. I do have a lot of gray bags left over from last years Raven piece.

The decision may be out of my control.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

You will be happy to know…

You will be happy to know that I’ve decided to use an actual photo instead of AI for inspiration for my recycle piece. It’s a photo of a streetcar crossing the Smithfield Street bridge. I will simply it a lot, turn it to night with snow, change the streetcar to one I rode, and get rid of the buildings in the background and put in the steel mills along the river. I’ve had this photo for a while so I’m not even sure where I found it online.

Here’s the photo. Since the streetcar I rode was the 35 Shannon Library.

“What Remains”

Once upon a time, Pittsburgh’s red and cream streetcars were an ordinary part of my childhood. I rode the Shannon–Library car to school, to Saturday art classes at the Carnegie Museum, and into the city. On this bridge, my grandfather once crashed the streetcar he was driving.

The mills that filled the horizon are gone, and so is the car I remember. I made this piece from discarded plastic bags — a material that refuses to vanish — to hold a place and a time that have.

Thanks for reading 

Chris

Before plastic

I just can’t get excited about any of these ideas that I’ve been creating. I definitely want the streetcar, but the rest of it was not working. I had to try something different with the streetcar. So here we are….empty wooden bench with a paper bag that has been left behind. I will be making this out of plastic bags which contradicts what these items were made from in the past. A paper bag made of plastic in my piece. A wood bench made of plastic. Now of course both are made of plastic. I thought about adding a glass bottle, but it might be too small in the image to know what it is. Of course it would add to the narrative since bottles are now plastic.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

I think we are there

I know you’re thinking that you’ve heard that before. My husband looked over the images and decided which one I should use to make my recycle piece. Plus we decided that if this is a memory the streetcar should be new and not rusted. 

So here’s the image of the memory. The memory is the hills of Pittsburgh, the steel mills, and of course the streetcar that was the 35 Shannon Library car that I rode. The scene is not accurate for the route, but this is a memory not true to reality. The image needs some editing that I will do when I start making the piece.  I suppose this may end up being 18 by 24 so the details won’t be so tiny. I will print out the pattern at 16 by 20 and 18 by 24 to visualize what it will look like. I prefer 16 by 20 just in terms of the work involved. 

A couple versions of the image follow. So this is where I am and what I’ve decided to do. I was so obsessed with the rust idea that I was stuck on it and couldn’t let it go. Now I’m just doing the memory of Pittsburgh. No more rust, no ghosts. The new streetcar will be easier to create vs the rusted one. So I have made my life simpler. 

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Stressed and ready to throw in the towel

Is art supposed to be stressful? I suppose that it could just be for me. Also has how I work through this gotten worse with more uncertainty plaguing me? It would certainly seem so. I don’t know which is worse the struggles with the surreal piece or this recycle piece. I’m usually a problem solver, but lately that does not appear to be the case. 

I wanted initially to work with the photo of the rusted decaying streetcars. When I determined that they were not Pittsburgh streetcars that immediately created a problem. I appear to be lost ever since and trying lots of ideas to get out of this dilemma. It’s like throwing darts at a dartboard blindfolded. Too many darts and no real solution. I’m not even sure what I want right now. What do I want this piece to say?

The only idea I came up with is a rusted streetcar with a new version of that streetcar as a ghost. Both are part of the past, but one is worn out and the other is the ghost of a memory. So I developed this idea. The ghost in this one is the rusted streetcar. That’s not exactly my idea. 

So I tried this. A rusted streetcar with a ghost. A distant steel mill in the background. Steel mills are gone from Pittsburgh, too. I remember them being there as a kid. This one AI did as plastic bags. 

Or should the mill be a ghost, too?

Still plenty to work out here. I need to see what a real steel mill looked like. Is the ghost streetcar enough of a ghost? Am I set with this idea for once upon a time? Who knows. A new idea always seems good until it isn’t. 

Am I worried on how to do this in plastic bags? Not really.

My husband likes these images. 

Thanks for reading. 

Chris