What you will find here

Photo credit to Bryan Putnam.

What you will find here is the personal website and blog of Sterling Bowen. I’m an abstractionist, blogger, aspiring curator and occasional instructor living in Raleigh, NC. Please subscribe if you’d like a little daily abstraction in your inbox (and tell a friend).

On this site you’ll find content about my paintings and installation work. My blogs often address my practice, and Art (with a big “A”) and society. I also post daily about other artists, 1,900+ and counting, with a focus on non-figurative modalities. If you are curious as I am about this slice of the Art community, you can look for creatives of interest by searching hashtags or peruse a thumbnail diary of works to find something new. If you know who you’re interested in or looking for more about, just use the search bar below.

BTW, “yes” the name of this blog is a reference to Arthur Danto’s collection of essays After the End of Art.

Disappointment

Had a rough week personally. Things didn’t go the way I wanted them to at work- specifically, the challenges I faced were not of a sharable nature, requiring me to literally lie in response to the question “how’s everything going” several times, and I really feel terrible about myself when I’m not truthful. My spouse was out of town, which meant a doubling of responsibility of course (sharing is caring), and then the universe also picked this moment for one of the pets and one of the kids to have health challenges. I didn’t get into a show (that apparently I was more emotionally invested in than I realized) and I found out another one I was certain was happening and had been making work for had been axed. And, I had set aside a (beautiful fall afternoon when I’d rather have been playing basketball and drinking beer with friends) to gallery sit, as a forcing mechanism to get some art admin done, and didn’t get everything (OK, *anything*) on my to-do list do’ed.

When we say we are disappointed what we are communicating is that we had expectations that weren’t met. That’s a totally normal feeling to have. There’s another step to take there, I think, which is examining why you feel this negative emotion. In addition to the help that Nonviolent Communication has given me in this area (below), I’ve been using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy of late. I’ve also been getting a lot of use and benefit from the mantra “I never lose, I only win or learn” (attributed to Nelson Mandela).

The show I didn’t get into? Yes it’s not a great feeling. When I chose to reflect on why I was disappointed I not only had some helpful clarity, I was able to share this with another artist who I had not yet had a 1-1 conversation with, and I learned more about them, too, as a result. Not winning, *and*, learning? Check!

Didn’t get everything on my to-do list done? When I chose to reflect on why I was beating myself up, I *learned* that I had underestimated what would be involved in a couple of the tasks, which will help me with setting goals in the future. And I did get several of the tasks started* which is moving towards the goals. Plus, a couple of the things that distracted me were items on my 3-month goals checklist. I also knocked one off this Friday, which was to hang work at the Carter Building in my friend Tom’s studio. It also helped that I went to an engaging workshop/discussion on the many paths to a rewarding practice which also centered my thoughts on my awesome arts community. And as regards my disappointment around the two shows that aren’t going to happen for me, one led to me experimenting with the work that got rejected for the first time in probably 8 months, and getting more time to work on the piece in the lower right- bladow!

*BTW, if this blog or some other event in your life has created interest in digging in a bit more on procrastination, you should consider Derek Thompson’s recent podcast featuring a discussion with psychologist Tim Pychyl about the science of the same.

MOMO

MOMO is an American artist who began his experimental outdoor work in the late 90s, with homemade tools and borrowed public space. Ten years of free ranging projects, centered around adapted masonry techniques, strategies based on collage, computer code, and seriality, came to form the basis of his visual language. This language finds its expression in paint, on commissioned walls and studio work from 2009 to the present day.

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#momo

Harold Granucci

Art Sales and Research has recently brought our attention to Harold (1916-2007). He completed his four-year college degree in three years at Quinnipiac College in the 1930s. He worked for Wallace Silversmith’s as an accountant and then opened his own accounting practice in the late 1940’s. In 1953 he opened a furniture store in Wallingford, Connecticut. His ledgers and journals were like works of art, they were so detailed and meticulously written in pencil. Harold retired in 1979 and acquired a Texas Instruments calculator as a premium from a local bank. He began to use it for various calculations and one thing led to another and soon he was back to his early love of geometry and mathematics.

#haroldgranuchi

Jane Bustin

Jane combines traditional and contemporary materials, exploring the relationship between abstract minimalist composition and the sentimental qualities of ceramic, textiles and found objects. Here is her video The Colour of Words, a recitation of some poetic musings by Jane about colors she encounters over a montage of related images- not abstract, and also about color in the abstract.

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Suki Seokyeong Kang

was included in Tina Kim’s Frieze London booth. Suki assembles her sculptures according to an idiosyncratic syntax of form, material, and referent. In compelling the viewer to navigate around and amongst these constructs, Kang suggests an awareness of how one occupies space and navigates the interstices of self and other.

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#sukiseokyeongkang