Studio vists are key. It gives us the opportunity to get a progress check, provide feedback and gain a better understanding of the artist and their process.
Q&A with the artist
Q: WHERE DOES THIS WORK START?
GC: A few threads really. Usually I'll begin to notice a few patterns here and there, ways I'm thinking and things I'm seeing start to cross paths. This time is was The News, but this time it wasn't so much the contents of the news as much as The News itself. I kept being swept away by the stories of the week. These huge Breaking News items that overwhelm everything, and then after a week of counterargumens and facebook debates, just suddenly vanish. Where did they go? Where did all the thinking go? Where did all the thinking and feeling and outrage go? Was it resolved? What did it leave behind?
Q: HOW/WHAT WAS THE PROCESS AND WHAT WERE YOU THINKING ABOUT OR EXPERIENCING ALONG THE WAY?
CG: Kind of not enjoyable really. I'd quit nicotine and went sober just before this started. I hadn't worked in studio without tha stuff in a really long time. So that sort of sharpened the edges a bit.
The process involves finding the right objects, patinting them with a horrible black goo, and then dusting them with balck velevt flocking powder (generally used to subtract all light from telescopes and lenses). I really wanted everyhting to be as black as possible to feel like it have been vanished from the universe. Like when cartoon characters run through walls and leave their shape. A vacuum.
So I basically spent my summer tarring and feathering shit (including myself) every night. It's hot, it's dull, it's repetitive. The repetition feels like sure ex catholic leftover self flagellatign shit which, when combined with the sobriety is letting all sorts of stuff bubble up. Weird memories sure, but mainly just tons of little avoided feels for twenty-five years just coming up to the surface and poking me. They aren't attached to anything now. It's just general blunt pain and discomfort and requires constant surrender.