Woolgathering

Metro Magazine mentions my new work in their Eyes Only column:

“Raleigh artist Sean W. Byrne’s latest mixed media works explore ways in which traditional and new media can work together to create mood, texture and vision…”

You may read the full column here.

My parents, Pete and Miyako, c. 1963.

Since childhood, I have had to fill out forms that request I identify my ethnicity by “checking one of the following boxes: White, Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Other.” I never know which box to check. My father is of Irish/Swedish descent. My mother is of Japanese descent. I land somewhere in between.

After years of checking either “White” or “Asian/Pacific Islander” (depending on whether I had had a baloney sandwich or miso soup for lunch), I decided I would simply check “Other” and write “Rice Cracker” next to the box and be done with it.

People, in general, like things to be One Thing or The Other. Barack Obama is black. Well, actually, he is biracial. So is Halle Berry. But somewhere along the line, someone felt that they needed to be One Thing or The Other, and decided they were black. There are plenty of other examples… such as someone no one is tired of hearing about right now, Tiger Woods. And back in the 90s there was that whole thing with Michael Stipe… is he straight or gay? He replied he “didn’t like labels,” which was an inadequate answer for many who believe you need to be One Thing or The Other.

For years I lived in two different, creative worlds. At work, as a web/graphic designer, I created in the world of pixels. At home, as a fine artist, I created using traditional drawing and painting media. I enjoyed both, but kept them separate. Without even realizing it, I had decided that work was One Thing and fine art was The Other.

Stay with me. This is all going somewhere. I promise.

Celtic Springs Farm, Seven Valleys, PA

In 2007, I visited my father in Pennsylvania. He farms with draft horses and antique farm machinery. Visiting Celtic Springs Farm is like stepping back in time. Turning off Route 616 and onto the long, rutted driveway is like entering another world. While shooting photos of him and the horses, I thought about how only 48 hours earlier, I was building websites, optimizing graphics, assigning hex codes for colors… and now I was watching my father farm with hundred-year-old equipment on a 150-year-old farm. And I thought about how, when I got home, I would upload the photos and share them with family and friends all over the world who would view them using the Internets on their giant plasma screens while being served by robots in their Space Needle houses.

Past, present, future… all One Big Thing.

I hope I haven’t lost you yet.

My father is someone who marches to the beat of his own drum. It is a quality that, thanks to him, I admire. He likes to do things his own way… even if it means living in Amish country like it’s 1890. He has a phone, but it’s hidden in a cupboard in the kitchen. He has electricity, and a television, because my stepmother had to draw the line somewhere. He doesn’t, however, own a computer. He doesn’t know what WiFi is, or a blog, or CSS. He knows I graduated from art school and do something with computers and the internet, but that’s about it. I suppose he thinks it’s better than that clown school in Sarasota I kept harping about when I was twelve.

But it’s all cool. As long as I’m doing my own thing, my own way, he’s cool with it.

In 2007, I decided I wanted to do some new paintings of the farm. I had done some before, but it was a while ago and much had changed. A lot of the fields in the area were now covered in tract houses. The traffic on Zeigler’s Church Road, which runs along the back of the farm, sounded heavier and louder. There weren’t as many cows as there used to be. The barn was looking more weathered, the wooden bridge over the stream had washed away in a storm. Dad was looking older, everything was looking older.

The biggest change, however, was in me. I was different. Very different from the kid who left the farm and joined the military in the 80s. And I wanted to preserve all of it: these thoughts, this visit, these impressions. I could have whipped out my sketch book and done some graphite drawings or watercolor sketches. That’s what I would have done twenty years ago. But that would’ve run counter to the whole concept of change, and the malleability of identity over time. So instead, I unpacked my digital camera, and began recording with pixels.

Over the past 18 months I have been working on new mixed media pieces—the Meditation series. They are a combination of traditional and digital media… experiments in mixing pixels and paint. Celtic Springs Farm has been the subject in many of the pieces so far, but the farm, and scenes of vanishing rural communities in general, represent thoughts about larger subjects: aging, identity, patience, inevitability.

Using a combination of traditional and new media is an important part of this series. It is directly linked to my thoughts on identity, and who I was twenty years ago and who I am today. It comes from a very personal place, and one that may be difficult for anyone but me to understand. But it feels honest, and true and right. It is my hope that with each successive piece, I get closer to my vision, closer to success, closer to finding the right balance between the two media.

Mixing painting and photography, digital or otherwise, is nothing new. Andy Warhol, amongst many others, has done it before. But I’m not interested in doing Pop Art. I am interested in creating something that blends the traditional and the new seamlessly… where there is no clear delineation of where one starts and stops. I want to create something that is not One Thing or The Other.

One foot in the past, one foot in the future, recording the present.

Several people have asked me, “what part of this work is digital photography, and what part isn’t?” There really is no answer to that question, since by the time the painting is completed, it has become just One Big Thing. I realize that’s not a very satisfying answer to many, but it’s simply the truth. Ruminant, for example, may have started out like this:

Ruminant, early sketch

but just as one does when working in traditional media, there is a tremendous amount of revision, editing, and redrawing that occurs to tighten the composition. Ears were re-drawn and made symmetrical. Angles of heads were adjusted. Bodies were lengthened/shortened as necessary. Some of this was done digitally, with a stylus and graphics tablet, and some was done using graphite, paint, ink, and oilstick after the image was transferred to a rigid support. It was important to me that, in the end, the sheep look not like dumb farm animals, but rather possess a sense of dignity… they do, after all, symbolize noble thoughts (plus, by this time, I had really become very fond of them):

Ruminant, Sean W. Byrne, Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

It was also important that the final scene look timeless, like it could be 1890… until you look closer and notice, jutting above the treeline in the distance, a broadcast tower, a cell phone tower.

Incomplete Thought No. 2 started here:

Incomplete Thought No. 2, initial inspiration.

and ended here:

Incomplete Thought No. 2, Sean W. Byrne, Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

There really isn’t a way to draw a grid over the final painting and identify which sectors are photography, or paint, or India Ink… anymore than I could state that my left ear is Irish, my right eyebrow is Swedish, and my nose is Japanese.

Which brings us full circle to those forms I never know how to fill out (and if you’ve read this far, I thank you… this has been a very long post). Sometimes, you can’t check just one box. What if it really isn’t One Thing or The Other. What if it’s just a personal expression, made up of many different, blended parts. A Mixed Media Rice Cracker.

Ruminant & Incomplete Thoughts 1 - 4, Sean W. Byrne, Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

My new works Ruminant and Incomplete Thoughts Numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 will be on display in the Exchange Gallery at the VAE from Dec 4 through 24, 2009.

The Opening Reception is Friday, Dec 4 from 6-9pm.

If you are able, please come on out! Exhibiting in the Exchange Gallery with me are fellow artists Alia E. El-Bermani, Kathy Brancato, Janet Harrell, and Mary Ann Scherr. Also at the Visual Art Exchange during the month of December is their annual A Sale for the Season, which is an exhibit of smaller, gift-sized works all priced under $300.

More information is available on the VAE website, including a map and directions to the gallery. Hope to see you Friday night!

Ruminant, Sean W. Byrne, Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

I started Ruminant last spring. The original inspiration was the title of this blog. I wanted to do something using sheep as symbols for wandering thoughts, ideas, inspirations.

Sheep at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC

In preparation for the painting, I made a trip to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham to check out their Gulf Coast sheep and, while in rural Harnett County for my niece’s graduation, took lots of landscape photos.

Following this initial burst of energy, the painting stalled for a few months as life got in the way.

Rural landscapes in Harnett County.

In September, with Works of Heart looming ever closer, I locked myself in my studio for two weekends in a row and completed a painting called Hydroponic Garden that I had started two years ago, but had never finished. This was a strange experience, since Hydroponic Garden is stylistically part of the “Song” series I was deeply into two years ago… and I have since moved on to the “Meditation” series, which is a very different direction creatively. I was happy with the end result of the painting, however, and it exceeded my expectations in the auction.

Hydroponic Garden, Sean W. Byrne, Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

After Works of Heart, I was able to turn my attention back to Ruminant. I settled on four sheep in the foreground (experimenting initially with three and five), arranged them in a grouping that felt comfortable, and balanced the strong horizontal composition with vertical elements such as a broadcast tower, extra-tall trees and two vertical fence posts.

In early October, in need of some R&R, I visited my dad for four days. While decompressing, I found myself being flooded with all kinds of random thoughts. For example, I noticed how the once-imposing, century-old barn was showing its age, and wasn’t looking quite as invulnerable as it used to. I also wondered, while watching my dad hitch up the horses, how many future generations would even know what a horse collar was. My dad and I also had a conversation about the Baltimore/D.C. urban sprawl encroaching ever closer, which made me think about vanishing rural communities in general, and the inevitable march of time.

I collected these thoughts and used them as the basis for a series of small 8″ x 8″ works I am calling Incomplete Thoughts. Some of them, such as Incomplete Thought #1, I am considering doing larger pieces of, providing that particular sheep doesn’t break from the flock and go wandering off, never to be seen again… as sometimes happens.

Incomplete Thoughts 1-4, Sean W. Byrne, Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

Ruminant and Incomplete Thoughts 1-4 will be on display in the Exchange Gallery at the VAE on the City Market, downtown Raleigh, Dec 4 – 24. Ruminant is Mixed Media on Panel and is 48″w x 24″h. Incomplete Thoughts 1-4 are Mixed Media on Panel and are 8″w x 8″h. They are all part of the Meditation series.

I will post more about each Incomplete Thought in the coming days/weeks. Don’t hold me to that.