Welcome to Visual Hierarchy, an online visual playground. Gathered here are pictures I make. Visual Hierarchy is a laboratory. Research is done in a wide variety of mediums.
The end of spring semester has arrived and my free time has skyrocketed. Art production has shrunk. This is the time when I should be taking advantage of extra time to boost Guardians of Gaia and other projects forward (or around?).
The Daily Img series has been great, but I’m stopping (for awhile?) simply because I have no more work to put up consistantly. Its made me realize that the time I spend editing/sizing images, uploading, and posting could be used to make more and better artwork. So, over this break its going to be thin on posts, but strong for work.
Its hibernation time. A friend of mine got me a sketchbook for Christmas. My goal is to fill every page by the time next semester starts. Ready. Set. Workcreateimaginehavefunplayexplore.
Huffing turpenoid isn’t good for your health which is why I’ve moved my studio to school for the semester. Our windows are officially plastic sealed at the house and anything that goes into the air stays. Last year I made the mistake of spraying a large series of drawings with matte medium in the basement. Not without reason the neighbors upstairs were a bit pissed. Staying out late at school last night was rather enjoyable, lots got done and now I can turn my attention to finishing compiling my entire art history. After this weekend I hope to have every “important” artwork of mine photo documented, in my archives, and available on the web. This whole documentation thing is becoming more and more of an obsession, I blame the internets. I will probably have upwards of 500 “important” works, which I will have one hell of a time organizing. After that I plan on producing a book chronicling all the work to date to really visualize my visual developments.
Below is the organization of a near complete archive of all my artistic production from birth to now. There are over 940 images within these archives. Despite a mild obsession with photo documentation many images have either been left out because they are boring, too incomplete, have been lost, or have escaped my notice. A big THANK YOU to my Mother who saved so many of my early works and continues to allow me storage space for some of my artwork.
At the Bottom of this page is a link to my flickr account which holds every image found on this website. Every image here can be downloaded off my flickr and used for anything except commercial purposes.
I upload an image almost every single day so this archive is a growing entity, be sure to check my blog to see today’s Daily Img and for news on current projects, upcoming shows, and posts on other artists/things. Also, please feel free to share your opinion/critique of these works by posting comments!
About a year or so ago in one of my drawing classes we did a homework assignment which consisted of 15 six minute drawings, four half hour drawings, and one two hour drawing (roughly). The goal was experimentation and the content was self portraits. It was supposed to force us to play with drawing materials and possibilities for image making. This might have been one of the most influential assignments for me as it revealed an aspect of my work which I had been trying to ignore for some time.
Often my drawings of battles, wars, etc were disturbing to me because I felt that other people thought I was a dark minded person. Doing these drawings I was very absorbed in their creation and come critique I realized that my drawings were… creepy to say the least. Distorted faces, surreal expressions, etc. My teacher loved them, and I have learned to appreciate them as well, but many of my classmates were disturbed. I like these drawings because they are psychologically strong imo, and because of the process I used to draw them.
Miscalculating the times for each drawing I ended up doing 15 two minute gesture drawings then, realizing I was lacking four minutes in each drawing, went back into them and attempted to recreate my expression and finish the drawing. At the time I was worried about following instructions, however, because I messed up the drawings turned out to be much more fresh, strong, and interesting:
Below is the final drawing inspired by the previous 19:
These are a couple works that I never documented, but are from awhile ago.
This Winter – pointillism exercise:
The Stallion Part 6 – this was for a school sponsored competition for students to design a new drawing horse. Its no wonder the Stallion Part 6 won the competition, just read about what it can do!
I’m taking a summer class with Katie Martin, a kickass teacher and artist. Logically one could correctly assume that the class is also kickass. The first assignment, 7 sculptures in 7 days, has led me down some interesting paths. Here are glimpses of what my hands are doing in class:
metalest dragon ever
school is better when fire is involved
Basically I’m having too much fun with candles, if “too much fun” even exists. I really like this period in the class because of the emphasis on play. Playing with the materials loosens you up, there are no standards or expectations. I’ve noticed that I get more involved with these candle sculptures more than some of my drawings and I think its because of the Play Element.
Ridding one’s mind of standards and expectations is extremely difficult to do. Being trained to constantly think about spaces I start coming up with thousands of subconsious rules for how reality is constructed. Its how I realize my environment. Even though I’m a confused artist who doesn’t know what to make my mind knows what it likes and what it wants in an image.
In class each student is required to present and artist/artist group/ or something art related. My other classmates have really inspired me. I’ve decided to start a new project that is just about making and making continuously. As always, more on this later..
Final projects have been going very well this semester. Normally there a ton of work to do and I fall behind because I don’t do much. This time I’m still falling behind, but I’ve been quite prolific. Today I got distracted, and made this (I apologize in advance for the horrible recording):
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Stress levels returning to normal, workload transfer complete, engines cooling. As of tonight I no longer have class for what seems like a wonderfully long period of time (2 weeks). My busiest semester by far is over, my house is clean, my computer clean, I’ve got a meeting w/ Sovine about the Collegium Sorcerorium commission tomorrow, a show with Library Donut in madison this weekend, and I’m feeling pretty damn good. Had my final critiques today and turned in some ok projects (above and below). Definitely not as high caliber as I wanted, so next time I’ll start a little earlier…
One thing I’ve been meaning to write about is a recent sale with a user on Etsy. This person bought two drawings from me and when I was prepping to ship the works I noticed it was a gallery I was shipping to. The gallery is called the USpaceGallery based in Atlanta Georgia. I checked the site recently and they have the two drawings they bought priced six times higher than what I sold them for. I think it is a good idea, buying art on the cheap from artists online and reselling it. Its only I find it somewhat humorous that these are works done in about two hours at most and one is being sold for $120.00. Damn. If they actually sell one of those drawings… damn.
One can expect more blog posts since finals are over and I’ll probably be hibernating in front of my computer for the rest of break.
I particularly enjoy this blog because it allows me to reflect on my own work as well as the work of others. This helps me chart my growth as an artist as well as give me some bearings of whats going on in the art world.
This my most recent drawing and I think it is one of my best. In terms of technical aspects I think the proportions are good, and I have a very solid figure ground relationship. This is a drawing in which I can see the physical weight of the figure. Also I think I did pretty well on the lighting, especially in the drapery. There are some value structure issues in some of the limbs and elsewhere, but this drawing has made me proud of my emerging visual skills.
I would now like to introduce one of my favorite emerging musicians and artistic collaborator a Mr. Squirrel. Specializing in electronica Mr. Squirrel displays a unique sense of sound which enables him to create some really awesome songs. I have known the squirrel (as I will refer to him herein) for many many years and it has been inspiring to watch him progress. He has provided many new ideas for my idea bank and given me some new perspectives on artistry and life in general. To the right is an image that I worked on for the squirrel’s first EP (which comes out Christmas Eve btw) in collaboration with Katie Drake (another artist full of potential).
One of the collaborative ideas sparked between the squirrel and I was that of an artist collective. The clash between visual and sonic arts we feel has great potential to produce some kick ass art. Art jams are an idea that the squirrel gleaned from the British electronica group Underworld (whose art jam page can be viewed a here. To the left is the result of an art jam between the two of us a while back. In the upcoming months we hope to start doing art jams more frequently. An interesting part of this cooperative is that while it is better conduct these improv creation stations in person they can transcend distances. All hail the machine god.
In today’s age collaboration is absolutely necessary for things to get done. This is reflected in all aspects of our daily lives, after all human progress needs humans to work. Cooperation and the sharing of ideas is one of our greatest assets as a species (adaptation being the other). As artists, and a people, harnessing this potential could yield amazing results (amazing art and music included).
Stress levels returning to normal, workload transfer complete, engines cooling. As of tonight I no longer have class for what seems like a wonderfully long period of time (2 weeks). My busiest semester by far is over, my house is clean, my computer clean, I’ve got a meeting w/ Sovine about the Collegium Sorcerorium commission tomorrow, a show with 
I particularly enjoy this blog because it allows me to reflect on my own work as well as the work of others. This helps me chart my growth as an artist as well as give me some bearings of whats going on in the art world.
I would now like to introduce one of my favorite emerging musicians and artistic collaborator a 
In today’s age collaboration is absolutely necessary for things to get done. This is reflected in all aspects of our daily lives, after all human progress needs humans to work. Cooperation and the sharing of ideas is one of our greatest assets as a species (adaptation being the other). As artists, and a people, harnessing this potential could yield amazing results (amazing art and music included).
Current Talk