wanderingartshaman - Tumblr blog

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

43- “Stick a Pin in It” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - gesso, charcoal, masking tape, pastel, acrylic paint, ink, and push pins on panel - 12”x10” - March 2021 - (available) What does it all mean? While I tend to like to think about what things mean or how they fit together, these days, all of that has been blown apart. Social media has helped do that for us: we scroll rather than digest. We are confined to digital presence more than sitting on the porch, talking to someone. This is the last one I have ready to show, for the moment. This “renewed body of work” I am calling “Deconstructing Reality.” Part of this project has been about, not so much a set of rules, but about a way of working, a way of pushing past the rules I set for myself. In this instance, I took a work that I had done in the past, and I kept going. I deconstructed it some more, added to it, took some things away. Allowed it to ripen. Much like myself, and my own sense of self. When I first thought of the title for this, “Stick a Pin in It,” I guess I was really thinking about “Stick a Fork in It,” meaning “it’s all done.” Whereas apparently “Stick a Pin in It” means “let’s come back to it later.” So interestingly enough, the true meaning actually makes more sense to my process. We can sleep on it and come back later. We can keep working at it. We are not really done here. With all the disappointments and sadness and frustrations of this time, I think we need to “Stick a Pin in It.” Let’s trust that even when everything seems to fall apart, we can come back to it. Later.

4 notes · View notes

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

42- “Hot Mess” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - pastel, charcoal, ink, masking tape, burlap, screws and acrylic paint on paper mache and chicken wire, with wire, more screws, yarn, nail and foam core on wooden frame - 27"x26.5"x8" - Feb 2021 -(available) - note: this piece is “gallery ready:” wired and ready for hanging I want to talk, I want to be seen. But everything I have to say is inadequate, and no one is watching. Plus, we still disagree about whether it is safe to meet in person, and I am horrible at online. And I am a cis-white straight man in a world that has heard far too much from cis-white straight men, and I don’t blame them at all for wanting to listen to someone else. At the end of the day, we should probably just shut our mouths and sit with each other, holding hands. Or maybe at least I should. I love this interview I read once, an interview with Anselm Kiefer, where he talked about art being some kind of abyss, and you can’t really describe the abyss, you just sort of skirt around the edges. If I remember correctly, he is notoriously difficult to interview. Whatever he actually meant, I have carried that thought around for a long time, and I have been inspired by his way of working, and so I, too, like to ‘skirt the abyss.’ So this piece, “Hot Mess,” typifies the new direction for my work. Maybe. I like the contrast of materials and textures. I like getting to be creative with things, without having to know what they mean, exactly. I like putting it all in a frame, as if it were a painting, and revealing the wire suspension behind, which is how most framed work hangs on a professional gallery wall. Let’s just shut our mouths for a while, and sit together, holding hands.

1 note · View note

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

41- “Acrylic Dreams” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - acrylic, masking tape, and ink on acrylic, with tape and wire suspension - 29"x20"x6" - Jan 2021 - (available) Throughout this pandemic, there have been eras, periods of time where I am in a different head space. (1) The early pandemic, when I was scared to leave the house. But, we were all in this together. (2) The mid-pandemic, where we formed our bubble and did a lot more camping and I lost my job. (3) The hunker-down winter when we cut off in-person contact, even from our family. (4) The fight-for-a-vaccine times when I was calling every Kroger to see if they had any extra shots. (5) The summer-after-vaccination era where I actually started seeing fully-vaxed family and friends and I started to feel more human again. (6) And now another hunker-down-cause-everyone-going-to-get-covid-again as the kids go back to school with a delta variant. I am really surprised that I am not currently more crushed by the news about the delta variant and the need to hunker down. It is as if my pandemic life has become a life of its own, a material of its own. That’s how I feel about this piece, “Acrylic Dreams.” I feel like the paint and tape, itself, leaped up into a life and dream of its own. This is a hanging piece, with two sides. It’s on a transparent acrylic sheet, which makes both sides interesting. That’s kind of how our lives go. These experiences and micro experiences take on a life of their own. I think back to different eras of my life, different places I lived or people I knew, and even the relationships between me and someone else, they take on a life and memory of their own, and even my memories about them change as my life experience changes. So what is “reality?” Maybe it’s a series of dreams, connected but floating, each with really a mind of its own, a life of its own. Maybe it’s like when the paint leaps up and becomes its own thing.

1 note · View note

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

40- “Detached and Reattached, Surface and Illusion” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - gesso, ink, pastel, graphite, and screws on panel and paper; with wire, hex nut and acrylic matte medium peel - 10"x12"+extensions - Dec 2020 - (available) Which surface do we trust? What is “the real?” Which is illusion? It’s so hard to know what to believe. And I don’t mean about whether to believe science or the CDC. I trust the science and the masks. I trust the vaccines. And I don’t mean about whether to trust mainstream media or politicians. I generally do trust them when it’s like NPR, because I use my brain, and see what their sources are, and try to see what their bias might be. And I generally don’t trust them when it’s Trump, because it’s Trump, and he’ll say anything, anything at all, in order to get more power. So I’m not talking at all about that. I’m talking about the trouble of the pandemic, and knowing when to mask up, when to see people and when to say “no, we’d better not, today.” I’m talking about whether I should let my kids go to school if I’m not sure the school is being cautious. I’m talking about people who have just dumped me this year, because they didn’t agree with me. I’m talking about losing my mind and my humanity by not seeing people, by not being with people. Please. Please get vaccinated if you can. Especially for the ones that can’t. So this work of art is a bunch of things, kind of all over the place. And that’s how I feel. But it’s also based on things that I see. And it plays with the idea of surface, some of which is observed and some of which is what it is. Which things are the things right in front of us? #covidvacccine #covid_19 #pandemic #pandemicblues #surface #contemporaryart #contemporarydrawing #contemporarypainting #contemporarysculpture #hexnut #screws #wire #kunst #kunstwerk #abstractart #stilllife #stilllifedrawing #seashells #indianapolis #indianapolisart #indianapolisartist #deconstructingreality

3 notes · View notes

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

39- “Coronavirus Christmas” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - nails, yarn, pastel, ink, gesso, acrylic, nails, and tape on panel - 10"x12" - Dec 2020 (available) Let’s take it to the next level. Hmm. What does that mean? One thing about this pandemic year, is that every time I think we’ve hit a new low, we go even lower. I’ll hit some balance about what my day and my week should look like, but then things will get even worse, or our leaders will abandon us even further, and I’ll end up trusting people even less. I have been required, time and time again, to tell people to get away from me during this pandemic, which is totally against my emotional desire. And the more things have “opened up” and restrictions taken down, the more I have to stay away from other people (because it certainly doesn’t seem like the pandemic is actually over). So although that has been horrible for my mental health (and probably yours too), There is something kind of great about ripping everything up, and not trying to define it all. Every time we have a norm, it seems to get destroyed in the next week. So it has been a great year for me, as an artist, to rip things up and try on new materials and methods and process. This piece went “at” all of that in a new way. Nails in the panel. Yarn wrapped around. Nails removed and yarn left to hang limp. Tape covering some things up. Repainted with more gesso. Nails pounded back in. Holes drilled through the middle. Ink dripped through the holes. I may be some kind of “liberal snowflake.” But if, so I am a tough-as-nails “liberal snowflake” with holes ripped out of the middle.

1 note · View note

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

38- “Gears of a Sort” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - acrylic, duct tape, and burlap on canvas - 23.5"x20" - Dec 2020 Sometimes we work and work and layer one thing on top of the other without knowing where it is all going. I like to know where it is all going, but sometimes I just don’t. This year, that has been true more than ever. I am simply turning gears, staying alive, focusing on what is important, and keeping going. But I can’t see much into the future, and don’t know what to expect next or when it’ll be “finished.” This piece is a visual representation of what happens when I keep going, when I come back to something from the past, and keep working on it without having to know something about it ahead of time. This is layered on top of one I had done (finished?) a year before, the previous December. It looked pretty different, then. I had gotten out the paints back then, and here, I got them out again, and really went in with paint. I based some of the forms off a favorite watercolor work I’d done alongside my young sons. Layers and layers. Is it better? I think so. I feel more complete and complex about it. And more complete and more complex is kind of what I am going for. Because what else can I do?

3 notes · View notes

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

37- “Losing Self” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - acrylic on panel with nail and wire hangers - 12"x10" (not including nails and wire) - Nov 2020 - available Perhaps, like me, you have felt a little lost these days. I am a bit of an extrovert. I like to be with people and around people. I get energy from being around small to medium groups of people. So this pandemic has taken all of that away from me. I feel kind of obsolete. By November of the pandemic, I went back into the studio again. In some ways, I was doing okay. I had been fired from my job as a preacher, since I disagreed with some people about whether we should be meeting in person. But being a pandemic preacher was the most stressful thing I’d ever done, and I was pretty burned out, anyway, so it was nice to be able to focus on my children, instead of also worrying about my church. I didn’t get a haircut for a long time. Some people were bellyaching about this. I learned to tie my hair up in a bandana. Like a pirate. Eventually, my wife said she’d cut my hair, and she’s actually been doing a decent job, whenever we get around to it. I hadn’t actually painted in a long time. I missed it. I’d been doing some interesting things with mixed media, charcoal and ink and gesso and pastel, and I’d been paying attention to color like a painter, but you don’t quite get the same level of control and color invention or color matching that you do with actual paint. I do love to paint. So I decided to do this self portrait, to remind myself about myself. It turned out kind of rough and gloomy, but then, I have been feeling a lot of rough and gloomy, so I feel like it is totally appropriate.

1 note · View note

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

36- “Interior Spaces” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - pastel, charcoal, masking tape and gesso on canvas - 56"x38" - March 2020 - available In March of 2020, we all turned inward. In those days, I was somewhat scared about how it would all turn out. I was pretty worried if some of my elderly or immunocompromised friends would survive. (Maybe some of them have died, and I don’t even know because I am not in contact.) But I look back on those days, actually, as rosier days. In those days, we were still all in this together. I was still motivated to go into my studio. It all fell apart after that. After making this piece, I took a hiatus from the studio, in order not to risk bringing the virus home to my family. (In those days we thought the virus could be transmitted by germs left on the door handles: now they know it is mostly sharing air space with other people.) Instead I focused on music, and wrote and recorded and produced an album called “Dig.” So I like “Interior Spaces” as a document of the early days of the pandemic. In it, I find the idea that we can find new meaning by staying inside, by being alone. I was excited about my studio. I was excited about my materials. I still think we probably can find meaning in all of that, but 1.5 years in, I am not so rosy about it as I was. Perhaps someday I’ll come back and rip this up or add something on top, or dig into it more. But for now, I like it as a relic of March 2020 and the joy of staying “at home.” #covid #covidlife #pandemic2020 #stayhome #maskingtape #charcoal #charcoalart #mixedmedia #mixedmediaart #contemporaryartcollection #contemporaryart #contemporaryartist #contemporarydrawing #contemporarypainting #kunst #kunstwerk #color #interiors #artstudio #artstudiolife #deconstructingreality

4 notes · View notes

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

35- “Read the Fine Print” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - pastel, ink, gesso, sock, graphite, charcoal, and paper towel on paper, and binder clips, wire, nails, and spiral notebook spiral on wood frame - 24"x18" or 34"x23"x6" with frame - December 2019 - available Don’t stop. Don’t give up on something, just because it looks like trash or a failure or doesn’t fit. Don’t give up on yourself just because you feel discarded and out of place. Maybe put it down for a while and see what happens with it later. It has actually been really difficult to put a date on these recent works. I realize now that this was actually the first one where I developed a frame that was more deconstructed, but I “finished” “Read the Fine Print” after I had “finished” “Ink Patterns”. But this one started many years before, during my Herron years, and I put it aside for a long time, only to come back to it later. And it all only made any sense even after that, when I started thinking more about deconstructing the frames and reattaching them in new ways. The point is, we need decomposers as much as composers. Vultures actually provide an important role. The things we think are dead or obsolete probably aren’t really, although we might feel sad about how it seemed to turn out the first time around. I’m feeling pretty low right now, so I need to remember all this kind of thing. I generally feel obsolete and discarded and can’t see when or how that is gonna change. But then, I also remember (I need to remember) that I never liked this piece too much the first time around. And now I love it.

4 notes · View notes

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

34 - “Ink Patterns” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - pastel, ink, masking tape and gesso on paper, with clothespins, wire, binder clips, nails, and pushpins on wood frame - 18"x24" or 24"x29"x3" (with frame) - November 2019 - available Everything can change if we put it in a new frame, a new context. In fact, you can even take an old frame, a conventional frame, and reattach in a new way, and it can reveal more truth. I have never been particularly good at “fitting in”. But at the same time, I do like people (or I used to, anyway), which is a bit about fitting in. So at one time, I was framing my work, gallery style, to make it more presentable. Jill Ditmire was a local arts journalist in Indianapolis. She passed away this year. I had the honor of meeting her at one of my shows back in 2018 and talking with her about my piece in the show (“Bunny Dreams”). I could barely believe I had run into her, much less that she’d give me the time of day. I’d heard her voice on the radio. But she’d wondered why I had so nicely framed such an expressive piece. It didn’t seem to fit. Why not let the edges of the paper show more deliberately? She was right. I needed to deconstruct my frames. That conversation sent me on a new trajectory. I have been set free. Deconstruct my reality, my limits of trying to fit in. I am still sad that we lost Jill this year. Grateful to have met her. She supported the arts, simply by showing up and paying attention and spending time with people. My condolences to those who were closer to her than I was. Can we be real about what is? Instead of being attached, can we become reattached in creative ways?

1 note · View note

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

33 - (“Deconstructing Reality” continued) - by artist Stephen Yarbrough in collaboration with toddler son (15months to 23 months old) - crayon, masking tape, paper, and sticks - (all are currently available)

“Depths of Reason (vii) - Building Bridges” - 27”x21” - July 2018

“Depths of Reason (ix)” - 21”x24” - August 2018

“Layers (IX)” - 21”x24” - February 2019

“Layers (XIII)” - 21”x27” - March 2019

My children have had a huge positive impact on my creative process. I am very grateful to them. Having and raising children has been for me its own type of “Grad school.”

When children are small, they are artistic geniuses. Quite seriously. They are infinitely creative and know no rules, if we will only let them keep going at it.

When my oldest son was young, I did lots of artistic collaboration with him. He truly taught me many things. He taught me that you can rip out the middle of the drawing (or rip it up completely). He truly forced me into thinking more about the process of making things, rather than the end product. You have to kind of go with the flow.

I am not willing to say that everything that children do is wonderful and artistic: I do feel like there is a place for being critical about it, and deciding which things are most interesting. That is where the discerning adult/ artist mind comes in.

Can we pay attention to the moment, to accept children for who they are, as they are? Can we accept ourselves? Can we allow ourselves to rip things up and keep going?

1 note · View note

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

32- “Polaroid” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - mixed media on paper - 30"x42" - August 2016 - (available for purchase) We have, at any moment, the opportunity to change our minds. And we might find, that the “new” thing has actually been around all along. We are not at all limited to one path, even if that is something we’ve been choosing for a long time. I continue to feel that it is a mistake to assume that “old” things are somehow obsolete or out of date. We can always go back and see them with new eyes. In fact, we might discover something important there. One of the most fun things for me about this current project is looking back and realizing that some pieces that I never really valued or showed anyone at the time could actually be important to me now. This piece was one of the last times, while still in art school, that I was more free with the level of abstraction and deconstruction. After this, I took a turn towards my other body of work, the “symbolism of everyday objects.” Nowadays, I find myself turning back towards this more free abstraction. Something old, something new. Something new found in something old. It’s a good day for starting over. It a good day for digging things up and deciding again for the first time what we actually value. What do you value?

#Polaroid #Polaroid camera #mixed media #mixedmediaart #contemporary art #contemporaryartist #contemporarydrawing #kunst #Kunstwerk #deconstructingreality #color #indianapolis #indianapolis art #Indianapolis artist #contemporarypainting #contemporaryart

2 notes · View notes

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

31- “Cheesegrater Universe” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - oil on canvas - 29”x37” - April 2016 - (available for purchase) The universe in your teacup. Or, in this case, your cheesegrater. This was taking so many of the things I had learned from the cheesegrater, and putting them together into a larger scale painting. So on the one hand, it belongs nicely in my previous body of work, with a focus on the object and the symbolism. And on the other hand, it is also about allowing the color, itself, to take on new forms, paint for the sake of paint, “reality” broken down as much as built up or constructed. I see, in this piece, several constellations of material, areas of color and texture. I don’t know much about what else to say about this piece. But maybe there is a time for silence, a time where the piece can simply speak for itself.

4 notes · View notes

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

30- “Cheesegrater Mystery” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - oil on panel - 10”x12” - April 2016 - (available) There is a great pleasure in slowing down and really looking. Taking some time. Even without our computers, we like to be distracted. Distracted by TV, books, fantasies. Work. I sometimes get really angry at us in the current era, how distracted we are by our cell phones, how we won’t put them down to take a good look at things or look at our children, or talk to each other. But I also have to remember that even before cell phones, we’d have the TV on all the time, or we’d be thinking about things, far away, and not really paying close attention to the present moment. Cell phones might make it easier to be distracted, but they didn’t create this problem. So what is it like to really slow down and to appreciate the present moment? I have come to learn how to do that in painting. Particularly in painting something complex and thinking about the colors involved. Claude Monet taught us a lot about this. That is, I think we can learn a lot from a painting about slowing down, really looking, and learning about how color is put together in the world around us and in our perception of it. But in the end, I still can’t entirely wrap my head around how it works, exactly. It’s still a mystery. In this case, a cheesegrater mystery.

#mystery #color #colors #monet #contemporary art #contemporaryart #contemporaryartist #kunst #Kunstwerk #oil painting #oil on panel #cheese grater #cheesegrater #deconstructingreality #indianapolis #indianapolis art #Indianapolis artist #mindfulness #slow down

0 notes

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

29- “Cheesegrater Impressions” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - oil on panel - 10"x10" - April 2016 - (available for purchase) Each moment contains the universe, itself. These little paintings have been particularly important for me, as a perfectionist, to allow myself to let go, to not be so precious with my materials, to experiment more freely. I like the way the texture, itself, becomes a material and the way that some of the color is very very subtle. Abstract expression in a cheesegrater. I was always blown away by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. It’s this idea in physics, that the position and velocity of an object cannot both be measured exactly, at the same time. Like, you can either find out how fast an electron is going, or you can find out it’s location. But you can’t know both. Because the moment you shoot another small particle at it to find out, you change its behavior. The action of observing changes what happens. I guess I love the idea that we can’t know everything, even, or especially, in subatomic science. That’s not to say I don’t trust science. I love science a lot. It’s still worth looking and exploring, even if we can’t know everything. But, it is sort of nice to know that some things are a sort of mystery. Each moment, is in fact, a sort of mystery. And that’s where us perfectionists might best let go and let paint. Let go, and let paint.

1 note · View note

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

28- “Cheesegrater Garden” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - oil on panel - 10"x12" - April 2016 - (available) At a certain point, I turned back toward the cheesegrater for inspiration. I often seem to turn back to that rusty old cheesegrater for inspiration. But of course, this one doesn’t look much like the cheesegrater or even the surface. Here’s where my process becomes more important than the end product. Here’s where I am most fruitful, cut free, even from my own rules about what I “need” to make. Can I deconstruct my own construct of reality? Or maybe rather, can I let True Reality deconstruct me? I feel that in this body of work, the most important aspect is to let my artistic self roam free, to trust the process of growth. In the past, I was trying very hard to keep to a certain cohesive subject matter, and perhaps there is a place and time for that. But in this “new” discovery, this “new” body of work, I feel it important to let go of the subject matter, to rather enjoy the process and the materials. In this painting, you can see where the process of painting becomes part of the work (the turpentine drips versus the painted-on spots), and where color, itself is a “subject matter”. In this process of life, what will emerge? We are confined and scared and disappointed when we are tied to some future that is clearly beyond our control. But life has not given up on us yet, even if we have lost so many people and so much. Not exactly or entirely. In this process of life, what will emerge?

0 notes

wanderingartshaman · 3 years

Photo

27- Toaster Memory - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - oil on canvas - 48"x58" - March 2016 (available for purchase) What do you remember? What “really” happened? Memory is a construct. Reality is a construct. It’s relative to our feelings and impressions. We place a lot of stock in memory, but even in documenting history, it really matters which stories we listen to. Same-sex marriage has now been legal for more years than the existence of the Confederacy. Maybe we should put up some memorials. I recently got together with old friends and tried to remember the beginnings of how and when we met… we didn’t disagree, but we remembered very different details and events about those early days. I painted this toaster as part of a series of large scale toaster paintings. But for this one, I painted it from memory, no longer looking at the still-life toaster, and more willing to change it up. This one was more about the process of experience. Reality itself is a process. It’s always changing and moving. Not always for the better. Sometimes for the better. In these days where everything has been changing and moving, it’s been hard for me to know what to hold onto. That has been particularly difficult as my social relationships have all been disrupted and many of them severed. (Perhaps for you too.) What are our realities? What are our memories? What is a “toaster” like? #toaster #memory #memories #makingmemories #blue #color #painting #oilpainting #contemporaryart #contemporaryartcollection #contemporarypainting #contemporaryartist #kunst #kunstwerk #abstractart #abstractpainting #flaming_abstracts #indianapolis #indianapolisart #indianapolisartist

1 note · View note