Lines / Grids / Patterns ZINE

Lines/Grids/Patterns Zine from the Sketchbook Project, designed by the fabulous Flight Design Co. 

The Brooklyn Art Library, home of the Sketchbook Project has just published a series of curated Zines featuring work from artists around the world. I'm thrilled that my sketchbook from 2011 (based on my love of the chairs in Jardin des Tuileries in Paris) was included in the Lines / Grids / Patterns edition.

Get your copy HERE!

Chair Constellations

Coffee + drawing my favorite cafe chairs at the Harvard Art Museum...

Friday Inspiration: Chairs...

(Found in my wanderings) An engraving of a chair in perspective, published in 1792

Chair Constellations

Sunday = Sketchbook, cappuccino, and Eames chairs in the courtyard of the Fogg (Harvard Art Museum)

Presence and Absence

I collected the vintage photolithograph pages over the course of several trips to Argosy Bookstore in New York City. I was intrigued by the ghost chairs but was unsure what to do with them. They sat in my flat-file for a long time. Recently they worked their way into an accordion book. Each panel is hand-stitched with silk thread. It took forever.

I loved the stitching on the reverse of the panels, so I let it remain uncovered.

Presence/Absence 
hand-stitching on vintage photolithographs 
8 page accordion structure with hardcovers, unique edition 
7.75 x 44" opened 

copyright Kate Castell 2012

Pairs of Chairs in Hyde Park

Chairs for rent by the Serpentine in Hyde Park. They looked very forlorn on a grey and blustery autumn afternoon. But they were very willing models as I ate my picnic from Harrods' food hall.

AIB Massachusetts Avenue Storefront Art Project

I was thrilled to be selected to be part of AIB Massachusetts Avenue Storefront Art Project to celebrate the Centennial of AIB. Artists were paired with local businesses along Mass Ave in Cambridge (AIB's future home) to install work in their storefronts. I was lucky to be paired with Abodeon, a mid 20th century and current modern design store. It was the perfect window to install my piece, One Hundred Chairs.

To find out more about the Massachusetts Avenue Storefront Art Project visit http://storefrontartproject.wordpress.com/

And you can read the press release here.

You can visit Abodeon at 1731 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA.

There will be a celebratory walk about happening on Thursday September 20th, from 4-5pm followed by an opening reception from 5-7pm at University Hall, 1815 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA.

Friday Inspiration: Robert Frank's Chairs

When Robert Frank was just starting out as a photographer in Paris he would walk across the Jardin Luxembourg everyday to get to his studio. He became fascinated by the chairs in the garden, "They all seemed to be waiting for something." He started photographing chairs all over the city.

He took hundreds of photographs of chairs, some of which were included in his first handmade photo books 40 Fotos (1946) and Mary's Book (1949, pictured above). They were also included in the photo essay "Speaking of Pictures," in the May 21, 1951 issue of Life Magazine.

Paper Chairs

I'm pleased to be showing some new work at Cafe Nomad through the end of June. The show consists of my recent exploration into papermaking and features my ever so familiar subjects-- chairs.

The Fauteuil* series (including the two pieces pictured above) are pulp paintings. The triptychs are made of sheets of handmade cotton paper. I painted directly into the wet paper pulp with pigment before pressing them. The result is a unique surface in which the image is imbedded into the paper fiber itself.

*fauteuil  noun \fō-ˈtœy; ˈfō-ˌtil\  an upholstered chair with open arms



Kate Castelli: Paper Chairs  
May 19 - June 30, 2012

Cafe Nomad
450 Main Street, Norway, Maine 04268
www.cafenomad.com
http://www.facebook.com/cafenomad

Letterpress Adventure (Part 2)

Ce n'est pas une Chaise. 
This is not a chair.
This is letterpress...

It was quite overwhelming to have so many options of typefaces and infinite possibilities for content. I didn't want to use an abstract arrangement of letters so I decided to play around with the phrase Ce n'est pas une Chaise as an homage to Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe (1928-29). And a nod to my favorite subject matter.

{above} The Chaise layer was printed first with the paper dampened. I set the type for the Ce n'est pas une layer and overprinted it the next day when the paper was dry. 

The majority of the type at the Center for Book Arts is metal, but there are several drawers full of random old wooden type including some 480pt display type. I was intrigued by the large broken "A" and the worn surfaces of the wood type.

These compositions were not set using a grid or layout, but arranged directly on the press bed and held in position by magnets. The above composition was a happy accident.  I had no idea how the layers would overlap. The first layer was a ghost, or second printing without re-inking, and the overprinted layer was done the next day.

All prints in this series were printed in Pantone process black on Johannot paper (sized 11x14").

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Friday Inspiration: Chairs + Postcards

Vintage postcards of chairs from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It's September and the city is bursting at the seams with students and the academic year has begun anew. I am looking forward to autumn and the crisp weather and changing colors.

I started the graduate program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts today. I'll be earning my MFA over the next 2 years.

And so it begins...

Take Three...

The 100 Chairs wait patiently for me to layout a new grid.

All the chairs (minus a few pieces that have found new homes) are now on view at The Arsenal Center for the Arts through the early part of Spring.

Kate Castelli: Chairs
Arsenal Center for the Arts
March 3- April 16

Opening Reception concurrent with
"Drawing from Line, from Process to Purpose"
Thursday March 17th
5:30 - 7:30 pm

321 Arsenal Street, Watertown MA
Directions

Friday Inspiration: A desire to be elsewhere

 

Andre Kertész,  Champs-Élysées 1927-9

Chairs...

Chairs in Paris.

I love this photograph. 

Philosophy

Dozzina

Spread 12 (Thonet Chairs)

I finished Sketchbook No. 12 (or technically No. 15, but that is neither here nor there)

I seem to finish a sketchbook every 7 months or so. I had been neglecting this one for a while to focus on other projects, but suddenly there were only about a dozen pages left and I had the urge to just finish it. I go through phases of being very into my sketchbook as an object unto itself and times when it goes untouched for weeks. I always get a little bit sad when a sketchbook is finished and a little bit anxious when I begin a new one.

You can see the entire sketchbook here.

Spread 19 (Egyptian Wing)

copyright Kate Castelli 2010-11

Sketchbook Project 2011

{The full interior} Chairs, lines, and graph paper...

{Pages 4-5} A double spread of small chair studies from Paris.

{pages 14-15} A sketch from Paris and the resulting linoprint.

I participated for the third time in The Sketchbook Project. I absolutely loved the sketchbook I did last year, and was really excited to be able to pick my own "theme" this time. I chose "Lines and Grids," it seemed to most fitting for my work.

After much procrastination and an extremely chaotic autumn, I found myself in the exact same situation as last year. I had a month before the due date and an empty book. So I cut the binding at the spine and removed all the pages. Then I made a my own simple signature structure of 16 pages and sewed it back into the cover.

I decided to create a book that combined the sketches I did of chairs in Paris with the linoprints that developed later in the summer from the sketches. The intense vertical lines are something I've always done in my sketchbooks as a sort of meditative exercise.

I had all these elements, and it was excruciating to put this book together. Nothing was working, I was really sick of chairs and I was past the point of the ability to start over. I just had to slog through it. It all eventually came together, although I am a bit ambivalent about the end result.

Lines and Grids (And Chairs)

16 pages, single signature with soft cover

linoprint, photocopy and ink wash on graph paper with ephemera
8.125 x 10" opened
copyright Kate Castelli 2010

Snow Day

Snowy chairs in Bryant Park, NYC, taken with my new 35mm Holga

I woke up today to a blanket of muffled white. Almost 18" of snow was a perfect excuse to stay inside, drink Earl Grey tea, and get a head start on work for the new semester.

So what is it about chairs?

Self portrait with chair, Paris.

After three years, I'm still trying to figure it out. Chairs are defined by their functionality, but this functionality is only defined by the presence of people. Empty chairs imply the absence of people. It is in this absence that I can see the chair.

Recently I have become fascinated by the space around the chair, the void, the negative, and how that defines what I see. What is not there is still felt by what is, and so the chairs remain.


{Tonight}

Chairs at Twelve Chairs
Opening reception, Thursday, December 9, 6-9pm.

Come see a lot of chairs, enjoy some jazz, and have some festive food and drink!

Twelve Chairs
319 A Street, Fort Point, Boston
Red line to South Station

Chairs at Twelve Chairs

100 Chairs installation view at Twelve Chairs in Fort Point, Boston.

The chairs are strung in rows of 20 in front of the old industrial elevator doors and the factory windows.

The whole installation glows warmly in the afternoon light.

Cast shadows...

I had a great opportunity to create a new installation version of the 100 Chairs project. Because the space had these fabulous brick walls and high ceilings, recreating the 20 x 5 grid on a wall wasn't physically possible. I was initially intrigued by the huge industrial doors and wanted to use them as the backdrop for the work. My final solution was to utilize the corner and the industrial doors as well as the huge windows to "activate" the space. I am thrilled with the final installation.


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Chairs at Twelve Chairs is on view beginning today through March 2011.

Opening reception is Thursday, December 9, 6-9pm.

Twelve Chairs
319 A Street, Fort Point, Boston
Red line to South Station

A glimmer...

 

The new installation of 100 Chairs...