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Framing My Work


I haven't checked in in awhile with my ongoing journaling, blogging, documenting, sharing here in The Studio. I have been doing much more actual work, painting for example and also sculptiing and working with paper along with pretty much daily drawings in copic marker which I enjoy immensely. This photo that I am including with this transmission, post, note is of my framing style which is pretty basic and simple. I use thin pieces of poplar similar to what might be on a latice and I paint them and then nail them directly into the canvas to form a flat surface on the face or front of the painting.

My work is becoming more and more dynamic as my focus becomes more and more precise or specific, meaning that in staying with the bountiful theme of Spirits, Souls and Ghosts I have found myself giving form to those feelings from the theme in many different media or mediums which really brings out a whole kind of world of feeling with the work. That is for me anyway. I am excited to be producing so much work that I feel very strong about and just good about, happy even, content, proud and so on. There is strong seed in this part of my work, if my work as a whole were like a garden. The Spirits, Souls and Ghosts pieces really grow together across mediums to create a kind of language or world. They lend themselves to the dream I have of being in established collections like MoMA and similar such museums and institutions. Having my work at a prison might be interesting. Other museums too like the Guggenheim, the Whitney, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Akron Art Museum, just to name a few. And the work I am doing now has such legs, I mean it just keeps giving and giving and is just bountiful, I know I said it before but there is so much love and energy and joy in these pieces.

I think about constructing large scale sculptures possibly out of fiber glass that would be maybe outside at a museum. Like as big as cars. Just one Spirit or the three together, Spirit, Soul and Ghost. Or many together like vegetables in a garden that would be like the size of medium sized boulders, like double to triple the size of a basket ball. I would love to have my work in sculpture but also in painting too at a museum where people would look forward to see it and like think "I'm going to see a Spirit today" or "I want to see some of Jon Keppel's Spirits, Souls and Ghosts." Or maybe they would say it like this "I hope I get to see Keppel's Spirits, Souls and Ghosts." I know that feeling of wanting to see particular pieces of art by an artist or just any work by an artist upon visiting a museum. What I have to think about is that a gallery is a place to start or at least alternative spaces to museums. I have to start somewhere. I would love to show in the Joseph Saxton gallery but I am so into the Spirits, Souls and Ghosts. That space is something kind of strange. It's like serious and has clout yet doesn't really have a living feel like it could.

Other spaces I am looking at seriously include The Box Gallery in Akron. I may look towards Cleveland eventually but I would like to have something fairly local for a show so that friends and familyy would not have a hard time getting to it. I really feel like I am approaching a critical mass so to speak with the kind of work I have and the amount. I want to show pretty badly I just have to cultivate the discipline to get full submissions in to galleries for consideration. The Box Gallery and the Massillon Musuem (Studio M or otherwise) seem like two good avenues to pursue.

I like how this space here on the site is a place where I can go to work out feelings and thoughts about my work that don't really happen in the physical studio as much. I am right here at the computer, the iMac, typing directly into the virtual space I have designated for this type of deliberation, consideration, critical thinking, creative thinking, sharing, communicating and fleshing out ideas. It also stands as a record of my artistic development. I am thinking about getting a so called official web address for myself and just naming it jonkeppel.com. I would probably go even deeper with it, but for now I only have so much money and I want to just let it develop naturally. I guess talking about it now is part of that.

Stay inspired if you are a fellow artist stopping by to read up on my particular journey and stay inspired also if you are not an artist. Good feelings to anyone who is reading this. Thanks for stopping by my studio.

There's more I have to say.

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