Exploring the Creative Practice with Marygrace Gladden + Jed Sutter
In this blog post, Annex artists Marygrace Gladden and Jed Sutter, who’s work is on exhibit in the Annex Gallery from September 1–26, 2021, talk a bit about their creative ideas and artistic practice.
Marygrace Gladden
As a fine art photographer working out of my parents home, I am constantly reminded of memories that have taken place in the space where I live.
Most of my practice has to do with the way light enters a space. For example: in “Repointing the Apartment” my parents apartment was covered in red gauze for the duration of the summer and every afternoon when the sun would come in the room, it made the whole space red.
Another example of the story behind the photograph would be about “My Sister‘s Wedding and Me in the Kitchen.” The title seems straightforward with the image is very complicated. Last September my sister decided to get married to her best friend in their backyard. I brought my pinhole camera to the event and made a photo of them eating dinner. In the coming weeks I decided to make a photo of myself in the kitchen drinking coffee in the morning light, not realizing that I hadn’t yet advanced the film. The result is this… a double exposure with lots of different aspects creating an eerie effect.
Jed Sutter
Under the Old RR Bridge, watercolor on paper, 11 x 14 inches
I’ve grown up in two worlds. My mother was a liberal and an artist. My father was a conservative and an engineer. I’ve had two science-based careers, but many of my passions have been creative. When I started painting several years ago my subjects were the ones around me, the urban decay, the aging infrastructure, the antique trolley that runs behind my home linking Boston’s outlying communities with the Hub.
When my mother died I inherited her easel and somehow paintings of my seaside home town have poured out of me. Very yin and yang.
I do not have the time to paint from life, so I work in the studio from photographs I’ve taken. I edit my photos for composition, values, chroma, etc. and use the result as the basis for a painting. I choose whatever medium the image itself suggests to me. Some subjects seem like they would be much better done in watercolor; others in oils, acrylic, gouache or even ink.
I recently developed an urge to create some very specific, very non-traditional metal frames for my urban landscape paintings, and decided I needed to learn how to weld in order to accomplish
them. I bought a basic “stick” welding machine and safety gear, etc, got some instruction and then asked for people’s unwanted metal bed frames. To my delight I was inundated with pleas to take them. I cut pieces to size, ground the paint off, and set to work. After a great number of failures I finally had some success. I have now made a a number of floater frames for those of my paintings whose subject matter lends themselves to the treatment.
Learn a skill to inspire creativity and art. Yin and yang. Hard metal and soft canvas. Synergy.