My Life
As An Artist
I was raised in Manhattan. I didn't have
any particular art training in my various schools but I
did take classes and my first direction in the art world
was geared towards crafts, which then and now is for some
reason not considered to be fine art. I got my undergraduate
degree at the Cleveland Institute of Art, in Ohio and my
major was enameling, which seemed like a good idea at the
time. After college I moved back to NYC for a time and while
I was there had the good fortune to show my work at the
only all enamels gallery in the city, called Spring Street
Enamels. I sold work there, also helped to hang shows, give
and take classes and bask in the greatness of the owner,
Joan Itzcovitz.
Eventually I moved on to a more formal job as a jeweler
and after around five years of all work and no play, to
say nothing of little time for my own art, I moved to Cranston,
RI. I truly thought I would only stay a year, just to get
a lot of work done, meet some new people, find myself a
little. That was in 1986. I am still here, in Cranston.
I worked with enamels until I realized that I was trying
very hard to make them look like drawings. Eventually the
craft got in the way of the image I was after, so with much
melancholy I put away my kiln and worked more with pen and
ink. I’d always like using a mechanical drawing pen
for everything from writing to sketches to complete drawings,
but when I decided that was my medium I treated the work
more seriously and for many years struggled to figure out
what sort of drawings I wanted to do.
Eventually I was able to come up with two distinct bodies
of work that satisfy my love of narrative combined with
text, and my admiration of purely abstract work that while
simple in form is not simple. In both genres I like my work
to show my hand and to illustrate a certain density of page,
so that even if all there is, is line, there will be many
of them and the final image with be as complete an exploration
of line I can achieve.
Between these two sorts of imagery I've found that I haven't
run out of ideas. My opus of line/imagery/text was my Diary
Project, which combined every sort of style I like into
a single seventy-two part artwork. It took me around four
years to complete, from start to finish, and has been shown
in Providence and in Massachusetts at the DeCordova Museum.
All 72 drawings are included in a self published, limited
edition book.
I continue to make abstract drawings using primarily ink
and exhibit these at galleries in Boston, Rhode Island and
New York.
I have stayed in Rhode Island and will always have a love/hate
relationship with this state. I love my family and my friends.
I think this place allows me to find time to work and to
easily meet supportive curators and gallerists who have
helped me refine, aspire, and exhibit.
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J. Deane Rosner