{"product_id":"al-larsen-critters-encore-howling","title":"Al Larsen | Critters Encore | Howling | Lyrics A","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;\" id=\"docs-internal-guid-b98bc74d-7fff-99a4-3e10-5d6fc623e40b\"\u003e14\" \u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;\" id=\"docs-internal-guid-b98bc74d-7fff-99a4-3e10-5d6fc623e40b\"\u003e×\u003c\/span\u003e 17\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;\" id=\"docs-internal-guid-b98bc74d-7fff-99a4-3e10-5d6fc623e40b\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;\" id=\"docs-internal-guid-b98bc74d-7fff-99a4-3e10-5d6fc623e40b\"\u003ePlotted Micron \u0026amp; Painted Pigmented Ink on \u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;\" id=\"docs-internal-guid-b98bc74d-7fff-99a4-3e10-5d6fc623e40b\"\u003eDrawing Paper\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlotted on a Bantam Tools ArtFrame\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e1 of 1 | part of the Critters Encore series\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAl Larsen is an artist, musician, and educator, and currently serves as Director of the Creative Media BFA program at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. For \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCRITTERS ENCORE\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, Larsen begins with spontaneous notebook sketches, which are transformed through digital and machine-assisted reproduction before being developed into expressive painted works. The exhibition reflects his interest in preserving the immediacy and character of the original hand-drawn marks as they move through different tools, materials, and stages of interpretation.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003eArtist Statement: \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003eIn general, my work unfolds as translations across media. Lyrics are set to music, become songs. Songs beget performances, recordings. Recordings lead to videos, record sleeves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"\u003ePerformances demand posters, handbills. Printmaking has been a constant: letterpress, linocut, silkscreen. Drawing is in there somewhere, everywhere, in different ways at different stages.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"\u003eI tend to fall in love with the rawest, most spontaneous manifestation of an idea. The thumbnail sketch that becomes an ideal, a template to be reproduced at different scales across time, processes, and media. Whether it’s a print, a performance, or a recording, I’m always looking for the same sensation, a feeling that the work has just arrived, without forethought or expertise.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"\u003eThe pieces in this series start as distracted sketches. Junk I draw in my notebook when I’m not trying. Maybe it’s nighttime and I’m just processing the day. A mix of doodles, song lyrics, observational drawing, and scribbles.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"\u003eI try not to care that the drawing turns into anything. But when a page has some good energy, I might take a picture and convert it into a vector file.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"\u003eIn graphics, a vector file is a way of representing an image as points and lines or arcs between points. The way I do it, the drawing gets dumbed down a little, smoothed out, algorithmically stylized. It doesn’t make the image better, but it does make it alien. My hand, but not quite my hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"\u003eTo make the pieces in this series, I draw the file with a Bantam Tools Art Machine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"\u003eIt’s a simple mechanical device that holds a regular pen and draws a vector file perfectly. The robot draws the alien vector version of my distracted notebook drawing, returning it to paper.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"\u003eThe next step is to ink the images. I use brushes and mix colors as I go, putting my hand and eye back into the image. Now the pressure is on to make it “come out,” but I try not to think about it too much. Sometimes I feel like I’m a kid coloring carefully in a coloring book. Sometimes I’m just making marks on the paper.\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bantam Tools","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46364806316111,"sku":null,"price":250.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0275\/2361\/files\/Howling_LyricsA_1.png?v=1786119050","url":"https:\/\/bantamtools.com\/products\/al-larsen-critters-encore-howling","provider":"Bantam Tools","version":"1.0","type":"link"}