Adolesence

Material Invention Project

Dimensions: 8 ft by 4 ft

Materials: Mixed Media

I transformed space by taping and nailing particular items to the walls and ceiling. My experiment had three parts: The wall attachments, the floor piece, and the wind piece. The wall attachments included string, pantyhose, trash, and an apple. The floor piece included the rest of the objects except the feathers and sheer material, which made up the wind piece.

We used a fan to have the sheer material blowing to show it "being transformed by the wind" and spilled the feathers on top of the material. The floor piece acted as a decorative mess, allembly of objects strategically placed together to give a feminine nostalgic look.

The yarn attaches a young girls innocence to sin and temptation (the apple in the pantyhose) which the older she gets (the farther up she goes) the more she will be exposed to such things. The sheer material acts as a fog or "distraction". It partially blinds her from the right path, the devil's charm.

speaker.

Went and listened to the fabrics professor talk about her career as an artist. It was interesting hearing someone's path to becoming an artist and the struggles and choices she made. She showed us a lot of her artwork, some which were really cool. It got me curious about fabrics, I'm considering taking the course eventually now. I never really thought of making art which fabrics, never really tried.

I also thought that it was interesting talking about a person's interpretation of artwork and how to judge if one's is right or wrong.  This class is getting me to think of so many things that I would have never considered pondering about the art world.  I've never really thought of all the delicate details and what not that come with having art as your career.  It's pretty overwhelming everything that we have to put into consideration.  We looked at some pretty interesting artwork and I could easily see how most of the work we saw could greatly offend people.  

I have to admit that the cloaca thing that we saw was extremely interesting.  I would love to see that but I dont think I would be able to eat the after products.  Besides, from what I hear, I wouldn't have the money to pay for it anyway.

Accumulation: Week 2

I have gathered a few more buttons from some of my friends. I am also planning on going shopping this weekend so hopefully I end up buying some clothes that come with extra buttons! I want to collect at least 20 more each week. This week however, I only collected about 12. I plan on having handfuls and handfuls by the end of the year. I've already started brainstorming on what I can make out of them for the end of the year.

ugggh, I have nothing.

nada.

Hopefully by the end of the year my creativity would have expanded.

I shall just have to wait and see I suppose.

I love the random, abnormal buttons. out of the norm. they make my collection more eclectic and fun!

McColl Center

This past Wednesday we made a trip to the McColl Center and spent on hour or so walking through the present gallery and scoping out the various studios. We even got to watch a guy making some artwork. His studio was pretty large and there was work everywhere. Music was playing, it was a very cool atmosphere. All the different colors...

At the beginning a lady gave us a brief history of the center and talked about some events and even residencies. The more I hear about residencies, the more I'm dying to do one. She talked about how we can come in a saturday of each month and talk to the artists on residence about anything and everything. I honestly plan on doing that. I would love to get some personal input o thier experiences during the residency and so far as as artist. I think it would really help put things into perspective. One of the artists that was displayed in the gallery was Susan Harbage Page. My favorite piece of hers was the 500 labels of "Misconception." I thought the concept was really neat and simple, yet creative. She symbolized the many stereotypes that come with today's society. I also thought it was neat how she made art out of the dying art form of embroidery. It was interesting to look at and try to interpret the meanings behind each piece of work.

The thought of being an artist on residency seems like a great oppurtunity for a person fresh out of college. You get your own studio! What's not to appreciate, and love?! One of these days...hopefully.

Accumulation Starts...

I plan on collecting buttons from clothing for the accumulation project. You know, the extras you get when you buy shirts/jackets, sometimes pants. They come in a little plastic baggy, sometimes you get one, maybe two when you're lucky. There are also those rare, rather exciting occasions when you get more than one type button because the article of clothing that you purchased just happened to be made with a random array of buttons. I have always kept these buttons but I have found that I never use them. Even if I happen to lose a button on a peice of clothing I dont find myself digging through the drawer of extra buttons and sewing them back on. I have noticed that over the years my collection has grown. I admit that I get a little excited each time I notice that I bought clothing with the extra!

I plan on not only collecting my personal stash of buttons by doing MORE clothes shopping (YAAAAY!! Now I have a legitimate reason to spend money, kinda.) I am also going around asking people I know if they have any extra buttons they wouldn't mind giving up. Later on in the semester I plan on asking random strangers for their collection of buttons, maybe going dorm to dorm or apartment to apartment. Then if I feel that I haven't acquired enough, I will proceed to actually purchase just bags of buttons, but hopefully I wont need to do such a thing.

Come to think of it, I think I may broaden the collection of buttons by also including button pins! I have a small collection of those as well!

Jill Greenburg: Soap

I choose her accumulation project because I thought that the outcome and final project was really aesthetically pleasing. I thought the combination of all the different colors and sizes and textures had a neat effect on the overall look. Of course the thought of using all of theose used soup bars is kind of sickening but nonetheless, it made for an awesome piece of art work. The designs she made, how she put them together really worked out well.

Seeing her final project gave me an idea of how I can arrange all of my buttons. I can make a picture out of all the different buttons I have collected. I think that would look really neat!

Micheal Anderson: Advertising Photos

I loved his project. First off, collecting advertising posters was genius. They are EVERYWHERE and you would be guaranteed plenty, more than enough posters. He basically made collages with posters. It was brilliant. The finishing products were gorgeous and had a nice grungy feel to them. This is similiar to Greenburg's soap collection. They both made images using the item they collecting and both finishing products were awesome! I definitely think that is what I am going to do for my project!

first text c.

intro
"the population of artists increases and competition becomes an unavoidable component of the art profession."

that just makes going into this field all the more nerve-wracking. because of the lack of limits concerning art, the range of interest is expanding..there are no rules! The ultimate form of expression, creativity..the present is the best AND worst time to be an artist.

"artists face uncertain fates"
a tad morbid but with a look back, very true in a lot of cases. unfortunately enough. Art is full of chances, observations, knowledge, growth...

scoping an audience
"like a battery that is fully charged but not in service"
great analogy between the link of production and consumption.

I know it's crucial for an artist to focus and put some thought into their intended audience. That, i suppose is something (among many others) I must work on.

sourcing inspiration
it's critical to do research and put yourself out there and explore other artists work. Take ideas from them and combine them with other influences to create your own unique style. We will be doing research for the rest of our life so we might as well make a habit of it now.

food for thought.

hmm...

i found class pretty helpful yesterday. it help put things into perspective/focus for me. a lot of people that I associate with can't comprehend how one can make a living off of art. they just can't..

but, now im beginning to learn how i can respond to such naïvetivity.
art is everywhere
whether most realize it or not, our world revolves around art, we live it, we ARE art..in a sense to some.

we crave to be aesthetically pleased, humans are visual creatures (most, i presume)

Malena's powerpoint gave us a plethora of helpful tips, questions to ask ourselves as growing artists, plenty of helpful resources (which I plan to look into this weekend) and just a bunch of other goodies to think about. It really opened my eyes and made me think, "hey, this is serious stuff, this is my future."

The first thing I realized was that, I must stop procrastinating..NOW. Also, there are essentially no limits, which is exciting and overwhelming simultaneously. weird. I realized that I have to take a step up, become more focused/involved/serious/organized.

realizations.
that's what the class did for me yesterday.
im behind, but i can catch up.
I need to develop a unique sense of me into my artwork: cohenrent ideas

there is so much competition it's frightening, challenging.
yaaayy.

(I really, REALLY want to do a recidency when I graduate.)

first class.

We had our first class on January 9, 2008. Concepts Studio seems pretty intimidating. I'm not used to having virtually no boundaries to an assignment, no instructions...kind of freaking me out. But on the other hand, i'm kinda interested in how well I do in the course, I guess (hopefully) it will expand my creativity, considering that is what the course is aimed at doing. The projects that Prof. Malena talked about sounded neat, im pretty excited (and a tad overwhelmed) about doing them. I wonder what the project will be later on with the materials from the accumulations project. I also liked how we dont have to go out and buy art supplies, that was a relief :)!

I only wish I could figure out how to make the different sections on this bloggermajig.