The Intimate and the Infinite

last post laughing

2009-05-08T13:06:00.000-07:00

I told you I liked the blog so much that I'd start my own weekly art blog:

http://leahardo.blogspot.com/

Anna's Last Post! Sto piangendo!

2009-04-27T12:32:00.000-07:00

I hope that "sto piangendo" is what I meant to say. Anyway...

Towards the end of the semester, I remember everyone talking about what a great jumping-off point Florence was for our majors. How true! I started the semester knowing only the assignment-based world of freshman and sophomore year, and look where I ended up: At final critiques I had worked with so many ideas that when I tried to explain my process, I forgot what had led to what! You know, like when you're having an interesting conversation and then you try to figure out, 'How did we start talking about that?' It seems like just what I needed to prepare me for my major, when I'll have to come up with my own ideas.

But then I remembered, "Cazzo! I don't start my art major till 2 years from now! Next year's gonna be all PNP! There's no way I can keep this momentum!" So I was all worried, but then I was like, "Wait Anna, calm down. What ideas have you been thinking of all semester? How quickly memories fade, What makes art necessary, why not just use words? What can be expressed through art but not through words? What does it mean to 'understand' something?-- Those are all PNP questons." So now I feel like it's possible, it's gonna be alright, and I'm even going to be making my art better as I learn PNP. I mean it's practically the same thing; scientists need to be able to be flexible in their working process just like artists do!

But it's still too bad I'm gonna miss all my new art school friends:(

* * * - CIAO CIAO

2009-04-27T04:18:00.000-07:00

basta così.
it's been nice, Firenze.

as always
until then

erin

Cat calling

2009-04-27T00:22:00.000-07:00

So this semester finals has been really good. I really liked my sketches and figured out that working where I let the piece create itself works well for me. Also with the bookshelf sometimes the most obvious answer is the best. Follow impulses. I have learned allot ( Some things I can force myself to do (books final drawings) and some things I just have to let flow(dog). (following impulses can be really smart but if possible have someone running on enough sleep double check them before finals)
I really liked the pieces I turned in for my finals for the most part. I think the performance was a bad idea but I had tried to first build a costume as a self portrait that emphasized physical flaws but it really didn't work (looked ridiculous and did not get the point across- that was what was hanging up outside of the crit) so I tried the song out with the intention that it was NOT finished but I might be able to get feedback on how a piece like that might work. ( the problem was it was probably not the best time to try that but I did not have more time in the semester either ) saylasvi
Anyway huge cutoes to all and huge hug out to Janna.
-Cat

Alexandria's LAST post

2009-04-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

a little late...but here photos of final work! and I am sooo ready to go back home!!! :)

ciao!

more photos if you really want to see more

Siena

2009-04-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

I really surprised myself when I started working with umbrellas again (I have to admit that there was a teaspoon of cheekiness involved). However, the more I thought about it, the more fitting an umbrella is to my personality. I ended up making a self portrait with photos I developed photo copy transferred to canvas which was then sewn into an umbrella (harder than you might think). It's one of my best self portraits to date.

My later interest in webs and starry skies actually made a frightening amount of sense in conjunction with the umbrellas. I would like to keep working with them.

Leah's final post

2009-04-24T07:09:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that this is our final blog post. But it won't be, really. I've learned how necessary it is to keep a blog for what I've done in a week, that I'm going to continue an art blog for myself after this semester ends.

So much has happened in a week. I finished my santini and was working so late on Monday trying to get ready for my crit. I discovered that although I was resistant to Regan's imperative to make the santini perfect and anatomically correct, she also said they should be individualized. I definitely agreed that they should be individualized, and as I was trying to do that, I realized that the more anatomically correct they were, the easier it was to make them unique. It wasn't a mindless activity as might be thought--I continually had set backs and had to modify my process. I had fun making them individuals. And really, that's one of the most beautiful things about the saints. Each of them are different and all they did to be saints was be 100% who they were as individuals using their particular faculties to be the best people they could be. That's all anyone has to do to be a saint--be themselves wholly, perfectly.

Once I have the revelation of putting them in the kitchen, I realized that they could have conversations--they were more interesting interacting with each other than just staring out at the viewer, so I had alot of fun playing around with the wide variety of conversations I could create.

On crit day I was worried that it would be weird without music-too quiet. But when people started lighting candles, the mood quickly became frantic. It was hot and smoky, and Regan was freaking out that they kitchen would burn down. Although I thought it was beautiful with all the candles lit, it was a little scary. And I felt like a kid who was going to be put in time out for a week because she had almost burnt down the house. And I was yelled at a bit. And my crit was definitely not how I was expecting it to go.

I had worked so hard. And I felt like I had learned a ton. I had followed my instincts--something I have learned to do this semester. But despite all of these things--both my santini and my pomagrante/beetdrawing/disappearingrabbitphotocopy installation (that I had just instinctively put up right before the crit)--were not reviewed positively.

It's such a new and scary thing for me to not know what I'm doing in my classes. Especially my art classes. I've always been at near the top of the class, and I've always felt like my opinions lined up closely with the professors. This was a good lesson in humility for me. I felt last week that I could barely open my mouth without saying something "wrong." And that is one reason I didn't say much to explain myself at the crit. It would have been so much better if I had stood up straight and perhaps joked that "oh my,that wasn't what I was expecting!"

Jana, if you are reading this, thanks for giving us those readings at the beginning of the semester about not being afraid to fail. I have been so much more willing to "take the leap". That's what art requires--a leap of the imagination. If I never take it, I can never succeed. So thank you, Jana. And you were right--Italy did turn my into an artist.

Photos! (my project and recovery--I'm starting new research, and I'm not sure what it's going to turn into, but it's something...)

Sasha Uncodes her Last Blog Post

2009-04-24T06:22:00.000-07:00

For my final projects I decided on focusing on headdresses and continue with my mid term theme of changing identity. I took mundane materials like trash bags and pasta and made them take on the identity of a headdress. To take this idea furhter I had most of the students and both John and Regan put on the headdress made out of pasta and imitate four poses that I picked out.(one of them being NIcole Kidman> ergo JOhn KIdman) I modeled my project after a casting call for models, judging who took on the identities the best and who fell short. Needless to say some people just looked awkward, but hopefully it brought across my idea that one or even four identities can not be applied to a group of people.

The other part of my project was to create a gigantic headdress of geisha hair made out of trash bags. After midterms i really wanted to get away from the idea of me dressing up and the stereotype of a geisha. But for some reason I couldnt get it out of my head. after much resistance I decided to just go for it. SOmehow it started to get built over my desk space and became this big looming cloud above my desk. Pretttyy symbolic ehh? anyway here are the pictures

Ålex J iswrapping up

2009-04-22T05:58:00.000-07:00

So it's starting to really hit me that I'm leaving this city that has in the most important ways changed my life for ever. I don't think that I will ever think in the same way again. I'm really satisfied with the way I've changed over the course of the semester both in my work and in the way I respond to my environment. I really hope that I can take with me all that I've absorbed and really continue to embrace it when I return to St. Lou. Anyway, I think I leave it at that.

JOhn Kidman and a whole bunch of trash bags

2009-04-20T23:24:00.000-07:00

basta pasta

Monfoo didn't know we were supposed to blogggg!!!!

2009-04-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

more later, we are in the middle of crits right nowwwwww!!!!!!!

The Final Stretch! (Anna's post)

2009-04-19T15:52:00.000-07:00

Final crits start tomorrow (oh wait, today)... where did the semester go?
I guess I'll leave that question for later; I'll have time to be reflective after my crit. Right now I'm thinking about this book that I'm working on with this soft carta giapponese that I cut using a palette knife but not a bone folder. It feels really thin and the edges are really really soft--to the touch, and also in the way that the paper doesn't end all at once. I want to make the book so that people have to hold it to look through it.

It may sound funny that I'm still working out some major details with my book, but right now I'm in a really strange place; I have some sense of security, because I already have a piece that I know Regan and John like (at least before I made a minor change)... so I'm feeling kind of free to experiment. The last of the experiments is this book; can't wait to see how it turns out!

budumbudum!

2009-04-19T14:06:00.000-07:00

felicia

Chatper 14: In which Sylva is. Just is.

2009-04-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

I aspire to be Sue Tilley.

Couldn't I just lounge on a paisley couch while others make art out of me? I would promise to do so ironically, and stay out of East STL.

If I get nothing else out of this semester, I know to use a masonry bit, and not ruin the other drill.

Cuts and colds abound. Misery, of course, ensues. But only intermittently.

Tomorrow I will see the dawn.

I'm Back for my last post!

2009-04-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

Basta Pasta! I am finally done, well, I still think I'm going to make a few more wax tubes in my apartment tonight because san gallo is about to kick me out! and I feel like there can never be enough of these things. I keep looking at them and deciding, oh, I think I need another one right there! I love the way the wax tubes glow in the dark with the small lights underneath and how my video becomes partially abstracted when projected onto the tubies.

It's strange though, because with as much time and emotion that I have put into this project, I feel a lot more removed from it than at first. I think trying to translate what I was going through on the inside for the past 3 weeks into a physical form has helped me to work through everything, at least for now. I'm not really sure if I will get emotional tomorrow, but I hope not. I think I have done a better job this time of keeping things a little more removed from the exact subject matter. I know I still have a long road of healing ahead of me, but for now I am so proud of what I have accomplished.

Also, my salsa dancing painting went really well. I had no idea what to expect, but it actually happened, and now I have something to work from.

See you tomorrow! PHOTOS!

// Laura Javier // 11

2009-04-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

So I bought a newspaper to do the crossword and went to the buffet to get a cup of coffee. I also bought some biscuits. Laden with all these new possessions, I go and sit at a table.

So let me give you the layout. Me sitting at the table. On my left, the newspaper. On my right, the cup of coffee. In the middle of the table, the packet of biscuits. There is this guy sitting at the table already. He is sitting there opposite me. Perfectly ordinary. Briefcase. Business suit. He didn't look as if he was about to do anything weird. He leaned across the table, picked up the packet of biscuits, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.

Well, in the circumstances I did what any red-blooded person would do. I was compelled to ignore it. It's not the sort of thing you're trained for is it? I searched my soul, and discovered that there was nothing anywhere in my upbringing, experience or even primal instincts to tell me how to react to someone who has quite simply, calmly, sitting right there in front of me, stolen one of my biscuits.

I stared furiously at the crossword. Couldn't do a single clue, took a sip of coffee, it was too hot to drink, so there was nothing for it. I braced myself. I took a biscuit, trying very hard not to notice that the packet was already mysteriously open.
I ate the biscuit. I ate it very deliberately and visibly, so that he would have no doubt as to what it was I was doing. When I eat a biscuit, it stays eaten.

He took another one. Honestly this is exactly what happened. He took another biscuit, he ate it. Clear as daylight. And the problem was that having not said anything the first time, it was somehow even more difficult to broach the subject the second time around. What do you say? 'Excuse me ... I couldn't help noticing, er ...' Doesn't work. No, I ignored it with, if anything, even more vigour than previously.

Stared at the crossword, again, still couldn't budge a bit of it, so showing some of the spirit that Henry V did on St Crispin's Day, I went into the breach again. I took another biscuit. And for an instant our eyes met. Just for an instant. And we both looked away. But I am here to tell you that there was a little electricity in the air. There was a little tension building up over the table.

We went through the whole packet like this. Him, me, him, me... Well it was only eight biscuits but it seemed like a lifetime of biscuits we were getting through at this point. Gladiators could hardly have had a tougher time.

So. When the empty packet was lying dead between us the man at last got up, having done his worst, and left. I heaved a sigh of relief, of course. As it happened, my train was announced a moment or two later, so I finished my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper... were my biscuits.

SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH!!

»L

Leah's week 12(x12=144)

2009-04-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

So this past week I've been making 144 little saints. I've been drawing on the side, because sometimes the spirit moves me--and discovering that my work is all really based on the same things--mothering, but also fear of abandonment, which scared me a little when I realized my personal life was showing up in my artwork. Suddenly my it wasn't about making a coloring book any more.

Going the L'Accadamia on Thursday was a very much needed experience (Regan and John scolded me for not having gone before then.) So I can finally say I've seen the David, I fell in love with a sacred conversation (in which it looks like St. Agnes is holding a large rabbit), and I was influenced by the large sculpture hall.

I'm crossing my fingers that all goes as planned for Tuesday. I had alot of setback in terms of this project, but I've learned a ton about wax, which make me think of disappearing bees.

Anyway, I'm already excited about going back to Wash U next semester and continuing my work. Which is the best feeling and thing I have learned all semester--an excitement, not a fear, of what I'll create next. As my High School Musical Mug that I bought today says, "The future is a BIG PLACE!"

Ok! off to make more saints and clean up my space!

Siena XII

2009-04-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

Dear umbrella,

Welcome back into my life. You've been sorely missed. It's funny how full circle things seem to come.

Chapter 13: In which Sylva uses the template.

2009-04-14T02:53:00.000-07:00

The Museum is under construction. It's been difficult coordinating all the work of the builders, the movers, the archaeology and anthropology interns, getting the diagrams and wall mounts printed large enough and correctly installed, but it's really looking nice. I'm finishing up the catalogue, which goes to the printer this week, and then must be bound. We're also waiting on a few items ordered from China for the giftshop to be shipped. Yeah, opening!

Monica MC is Working Too!

2009-04-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

Apologies for not blogging sooner, I tried logging on many times the past few days and it just wasn't working.

As for my project, I've revised my orange sculpture and I'm creating a new green one that relates more directly to my first one. I'm going to photograph it around the city as well, while also photographing interesting things I see without the sculptures included. Much work to do!

I also went to La Specola this weekend to study the ways in which the taxidermied animals were sewn together. Pictures here.

blue sea and a red umbrella

2009-04-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

The future seen in one's vision could be cloudy and dark. But, when one is having joy out of what she or he is doing at the moment, one could march forward without worrying too much about what is to happen in the future.
The week away to take a break from all the works I've been doing has actually brought me quite a lot of inspiration for my works.
I was on a day trip (or one and a half) to Milan, there was an exhibition called, "L'aqua" with Bill viola's works and all others related to the nature of water from the Greek era to modern days. First, it was quite shocking to see Bill Viola's recent works of "water" because most of them had the qualities or the looks of my water-drop piece. First, I came to question my originality and was quite disappointed. But thinking about the fact that the look isn't the only part about my project but the context of my work is what differs mine from his works put me in peace. By the end of the show, I rather came to ponder upon the concept of the nature of water, and I could take myself apart from being stuck on the idea of using the literal water drops on the ground as the bottom piece of my work. I was ready to bring some refreshing change to my piece, and today, I took a short trip to Cinque terre to contain a little piece of the ocean into my camera.
Also, on the Milan trip, while I was telling Alex about how I often feel suspended in the air due to the coexisting (but not really rooted in one or the other) cultures inside me, I was reminded how I always wanted to express that feeling in my work. so, I've taken a few clips about that after I got back as well (which includes the video with a strand of flower and olive branch on the concrete street, a bright neon red umbrella hanging on a vain wall and etc.).
After all, some "time-off" wasn't such a bad idea since now I am not worrying too much about what is to happen in the future but fully enjoying the works I do.
Here are the photos and videos that briefly demonstrate what I've been up to!
*p.s Sorry for the late post! -Soo

in which grace works some more

2009-04-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the late post!

My plans are pretty much still the same.

I've been working more on my fear drawings:

And I've spray painted my birdcage and furniture gold.

Now I need to think about what I'm putting inside my birdcage (dead bugs? moldy fruit? vomit-inducing things in general?) in addition to the miniature furniture, and I need to crank out more drawings. I've discovered that, in thinking about a fear while I draw, the drawing inevitably turns into something else - another fear, or a seemingly unrelated image...It's an interesting revelation.

That's pretty much it! More photos here.

// Laura Javier // 10

2009-04-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

Execution phaseeeeee...

...Blogger server wasn't working last night...

Mararar.

2009-04-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

After a record-frustrating week, I've finally settled on a final project for both drawing and theme sequence. It's a relief to actually know what I'll be losing sleep over these coming days, and even more pleasant to do what I've wanted all along--just draw stuff from the Specola. Progress will come along even better, now that the hours for the museum have been extended. All that's left is to blow money on espressos all day, and god willing, I'll be set for next week.

Postscript...a weekend trip to Milan, lovely. You can actually see sky in the city, and the soccer team kicks ass (when they bother getting off their own, which happened blessedly too late for Palermo fans). Wandering the city on foot is highly encouraged, even if people recommend you take the subway home instead of walking. Florence trained us well--and walking on paved versus cobblestone sidewalk is a breeze. Less dog-pee too.

A couple pictures here.

Alexandria's week

2009-04-13T03:14:00.000-07:00

I think this week went pretty good and I figured out that i really like what I'm doing. I also like that it is centered around one thing . So all the different forms my ideas have taken make sense next to each other - the drawings with outlines, photocopy transfers/stickers and the white drawing/fabric stuff. I also learned that it makes a big difference to put up my work out of studio with more space around each one and it was extremely beneficial. This week I've just been working and working, trying to attempt/follow through with all the little ideas that are branching off in different directions. I think from my dolls/attachment to now, what I'm doing is more deliberate and the ideas around them have expanded too. In some of these drawings there is also isolation (opposite of attachment), question of identity and a kind of nostalgia.

Overall I like where its going and i figured out what i'm actually working on this half (finally...haha) and theme seq and drawing are pretty much one whole big project >

photos

Vivian is working working working

2009-04-13T02:14:00.000-07:00

So, this weekend in summary:
Friday: bang my head against able while trying to write a narrative that makes sense
Saturday: finish narrative; paint for perspectives
Sunday: take new photo references for the 13 chapter illustrations; being drawing them
Monday: tba...

Writing the narrative was probably the most difficult thing I have had to do concerning this project, and that probably why it took me so long (almost a week! rah!). I glad its done though because I couldn't figure out what to illustrate without it. I need to work work work....

TO DO LIST:
1.finish illustrations
2.make watercolor backgrounds for all illustrations; place photocopy stickers on them
3.draw & watercolor video menu interface background
4.scan everything in & make video; record narrative; make it work
5.put everything together in Flash
6.perspectives work

hahaha, ughhhhh.
- Vivian

photos to come.

megan&cheeseburgers.

2009-04-13T01:20:00.000-07:00

I filmed another scene this weekend since I couldn’t reshoot the breakfast scene. But I’ve been playing with what sorts of changes I can make to it or sub-scenes I can add. Hopefully I’ll be able to do it sometime this week.

Anyhow, basically I’m going to have my little character go to an American lunch and Italian dinner (and maybe dessert…). I’m also working on what kind of music/sound to use. Right now I’m leaning towards jazz but I’m still exploring what I can do.

Click for slideshow:

Leah's week 11:11 (make a wish!)

2009-04-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

So this past week I've mostly been working on projects that I find to be really interesting: the 144 wax saint candles and the coloring book. I realize that these were both conceived of as drawing projects, but the more I think about it, it makes sense that they fit in with my theme sequence as well. Although they have little to do with pomegranates or beets, they both have to do with things I have been thinking about this whole semester in theme sequence: for the candles, light, the hand-made, saints/holiness, and for the coloring book, like John said, it's sort of like I'm putting myself in a position of educator/mother by creating this book. I've also had an appreciation for nature this whole time, and it makes perfect sense that I want to capture the beauty of the animals by studying them and drawing them for hours on end.

This week I plan to work on both of these projects, hopefully finishing the santini before the coloring book. I hope to have the santini done by Thursday, and leave the whole weekend for the coloring book.

From week 11

Anna's blog entry she wrote 2 nights ago

2009-04-12T15:09:00.000-07:00

Okay--I'm feeling really good about myself right now. Last night I couldn't sleep because online I measured the distance for the workout I did and found out that I'm a lot faster than I thought. So I was up thinking about having my first healthy summer (running-wise, I mean) in 2 years, and as not disastrously as my fall season went after only having run in the pool last year, I could actually have a comeback season!

Where does all this fit into art? Whenever I feel good about myself, I take care of myself better, do more work, make more responsible decisions...(which is the opposite of how it should be, you know? Shouldn't I take care of myself better when I'm feeling bad?) Anyway, I can't predict how my final project will go, but at least I'll feel good while I'm doing it!

MEOWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!

2009-04-12T15:07:00.000-07:00

So I FINALLY feel like I have a footing in drawing. (moment of aploss to all) I ronicaly it came about due to me getting really stuck in critical Frameworks Tuesday. I thought I knew what I was doing but as soon as John left I realized I really didn't... so I actually got smart and started drawing to see if that would give me any ideas. I also started putting the books in random places (see above( note I lost my camera so half my images are gone cry!!). Through the process though I decided the two classes were separate.

I made these cool smoke pieces and a dog by looking into them. I liked them and I realized that the thing I think I am missing is an overarching theme. I have lost that message somewhere and need it. I put up all my pieces that i liked and tried to find a common thread, What I came up with was intimacy and love (generated most successfully through delicacy and detail).

Anyway to sum up, drawing is now a series of intimate little details of the city blown up.= a few out of my head that are seperate.

Critical frameworks is some where in limbo but I am trying to figure it out and fast.

Photo is a series of postcards of famous places with me as the stamp and in each letter is a funny connection to the photo on the front.

My last reaky big hurtle now is that I feel like I don't have a true theme sequence project that is strong or even coherent, but I can clearly see where it has compleatly shaped my other two projects (which thank goodness are coherient and well focussed. )

Monfoo forgot to post to the blog last time, YIKES!!

2009-04-12T14:04:00.000-07:00

sorry about that...

ok so I've decided to split the two projects that I'm doing between drawing and theme-sequence (the framed prosciutto going to drawing and the installation to theme-sequence). an update on the two projects:

-- the framed prosciutto is kind of at a standstill because I totally forgot it was easter this weekend (and didn't know that monday is also a holiday), and now I'm at a point where all I need to do is find some frames but nothing's open. sighhhh. I'm also still not sure exactly how many frames I want to include.

-- the installation is also at a standstill because I don't know where to install it. (ideally, I'd want the gallery space that I was so blessed with last time but I'm not sure if it's open...?).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34755165@N03/?saved=1

Noah, shazaam

2009-04-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

I am nearing the end of my battle with these little boxes. like a proud parent i am getting to watch them go out into the world and make things happen that i wouldn't have been able to predict. mostly they fall over in the wind and attract stares from confused italians but every once in a while something really nice happens. without fail this is always just the moment that i chose to put my camera down but eventually i'll catch it.

saw inter blow a commanding lead to palermo of all people yesterday. it was frustrating because you could see it happening even before the goals were scored but it took two goals in as many minutes to get the overpaid premadonnas back on their game. plus Patrick Viera came in which was probably decisive. either way, it was an entertaining 90 minutes that made fiorentina games in their quaint 35,000 seat stadium look very bush-league.

Danny Greenberg (final stretch)

2009-04-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

So, as I am working I keep going back to what John Serra said about having faith. This week that will be my theme as now I know what I am doing, but I just need to do it. My beat drawings are going well, and I have started setting up a surprise instillation. I am holding on to many of the themes I have been exploring with before, like homosexuality and its presence/lack there of in everyday life, but I am making the work broader than myself and my own experiences.

No WAY has a week passed so fast…

2009-04-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

So suddenly, a couple of days of just trying to keep up have merged into a seven-day-long string. It’s not so much that I’m shocked at how fast time is passing as I am regretful. Sand through my fingers and all that. I’ll be glad to be home, I think, because it means I can both relax and work in whatever proportion I choose. On the other hand, it feels as though a door is about to slam shut behind me and keep me from ever reentering. Which I know isn’t true. Dad and mom promised they would send me back to Europe in maybe a year. But I don’t know, that seems so far away. Which is amusing, since the end of this one tackled me so fast.

So, work? (This time with pictures 0.0) So far, 2 feet, 1 leg, two wrists&hands finished for themesequence. I have experimented with house paint and yarn to find the effect slightly less accurate than I had hoped, but acceptable (at imitating drips of blood). I have claimed my installation site in the back room of studio 41, so no more worries there (phew K).

For my final in Drawing Perspectives (and drawing…? Gotta get an okay on that…) I am working on a conglomeration of small doors on a large, maybe 50”x70” piece of cardboard (I’m too duhr American for the metric system). As in, actual physical entities of doors and tiny spaces which they open/don’t open on filled with various small items and mixed up fragments of drawings. I plan to go make some drawings of the mysterious doors here in Florence, since that is supposed to be my main focus in drawing perspectives (although the sun has already gone down today :\ ). So far I only have a couple of these done, and they do not yet incorporate any of my drawings, which makes me quite nervous that I will inadvertently travel away from the assignment and be penalized accordingly.

After my less than stunning setup at midterm, I am determined to have a great one the second time around. I’m worried, though, because I currently am anything but prepared for my art history final, and I don’t even know how to start studying (gotta email Katherina). I’m afraid everything will fall apart on me, kind of like it all did last time. I dunno, paranoia is my thing I guess, but midterms really were horrible; the scrambling and the stressing and the fearing and the friendship drama really screwed me up for a little while. It’s part of why I have been spending all day every day in studio for the last couple weeks. Hopefully things will go better this time.

Anyways, as long as my work picks up the pace just a little bit, I think all is well for now. Just gotta keep swimmin’!

Jorie...Dangit, I thought I'd be the first one to post for once:-)

2009-04-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

Oh I may be a prune, but I am a stubborn little prune at that. I'll sit there for ages and just being all dried and shriveled up and trying to try to let the criticism and scrutiny make their marks and wash over, instead of letting them sit and fester and rot away in my pruney wrinkles.

Oh, dear. A case of not-being-able-to-take-constructive-criticism. Eh, I'd better learn.

Even so, if not a prune, I'm like that really obnoxious rabbit who runs about for ages eating all the vegetables out of the garden in the backyard and keeps knocking over Mrs-Next-Door's hydrangea plant, no matter how many rocks are thrown at me, no matter how many walnuts are shot at me by way of slingshot, no matter how much pet repellent or pest control or whatever.... I am a persistent little bugger. I won't stop until I get to a good place where I know I am supposed to be... wherever on earth that is... or maybe its not on earth...

But I admit, my feelings are hurt easily. And of course, I have those times where I question why I do art all day long and why I let all these things beat me up, which results in about five thousand dollars worth of Piccell wireless minutes while I freak out to my mom... and then end up basically concluding that I bring quite a bit of it on myself.

But that's also where a lot of my art comes from... that place I create from when I am hurt and upset. Who wants to make things without that creative, emotional energy? Also, bit of a side note, I am aware that this was a rather impulsive blog... but I thought the unedited splotch of how I feel and where I am with my art sums it up a lot better than trying to explain it.

A dopo!

Jorie

Alex putting things together

2009-04-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

So this week was really about finding commonalities among my works so that I could start grouping them together as well as trying to complicate my drawings more. I am in the midst of doing this by adding some homemade stickers and doing some short-mark drawings on top of my practically blank canvases. I think that I'm really developing a process for working that really suits me without thinking about it too much. When I take myself out of my work, it actually becomes much more revealing about who I am and what I'm feeling.

I'm trying to make more of certain types of drawings like the what I'm calling "diahrehia of my mind". I basically just ask myself similar questions over and over and over again and right them down and then erase them and then write them down and just keep repeating the process till I've exhausted it. Also, I'm trying to pick out some of the burn marks I created and categorizing those as well. I really like working with the red ink that I bought at Zecchi's and I'm trying to figure out a way to incorporate it in what I'm already doing. Anyway, that's all for now....nothing really that new.

Pictures:

* * *

2009-04-12T07:37:00.001-07:00

The candle videos have been refined. The secrets have been mined (although more and more and more submissions are still welcome!). How silly - I just rhymed. anyway, enough.

I am working now to combine these video pieces with imagery that will allude to the nature of our secrets and the things embedded within us that keep them aflame. I've realized that the explicit presentation of secrets, while powerful in an entirely different way, is not the path I want to follow. Currently, I'm working to find that perfect combination, but I am not sure if it will manifest itself in a complete video piece, drawings, or obscured text-drawings. I really like this technique of layers: of ink washes, then chalking, then writing, then pin-pricking, then chalking, then pin-pricking, etc. In this way, the text of these secrets transforms into something bigger and allows the emotion behind the secret to breathe, to not get so caught and confined in the limitations of words. I also feel like this method plays quite nicely with the nature of wanting to keep something hidden or prick it away or barely let it shine through only to cover again or present it in obscurity... Overall, I am really working to allude to that very intimate feeling of secrets that makes us feel like we have to keep them hidden and very close to ourselves through image... whether it be through an image that alludes to a memory, scene, etc. (like this?) or drawings of these things or merely allowing the text to become the drawing, allowing it to breathe.

as usual...

Erin

p.s. THANKS SO MUCH to everyone who submitted secrets! Secrets will still be welcome (and I'd love you for it!) if you still want to be sweet & contribute! The secret box will be on my desk all this week. GRAZIE MILLE!

HELLO MY LOVES!!!!

2009-04-09T09:53:00.001-07:00

Oh, how I miss you all! It sounds like things are going really well for most of you... And I am proud of you for keeping up the hard work and dedication. It really is amazing how far you've come and how much you have learned both from your teachers and from yourselves! Good job! Keep it up, you're almost at the finish line.

I wanted to tell you about an amazing experience I had this past weekend. I went to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale for 4 days to be a visiting artist. I met with grad students, gave a lecture, and used the Nature Games work as fuel for a two-day workshop in the woods that surround the campus. I'm telling you, I feel transformed! But what's interesting is that little book in the back of the gallery that you all wrote in was the inspiration. (Danny- I need to know the name of the dance-- I thought it would be in the book, but it's not! If you want me to do it...)

There was a group of about 10 of us that consisted of undergrads, grads, staff, and teachers. Saturday morning I gave them some paper and a list, much like your gathering exercise, that they had to complete in the woods. They came back in the afternoon and we looked at the results. Then we had an amazing conversation about creative impulses. The list inspired them to do their own experiments (or games-- which I now want to call impulses). So for the rest of the afternoon, they each did their own thing. Then on Sunday, I asked them to describe what they did by using the imperative and write simple instructions for each action they took. O mi God! Some of them were hilarious! And others quite beautiful. Together we edited the list down to about 10 activities and then we went out in the woods and collaboratively "played" each others games. It was amazing and at times VERY silly. Don't worry: there will be video!

The thing is, that what many of you have been describing- following one impulse and letting that lead you to the next and so on-- it applies to life in so many ways... And that book in the back of the gallery that you participated in now make you a part of my work... which I am grateful for.

Thinking of you very often.... and sending you lots of good energy for this final push!

xo

Jana

Rachel likes messes

2009-04-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

So I have had a mini-revelation! One that was kind of like, um DUH afterwards... but I realized that I have been acting up to this point like I am not allowed to do whatever I want despite many affirmations from all 'round saying the opposite. I guess that doesn't explain it really well; it's as though, when I am home or doing an independent project, I never think about my potential success rate. Generally I just automatically realize that if I mess up, I can just start over. This mentality leads to more confidence, which leads to a higher success rate; maybe 8/10 tries. For school I have always been intensely aware from the outset that I must achieve success or elseways fail. But I have never realized before that my desire to succeed and to please my teachers actually heavily influenced what I produced.

My epiphany occurred when I was reconsidering my brief discussion with John Sarra. I had been basically asking what media I was allowed to use. I realized that if I had been making this project outside school, I would have pounced on my first impulse without a second's thought (I do that jumping without looking first thing a lot, but seem to have avoided any disastrous cliffs and strayed more towards small hills). I realized I was being a complete idiot in trying to avoided my natural impulses; I mean shedding external interference in your work that is pretty much what this whole experience is about. I have to stop fearing making messes because they can be they best things I ever create. So from now on I shall look before I leap ;D

In any case, I apologize again for being a tad tardy. It feels like all the more a failure since my time here is running so short. I've been taking photos increasingly obsessively in an attempt to preserve what this whole part of life has been like. My only way of consoling myself about leaving is to tell myself that I will have even more time to make whatever I want once I'm home. My family better be ready to deal with my giving my room a studio makeover!

NOAH!!!!!!!!

2009-04-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

This has been, just as the next will likely be, a week of grinding it out. beside my desk I have a tremendous pile of heads but i will not be satisfied until i have many more. look for images of the strange disembodied faces of those i know and love to start to appear in bizarre locations around florence to surprise and hopefully entertain whoever may come across them.

ghfjgfdhgdhfsgdsgdsgfdjgfklgvjirdueuxy5exicupti7tvuyrwts2sqxrcsvrgthynujkjhgfdsdfghjkjhgfcdxszxdxfghjhgvfcdx

Anna can't believe this is almost over!

2009-04-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

(This title is not at all relevant to what I'm writing about.) What's really on my mind this week is the gap between planning something and executing it. It seems like this has been one of the main themes for me during my semester here in Florence.

When I came in all I wanted to do was to figure out in my brain what would be the best course of action for a project, and then to do it. It makes sense, right? First, you use the smart part of your brain to logically determine the best medium for a work of art, where you want something to read quickly and where you want it to take time, how to accomplish that, how that all fits in with what you're trying to convey, etc.

Next, it's just work from there on out. Maybe the occasional spurt of artistic genius. Right?

All this 'thinking with your hands' and 'learning by experience' is analogous to using guess-and-check on a word problem instead of the more elegant algebraic equation, isn't it?

Hmmm... I don't think so anymore. There are definitely things I've discovered in my projects that I wouldn't have if I'd been doing things the logical way... for example, that you can make paper translucent with olive oil. So I'm starting to think that all this working with my hands--trying something, standing back, and giving a fresh thought to where it could take me--is the right way to go. And not only have I had the plan to work this way, but I've tried it and I'm starting to get the hang of it!

Now if only I could learn that the same goes for orienteering training, I'd be good to go. Unfortunately, now I realize that knowing something with my head is only half the battle...

Danny is not so legitily right now

2009-04-05T16:19:00.000-07:00

So, that thing called writers block exists in art as well. I am making stuff, but I feel like I am stuck. I am not unhappy with what I am making, but I don't think I am making a whole lot of progress. I started to make some nice work in Regan's class, but I need to find a place to go with it that I am satisfied with. I have been doing a lot of mark making and ink drawings in my sketchbook, but I am still waiting for a break through.

Oh well, got to have faith.

in which grace makes more stuff

2009-04-05T16:01:00.000-07:00

After having decided to move in a different direction, I felt a little lost. But now I think I have things cleared up - for now, it looks like I have two projects going on.

For Drawing, working on my "fear" drawings, perhaps incorporating objects from the museums we've visited or putting all the drawings together to form a new collection. I enjoyed what came out of that hour we spent last class responding to a passage from an article, so I've decided to work with that method. Here are some from this weekend:

For Theme Sequence, I've started making these clay furniture pieces, and I just need to make more and play with their placement within the cage.

I don't know if I've left my butterflies/moths behind for good...they may come back to haunt me...!

Oh, and more photos qui!

Monica MC Becomes a Spectator

2009-04-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

Though it doesn't have much to do with my project, I stumbled across an interesting sight this weekend. On my way across the river I saw a huge group of people gathering at the bridge, peering over the edge. A group of construction workers were propelling down the side onto the large beaver dams stuck against the supports of the bridge. A harnessed person would tie cables around the large tree trunks (some of them looked as big as trees themselves) then a group of men on the bridge would pull him back up. Then a crane would lift the log out of the water, everyone would scatter out of its way, and then the men would saw it into pieces.
After thinking about it a little more, my project addresses this kind of spectator-to-spectacle relationship. I took some photographs with my blue sculpture (nicknamed Phant) in which he was interacting with various sculptures, window displays, and passer-bys. Sometimes he was the spectator, and sometimes he was the spectacle. Even while I was setting him up and taking the photos, the curious passer-bys acted as a 3rd party spectator.
I also returned to La Specola this weekend, and I really fell in love with it all over again. My pictures this week include the drawings I've done there. Otherwise I'm busy working on a second sculpture and photographing it.

Photos here.
Until next week!

felicitations!!!

2009-04-05T15:31:00.000-07:00

hello blog.

we meet again.

<- this is how i feel

i was going to end the post like that, but i think i actually might be on to something this week. while i was playing with ink and making the short mark drawings, i found the beginnings of what i'm looking for. from those inkblots, images of organs and organ systems appeared, and for some reason, they just make a lot of sense to me. it's peculiar how these things come together; in a way the reference my idea of the elevators, like this internal space, a system. it's the basic building blocks of our physical selves. our "vital" organs.

through drawing them, impromptu through dabs of ink and working them in with pen and nibs (WHICH I AM IN LOVE WITH), i've also been thinking of systems, and mind mapping. just as a way to clear my thoughts, i started a mind map, and then when i realized that it wasn't taking me anywhere, i translated this into a drawing of a fictional organ system. this led me to illustrating other fictional diagrams of make believe organs and their purposes (hm!!! make believe organs. it sounds so magical). i'm not very good at imagining names for them, so i'll be doing some research.

i would like to extend past drawings, though, and i've been thinking of building a space in which i make stuffed sculptures of these organ systems, possibly hanging from the ceiling (similar to the aesthetic of the elevators). what i can't decide is, however, the size, and if i want one system, or a whole room full of different system, or maybe just one big system that takes up the whole room; i suppose it really depends on what the relationship between the viewer and the structures is, which i haven't quite decided yet. i'm also considering projecting a video on top, in reference to the outer world. this juxtaposition of the intimate and the infinite (hm!!!!) is also something i'd like to discuss in my work, i think. it's funny how something so small and perhaps mundane is, really, a metaphor for some greater reality, a broader truth in the obvious.

and i suppose me making these organs is calling attention to something that is so obvious but don't really pay attention to; that internal peace, a certain depth, breathing. i feel that this sort of meditative awareness is incredibly important.

"heart, stars, and hormones"

photos!
the flavor of the week

Vivian is just in production

2009-04-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

My project's loose ends pretty much came together last week and now I'm working to get things done. This weekend I've been focusing on the illustrations. I hit a (very frustrating) wall for a long time, not being able to render the images in my head onto paper with only references for my family's faces & only movies, I'm just not that good. So, instead I took a series of photos with my peers at studio having them pose in the scenes that were floating around in my head.

I've done a couple of the illustrations... and intend on doing more for drawing tuesday. I left out my family member's faces and set them the set up images from studio and told them to take photos in the same poses as the person I intended them to be. I need feedback on them about the settings and things, I know they aren't up to par yet. To do's this week: illustrations, grounds, color scheme, and webpage design. yarr.

- Vivian

keeping busy

2009-04-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

This has actually been a terrible weekend. I am trying to stay focused, but I feel like I’m just trying to “keep busy”. Death never comes at a good time, but I am grateful that my family was here with me for this past week. I feel like my project is going to naturally shift meaning due to what is now consuming my mind, but hopefully everything will come together in the end. I have an idea of creating one video made up of the short clips I’ve taken of human relationship and fleeting moments in time, ending with the wrapping up and mailing of a box containing the medallions I made for midterm. I am so upset that I could not go home, but I wanted to let Milena’s family know that I have been thinking about them. I have also met with some dancers from Jaragua that are willing to come dance with paint on their feet this Thursday. Dancing seems to be one of the best ways to get my mind off things. When I’m dancing I don’t really think about anything else—it’s almost therapeutic for me. This weekend has really put life itself in perspective, and I am so grateful for everything I have. I feel like I should take more advantage of things I enjoy and continue to be observant of the little moments happening around me every day. I think my project is going to be about the fragility of life, and how we should take advantage of every moment before it slips away. I still really like the idea of showing the cigarette smoke video with a breeze in the room. I have also been collecting cigarette boxes I find in the street, maybe I could think of something else to put inside of them?The way some people just ask for disease boggles my mind. It clearly states on the box that the smoke will kill you, and yet ppl still smoke. Why are some people just born with disease while others actively seek it? Life is fragile, but we should make the best of every bit we have as if it could be left incomplete.

holly

documentation of painting ground for dance piece:

Alexandria - 3 weeks (left)

2009-04-05T14:24:00.000-07:00

since i lost count of the number of blog posts and didn't feel like back-tracking i wil just count down instead!

Okay, so I'm still not sure exactly which part of my work is specifically for theme sequence or drawing now, but that can work itself out later I think after i work a little more this week I hope. I really like these drawings with the blobby silhouettes and I want to make a lot more. I have lots of ideas to categorize them and separate them, emphasize and de-emphasize individual ones while thinking about attachments/connections/relationships. I also think I might play around with some text either as the outline/or filled in...I just want to make them all! but the tracing/cutting out takes time. I also think i want to think about using black paper/gray in sort of an inverse idea. After drawing class, I am definitely going to incorporate some of the transfer methods to create some drawings using the original old postcards and la specola drawings and my outlines. I also want to get some larger paper to experiment with these drawings on a larger scale maybe.

I also want to revise and continue working on the drawing/fabric stuff i had up in studio by incorporating the idea of emphasizing specific things and having others fade into the backgroud and not necessarily with the 2d-3d contrast (other kinds/colors of fabric and outlines) Overall, I think they need to be simplified a little.

photos

I also just realized that the people discovered in pompei have that funky blob shape like the stuff i've drawn...that is a little creepy/coincidental

megan never wants to eat butter again.

2009-04-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

I filmed...photographed?... the breakfast scene this weekend. And it took me like 238423842398285 hours (aka 4 plus all the other prep work). And I kept getting frustrated because everything seemed to be going wrong. And the entire time I was thinking, "This is going to look like crap and I'm going to have to redo all of it." But... there are some parts of it I really like (others not so much). I'm working on editing it now. I may still have to reshoot some of it.

Basically, the issue I'm having is where to go with it from here. What is going to be the overall theme/concept? I don't know why I'm having such a hard time with that part. I can't tell whether it's because I can't think of anything or because I can't figure out what to focus on. I was hoping to shoot this scene and figure out what parts of it resonate with me and why. So I think for now I'm going to get the editing done and start examining/analyzing it.

More images linked in title.

Ahoy there young fledglings! It is I, Jorie!

2009-04-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

So, I've been painting lots of random boring things. Or are they boring things? I don't know. I hope not.... because as I have been painting them, I develop this really weird relationship with the random pots and cups and flowers and things I have been painting, and thinking... hello there, little vase. I wonder if you feel the way I feel right now. I wonder if sometimes you feel really happy, or really sad, or really content there just sitting on that little bit of table you have been alloted, or if you feel really cramped by your shadow creeping out from under you, or if your like dammit get these stupid flowers out of me!, or if you feel all those things at the same time and you somehow manage to keep your little handle firmly pressed to the side of your body and continue forth into your little vaselike universe.

Hmm.... I'm personifying vases. But anyhow, perhaps that gives a bit of perspective from my point of view, in terms of what I continue to paint. You sort of develop these really creepy and weird relationships with whatever it is that you are painting, and with the paintings themselves... they become like your little babies. I wonder if my painting thinks I'm boring... or the vase. I hope it doesn't think the glasses I hung off the side of it makes it look too intellectual, or goofy.... who knows. But anyway, I've painted it so many times that I know it like the back of my hand. I know what it looks like when the light falls on the side of its lip, I know that little highlight that brings out the top of it's handle, and I know the splash of white muck that falls inside of it. It sounds crazy, but we're sort of intimately connected in this really weird way.

Anyway, enough of my insanity- just trying to move forward, keep pushing, and continuing to enjoy what it is we all do!!

Lots of love and craziness,

Jorie

Chapter 12: In which Sylva devotes herself wholeheartedly to bookbinding.

2009-04-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

I'm turning into a bookworm. Or maybe a bookspider, weaving bookwebs. Or something. Anyway, I cornered Mike in the printmaking studio and begged him to teach me the accordion. Then, with magic tips from Leah, (secured from Jana) I was able to create a pretty rockin' libro with some b&w photos on the first try. I went on to do another for my photo project with photos I took from 1600 film to RC paper. Holla! I've got plans for a Fiorentine Trash book, and a book of S.H. (SH like ssshhhh, you'll find out what it stands for later), and other books highlighting treasure in the collection of my wunderkammer. Potentially a museum guidebook/brochure. I'ma gonna work on getting some drawing up in there roundabouts, too. Oh! I learned Friday to do gel medium transfers. It's a lot harder to get the paper off than with the fantastic sticker method highlighted in Laura's post.

I'm still museumy in the head. . . not sure what form exactly it will take, but I still want to explore building an actually space, which may also make reference to a larger collection which is implied.

Italian internet has a vendetta against flickr, but oddes are 2 to one that Sylva.Johnson has some photos to share.

// Laura Javier // 09

2009-04-05T12:04:00.000-07:00

Regan showed us The Most Wicked Transfer Technique Ever in drawing last week using toner based printouts and clear packaging tape... perfect for labels. This semester's tuition = officially justified. And I foresee some good ol' Bixby-color-toner-printer-abuse next semester...

In the meantime... I played around with label and display designs and continued to experiment with the logo and actual containers. The idea of designing different labels around each container's different contents came up, but I think there's something in the uniformity of the label contrasting with the complexity of the trash inside. I also found these clear plastic boxes at the Euro Store (anyone need lots of silver curling ribbon and gift bows?!) that I'd like to incorporate...

I just looked at the final project assignment sheet from drawing ~~which I of course read through before now~~, and I think it would be more than a little illogical if I didn't combine the projects. "The (re)making of meaning / through materials / questioning 'lens' / through re-contextualizing objects / collections / display / displacement / display / categorization / labeling / issues of beauty / objects / utilitarian / adornment..." Um. So I need to find a way to include some drawn elements...

Alex's Week of Clarity

2009-04-05T11:39:00.007-07:00

So this week was really a week full of ups and downs. Trying to find some sort of meaning in all of the aggressive and emotionally charged grounds I've been making has been a difficult and frustrating process. Yet the moment when you see an image peering through the chaos has to be one of the most amazing feelings. I've been experimenting with revealing certain images in my work using erasers, white paint or both. Isolating certain parts of the drawings really gives them a new level of meaning and mystery to them to which I'm really becoming addicted. There is just something about seeing something in a new way that is both exciting and enlightening. I think this week I'm going to experiment more with different ways to reveal and cover. I'm going to try using tempera paint instead of gesso and possibly some rice paper. I have to see what I'll find.

I've been trying to read all of the readings we've been receiving in a new way so as to extract certain words or phrases that have either multiple meanings, words within words, or just some sort of interesting phrasing of something that resinates. Anyway, I'm rereading the infinite now for new meaning and some other works that we've been giving so as to try to find titles for my work. I think that is going to be the make or break of my project: the new meaning create when pairing a title with the work.

Sasha's Blog Post

2009-04-05T11:32:00.003-07:00

Working for the past few weeks with magazine clippings and dealing with the role of viewer and the viewed I have been having trouble finding a unifying theme. So I did the logical thing and went to the trusty old Encyclopedia Britannica and eureka! I stumbled upon an article about human geography and social science in the late 2oth century.

It states that places and people have no essential truth, rather they are fluid. Constantly meaning is being ascribed on to them based on context.

I hope to seek in my work questioning that ascribed meaning by asking who has dominance in the interplay of context and decision maker? Have those decision reduced a sense of individuality to a stereotype?

Jennifer FINALLY gets pictures up!!

2009-04-05T09:20:00.000-07:00

So between the flickr upload limit and my camera being dead, I haven't been able to post pictures in a whileeee, but YAY now I am!

I am just now realizing that we really only have about TWO WEEKS until finals!!! FREAK OUT...I mean I think I know what I am doing, but I am really going to have to time manage to get it all done. Unlike my midterm project, I am not combining my Drawing and Theme Sequence finals, which gives me twice as much work as I had during midterms...and that was too much work anyway. But I'm sure you probably want to know what I'm doing....

I have to decided to keep working with mirrors in my final Theme Sequence project. I was a little stuck last week because I liked what the mirrors were doing, but I wasn't quite sure where I was going with them, so I did a little mind mapping. I was trying to figure out what exactly mirrors mean to me, and the real turning point was when I decided to paint my favorite florence tree on a mirror. This tree has been pruned, so like all the decayed walls I am attracted to, it is imperfect. When we look in mirrors or glance quickly into glass windows walking down the street, it is most often to analyze ourselves, to make sure we look okay, and in that sense we are focusing on our imperfections. I want to take some of the other trees, statues, and walls I find attractive in their imperfections and paint them on other mirrors to create a mirror installation around this "dripping sky" I am beginning to create. It will hopefully be a reflection of my time here in Florence and how I have had to come to terms with and get over certain imperfections in my life to really appreciate my time here. My only predicament right now is finding the right kind of reflective materials to make the installation come to life.

It's going to be a busy week! Ciao!

how small I am

2009-04-05T08:35:00.004-07:00

I have to start this blog with the most mundane but still very true statement people use: this semester has offered me a very valuable lesson of life that is to realize how small and imperfect I am. Working very intimately with other classmates, so much of them being so talented, I have come to learn how much more I have to grow. Instructors usually say not to compare ourselves to others and judge our works, but sometimes, seeing how farther other kids are in the stage of their lives makes me become modest and it also motivates me to work harder. Regarding my drawing skill, (realized from the drawings we did at La Specola) I know now how much more I have to develop and regarding generating ideas, I now know how much more effort and time I have to spend. Having realized as such, I now am off produce more works dealing with the idea of who is observing/observed, seeing the unseen and etc.
Here are the photos that are somewhat irrelevant to my project, (but intriguing enough for me to relate back to certain ideas I'd have) and the video that plays with the concept of the 'reality' over the camera lens view.

-Soo

* * *

2009-04-05T07:42:00.000-07:00

To be honest, I am beginning to get really nervous. Since returning after midterms, I've followed every potential flicker, but I still feel as if I've yet to produce anything... good. or decent. I know those are subjective words, but it's wearing me down a little, especially with final projects so, so close.

Candles. What began as a mass of one hundred tea lights oozing wax unto my apartment floor (see above video) may have given me a direction in which I can more thoroughly explore. All the little "games" I played that involved the hide-and-seek nature of our own secrets were nice (maybe?), but I realize they were all rather literal, superficial ways of me exploring the desire of wanting to make our intangible, unseen emotions into something tangible, physical, and "real." One thing I discovered, however, in doing this is that a lot of times, words fall short. A sentence or two can't encapsulate how you feel, all the nuance of it. It becomes confined by the structure: by language and conventional expression. Trite. Maybe this is unavoidable. Maybe this is the best we can do... but we'll always be trying to break that barrier, to reach further, to come closer to what we actually are trying to convey...

And as I sat there, brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out Daisy's light at the end of his dock. He had come such a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it. But what he did not know was that it was already behind him, somewhere in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…And one fine morning-
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

[ sorry... found a copy of Il Grande Gatsby on the bookshelf at San Gallo and it reminded me of how much I've always loved this last passage... I probably have it memorized by now. ]

But, it's that sentiment. The candles, for me, are that burning, fleeting light... those moments of life in which you're walking the streets and suddenly realize you're breathing and you're alive and it's such a gift... who cares if it's raining or if you breathe deep into a cloud of cigarette smoke or what... just to experience things, to feel - it's such a profound, simple moment that you try everything to hold onto it there in time... but you can't. You're helpless. As soon as it's come, it's gone. All you ever have left is the memory, and every time you replay it in your head, it gets less and less refined... like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy.

I feel like our secrets, formulated in language, are the best we can do. They are the one-liners that spring from our interactions with the fleeting, ephemeral nature of being alive. They are our hands, reaching... and we know it. We know it's silly or hopeless or whatever, so we keep them hidden under our skin, only letting them stealthily glide over our thoughts or appear in our subconscious when we sleep.

I feel as if combining the imagery of the flickering candles with secrets could produce really nice results. I'm looking into the logistics of a (video?) piece where I release lit tea lights down the Arno, each candle paired with a secret, as a way of releasing them, but also of acknowledging their futility. As a way of joining the inevitable constant slip of seconds and moments, of admitting defeat... We can't hold unto these things; we can't verbalize or compact these things into language. We can't even define them objectively for ourselves.

Also, on that topic...

IF YOU READ NOTHING IN THIS POST, READ THIS:

I'm collecting secrets, if you'd like to donate. I'd really appreciate it. Anything is fine, although I'd prefer if they were anonymous and uncensored. You can type them if you really would like anonymity. Your secrets may be used, but they will probably be appropriated in my voice or handwriting.

There's a little white box on my desk in 41, as well as a little airmail envelope of torn down paper. However, anything is fine. I left paper to make it available, but I'd love it if you just added secrets on torn notebook paper, newspaper, found paper, etc.

I'd really love it if everyone would contribute just one "secret" (doesn't have to be big, just something "secret," even silly little things you just feel uncomfortable sharing with someone else)! If I can set up the box in another location or anything else that would make you more comfortable adding to it, please let me know.

THANKS THANKS THANKS!

as always...

Erin

Siena XI

2009-04-04T12:16:00.001-07:00

I'm interested in spider webs and the duality of a web as a home/resting place as well as a trap. I did some brainstorming via ink and nib mind maps (or mind webs, if you will) that could even be considered drawings if the viewer was astute enough to understand the diameter of the term "drawing." I'd like to do more with very watered down ink so the words are extremely subtle.

I also crinkled paper and dunked it in inky water then flattened the paper. The paper wrinkles had a webby look to them. I started stippling the drawings with a needle and when I held it up to the light there was a dazzling starlight effect. I was hooked. I started working on only stippling in between the weblike lines. Holding it up to the light made the paper look like a delicate leaf. After I had done a bit, I looked at it on the lighttable with a magnifying eyepiece and the ratty piece of paper I started with was totally transformed. It took on connotations of the night sky, an aerial view of a city at night, etc.

Later I experimented with putting photo paper underneath the stippled paper and exposing it to light. Then I tried putting the paper in the negative carrier. The results were very interesting. The ink splashes blocked the light and my enlarged photocopied shortmarks drawing comes through from the backside. The prints look sort of like diseases or something. You could even say that it takes on properties of both the intimate and the infinite...

Leah's week ten

2009-04-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

One thing I have found out this week: I do my best work in the few minutes after class has finished. On Tuesday, after doing spending all day taking apart a pomegranate and trying to see how it was organized, I had my talk with John. At the very end of talking, he told me to try pressing the beats into paper instead of chopping them up and making dye. So after class I experimented with this for a few minutes (which turned into an hour and a half). The results were INCREDIBLE! You can clearly see the veins in the beat leaves, and I pressed a whole beat as well. I discovered that a rolling pin works well, and fabric actually works better than paper. I'm now playing around with embroidering them.

On Thursday, it was proved yet again that my best work is done after class. I had been putzing around all day, rather slowing, (but I was enjoying it!). Then when Regan told me to hang up everything I considered a drawing, I quickly went through my pile of grounds, and stuck my stickers down. 70% of my work was done in ten minutes.

I'm really trying to keep drawing and theme sequence separate for now, because I think I'll be more productive if I do two projects. It's working right now.

High for this week: beating beats.
Low for this week: trying to make a mold for my little saints, but it definitely didn't work, and I realized why I had shown off plaster in 3D. Such a mess! (and I'm not afraid of messes.)

Also: I discovered that I'm a post-postmodernist this week, and here's a website that people might be interested in.

Precosious Cats

2009-04-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

So this week has been good if a bit fast moving in the ideas evolution part. On tuesday I decided the books would be part of my final project and came up with this elaborate plan of a walking library wich turned into an infinity of books just like in ones mind are an infinity of thoughts but after talking to John decided to make an ilusion of an infinate number of books (ie actualy possible) instead. I loved this idea especialy as it deals with my love for infinity and mirrors. I was still working out how to have some readable though and dibating if I wanted to give many of the books away as part of it. I had that almost compleatly worked out. Then I talked to regan and it died. She talked about making my paper flapper dress with the books and each tassle being a book. Me, realizing that was a nearly infinate number of actual books, freaked out. I went running and then realized dude its just a sugestion. I dont have to follow it. I can take from it what I want. As it was, the many book idea I did not like because I felt it would be too crafty and buisy. The eachstrand special and using found grounds idea I do like though. Oh futher consideration ther are ways to do this and still look sheek. (PS there is an AMAZING) art exibition wit hpaper remakes of actual court dresses and clothers all to sdize and detail . They are AMAZING! Note I need to tell Regan sory about freeking and snapping. I got defensive with my work. She is hear to help. She is not telling me what to do. I do not need to attack her.period.
So rorry Regan if you read this.
Anyway now for what I am doing. I realized that it is important for me to get this out of my syster and that i need to finnish my intermidiat steps(id my frirst idea projects in order toi move on efectivly from them) so I have made enough books to ring the standard gallery room depending on how I space them (messured it out), or to efectivly fill the mirrored box of infinity. I also (hopefully by tonight) will finish that white flapper dress with signitutres that I started. Even though it will not be the final I think its mechanics are still an important step in my project and it is not a step that I can /should skip over just because conseptualy I may be past it. Getting stuf done is important to me and I need to know that I can finnish something.

Anyway I will be editing this likely tomorrow or sun / adding pics but choue 4 now.
the Precosious Cat

Maramac progresses. Muscle by muscle.

2009-04-03T05:02:00.001-07:00

Theme sequence progress will hopefully accelerate once I've completed Mucha's cutout—I was working at a snail's pace, having to simultaneously reconstruct the pieces on drawing paper as a "negative" image. A day or two ago I lost interest in that particular side-project, deciding it took too much time and was visually less interesting than I anticipated. Since then progress has zipped along, so I should be able to play with the product within the next day, for once actually having a "work of art" to show for next Thursday. Crossing my fingers that the preparation was worth it (funnily enough, I first thought the finished cutout itself would be the work, but over time it's turned out to be merely step one).

Upcoming photos this weekend.

Update: Here are the photos to some of my work from this past week, including from the drawing portion of class, the running theme appearing to be cutouts. Also a couple photos of my finished Mucha cutout, under different lighting circumstances (and the last is a photoshop paintover, to preview the effect if I applied acrylic to it).

La Specola--Anna's weekend

2009-03-31T12:47:00.000-07:00

This weekend among other things, I went drawing at La Specola. Having taken anatomy last semester, the wax models of the people fascinated me! Here are all the things I couldn't understand in the book shown in 3d form! I ended up drawing a face and an eyeball, and I started thinking about the reading we were given, the one about Mr. Wilson's museum. I kept looking at this model of a head with all the muscles of the face and thinking 'okay, these muscles are what contract when you're happy, these muscles furrow your brow, maybe for confusion..." and so on. It would be really interesting to me to do an over-the-top diagram of very specific emotions, trying to pinpoint exactly what muscles work together to make our facial expressions. It just seems so interesting that the way we communicate with other people, through facial gestures, is controlled by whether the muscle cells in our faces kick out or invite in sodium or potassium ions. Sure, this is an oversimplification, but it just seems so strange to me the idea that something can be broken down that way. If I did a work like this, it would be with the irony (or lack thereof) of Mr. Wilson: "Sure guys, this is all there is to it! These (x number of) muscles are what make you smile!

Maramac specolates.

2009-03-30T13:20:00.000-07:00

This week's theme for me: stuffed animals. The Specola had me running around like the 6-year-old I am, gawking at everything from the gruesomely impaled insects to the anatomically incorrect hippos. Multiple ideas began to take form in my head, elements I wanted to incorporate into upcoming projects.

Foremost was the idea of a field journal, something like what an 18th-century explorer might have kept. The watercolor pencil/ink combinations in my sketchbook reminded me of Audobon's illustrated birds, or some botanist's tropical fieldwork. I became interested in a sort of "Specola of a Specola," creating cutouts of these specimen-sketches and pasting them into another moleskin, much as the specimens themselves have been skinned and had their hides reassembled for display.

My latest development has been collecting receipts (a recent subject of interest), to create grounds from a commonly received but quickly forgotten object. And there are so many. A quick jaunt around the studio, requesting said unwanted objects, generated quite a handful. Considering their flimsy, "fluttery" quality, I decided to try doing cutouts or sketches of wings (insect, avian, or otherwise) upon the varying-sized papers. This morning was another spent in the Specola, where I tried to sketch as many differently-shaped wings as possible to try out on this new paper. Tonight's experimenting will hopefully show promising results...

felephants are good at remembering things.. like blog posts

2009-03-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

j'ai oublie!!! ho dimenticato!!! wo wang le~!!

ANYWAYS. i'm still putting my faith in this notion of being okay with not knowing what you're doing. so, instead of illustrating something, like i did last week, i've been trying to recreate an experience or a sensation. i've moved on from ballpoint pen to ink and acrylic, and into larger pieces of paper, as well as fabric. i've also incorporated some stitching. while it is still unclear as to where i am going in terms of the final project, i am also finding myself going back to video and working with projection and installation, which surprises me a little. for a while i was almost going to install tons of little motorized elevators, enough to fill a room, but then decided against it, perhaps because it would've really be acting like my drawings from last week. but i've also been playing with a similar idea, though, using a projector to display a film on elevator-like forms..?? why and how, i still don't know. i supose those are the questions i should be asking myself about my project in general.

i'm sorry, i'm in the midst of many things and i'm not really sure what to write. also, my camera went missing for most of the week. but i guess the good thing is, there's a pile of work filling up the wall space in front of me.

until next week!!!

/edit/

PHOTONNNNNNNNNS

/edit/

Rachel does exist!

2009-03-30T05:35:00.000-07:00

Gah, sorry to all those who might have been awaiting an entry from me. I don't know if I can figure out how much is new news at this point.
So, update: I am pretty happy with where my work is going. I have this idea for an installation that's hopefully going to be pretty horrifying (only an art student, right?). I was going to work on it a ton next weekend but got back too late Friday to buy plaster and discovered that the mesticcheria where I buy it was closed all weekend. Definitely a letdown, and even though I guess I couldn't have done a lot to fix it, I felt like I had failed somehow. So instead of working on my installation this weekend, I tried to work on my earlier storybook-with-illustrations idea. Somehow though, I couldn't shake that feeling I had failed, so I kind of just wrote a bit more before slouching down and hiding on the internetz and in a book. I wish I didn't do that; it only ever makes things worse to run from them because then the consequences are bigger once they finally catch up to you. But now I think I am on a better track. It also helps (no offense, guys) that my family left and I can concentrate and work better. Just, with all the stupid little things I keep doing, like not being quite prepared for a class and, gah, losing my sketchbook, and showing up late to drawing perspectives, and unthinkingly using Sienna's mug to pour wax in, and being too busy hiding from the fact I haven't done anything to get anything done... I really hope that stage is over. Please, thanks, bye.
I guess I should describe my projects, huh? Well, my installation involves a lot of body parts (hands, arms, legs) cast in wax hung from the ceiling, with sutures sewn in and maybe sewing patterns cast in near the surface. Poles are supposed to go through these limbs from wall to wall, making a crisscross. The "wounds" in the limbs "bleed" to the floor, also in crisscrossing lines, and then become (variably legible) writing where they meet the floor. I am debating whether or not to leave a part of the floor clear to allow the viewer to travel to the back of the space and open a cabinet there with a journal of some of my freewritings in it.
So before you (cough, family, cough) freak out on me I would like to say that I couldn't really pinpoint for the meaning of most of the events in the installation. The whole idea kind of just popped into my head, fully formed. It also doesn't seem to want to alter itself overmuch, so we will see how cooperative my materials and the laws of physics are with it.
My other idea, the storybook one, is about a little boy who lives in a world where all little boys have doors in their stomachs, which they are supposed to never open. Of course, this boy does. What I have written of it so far can be found here. I feel a bit better about it now because I have a clear mental image of at least what I have written so far in its illustrated form (I would show you my sketches but I forgot my card reader. As the italians say, ops.
Anyways, I shall be posting again soon to make up for my tardiness here. Thanx, ciao tutti ^_^

Daniel Stephen Greenberg, Identity Denied

2009-03-30T04:24:00.001-07:00

So after the tragic crashing of my computer and loss of my cell phone, my camera and several of my cards from my wallet were stolen last night. Overall, I can’t help feeling like I am loosing myself, even though these are only material losses. Along side with the article concerning creating a consciousness, which becomes G-d, I think I am becoming more interested in how people become mentally invested in/attached to mechanical or manmade things. In order to speculate the idea of something manmade becoming G-d, a sentiment concerning the remarkable power and societal importance of machine must exist. I am not 100% set on my idea for the (re)making of meaning assignment, but I am pretty sure it will involve things that define us through an individual lens, in which our sentiments become projected on objects. Essentially, there is an active individual creation of the world around us, and this is what I am interested in. But this is not to say that it is meaningless, but that our interaction with the world is actually an intimate one.

On a side note, lately in my sketchbook, I have been recording things a little more realistically, and taking more time, which I find a lot more fruitful, and allows me to get into a rhythm with sighting and drawing, which I have only been able to achieve previously when working in color. Although I still have a lot to aspire to in terms of craftsmanship in my drawings.

Also, I completed a large drawing using beats and blueberries to create transparent tones, and I am getting ready to tackle a full color drawing, and seeing if I can use color to project my individual experience with the subject of the drawing, in a legible fashion.

Oh, and I have been trying to keep up with my work with string and yarn, but I am still looking for more fruitful results.

Monica MC the Taxidermist

2009-03-30T04:24:00.000-07:00

I think the thing that left the biggest impression on me this week was our visit to La Specola. I loved the animal collection so much: the hodgepodge way they are stuffed into the shelves, the strange, seemingly unfit expressions they have, and the grotesque stitching that stretches their skin over a frame. I think it made such an impression on me because, without realizing it before, I was doing just the same thing. I had spend hours sewing together my big blue whatchamacallit in a process that seemed similar to how these animals were stuffed.

After hearing all about the final project for our sketchbook class, I am compelled to make a number of these strange animals and create my own mini La Specola, playing on the collection theme. I really enjoyed the process of creating the first one, and after spending some time in La Specola I'd like to play around with different ways of scale and presentation (mounted heads, mounted on branches, etc).

Pictures here, including all the shots I got from the wonderful gardens this weekend.

As if

2009-03-30T04:23:00.001-07:00

People sometimes wish that the others are in their shoes, you know, out of desperation, or expectation. Likewise, I sometimes want people to be in my position to wholly understand why I am, what I am and how that feels like. I was thinking that this is one of the reasons why a lot of people write because the words could set the readers up in position of the author. Not having been the best with expressing my self with words, I turned toward other method to communicate with people and that was the through image, a lot of them, in a consecutive form, or as it is often called, a video.
So, now I was set with what tool or method to communicate with people, I needed to know 'how' I could effectively share with others what I see, what I feel, and what I think. For the past few weeks I have been playing around with the idea of different perspectives or lens. Then, it came clear to me that if I use the lens of the camera as one or the other person's point of view, not as a wall that is in between the object and the observer in specific times and specific settings, what I record in camera could transcend those specific settings to speak with the viewers, at any moment, as if we are both in the moment and the ambient of that recording, which could also help reenact my experience of being incapable of communicating with words when I first jumped into the foreign world, America.
Now, I am getting ready to take my viewers to that awkward and not so pleasant moment or the ambient of my life, which a lot of people (I'm guessing) might also have experienced in their lives, but maybe in different forms of incident.
The part that I'm trying to figure out now it the healing part, since I do not want the viewers to leave the exhibition stuck in the awkward moment and uneasy feeling. I'm hoping the works that I produce would offer people the moment of alleviation.

-Soo

in which grace tries to be creepy/scary

2009-03-29T16:35:00.000-07:00

I am now thinking about common fears/phobias. Many people have a fear or an aversion to spiders or snakes. But why? I thought about how fears might connect us, might be a part of what makes us "human."

Last week I found this image from the movie Silence of the Lambs, and I found the placement of the moth over her mouth very striking. So I've been thinking about the relationship between an object of fear and the body, and the specific body part, etc., and I've decided to work with insects as a common phobia.

I am still working on the technical aspects of creating my moth/insect room. I've been working with photocopies and cutting out certain parts, or repeating an image to create a mass of insects, a la Hitchcock's Birds or the 10 plagues of Egypt as recounted in the Bible. I think there is a certain power in numbers where, although one locust might not be very intimidating, a whole swarm of them certainly is. My job for the rest of this week is to keep on with the cutouts to see what best produces the desired effect.

Pictures here.

Jennifer is still working with mirrors....and yarn?

2009-03-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

So amidst trying to figure out what to do with my scraped up mirror and semi-mirror door, a crazy idea for a huge installation came into my mind. I, for whatever reason, decided I wanted to have a ton of yarn / string hanging from the window in the little back room with mirrors attached here and there and the floor and walls reflective as well. Then, I started to test this thing out and went out and got this really weird fuzzy thick yarn stuff and found that when I split it into smaller strings, it had a whimzy effect. I was hanging it from the ceiling and when I stepped out of the room and back in I realized it looked like the sky was dripping into the room, and I was like, "Cool". So...I want to play with this idea that with the walls maybe being reflective as well as the ground, it will seem like you are kind of in the sky.

Aside from this,...when I was talking to John about the painting, he pointed out the difference in texture in the way I had drawn the tree and the texture of the background. He said it would be more dynamic if one was textured and the other not, in order to heighten the contrast. I want to play around on a smaller scale what happens when I make just the background textured or just the tree. That's pretty much what I'm working on this week!

Ciao Ciao

Monfoo is sorry that the little back-room of studio smells like prosciutto

2009-03-29T15:10:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it smells disgusting. Sorry Monica M., Alex M., and Rachel.

1. Ok, so I started out wanting to create forms that had what was supposed to be Miss Piggy's guts pouring out of them, but I'm finding that that's not really necessary, given that the mystery of seeing my little patches of prosciutto sitting around without an obvious source is actually more powerful.

2. With these patches of prosciutto, I'm making a reinterpretation of my family tree. Not a physical "tree," but so that each little island of meat represents a nuclear family and the number of pieces of prosciutto sewn together in that island represent the number of people in that nuclear family. How I will arrange these nuclear fams is still a mystery to me, but we shall see I guess.

Ciao!

megan&breakfast.

2009-03-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

My ridiculous, circuitous path has brought me back to where I started... food and places. More specifically breakfast foods and world maps (as well as lots of other tickets/scraps/etc). There may also possibly be a ninja adventure involved...? We'll see. I'm trying out the Nike route and just doing it.

Anyhow, I'm attempting to storyboard some of the scenes. And after thinking about it this entire weekend I've managed to complete...

ONE. Which is frustrating. But it's worth it to spend all that time now. I know from the test run that all the effort of planning makes the actual filming way easier. It also leaves me time to be spontaneous with the story when filming instead of wasting time fiddling around. I had hoped to get the first scene all shot and everything this weekend but I realized that I'm going to need a lot more preparation because it grew to be longer and more complex than I anticipated (i.e. I need to make fake eggs and toast). In the mean time, I've been looking up tips and programs to make the technical aspects of shooting/editing more efficient.

Photos under title.

code-name VC Jaureg

2009-03-29T14:18:00.001-07:00

You are agent code-name VC JAUREG. It is your mission to create a blog post that describes the project you've been working on. YOU decide how you want to convey your thoughts.

Will you write the blog post in your new persona, or attempt to describe your persona instead?

(/end nerd). So, I finally figured out how im writing the narrative...heh. (agents, double-agents, code names...) It was a streak on inspiration: actually no, it was desperation. If the PBS video was funny because I was so seriously imitating it...then, if I'm writing a Choose Your Own Adventure narrative, why not write it to the same level of literary mastery as the books? The intro to the CYOA website told me I had the right idea. It's literally a spoof of itself.

Aside from that, I've actually written of few chapters of the story, I've been working on my Flash skills, and practicing drawing different expressions in prep for our drawing seminar thing Tuesday...

signing out- sshhhhssssshhh: VC JAUREG.

Hollywood

2009-03-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

This week I did a lot of thinking about where I wanted to take the things I was working on. I have a lot of different projects going on at once, which actually really helped keep me busy and producing. Once we were assigned our midterm project, I felt like I was so close to combining what I had been doing with my drawings, but I couldn’t put it together. I kept trying to figure out what it was that was there, but that I couldn’t find, and took quite a few videos at Il Giardino di Spoeri that interested me. At first I realized I had been taking videos of people’s hand movements. But I also took videos of water in a fountain, a bee on a tree, and bubble wrap flapping in the wind. I am still interested in capturing these brief moments in time. Ultimately, I looked up Morris Louis, as recommended, which took me to another artist’s blog. I was inspired by her work where she paired chairs with masterpieces based on their color, characteristics, and shapes. Somehow the chairs, when places next to the paintings, just fit. THUS, now I’m inspired to arrange groups of my own making….to start with: MY chair/throne.

I also have a really cool idea for what to do with my huge canvas that I just thought of tonight, but it might take some convincing and some time to actually complete. I’ve been frequenting this Cuban club across the river lately, and it is so energizing. I love to latin dance, and I actually shot all my pictures for my photo project there this weekend. I want to find a couple or two that would be willing to put paint on their feet and dance on top of the canvas! (I want to participate some too) So I need to become best friends with these people so I can have them participate!

Here are some pictures from the week.

holly g

Alexandria week...i've lost count...

2009-03-29T14:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I still feel a little lost but I guess in a better way because i have lots of little ideas running around in my head and drawing and theme sequence are kind of getting mixed up but thats okay. I really like the idea of collections and all those taxidermy-ied/"stuffed" animals at la specola, (especially the millions of birds and amazing nests) I guess maybe because i spent half a semester making a form of stuffed stuff... So, this week i have been covering a lot of stuff white and painting over stuff with gesso and I'm kind of thinking about what we preserve or add back on top of things (like all the frescoes around here) or where pieces are missing out of them or one has been just totally transported or where one is found under a newer one. As well as making reliefs out of fabric and combining them with other drawings. Also, I was thinking of making the actual forms of the drawings on my dolls as little figurines out of white modeling clay (maybe cover them in fabric? some weird blob shape of a taxidermy doll?) thats a little creepy but anywho... and displaying them in a specimen sort of way and i feel like all the white has that museum/gallery feel (so its like that distance and attachment at the same time thing maybe?). i've also been making lots of little drawings/combinations of drawings out of the outlined figures but i'm not positive where those are going yet but i like them so i'll see...

here are some pictures of work this week and a few cool photos

// Laura Javier // 08

2009-03-29T13:21:00.000-07:00

I started out this week with the plan to design "Reductio Ad Absurdum" packaging for a bunch of random objects. My first was a soup can label; I bought a can of soup, removed the label, took label dimensions, completed half of the label design, then... got hungry and ate... the... soup...

So then I was basically left designing around a piece of trash. Aaaand, I've decided to design packaging for trash.

The plan is to collect trash... or litter, really... at the top touristy sites in Florence (the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, etc) and package them individually under the name of a line called 'Rejectables'... collectibles... 'Rejectibles?'... 'ibles' looks like 'mandibles' to me... anyway.

I think I want to put them into clear wine bottles to recall those 'ship-in-a-bottle'...s. Then I'd display them on their sides so they'd be more palatable as objects -- as opposed to upright wine bottles full of garbage that still suggest potability. Che schifo!

From there I can play with different types of bottles... maybe the Duomo and the Uffizi each gets a full blown wine bottle and Via San Gallo gets a small sparkling water bottle... or a plastic water bottle.

Then I'd present the collection under the guise of a window display complete with price list, posters, etc.

--- - - - - C L I C K - - - - ---
current classwork
tourist photos // past work
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Noah's little boxes of heads

2009-03-29T10:19:00.000-07:00

I am making a pile of heads, of that much i'm sure but i'm not entirely sure where we're going from there. I want to find a way of making these things interact with people, pigeons, cats, traffic and each other. i like the idea of taking 2 dimensional images and giving them a real physical presence. I'm also excited about trying to get other people involved in this project. I have made a facebook group requesting that everyone send me pictures of themselves to use as source material. we'll see how it turns out.

join the group! send me pictures!

2009-03-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks I have been stressing over how I am going to move on from mid term. I was trying to find some complicated theory I could apply to my work. Then this week I realized why am I killing myself over trying to come up with something original at the expense of not making anything at all.

So I locked myself in studio and did whatever I wanted and ended up with a desk full of geishas? Right where I left of at midterm...

But I have to ask myself what is my attraction to geishas and their hair? Its not very deep but the only theme I got behind thiw work is geisha hair.

Geisha hair made out of plastic trash bags and an umbrella from Grace.

big Geisha head

experiment with acrylic and magazine

geisha work space.

Chapter 11: In which Sylva's objects overflow their shelves.

2009-03-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

Reading the articles, I was thinking about wet verses dry mounting, and how in some ways wet mounting makes things more creepy/disgusting, but also more legit. Retaining their liquid, they seem to retain more of It's clear that a wet mount is not just a stuffed animal. Some of Specola's monkeys could be mistaken for children's warm fuzzies. Infatti, some of the animals seem quite poorly taxidermy'd by today's standards and then become either a) fake/stuffed animalish as the fill doesn't match a real body b) creepily gaunt and skinny as the flesh shrinks to the inner framework or c) frankensteinly disturbing with the obvious stitches and piecing together.
It's been a trying week for me, and I thought when I knocked my bottle of shampoo off the overloaded shelf in the shower for at least the 15th time this week, that I'm in the same situation emotionally right now, that when I try to set anything on the shelf, or I bump into a mental wall, some ofl the jars that have been piling up crash to the floor and break open and I'm struck with a nausea from the wave of fumes from the preservatives before I try to rebottle the specimens and put them back on the shelf to dissect later. I want to actually create this metaphor with physical objects, creating more of an old-school wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities than a modern museum, all full of cleanliness and white space. (Blech!) I like the idea of dealing with this messiness, the way art works, natural objects, "freaks of nature," relics, etc. were all cataloged together rather than categorized separately, given boundaries and their own museums. I'm also interested in doing more book binding, and hopefully Susanna and I will get together this week so I can learn an alternative process for printing on cloth.

Siena X

2009-03-29T08:44:00.001-07:00

A large part of this week was spent nailing a grid into the ceiling above my studio workspace. I essentially made a ground on the ceiling.

Originally I intended to hang dead plant matter. Sort of a pathetic canopy look. But I've been drawing with string on the ceiling and I like the idea of a drawing in flux. There's erratic line layering thanks to type of string I'm attracted to. Hooray.

In other news, I really like drawing now. I enjoyed messing around and making some good ol' reggalurr grounds ieri. (I even threw in some pinecone action.) Today I returned to La Specola and drew the pinecone animal for a long time. I guess that's a continuing theme. I keep coming back to the tactile allurement of wobegone sticks begging to be noticed.

WHOA....Jorie is actually posting on time....YEE HAW!!!

2009-03-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

Score! Slam dunk! How, in the name of President Napolitano's most enormous Y-Fronts, did this happen? Perhaps I've attempted to put a new foot forward, completing all assigned tasks in a timely manner, and attempting to remedy my typical block-headed approach to work.

Ha..... well, I'm trying!!

In terms of art making and work, I've kind of gone back to the drawing board; basically, square one. Come come loves, square one is where it's at! Mad party- anyone care to join?

Lots and lots and lots of experimentation at this point- writing, making notes, sketching, painting.... basically whatever comes to mind. Painting has made itself a clear presence in my current process. Damn, it is an animal! Frisky frisky.... anyways, I've been painting on the photographs that I had used for my midterm project, and putting them in a context that solves the other half of the equation. My theme has been circling around the idea of vulnerability, but the unanswered question was always why. Why is this person vulnerable, what about her situation makes her feel particularly exposed, and why does she react to feeling vulnerable in this way? I have been working with placing the figure in different contexts with the paintings, and orchestrating a situation which might begin to answer those questions.

Alrighty chilluns, that's all I will bother you with for this week.

A dopo!

Jorie

Cat's post ....ops

2009-03-29T07:31:00.000-07:00

La Specola is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so I don't really know what I want to do....sort of.

I have two ideas which I think are sound but we shale have to see if either will work out. Oh well, never know if you don't try!
1. I am thinking of making a walking library (Reagen may grone but my primary reason is because I want to where it and act like a librarian) yes their are deeper things I have thought about but who deep down doesn't think that's a walking library is a little cool. Also it definitely is a transformation of a system. I am a bit leery though as it means I will have to make at least 500 books. I have 50 so far. And although I have enjoyed making many of them they can also be quite tedious. Still a skirt or whatever full of books would be cool. I have already started to make a biology section, La Specola, and a bibliography section.
2. Also I have been thinking about what John said about whats on the inside of my dresses and how do I want to present them. Do I want them to be central or part of something else especially as a sense of authenticity matters to me. I like the idea of giving the names behind the stereotypes. ( kind of what I was doing with the letters but hopefully with more finesse and meaning) I have been looking up women from the time period of my dress and have been writing their names on paper( tried it on the dress but it just looked weird) and plan on sowing them in. I Also made mini biographies for some of them. I am debating though if that is necessary of just a distraction. ( guessing the latter)
3, Sack it all and draw details of every animal or thing that interests me. Date and categorize them.
4. Sack that. finish a project that I started last year. (actually kind of serious about this one)
5. Sack that. Run away with a visiting German and become Angelina Jolie's tattoo artist.
6. Sack that become a traveling hanger salesman.

PS I my deviant will have allot of my pics. Striker313

Alex is drawing a blank!

2009-03-29T06:44:00.000-07:00

Ok so this entire week I've been experimenting making abstract expressions of mental states. I always somehow feel that I'm blocked, or can't communicate exactly what I want to say, or that people don't completely understand what I mean to say. Whenever anyone asks me (coughReganandJohncough) what my art means or what is my concept or theme or purpose, I draw a blank. I completely freeze up and the words somehow get lost in my mind. This is what I'm going to try to recreate in my art, a fuzziness, an emptiness, an uneasiness, a contained explosion.

I want to try to make some sculptures out of textiles. I've been really interested in these two textiles books I've purchased recently. I want to take wire and make this apparatus in which I'll situate myself in all black spandex, face paint, and the like and take a photo of it against a white background. Also, I was thinking of making this sculpture out of stockings so it'll be some sort of weird pattern in space that trap the viewer and dictate how he/she sees the "world" (or more likely studio 41).

Today I tried experimenting with ephemeral art and erasing and fleeting moments. I took some sheets of really durable watercolor paper and put them in the sink. Then I turned the sink on and preceded to pour ink into the basin. and watched the water do the work. What was left were the remnants of a few drawings in formation.

Results:

* * * - "secrets"

2009-03-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I've been driven by this desire to make and make and make all week... but I still feel like I'm only at a process level.

Taking from the newspaper bouquets, I've been really interested in exploring emotion that doesn't get expressed and how it could be translated into visual language. So... I've spent all week scribbling down thoughts and secrets, cutting up letters, and generally trying to obscure all the messages I felt needed to be expressed but not able to share with others. I began by writing down these things down on little slips of paper - "secrets," but mostly just silly things I just felt uncomfortable making explicit or having other people read. I hoarded them on my desk, upside-down, then went through and censored everything that felt uncomfortable sharing. Next, I put some of these secrets, uncensored, in balloons with silver glitter and heart-shaped sequins... the balloon's thin skin acting as a fragile barrier between my secret and the rest of the world. I wrote three anonymous but personal letters and sealed them up in envelopes with the standard glitter/sequin mix (who doesn't love opening mail and having confetti or glitter serendipitously spill everywhere?); these were hung in a tree in Piazza dell'Indipendenza for anyone to open and find. I wrote a letter, but then cut out all the words individually, so as to obscure the meaning. In all these situations, the goal was to express the things I wished to make explicit, but, because I felt uncomfortable or vulnerable taking them beyond myself, never actually set them free - like censoring my secrets or never letting the letters reach their recipients.

Through this all, I find that I'm really fascinated by this personal need to sort of "hold back," or why I feel uncomfortable sharing certain things with other people, even if they're silly or trivial or beautiful or should be said.

In terms of moving forward, I've been reflecting, but I still feel as if the adjustments I can make are only minor and that I'm still in a making and making mode. I may set up suggestive narratives (in photo? video?) where the balloons have gotten stuck in trees or where i fill all these balloons with secrets and glitter and helium and release them off into the sky... I'm also kind of interested in opening this up to others, maybe creating a sort of secret depository, where people can add their secrets (censored or not, anonymous or not?), but I'm still not sure. I guess largely I'm really investigating metaphors for all this emotion that goes unexpressed... but, is it even expressible in words, verbally? The more I write all these letters, I begin to think no; the emotion only gets limited. Can it be fully expressed visually? Is the build-up of all this stunted expression just sad? Where am I going with all this?

P.S. really into these things from il Giardino di Daniel Spoerri from this last Friday (where I very elegantly fell into a ditch with the whole bus watching). big surprise.

Until next time,

Erin

[ more photos. ]

Leah's week nine

2009-03-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

Life is flashing before my eyes. And before I know it, I'll probably be wondering what I'm going to do after I graduate. Oh wait. I'm already wondering that.

Anyway, whoever revamped the design on the blog, it looks very slick. Mi piace.

///

I changed the background of my pomegranate painting yet again, after talking with John, and I think it does look much better as an ambiguous dark brown color. I'm now working with trying to dye fabric with natural dyes to sew a quilt (possibly a star quilt--something with a radial pattern, like the lovely radial bursts that kiwis and oranges have). I had fun experimenting with that today.

I am also thinking about the drawing assignment, and I had an idea about "habits." I've been collecting tea bags and the little envelopes they come in, cigarette papers from the streets, my best friend is entering the convent (and thus will be wearing a habit) and then at La Speccola, I was pretty nuts about everything, but I've always loved hares, and would love to draw some rabbits to add to the habits.

Not wanting to get stuck on an idea right away, I want to keep brain storming. Another one of my ideas is to make bees wax candles of saints. I have an image in my head of possibly 144 little lit saint candles. I think they would look beautiful all together and smell lovely, and although it might be a bit "creepy" when they were melting, it's quite theologically sound, which I like, and I should always consider, at least. I don't want to make art that goes against my faith. That would just be stupid. I haven't fully read "Julian Schnable Paints a Portrait of God" yet, but I have a feeling that Julian and I see things very differently in terms of art and religion.

PS. I truly felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be when I was at La Speccola. It's my childhood fantasy come true.

Photos

Jorie is a big doofus....nothing new there....

2009-03-27T10:35:00.001-07:00

Okaaay fellow theme-sequencers, the much-anticipated Jorie blog...
This week I have started anew, with refreshed confidence and a new approach. Sometimes we get so caught up in the process of "making"/ "doing" work, that sometimes just the basics feel like they aren't quite enough. This week, I brought myself back to my primary love, that reeled me in to the art-making process in the first place: painting. So at first, I was dancing around the "To paint or not to paint" question, and with my midterm project I was trying to push different ways of art-making than with my usual painting and drawing. It was a little bit larger and more revelatory and insane than I normally do things, and I'm working towards using the paint and the figure as a vehicle for expressing emotions in ways that aren't painfully and annoyingly literal. Ah, we shall see!

....Jana, if you are reading this...

*INSERT ENORMOUS CROUD CHEERING AND STRANGE NOISE MAKING AND A UFFIZI-SIZE GALLERY OF STICKS*

that is a big enormous shout out to you!!! I miss you!!! Hope things are going well!!!

Love and Peace.... sorry, I couldn't think of a better stoner saying.

<3 Jorie

Chapter 10 In which the heavens open.

2009-03-23T14:44:00.000-07:00

I painted this week, because I needed to. I was simply overwhelmed with a desire to push paint around with a brush, maybe because I think through doing, and needed some kind of focused work. I'm planning to work more with photos and video this week though, and work with this idea that the process of creating one work leaves vestigial objects which can sometimes move into other works. I have a lot of interesting negatives I haven't printed yet, and the first structure of a film which I want to flesh out and execute.

I'm excited about the work we're doing in drawing, working with natural materials. Burning things. Especially the burning things. That, I like that. Also, I made a Siena style sculpture on the beach.

A strange theme to this week? Things fallen from the sky. Birds, pots, hail. . .

The Maramac is Back

2009-03-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

Back at it after a simultaneously restful and exhausting week. Activities ranged from trying out my new watercolor set on the Napolitan sunset, to getting my ass stuck in an aqueduct in Pompeii, to getting soccered out of this world by an FC Barcelona vs. Lyonn (Champions League) match. Suffice to say, the last activity ended up replacing a probably less costly shopping spree down Las Ramblas.

As I return to a considerably more touristy Florence, it's nice to think about art without midterms breathing down my neck. This time, producing a work in a week's time for theme sequence is considerably less terrifying than it would have been in January. Even with a slightly different approach and subject matter, it's become easier to ignore the art police running around in my head--just like I've learned to ignore the guys that catcall you as you're walking down the street. Sometimes they actually are asking for directions, and sometimes that art idea I have is genuinely stupid, but never hurts to keep walking.

To wrap it up, I'm hoping to turn this semester's focus more on my impending decision between art and medicine. Since I'm dual-degree in the Art and Artsci schools, I'll be spending five years at WashU to pin down both schools' requirements. With an artsci major in Biology and on the premed track, I've got two quite different interests to reconcile. After the comments I've received during crit--that my "disparate" interests of fantasy art, soccer, medieval calligraphy, and science, to name a few--I want to address what seemed irreconcilable. I'm interested in literature about anatomy for both artists and doctors, as a starting point, the simple shared ground we have with eachother. For this week's work, I'm taking a Mucha painting of a young girl and photocopying it on a magnified scale, then taping the A4 photocopy paper together to form one large image. From there, I've sketched out her muscular system and intend to create a cut out (perhaps playing with the cut-out pieces later as well).

So much for now, here are some pictures from spring break and beyond.

Noah back at it

2009-03-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

As the second half of this semester really is a continuation it would feel quite disjointed for me to start off with a blog entry posted successfully and on time. that said, this week has been fun for me. it's been nice to be back working but with a slightly less menacing deadline to worry about. that said my mindset right now is basically just to make, make, make and see what emerges. it's been fun for me to work in some of the ways that i did in my free time in high school but to approach it with a bit more seriousness. I'm doing alot of stenciling and layering paintings on top of prints on top of things that i find around. the nice thing is that i have the freedom to do generally what strikes my fancy but also the seriousness of purpose to come up with an idea and give it all of the time that it needs, be it 45 minutes or 12 hours. i've attached a completely accidental but i think sort of beautiful photo that was taken in greece over break.
ps. I got to watch the mighty viola sneak past sienna yesterday at the stadium. the pattern of playing 89 minutes of boring soccer punctuated by one ugly and completely undeserved goal continues. regardless, 3 points in the bag.

Basta? Danny Greenberg

2009-03-22T23:31:00.000-07:00

So coming back from the break the main issue that I am having is realizing when things are finished or require more work. For instance, I have built up some grounds in my sketchbook, and I think that I like them just as groungs. I am not sure if I should build up drawings over them. Similarly, for my theme-sequence work, I have started to make a three-dimetional head. Right now it is very simple. I like it as it is, but I am not sure if the sculpural element of this project is finished or not, so I am documenting the head in every stage so I can determine if it is being overworked or not. Overall I am in a good place right now, because I am in the zone, working pretty efficiently, so I will continue to do my work.

I will upload my photoswhen I can get them online, later today

-Danny

// Laura Javier // 07

2009-03-22T17:09:00.000-07:00

Welcome back, everyone!

In an attempt to make some progress for this week, I decided a few things:
I want to want to work on the project in the upcoming weeks.
I don't want to completely start the project over, but I'm now also hesitant to return to video.
Re: fluency, I feel most fluent working in the Adobe suite.
I enjoy design-based projects - the kind that unabashedly fall under the 'minor arts' category.

So I started last week by creating a bunch of quick "B-movie" movie poster variations based on one image from my midterm video. From there, I thought it'd be amusing to branch out and do the DVD release/soundtrack/"the art of" book cover designs to go with it. And then, to continue in the vein of absolute absurdity, I want to add to the collection, retaining in some way either the title/image... ranging from promotional calendars and t-shirts to packaging for shoe boxes, wine bottles, milk cartons, cereal... toothpaste... detergent... kitchen utensils... packages of... toothpicks... and... things. A reduction to the absurd! And I'd have the opportunity to play around with embedding things in fine print, logos, etc.

Sidenote: the anthropology museum was ballerrrrrr.

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current classwork
tourist photos
past work
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felevators.

2009-03-22T16:55:00.000-07:00

Everyone keeps reassuring me that it's okay to not know what I'm doing, where I'm going with my project. So yes~ I don't know what I'm doing. Which is okay, apparently.

But what I HAVE been doing, however, is drawing a lot of elevators in a comic book kind of style (with panels), except without much of a narrative. I'm not sure what inspired this sort of image in my head, but I've thought of this kind of space where there are just tons of elevators, always going up and down, up and down, on ropes (NOT the hydraulic system, mind you. I've been doing some research on howstuffworks.com) However, I'm beginning to find that it does hold a relationship to the themes I've been exploring in the previous semester as well. I suppose there's this idea of interior versus the exterior, a compartment or a body or a vessel carrying us places, a skin. And this idea of a skin is really what I've been thinking about. So as I've been drawing more panels, I'm moving into themes of the body, something physical, and how it feels to be you.

After my talk with John Sarra last week, some issues were raised, which helped me understand my own work. With the my midterm project, it feels like I've been really stating the obvious and expressing my own personal perspective, how it feels to be in my own body. But I guess the real issue is, how to inspire others to have this sort of attention for themselves. How to do this, I don't know yet. We'll see.

Anywhos! photos ----> x
(contains pictures of that one day when it hailed while the sun will still out. amazing gold lighting)

felicia

Jennifer reflects on mirrors

2009-03-22T16:44:00.000-07:00

Sooo during midterm critques I mentioned that the reason I liked working on all of these walls in Florence was because they made such great grounds...and so of course the teachers said I should make grounds myself haha. My original plan was to photocopy a bunch of my 15 minute drawings, which I did, and apply them to some surface and paint and take away and what not to create some grounds. However, on Thursday I walked down to the antique market looking for some old photos to use in the grounds and on the way back I came across some mirrors that somebody had put beside the dumpster, and I thought, "well I wonder what kind of ground I could make with a mirror as my base. And so begins my mirror obsession. I saw that some of the back was chipping off and you could see through the mirror, so I started to scrape away at the back and kept getting confused about which part was the mirror and which part I was looking through, and I thought that was really interesting. So right now I am playing around with what kind of illusions I can make and how I can use these illusions to enhance my focus on the layering of history and weathering on all of these walls.
I also went a little crazy and found this awesome chrome spray...and I sprayed this door I found on the side of the road, and it's pretty cool but don't know where that's going yet either...and then I found a big piece of wood and thought that would make a good ground and started to paint and apply things to that. So now I have three things that may or may not come together but I'm just trying to break my usual habits and just DO things without necessarily knowing the end result...and so far it's turning out to be quite interesting! I can't wait to see how things come together. Pictures to come...

in which grace joins the dark side...

2009-03-22T16:33:00.000-07:00

As much as I love them, I think it's time for me to take some time away from holes (what a breakup!). Since I don't think I'm working directly from my last project, I feel a little lost, as if I've started the semester over and started my gathering/collecting process all over again.

But looking back at my photos from spring break and this first week back, I think I'm interested in the same things I always was, but with a shift in focus. I was really struck by the gorgeous light and shadow in the Archaeological Museum in Naples, and I took more pictures of reflections in Lucca...What I'm fascinated by is the way light can completely change the atmosphere of a place, and I'm playing with that as I experiment with mood in my drawings, photos, etc...

I'm also leaning towards things with a dark/creepy undertone. I keep coming back to this monster from Pan's Labyrinth (isn't it great? isn't it creepy?):

I just find it bizarrely amazing that it puts its eyes into slits in its palms, then puts them up to its face to see...Hands and eyes are such powerful images, I think, that the juxtaposition of the two is jarring.

In terms of what I'm making, I have a million things going on - photos, drawings, videos, that empty birdcage that's just waiting to be used...For next week, though, I want to at least have my drawings sorted out. I'm using themes from my nightmares and trying to get at things people are universally afraid of...

Vivian Jauregui - disney always makes it look so easy; its not.

2009-03-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

So, I originally wanted to continue the story I had begun in midterm by means of creating a Disney-esque ride. I would take on the person of an Imagineer, and present a proposal for the ride with a model and sketches, and whatever have you. I spent a good amount of time researching this and planning out the narrative of the ride, but I decided last night after much anguish that I didn't think that the whole ride idea was going to work, because the narrative becomes twice removed (once in that I can't make my audience ride the actual ride, and twice because it falls under the second facade of a proposal).

Stressing out, I called my dad and he mentioned the interactive books we used to read. You know, the choose your own adventure kind. In those books you read and introduction and then make decisions for the protagonist that develop the plot. The "choosing sides" theme created by this kind of interactive reading really works with the theme of divorce, and so I decided to make an interactive video. The video needs to be created on Flash and exported on QuickTime. I've read a tutorial or two on how to do this, and it seems do-able, the only catch is I don't have Flash; I did download a 30 day trial however. I want to save installing it for a bit in order to ensure that I'll be able to use it during crunch time, the last few days before crit. If that doesn't work I have a few other options at hand to create the video, but if all else fails I'll just create an illustrated book, just like my original inspiration (that's the ultimate back fall - don't want to go there).

I want the theme to be the middle ages; (lords, ladies, serfs..) and make this for a pre-teen audience; So far, I've been working on the illustrated versions of my family members; a task that is way harder than I thought; it's taking a while to get them right. The plan is to get the characters right; and then draw specific scenes that would be the visual component of the narrated story for the different chapters. I've been studying Disney films to figure out expression; but am having difficulty with the adult characters (how to render them as older simplistically).

photos

- Viv

Dopo SB>>HG

2009-03-22T15:47:00.000-07:00

So its been pretty busy getting back from Spring Break. I have been thinking about where I want to go with my next pieces and I am really still in experimentation mode. I started out on Tuesday with a painting in effort to evoke a calm feeling. I used a color palette relating to the sea I saw in Greece over spring break. Water in general fascinates me, and on the boat I just sat on the deck watching the waves for I don’t know how long trying to follow one wave. But they all merge together and it is impossible to hold onto one for very long. The fluidity of the waves really mesmerized me. After this thought, I actually went back to the idea of performance over the weekend, but not live performance-more like filmed performance. I have an 8 min film of one event this weekend that was very Calming and Relaxing—to go with the painting, and another that is more passionate, that I may also create a painting about.

But I also remembered how music changes the mood of a film drastically. I played around on Garage Band and ended up making a short beat. I really want to try and continue this and maybe use it as a soundtrack for a larger film or music video of sorts. Or, I was thinking it might be cool to project the film onto my painting (it would be better if my painting was bigger though). But I couldn’t get the projector to work, but hopefully someone can help me with that!...oh technology.

I realized that although I am taking a different turn after midterm, I still do have similar tendencies. I have realized that I like taking single, personal moments and putting them on display for others to see. I like to make people look at these brief, habitual moments in time to realize how beautiful, funny, mundane, crazy, or strange they are when singled out. I feel like when a single moment is recorded in time it makes people pay more attention to it and try to identify with it more. This may also be why I like photography! I love catching people in their every day routine, which is a really hard. I may just have to get a little creepier to catch more of these instances on video or in photos!
I’m excited to keep working because I feel like I’m doing things I really want to do.
Ta ta for now!
Here are some pics!

-holly g

Monica MC Sews and Stuffs her Psyche

2009-03-22T15:03:00.000-07:00

I've come back from Spring Break more refreshed and excited to get to work. I had a very wonderful and relaxing week in Florence with my boyfriend, eating gelato and lounging in the Boboli Gardens. I took an overnight trip to Rome as well, and was totally blown away by the city. I now see why people complain about Florence being so small!

Now that I'm back it's good to do some old-fashioned manual labor. I decided to continue with my stuffed animal theme, but this time I'm making them on a much larger scale. I decided to combine stuffed animal making with something I've always been interested in: representing psychological states, personality types, and the subconscious. That's why I decided to design and create representations of the Id and the Superego. The Id will be much more wild and unhindered, while the Superego is the responsible, levelheaded type. I will eventually document my encounters with both characters, either in photographs or some type of performance (I'm sort of considering stop-motion animation).

In our Sketchbook class we took a trip to the anthropology museum, and I have to say I think it's my favorite so far. I loved the miscellaneous way everything was organized, and the artifacts they had there were just amazing (especially the shrunken heads and mummies). I think I'll be returning soon to get a closer look at some of those amazing masks and outfits.

Pictures of the Superego, as well as some boots I painted on: here.

Until next post!

Monica McClain

megan&wanderlust.

2009-03-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

Promise to keep it short! Anyhow...

Before break I decided that I wanted play with video as a new format for my cutouts and to further explore the light/shadow aspect which I think will, as suggested in crit, help me move away from the frames. But I also thought I might like to go back to manipulating maps again. So I decided to just make some things to get them out of my head and see where they go as separate entities as well as combined ideas.

After coming back from break and brainstorming a little, I realized that what the whole map thing comes down to is wanderlust. I love to travel. I feel the most myself and at home when I'm wandering all over the place halfway across the world. All of a sudden, I was ridiculously inspired and now have a million ideas in my head. I have a travel journal at home that is bursting at the seams with stuff... tickets, receipts, stickers, maps, etc. So I think I'm going to use all this to make my stop motion video which sounds vague but only because I have those million ideas floating around in my head and don't want to focus on only one just yet.

As I was playing with this, Regan sent me an email from an art contest which actually inspired the first little test run I did. I'm not sure I'll stick to just cutouts because I like the idea of having objects but we'll see.

Not only that, but there just so happened to be an international animated film festival going on when we were in Lucca yesterday. So I have a lot of thoughts/images/ideas to sift through in my head.

OH, by the way, photos linked in title.

the doors open-Soo

2009-03-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

Chances are given for the ones who seek for it.
or I think. Over the springbreak, I was given a long time to think about what I would do with my future as an artist or even as an art student for the next couple years. In the end, I decided to follow my long dreamed desire for making films. Then, the first week I came back from the spring break (which was this past week), I found out that there was going to be a Korean Film Festival at Odeon for a whole week starting on the 20th. When I dropped by Odeon to ask for more information, I realized that it was a bigger deal than I thought because the whole thing was sponsored by Samsung and all, and the directors and 'important' ppl were coming including one of the most repected director, Lee Chang-Dong.
On the big night, me and Felisha went for the opening night to see the film, since the reception beforehand was for 'the invited' only. However, it turned out that we also need invitations to watch the opening film. The first denial never holds me back, so I tried again to seek for a way around, and one of the staffs brought a fortune over us. She discretely handed one of the invitations to us so that we could get in. Finally, we both got in and watched the film, and the 'important' ppl as well. I rode the tangent line here a little bit, but the point is, that Lee Chang-Dong is coming to give a speech before his movie, Secret Sunshine (a sensational, deep movie) next tuesday, and I could actually be there to hear his words. Those words at this point of my life as an art student, who is trying to experiment with the path of life, will be inspirational, effective, and hopeful.
As far as my work goes, I'm opening up a couple options for myself, experimenting with different ways of filming and on different subject matters. But still, it is quite vague on exactly what I want to do. I'll see..as I seek for the chance.
Here are the photos I've taken this week (after the spring break), showing a couple effects I would possibly use in my film.

Anna's Week 6 (I think)

2009-03-22T13:42:00.001-07:00

After having left midterms week for the (cough cough) relaxation of spring break, my momentum sort of got crushed (because I was thinking all the time of catching flights or trains instead of of my art). I was worried that when I got back in the studio I would have nothing to work on, but 10 minutes into the brainstorming, I stumbled upon a project that was interesting to me.

Before I left, I was thinking about what it takes to say you 'know' somebody, or understand them. This is how it got started: one morning at breakfast I was talking to my host mom about what we like for breakfast, and we discovered that we both like il pane nero, brown bread; we prefer the cantuccio, or heel; and we prefer solo burro instead of butter *and* marmellata. (I've always loved the sweet taste that I get when I eat something with butter along with a glass of milk.)

During midterms, I told her at dinner that I might stay at the studio until morning, so she had Leah bring me my breakfast for me. There was my bread wrapped up in tin foil, and an entire carton of milk along with it! "Even milk?" I asked Leah. "Maria insisted.

It was such a crazy coincidence, I couldn't help but think about it. What a difference there was between the "Maria Sabino, mother, teacher, good cook" who was listed on my homestay form and the Maria who read my mind that morning.

So when I was came across the newspaper article titled, "Un' anziana* muore," I couldn't help but think of who that woman might be to the people who knew her. Was she someone who packed milk with her children's bread and butter for breakfast, the friend who always snorted when she laughed, the beloved grandma? How strange would it be for these people who know her like that to read about the 'anziana' who died?

And at that point I realized that I did just lose my grandmother--I can imagine how that feels! And not only did I just lose her, but the situation was very strange, with me being here in Firenze. The way that I didn't believe it was like the way you don't believe something when you read it in the paper. It took me until I had to write a letter home to even cry about it-- I feel like there was something more real about deciding what to write home, what people were thinking there, that finally made me understand.

So this week I've been experimenting with different ways to format and write a newspaper article to represent what it felt like to hear over the phone that my grandma was gone.

*This weekend I asked one of my new Italian orienteer friends about the word "anziana," and he said that it's more polite than saying "vecchia"--just to clarify for any anziani who might be reading.