I told you I liked the blog so much that I'd start my own weekly art blog:
http://leahardo.blogspot.com/
Consider using this slideshow format in your posts...
Friday, May 8
Monday, April 27
Anna's Last Post! Sto piangendo!
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:(
Cat calling
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
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
Saturday, April 25
Alexandria's LAST post
a little late...but here photos of final work! and I am sooo ready to go back home!!! :)
ciao!
Friday, April 24
Siena
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
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...)
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
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
Wednesday, April 22
Ålex J iswrapping up
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.
Monday, April 20
Monfoo didn't know we were supposed to blogggg!!!!
more later, we are in the middle of crits right nowwwwww!!!!!!!
Sunday, April 19
The Final Stretch! (Anna's post)
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!
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!
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