Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Lost Children

So apparently my computer is against me and did not hold the pics I took of the half plaster wrapped sculpted wire armatures of the the little dolls. As you can see from an earlier post the latex mold making on the little children figures didn't work for various reasons. It seemed another option for making these little figures would be to make multiple wire armatures and sculpt them out of plaster wrap around the wire.

As I made each by hand each took on its own personality. Taking a step back, the reason I wanted to explore this concept in this project is because I am constantly appalled at the level of apathy that has prevented so many good people from finding ways to make a difference. There are always many variables to consider and I've gone rounds with friends on this one, but I can't let go of the fact that this is our world and out there in the dark, right now as I type this, there are innocent children that have been taken from their homes and are being used in ways that are truly an crime against every human being on this planet. As a species sharing this rock together, who are we to not band together and protect our children, all our children?! People are letting the days of looking out for one another slip by and as they do those children, some of whom are not even old enough to say please no, please stop, or save me, are being left to live a nightmare. It's convenient for us that these crimes are out of sight and out of mind so I wanted to put them in sight, or rather gestures of them. The figures are meant to convey an emotion or idea about what that lost child must be going through. A way to put it back into peoples' minds.


After critique I now look at this assignment as a mockup for something else, a way to add some crucial finishing touches to the surface, and some interesting methods of display. With the plaster figures I have now I can try to make the molds again and perhaps have better luck. What is for sure is that this project has been, along with this entire semester, truly a enlightening and enriching educational experience that will continue on in much of my future work. Here are some of the final pictures and my apologies that my process pics have vanished.




Monday, May 2, 2011

Eee I Eee I OH

So on this show we has a project Ee I Ee I Oh,

And on this project we did multiples Ee I Ee I OH,

With an animal here and an animal there, here an animal, there an animal, everywhere an animal animal

So on this Project we have, THIS!






EE I EE I OHHHHHHH!

This project was for multiples and my first go round didn't work out so much. I couldn't get the latex mold making process to work for some tiny infant gesture figures.



In any case I found some tiny plastic animals that inspired me to repeat their form in a branching pattern that stretched out from a central location. I thought no better central location that a tree, much like a tree of life and that life is based in roots. I think continuing the pattern into some bigger spirals of animals to give the whole design a more DNA looking pattern would be more dynamic to its display, as was suggested to me.

All in all, huge learning experience, latex is annoying, but I shall master it, for as long as there is something to learn, I shall learn it!

Tune in next week for the Season Finale!!!

If I Could Turn Back Time

If I could find a way, I would take....Oh...hehe hello there. :)

Welcome back to the show. Don't you just love Cher!

Anyway, its that time again, time again for......ONE HOUR MINI ASSIGNMENT.. (insert applause)

So lets just say that this mini assignment had to do with being time based. There was time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to reap, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to laugh, a time to weep...ya know..a time to every purpose and all that jazz. This however was none of those times, a close friend was going through something crazy and thought about how there wasn't enough time anymore. Not enough time to put things off, to get school done first, to finish other projects, and not enough time to stop and tell everyone you care about how much they mean to you. And as I was thinking about these things I was carving on a candle I had burned, because like how all these things seem to slip out of our grasp, so does the candle burn. I found under the wax that the candle had gears that made it work and made it spin and made it burn as with the passage of time. I found that there were cool colors and warm colors that created friction between them that only the candle could hold. But like most things candles don't last forever and so as the candle burned, even after the project was reviewed, so did I hope it burned away the ill of my dear friend, so did i hope it burned away the pressure from an overwhelming sense of responsibility, and so did I hope it burned to heal and leave nothing but hope for the future.

For you sister bear with love. :)


I Shall Write Thee!

Well hello all,

Welcome back from that looooong commercial break. Today we will have an excited guest on the show and have pictures galore! Are you ready?!! Did you say ready? Cuz, uh, I can't hear you reading this, if you want to call....oh right never mind, of course your ready. :D

What we have here today is the final product for the MAJOR SCULPTURE PROJECT : SCALE!

Inspirations for this live wire of a piece is brought to you by none other than MY DESK! That's right folks, straight from Athena's desk, she saw it there, a quill, a pen, a thing used to put ink to paper and did you know it was sharp? Sharp like what you might ask....(did you ask?) Sharp like a sword, thats what and you know what they say right?

THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD!!!

Now how was this task accomplished you might ask, well they gave her fire, they gave her steal, and showed her how to bend it to her will! MURAHAHAHAHA!  ahem, anyway, the idea for the sword pen was born and as toiled with preliminary sketch after preliminary sketch something just seemed to be missing. Hmm, you know what, I think its time to introduce todays guest, give it up ladies and gentlemen for JENISA!!!!

You know what Jenisa says, What is a pen without ink? and you know what she was right. So we put our heads together and collaborated on the epic creation that was my giant sword pen and her huge ink well. This all came in parts of course.

First Part was the sword handle, ten inch steal tube tapered and welded together with 20 feet of pencil rod tightly coiled around the tube and about two feet of flat bar welded and twisted to complete the design. Behold!






After that came the pain staking task of getting a perfectly straight six foot long piece of clear fur 4x4. But find it we did, take back to the school we did, and me and the mighty Rob of the Sculpture lab ripped that wood so much it made its one point, or rather four of them. After that it was only a matter of cutting the quill head out of the steal panel and welding and bending it to be ready to put on the wood. All said and done the sword pen was born.



Once that part was done, we simply had to add the awesome ink well to make the delivery complete. What needs to be expressed more than anything is that we bleed for our art and our art is our voice to the rest of the world. No matter what we are saying with our work it is a precious language that we speak. So together Jenisa and I made ink for the well and wrote with the pen that would dominate any sword and be a instrument of voice.

I combined this idea with a print I did that is an example of how my voice speaks out in my work for human rights and social change.


As far as what I learned and accomplished in this endeavor I think this is one of my best pieces yet and I only hope to improve. Thanks Jenisa you are a rock star and we hope to have you on the show again!

Love for the One Hour Mini Project

Hello and Salutations!

Sculpture two at Cornish College of the Arts has made clear that a blog of some kind is useful. I am slightly resistant to adding more portals with which to monitor things, but I have come to understand how helpful a blog can be. In any case it is for Sculpture two that I create this tangled web and we shall see where that takes me.

As our first little bit of class work in this here blog we have the.... ONE HOUR MINI ASSIGNMENT (OHMA)!  This is exciting because it is a project I can do for funzies based on one premise or another and without the concern of having it finely finished for a class room critique. YIPEE!

For our first OHMA we had to make something out of found materials/reusable materials. I do have a fine little comic strip that I made describing my process, which I intend to scan and add to this blog, but for now the idea I had was thus.

I wanted to warp perceptions and make something mosaic. I have never worked in mosaic before. I found a tiny jar and wanted to mix two opposing elements in the same way that perceptions can oppose each other. So I mixed lamp oil and water in the jar with a tiny poem I wrote. (see comic strip for details). I then broke a larger jar, a cheap dollar store ceramic vase with gaudy art on it, and got out my air dry clay. The whole thing took much longer than an hour, but I was very happy with the experience. I created a fire lamp so that it might be a light in finding the truth of things. Below are some photos of the piece. Tune in next time for another exciting episode of........

ONE HOUR MINI ASSIGNMENT!!!!!!!


Thursday, April 21, 2011

Where Inspiration Began


The best place to start, I understand, is at the beginning, but I would like to work backwards hehehe. Right now I am about to end my sophmore year at Cornish College of the Arts. One year ago I got accepted to the art school I had been dreaming about since I graduated high school in 2002. Also, One year ago I got awarded an internship to begin a chapter of The National Society for Leadership and Success at Cornish College of the Arts.

A little over one year ago I completed, with a lot of help, a 700 square foot mural at a elementary school, I completed 900 hours of service for AmeriCorps Students in Service Program, I was nominated for the Jefferson Award by my former employer at the Service Learning Center at Cascadia Community College, and I graduated with my Associates in Integrated Studies from Cascadia Community College.

Shortly before that I was selected to be apart of the ALL-USA Academic Team. I am a member of two honor societies, a volunteer addict, and a passionate activist of human rights. A little over two years ago I made the choice to stop getting stuck in one dead end job after another and go to college. I had decided I wanted to be a teacher. About three and a half years ago I gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl. As you can see from what happened next, she inspired me, drove me, and still does to make a difference. Everything that I have accomplished was sparked because I looked into the eyes of my child and knew I wanted to be a parent that she could look at and know that she could do anything, be anything, no matter what.

I am on my journey to become an artist for change. It would not be possible if not for the encouragement from friends, the guidance from some dear professors, and most of all for the love and support from my partner. He is truly the greatest man I know and I don't think there are words to express that in a just way.

Going forward this blog is documentation of my journey from this point on. How I develop my art will be quite a roller coaster as I try new things and tweak techniques I already know. I hope I can make this interesting. Wish me luck oh dear interwebs. ;P