Wednesday, October 10, 2012
I'm Back Part 2
So carrying on with this such and such bla bla bla stuff.
This was fun, I did this back in digital imaging sophomore year, we needed to take an image of another piece of artwork and insert another image into it using photoshop. This painting is by Angelica Kauffmann and its called Cornelia Pointing to Her Children as her Treasures. Its one of my favorite paintings because it speaks to me as a mother who values children above all other things. So it was fun to insert my face in place of Cornelia's.
This was a sculpture that I did with my daughter when we were walking home one day. It was fall of 2011 and there were all these large lovely fall leaves on the ground. So we just picked up a whole bunch of ones we thought were pretty and brought them home. I had this old black mask that reminded me of the leave shape and some pretty colored yarn like fall. So Emily and I used my glue gun, yard, wire, and some sheer green fabric that was embroidered with vines and leaves to create this autumn fairy looking creature. This is not a complete picture of the sculpture, but its the one reference I have on my computer right now. I will endeavor to get a full pic of it up soon.
This was a fun ink and colored pencil drawing that I did. The image is really dark because I took it with a crappy camera (I have a new camera now). But despite how dark it looks I like that about it, because it feels more real to me when I think about how much a love Seattle and what it has meant to me.
This was an accordion style book that I made for my friends birthday present. It was also apart of an assignment for my book arts class spring semester of my junior year. I had all these lovely blank cards that had pretty red flowers embellished on the covers of all the cards and I thought about using the blank insides of the cards as picture frames for images that I found in a art catalog of some pretty paintings that I felt my friend would like. I bound the entire compilation in a fitted sleeve that closed with a jewelry chain that wrapped around an encased crystal bead to keep it all together. This was really fun and I am looking forward to making more of these in the future.
This is a painting that I did in my Biological Anthropology class when I went to Cascadia Community College. We were learning about malnutrition and how that has affected people all over the world. I was moved by the affect that this had on children, that the education and understanding of how food works and the nutritional needs of the human body are not understood and/or unavailable. That these are things we take for granted and that when I think about how I am just one person on this giant planet, but in a society so fortunate in the case of food that we feel nothing when we simply throw away our left overs, but that there are children in other parts of the world that when they physically can't move due to lack of food are believed that they are about to turn into snakes and are then taken out and left in the wilderness. The people that do that believe that if they go out the next day and the child is gone then it has become a snake and are left to wonder if the next time they see a snake that if it is their child. Yet what is obvious is that the children are then left helpless to defend themselves against predators and are likely eaten alive. Makes me cry every time I think about it. So I had to respond, I had to speak up and say something in the best way I could, through art. So I understand this painting is very heavy handed, and a hit over the head, but it was a sense of desperation and despair that I painted this with and a desire to want to bash the world over the head and scream in the face of apathy and say WE CAN SAVE THEM IF WE ONLY GOT TOGETHER AND TRIED DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Children should NEVER have to suffer like this, NEVER EVER EVER EVER!!!!!
Did You Miss Me!!
Well Hello,
Today is October 10th in the crazy insane year of 2012. This year is full of wonder, excitement, terror, turmoil, panic, and workworkwork. I just turned 29 years old, my daughter just turned 5, my daughter just started kindergarten, I'm in my senior year of college (as my fifth year of college in a row), I am claiming four disciplines for graduation (drawing, painting, print, and sculpture), I have a part time job with a great boss and co-workers that could give him a promotion after graduation, my husband just quit his job because we decided to purchase our own business (its a game store), I am taking care of merchandising and marketing for the business, we only have one car, I have an one and a half hour commute each morning to get to school on time and I work every single day of the week. So the thought of having to try to update this blog on top of all that is quite daunting as I hate things like face book or anything that involves putting your person on display because I like to keep most things private, at the same time I recognize that the world is against me on that and the best I can hope for is to be deliberate about what I am willing to share and in how much detail.
The purpose for this post is to update this blog with information about my art practice, pieces that I've made, and the crazy roller coaster ride that will be this journey going forward. So to start this I am putting up all the older pictures that I have on my computer with information and then future posts will have more current information, once I figure out how my new camera works.
So first thing I'd like to share is!
This is a mural that I did for Maywood Hills Elementary School. It came about while I was getting my Associates from Cascadia Community College. I established communications with the Northshore school District and offered to paint a mural for them to be kicked off on Martin Luther King Jr's Day of Service on January 18th 2010. Maywood contacted me for a mural and I worked with the principle to determine a space and content for the painting. We knew that we wanted influential figures to be in the design and we wanted the students to have buy in with the design as well. The principle related the desire for which figures to be included with Martin Luther King Jr. based on their involvement with civil and human rights issues. The figures chosen were Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and Caesar Chavez (I don't have a pic of that portion of the wall for some reason). For the students I created a home work assignment that simply asked them to either write or draw about what was their favorite thing about school. Out of 500 students I got about 60-65% of the assignments back and was able to put all of their ideas into the design.
The entire mural is about 700 square feet and is on two sides of a breezeway wall. We even painted the end caps. The grid method was used to transfer the drawing onto the surface of the walls. Parts of the design were in collaboration with Miriam Keith who was also attending Cascaida Community College at the same time.
The process for getting it all together was fun, I called Rodda Paint Corporate out of Oregon and told them about the project and asked if there was anyway they could help us. They were very generous and donated all the paint from the bone yards of their stores, and were able to provide some materials like brushes and buckets and such. So huge major whoopie thanks to Rodda Paint for all their help!
We worked it out with the teachers of all the classrooms to have their students come out in groups of eight or ten and we would designate sections of the design for them to choose from for painting. In most cases they got to pick the color they wanted to paint with. This was great because we got to talk to them about the design, their color choices, and how they thought everything would go together. They were very excited to see the ideas they shared visualized in the design.
For the initial Day of Service we had about eight volunteers come out, and that was mostly to remove the old artwork and boards from the breeze way and wash down the walls to get ready for primer. I also had a few more volunteers for getting the wall primed, but close to two months in it was just Miriam and me going out there. We had budgeted about three months to get the project done, but due to lack of volunteers we went past the deadline and it was my responsibility to finish. This was a very valuable lesson because the mural became another job for me and I was out there five days a week, rain or shine or snow, (thank goodness it was covered) for 5 to 6 hours at a time for an additional three months after the deadline to make sure that it got finished. I will never forget that experience because I learned so many things about the joy of teaching art to children, the satisfaction of finishing such a large project, and the passion and desire to continue to do public work that affects the community.
I now realize how long this post has gone on, aaannnnd I am thinking that I will just post some of my other stuff in another one so there because its my blog and I do what I want! :P
*hugs*
Today is October 10th in the crazy insane year of 2012. This year is full of wonder, excitement, terror, turmoil, panic, and workworkwork. I just turned 29 years old, my daughter just turned 5, my daughter just started kindergarten, I'm in my senior year of college (as my fifth year of college in a row), I am claiming four disciplines for graduation (drawing, painting, print, and sculpture), I have a part time job with a great boss and co-workers that could give him a promotion after graduation, my husband just quit his job because we decided to purchase our own business (its a game store), I am taking care of merchandising and marketing for the business, we only have one car, I have an one and a half hour commute each morning to get to school on time and I work every single day of the week. So the thought of having to try to update this blog on top of all that is quite daunting as I hate things like face book or anything that involves putting your person on display because I like to keep most things private, at the same time I recognize that the world is against me on that and the best I can hope for is to be deliberate about what I am willing to share and in how much detail.
The purpose for this post is to update this blog with information about my art practice, pieces that I've made, and the crazy roller coaster ride that will be this journey going forward. So to start this I am putting up all the older pictures that I have on my computer with information and then future posts will have more current information, once I figure out how my new camera works.
So first thing I'd like to share is!
The entire mural is about 700 square feet and is on two sides of a breezeway wall. We even painted the end caps. The grid method was used to transfer the drawing onto the surface of the walls. Parts of the design were in collaboration with Miriam Keith who was also attending Cascaida Community College at the same time.
The process for getting it all together was fun, I called Rodda Paint Corporate out of Oregon and told them about the project and asked if there was anyway they could help us. They were very generous and donated all the paint from the bone yards of their stores, and were able to provide some materials like brushes and buckets and such. So huge major whoopie thanks to Rodda Paint for all their help!
We worked it out with the teachers of all the classrooms to have their students come out in groups of eight or ten and we would designate sections of the design for them to choose from for painting. In most cases they got to pick the color they wanted to paint with. This was great because we got to talk to them about the design, their color choices, and how they thought everything would go together. They were very excited to see the ideas they shared visualized in the design.
For the initial Day of Service we had about eight volunteers come out, and that was mostly to remove the old artwork and boards from the breeze way and wash down the walls to get ready for primer. I also had a few more volunteers for getting the wall primed, but close to two months in it was just Miriam and me going out there. We had budgeted about three months to get the project done, but due to lack of volunteers we went past the deadline and it was my responsibility to finish. This was a very valuable lesson because the mural became another job for me and I was out there five days a week, rain or shine or snow, (thank goodness it was covered) for 5 to 6 hours at a time for an additional three months after the deadline to make sure that it got finished. I will never forget that experience because I learned so many things about the joy of teaching art to children, the satisfaction of finishing such a large project, and the passion and desire to continue to do public work that affects the community.
I now realize how long this post has gone on, aaannnnd I am thinking that I will just post some of my other stuff in another one so there because its my blog and I do what I want! :P
*hugs*
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.
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!!!
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. :)
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!
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!!!!!!!
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!!!!!!!
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