your next assignment

DUE DATE: Thursday, 10/4
3 parts
1.
I would like everyone to write a brief response to Laura Heon's lecture on Tuesday, 10/2, at 5 PM in Smith 130.
2.
In addition I would everyone to write an assessment/reflection on their projects so far this semester. What have you learned, what has changed, where do you think you might go with it?
3.
And last but not least, tell us all what musical work your project reminds you of. If it hasn't made you think of anything already, spend some time communing with it and see what happens.

strange corn

Seth,

For me, the whole phallic reference with your ear of corn isn't overly concerning. However,
I think the message that could potentially come across more readily caught my attention. I think a hillbilly ear of corn is slightly stereotypical. I don't know if you are sort of playing up the idea of a stereotype or if perhaps you could look further in other pieces.

and

Jason,

I'm very excited to see the result of the piece you are working on now. I like the sort of beautiful surprise you discovered when you started to drill the plexi--something tells me that will probably happen a lot with this piece. I think you made some very nice choices in materials and I'm interested to see once the structure is completed how the little girl will be (or not be) a part of it.

Brittany

Greg of the beautiful gutter

Greg, we spoke today about your pieces of making waterway systems that referenced gutter systems and fountains. You also mentioned how you would like to create an environment out of clay that would not only interact with water, but would also create an environment for people to walk through. I think that it would be pretty amazing to see that whole structure made out of clay, but I can also see potential in adding ceramic elements to existing structures, i.e., directing the waterflow of rain off of the roof of the studio building and bringing that inside to some destination of interaction. You also said how you intended to fire all the parts in order to withstand the water. I think that it might be interesting to use the soluble nature of clay to add to your piece, perhaps by creating multiple waterways leaving some areas unfired so that as one area dissolved a new area would come into play. All in all I enjoyed seeing what you are working with so far and look forward to seeing more.

Jeremy

porous clouds

I know a lot of people were posting about Leah's but im gonna do the same. We discussed how to make the larger clouds look similar to the smaller ones shes put holes in by hand in a different way. This led to dipping fabric in slip which is something I experimented with a few semesters ago. I think it would wonderful to get some sort of heavy felt like fabric and maybe hole punch the holes in it in order to get a porous effect. Then by drenching the felt in clay and really saturating it I think it would be possible to pull it over a cloud like form. I am really interested to see what dipping a thicker fabric in slip would do and when it is soaked u might even be able to stretch the fabric over the form. This idea is also interested because by using holes in the clouds you can mimic what a cloud really is in a way with the idea of water falling out of it and the form of the cloud not being able to hold anything either.
Another person who interested me was Jeremy because I feel like his project is taking a different direction than other work I've seen him do. I enjoy the fact that he is focusing more on visual connection between two things that have no other connection and I am very excited to see the final video.

On Tuesday Jo and I talked about our projects. I think that the woman figure, that at both ends turns to rope, like a frayed knot is going to be really interesting. Jo said that her figure was going to be life like and gradually turn into the rope at the ends. I really like the idea of the rope extending across the room, and having the woman near the center. I think this distance with the rope will make the image more powerful and help the viewer interact with the piece. I can’t wait until Jo finishes this piece. I think that it will be a very powerful image. Jo had some really great ideas for my project as well. She said that Laura had worked with fabric, dipping it in slip and firing it. I want to try some test pieces with different fabrics dipped in slip to make the clouds more porous and light.

at the beginning of class on tues. i was at the point where i didnt want to keep working on my corn country hillbilly piece. i wanted to stay away from phallic images for my work, since most of my work lately has had some sort of phallic aspect to it. but i was talking to a few people and they suggested that i continue to work on it and cover the whole thing with corn kernels and that once it has a husk on it it should be a lot less "penis like". so i decided to continue with it. um... i dont know what else to say about my discussion about my work... so now i will end with a picture of a toy i like that is in the style of the work i want to do. it is a piece in my collection of toys. they were a free givaway in november of 2004. you have to go to a store with a coupon that you printed out from a website and they gave it to you, they are limed to 1500 pieces each and there was a monster that was limited to 500, i have all three. they might be among my favorite items in my collection. they are 8 inches tall.

Alex's journey to a chair... Thrown?

Alex,

From what I have seen from your work I have come to the conclusion that you are not a big fan of the traditional uses of clay.... And I love it. When I first noticed you covering the chair with clay I was confused and somewhat uninterested. Yet after talking to you in class I am able to see that your project is so much more then a dirty chair. The idea of inserting this into an environment and leading one up to it is quite interesting. I know from your "bed of clay" piece that you like the viewer to interact and what you are proposing sounds like it will require a lot of that and force the viewer to experience something you set up for them. I personally am excited to journey through this little world that we just barely touched on. I think if you really push the idea of forcing one through a space and make it attention grabbing and meaningful this will be a successful piece.


I looked around a little bit and thought you could look at this:
http://www.hometone.org/entry/exotic-clay-furniture-by-maarten-baas/

I hope everything works out and if you need to talk anything out with someone I am there to listen. Clay it up...~Ashlie

ashlie's advent calendars

ashlie, well i must say i i'm throughly enjoying your project's concept. i love the fact that you are taking a rediculous tradition and making it all about how you view the world. i think its great and fun and wonderfully random. my only suggestion would be to think about if the 'advent/christmas/count-down' thingy is important or if its just about interaction or i dont know. maybe somehow your pieces show a count down to your birthday or to some random day in febuary. i'm not sure i might be out in left field but we didnt really talk about whether there was any countdown implied with this. also it might be fun to make the doors out of something like fabric or something just to add a little texture... you know. well i know this was probably not very helpful but i like where you are headed so keep it real!

my unusual interaction

haha I just liked the sound of that.

Leah and I talked with one another about our pieces in class for fresh opinions. We spent some time with my piece, but we really went into hers and how to deal with making something weightless (clouds) out of something with significant weight (clay). Leah wants to make the clouds that could make Monet-like reflections. Her clouds are to be abstract and porous, or at least that was my impression. The engineering behind this is an issue, and it reminded me of some of Laura's pieces using lace last semester and her solutions for keeping her delicate pieces from being too fragile to be practical. I told Leah to talk to Laura about glazing pieces before firing them in order to make them stronger.
Leah, I hope you take this as far as you can. I think your clouds will be most effective if you can really stretch the size, and I was most excited about your mention of placing some kind of water container beneath them in order to create the reflection. Your painting background brings something unique into your work and your thought processes, and I hope you capitalize on that.

--Jo

sasha, the bird lady of advanced clay

sasha (sorry if im spelling this wrong), i think a more performative approach to your piece would help out the idea a lot. you were talking about migration patterns and nesting in the sense that they would apply to humans. i think the scale that you are working at is doing a disadvantage to this relation. thats why i suggested a piece where you would build a nest yourself (or someone else) in front of an audience. i think if your going for the parallel between human migration and "nesting" this would tie in the humn aspect very nicely and take some of the bird out of the information you provide the audience.

Madman Joe Netta, Bassist extraordinaire, congealer of the intangible.

Joe,
I really admire the methodical approach to your art making. Material seems to take backstage (is that the saying?) for these profoundly weird and well thought scenarios. The work you produce will become more successful the more you generate outcomes using the same methods. The map is an example. I would really like to hear the sounds of different cities played back to back to hear just how different cultures create their metropoli and if the resultant sound is somehow incidental, coincidental or inherent to a specific. Fascinating.

Steve Martin said "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture" He said this to convey the futility of talking about something that defies language yet has the capacity to express the human condition so articulately in a way language lacks. There are some connections to this quote and your idea. Have you considered having this music set to dance? .....that would be neat.
Also what would be cool is if you got a map of the human nervous, vascular or respiratory system and did the same thing.....

Leah's Clouds

Leah I love this idea and having known you for some time now I think it fits your style and the type of art you typically strive to create. Last time I checked you were interested in creating a space over run with clouds on the wall. I think some should also be suspended and maybe even coming out of the floor. Also if the space has a window, or even a wall would work for this you could have some clouds coming out of the outer walls as a hint to what awaits the viewer inside.

Some websites I found that might help in the development of your ideas are:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.britishcouncil.org/es/arts-art-architecture-design-design-jessshaw-image315x379.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.britishcouncil.org/es/print-page%3Fid%3D60123&h=379&w=350&sz=40&hl=en&start=28&um=1&tbnid=yP8U3o5wOJRpxM:&tbnh=123&tbnw=114&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcloud%2Bart%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DN

http://www.publicartinla.com/sculptures/desert_cloud2.jpeg

http://www.boisestate.edu/art/gallery/visiting/valecture.html

I think the first two use light beautifully and I know you were talking about using light in your piece. The last piece reminded me of clay and the way it had smaller and larger circles was quite interesting.
Best of luck -Ash

maps and sound

Joe:

I'm really interested in your map/sound piece. I share an interest in maps themselves, but your approach is really fascinating. The idea of a map (or a complex, man made drawing) as the source of a musical score, and how that music can then be related to our manufactured landscape is a surprising and incredible connection. The video footage of you punching through the maps I think serves as a really important part of the piece. Not only is it nice to see the process but the sound element is there as well. I wonder what besides maps could be treated in a similar way perhaps newspapers, charts, photographs...

I think the songs created have lots of possibilities for comparison, finding connections and in a way reinventing a landscape or a strange recording of life as is shapes an environment.

pointillism in sculpture

I agree that ashley's idea of creating a larger thing with many small objects is pretty exciting. The idea of multiples can be really interesting as long as you have enough and can get through the tedious time it takes to make them. I'm not really sure I understood why you wanted to use a skull image it definitely has potential, but it might be hard to keep it from looking too trite (skull scarves for example). Although if anyone wants to buy me that diamond covered skull I am all for that! Ralph Helmick and Stuart Schechter use alot of this pointillism technique in their work...

http://www.handsart.net/pastprojects.html

I think their pieces are beautiful in the way they hang and also how you can see completely though them. They also kind of remind me of Jeremy's flock idea for sculpture.

I think that Ashlie’s idea of creating many small skulls in a variety of colors and attaching them to a wall to create an image by pointillism is a great idea, with a lot of potential. I think that the skulls together would have to take up a very large space, like an entire wall or even two walls. You also might want to think about the room it would be installed in. It would be really great to be able to see the image from far away, instead of only being able to see the skulls up close. I was wondering if you would create the larger image, or if you want the viewers to interact with it and be able to create images of their own. In creating the colors of the skulls you could use some of the same techniques the pointillist painters used, like putting two primary colors next to each other like a blue and a yellow to create a green, instead of just having a green. I can’t wait to see what happens with your project!

john your ideas on space and form are very interesting to me. dealing with dimensionality utilizing 2 dimensional forms is a great way to explore this idea more. have you checked out mathew richie? he does those huge metal sculptures based off of his line drawings. also i was slightly reminded of kara walker and how she uses projection and silhouette to create dimensionality.

well i remember reading about this a little while ago and though it applied. Damien Hirst made a cast of a human skull out of platinum and covered it in diamonds and it is worth $100 million dollars.

there is a post on another blog on the step by step process with pictures of how the skull was made

http://www.supertouchblog.com/2007/07/21/techniquethe-making-of-damien-hirsts-diamond-skull/

First of all, I was really interested in multiple presentations. In order to narrow down my choices I decided to go with the presentation for which I still have a question: Jeremy, was the clay bust you made of yourself actually completely fired in the fire pit you made or was it also fired in the kiln? How long was it in the pit? I have this idea about clay tablets and writing that I started thinking about in my anthropology class and the process of actually hardening the clay in a live fire holds some potential in terms of my idea since that's how the ancient clay tablets we have now were accidentally preserved...
As a semi-related note, I am glad to be in a class with such diverse backgrounds. Normally in my ceramics classes I have been bouncing ideas off of other ceramics majors, which has been awesome. Still, the perspective of VC, and 2d students will be a new and interesting one to explore in crit.

hi, well i just wanted to say that jo i love your work and i think it isnt a cop-out if you continue to STRETCH this idea/theme of form. because there is still plenty to explore. i also think you should check out kiki smith... for some more imspiration. umm i also wanted to mention it was fun and intersting to hear about everyone else's personal style/art.


http://www.uam.ucsb.edu/Media/smith_roses.GIF


http://www.uam.ucsb.edu/Media/smith_butterfly.GIF







i'm pretty much down for mud wresting in general so... bring it.

seth,
i would like challenge your man eating banana to a mud wrestling match. after school at the back of the playground.

Jason,

Hearing you talk about your work today was fantastic. It was great to see what kind of ideas that you have been investigating since we took beginning sculpture together. In particular, I found the film and its presentation of images in the that sort of stream of consciousness format to be extremely interesting and beautiful on several fronts. As I watched the film, I felt a sense of longing for a childhood that I have left behind, but more of a longing for a sense of protection received and given as a child and for a child respectively. And now as I try to remember your film, I find myself remembering the clips and sounds in different orders and probably adding in nuances of my own memory and thoughts into the memory of the film.

I'm not quite sure how far and what aspects of memory you are interested in looking at, but I have read up on a few interesting topics of development of the mind which you might be interested in if you haven't come across it already. The one that comes to mind initially is of Piaget and his influence in developmental psychology. Here's as excerpt of his model from a wikipedia article:

Stage One - Sensorimotor (birth to 1.5 years)
Stage Two - Preoperational (1.5 years to 7 years)
Stage Three - Concrete Operations (7 years to 11 years)
Stage Four - Formal Operations (11 years and onward)

Moral judgment stages were termed Heteronomy and Autonomy and were later further delineated by development psychologists.

When watching your film, I felt a strong connection to a more adult frame of mind-as in someone who was past stage four in Piaget's model. It might be interesting to investigate the earlier stages of memory, or in other words how a child thinks and remembers things.

Here's Piaget in a painting...he's got some crazy hair:

begin the begin

your first assignment is to react to someone's presentation today, Tuesday September 4th, and post an idea/image/observation. you can suggest artists and artworks that person might want to look at, offer other research possibilities, or talk about what their project makes you think/imagine/do. or you can simply challenge them to a mud-wrestling contest.
blogs should be posted by end of day (say 8PM) on Thursday.