For Emily

So I know this semester you are really interested in studying seed travel. Some things that have crossed my mind are if you are incorporating clay into it somehow. If not, have you thought about the way seeds travel...whether they blow or fall, if they stick to animals, if they are eventually eaten by animals, and if they float or sink in water? Some other things I think are important to take into consideration are the types of seeds you plan to study. I think this could make a really interesting project...especially if you were able to capture it on film somehow.

Here's a really interesting/odd/corny video about seeds that can hopefully help you...




On another note I know the other day you were talking about going to Mongolia if you got that Fulbright Scholarship. Here is an interesting fact I found out. Mongolia's natural hazards include dust storms, grasslands and forest fires, drought, and "zud" which are really harsh weather conditions. I think that's really interesting especially if you were to continue studying seeds there. I think this project could get very exciting if you were to study seed travel in America vs seed travel in Mongolia!

Somehow or other, I also have Jen

Some sort of mix-up with the alphabet I suppose. I know you already have a post about your work, Jen, but I had been thinking about patterns for you so I'm going to let you know what I found even though Esteban got here first. 

I've been reading a book called Godel, Escher and Bach for awhile now and have become really interested in how pattern and mathematical/natural patterns like those from the golden ratio show up everywhere. The detail of your work and they way you described the super-absorbing process of doing it reminded me of the way Escher's drawings turn back in on themselves and the way fractals (based on mathematical systems) create sort of endlessly detailed patterns.  

I think the absorbing rhythmic quality of your work is especially interesting. I'm not sure why, but when when I see all the bottles, vases, etc. on you shelf I just want to go inside them. Probably because that's where my mind's been these days. But I was reminded of a pattern exhibit for children I saw in a museum once. The kids learned about patterns in their cells and their DNA and of the changing seasons and turning earth and got to be part of patterns with their body. Sort of like a dance. I wonder if your ceramic pieces could do bellydancing...

Last thing - patterns book: 

  

dear jason

after rereading your first post i was reminded again of a memory segment on radiolab--an nyu offshoot of npr. i listened to it over the summer, and it presents some interesting investigations that i find myself thinking about from time to time. how memory takes on a physical form, and how some scientists are working on ways to both add and delete memory (or maybe just causing brain damage? they're not sure.)

i also never got a chance to hear/see more about the drawings you were making in the summer. they're really dynamic, how big are they? AND when can we see them in person? I imagine that they've informed the 3d line drawings you're creating now. I was watching an interview with Matthew Richie, where he was talking about the infinite lifespan of a drawing--which really caught me because i think of drawings as fragile creations existing on paper (he was discussing this idea while projecting an drawing onto the wall, then manipulating it in illustrator, and having one lazer-cut in steel.) I'll try to find the context, and bring it to class.

the work you've been making lately is incredibly charged-- beautiful and disturbing. Your poem reminds me a little bit of Hugo Ball's sound poems in the way that you're reading them. Maybe you'd find some interesting parallels with a bit of google-ing. we watched this in senior seminar.

-emily

Catherine Hendrickson 1st project written by Samantha Grandy

Catherine first project is simply making pots. She really want to learn how to use the wheel this semester. So she is trying to prefect the art of making pots. The wheel is a great tool to make many different thing, not just pots. For example, you can make enclosed objects, donut shapes, tubes, and tea pots. Another thing that she is experimenting with are glazes and the different types of effects and textures it creates. Catherine wants to try to glaze her pots with marbles. She said you can put marbles into your pot and fire them so they melt and makes a glossy finish. I never knew that you could do that. I guess you learn new things all the time. I thought that was an interesting technique to use. She also want to try different types of firing as well, for example, raku and salt firing to create different effects. She wants to make at least 20 pots for this first project. She like multiples she said, so that way she making so many of them. One of the other things that she is trying to learn is how to trim the pots. For some reason she really likes pots and the way they look, so she is making them to keep at her house. Wish her luck. Shes never really has used the wheel before or the glazes, so its going to be exciting to see what she comes up with this semester. 

By Samantha Grandy

For Esteban

So, Esteban if you remember is interested in using ancient Venezuelan figures as a base for his first project. He has been spending a lot of time with these figures in sketches and hand building these little guys. It makes sense to me that he would start with these Venezuelan figures because of his own family history. I think that it could branch out into other cultures in the future though. Part of his work is incorporating robotics/functioning parts into the figures. I would really like to see sort of a little colony of these figures each with their own purpose. I also wonder about mobility/moving parts for the figures. If they started wandering around the podium or the floor that could be really cool.

I found a few things while wandering around google results that I thought might be useful for Esteban's project.

http://www.thesmileproject.com/index.htm
motorized/animated robotic figures that are interactive by Jason Van Anden


An interesting Teotihuacan figure that lends itself to having parts/screens added

~Jen

For Abby

Abby wants to experiment with different textures and different materials on the surface of clay. She is thinking of making abstract forms as a base, and then using paper such as music sheets or pages from a novel, to decorate the surface. She really likes water color, but since that is hard to do on clay, she is using this paper, wetting it, and then pasting it to the clay surface. Her ideas for the form were a hand, a vase, or bowl. I really like the idea of having text outside the form. I think it would be really cool if the text was something that meant a lot to her, and spoke perhaps of who she is. I really like the idea of the hand also. Or perhaps making a huge sphere and putting newspapers or novel pages around that. I'm really excited to see what she comes up with :)

For Liz

Liz is making puzzle pieces and hanging them from the ceiling. she said she really likes suspending things, and playing with the shadows those things make. we talked about the shadows the puzzle will create and how this is what she is really aiming for. this got me thinking about shadow puppets and what the puzzle could stand for. i am intrested in seeing the entire thing together becasue i have only seen the puzzle in pieces.
http://mindbluff.com/shadow.htm
i was thinking also that she could look into building something 3-d out of the pieces. maybe a box or triangle or some other shape.

http://www.puzzlehouse.com/_jigsaws/3Djigsawpuzzles.htm

For Brittany

So I have noticed that Brittany is working on a piece involving the sense of touch, while encompassing a playful spirit into her work. Texture obviously plays a huge roll in our sense of touch, and aids us in wanting to feel something, or perhaps leaving it alone. I think you should take a trip to the please touch museum in Philly. www.pleasetouchmuseum.org/ everything ( although oriented towards a younger crowd) includes objects of tactile nature. There is this great scene from the movie Patch Adams, with robin Williams, where an old woman is overjoyed at the thought of being enveloped in a pool of noodles. Although this might seem irrelevant I think that touch has a serious impact on people. I have included that clip for you here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyXxqE18skk I think you should also explore what touch means on several different levels. Think maybe towards brail or even the womb which permanently imprints every human with the need to be incompased by something else, allowing for ultimate stability and comfort. Thats why small children enjoy security items ( blankies, plush toys) because it brings them back to that feeling prior to being born.

oh and jen

WILL RAKE LEAVES FOR BATHTUB

um

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW2TqanZTNk&feature=related

For Alex

So we talked... I have your solution! I think to achieve the organic quality and to build the structures that you originally wanted you should be looking into paper clay. Completely awesome material! You can make very organic shapes and work off of it dry so you can build up little by little and then make something huge that is very strong/stable.

Examples:

Here are some awesome leaves that someone made out of paper clay and I think that this may have been the effect that you were going for with the original grass forms that you wanted. So it is possible to make it natural!

Second, You can make crazy structure from it. Can't make pottery like this with normal clay.


Ok last example. You can get this stuff really really thin and if you use porcelain it can become very transparent, which opens a lot of doors to play with the way light passes through or interacts with the surface.

I think you should really go after the grass forms because you could make them really interesting with this material whether it be with the way light interacts with it or just the form itself. I'm sure that you could start some kind of interesting dialogue with the forms if you execute it well.

Here are some sites that may help a little:

http://www.ceramicstoday.com/articles/porcelain_paperclay.htm
http://www.ceramicstoday.com/howto/htpaperclay.htm

PS... If you want I can copy some of my books that have info on paper clay.

Julianne

Alright, alright. From your presentation in class and your blog post here, I get the feeling that you're interested in space and interaction with space and your environment. I found a few places and things that may help you out.

The Please Touch Museum
Although it's mainly for children, it's a museum that is ok with touching exhibits.

National Aquarium in Baltimore
The rain forest at the top is a nice way to get a feel for an environment other than Delaware. I believe there's also a touch tank.

Now to get you thinking about your new found love of America: Washington, DC!
One of the best places to go that's all about the nation.

Perhaps especially the Natural Museum of American History.

And since there's puppet fever, there's a pretty awsome Jim Henson exhibit in DC also at the Ripley Center: Jim Henson's Fantastic World.

One last environmental link, Giant Pink Bunny on a Mountain.

for Ashley

You are sort of creating this massive personal narrative/invitation to others into your self. Have you looked at other artists that deal with self exposure? When we talked you mentioned the questions you have within yourself, about medication, what is right for you, noting changes in your moods and behaviors. You seem very self aware. You are using things like your drive to/from specific familiar places to invite people in. I have been thinking about that too. I recorded myself doing a familiar drive this summer. You have a strange mix of mundane/hyper personal which is interesting, a whole picture sort of deal. You also talked about this huge final installation that sot of represents your world. Is the connecting thing that they are all about you, or is the randomness/perhaps seeming disconnection part of it? Or should everything have some sort of bond with all the others? I thought about that artist who makes all the pills....beverly...

Since everything seems to come from inside I feel like the space needs to be very intimate, I wonder about where all these things will be and how they will be lit/presented and how they will be ale to invade the viewers space... how will we inhabit it?

Although your stuff is really personal you are dealing with some kind of iconic/heavy things.
sculls, pills, chemical imbalance your body changing location...

not so much memory but stream of consciousness?

http://www.haberarts.com/exposure.htm

if you are worried about connecting with your audience, you should take a look at this master of universality I put one of his images at the top.

I was thinking about self portraits, and I thought of Frida Kahlo. Her self portraits had fanstasy/surrealism and serious inner reflection, not simply an image of herself. I also sort of see a connection between this organization of elements or compartments of thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-portrait

Sincerely, to Jen Hintz

This semester Jen Hintz plans to apply her interest in Islamic geometric patterning in different clay surfaces. Mimicking the visual instances of but doing away with the geometrical aspect, Jen looks at this obsessive and meticulous style as a way to “play” and disconnect herself from what surrounds her. The process, as she explains, she finds to be somehow therapeutic, while obsessive in a way. Jen finds both the finished product and the process involved to be important in her pieces.

Two years ago I experienced what it was to be inside a hundred years old Mosque in Granada, Spain. I must say I was completely astonished by the intricateness and meticulousness in the patterning that is seen everywhere, from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling, and doors to windows. It is an immense task to finish one of these amazing monuments, and the dedication from every single person involved is immeasurable. As I walked through the grounds of the Alhambra (that is the name of the Mosque/Castle I visited in Granada, Spain) many thoughts came through my mind, and these I think could help out, or give more ideas to my classmate Jen Hintz.

Muslims once used to be great rulers over west African and Iberian territories, and for hundreds of years they occupied many countries. With them they took their knowledge, art, and religion (like any culture would) but they did not impose any of it on anyone. Their beliefs were simply laid out before everyone’s eyes and, as in the case of Spain, their occupancy was very peaceful and understandable of other cultures, incorporating and respecting them. Years passed and the Moors were “kicked out” of many territories, and those that stayed were violently forced to follow Christian beliefs. Nowadays Muslims still face many problems as they are strongly judged, and most of the time erroneously. As I walked through halls of the Alhambra I noticed how much it is forgotten that this culture brought to Europe much mathematical and astronomical knowledge, much of which instigated the birth of the Renaissance. I know Jen does not wish to incorporate the complicated mathematical aspect in her work, but I would recommend her to possibly consider the disregard of Islamic contributions into modern society, maybe in the display of her pieces

The physical remains of the struggle in Spain can be experienced everywhere, as in their music, flamenco. The output of the overlay of cultures and religious beliefs between the two groups (christians and muslims) is truly beautiful. One can enter a cathedral and see how it was built literally on top of an older mosque, and how some walls of the mosque were conserved in the latter and are part of the overall structure. That could be another idea Jen can consider, the strong visible contrast between two very different styles and cultures.

Two examples of mosques turned cathedrals or churches in their later years.

Here is a song dedicated to the Alhambra ("Recuerdos de la Alhambra"). It happens to also be my favorite classical guitar song, and I believe it could help Jen when making her pieces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIzKsNIRrV4

And here the wiki article about the Alhambra:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra

For Tracey:

I've had ceramics with you before and I know where you and Kerri were trying to head with you plates ( you will get there, did I mention how excited I am to see the end result?) We spoke and you were talking about your randomness ( I can relate). So I decided to put some random/ not so random information on here for you. I started by looking at the concept of printing on clay, due to your interest in the two. I found this website, there isn't too much information but it is a start:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.printandclay.net/water_closet_workshop/movies/les_lawrence_movie.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.printandclay.net/water_closet_workshop/les_lawrence.htm&h=432&w=446&sz=825&hl=en&start=38&um=1&usg=__yBBgNBDH2MVxFqYMeAbcYfVLxH8=&tbnid=D_ChQ-QNmjfRiM:&tbnh=123&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dscreen%2Bprinting%2Bon%2Bceramics%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DN

If you go to the International museum of print and clay address you can find some of Les Lawrence's work such as:

(I had to throw a skull in there :) )

Also I located some MJ goodies :http://www.michaeljacksonart.com/index.php

The above site is a site specifically devoted to art about and by Michael Jackson. You have to join to see full size images but I thought you might want to check it out. It obviously reminds me of some of you past print work.

Also I am sure you have seen this before, but I couldn't help but add it due to the simple fact that it is a statue by Jeff Koons, is ceramic, and is of MJ:



Finally ...I think your art should do, be, have, resemble, express... a little of this:


Or you could take it this direction:
.

I spoke to Greg briefly in class about his plans for the semester and where he may be going with his ideas, and coincidently I didn't know at the time he would be my partner. He said he was still allowing the ideas to come to him and my mind immediately shot back to a scene of him laying in his pool for 4 days straight this past summer letting thoughts fill his days.

I remember Greg saying in his presentation that he spent a long time thinking about his past decisions and future regarding the career choice he would one day make. Was he sure he wanted to do art? "What is art" he would ask. I honestly don't know if Greg even knows at this time what his concepts will be this semester but I do know where ever his mind takes him I can be sure it took much thought to get there and I respect that. It is hard for me to even try and guess what direction he will go because Greg seems to be a very deep thinker and really wants his work to illustrate what he is thinking. Good luck Greg and when you get closer to some definite direction be sure to fill me in, I'm excited! :)

GREG! You're my partner, I need your email address :) Mine is catherine17302@yahoo.com

Well, my friend Sasha is exploring all the intricacies of identity and how to portray oneself threw art. What makes up an identity: race, gender, age, religion or memories? Its really hard to classify oneself because of the multiple layers that create the human personality. I think its very interesting to try and understand all the different layers of the human personality especially oneself own self. The more layers you can unfold the closer one can get to understanding who you are and as a result understand where you are going. I think you should look into psychology and about memory storage, it might lead to some new ideas. I have observed that Sasha is very interested in texture and outer surfaces. Which is very exciting and I think you should look into other types like bark or fo-fur.







http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Social_Psychology/Identity

http://www.identitytheory.com/visual/

FALL 2008 2nd blog assignment

DUE DATE: postings must be up by 9 PM Monday, September 29th.
postings must be at least 200 words, include at least 2 different images, and at least 2 links to different websites related to the content.

THE 2ND STUFF: in this posting you are asked to respond to one of your classmate's research/work as presented here on the blog. you must also communicate with the person somehow (talk in class, email, IM, text, telepathy--whatever works to transfer information from their brain to yours). your posting should communicate a sense of where they are right now with their work and some ideas/thoughts you have for them and the work.

how do you know which classmate?? you should talk to whomever follows you alphabetically by last names. confused? check in with Abby to confirm who your subject should be.

This semester I want to explore motion, space relations, and landscapes. I want to use the extruder to create organic forms with clay. I’m really interested in the beauty of curves found in nature, like blades of grass. Also after getting my hands in clay again I started creating these little ‘worry’ pinch pots that are taking on a great form.





Next I want to explore the motion of water in a static piece. I want to create a mosaic wall mural, describing the motion of the ocean. The rhythm is just so beautiful and soothing.



Finally I want to create a huge piece of bacon on a little clay plate. I think size and spatial relations are really interesting and important to explore.

What inspires me? (and) Project Ideas:

This semester I really want to work with the wheel a lot more because I know that if I am going to invest in a wheel one day, which I plan to, I better at least make peace with the art of throwing. I love ceramic bowls of all shapes, sizes and colors and I really can't explain why the love affair- it just exists! I would really like to experiment with glazes and mixing recipes myself this semester as well. Texture is something I'm very excited to explore with these glazes.



I would also like to explore the concept of multiples and how that idea can be displayed. For my first critique I would like to have a large amount, atleast 200 pieces of clay molding around the inner and outer parts of my hand. I think the idea of creating my own "fossil" is pretty facsinating but also how to display the creation is something that can be very meaningful. In the past I've done work with multiples and in one critique I had for one such project, I learned just how important display truly is. This was the piece:

Abstract pieces also interest me greatly and so for this semester I would like to work with one or two ideas and form them into some type of abstract piece that can possbily be incorporated into multiples. An example would be the fossil project.

http://hildadeschutter.blogspot.com/2008/01/flockage-message-from-kirsten-hardie.html

http://mocoloco.com/art/archives/cat_ceramics.php?page=2

Publish Post

Catherine Hendrickson

'Roids & 'Ramix!!!!!

Ok, here's the rundown for now.

Trying to finish the dinnerware piece w/ Kerri.

Looking into playing with sound.

Want to think about some sort of installation piece possibly.

watch it

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=11315646&ref=ts#/video/video.php?v=561409054704

This year I would like to start off by pursuing a growing interest I am having with identity. Although I have a few ideas that stray from this thematic presence, I would like to focus on what it  means to convey ones self. In terms of identity I want to focus on heritage as well as personal identity and events that shape the human condition.  As an end point I want to portray the people who directly impact me on a day to day basis.  

Improvisational patterning

Over the past few years I've developed a fascination with patterns. These patterns can occur in visual, audio, and movement. I demonstrated patterns of movement that I've learned over the past few years through dance. Similarly I have learned to play traditional drums from both west africa and the middle east. In art I have observed patterns and cut and pasted them together to create something my own. For each application I observe and learn traditional/conventional patterns and layer them however I so choose at the moment. So far it has turned into something almost therapeutic, obsessive, and completely given to escapism but I haven't quite played it out yet so I plan on continuing it. For the semester's work I plan to continue with my play to see where it takes me before graduation and being tossed out to find a "real job." Who knows, maybe its just a need to escape for the last few months before finding said "real job"

Since I'm usually a painter, ceramics is useful for me to play out 2d vs 3d pattern/form/ect. Because of that you'll probably see a fair amount of surface treatment in my work. Both the forms that I create and the way that I carve out the surfaces are important to me and my process. Among my favorite inspirations for visual patterns are islamic art, art nouveau, and 14th century french illuminations. For the purpose of ceramics I plan on focusing primarily on the islamic patterns for their ease of translation into ceramic and their geometric quality.


The mathematic equations behind the symetries for islamic patterns are highly fascinating to me although they go beyond my commitment to meticulousness. I can't quite comprehend how they work or how one would lay them out. Instead I mimic them and use them almost like toys, without doing the math for perfection.

My starting point for the semester will be working with separate double walled forms, moving to connected forms, and then to I'm not quite sure yet... maybe building together with the previous projects and continue trying my hand at making traditional ceramic drums (doumbeks/darbukas/dohollas)

I think that about covers my thoughts at the moment... some other things to look at:

http://www.catnaps.org/islamic/geometry.html



-Jen Hintz

Interesting..

I’ve noticed that I enjoy doing things on a large scale. I also like taking a shape or design and repeating it over and over, but often in a different size or at a different level in space. Also, I want to learn how to throw large pots on the wheel. I’ll be the first to admit I’m a nerd, and I have found myself occasionally day dreaming of what kinds of different pots I can make. So learning how to make them is definitely a goal of mine.
I do want to experiment with different types of clay as well as firing. I would like to try using porcelain. However, I really want t do a huge pit firing. Last year Jeremy Tan and I talked about going to the beach or something and doing one, but it never happened. It would be awesome if we could do one!
Some pieces I really like are by artists such as Marianne Lovink and Corinna Ghaznavi. Here are some websites I was looking at:

http://www.katharinemulherin.com/dynamic/artist.asp?ArtistID=43&Count=0

http://whipup.net/category/ceramics-wood-glass/

Esteban Pilonieta - Proposal

This semester I want to try and re-interpret Venezuelan indigenous pre-Columbian artifacts. By using their style and techniques I hope to create something that is my own, maybe by incorporating modern mediums, styles or simply different meanings. I would also like to experiment with how two completely different materials can influence each other, as for example clay and metal, or clay and silk. The basic process I would like to go through in order to make something concise (to me) out of the whole "modern Venezuelan artifacts" would be as follows:

1 - Immerse myself completely in the indigenous style by drawing (as blue prints I guess) their artifacts, designs, weaves, etc.
2 - Try and duplicate them by using alike styles, clay and burning methods.
3 - Interpret and manipulate the figurines my own way until they become something completely different, and ?modern?

The 3 steps are very basic, but as I go through all this I also want to try some other things with the objects (or characters, or whatever they might become eventually). For example, motorizing them.
A couple of things really stick out in the research I've done about their artifacts though, like the religious meaning behind them, how all designs represent the tribe in question, etc etc. So, another thought I had was to create my own religion and depict the "gods" I create with my own modernized style.
There is also the issue of the environment in which the indigenous that created the artifacts I'm looking at lived in, and the one I currently live in. Even when comparing the "Venezuela" (apostrophes since for them the land wasn't really denominated through boundaries in any way) and the one I've seen. Venezuela was, and still is, a very beautiful country, and small as it might be, it has it all (mountains, desserts, beaches, amazon...). The indigenous that lived in the terrains had very "weird" customs to the Western eye, so most of them were killed, but some where respected and left alone, some where just simply inside the lands and never found until modernization and modernity reached them. A Venezuelan person nowadays is quite hard to describe, but basically we are very happy people, who like to live comfortably even in the worst situations, who keep a strong sense of humor no matter what, and party until your body gives out. The judiciary system is pretty messed up (yeah, slang, but its the best way to describe it). It is Kafka's nightmare to be eaxact....

Let's see where this goes. Hopefully, somewhere interesting....

This is a big part of the current "Chavez" Venezuela:

This is where I'm from, Merida:

Please Ignore the Man Behind the Curtain!!!

Suspension of disbelief is what I want to work with this semester. The final product will be a puppet (hopefully.... if all goes as planned!). It is going to take a few steps to get there though. Number one on the list is to experiment with hot foam latex, which I hear can be a little tricky so I am going to start out small by making a facial appliance from it and then I will probably do a video or a performance with it on. So far the things that I have been looking at for this are as follows:

Jim Henson Movies

Special Effects Makeup

David Bowie's Moose Knuckle

I've been watching these for more information on my working process, so I can hopefully solve some issues before they happen. Youtube also has a lot of instructional videos about working with the latex so hopefully I can pick and choose and find which ones are the right way to do things. Here is one of them from my favorite show... How it's Made!!!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oBtx72Harks

If you want some more info about what is going on inside of my head about this project visit my personal blog. It has not been updated in a while but it still has some information on it that could be useful for understanding my process.

http://benlenoir.blogspot.com/

Last but not least I want to get into crystalline glazing. It is quite beautiful and the only thing that I have seen it applied to has been pottery and vessels. I will first test it on that because I do not want to make something sculptural and then it end up not growing crystals. But when I get the firing schedule right and the glaze mixed properly you can bet I will be utilizing it on some weird sculptural thing.

Nice Shades Man...

Almost forgot!!! Just remember... This is what you see:

This is what I see:

The Blog is Really Flowing this Semester!

So I just wrote my blog out and well it got erased so here I go again. As many of you know I am pushing myself to complete the components of my installation. Last semester I received some great feedback. A few said my piece had an Alice in Wonderland vibe. I am planning on watching that movie again soon!


The piece I want to make this semester will continue to work around proportions, size, shape, and color. I want to create a large RX prescription bottle that is spilling out a pile of differently shaped, sized, and colored pills onto the floor. I am hoping to have a large pile of the above-mentioned pills so I really need to get to work and start cranking them out. At the edge of the pile I want to have pills with human characteristics (faces). As far as the implications of these faces I don't want to say what I am going for that way I can see everyone's gut reactions when I present the piece, or at least get a few done. Once again I cannot fully explain my piece on the internet so feel free to come up to me in the studio and chat with me about it. My only request is that you give me some feedback, I have found that when I hear other's thoughts I am better able to adjust my own in making the piece that I really enjoy. As I mentioned in my powerpoint, I have really been thinking about pills and their role in our society. I think we are an over medicated society and speaking from personal experience pills can have many different effects on the body and mind.

I also mentioned Natalie Dee, I am inspired by her unique style, simplicity, and humor. So if you find yourself down one day I suggest visiting her site for a quick laugh or at least a big smile:
http://www.nataliedee.com/nd-archives/ndarchive-jun08.php

Also Abby suggested that I check out some of Damien Hirst's work. Which I did and I found that I was really attracted to this piece


Obviously my love of skulls appears here. Not to mention the Shininess! It fits in with my wanting to change the context of the skull and it's meaning. I want to see if I can move the skull away from the ideas of death, Halloween and so on and show it as a more beautiful and unique object.

I guess that is about it. This blog is a bit shorter then my original, but I was unable to find the motivation to re-do it. I am really horrible with computers and of course I would find a way to loose my original blog :(

and a comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush

I remember getting really frustrated in geometry class because somewhere along math, I realized that i'm terrible at structure and regimentation and (ulp!) following directions. Both because i'm inherently indignant at all things even slightly authoritarian (like math) and also because I couldn't see it all at once and then tear it down to tiny bits. The reverse process spells tedium for "this author". What happened in geometry was that i ended up asking "Stupid questions" like, " how big is the line, how wide?" These questions were met with resistance by my teacher. I think visually and spatially like most artists and I needed a point of reference to know where I was. Thus began a long and mutually hostile relationship with numbers.
I have been listening to The Ruby Suns. I recommend you find these people and partake.

Did alot of drawing over the summer. Getting back to mah roots. It's a good way to think. Lance Winn was right all along, dammit, ( i had hoped he wouldn't be). I thought about how, as a kid, I tried to envision time passing as sheets that fell upon one another like leaves and that would create some sort of tunnel that I some how slipped through, leaving former selves in all individual cosmic instances that were frozen forever. After all, what can be done about the past?


I think I started believing that the present doesn't exist really since there is no way that I know of to qualify it. Once you do, there it goes. What you have is what has happened and inevitability.
Whenever you go, then you are.
Don't even ask me what that means. I haven't the foggiest. I'm building my lighthouse.
(Please indulge my effete - ness)
I think there is something about regret that is especially important to this way of experiencing time because no other emotion that I can think of pulls you into the past that way.
http://www.memoryzine.com/introductiontobrain.html

Of course i'm certain that memory is just a chemical compound and, the present is just it's constituents. If Iwant their vote, they'd better treat me well.

I'm gonna go back to scanner portraits. I'm so taken by how the scanner takes a still image of time. the top part of the image being older than the bottom. It really sums up how I'm experience time and the like. I can't shake the sensation that I am somehow physically and inextricably linked to the past. My body brains and organs smeared over the 32 years of my life, my experience besides.

I am a rubber band but instead of getting thinner as I stretch, I get older. I'm gonna make a phone to talk to my former selves. 2 coffee cans and some string. I'll make a washtub bass and play a lullaby to this little tyke:

I want to blow bubbles and freeze them before they pop and keep them in my freezer. When, in the future, the technology has advanced enough to revive them, they will be thawed and freed to live out the rest of their days in good health and harmony with the rest of bubble-kind. Also I want to work with mylar and transparency paper. I want to make 3-d 2-d drawings.

This process i'm working on with using my camera to create video is pretty exciting. More sheets that stack and become more than the sum of its parts.

here are some of the drawings i did:
"I wish I hadn't but i'm glad I did"



"I wish I did but i'm glad I hadn't"
And here is a smattering of the scanner portraits. Most of you have seen them I think but...


The Inertia of Abby!!!!





















A Moment of Lance!!!





















The Juncture of Jason!!!!!

Inspiration and Proposal!!!

This semester I really want to go into a different direction. I want to express myself by using different materials, not only clay. Maybe using mirrors, fabrics, lighting, creating shadows, and wire. For the first project I want to have a hanging piece of art. I was thinking of having a lot of different type of colored ribbons and having small clay pots that are hanging upside down to create a light fixture which represent the crazy exciting life that I live. 

I am such a random person and I get really inspired by people from different culture and I also get inspired my different designers. For example the designer, Anna Sui. She reminds me of myself in a way. She is an Asian American that has funky colorful oriental cowboy style. http://www.annasui.com/flash/index.html

Another thing that inspires me is music. The one person that I’m really into is a singer named M.I.A. she is Indian and the type of music she does is hip hop mixed with Indian. Love the way she dress, it very unconventional. When you think of Indian you think conservative and she takes it to a whole different level. http://www.miauk.com/

So I really get inspired by people that change the way we look at certain things. So that’s why I really want to do this colorful hanging piece with a lot of movement to it. I have learned a lot from last semester by taking in and looking at other peoples work. Not only do you have to use clay, but you can use other materials, which I like.

Samantha Grandy

a beautiful moment

This semester Tracy and I are ready to conquer our polaroid transfer dinner set. Once we settle all the kinks in the system we plan to take the polaroids we already took from last year and maybe incorporate some new ones, that is if we can still find the polaroid film. Lucky for us, Tracy has a friend that can get us some polaroid film and also after going into Newark Camera Shop so much last semester, I'm pretty much best friends with the guy who owns it. Abby was also telling us that there is a place in philly that makes decals out of pictures that you can put on ceramic objects. I think we might take that approach for this project because the polaroids themselves are so beautiful that I would hate to have them get ruined.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3zTC-yXuuw
Here is a link to an instructional video that teaches you how to do polaroid transfers!!




So another thing I saw this past week was The Last Iceberg lecture and exhibit. I HIGHLY suggest checking these photos out because they are so breathtakingly beautiful. To be quite honest, I've never been to an art opening lecture that facinated me this much. Her images are amazing and it's hard for words to even describe them. You should definitely check them out!!






http://www.camilleseaman.com



-Kerri

"it will have your child using clay to design the floatiest boat he can!"

My goal for the semester is to fuse experience and final piece.  Not performance art per-say, but more action-art! 

I’ve also been thinking a lot about honesty/truth in making.  For me, creating becomes more meaningful with less filters, and so i want to be careful not to remove myself too much from the initial inspiration.  i was thinking about the outcome of my bed piece from last year (in an attempt to record sleep, i used clay as a bed) and how presenting the video, which was essentially a record of action-art, was painful for me.  In other ways, I’ve been pushing and testing the boundaries of my vulnerability and seeing when it’s appropriate/inappropriate, pleasant/unpleasant. I can’t really say anything conclusive about this experiment yet.  But, i think that making and then personally dispersing has an open-ness to it. 

AS a jumping point:

i’m interested in the engineering of seed-travel, and thinking about what kind/the amount of information seeds carry via wind, animals, and water as vehicle.  White Clay Creek is an attractive first vehicle for dispersion. Clay has some really wonderful qualities and i’m eager to get my hands into it again.  

sailing stones (below) are a really beautiful phenomenon that Jason told me about.  they're these huge huge huge stones in the desert that are moved by wind and create zig-zag tracks over a long period of time.

This summer in London, I saw Psycho Buildings: Artists Take on Architecture in London.  I've been thinking about spaces/my experience of an environment a lot since. I went up in that bubble thing - thrilling and terrifying. It sank down so much! 

Sort of along those lines, I've been thinking about how I experience my environment. 

And I've been thinking about touch - how the sinking plastic of a bubble feels and smells, what it feels like to be buried in the sand (really warm/comforting, but also kind of rough/itchy). I was thinking about how I touch things to understand them - racks of clothing, fruit I might buy, railings, plastic bags filled  with water. And babies, they learn about the world by putting it in their mouths! I worked with the 12-year-old granddaughter of my boss at a fruit stand this summer and she was bored one day and filled a plastic bag with water and put it on my head. Honestly, it felt great. 

I was very influenced by greyworld, a group of guys who make art for public spaces in London. I was attracted to it because it was unpretentious. I'm put off by galleries that don't permit you to touch the work (though it's sometimes understandable) or photograph it. 

Just a couple other things to note: still obsessed with clay spheres and thinking about how their fragility in the unfired state reminds me of memories - esp. if i fill them with messages/objects as messages. I'm a big letter-writer sometimes I feel like I'm sending out my journal to several people all the time rather than writing it down for myself (though I've also kept at least a skeleton of a journal since 6th grade - maybe it could influence the content of my messages). Also, I've been thinking about how (I think it was the sumarians) sent important messages in enclosed balls of clay. You would know the messenger hadn't opened your letter if the ball was intact. 

Also, interested in spectacles/sets/models. I'd never seen a real broadway show before, so I was blown away by the sets and costumes in the Lion King when I saw it this summer. And I'm interested in America for the first time in my life. In London, I started to appreciate or maybe understand America more for what it is. It didn't hurt that I read of East of Eden in August. Steinbeck writes about America...and everything:

Vast and sprawling

Desires/limitations/choice

Oh a lot of good/evil

Local, landscapes

I might make a puppet show about Maryland (my home state). That obviously follows, right?

 

fall 08

This semester I plan on making a bunch of monsters that live and interact in their own world. I want to take the influences from my childhood and mix that with my adulthood. The monsters will be cute and frightening and play with the viewer’s emotions. I also want to explore putting spices and seasonings into the clay. I hope this will add color, smell and texture that will in enhance the monsters appearance. I want to try to discover why these influences such as Jim Henson and old anatomy books effect my work so much.
I have been looking at artist like Julie Hughes art and her installation work. Her work uses strong bright colors that grab my attention. Her images also play of those classic childhood icons that we see so much. I also have been watching Jim Henson’s videos and seeing how he puts together scenes and environments for his characters.
here is also two links one to julie Hughes web site and one to a muppet video
http://juliehughesart.com/Home.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynjIoymWHvU
and one more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLsbKdSsY1sfall

landscape

I was looking at the pruned blog, and I thought about this photographer I met at Penland

http://www.keithjohnsonphotographs.com/images.php?gallery=Re:Man(ufactured)%20Space

just thinking about how we shape space, how things change it and all that.

good article from the NYTimes

think about this

here is the rest

so this is work by Graham Stevens, and the room with all the colors is someone else, a shoe found on the Thames and the ruins of the Crystal Palace (world's fair site in London) and below is a link to a video of some of his work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-W1NOU8EDU


this article makes me think about recording over and over and over to loose information, as well as all the other things.
http://www.aetherambler.net/Ozymns.htm

and here is the telephone tunnel

time/distance/space/home/whatever

I've been thinking a lot about time and distance and space and home and familiarity.

Walking along the bank of the Thames this summer I found old shoes, broken dishes, toy cars, bones ans a copy of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I also saw lots of objects in museums, reconstructed, pulled out of the ground, shipped far away. Like the reconstructed face of Nefretiti, or the Ishtar gate. I saw the Rosetta Stone, books and maps that showed where the sea was because that is where the sea monsters lived. I read in a book my dad gave me that said some people's hobby is to walk along the Thames with a metal detector and look for treasures that have washed up, but since London was part of the Roman empire, they have found lots of artifacts, and if you found anything that seems significant you are supposed to report it. Oh, I also found a coconut.
I spent a lot of time on planes and trains and automobiles. I think it's weird that when we are on a train for instance our bodies are moving technically but not really in a physical sense we wholly perceive. Except maybe with motion sickness or unstable movements.
I went to cemetaries in London and Paris, the one is London was taken over by ivy and small animals, the one in Paris was like a city becasue they weren't graves, but little altars, all like tall houses croweded together on a hill.
In Germany, I saw a 1000 year old rose bush in a church yard, it was the only part of the church that survived it's destruction at some point in history, In Goslar, I went to one of the old Kaiserplatz from when the emperor moved from palace to palace (the italics won't go away). In a tomb, or sort of tomb on the ground floor was a monument to a Frederick the great or somesort and his heart was burried in this stone coffin because he was so kind and generous, the stained glass windows showed depictions of his heart, and were really simple and strange illustrations, thickly outlined and in bright, primary colors.
In London we tried tuning an underwater tunnel into a long distance telephone call.
And at home, I do the same drives all the time, and through town at night there is a strange red boat parked on the sidewalk.

Oh, and strange blops of cake that are saved in cabinets by my great Auntie Evelin.

When I got back to Delaware I read Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut and thought a lot about the part where the bobming of Dresden in reversed and the bombs fly back into the bellies of planes. Also abiout how every moment in always existing in some time/place/form

So I am thinking about some sort of time capsule.
but what about landfills, and also wheels.

here is some work by Graham Stevens, I saw it at the Centre Pompidou in July

for you seniors out there

www.gradportfolioday.org

Participating colleges and universities:

The Art Institute of Boston/Lesley University, California College of the Arts, College For Creative Studies, Emily Carr University Art + Design + Media, Herron School of Art and Design/Indiana University, Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University, Laguna College of Art & Design, Maine College of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art/Division of Graduate Admission, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Memphis College of Art, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Otis College of Art and Design, Parsons The New School for Design, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Rochester Institute of Technology, San Francisco Art Institute, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, School of Visual Arts, Syracuse University School of Art and Design, Transart Institute, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, The University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

Locations:
The Art Directors Club
106 West 29th Street
(between 6th and 7th Aves.)
New York, NY 10001
www.adcglobal.org
Saturday, Sept. 27, noon-4 p.m.

FALL 2008 1st blog assigment

DUE DATE: postings must be up by 9 PM Monday, September 15th.
postings must be at least 200 words, include at least 2 different images, and at least 2 links to different websites related to your research/interests.

THE STUFF: your 1st blog should re-present your semester plan in a way that takes advantage of this wonderful world wide web of ours. so give us the basics of what you plan to make this semester, why you're interested in making what you want to make, who/what you're looking at, listening to, etc and how it is all combining to form your artistic vision.