Update on Fall Quarter Finals and more…

It’s been a while since my last post (sorry!!). I’ve hand my hands full these past few weeks with finals, Coco, and Thanksgiving. Now that things are a little bit back to normal and I am officially on winter break, I have time to write a long post about what I’ve been up to.

My finals in Studio Issues and Stitch, Object as Language went really well! I’ll start with what I did in my Stitch class. I finished three 12 X 6 canvases of embroidery. The title of the piece is called Time Frames and each canvas represents a season. I finished Summer for my midterm and then I finished Fall and Winter for my final. I still have to do Spring and am planning on having it finished by the end of December. As you can see they were very time consuming and I’m very proud of how they turned out. The seasons informed my colors and thought process for each piece. I did a lot of writing while I embroidered these pieces, but am only going to share a little bit of what I was thinking. My work is moving into the realm of collective memory so my personal memories are becoming obsolete for my viewers. I think writing about both personal and collective memory is very important to my work, but part of it is just for me.

Fall - I was thinking a lot about changes and how nature starts to change but at the same time the structure is still the same. The frames haven’t completely lost their shape, but have changed in a distinctive way. The forms are starting to hollow out and prepare for the next step. The colors aren’t flat and the same like they were in Summer. They are blended, vibrant and consistent. Certain colors are the same throughout all the seasons and I kept this the same in my embroidery.

Winter - This is where things are drastically changed. The structure is the most important and most seen element in the winter. This is where things start to distort and deconstruct. I thought a lot about a quiet still moment in the winter. The moment where the leaves are all gone and the branches finally get to be seen. Snow is sitting on the branches and it’s a perfect winter moment. There are areas of extreme change and consistency. If you look carefully you see an image of a face, but at first glance you aren’t really sure what you are seeing. Again, these colors are appropriate to the season but a few of them are in the other two seasons as well.

Here is a detail of Winter.

This is where I need your feedback. I’m not sure if I should hang these horizontal or vertical. So when you have a change please let me know what you prefer.

Now moving on to my Studio Issues final. I worked on simple daily drawings as part of my thought process on how to start translating my work into metal. Since I didn’t have the resources to work with metal yet I did a lot of studies (paper and drawing) so that next quarter I will have a good idea of what I want to make. I also continued to work with my screen printing compositions. I decided to present them in shadow boxes and make a collage with different prints. I was thinking about dressers and vanities and how people put precious objects on them. Sometimes they put boxes with precious objects in them on either a dresser or vanity. I’ve been researching the Victorian era, mourning jewelry, and artists like Joseph Cornell and Anne Wilson. I’ve always had a fascination with tiny precious objects so that is the direction my work is going.

These are the last of my daily drawings which makes 70 (one for each day of the quarter). YAY!!!

These are my metal studies. I cut forms out of paper and then painted and stitched them together. Next quarter when I’m in my metals and jewelry class I want to make objects like these.

This is my final presentation for my Studio Issues class.

Right after finals were over I went to the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC. It was a charming little art museum. I went to see Dale Chihuly’s Seaforms exhibition. It was set up as clusters of sea forms and some of his drawings were on display as well. The colors were beautiful and his compositions were inspirational. I was really excited that I got to see his work and hopefully will see it again sometime.

This week I’m going to Sarasota, FL to visit my aunt and uncle. I’ll also be going to the American Craft Show in Sarasota. I’m really excited to be able to visit family and see this show! I’m going to leave you with a few new pictures of Coco and I’ll post again when I’m back in Savannah.

Studio Issues Progress

In my Studio Issues class I’ve been making paper cutouts as models for jewelry pieces that I want to make out of metal next quarter. My daily drawings are informing the shapes of the cutouts. I’m taking a metals and jewelry class during the winter quarter (YAY!!!!!) and am officially making a step towards working with metal in my work. These are in progress pictures of the paper cutouts and process. I’ll post the finished pieces soon.

Iron Work Inspiration!

Here are some pictures that I’ve taken over the past few weeks. I’ve gotten a lot of new iron work pictures..yay!

More Daily Drawings…

Here are some more of my daily drawings. Most of these are inspired by Savannah iron work.

Daily Drawing Update

Here are some more of the daily drawings that I’ve been doing on note cards. They are inspired by iron work in Savannah, cameos, and frames.

Past Present Future

This is my final project for my Artist as Designer/Designer as Artist class. We had all of our critiques and the last day of class was today. Thanks Cat Chow for traveling to Savannah for the past seven weeks to teach our class. It was such a great experience!

The title is Past Present Future. It’s about past, present, and future memories. I used each compartment in the doll trunk that I bought to represent these three eras of time.

The left side of the trunk represents the past. I created a frame like structure that I hung in the back part of the trunk. I thought about past memories and how they are suspended in time so I made a cameo form that represents my memories suspended in time. I started twisting this wire around and flattening part of it out so that it was this quirky “memory”. It is made up of precious crystals, beads, and pearls wrapped in copper tubing.

The right side of the trunk represents the present. I made forms out of copper wire that have the characteristics of the iron work in Savannah. I’ve been thinking a lot about iron work because it is a memory of a cast. This works well with the concepts of memory that I’ve been working with. Then, I made dream catcher forms out of different colored wire and place beads wrapped in copper tubing in each “memory catcher”.

The small compartment in the trunk represents the future. I made a mock drawer out of copper mesh. Then I placed the “memory catcher” forms in the drawer along with one beaded cameo. This represents what is waiting for me in the future. Some things are planned and some and unknown. They are not fully developed and are not ready to come out of this drawer. Some day they will join the rest of the memories, but right now they safe and waiting in this drawer. The presence of the future is always leering in the background, but will not be completely understood until the time is right.

Here are some pictures from the rest of my day! Just a little inspiration from Savannah.

Sneak Peek

Here’s a sneak peek of what I’m working on!!

Dichotomy

I would like to share something that we are discussing in my Artist as Designer class with Cat Chow.

“Dichotomy between/of: the conceptual and the three-dimensional, the scientific and the romantic, the rational and the irrational, the geometric and the organic, the abstract and the figurative, the simple and the complex, the rigid and the pliable, resisting and letting go, the permanent and the ephemeral, the horizontal and the vertical, feeling/emotion and physical form, joining and cutting, construction and destructive, destruction and reconstruction, breaking and repairing, tenderness and violence, love and hate, harmony and conflict, frustration and happiness, cusses and failure, birth and death, youth and age, the isolated individual and the shared awareness of the group, the one and the other, the private and the public, sculpture and environment, art and life, addition and subtraction, interiority and exteriority, verticality and horizontality, process and object, creative vision and the final result, natura naturans and natura naturata, the passive and the active, mind and matter, repetition and difference.”

- Louise Bourgeois

I read an interview with Louise Bourgeois from the book PressPLAY: Contemporary Artists in Conversation and I found it really interesting to read her thoughts about memory. I don’t necessarily relate to her views on this subject directly but I do connect to it at some level. It has certainly made me think about memory from a different perspective. The one thing that sticks in my mind is how she stated that she wanted to give her work permanence. I really relate to that statement and have wrote down that exact sentence several times.

I have really enjoyed reading interviews in this book and definitely recommend it to anyone interested in contemporary artists. It has been really beneficial to read about different artists’ thought processes.

In Progress

I’ve been working on my final project for my Artist as Designer/Designer as Artist class this week. I’ve also been thinking a lot about a few questions that I have: What do memories actually mean to people?, Why are people drawn to them?, What is the best way of interacting with my memory objects?, and How should I present my ideas. So far, I’ve come up with memories remind people of happy moments or experiences that they may or may not experience again. These are different to everyone based on their own personal life experiences. Some people think memory is really important and some don’t. I’m one of those people who thinks memory is extremely important and very interesting (Obviously!! haha).

A few ways that I’ve been thinking about presenting my ideas are: using suitcases, trunks, cosmetic cases, jars, and special boxes. Basically I’m trying to create an environment that my audience can relate to. I’ve also found out through my survey that sight, smell, and sound are the three most important senses when it comes to remembering a specific memory. So ideally I would combine these three senses and present my objects in one of the possible ways that I just listed to create the best environment. I’m still thinking and working a lot of things out, but for this final I’ve come to a conclusion. I bought a vintage doll trunk to use as my space for my project. Then once I sat down with all my materials and my trunk, ideas started to flow. I’m also working with the dichotomy of a memory in terms of past, present, and future. So here are some of my in progress pictures.

It’s coming together really well! Feel free to comment, leave feedback, or answer the above questions.

The Simple Pleasures of Life

Today I really enjoyed my walk home from class. It was such a relaxing, in the moment experience. I felt like I needed to get “lost” (in a good way) lost in the city, lost in my mind (to take a short break from thinking about my work), lost in the culture of Savannah. At the beginning of the quarter our Studio Issues class read an article from A Field Guide for Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnik. I sort of revisited this article last night as I was organizing all of my articles from past and present classes. It was a good article to start the quarter off with and I’ve thought about it throughout the quarter at various times.

Anyways, back to my walk home. So for maybe twenty to thirty minutes I reached out and grabbed this opportunity to get lost and enjoy myself. I stopped at the Pinnacle Gallery and it was one of those days where I didn’t intend to walk by, it just happened. Its always fun to see what I walk by and what places I decide to go in.

Danny Simmons: Spiritual Rhythms is at the Pinnacle Gallery until November 23rd. I was attracted to the colors that he chose for his paintings. They were beautiful shades of blended color and texture that cannot be captivated in a photograph. I didn’t even attempt to take a photograph because I knew this experience was about what I was seeing then and there, and what I would remember when I left. In some of the paintings I was captivated by the mood created by color and the close up views of these colors that I was attracted to. I could have stood at one painting for hours just looking at the soft texture and color.

Two of the quotes in his exhibition book really stood out to me: ” Vibrant abstract forms are joined to one another by a continuous black outline, and they seem to dance upon painterly monochromatic surfaces.” and ” Simmons’ paintings and drawings do not have the forced notion of ‘what you see is what you get’; they possess and ‘inner necessity’, giving viewers the opportunity to respond in the same subjective spiritual manner in which the work is made.” I responded to these quotes the most with my experience at the Pinnacle Gallery. If you get a chance you should stop by because the experience at the Gallery is more inspirational than the photographs online. Click here for more about Danny Simmons.

One more thing and then I’ve got to get to get back to work. One of my professors posted this for our class to read and I thought it might help those of you out there who haven’t accepted this blogging world yet. It’s an insightful article that I thought I would share. It has even helped me to understand and think about blogs in a new way. “Why I Blog” by Andrew Sullivan. So I’ll leave you with that and enjoy the weekend!