She Lives In A Fairy-tale Somewhere Too Far For Us to Find

My work... where to start? I am still working with the idea of good and evil, bad and good, manageable and unmanageable, depression and mania, dream and nightmare, or in other words the constant struggle for a balance. I am now working on similar panels to the ones I created before yet instead of translating those close to me into a positive dream-like scene, I am working on capturing my greatest fears attached to each person  I am close to in an almost nightmarish scenario. I don't mean dark and scary I mean more in the sense of a real-life nightmare. For example the guitar tree was a visual representation of my boyfriend ( He is a musician) and he is also my tree or stability. The fear I attach to him is abandonment or more literally coming home to find my clothes on the lawn so I am translating that into outer panels. So like a web there will be a "string" attaching the nightmare to the dream and then a string attaching a third layer (reality) to the nightmare. Forming a form similar to those silly webs they made us make in English class in high school. When I am in the studio I am in a constant mode of busying my hands: sew, embroider, dye, paint, attach, sew, embroider, dye... It is a rhythm.  I still look at my art as my own therapy and find it best to have a rough sketch in my head while rolling with the punches and solving problems as they come. 

As for what is next... I am unsure I am interested in creating a video piece for my show to add some diversity yet I am not promising anything. I am also interested in revisiting my past or a simpler time, almost a remembrance of my time here at UD as I am going to be done school in about one month and some change. The above picture is from my sophomore year and it is interesting how much I have remained the same as well as changed. I also (in an attempt to lighten the mood and seriousness of this part of the semester, added a video that a friend and I made my sophomore year ENJOY!) My pieces come to me sporadically so I have faith that one weekend after a long week of work I will be driving down route 1 listening to a CD and smoking a cigarette and I will have a thought which will morph and branch into a new obsession or as we call it in the art world a piece. 

Right now I am reading "Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety" by Sigmund Freud. It is interesting but mainly about sex (which doesn't do much for the study I am working on) yet the idea of what causeses what: inhibitions cause anxiety or anxiety causing inhibitions is interesting. I'm not finished yet, but when I am done I will be sure to post my thoughts/opinions/notes. It relates to my work in the sense that I am studying what inhibits people, what anxiety they have and why we feel the need to hold ourselves back from certain aspects within our lives. Once again once I sort my thoughts out better I will add more. 

Recipe: HAHAHAH I don't cook at all!  I made lasagna about 4 days ago in my tiny towers apt kitchen and that was HORRIBLE. It was pretty tasty ( I just realized I worked a 9 hour shift at work today so I walked out to warm up a piece and realized its all gone... damn roommates).  I suggest this for everyone.. because no matter how horrible your day is or how horrible the party you are throwing is going if you bust these puppies out things are sure to turn around. 

Step 1: Drive to the store and pick up these ingredients

*1 box of Pillsbury Funfetti premium cake mix (about a dollar)

*A think of oil 

*and a carton of eggs (your only gonna need 3)

* A can of Betty crocker rainbow chip icing... DO NOT GET PILLSBURY FUNFETTI ICING or your funfetti cake will be ruined!

When you get home follow the instructions on the box... let cake or cupcakes cool. Ice those bad boys and serve them up and let the fun fill your life and forget all your worries! 

(Disclaimer... funfetti may even cure cancer at this point ;)     )

If anyone would like to see what I am working on then feel free to stop by my studio and strike up a conversation! 

Later Gators! 

Crit Feedback

Robin: I really enjoyed how the animals you carved seemed familiar yet estranged. The way all of them are tucked within themselves is great. There is just enough detail to make out what the animal is without providing the viewer with a scaled down replica of the creature. I appreciate the subtlety and attention to detail.

Justin: I loved what you were aiming for, yet felt that the piece had a few too many outside and unnecessary additives. The main large piece with toned down hand prints would work wonders on the viewer forcing them to run through a list of possible scenarios and ideas forcing them to look on and contemplate. I really enjoyed the tangled and distorted bodies in the middle and immediately began to question which direction to take the piece in. I also am very pleased with the scale you are working at. I would be interested in seeing a far larger piece or maybe even seeing how you work with many smaller elements.

Phil: I enjoy the slightly new direction that you have departed on. The piece fits comfortably with the work I've seen of yours in the past, yet starts to lead me in a fairly new narrative direction. For me the piece seemed to be replacing technology with more natural and older materials (woods metals). The tension is still in your work and I love that. Yet there seems to be more the the piece this time besides tension, it seems like you placed a heavier hand on this piece working with more colors, different textures, the placement of three similar things throughout the room. I believe this piece speaks to a struggle and a careful reconstruction or the placing of things back together or "the way they were". Essentially speaking I read control and the idea of who ultimately has the control, the objects, the artist, the materials... Excited for more.

Abbey: Very disturbing... I LOVE IT! The melting/ rotting is wonderfully displayed through WHATEVER THESE ODD MATERIALS are. The bright green may have been too much (in my opinion) the way everything else was rendered it seemed displaced yet we were unable to fully talk about yours and the direction you wished to steer the piece. The rotting carcass is bery believable my only advice for next time is BIGGER!

Lauren: The pieces have a light sense to them and beautiful in appearance. I read the piece as an anti-mosaic as it is. It is aesthetically calming yet because we were unable to discuss your piece I am still not sure where you wanted to take this, or if it was finished. If it is finished I feel as if it may need a little something extra such as a colored surface treatment or more of them as they are. I really want to know what the piece was about so I may ask you the next time I see you or you can respond on here :)

Elise: I'm interested in this torso and how it seems trapped. The colors in the puddle read warm/fire/fall/ even blood (?). Yet the material itself resembles ice. This for me already presents a struggle. I also enjoy the chest cavity that is being weighed down. I personally have anxiety and I feel like this piece speaks to that (for me at least). The idea of having something holding you back, weighing you down, and essentially paralyzing you. With the piece on the floor I feel as if the "anxiety" or unidentified pool of material has knocked down the person and is beginning to ooze all over them . I actually love this piece, it was very easy for me to connect to it. 

Pam: The glazes on these are wonderful. Although I love your cobalt blue theme, I am overjoyed to see that you are diversifying your collection. I would love to see more, and possibly have you move away from utilitarian objects.

Steph: I enjoy the part after Part2, the wait. The stop animation is brilliant and I feel depicts your piece the best especially in the conveyance/ conception of time... When the fake blood came in I couldn't watch (  I don't like blood, it makes me pass out ).

Ben: The migration away from the home due to disruption (sexuality, relationships) is something that I believe many of us (college art majors) can relate to. I enjoy your visually stimulation take on this through the use of layering. It is interesting to look at, entertaining, contemplative, and fits in lovely with the body of work you have previously been working on. It speaks to you and your practice and the direction your work has recently take.... DO WORK SON! ;)

Estaban: I enjoy being able to touch your piece, and the repetition of certain forms and textures. The use of multiples that are not all exactly the same pleases me. Just as humans are not all the same. I love how everything you are making seems to be working towards a common purpose. I am reminded of topography and a sense of protection/ walling oneself in. I see a lot of your older work in this yet much has changed. I still read a bit of a story in this work, yet this piece seems far more thought out and constructed. I feel as if you are making a model for this giant mountain you are going to make and go live on :). I think you should keep on working and I am very excited about witnessing the end result!

Dani/Alex: I already gave you guys feedback in the last blog.

We are all plastic figurines in some sense.

I have this obsession with learning to blow glass one day, as well as learning how to incorporate plastics (recycled of course) into my work. So when I stumbled across ways to manipulate plastic grocery bags I was very excited. Yet this is coming from the girl who fell in love with duct tape wallets and purses. A friend of mine got really into recycling and some how learned to make purses out of plastic shopping bags. Basically you collect plastic bags that interest you or are plain and you sandwich them between two or sometimes four sheets of wax paper. After you have arranged the bags the way you like you simply iron them on low heat (like when you trap leaves between wax paper). Be careful not to melt the wax paper or plastic. By overlapping sections of the bags you will eventually end up with a "sheet" of plastic that you can sew together and add fabric to for a lining. You can also iron strips and use the strips to weave a bag (I am not exactly sure on how that works Siarra has yet to show me this method). But the idea of flattening plastic and making it into workable sheets/strips is so simple yet it has never crossed my mind. I already love working with fabric and this franken-plastic material would be perfect to work with due to its ability to flow, and bend. 

A video that uses a similar process to create a laptop bag can be seen here :

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=0oddEWnj7X0&feature=PlayList&p=B8B6653312E5E2A5&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=11

 If that link isn't working (it gave me some trouble) Then go to youtube and type in How to fuse plastic bags into laptop case.

I researched a bit and apparently there are a lot of people out there making purses, bags, jewelry, and even dresses out of grocery bags! I think this is pretty sweet and eco-friendly.

An artist I have been looking at recently is Nathalie Schnider-Lang I thought that since I was about to venture to Berlin in a few months, I should research some artists who practice in Germany. Here work is composed of mainly the figure and nothing is really smoothed out the pieces are not in full really either. They melt into one another or a base and have a foreign and rough texture that obscures the image slightly yet still allows one to read what the piece is. She is one of my links on the right side of the blog and the website directs you to her work (figurative Plastik).

Another artist that I have been looking at is Georgia Kopf-Reddmann, a German artist working with photography. Her work is simple and elegant and what I really find interesting isn't necessarily the photos themselves but the colors she captures and the ability to capture a mood. There are warm, cool, abrasive, and comforting images and I find myself completely relaxed as I scroll through photo after photo often going back to look at photos I have already seen.

Artist feedback (I will post the rest of everyones we didn't get to soon) Yet for now:

Dani: I loved your piece and I can tell that it was well thought out and delicately constructed. I think the relationship of a book to skin was a perfect comparison. I feel that often an underlying point or moral of a story does not surface until there is a hole created for it to ooze up and make contact with the reader, just as the underlying blood waits for its opportunity to rise to the surface with a prick or a cut. In a way I feel like skin is a book, it has remembrance in the form of burns, moles, scars, wrinkles. Similarly a story or book uses text to document the past or what has occurred. The piece was disturbing but in an intriguing and genuinely engaging way. I felt the need to touch it and digest all it had to say just as one would a book. <3

Alex: I don't know if this is appropriate or not, but 1) I am very proud of you, and 2) I can really see an underlying theme, idea, connection in your work. The idea of sheltering and home is apparent and also the idea of not knowing, just as the viewer was unsure of what lay within or around these strange "creatures", buildings, fungi, etc. I think this is fitting in your work, it seems like you enjoy addressing your need for control and your acceptance of your inability to control all things at all times. I also appreciated the duality in this piece... taking hard clay and giving it a soft, and wispy appearance. Also I enjoyed that you created an environment for what is essentially an environment itself. I have so much more to talk to you about concerning your future piece too... I think a lot of your ideas do run through all your work, you just don't realize it. Like doing pointless things to set your own mind at ease ( I am not being mean I love this). I don't want to give away what you are about to do so I will make sure I talk to you in person about this soon.

In general I was glad to get back into the swing of things with crit. I only have 2 more after all :( I want to savor them all.