BA Week 12

RESPONSE (Christian O.)

Being alone but not lonely, solitude can be feared and ignored with the need to feel accepted in a society. What's wrong with knowing yourself, understanding your thoughts, questioning thoughts. I don't think it is intentionally ignored, just feared, or seems lonely.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity. 
-Albert Einstein

Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man. 
-Thomas Wolfe

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. 
-Marcus Aurelius 

Without great solitude no serious work is possible. 
-Pablo Picasso

Artist Residency Post 8

I planned on this being my last week at SJYA but was injured over the weekend and had limited mobility and stayed resting my knee. I plan on attending SJYA this upcoming week for the last time

BA Week 11

WORK

RESPONSE

“The point is that you learn how to make your work by making your work, and a great many of the pieces you make along the way will never stand out as finished art.” Pg.6

“You make good work by (among other things) making lots of work that isn’t very good, and gradually weeding out the parts that aren’t good, the parts that aren’t yours.”  p. 26

1.   What work have you made that seems most yours? Why?

- The work that i have made that seems most mine would have to be what is above this post, the sculpture with kinetic movement. I believe it is most mine because it came from my thoughts with little inspiration in terms of shape/form from others. It was most mine because during its process, i learned more than i have during the creative process of building and creating the mechanics, overcoming challenges and setbacks in process with expression of my character and reaction to said setbacks. I learned about myself during the creating of this piece, and how i would react to things that looked right on paper but ended up challenging me once taken into the physical. It is most mine because i reached a place of contentment in its completion that i have not felt in a while when creating. Its custom form and the way it is assembled is connected to how i approach situations when creating and thought processes of custom work/work that is most me.

“Chances are that whatever theme and technique attract you, someone has already experimented in the same direction. This is unavoidable: making any art piece inevitably engages the larger themes and basic techniques that artists have used for centuries. Finding your own work is a process of distilling from each those traces that ring true to your own spirit.”  p. 103

2.   Who are artists that are making work that relates to you?  Are there other influences? How are these other influences connected to your work?

- I have found influence through the work of Anthony Howe, using kinetic motion (wind power) to allow his sculpture to come to life and have a sense of being. He creates original works that are symbolic of forms, movement, and shapes influencing and allowing thought of the viewer to be less constrained. Something i want to explore more into which is allowing the perception of the viewer to answer what is present in front of them rather than a set standard of perception seen in a lot of work.

“And while a hundred civilizations have prospered (sometimes for centuries) without computers or windmills or even the wheel, none have survived even a few generations without art.”  p. 104

3.   Discuss, in your own words, why you think this is so.

-I believe the need to create and express is the pinnacle of existence. To create something from scratch allows expression of the artist and true exploration of the mind in attempts to find and create the true meaning of that person. An expression and connection of their senses through their environment that is true to that person. To think we were created, from dirt or some substance, our inner drive or desire would make sense to be that from which we came, through creation, expression. Lack of art and creation would seem to me as an oppression of true thought, life, and lack of freedom.

“Art is something you do out in the world, or something you do about the world, or even something you do for the world. The need to make art may not stem solely from the need to express who you are, but from a need to complete a relationship with something outside of yourself.”  p. 108

4.   Which of these ideas resonates most with you? Why? If they all resonate, how do they differ?

- It all resonates with me, it differs through individual perception nd expression. Some individuals look and create from within themselves and their thoughts while other express from societal influence or actions. For the needs of other or for the selfish desire to create what one sees when they close their eyes. 

“Making art depends upon noticing things-things about yourself, your methods, your subject matter.”  p. 109

5.   What do you notice about yourself? What are your methods?  Subject matter?  The answers do not have to be limited to art related topics.

-I notice that i have outlandish ideas that would take risk to produce, and for some reason i hold back on a lot of this ideas. Though i have been getting better at expressing and creating this ideas, i need to become more confident and take risks. I notice i take a lot of time, in trying to make the idea or work perfect. I tend to stress over time not spent on working on my art when i am unable to or have pre planned things like work. My methods include starting in a  direction that i could see how the idea would work only a few steps ahead, then once i reach that step, plans sometimes change and i adapt the project to whichever path i plan on pursuing in creating it. Other methods would be just doing it, starting whatever i am making without a clear route then through that i process i granite towards future ideas and choices and act upon them. Subject matter would be more symbolic shapes with movement and an perception of simplicity though time and effort has been put into the work. simplistic in form yet holding a complex mood. 

“The only work really worth doing- the only work you can do convincingly- is the work that focuses on the things you care about.”  p. 116

“All this suggests a useful working approach to making art: notice the objects you notice.” Pg.101

6.   What do you care about? The answers do not have to be limited to art related topics.

-I care about people, wanting more for those who don't know there is more. I stress and become anxious for others because i can see an answer when it is hidden in plain site. I care about wanting to be the best version of myself that i can be and producing art, not just art but everything i do, to my best ability which sometimes drains my batteries and creates separation from people and relationships. I care about animals, any and all. The ability to be, express, and eventually reach greatness through hard work and preserving in faith. I care to become someone, not just "that guy from ___ (insert local bar/restaurant/shop)" but actually someone who is known for great things, impactful things. I care about wanting to be change in a world that is ever so stuck in its destructive, manipulating, and lying ways. I care for the people.

INSPIRATION

1. https://hyperallergic.com/397105/calder-mobiles-whitney-museum-american-art/

2. https://hyperallergic.com/316520/the-wind-powered-kinetic-sculpture-pulsing-behind-the-olympic-cauldron/

3. https://hyperallergic.com/228426/bringing-latin-american-masters-of-kinetic-and-light-art-out-of-obscurity/

-Detail of Gyula Kosice, “Habitat hidroespacial, maqueta R

Artist Residency Post 7

3-4-2017

PROJECT: Free form and Glazing

This week at SJYA I brought back bisque fired pieces to the guys with a water color pallet of underglazes and clear glaze, with intentions of letting them add color and design to their clay forms. This weeks class was fairly small, i think some of the guys had got in trouble though i'm not sure. One of the returning guys had made a few bisque pieces that i brought and he began to underglaze them. The other in the group was a new guy and ended up making things in clay while we glazed. I joined one of the guys in glazing, and colored a bowl i had made there a while back. Conversations were geared towards music since we were in a room with a tv in it, which they ended up playing youtube on the tv and listening to music. We discussed some spring break adventures and continued to glaze and make clay. Jake and i spoke before the class on our car ride over in ideas of how to make the class more engaging and conversed over our last experience there. We ended up implementing a Claymation project and the guys were really involved and intrigued  by it. Allowing them to come up with the scenes and characters, and the actions the characters would take. When we left, Jake and I were discussing how successful the project was and how involved the guys were in it. Jake plans on printing out the stop motion into little flip books. I also plan on bisque firing the rest of the clay work the guys have made and get some things glazed that some of the guys that have left the academy have made.

Installation: Long Term Indoor

"It's us"

Inspiration was taken from the ever growing machine that is consumerism and society. A lack of acknowledgment of the machine that encapsulates majority of thought and action of daily routines that we as society partake in daily. We are the machine.

Medium: foam boards, copper tubing, PVC, paint, mirrors, ceiling tiles, balsa wood, acrylic panel, string

 Using white clean edges on the outside of the building, my goal was to portray a clean and favorable place that could draw the attention of the viewer or passerby, with curiosity to look within through the broken windows. The broken windows represent the information and knowledge that is available which sheds light on or allows for further research and acknowledgment of the machine  prevalent in society. To view inside, the action of crouching or taking a knee is necessary. All the windows are blurred using a clear adhesive to only allow the viewer to peer through the broken windows. When the viewer looks into the building, a revolving machine with hanging mirrors reflects the eye of the viewer back to themselves in an attempt of portraying them as the machine, the forever moving machine that we all are part of. The inside is dark, and lends a little bit of light through a filtered lamp and the excess light that floods in through the windows. PVC pipe was placed onto the machine, connecting to the wall and further on extruding then returning back into the wall to connect the overall piece with it's surrounding and further grounding the building with connectivity and movement. While the use of the ceiling tiles in a grid like pattern and lacking on the ceiling is repetitive and seen throughout and around buildings and industrial environments. 

BA Week 10

WORK

RESPONSE

Annie: A lack of respect for someones culture and heritage so you can make a pretty penny, disregarding practices and beliefs for your bottom line. The fact that those people can sleep at night after seeing the heartbreak and agony they create for the sake of profit is beyond me. Are you on uppers or downers coping with reality? Beyond blacked out to society and their ways only to progress your life and make consume make. Who are you to make those decisions, wealth and power trumps human conditions and religions? How could a lack of care come to fruition? Turn an eye while you can until the day you meet your maker and that time you are weighed of your deceit. Trash to the earth just so you could be wealthy with greed and power while our babies are dying. Monster men with machine minds.

Emily: A progression of mind, and ascensions of thought, higher consciousness and pursuance of upward truth. Stoic pyramidical forms leads to the light, the light from within reaching for more knowledge. Imagine a world of conscious morals and ethics progressing practices, solving problems, forever improving space travel. Where could we be as a society? Where would we go, the unknown. Live with truth and and character, expertise and power. For the power is within, find the lamp inside yourself, find the light within. "Rage, Rage against the dying of the light"

Artist Residency Post 6

3-21-2018

PROJECT: Press Molds

This week I decided to introduce press molds to the guys. Before i met with the guys, Jake and i had a meeting with Mr. Freeman, Mrs. Passmore, and Mr.Wyat. We discussed how the current supervisor expressed his lack of want to sit in the class because he was not getting paid for it. We also discussed starting a list and enforcing it to push for more cooperation with the guys. After meeting with them, we were put into one of the rec rooms and waited for the guys to come into class. When they came, I introduced press molds and the different ways they could be used. By either collaging multiple pieces with imprinted textures, making single pieces of the mold, or using old techniques like pinch pots to imprint the patterns and molds onto the outer side of the work. the first half of class, Mr.Freeman was walking around making sure the guys knew they needed to straighten up and get to work, one of the students who enjoys clay a lot was teaching Mr. Freeman the techniques that i have taught them. I would ask him questions and see if he would remember certain ones, which he did. Jake and I had a solid group of guys this week that were really involved and were creating and being productive the whole time. Conversations ranged from jokes throughout the group to me pushing ideas of what they are creating. I was also able to share with them that all of the work they had made so far was going to be in their property pile when they left the facility, which filled some of the guys with happiness, surprised that i had all of the stuff they made, which i ensured them i did. Class was over, and on the way out, Jake and I both agreed that it was the best day we had working with the guys, as they were very productive and there was a great energy in the room the whole time.

The second visit this week, I brought new molds to let the guys mess with new designs and imprints. They really enjoyed the patterns and prints of the new molds. They continued to make new things using the molds, though getting them to think more three dimensional was a little tough, even after showing an example. I had two packs of oreos with six oreos in each pack, and four students. I told them they could decide whether they wanted to share the packs evenly or have a chance at winning a pack for them selves leaving two guys without oreos. They all decided they wanted to make it fare and we split up the oreos so everyone could have three. I started some conversations about how and what led them to this position in their life, which they were all ok with telling me their actions/charges. I would question whether they enjoyed being in the facility which they all replied no, then id offer some thought about being so young and loosing so much time over mistakes. And how future actions lead them into life decisions and circumstances. I pushed their thinking towards conscious decisions making and shared some personal stories about past decisions and how they led me to certain areas of my life. One of the new guys who had been there for only 14 days was staring out the window, saying "man i'm surrounded by fences.." then i asked how long he had left which he replied 12-18 months. The feeling i go from the answer was a little unsettling, knowing that you'd be in that building for the next year of your life, must be a tough pill to swallow. I also shared thought towards groups you hangout with and how it has influences on your life and the decisions you make which they were all listening to. Jokes were made throughout the whole time i was there which is always nice to see them laugh and smile. I left the class with new work made and letting them know id see them in two weeks because of spring break.
More pics coming