11/11/13
Alright, I've finally made this into my own blog. It's been a while since I've had anything documented online, and it's about time. I need to get my thoughts out through a mode other than just writing it down in my sketchbook.
So what have I been thinking about lately?
I submitted a proposal to get into a juried exhibition between Marquette's Haggerty Museum and MIAD, and I got in! This means I need to finish a piece and submit it online by Friday. If you didn't know already, there's a show up at the Haggerty called "Current Tendencies III." A friend of mine, Willy Carpenter, a few teachers from MIAD, (Jason Yi, Tyanna Buie and Evan Gruzis), and other artists were chosen to create work that reacts to the museum's permanent collection.
I've been in a fibers class all semester, and recently we were introduced to crocheting. (For myself, re-introduced, but regardless, I'm getting back into the swing of crocheting). The last project I finished for this class I was dealing with chain stitching in relation to the power lines that continuously connect our world. While on the Altered Landscapes trip to the Southwest from the end of May to the beginning of June, I noticed that the most prevalent man made landmarks in the desert were the power lines. They were strangely beautiful, spanning the landscape as far as the eye could see, and then some. Coming back to the city, I realize that it is something we don't readily pay attention to, and I wanted to include these sentiments in my project. So, I crocheted about 90 feet of chain stitch and installed them, only alluding to the idea of power lines and their connectivity of our world.
Now, I didn't know why, but for the past week or so, I've been obsessing over chain stitching the rest of the yarn I have. Why do I feel so compelled to crochet these chains?
We are so used to having everything prefabricated for us and don't even realize how much time and effort is put in to creating things that we use on a daily basis. I'm using this time consuming craft of crocheting yarn to represent the disparity between beginning stages of production and final product, such as our clothing. When you buy something, do you ever think of where it came from? Or who made it? I'm questioning the fabrication of the world around us, from our clothing to the buildings we live in. We take for granted the things we use daily that others have put time and effort in to, just for us to be comfortable. But why is our society so fixated on the comfortable? We go out of our way just to have our needs satiated. I'm not yet sure how the final product will come together, but I'm thinking the yarn chains will be intersected with some metal structure.
5/17/13
Forgot to post about the MIAD Senior Thesis Exhibition, and the MAM After Dark Show...
Sadly I only ended up getting pictures of two of my friends thesis', but their work for the exhibition was phenomenal regardless. If you didn't manage to make it down to MIAD for one of the 3 days the artists were there with their work, you truly missed out!
The lovely Hayley Jane Eichenbaum with her 'Pilot' performance.
P.S. witnessing the use of electromagnetic levitation is AWESOME.
I definitely missed out on seeing Cheryl Casden face paint folks in her 'Bodhi' room, but I'm still buzzing from the after effects of this piece. So grateful to have had such a beautiful place to center myself at MIAD for those few weeks! (Wish MIAD would have paid this beautiful soul to have this room as a permanent installation, we could really use it!)
So through the ISA (Integrated Studio Arts') Integration and Intersection II classes, we collaborated with each other, and the art museum for one night!
Nick Kinsella and his freshman collaborator performing outside MAM.
Fierce ladies Kayle Karbowski and Kirstin Schmid during and after their black and white performance. (Made them pose for me with their opposite inner arm tatts!)
Welp, this is the only image I ended up getting of my collaboration with Luke Arndt, Krister Larson and Angel Falcon. I'll give you a little background of what's going on here. The steel structure has fabric, and mirrored plexiglass overlaid on top of it. We placed a light in the opposite bay, which would cast a shadow from passers by onto the sculpture. Behind the sculpture, a camera would pick up the silhouette, and project it back on to the sculpture from behind. There was about a 2 second delay between the interaction of the camera and projector, but I think I liked the delay all the more. It was about the immediate, and distorted interactions with the self. Wish I would've gotten a video of this!
Monday I'm headed out with 8 other peers, and two teachers at MIAD, for a 2 week journey in the American Southwest. AND I COULDN'T BE MORE EXCITED!!!
We'll be updating this blog, so check in on our travels :)
5/10/13
It's been a damn long time since I've had time to update this! Done with school for a few weeks :)
I'm such a foundry junkie. Can't get enough. Helped out Michael Davidson's metals class with their bronze pour. I was on chain, which controls the height of the crucible holding the molten bronze.
Printmaking final. Made a woodcut of a sloth saying, "Don't fear young one, I am here." Printed on muslin, then sewed pillows out of em.
DNR knocked down one of my favorite trees in Kern Park. The pops and I salvaged a decent amount of wood for projects.
Schnoz.
Air compression die-grinding, aka my best friend during the process of this carving.
Early stages. Mostly just chisel and hammer up to this point.
Brought the texture the chainsaw created on the wood by using a wood burner.
First layer of danish oil varnish!
Confronting the spirit of the tree via singing bowl meditation. Probably the worst critique of my life, but that's what happens when you bring your spirituality into the art school setting.
My teachers put him in our wood classes wallway show!
Guardian of the sculpture lab wallway gallery for a week!
Know I'm missing a few projects here and there, I'll update what I've been working on since schools gotten out in a few days!
3/24/13
Pretty eventful last few weeks. Last Sunday was St. Patty's day, and I took the opportunity to convert my kitchen into a printmaking studio for the night. I finished my woodcut about meditation, printed 20 of those, and printed 4 t-shirts for some friends!
(Shirts printed from linoleum cuts I've done within the past year. I need a better way to figure out the registration though. It'd probably be easier if I could get someone to teach me how to do photo-emulsion screen printing).
(Our prompt was to create a print on how we spend our time. I chose to do it on meditation. In meditation, the sequence I tend to see is the transition from physical self, to conscious self, to subconscious self).
Thursday I went to Rock The Block, which was an event for the SGCI conference that was in town. MIAD students put on the event at the Polish Falcon in Riverwest, and had many interactive booths set up to allow the audience to become part of the art themselves. My friend Grace had people paint her back, which she then transferred onto paper. They had wheat-pasting and screen-printing booths as well. Prescott Sobol, a teacher at both MIAD and UWM was DJing when I got there. I left relatively early to get to Yield to see my friends Antler House play a set. The 3 guys that make up the band, Sean Anderson, John Johnson and John McCabe went to Shorewood with me many moons ago. They play awesome folky music, y'all should check em out.
Yesterday I came down to MIAD to get some work done. In the sculpture lab, a group of fellas had set up a printing booth called "Death Metal Press." Staying true to their name, they were blasting metal music, while using fire heated aluminum plates to burn into paper and leather. Ayla gave me one of her wire wraps to trade for a print, which I gave to my pops.
3/12/13
Spring break, finally. In the past 3 days, I've joined a gym and convinced my dad to come to yoga with me, caught up on some much needed sleep, and learned to crochet. Not to mention went to the Mind, Body, Spirit expo by the airport on Sunday, which blew my mind.
Here are a few shots of my latest ventures at MIAD.
In my opinion, this is one of the most solid works I've made while at art school. A combination of my first installation and performative pieces. Having resided in Milwaukee for my entire time on this earth, I've come to notice just how far out of the way people will go to avoid looking anyone in the eyes. I've decided to turn my art into social experimentations as of late.
Showers, and bathrooms in general are private spaces, where eye contact usually is avoided. By fashioning a shower curtain of sorts, with a gap in it, I was inviting my class to become a part of this private space. They could see me, and I could see them, only through a hole I cut at my eye level. Out of the whole class, one person approached the slit in the curtain, and looked me in the eyes for more than 3 seconds. A few of them wouldn't even look at me directly. Only after this performance was said and done, did I notice how creepy my shadow looked.
Woodcut self portrait.
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