Lectures

The two lectures that I was able to go while still attending a evening class was Margarita Higginbottom and David Clemons.

Margarita Higginbottom :

I went to this one because it was a requirement for my African American Art History course, but that didn't stop me from completely enjoying it. Higginbottom explored the female figure really well through the use of paintings done by an artist in the 1930s, and I especially loved how she related it to African-American history in dealing with their struggles while being a minority in the United States. I don't know how I officially feel about the artist per se that developed the pieces because of his technique of watching people on the street level to get the atmosphere he wanted. It seemed too creepish and cheap for someone to just walk around and capture people and then dub them in some philosophical essence. Other than that I thought that she was very well spoken and knew her subject matter well. I would love to take an art history course with her.

David Clemons :

Clemons by fair seemed like one of the most laid back metalsmiths besides Price that I have ever met. I really loved how he reached far past the whole barrier of being dubbed a black artist, and really talked to the audience about who he truly is. His work was very lovely in fact I remember it being on display at one time downstairs in front of the Sleaze. It is like a wonderful mix of medical research, steampunk, and a hint of minimalism. I think he may have been one of the only visiting artists that took everyone's breath away with how fast he went through his pieces and how he made everything seem like time went by fast. I wanted to know more about his journey as an artist especially his move from the west coast to the slow running side of the south because that transition has to on some level become a culture shock. I am still awaiting word back from him since I started exchanging some emails to pick his brain but other than that I hope they have more artists like him come visit MCA.

Posters & Name Tags

Rough Artist Statement

Title : Belly Of The Whale

Belly Of The Whale is a homage to a step in the Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell that I feel I can relate to. In this step the hero must confront him/herself on the conscious and unconscious level in order to break through an obstacle that is holding them back from further progression. For a long time like many individuals out there I have been suffering from a case of obsessive compulsive disorder. It is a very hard obstacle to completely break from because every decision I make I constantly second guess it. OCD completely shuts down my work ethic and pace whenever I try to finish a project, in a way it means I want to be a perfectionist. Belly Of The Whale chronicles my journey into understanding what brings about my OCD and allows viewers to look at what not only happens on the surface but also on the inside. The paper represents my conscious decisions and path with myself as it flows organically across the board supported by white tacks on areas of tension. The overlapping forms convey the backtracking of my decisions in an effort to keep them consistent, the projection of the represent my unconscious self and the decisions that I try to make to break from my conscious self. Sometimes you will have areas that completely work in unison with each other but majority of what is happening is constant conflict. 

Shuttle Idea List

I really love the idea of manipulating the shuttle somehow to where people can't really get on or off the shuttle and we record it somehow. We would need to get together and see what is exactly safe or smart for doing an experiment like this on the shuttle. An example of this is seen on this :

http://vimeo.com/11126782

Another thought for the piece would be to have a performance of some kind that truly freaks out the visitors on the shuttle. There is some aspect of making the audience feel unnerving that really intrigues us. This could be done by sitting in the back of the bus with some dark clothing, with our heads down being silent and seeing how people initially react to it.

I also like the idea of trying to project something on the bus and using it as a projection screen of some kind but I wonder about protecting the equipment and really trying to outfit the shuttle to handle that type of work. I think something simple and clean would really work for that idea. An example included here of one that I like :

http://vimeo.com/11499315

I think a simple idea to get done on time and really fast would just to show our work on a dvd or create a nice demo reel that people respond to. This could even expand out to a piece that interacts with sound and play it and watch how people react to it. Maybe the audience reacts to brighter colors, different types of line work, whether or not it is pure particles or if it is something that is identifiable right off the bat. There are many options with this and it could even stretch into making it a large social event.

Board

So we measured it and figured out once again the metal board would be best for what we are doing, it allows for about 4ft worth of space for each of us to use and show off our work especially if we keep it economical. The layout would be as followed:

Name:

Major:

Pieces of Work:

Artist Spotlight Section:

Biography and Examples of work :

Url To The Artist's Site :

It won't cost a lot of money to get a couple sheets of stonehenge paper to print out the business cards/tabs for people to visit the site. I wonder if there is anymore incentive to get people to really visit the site and be interactive with what is there.

Revised Projection System

I went around trying to find a really nice room that would work for my projection without having to really build anything or fix something up unless I had to and I think I found a room. The room that I wanted to play with my projection is Studio 3 formerly known as Financial Aid office. The room has a 4 ft x 8 ft board that I would be able to tack my pieces to that wall and it would take about 30 to 40 sheets of 11 x 17 to completely cover it. That amount is adding anything extra so that if there is any projector run off it will be caught by the projector. I also kind of measured up and figured out that to fit the board the projector would have to be 10 to 12 ft away from the board, I would need to test that today if it is possible. I have pictures of the space that I need to upload for viewing pleasure and I also need to find out the class schedule for it...so we won't go in there when there is a class.

Board Idea

So after talking to the group about what to do with the board we came up with the idea of dividing the board in half one side for showcasing some of our work and the other side to allow the school to contribute to an assignment. The assignment would be a small animation that would be compiled on a later date and possibly shown but each day we put a new frame for them to draw to and continue which would be underneath glass on the board. We were also thinking that maybe we attach the a camera somehow to photograph the board whenever someone goes up to draw on it, so that it could document everyone's contribution to the project. An alternate option to this setup, since the camera would eventually run out of memory it would make sense to hook it directly to a computer in the little studio that we have for experimental. We were also wondering whether or not we could get the board next to the studio or if Photography still completely owned it. Once we hit a number of progressive shots/frames we open up the studio to the school so they can see what we are doing to the piece and our own stop motion pieces....so everyone has an example of what we've created. We will also create our own flyers and way-finding to help students find the studio and understand what we are trying to do. School wide emails is also another consideration to this process but....we don't want to keep emailing everyone because that could become annoying.  This is where we are right now with completely planning it, as of right now I think the material list is a piece of glass to protect our pieces from being drawn on, a palette of paper pinned up for people to draw on, some markers that we can get for cheap for them to draw with, magnets to pin our pieces up, we will make the graphics for the board, and I think that is it for now.