MetalSculpture from Spring 2012

Practice Welds

The project assignment was to make something heavy, or make something that looks heavy. My instructor was very adamant about not telling us to make sculpture because people can fall into the trap of just making what they think is sculpture or making sculpture that they like or have seen before. 

For the following project we had to make something site specific, meaning that we have to create something to exist in a specific space, so that it cannot exist anywhere else. I came up with this contraption that slides onto this cart from the side, then you move it back, and there are metal parts that go around the wheels in order to contain them, and prevent the cart from moving.

This was my last project for metal sculpture. I wanted to do something about the Native American culture and found all sorts of stories about something called a Green Corn Ceremony. I chose to do something from the Yuchi culture because found a very useful book in the library about that culture written from an anthropological stand point. Also, that culture is more open to "outsiders" than the Iroquois. The Green Corn Ceremony takes place in August at the end of summer to celebrate the harvest. It lasts for three days. There is a ceremony to prepare the ceremonial grounds on the first day, the Green Corn Ceremony on the second day, and a soup ceremony on the last day. 

The Green Corn Ceremony is a story about a wise man taking teenage boys into the wilderness. He tells them not to wander off and not to go into the holes of any trees. One boy wandered off and went into the hole of a tree and there was a giant lizard that ate him. The wise man set a trap out to catch the lizard. On their way back to camp the put the head of the lizard on the top of different trees. Each tree died except for the Oak Tree. The ceremony is about this story. There are dancers that enter the square ceremonial ground and dance around in the circle counter clockwise. At a certain point there are 4 gun men that enter and circulate the dancers. At some point the dancers leave the circle and take a symbolic cleansing bath and the 4 gun men fire of blank rounds. The book I read had different interviews of different participants within the Yuchi culture, but who celebrate at a different ceremonial ground. The main point of the guns firing was to try to replicate thunder and lighting.
I made 8 dancers and 4 gunmen, using beads. Originally I actually wanted to make a totem. I kind of feel like these little figures are like totems because each bead represents something.
The gunmen have beads that represent the lighting, the lightning in the night sky, thunder, and rain. The dancers have beads to represent lizards, sea shells that are worn to make noise, and blue beads for the cleansing water. I kept repeating the numbers 4 or used multiples of 4 to keep in line with that tradition. Also, the yellow more twine like waxy string is meant to represent the east because that is where the sun rises, and the opposite side has dark string.
I used a metal square frame and this rebar grid and wrapped rebar wire. I didn't do any welding for this because I felt like the idea of permanence conflicts with the Native American tradition. I found some butcher string that I used to wrap around the frame, and I made sure to do this counter clockwise, (as I also did with the weaving of the rebar wire.)  I drilled holes in two cylinders to run a metal rod through the lower set of holes for this whole piece to rest on. 

Drawing from Spring 2012

My drawing class this past semester helped me understand space a lot better. The semester started off with tedious exercises, but eventually I appreciated the point of the work. I feel like I better understand how to plan and imagine space and objects on a two dimensional surface. This has also helped me in planning sculpture.

Contour line drawings seem effortless but can be hard. Weight and thickness of line can imply so much, or so little. For these homework exercises I had to choose an area to draw, then change my point of view, so either physically move up, or move down. 

These exercises where I had to change the point of view helped to teach me how I can say certain things, and what different points of view can imply or impose on the viewer.

For this exercise I had to change my point of view from the left or from the right, and layer the drawing. I also had to maintain a pivotal line, so I kept the corner of the walls consistent. 

It's interesting how simple these foundational concepts are because they can be so easily forgotten. At this point in the semester we were supposed to learn about scale. This artichoke is on 18x24in paper and takes up the whole sheet. I used dry pastels.

This is a 4x6in, post card size drawing of the view outside of my friend's window. The assignment was to draw a large space on a small paper. Some people felt the need to use a border and some people didn't. Certain decisions can have a great impact on what an artist is trying to say or create in the viewer's space.

Towards the end of the semester we were given more time for projects in order to use skills that we learned in ways that we wanted to. For this project we had to choose 10-15 objects to draw on 10x60in paper. I chose to draw my pointe shoes, and initially I drew sketches on tracing paper. I wanted to be able to figure out arrangement/composition for the finial product. In the end I drew 3 pairs of pointe shoes, front and back from the view as if I am looking down and about to put them on. I drew each shoe 4 times (twice front and twice back.) 

I eventually decided to layer these drawings. I had drawings on the actual paper, evenly spaced apart, and then layered the drawings from the tracing paper on top. If I kept the drawings all separate and spaced evenly, it would have appeared very sterile as if being examined. Although I like that idea, that doesn't mean anything to anyone else. Being a dancer, and more sculpture oriented, this project helped me understand how to create movement and dimension on a flat surface. 

For this project I was supposed to expand on a previous idea or process. I started with drawing a medicine bottl

e and drew a bunch in tracing paper, but that idea expanded. I had a new little notebook that had paper with a Date box on the front and graph paper on the back. I decided to use a date stamp I have and use a piece of paper from that notebook to represent each month I have had a prescription for ADHD medication. I use clear labels to print fake prescriptions that had for each month. (I looked up my rx history.) the front also includes a large image (printed on a label) of what the medicine looks like. The back of the paper has the number of pills for the prescription. All of these papers are hanging from that window ledge. The length of the string corresponds with the dosage. I used white string for fast acting med, black for extended release, white and brown for medicine I had to take when my regular fast acting was on back order, white and green for when my regular extended release was in back order, and red string for then prescriptions I could not get filled because it was on back order. I used clear vellum computer paper to print text and images from my visual journal and drawings. I drew on the window at different vantage points with crayola window crayons. I was basically tracing what I saw through the window. The strip that goes across is a contour drawing of a medicine bottle repeated. The text is information about ADD. I feel like that string represents a fuse and the direction it hangs is trying to keep me grounded, the layered drawings are my thoughts, while everything coexists within a containment, but the containment (the glass) doesn't contain my eye (imagination).

closing of last semester, starting a new semester

Since my last post I have done quite a lot. Below are some lithographic prints of experiments with tusche washes. While speaking to someone about this process we were discussing how it is interesting that in a basic drawing class the instructor often times has you create a gradiation scale as an exercise to learn how to control and apply pressure to get different tones. Exercises like those would be very useful for lithography, however, since the process can be time consuming, most people would be unsatisfied with the effort put in versus the end result of not having a "finished" piece of work. Tusche washes are very hard to manipulate and control. When I saw examples of the washes in a book I bought, Tamarind Techniques for Fine Art Lithography, I wanted to experiment and try to create those interesting textures. I find the process fascinating because the treatment and actual "drawing" process is done on a limestone, not on paper. The stone is treated with certain chemicals after you're done with your image, and with tusche washes you can never be exactly sure, unless you've become a master, how they will turn out. The thought of a surprise always interests me because unpredictability can be fascinating. Some of the lithographic process seemed sort of similar to ceramics. For example, after you put something in the kiln to be fired, you don't know what to expect when you're ready to unload the kiln. Anyway, the following prints were just some experiments. I also used different paper in order to learn about how the ink interacts with the paper as well as interaction with the image itself. 

I titled these "Exposure Therapy." The season and weather was changing and my body strongly dislikes being cold. I would usually work in front of a window in the studio because I liked the natural light and enjoyed looking outside. The trees were losing leaves and my mind interprets that as a symbol of winter and cold weather.

The following prints were my last ones. They didn't turn out as planned, but I had a mishap that made me immobile for a week. I was cooking, after not sleeping for 24 hours, and I spilled hot oil on my foot. It ended up getting infected and I had to keep it elevated for almost a week, which was one of the last weeks of school. I missed a lot of studio time, so these images were rushed. I wasn't careful enough with the washes, and my instructor believes that I didn't apply my etching solution long enough. (Something that is done during the process in order to make your stone reception to ink where it needs to be, and non reception where ink should not go.) It would be easy to have been mad/upset over this, but seeing how I have little experience in this area it would be a waste of energy to have been upset.

"Trianon of Garlic" is actually in a gallery at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, NC right now. That one was probably my favorite. I actually drew that right onto my stone from life, instead of using a picture or using a previous drawing. Drawing from life onto the stone was challenging because it is difficult to "erase" mistakes, so you have to just make it work.

My last assignments for my drawing class were self portraits. I do not care to show the first one because it is not good. I struggle drawing my face and always give myself a long nose for some reason. For the second one I had to draw myself in a specific time period, so I chose the 80's. The Beastie Boys are one of my favorite musical artists and my drawing reflects inspiration from their interesting camera angles they often use. I was in the middle of working on this when my foot injury got worse. It was a last minute decision to add in the Beastie Boys. My face could use more work but it got to the point where I didn't want to over work it and I realized it was a better decision to stop rather then continue in confusion and frustration. The piece just makes me laugh.

Currently I am taking another drawing class, metal sculpture, research methods in psychology, intro to clinical psychology, American art history, ballet and jazz.

I am working on my first sculpture for metal sculpture and don't have pictures yet, except for a picture of the first day I practiced some welding.

In my drawing class the instructor is trying to teach us how to understand space and learn how to imagine space in order to be able to execute perspective accurately. For the past few weeks the in class set up has just been plotting points of intersecting objects in the still life on our paper that we gridded out with in 2 in squares.

The homework has been about the same concept. We had to make a square space on our paper that is 18x18inches in perspective and find an object under 6 inches to draw in our space in perspective, at 5 different places. It has all been very methodically. At first I wanted to resist this exercise because it felt more like drafting and I feel like I understand concepts of perspective. The process of learning what was intended for this exercise was weird at first because I didn't look at it in the same way as something that I already know. It is a very similar idea to ask someone to explain how to do something that they do naturally or automatically or try to teach someone a specific method of doing something they already do. It is almost like back tracking but not necessarily because there are still a lot of things to learn on the way.

For the following week we had to add draw our object 5 more times and have it overlap at least once. I tried to play with the space a little bit more and attempted to draw my object at weird angles, but realized/remembered that I couldn't do that within the parameters of a one point perspective drawing.

I have a large inability to focus and pay attention because I am very restless. My process, as well as learning my process, has helped me learn how to work with my A.D.D. and not resist or reject what can sometimes be a shortcoming. My large work load helps me use my restlessness efficiently in a way that allows me to explore. I love being active in art, psychology, and dance because I am able to see and experience actual applications of concepts in various settings.

Fall 2011

This semester I am taking a drawing class and a lithography class. I actually have the same teacher for both and he is a master print-maker. I used to hate drawing, but I am starting to enjoy it more and more. Probably because now that I understand certain concepts of drawing, I am able to make more decisions about what I want to do and show in the final product. My teacher has us bring in a drawing every other week that we have done at home. These are all 18x24.

First Drawing: We had to draw geometric shapes.

Second Drawing: Geometric shapes with organic shapes. 

This drawing happened in an interesting way because I only  had use of one arm/one hand. My left arm/hand was numb and weak because the nerves in my shoulder were inflamed... hence the agitation and inflammation that showed in the table cloth.

Third Drawing: Interior space. 

Fourth Drawing: Interior space with a window.

This drawing was actually done in class but we had an extended period of time to do it and bring it in for one of our homework critiques. We had to find a place in the art building and draw interior and exterior with a window.

This was my first lithographic print. I love how it turned out and I love the process. 

libros

In the past few weeks I've made a few books. I have also started using my typewriter more and I have been mailing letters and cards. Bellow is a book I made for a friend who has asthma and recently had surgery on his lungs.

For my brother's birthday I made a little book with a few pictures of us from childhood.

The last book for this post is a book I made for a friend's birthday. I used information from this book about birthdays. We have an inside joke about bacon, because we made bacon brownies once. In this book I also used windows to preview things for the next page.