Presentation 1 - Heather Ramsdale
Heather's Site
Heather's talk gave insight into her playful vocabulary concerning the domestic realm and our relationship between the home, transportation, and the items that we hold dear to us. Using sculpture, she pays a lot of attention to space and how people can interact with an item in a space. I thought it was moving that she was drawn to some non-traditional materials such as insulation or "fake marble" to help the viewer interact with something out of the ordinary. She made really strong points about when she had felt free to make her work and that every artist should freely explore themselves and work "without thinking... get lost... [and] let stuff out". A work that stood out to me that conveyed some of the points of non conventional play and domestic life was "Pods". She created these eerie "pods" with insulation that hung from the ceiling in a what looked like was a home. These creations felt like there was a person or creature growing inside of them, and it made me think twice of wanting to be in a that space out of fear of being enveloped by one of the pods. Another work that was stood out was "Black Thunder" a piece on a pedestal made with fake marble with a small statue of an impala on top. She discussed how she created the pedestal off kilter and how it affected the object and what including the pedestal did to the piece, which is an interesting relationship that I have not considered before. I also liked how she discussed the object on top and how people create personal attachments to objects, so by giving it a pedestal it highlights this to a higher degree. I felt Heather's talk gave me new insight into my own work, and to think more freely about what I am doing.
Presentation 2 - Tom Gebauer
Tom had a large focus on User Experience and how it plays into the contemporary visual world. Being a Sr. Director of User Experience and Design for Advanced Publication, he spends a lot of time improving websites and creating apps for tablets and phones, planning out how to make things more visually appealing and user friendly at the same time. He gave us a few examples of sites he had made improvement on such as the news paper app for Alabama. He helped create and design this app so navigation would be easier. A touch he added was within specific articles, if you want to find more information he builds links in so its easier to search. Currently, he is working with his team to redesign NJ jobs website. He talked a lot about the team work and brain storming that is necessary to create something that is easier for others to access. During these examples Tom made great points about relevancy of what you are creating, not being afraid to reassess the work you have already completed to make improvements on it, understanding that your creative journey can be a vast unknown, and most of all thinking about interaction's between your work and the viewer or user. He also mentioned that failure is okay in contained environments, and when you are creating work to reflect on what has already been done before and how you can create your own personal touches and spins on things.
Although Tom was a Graphic Designer, his advice can reflect back into any realm of creativity. His talk gave me great insight into assessing, and thinking about work on more than one level when creating it. The idea of the user experience is also something important. When creating any type of work, the artist needs to think about how many viewers can interact with the work they are creating, how accessible it is to many different groups of people. Thinking about these things is crucial to getting any narrative or point across that the artist is trying to make. His talk plays a lot into the Visual Culture readings and discussions that have been occurring in class. Thinking about all of these things is crucial to the creative process and can help make a work, whether its graphic or fine art or not, stronger because more people are able to understand and access it.
Presentation 3 - Alan Brooks
Professor Brooks presentation had a large focus around his personal development as an artist, the path he chose and his journey he went on to get to where he is today. He had taken many different paths that
eventually led him to work with Verge 180, his current partnership that works with the process of branding ( outward expression of a brand, name, trademark, community, and visual appearance ). His portfolio of companies he has worked for expands from HBO and Showtime to now freelance work that he enjoys being a part of today.
He discussed his creative process and put a large emphasis on sketching and looking at other logo's for inspiration when he gets stuck. He showed us examples of problems he would have to solve when a company would come to him looking for a redesign of a logo or even a facelift. I thought his process was interesting because it's different from mine. I occasionally sketch my ideas out which is a habit I need to push myself farther into doing. I do, however, look at other artists (or try to find other artists) that are working in a similar way to myself to try and see what ways I could push myself further as an artist. Professor Alan also touched on Discovery, and how the more information the artist has to create something, regardless of what the project is, it will be easier to create a pleasing outcome.
During questions, he touched on how to best acquire freelance work and he said mostly by putting yourself out there and creating connections and using the outlet of word of mouth. He suggested using the website LinkedIn to help create the connections you are looking for as an artist.
Presentation 4 - Gregory Thielker
Professor
Thielker's body of work focused largely on the importance of storytelling and
the artists interaction with their materials as well as their creative travels
/ ambitions. He had spent much of his time; post-graduate school traveling to
various places and the experience of traveling with his materials became
important to the focus of his work. He worked extensively in Colorado, St.
Louis, Boston, India and Afghanistan, a large array of spaces that give his
works different flavors. He enjoyed playing the part of the narrator for a
particular place and its story. For example, a show entitled Highway currently located in
Washington DC, is a visual play between text and image. The text is a group of
chosen quotes from people who live throughout India and their interaction with
the Grand Trunk Road and how that interaction is now changing because of the
addition of the highway. Through his travels, he stopped every 76 kilometers to
document, in a democratic fashion, what he was seeing and would pair some of
that information with text. Most of his work is created on site, but some
pieces were recreated or fixed later in a studio space where he was living.
For
Gregory Thielker the process of experiencing the place is important. Allowing
yourself to become immersed in your practice and constantly pushing your own
boundaries. In another recent series about the landscapes of Afghanistan, Greg
entered into some risky situations to push his boundaries and to create what he
feels would be a strong body of work. His body of work focuses on what the
artist, and viewer can learn from text, and imagery and how that can affect the
context of how the image is viewed. This related back to our Practices of
Looking readings, where the artist, and the art, is incorporated into the readability
and relativity of the work that is being created. His ability to create
different interactions within different cultures pushes these standard
boundaries, and allows for aspiring artist to consider these possibilities in
their own work.
Presentation 5 - Devin Kovach
Professor Kovach's talk had a large focus on self discovery of processes and learning about what language the artist wants to speak when trying to convey their message. Kovach's process is multifaceted; he brings in different materials and different mediums that allows his work to become a constant development. He began layering many of his materials on top of each other and allowing the viewer to interact with them in the space. Later, he brings in the element of video and photography to recapture the original work and rediscover new view points of the message he was trying to convey. Light eventually became a large part of his work; how light changes over time and how it plays with the movement throughout the space and the changes that it brings to the physical parts of the pieces. Eventually, the figure becomes an important element to the work and how the viewer interacts with the piece and affects the way the light can play in the work as well. This is all interesting to me because I like to have a multi-stepped process in my work and the way that Kovach has chosen to play in his work, is very appealing to me and showed me different ways of play I have not considered before.
Through out the talk, Kovach expressed the artists growth over time, and how things may take turns in unexpected directions through play and allowing the material to talk to the artist. To not always be extremely upset when the final outcome is different than the original conception of an idea because that outcome might work in ways that benefit the artists process; it could teach the artists new things they never thought of before. He discussed the places he has studied and traveled and how that has affected his work; he found himself, for content, responding to the architecture and landscapes of the places that he lives in, they are what inspire him, to create his work. I also found this to be extremely interesting because recently, my work has been taking a turn towards place and how a figure is within a place. This talk was interesting and allowed me to reflect on new possible outlets and connections I could make within my own work.
Presentation 6 - Tim Rollins and KOS
As a future art educator, Tim Rollin's talk was extremely inspiring. The largest picture that he painted for the purpose of his practice was the most moving; he stated that art is important to survival. His ability to explain his journey with his students at KOS was refreshing and motivating to hear because where he began, where no one wanted to be, ended up being one of the best situations that he could have been placed in. Rollin's was given the opportunity to help his students survive off of art and eventually preserve their identity as artists and people through art and education. His talk showed how art is capable of doing many things, more so than creating "art for art's sake". Through art many different works can supplemented through other forms of education, a practice that is now necessary in contemporary pedagogy to keep the arts relevant in the K-12 school system. His natural ability to combine literature, math, history, science and art while having students create work that they truly enjoy generates a new relationship with the arts and education. Tim Rollins was able to take students and give them their survival tool through art and educate them on subjects that they would otherwise not have the ability to learn.
The few large scale works he had shown, that he created with his students of K.O.S (kids of survival) were extremely moving because they were created as a collective and shown as a collective. The group's works that he chose to show were mostly visual responses to literature and music; and the few pieces that they continued to elaborate as a group became more detailed and intricate every time. What I was able to relate to what Rollin's personal connection he developed with his students and how important their education was to him, because he wanted to see them succeed beyond what the students thought they could. He was able to make them excited about art and learning by holistically combining the two into a fresh way of creating.
Presentation 7 - Michelle Nugent
Michelle Nugent's presentation was really interesting because of her ability to use her skills as an educator and her interest in communities and while trying to figure out identity as a concept; a lot to conquer and question within a body of work. The development of her work had made interesting leaps from her flat collage personal work, eventually growing into something that is personal yet is able to encompass the world of others. A lot of her work grows with the development of identity; her own identity, how a culture affects her identity, and how these cultures affect people in different ways. In grad studies at MICA, she entered the community art MFA and created her personal transportation project or the pedicab project. Through this project she incorporated her favorite medium (collage) and built this cart with items she found within her community and would give transportation to people throughout the city of baltimore. To add more into her own personal identity, she started to bring food to share her personal identity with others. Giving back to her community, she created a program that helped her make improvements within her community; again building personal relationships with people while learning more about general cultural identity.
Her work was refreshing because she was able to educate and be educated in a different way than being confined to a classroom; bringing the classroom to nonconventional places, she is able to learn from others as well as teach people new schools like in her bike workshops. She is able to use art, similar to how Tim Rollins does; as a key part of surviving in a community. The people that she works with move her while she is able to move them. Including the general community into her body of work made her work change, but still allowed her to keep an interesting personal touch to her work. For Michelle, spending time with the youth is important, now in her work, because she is helping improve the lives of young individuals that don't get to have these outward experiences and learn more about their community and culture.
Presentation 8 - Jordan Rathus
I quickly became excited about Jordan Rathus' interest in the subject matter of her work. Most of her video's and short films that she creates focuses on fiction and non fiction - what is real and what isn't real. Her work relates to Greenberg and his interest in the copy and how technology, like film, is pushing the boundaries of what is real and what isn't real. She had mentioned that when we she works, she thinks about the function of reality TV and what is real and isn't real through the control of technology.At a young age she was really interested in absorbing information through a lens of the camera and immediately pushed herself into the work field. She really spends a lot of her time, when creating her work, focusing on what her background in the work field was and how she can manipulate it for her own personal quirky creations.
Her video's have a really large focus on human interactions; how awkward they could be, she reflects on intimate relationships people can have with one another, and she even enjoys breaking the fourth wall from time to time, making the viewer become a part of the action. This focus of interaction is really interesting to me because it plays a lot with the idea of circumstances and chance, which is something I am curious about in my own work. She also includes celebrity culture into her work, again relating back to her personal experiences on set as well as the idea of reality TV. She thinks about the hype and idealism behind celebrities and how that culture, as well as all pop culture, can affect people on a daily basis. She comments on how things can be manipulated through cultural ideals in her work.
Presentation 9 - Pablo Helguera
Being a performance artist, Pablo's work relies heavily on human interaction and the importance of relationships. His work deals with including the community and what happens when people are force to reevaluate their experiences throughout their lives. The situations he places the people he performs with deal with chance; the chance of a game or the chance of the work not working to it's full potential. The idea of chance and circumstance is extremely interesting because he is tapping into what happens at a specific time.
Working with time based art and purposefully incorporating people can make the work extend beyond different cultures, and pushes the way people can interact with one another. He discussed how as artists, we are entertainers that need to help inform people of art and train others while being playful. Most of his work extends beyond the standard "white box" of the gallery space. Pablo enjoys challenging what art actually is and how art can be changed through personal interaction. He stresses that art doesn't have to be a traditional work and that as artists we can extend it to an additional sphere.
Pablo is able to break down social spheres and question art and how as an artist, social interaction is really important to understanding art. He also discusses fact and fiction, by creating what isn't real and allowing others to believe it's real like the symposium he created in Mexico City. fact and fiction is a large part of society because of the addition of the media. He challenges what is real or not real through art while challenging if art is real or not.
Gallery Opening - Ruane Miller Through the Window of My Mind
Speaking to the artist at the gallery opening was an exciting experience. Hearing from a practicing artist about the work they had produced for the show and additional information regarding their practice was interesting because there is often a sense of mystery between the viewer and the artist.
My question to the artist was: What brand paints do you enjoy working with? I enjoy painting as well and I am always curious to hear more about the materials that other artists chose to work with.
Her answer: Windsor Newton Gauche. I really like the consistency of the paint. I get the ones in the little tubes. I also like the saturation I achieve when working with them. I used to use another brand... that I cant remember right now but they stopped producing them sadly.
Dan Boyle - Graphic Design Work; Interviewing for work
- 11 jobs in the past few years
- interactive design
- constant change in the GD field
- lots of hours
- most valuable thing to get from any job is experience and the connections you make when you work
- who you know, not what you know
- have physical work for presentation for interviews and be careful with your presentation when bringing physical work for presentation
- Talk for fewer about projects, most recent work
- Show a sense of curiosity when interviewing for a job
- "5% of a lot is still a lot"
- "What is a problem I could solve" " Can I make this enjoyable"
- Talking a lot about work
Jennifer Kakaletris Design - Freelance networking, managing clients, getting paid...
- works with non-profits on a freelance basis
- freelance work - own boss but you still deal with clients that can be more difficult
- keep old contacts - it helps you build your business prospects (recommendations!)
- seize opportunities
- practice creative and not creepy contact - don't only call when you want something
- genuine interest - don't be too much of an ego maniac
- thank people - thank you's have big power - if someone gives you tip and nothing happens, still thank them
- budget your time - keep the clients happy with regular communication
- contracts - scope, ownership, revisions, deadlines, payment amount, timing and late fees, reimbursement of expenses, and early termination
- show your knowledge of the client and show your knowledge of your craft and your interests
Hans Haacke - Show and Tell
-visual literacy
- mindfulness
- natural and social processes
- institutional crit
- install of work in jersey - Rutgers -
- ghost in the machine - 60
- current
2009- Chelsea - dr art foundation - x initiative - opened the window - you can't open the window
Smith Scottish economist - the market will do it's will
Lockers from a bankrupt company like coffins
Fans and bonus on the back wall
Side wall - large photo of woman begging in front of yats
- Italy install
Projected live television channels
white silk with a fan
- Gulf labor group member- objectionable to the brand names of the western art world that build the palaces on an exploited labor force
Publicize and boycott until the change was made
- mindfulness
- natural and social processes
- institutional crit
- install of work in jersey - Rutgers -
- ghost in the machine - 60
- current
2009- Chelsea - dr art foundation - x initiative - opened the window - you can't open the window
Smith Scottish economist - the market will do it's will
Lockers from a bankrupt company like coffins
Fans and bonus on the back wall
Side wall - large photo of woman begging in front of yats
- Italy install
Projected live television channels
white silk with a fan
- Gulf labor group member- objectionable to the brand names of the western art world that build the palaces on an exploited labor force
Publicize and boycott until the change was made
Deborah Hutton- Beyond the Images of the Evening News: Afghanistan's Visual Culture in Context
Encountering images with pre-existing frame work
Shared cultural media - a collective
concepts of beauty and equality
images are not passive - encountering - dialogue
Interested in furthering the dialogue
1979 - Soviet Union Invasion
War lasted until 1989
Muja hadin - don't have imagery from the civil war
1996 - Taliban take over Afghanistan
extreme religious Israeli laws
Islam extremists
women in burqas, desolate country
Buddha's 2001 - Bamiyan Buddhas
6-7th century created - exploded
October 2001 - we invaded
No dead U.S men in media
US still occupies
President of Afghanistan
35 years of occupation - known nothing but war - this year is the anniversary
Temorid art
paintings with books
Architecture - Temorid queen for squinch net vaulting
Summer 1995 - Nindia Pakistan (Peshawar)
Impacted by 4 dialect speaking boy in grads school
Family fled Afghanistan
Art was more than exercise - studying the heritage / identity
2007 - center for concept art (afghan)
video art pieces - art isn't just a luxury, way of dealing with trauma
Prolonged period of war about visual culture
Living a life-time of war
Artists - Afghan artists
Film Presentations: Afghan Film Collections
- News reals from 1967- 1980:
The news reals were interesting because they documented specific moments within the Afghan culture like celebrations for holidays or for living in peace that are not normally shown or thought about from the American stand point. Learning and reading more about political activism and hearing about the destruction of the country and seeing it from the perspective of an Afghan instead of the perspective of an american was very interesting. Seeing different political leaders interacting with one another. It was interesting to be able to see the Bamiyan Buddhas still in tact on film and people interacting with them before they fell to further destruction from the political activists and the Taliban.
- 1 fiction clip:
The fiction clip was really interesting because there is still truth and realness in what was being watched. The plot, although a little confusing at first, gave insight into the drug trades within the country and the poverty and ruin that is currently controlling the country at this time. Seeing the importance of the drug trade for sustainability but also the corruption that drugs have on the country. It was also interesting to have a view of what women experience with children and how they sometimes have to give up their children in order to have safety for their families.
- 2 documentaries:
The first documentary was interesting because it was a different take on some of the work I had done for the MUSE program over the summer. Although the expansion of the highway was important to the country, some of the communities have suffered and people are still living in extreme poverty. I enjoyed this piece because it showed how people live and work and their thoughts on what a good profession is. Not knowing how to read or write these people take up blue collar jobs just to get by in hopes that their children will move on to live in a better situation.
The second documentary about the postman that lives within the cities was enjoyable because of the use of comic relief and because its less controlled way of looking into someones life than the previous documentary was. You get to hear people talking about normal things and telling enjoyable stories together. The chaos that the postman has to endure was ironical because it allows him to interact with his community but he can only do this because his community is in such disarray from the constant warfare and the inability to have the cities established in the correct ways.
"Kandahar Treasure: Empowering Afghan Women One Step at a Time" by Rangina Hamidi
- Rangina Hamidi is from VA
fled Afghanistan because of Russia communist regime in the 70's. she left when she was about 3.5.
She wanted to keep the traditions of the arts alive - music performances and embroideries
She grew up with this afghan traditions
Because of the Mujahadeen there was no schooling for women - a reason why her family moved to the US
The embroideries keep her in connection with her culture and people
Went to Afghanistan after college to help other refugees that have been displaced and poor because of the bombings in 2001. She gave the people sweaters, cash, Vaseline and she felt it was all wasted.
She decided to go into the development field in Afghanistan in 2003
Afghans for civil society
Experience knowing the skill of the Khandari women of embroidery. This experience gives the women a chance to bring in income for the family and bring power and improves their self esteem by working through the system. They allow the women to work from home or come to the building they have set up and the women work. All 100% of the sales go back to the women that make the pieces. There is immediate pay for these women.
The company is attempting to expand and become more legitimate but they are facing boundaries right now.
Combat Paper- a program of the Printmaking center of NJ
- changing concept of what art is
- creating a new language
Change - why your work is relevant right now - society culture
- how can we creatively spread word
- Iraq vet - David Keefe u del, bfa painting - get lost - ufradies river: patrolled the water
- 2007 went back to school - montclair state adjunct - painter and Indy study
- print maker and painter - lot of the work has to do with fishing and bones - Iraq he was fishing for bombs
- advent - combat paper 16x20
youth, innocent, bombs
Printmaking center of NJ - combat paper -
Veterans have a loss of commrodary, best times, moral
integrity - suppression, isolation
22 veterans commit suicide every day - wow, that's so high
Combat paper bridges the gap from vets and others.
Making art about vets experiences is nothing new - what it's like to be in a war, see how service members feel, experiences
Community. Collaboration. About these things and about going through as veterans right now at home to go through the transformation to feel apart of a community
Wanting to transform to relate
2007 - army vet to come up with combat paper - relive the story - breaking out of the military - made from his own uniform - breaking out of uniform
2011 - took in - founder drew Cameron - and other vets - NJ makes it permanent and David begins to run it with Ely and Linda, wrote program, safe space to create and new safe space for vets - has to be vet to vet, same experiences to understand each other
Deconstruct, reclaim and communicate
1. Take uniform cut into postage size pieces to deconstruct the experiences - they start to pour out some of the most traumatic experiences
2. Take the pieces into a paper beater and it breaks down the fibers - suck the fibers through into a pulp
- made specifically for combat paper
Reclamation - put it together into paper after it breaks down
3. Platform to communicate the stories of the men
Come in as educators on how to make it - get stories out so they feel more comfortable
Mobile workshops - shows civilians what they do - do public demos
Civilian as witness - so we can see it and hear what they go through - big exhibitions - Summerville May 9th - to create witnesses instead of bystander - opening receptions and experiences for vets
- creating a new language
Change - why your work is relevant right now - society culture
- how can we creatively spread word
- Iraq vet - David Keefe u del, bfa painting - get lost - ufradies river: patrolled the water
- 2007 went back to school - montclair state adjunct - painter and Indy study
- print maker and painter - lot of the work has to do with fishing and bones - Iraq he was fishing for bombs
- advent - combat paper 16x20
youth, innocent, bombs
Printmaking center of NJ - combat paper -
Veterans have a loss of commrodary, best times, moral
integrity - suppression, isolation
22 veterans commit suicide every day - wow, that's so high
Combat paper bridges the gap from vets and others.
Making art about vets experiences is nothing new - what it's like to be in a war, see how service members feel, experiences
Community. Collaboration. About these things and about going through as veterans right now at home to go through the transformation to feel apart of a community
Wanting to transform to relate
2007 - army vet to come up with combat paper - relive the story - breaking out of the military - made from his own uniform - breaking out of uniform
2011 - took in - founder drew Cameron - and other vets - NJ makes it permanent and David begins to run it with Ely and Linda, wrote program, safe space to create and new safe space for vets - has to be vet to vet, same experiences to understand each other
Deconstruct, reclaim and communicate
1. Take uniform cut into postage size pieces to deconstruct the experiences - they start to pour out some of the most traumatic experiences
2. Take the pieces into a paper beater and it breaks down the fibers - suck the fibers through into a pulp
- made specifically for combat paper
Reclamation - put it together into paper after it breaks down
3. Platform to communicate the stories of the men
Come in as educators on how to make it - get stories out so they feel more comfortable
Mobile workshops - shows civilians what they do - do public demos
Civilian as witness - so we can see it and hear what they go through - big exhibitions - Summerville May 9th - to create witnesses instead of bystander - opening receptions and experiences for vets
Visiting Artist Series - Steve Mumford
Progressive, important, tradition
Tours over seas; Guantanamo, Afghanistan, BP oil spill and Iraq
Surrounded in the space - Large natural history paintings with modern life; Buick falling into water ( jarring modernity )
Artists working from the front line with notations in Vietnam: turn out engraving
Winslow Homer - did beautiful paintings about war
Too late to be embedded - bought a ticket to Quait and hang out then gather with reporters
Had a photoshopped pass
Found himself taking photographs - felt like a fraud that he want supposed to be there
Pulled out a drawing pad, had no choice, that he was going to be there and he had the right to be there
Everything seemed wrong and he has no choice
6 trips and every trip he felt like he was a war tourist - throw himself in and start drawing
Wanted to draw the American soldiers and their experience in a foreign land and felt it was a nod to Winslow
Took 3 hours in Baghdad to find soldiers
Small battalion - big tank and told he wanted to draw and he could go - would patrol with them around Baghdad. Still good will towards Americans, but disbelief of order
On work - water washes in the beginning, pen movement. Slowly adds color as trips happen, movement and motion. Light movement is graphic but strong.
Iraqis would crowd him has he worked drawing. Didn't like the bombed buildings and didn't like foreigners emphasizing change - felt like a war zone or post war zone
2003 - things weren't going well - terms of fighting.
Didn't have people rushing him to the scene of the crime - instead of going for the violence he would just find what he saw and would just let things happen. You actually had to be at the right place at the right time and it often would not come to him
He was wrestling with the issue of not being a propagandist and at the same time not promoting a war
2004 - the soldiers began relationships with kids. Resignation for happy children
Wanted to draw from life and try and stay on that scene but would take the photos if necessary
Second trip - embedded into a unit. Esaam - artist who introduced himself as an artist. Esaam learned how to speak English had spoke for US. Gave abstract art paintings over Hussain paintings. Took him to meet other artists in community.
Leo Castilli?
Late 2003 - thank more about getting more too the front lines - make more of an effort to get there - gaint explosions- people ignoring- bombings
He was allowed to draw suspects for jobs. Sometimes it got out of hand- suspects were often bagged
Worked in the sumi-triangle
Excellent and I share in your enthusiasm. Rollins' was an inspired speaker and
ReplyDeletegreat storyteller. Very important