Final Projects!

The end of the semester is fast approaching, and we've finally been assigned all our final projects for the foundation classes. I'm actually really excited about all of mine: in 2D we're making accordion books, 3D is wire installations/explorations, drawing is a life-size self-portrait, and Computers is pretty open ended with a hint of an auto-biography, and I'm really not sure what I want to do for that yet. But I like all the concepts I've come up with, and I think the finished products will be awesome! Now I'm just nervous I won't have enough time to finish everything. This last few weeks are going to be stressful!!

Melinda Steffy/ Super Stealthy Super Heroes

The lecture this week was really entertaining because everyone who has Nichola for 3D wore their superhero costumes! I wish we had been scattered throughout the room a little bit more, that would have been funnier. Justin, the giant squid, made quite the impression on the speaker! The "Illustrious Hole" was also super funny, he ran up in the middle of the lecture and put his mat in the middle of the floor, which was supposed to be a hole you'd find in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Props to him, that was gutsy. It was also nice just to see everyone else's costumes, I only got to see the pieces that they were working on when we were in the studio on weekends. I was really impressed with how a lot of them turned out!

Anyways, the lecture was by Melinda Steffy and she spoke about the online store Etsy.com. It's a site that sells exclusively handmade goods and really encourages the restored relationship between buyer and seller (ironic, because there is no personal interaction through a website!) I had heard of Etsy before, but I really had always written it off as an arts and crafts place like the art shows that we have around my house. I really liked how Esty wasn't Melinda's sole occupation, she also had a job and was still practicing her art. (I loved how she used common spices to achieve such beautiful colors! That yellow was amazing! I'm pretty sure she said for the yellow she used turmeric) Because of the profits she generates from selling her goods on Etsy, she was really able to continue making art. Melinda really stressed that to be successful using an online vending site, you need to create a product that is both function and can replicated quickly and easily. If not, your prices should reflect your time and be really high, so no one would buy, or you would underprice your item and lose money in the deal. She also said maintaining an online store to the point where you are getting noticed and are generating sales, is a huge time commitment with all the upkeep. But if you can make something you enjoy quickly and cheaply, you might be able to make a bit of money on the side.

Screenprinting

Last Monday in class we screen-printed! It was a lot of fun, I could totally see myself getting into that. For my image I found a really cool camel, and I painted little converses on his feet. It came out pretty cool! I don't think these scanned images look quite as good as they do in person, but I think "The World Needs Interesting" one is definitely my favorite. The blue printed really really well on the black. When I showed it to my roommate she was really mad because she thought I ripped off the ad! She thought it was a legit ad, not that I had printed the camel onto it. It was pretty funny.

I wish I had come up with some more interesting surfaces to print on. I brought magazines and everything, and they look nice, but if I had thought about it a little bit more I think I could have come up with some really good images. Maybe next time! I think I might take a survey of print-making next year.

Caterpillar & Squid

Super Super Heroes!

Last Tuesday, we finally had our Super hero Crit. It was AWESOME! Everyone in my class did such a great job, and our potluck was really yummy. I was Distracto Girl, I provided a much needed distraction whenever an embarassing event occurs. I had a lot of fun with it. The "Cool Caterpillar" and "Squid Man" took the cake though.


Distracto Girl Strikes!

Two Lectures

Two weeks ago Doug Bucci from the jewelry department gave our lecture. I was really impressed with his presentation. I thought it was really interesting how he got into jewelry. I also like that he showed us his process, especiallly how he used CAD. He also put a large emphasis that in the beginning he had to do a lot of commission work and maybe some things that he wasn't able to exercise a lot of creative freedom, but ultimately it opened the door for what he is able to do today. I thought his concept for the diabetes jewelry was really neat, but I still am struggling with how removed he is from the physical making of the art. Sure, his body is dictating the shapes that he is generating, but he is somewhat removed physically from actually making something. But the shapes that he was able to generate were absolutely beautiful, I loved the necklaces. I was also blown away that he was collaborating with Jeff Koons and Stella McCartney. That's amazing. But I thought the diabetes necklaces were awesome, and I can't wait to use the 3D printer! I had never heard of such a thing.


"Intellectual property is the oil of the twentieth century." -Mark Getty

This week a member of Superflex (I totally forgot to write his name down) came to Philly all the way from Denmark to talk. The group he is part of, Superflex, will be a part of the upcoming event Phillagrafika. I thought the bio-gas systems that they created were a great way to help improve the quality of living in impoverished areas, the concept itself was really awesome. All the work they do involving copyrighting was interesting, I couldn't believe they built an entire store just off of "copied" goods. The Guarana Power company they created with Guarana farmers was also a really neat way they were able to reach out and help the farmers who are taken advantage of by large corporations. I loved the stories that the old men shared that all started out "I'd like to tell you a very interesting story.." They were so funny! I was also struck by the concept of "open source beer." They must be getting a decent amount of publicity, if a news station took enough interest to try the beer-making for themselves. The entire lecture gave me a lot to think about, especially as we have been talking in computer about appropriation, when it is acceptable and when it isn't.

Silly Picture

This bust totally looks like Lord Voldemort! Uber Creepy.

PMA & The MET

Friday, my friend Alex and I met my drawing teacher at the PMA. She makes the placards there for all the artwork. It was awesome, she took us on a tour and was really knowledgeable about a ton of the artwork. I really loved all the period rooms, they were amazing! We only saw a small portion of the museum, though. Next week my whole class will be meeting her, so hopefully we'll see a different part! Right before we left, we got to take a peek at where she works. On the way, we stopped in at the conservation lab. Kate Cuffari, who gave a lecture a couple of weeks ago, and one of her colleagues was super nice and talked to us about some of the pieces they were working on. I was in AWE. It was so cool!!!! I saw all the pieces from the images that Kate showed us during her lecture. It was so interesting to see the artwork in a different context, in a cluttered lab instead of a fancy display. I absolutely loved it.

Yesterday I went to the Met with my Art History class. It was rainy and gross, so it was another perfect day to spend in a Museum! :) We spent a really long time with everyone's presentations, and we only had about 30-45 minutes exploring for ourselves which was a bummer. But I was super impressed by the building. I had no idea it was so HUGE. It would take a few days at least to see everything properly. My favorite part that I got to actually spend time in was the greek sculpture, it was in such a huge, open, and fitting space. I was really impressed with the collection as well. The African Art section was also amazing, I had never seen so much in one place. It's so easy to see how Picasso and modern artists were so influenced by African masks. Some of the sculptures in there were HUGE! I was really surprised. The Modern Art section was pretty nice as well, I got to see some Matisse paintings, he's basically my favorite artist ever! I also go to see the shark by Damien Hirst. I was really excited about the Degas section, it had a whole wall of just his tub pastel drawings which I love! And they were all in one spot together which was so cool to see them all at once.

So basically it was a great weekend for art! It was finished by a trip to Dick Blick earlier today to pick up some supplies for book-binding and silk-screening. Yay for art! :)

Eileen Neff

Eileen Neff gave the lecture this week. I thought it was really interesting that she hand painted all of her photography work. She really emphasized that she has never gone back to painting since she got into photography, but I think it was still present in her work because they were hand painted. I was really amazed with her chair cut-outs, I couldn't believe that they were completely flat. She did a lot of work with Cezanne, and I loved the idea of the child's chair. She gave small canvases to children along with images of Cezanne's work, and allowed them to recreate them. Then she placed them on the chair, as if to symbolize his work as a child. I loved that concept. I think her landscape photography was really beautiful, but I didn't really appreciate all her photoshop work. Some was interesting and pretty, but I liked it better when it was mostly done by hand.

Photoshop Painting

We had to create a five layered drawing, and we could use any medium like paint, collage, pastel, etc. and then in Photoshop create a painting. I chose to create a collage, which made the Photoshop portion difficult. The parts in the image that are painted are the some areas in the background and the rooster/chicken?'s body and neck. I just tried to recreate textures found within the images.

New 3D Project

This weekend I attacked my Super Hero 3D Project. We had to create a super hero that either fulfilled some need of the world or a need that we ourselves had. I created "Distracto-Girl." You know when a really awkward moment happens, either someone did something or said something, and then there is that awful silence that follows? Enter Distracto-Girl! She's bright and shiny and diverts your attention, so you forget the horrible embarrassing thing you just said. I finished the cat-suit portion of my costume this weekend, which is a full body (long sleeve, full pant) suit made out of neon green spandex. (Pretty much like Green Man from the show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Spandex is super hard to sew! I think it looks pretty good though, so I'm happy and I can't wait to finish it!

Wacky Current Event

For this project we had to take a current event and create a photoshop image that somehow commented on the event. I found a newsstory about Russian ice-skating circus bears! Apparently a bear killed one of its trainers, and mauled another. I just thought it was really funny that they can teach bears how to ice skate! (I don't think its funny that they were killed, that's horrible!) They can ride motorcycles and other crazy things as well.

Here's the actual story: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/24/russia.bear.ice.skating.death/index.html