Pilchuck Emerging Artists - Glass and Beyond!

  This presentation was by far one of the most informational meetings of this semester thus far. I had been talking to my parents about how I am considering not going to graduate school after graduating Cornish, and they had suggested I look into whether or not patronages are still around, so hearing about how you can be a resident artist at a institution like the Pilchuck Glass School was really exciting to me.
      The presentation itself was rather rushed, and I found myself wishing that we had had more time to hear from the artists themselves about their experience. Each one got up, one after the other and talked briefly about how they came to be at the Pilchuck Glass School and how their work has expanded due to the environment they are in. They each showed a few pieces that they've done during their time there, and each one came from a different background.
      I was really glad to hear that some of the artists that went to be part of the Emerging Artists in Residence (EAiR) program had not worked extensively ( but had previous knowledge) in glass prior to their residency. I have always been interested in working with glass, and I think I may try to apply for this program upon graduation. They told us about how, as a resident artist, you share a house with the other artists, as well as studio space, forging new relationships and learning from eachother. How exciting for one artist to learn from another and vice versa! The artists worked together and formed new collaborations and formed their own critiques once someone had finished their work.
       As part of the EAiR program, Pilchuck resident artists have access to TONS of studio space and options for their work, including glass-plate printmaking; fusing, slumping and casting kilns, flameworking torches and cold working. No hot glass work is available, which is a bummer, but the rest of it still sounds fun! The residency, according to the Pilchuck Glass School's website, requires six full time artists,

 " The EAiR program supports artists who are making a transition in their professional lives. Whether moving from academia to a professional studio practice, taking up a new medium, or beginning a new body of work, artists find this independent residency ideal for contemplation, research, and experimentation. The program provides artists with a place and the time to develop an idea or project in glass, with the potential for realizing a new body of work. "

http://www.pilchuck.com/residencies/EAiR_v2012.aspx

Inspirations for the Garment/ Prothesis project - Valentim Quaresma

      I am soooo excited for the second half of this semester in my Core studio class! We are doing a garment/ prothesis project, and I thought I would share my ideas for the project , as well as one artist who will be / has been a major influence on my work.
       This particular artist's work has spanned several lenses, including sculpture, jewelry, installations and design. Valentim Quaresma "has used experimentation and deconstruction to remove trivial objects from his surroundings, recreating them into works of art," (DirectArts Magazine, ed 01). I love the way that he deconstructs regular, mundane objects and turns them into luxurious items of wearable sculpture.
He combines everyday references with almost antagonistic elements.
An excerpt from an interview Valentim did with DirectArts Magazine (Ed.01) :

 

"Is experimentation crucial for you?

 

Without a doubt. I've tried many different techniques and inspirations, from baroque to tribal, inserting them in different creative processes to see how it would work. I like to turn an ordinary material into something exquisite. At first glance a press-stud seems to only serve the function for which it was created, there's nothing beautiful about it, but by applying them to a piece, I'm creating a beautiful and luxurious dimension, caused by the texture and acheived by the use of reptition of the same element....."

 

 

 

I really am fascinated by his work, and seek to use it as my primary influence during the garmet/ prothesis project. Here are some of his works :

 

 

 

 

 

 

For my project, I think I really want to expand on my newly found joy of welding! I think metal would be the perfect medium for this assignment and I think it would get my concept across well. I would like to make a social commentary with the pieces i construct, aiming at the connection with what is considered feminine with what is beaten into womens' brains from a young age by social media. The idealized female figure has become a large breasted, skinny waisted waif, a far cry from what it was years ago. Girls are "programmed" to believe that they are never pretty enough, never skinny enough. I want to construct devices that depict the destruction of a woman's confidence by all these outside factors- makeup, fashion, the world's view of the female position in life. I want people to be disgusted and made uncomfortable by my pieces, but I also want to take a page from Mr. Quaresma and make them appear luxurious and appealing to the eye. 

Louis Watts and Cable Griffith

Louis Watts

        Louis Watts is primarily a drawer, working in and exploring the medium to its fullest extent, searching for new ideas and new questions to ask himself. The fact that he experiments so much with the medium really intruiged me, and made me realize that I've never really settled with a medium for any length of time in order to perfect or experiment with it. It was especially interesting to me, due to the fact that I love working with charcoal and graphite - I find drawing the most challenging, hands-on  and the down-right most enjoyable form of two dimensional work. He referred to drawing as the way you "figure things and ideas out", and I fully agree, and I identify with his appreciaton of that fact.
    I had heard about using charcoal dust to draw before prior to hearing about Louis' work - but only in the context of using it to blend in charcoal drawings- not in conjunction with adhesives. Louis uses rubber cement and fixatives to draw and create texture, which piques my interest in the outcome of his works.

 

 

    

 

The outcome of Louis' experimentation with charcoal and rubber cement is really intruiging, creating abstract forms and lines, to the point that one can form one's own impression of what the image could symbolize, which is something I strive to get people to do in looking at my work. I think the freedom of interpretation is the beautiful and most precious quality of art as a whole.

 

 

 

 
I also find what Louis said about "line" being conceptual, not really existing in reality. He said that "line" only really exists in drawing. So, what he started to do is "anti-drawings", using paper masking, layers of charcoal dust and fixative to create images, rather than constructing lines to deliniate the object he was trying to show.
    

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Cable Griffith

        One thing that really lasted with me about Cable's work is the actual progression of his personal style throughout his artistic career, and how that progression really illustrates how a person's style can evolve. He started out doing impressionistic work then moved into more symbolic paintings and developed his own sense of balance and harmony within a space.
     Cable's sense of history also intruiges me - the fact that he sees his own work and the things he has done as an inspiration to his current work- rather than leaving a previously done piece, he looks to his past pieces for inspiration to the future.

Cable has a clear sense of playfulness and doodle-like quality to his work. His work explores the depth and constraints of a space, a familiar space recounted as a visual narrative through multiple panels. I find the fact that video games are one of his primary inspirations to be very unique, and shows how something we often think of as a boon to procrastination can be a expedient to someone's creativity.

 

His paintings become almost purposeful, a map to the world contained in his creative mind that is there to explore through both his landscape abstractions like the one above and his current work of creating entire worlds to explore, not unlike videogames.

Shirin Neshat - Video work at the SAAM

On Thursday, October eleventh, my Core Studio Concepts class and I made our way to the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) to view one of the many featured female artists there, Shirin Neshat. The piece of most notability is the video Tooba , which shows "an absorbing landscape where men and women are drawn in procession" to Tooba, "a tree of paradise". It features a woman carefully standing, fit perfectly into the tree trunk of Tooba . It was a spellbinding video, very hard to take your eyes off of.
I enjoyed the presentation of the video, it made you completely enveloped in the scene you were taking in. On one end of a long rectangular room there was one giant screen playing the video from a certain perspective, whilst on the other end of the same room, another screen displayed the video from a different perspective. in combination with the sound of the video, the videography itself was intruiging.
The object in question, Tooba, stood in its own , walled off garden in the midst of the rolling hills of desert-like plains. Not to mention, the tree stood out in this environment as one of the tallest living things in its own habitat.

Ephraim Russell - Inspirations of Our Instructors

    For our professor, Ephraim Russell, we were instructed to ask a question, and to answer in his voice. So...Here goes.

Q: You mentioned the theory that people are led on by preconceived expectation. With your "speed of light" pieces, more specifically, your piece that had an image relayed into thousands of small lights connected through a wall - the "low resolution screen"- were you aiming to revisit that theory of expectation?
A: I think, at large, the piece did reflect that expectation/ reality relationship. And I think that was the reason that not a ton of people understood my intention behind the work. Because it wasn't what they expected.

Bravo! Contestants- and More Importantly- Artists

       This last Thursday my class and the rest of the Cornish community were able to meet two alumni of the class of 2000. These two alumni also starred in the Bravo! TV show "The Next Great Artist". It was so very interesting to catch a glimpse of behind the scenes of these reality tv shows. Their names are Jas-Minh Moore and Mark Velasquez.
          To me, it was really interesting to hear that most of the artists really didn't take the competition itself seriously, and the fact that the show in itself was inhumane.. I had guessed that the producers of such a show wouldn't treat the contestants with much respect, but what they had to share, I found a bit over-the-top. They weren't allowed cellphones, magazines, books, movies, or even the internet to research!
     But what lasted with me, from this presentation, was the advice they gave at the end...at the time, I really needed to hear what they said. They said to commit totally to our artwork, to work hard so we can enjoy it later, and also to challenge our instructors. That stuck with me.

Site Map - Westlake Center

For our site catalog project, we had to pick a filter - or a specific thing to focus on- within a certain area. I chose to photograph the statues by the Westlake Center. I really was intrigued with capturing these very naturalistically posed, ambiguous statues in conjuction with real people, and showing how they really do fit into the space nicely.
As for the word on each picture, I chose them because they either described the particular statue's emotional feeling - as I felt it - or it is a synonym of a word someone else used to describe the photograph itself. For whatever reason the reocurring "c" sound kept re-entering my mind, so I went with it.

STOREFRONTS Seattle

      On the 21st of September, we all went over to the International District to check out some art installations in the storefronts of Seattle. It really was quite interesting, seeming as I haven't been able to check out many of the installations around the city. On the other side of the water, in Kitsap County - where I'm from - there are quite a few installations to scope out. It was really cool to be able to see the differences between the installations in Seattle versus the installations in Bainbridge Island, Poulsbo, Silverdale and Bremerton.
       I especially loved The Santuary Arts Center, which serves homeless youth of the Seattle area. It really is great to see art benefitting those less fortunate. And the art was wonderful!

Pocket Shrine!

Okay...So it doesn't actually fit in my pocket. But all the same, here is my pocket shrine, a project my Core class did. The basic gist of the project was to create a little shrine- whether it be a shrine to our inspirations, an autobiography, or something a little more in depth than that.
Me? I chose to do a shrine to those things and people that inspire me.

 I started with a little chest I had picked up from a camping trip I took to Kalaloch,WA with my boyfriend and our friends Nick and Christina. I first treated the outside. I pasted cigarette papers to the outside to remind me of my boyfriend and several of my friends that roll their own cigarettes. On the inside on the bottom, I pasted pictures of art pieces and forms that inspire me, and on the lid inside I pasted a few little drawings I've done.

Although you can't tell from this picture, I wrote my favourite poem- and the source of much of my inspiration - "Invictus" by William Hernest Henley on the top of the box on the rolling papers:

 

       Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

- William Hernest Henley

This poem has inspired several of my tattoos (present and future) and is a source of great strength for me. Everytime I read it, I remember that I control my fate, and that I choose what path I walk, and no one can take my will and dreams away from me. It gives me the drive I constantly need.

 

On the inside, I placed several objects to remind me of the most important people in my life. I placed a wooden key given to me by my amazing boyfriend of two years, a silver ring that always reminds me of my past experiences, a keychain with a picture of my wonderful parents in it, a shell to remind me of the great PNW and Kitsap County where I'm from, and finally, Earl Grey tea leaves to remind me of my sister.

 

 

The key my boyfriend carved and gave me to symbolize the key to his heart :)             (I know, we're cheesy as all hell!!)

 

The shell that I took from the Poulsbo waterfront.

(For those of you who haven't been to Poulsbo- or Kitsap county for that matter- you need to go! It's gorgeous.)

 

 

The keychain with a picture of my mom and dad from one of their adventures years ago :) I always carry it with me. They are truly the biggest inspiration in my life....they have never stopped supporting me and have always given me the encouragement I need. I love them with all my heart and I wouldn't be here without them - I aim to make them proud with everything I do.

 

The ring. I've always worn rings, mainly sterling silver ones. The ring sort of symbolizes to me all of the things I've done and been through, the things I've conquered, the things yet to come - because my rings have been and will be there through all of that!

 

And, finally, the tea leaves (sorry it's a bad picture!) that represent my sister. For as long as I've known, my sister has always loved the old world and history, as well as this particular brand of Earl Grey tea. The smell always reminds me of her, and the way she will always be there for me, and how she has never stopped challenging me. If not for her and my highschool art teacher, I probably never would have picked up a pen or brush!

 

 



Ruthie Marie Tomlinson - Inspirations of our Instructors

On Thursday this last week, we got to hear about what inspires and influences Ruthie. Ruthie is the head of the Core Studio Concepts class, which I am taking this semester, as previously mentioned. It was great to see her work as well as hear about the places she looks to for inspiration.
     A large portion of Ruthie's work stems from process books...I'm starting to see how useful these things could be! Her work is heavily influenced by natural, organic shapes and forms. A portion of her work at one point was influenced by the rubber of inner tubes. She used that material in ways I definitely would not have expected nor thought of on my own. I loved her use of innertubing as a flooring of sorts, when she cut them apart then laid them out to exhibit their texture as they folded, as well as adding an interactive portion. I personally love interactive sculpture, and the fact that she provided galoshes for people to use to walk across the material was very cool to me.
      One thing from her presentation that stuck with me the most was when she talked about her "Two Dot Spot" and what started happening to her work after the acquired the studio in Two Dot, Montana. She really made me realize the importance of having a place that you love to do your work. A place where you can really breathe, where you can freely let the art flow out of you.
     She told us about her adventures into drawing, spurred on by her friend and fellow artist, who encouraged her and challenged her to branch out. Now, her place in Montana gets a ton of sun. So, one day as she was frusterated at an assignment given, she stumbled upon the shadow cast by a plant on her desk onto the blank paper she stared at. She began tracing shadows of everyday objects - branches, stencils, bones, grass- onto paper and canvas. I love that she came upon a big part of her work by sheer happenstance. Sun and shadow influenced her to continue her work, to search out objects everyday and to capture their fleeting and ever changing crisp shadow. The work was very thought provoking. To think that, everytime a shadow she was tracing moved, it indicated exactly how much we are rotating during the day. Very cool works. :)
I can't wait to see more of our professor's work!

CSC Henry Art GalleryTrip - 9/06/12

           For my Core Studio Concepts class at Cornish this year, our first Thursday trip was to the Henry Art Gallery on the UW's campus. It was a very intriguing visit and I think it was a great start to the class.
          The first place I went at the Henry was the James Turrell "Light Reign Skyspace Tower". It was so pleasant and enchanting to be able to sit in such a quiet and peaceful place amidst the bustle and noise of the city. It was basically a oval room with wood plank seating all around - very reminiscient of a cabin or of a sauna of sorts. All around you, in the back of the seating was a soft, warm luminous glow. Above you, an oval shape was cut out of the ceiling, containing in it a gentle blue light, fading into purple in the middle. There was silence all around, and the light just made you feel as if you were in the bottom of some enormously tall tower. It was a refreshing start to the rest of the sights before me.

Poster for "The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl". 2012. (Henry Art Gallery)



        Once I had had my fill of the skyspace, I ventured forth into the main museum building, where I first encountered :The Record : Contemporary Art and Vinyl". All of the pieces featured in this show collectively showed amazing spontaniety and creativity, in my opinion, of all the artists whose work was there. The first piece that really caught my eye was Sean Duffy's "Burnout Sun" which was an amazing use of half-records and whole records to create a dynamic piece. What I thought was interesting is that he kept all of the labels on each of the records. Instead of making the records just simply vinyl discs, he kept their identity by leaving the labels.

      Another piece that grabbed my attention was the working model of Laurie Anderson's "viophonograph". Laurie Anderson was an experimental performer back in 1977 when she created a unique variation of the violin she was trained to play. She removed the strings that her bow would normally strike with a small, battery operated phonograph. On that phonograph, she placed a custom made record with grooves corresponding to all the notes regularly played on a violin. When she placed her bow on the rotating vinyl, it emitted a sound not unlike a modern synthesized violin. I thought this was an incredible marriage of classic and modern sound, and if you haven't heard (of) it, definitely look it up sometime! It is mindblowing. Absolutely amazing innovation coupled with creativity and technicality.

Laurie Anderson and her "viophonograph". 1977. (google images)

 

 



       The next show being presented at the time of our visit was Gary Hill's "Glossodelic Attractions (part two)". This was done with a variety of interactive and thought provoking media, but all included an element of film. Gary Hill's work was of special interest to me. Video has never been a medium that I have worked with, but because of that lack in my work, video has never ceased to capture my attention. One of the most striking pieces to me (and the one that is the most memorable) was "Circular Breathing",1994.  It was made up of five video projectors, two speakers, and numerous amounts of gadgetry - the names of which elude me. At first impression, I was startled and almost overwhelmed by the sheer size of the screen and of the images being thrown onto them. Images of a girl reading flashed across one of the panels, whilst on another screen a musician stroked the keys of an old piano. Sound, combined with video, gave a very emotional feel to this piece. The steady rhythm of what sounded like a train, combined with music and the flashing images caused me to stop and reconsider - not what it meant, but what I felt about it. It was a very powerful piece, and I wish I could have looked at it longer.
       Another of his works featured was "The Psychadelic Gedankenexperiment", created in 2011. Here, Gary Hill explores what he calls the most influential "found performance" of art - LSD. In the piece, Hill performs his experiment in a "computer generated anechoic chamber". Throughout the video documenting his gedankenexperiment, Hill constructs a large molecular model of LSD ( or lysergic acid diethylamide. But what makes this piece enthralling is the face that he recorded the spoken text in reverse. He had made four large boards imprinted with language signs he himself created so he could read the sounds backwards. Then, for this exhibition, the video is played in reverse to revert the sound back into regular, comprehensible speech. It was such an off-the-wall piece that I couldn't help but to sit on one of the provided foam chairs to watch and listen to this guy ramble in what seemed to be slowed down speech. I can't tell you why it enthralled me as it did, but it certainly will remain in my mind for a while.