Day 1

this is a selection from my “Paris” series.

20 feet of water bottles

After a lot of hours cleaning water bottles, putting holes in them and stringing them together just so; I am ready to install them! I weeded out some of them after putting all that I was given together. It will look more intentional with them all being similar and that’s important to keep the work from seeming thrown together. Now to print on the wood and hopefully my screen works!!! If it don’t I will hand write facts on the wood which will look interesting too.

Leech

My outdoor installation has been approved and will be installed shortly on the hiking and biking trail behind Lyon. I will finally get to use the water bottles that have consumed my garage and studio for the past month! I am focusing on the relationship of ground water and the water in the bottles. The plastic from the bottles leech into the water it holds. Then they leech into the ground, poisoning the ground water if they are buried in a land fill. But a large portion of them end up into the ocean. Once again affecting everything.

The library installation is almost done, after 9+ hours of plastering book pages on a 12×9 wall. This project turned out to be a lot bigger than I initially planned and a lot more time consuming, but well worth it to me. It is a tribute to my grandmother as well as an assignment so it makes it a lot more personal. I decided how I would incorporate the text last night. That was the last thing I needed to do and could not decide how I wanted to do it. But now I have and I am ready to finish it!!!

evolution of beauty

With my final painting project I want to copy but abstract three historical paintings that feature a Venus. In this project I am showing how the ideal beauty has changed over time. By taking the curvy, healthy figures that once were the ideal vision of sex appeal and imposing abstracted colors and expressive lines were once were sensuous and supple lines.

            In today’s society according to what is reflected in advertisements, beauty means breast implants, lip injections, color contacts, plastic surgery, and protruding hipbones. We have young girls that truly believe if you can pinch skin off bone, it is fat. The numbers in eating disorders have grown an alarming rate and no one is being held accountable. In this project I am concerned with how once our society valued one type of beauty standard but now values one that looks ill.

            The three paintings I am using are Giorgione’s Dresden Venus, Velasquez’s Venus at her mirror, and Titian’s Venus of Urbino. The women portrayed in the paintings are standard sizes in all respects. They are in standard Venus poses on their sides and looking at the viewer. In the Velasquez painting her back is to the viewer, but she still gazes at the viewer through her reflection in the mirror.

           

            I am settled on what I will do with the figures as far as keeping the main lines of the figures while making them more hard-edged and expressive. The colors will be that of an abstract expressionist portrait such as Dekooning’s Women. I will use a lot of bright and bold colors that contrast one another to add further uneasiness for the viewer.

            Initially, I assumed I would recreate the entire painting so to make it clear what I was copying. Conceptually, I want to emphasize the women so I may have an abstracted background that will almost consume the figure. It would also be interesting to paint the background close to its original by keeping the lines in place but not spending a lot of time on painting it exactly because it is a new era. Since I want to paint on canvas and have already prepped said canvas, I could project the image onto the canvas and draw the lines lightly so to get the formal elements properly placed.

Painting Project

 This is “models by a wicker chair” by Edvard Munch. This is my favorite painting of his and a great example of expressionist portraiture I am interested in doing. The painting that I posted before this is my first time painting in this style and I thoroughly enjoyed it. For my last painting project I want to do a series of portraits. I am not interested in portraying specific people rather to have images that could be most people. Personally i would rather paint women but I am considering have the subjects be gender neutral. If I do this there will be more than 1 person in the painting and they will be embracing. I am concerned with the issue of marriage that should not even be an issue. These paintings will focus on love and the intimate moment, rather than the sex of the subjects. Another aspect of it is the idea that the male is always the masculine and female is the feminine. In relationships these roles can be reveresed even when the couple is the opposite sex.

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Dedication ceremony

The dedication ceremony went very well today. The class was very open with their influences and the audience was very receptive. I was surprised to be told by the chaplain that my piece was the most religious piece in the chapel. She said to her it was plainly the story of Easter, with skulls representing death, the DNA the transformation or resurrection and the butterflies the spirit of Christ. I was very pleased to hear her take on it.

Library installation

I have had idea that I have been wanting to put to work for a while now. With this library installation I will finally be able to execute it. I Really hope all goes as planned because I’ve already had to change my plans a bit. We shall see soon!

Pre-spring break happenings

We had the awards ceremony last night for the 9th annual juried student show and I actually won 3rd place for my very small painting of a Pygmy tyrant bird. The show has a lot of great works in it so I was very surprised I placed. My good friends Sean Gibson and Allan Candler placed 2nd and 1st with Allan also receiving the presidents purchase award. It is truly a great honor to share the experience with them.