PSU Studio Critique: Critique 1

As I am completing two critique courses this semester, I will be presenting work and ideas from both the classroom and my personal endeavors. The first critique will primarily consist of concepts, sketches, maquettes, and past projects that I am working from.

For classroom work, projects will be from Advanced Jewelry and Toy Design.

Jewelry:
The first project was focused on cold connections which entails piecing it together without soldering. The picture below is the final piece. It is made from a flattened then rounded brass tube as well as "wire" that I stretched, cut, and formed from a small piece of brass. I drilled holes in the appropriate areas, slipped the wires in, and folded the end over to secure them into place.

The second project is focused on using resin. I am currently building a shadow box pendant that will have the resin inside. There will be a few leaves and other organic material set in the resin.

The last four projects will be to set stones, create a fibula (an ancient brooch/dress fastener), make the metal component of a water feature/fountain, and etch metal. The water feature/fountain is stemming from a project that I created last semester, it will be a larger scale. The video below shows the concept from last semesters project. The etching idea was inspired by the image below of the fascinating "Chinese Lantern."

Toy Design: 
We have worked on three "thinker" projects to get our minds to think like toy designers, not necessarily to have complete, perfect art pieces. We are encouraged to follow our interests in what toys are to us individually and reflect that in our toys. To me, I want to promote imaginative play, being outside in nature, hands-on, and low cost or reusing materials.
"Thinker 1" was to make something move. We were given a handful of plastic gears and balsa wood. I hand cut working gears from balsa wood. The plastic gears were coupled with string to open an origami object.
"Thinker 2" was to translate 2D drawings into something 3D. The goal was to use a letter or letters from your name and put meaning to them, and tell a story through the 3D part we made. I used my entire name "Catherine" and broke it down into words that describe things that I enjoy. C: camping, a: alpine, t: trees, h: hiking, e: earth, r: rock climbing, i: insects, n: national parks, e: explore. With those words, I created a cartoon-like nature scene.
"Thinker 3" is creating a character. I have sketches for the fabric owl that I will be sewing.

Personal Projects:

Shadow box(es): In the past I have created a few of my own shadow boxes; one with mixed media and the other with different saturation's of the same image. The visual experiences created by them was really intriguing to me. I would like to combine the two ideas, make it bigger, deeper, possibly a light source. The following website is a great example of my idea of a shadow box. I love the different media used, including the feather and tin can. http://thebeeskneescousin.blogspot.com/2013/06/shadow-box-artists.html

Topic of Bipolar: My mother is bipolar and there are SO many emotions that are involved not only for her but for me as her daughter. I would like to put my finger on a few of those emotions or bipolar in general in an art piece or to for healing and understanding of it. I may be able to use this as a subject for a shadow box or make books like "Life Cycle of the Book" from my recent gallery exhibit. Mirrors also come to mind, maybe manipulating them to symbolize something. The following are ways I have broken the topic up into possible projects.

• The stages of her life: early signs, alcoholism (self medication), breakdown, diagnosis, prescription mediation, sleeping/poor health/inactive/snide
• Highs= crazy, hyperactive, manic, angry, happy VS. Lows= depression, slow, sad, unmotivated
• Outsiders view (textbook knowledge of the topic) VS. insiders view (those with it or directly affected by someone with it)
• Alcoholism/self-medication VS. prescriptions/Dr. medication
• Sweet talking/happy/nice/kind VS. angry/rude/unhappy/scary

Letterpress Restoration: Day 2

Day 2 of the restoration started with the hopes of taking the press apart. I was able to get the top shelf (where the printer would roll ink onto a brayer) disassembled and look around the press to see what tools are needed in order to take the rest of it apart. I searched around the printing room for a small table that I can roll the cylinder onto and am waiting for an O.K. email from my professor to use one of them. Taking the cylinder off will allow me to take the cylinder itself apart, as well as unscrew the track it sits on and make the clean up a lot easier. It will be crucial to keep track of where the void is at when I take it off, so when I place it back on it will be in the correct position.

You can see the cylinders void.

 

 The press without the ink shelf.

The disassembled ink shelf, ready to be cleaned!

The following images are of a brush that was stuck in the press. The note taped to it reads: "Brewington's Do Not Remove This Brush From This Position." I was curious as to who "Brewington" was so I tried to do a little research. It appears that he was the printing instructor at Pittsburg High School in the 1930's as you can see in this link http://www.mocavo.com/Pittsburg-High-School-1934-Pittsburg-Ks/126315/83#83 Also, from page 10 of this document created in 2008, www.pittstate.edu/dotAsset/61744.pdf, a 1958 graduate from Pittsburg State University's noted that "LeRoy Brewington" was one of his printing professors. Many of the PSU Kanza Yearbooks were printed by LeRoy Brewington as well. My guess is that he was the professor who brought this Vandercook No. 2 press to the PSU campus, considering it was created in the mid-early 30's. On a similar note, I mentioned in a previous post that in the PSU Technology Center, there is a picture of the Vandercook being used in a class in the 70's. It is fun how I am finding bits of history about who used this press!

PSU Studio Critique: Artist Reception 1

 
   Photo from Pittsburg State University Department of Art Facebook Page

The awards ceremony and reception for Transforming Viewpoints: A National Juried Exhibition was Thursday, January 21^st in the Pittsburg State University Art Department. The exhibit included works from 20 artists, all of which had focus on different cultural viewpoints. Steve Liggett, from Living Arts of Tulsa, was the juror of the show. During the awards ceremony, he selected the winners for the following awards: solo exhibit in the University Gallery, and two separate $100 awards. The office of Student Diversity also gave $500 to the artist whose piece they would select to be displayed in their office. 

Prior to the awards ceremony and reception, I met with Anh-Thuy Nguyen, the artist for the video installation Thuy & Rice, which was included in the exhibit. We met in the second floor gallery of Porter Hall where she critiqued my work in the Collective Independent’s exhibit. We first looked at my 7 piece series Ambiguity 1-7. I expressed to her that the series is of a single print that shows how different one design can be interpreted and altered yet, much like humans, we are all alike in flesh but very different in personality. She only had one complaint, that the shadow box was reflecting light. She seemed to change her mind as we envisioned future shadowboxes with more depth and different materials used. We then spoke about Stomping Grounds which is a print of my family’s home printed on cottonwood paper that was harvested from our land. This print and the other 6 in the edition were prompted by a savoring a dear place. Anh-Thuy was interested in seeing more ink on the entire surface of the paper rather than just in the rectangle of where the plate transferred the image. She believed that would make it look more natural and woven into the paper. Next I briefly described the 12 blocks of linoleum prints on fabric with dye and moved onto the main topic of The Life Cycle of the Book. Through explanation that the sculptural book experiment was derived from the metaphorical title which included my family’s participation in the making of it. I expressed my interest in having another group of individuals to do the “experiment” with and adding a video component. With her experience in video performance and installations she really enjoyed my idea. She even suggested that I learn coding on a computer to add touch sensitive parts on the book. An example of this would be, as a viewer opens the book a voice recording would play. Another would be as a person touches a section of the book, a video of a person speaking would project. I found this very intriguing for future projects. In conclusion to the critique, we headed downstairs to her reception. Afterwards, I was invited to dinner with Portico, Steve, and Anh-Thuy.

I learned a lot about Ahn-Thuy through the reception, critique, and dinner. She is an assistant professor of photography at Rogers State University in Claremore, Oklahoma. She grew up in Vietnam and later moved to America; after attending a community college in Arizona, she got her B.F.A in Photography at the University of Arizona and M.F.A at Southern Methodist University. Her work is based upon her life, especially as she grew up in a different culture than she lives in now. Her video and sound art explores modern techniques, experimentation, and creating viewer interaction. For example, in the video she has displayed in the exhibit, she starts off by rolling balls of rice as she would traditionally do in Vietnam but then breaks away from those restrictions of tradition and wipes it on her face; as a result she is engaging the viewer outside of their comfort zones. On the other hand, she expressed that when it comes to photography she is very adamant about following the traditional rules. Even as a professor, she teaches students the proper techniques of photography rather than teaching alternative and experimental methods. The ways of traditional photography is extremely important to her.

I greatly enjoyed listening to her and spending some time on her website. Another performance, captivating installation is Hair = To’c. Essentially she created several cloth paths on the floor of a room that lead to where she was seated. As the viewer entered the room, they were asked to pick up the scissors, choose a path, cut as little or as much hair as the viewer wanted, and return the scissors. The video includes each person doing so which leads to her having virtually no hair. I found the concept of allowing the viewers to participate in her “hair cut” was interesting. Being a female in our culture, hair generally is something to take care of and have professionally cut; to have strangers take over that personal feature would be difficult and maybe even freeing for all parties involved. The content and motive behind her work is highly respectable. She is such an enthusiastic person and was so kind to have given me such thoughtful advice.

www.anh-thuynguyen.com

Letterpress Restoration: Day 1

Funding: Check!

Supplies: Check!

First day of the cleaning: Check!

Let the elbow grease continue...