Sam

Are we keeping the blog going this summer? Anybody up to anything interesting?

Katey, final blog... :(

hey, so I can't believe that the show is over already...i can't believe the semester is over already. i feel like i might cry. actually, i 'm sure i'll cry because i love florence and this semester has been really amazing. anyway, i'm putting some pictures on flickr of my piece for the final show. its entitled "seeping" and i think it turned out really well. i was really sad to take it down. that's the bad thing i guess about doing an installation. its so sitespecific and now that its over its over. i guess i'll be signing off now. julia and jana, i really enjoyed working with you this semester. we'll all definitely have to keep in touch!! Ciao tutti!!
katey

Emily

I forgot my photos but they are here now!

and the alternate-

hi

as per julia's suggestion, I'm linking to some pics of the alternate ending I worked on for a bit. It ended up not working at all, and I decided to keep the original. The new ending was too gory and extreme, and didn't really fit. anyway if your interested, here's the link.
Ciao e grazie,
Sam

Joey Again

Whoops, sorry forgot to include pics. Here they are.

Joey

Sorry I'm a bit tardy but better late than never right?

Not sure what else there is to say. I'm pretty satisfied with how my last piece turned out, but as we all know, just gotta keep on keepin' on! Although I did not produce a lot of physical work this semester that i was happy about, I do feel like I've learned a lot of really valuable lessons about how to think and how to make progress - which, in the end, is more what i wanted this experience to be about anyway.

Chin chin to everyone!

Professoressa Julia

This is my first and last blog post, having been tutored in the "how-to" of blogdom.

I have had a thrilling half-semester of getting to know each of you, your fascinations and studio practices. Witnessing the leaps that have occured as a result of your hard work, combined with group support is particularly gratifying--I want to thank you all for being willing to "let me in" when I arrived smack in the middle of the course, after your great and productive time with Jana.

Your show at Officina looked polished and wonderful, and I felt extremely proud on your behalf.

As you all enter into your majors, I really hope that the most basic activity in our class--finding compelling visual forms to house the ideas that you are passionate about--will continue to bring you pleasure, even during the times of struggle. Everything we did together can easily be translated into all the areas of major study--good for Viscommies, Fashionistas, messy Printmakers and exacting Painters alike. And of course, for your creative life beyond the horizon....

Please--I will not be at Wash-U next fall, so I truly hope that you will keep in touch with me, and keep me up to date as to your progress work-wise, and your general well-being too...e-mail: julia_randall@yahoo.com

Also, if you will be in the NYC area, please let me know! (860) 248-3067.

Tanti baci to all,
Julia

Emily Gordon

I cannot believe that the semester is over already. The show on Friday was amazing. I put up two different works. The first was my flooding image where there was lots of water being dumped on my hand. I printed this 11X17 ish in black and white on water color paper. The second piece consisted of the image of my finertips at the top of the paper. This was shown twice next to each other. The first one was just the image, and on the one next to it, I driped a light watercolor down from the two points where water was about to drip from my fingers in the image. These were also printed the same size as the first piece but were vertical and on the same paper. The two pieces were titled flood. I realized that in the pictures, it was not really necessary to intervene, and I was having a lot of trouble adding to the images without taking away from what was already there. I think in the end, my solution worked out well, and they both represent the experience of the flood in a different way. This class has been a wonderful experience. Thank you to everyone for the support and fun times at studio.
Ciao,
Emily!!!

lee graf

soo the show went really well, was lots of fun, i thought.
putting the videos on the dvd itself was probably the most stressful thing of the semester thus far...maybe. but we got it to work, pinot saved us all.

as for my wax spheres, they were clearly not exaactly thought out - the tub i had them in wasnt the best. people had suggestions for a clearer wax material so light could pass through, the potential for adding color, and lighting it in different ways. also i could think about having a smaller hole in the bottom of one with liquid emptying out and moving the different spheres around.

Ally Glazer

I can't believe the semester is over. The show went really well and it was exciting to see everyone's work at Officina. I displayed my book in the show. It had pictures of the abstracted reflections made from my sculpture. I had the mirror sculpture and my work that brought me to make the sculpture displayed at my space in the studio. I'm really happy with the finished work that I had for the show. In general, it was a really good semester. I think I learned a lot in this class about creating conceptual work. Thanks Jana and Julia for everything this semester.

Alessandra

Since it is a holiday today officina is close, therefore i can't talk any pictures YET.... but i will. This semester has ended in a sort of weird anti climactic way... i feel like i was expecting something big an now it is over. As form my art I am actually pretty satisfied. there was a period during the installation phase where i was uncertain about what i was showing in the exibition, but i ended up double layering two pieces of velum back to back. The top piece had the detailing in the beads with pen, and the underneath was just another print of the same images scrampled in a different way. I was pretty please when i fixed that. Initially i wasn't going to, but i hung the piece the wrong way and it fell.. so i took the opportunity to add the second sheet on the back the morning before the final crit. ill post the pics tomorrow when oficina opens

Jane Philipps

Florence is over and I can't quite believe it. I was a complete slacker on the blog during this half of the semester (sorry Jana!), but most of the time in the end was spent preparing for the final critique and show. The show went really well and it was great to see everyone's work in a space. Not only did the individual pieces look good, but the arrangement of the show in the space also worked very well! I took pictures of some people's work, but only included the photos that turned out ok (the lighting made it kind of tricky).

For my own project, I ended up combining my final for sketchbook and studio because a lot of the stuff I was interested in drawing in sketchbook related to the work I had been doing with the Fibonacci sequence. I made a flag book using natural colored paper and the same rice paper I used in my mid-term books for the flags. The transparent quality of the paper allowed me to make comparisons between my drawings and I also added cut-outs. I don't have pictures of the back yet, but I included some of the mathematical formulas used in the Fibonacci sequence to mix it up a little.

Finally, thank you Jana and Julia for a great semester! I am glad to say that I feel completely prepared to go into my major next year (Printmaking!) and work independently. Though I had a hard time with a lot of my work this semester, I am at a good place with it now and am excited for what will happen in the next two years!

Kelly Diehl

So sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I'm really happy with how the second half of the semester progressed. For the show I installed a piece in a corner of the front room that extended along the wall and slightly out into the room. The week before my goal was to make a more extensive vocabulary of mark with stuff other than just cut paper. I used mesh, wire, torn paper, burnt paper, crumpled paper, and fine curly paper. In the piece I ended up cutting all of the paper I used but manipulated it in different ways. I also used molded mesh forms and wire. I prefer the cleaner lines. Anyway, I didn't work from a drawing this time, shocker! The piece/drawing was an unravelling of sorts, with curly crumply pieces in the beginning and eventually straightening out to the hangy strips, which were the only parts of the piece that moved in the room. Kind of a before and after and everything in between look at my state of mind here. The process of breaking away from things. I'm really happy with it. The lighting really helped it because the shadows of everything became incorporated into the drawing, beefed things up. I'm going to take some more pictures tomorrow before I take it down (sad!) and post them. I'm sad this is ending. Florence has been wonderful.

JULIA's last blog

Well, I TRIED to take pictures at Officina this morning but seeing as how them there bein closed because its a national holiday (...?) an all, I will be posting pictures as soon as possible. Sorry. Thanks to all for a great semester, I feel like I've learned a whole lot about art, my relationship to it, and particularly my relationship to painting. I ended up making the first abstract, first colorist paintings I've ever made, which is probably a step, so thanks to all the great advice in crits! It's been impressive to watch every one's progression, I think we've all come a long ways and I'm excited to see the work every one produces in the major.

EXPOSIZIONE

The show went incredibly well. I went with the theory of displaying my work two dimensionally and took someone's advice to fray the edges of my piece a bit and then shoved some fantastic roles of tape behind and viola! there's art. The lighting was nicec and from above, it highlighted a bit of a sway in the fabric which was great. Melissa was great and passed on a compliment to me which was also good to hear that her friend enjoyed it. All the work upped a notch in the space and it was a good occasion for friendly reminencenses (i know thats spelled wrong). All in all a great oppurtunity and good execution on the part of the school as a whole. I don't have new pictures now but I'll take one today and put it up. mags

Meredith Nelson

The opening at officina was great. final critique and set up all went smoothly and it was nice to see everyone's work up in a real space. my final project was a big study, kind of like what i did earlier this semester. i made lots of drawings of shells and taped them up in a space in officina. it ended up being a pretty straightforward thing, the idea being to imitate the boards i tape up with pictures at the studio. hence the "messy" arrangement of pictures, overlapping corners, left-out masking tape, etc.

Amy

The semester is over and I can't believe it. It has been an amazing time here and I'm sad to leave. The opening on Friday went real well. It was a lot of work building up to it, but totally worth it in the end. I think my boxes turned out really well. At the last minute we decided to include some of my boxes from the last project to shake things up a little bit. I'll have pics up tomorrow. I forgot the camera cord today. oops. So it has been amazing and I want to thank everyone for all their help!!! This has been the best semester yet and also the best work I've done yet!!! Thanks again!!!

p.s. (Rachel)

Thank you so much Jana and Julia for all your help and hard work this semester! Couldn't have done it without either of you. I wish you could have come to the show, Jana!

Final Show!!! (Rachel)

Well, the semester is finally over. It is so hard to believe how quickly it went by. Anyway, the final show was fantastic - great work everyone, I was so impressed! I chose to only submit one drawing for it (I worked on some of the stuff I'd mentioned before - background and stuff). Anyways, after all the work setting up, it was great to see how all the pieces worked in Officino. Great way to end the semester!

Sam

Hi Jana,
Sorry for the lack of photos, but the video had few major changes when put into the final show. Some features that were added included subtitles and a clarification that made it more obvious that the cheracter was pushed into the hole instead of just falling in. This and front and back credits completed the movie, which went over well at the opening. I feel pretty good about how everything turned out, and now I'm getting summer projects ready and prepped while getting ready for the move out.
All in all, the semester has been pretty amazing. My work has taken a huge leap, as I am much more comfortable doing pieces that take risks now.

Thanks everybody!

ciao!

zoe

Hey Jana (and Julia, and everyone else too!)

Well the show was really super, but it's sort of strange to do a blog now. Everything feels over, and it's really odd. I mean, I know it's never really over, that practice continues and that this was just a step in a much longer process, but it's odd to have the "overness" of the intellectual, also culminate with the "overness" of the physical in terms of leaving Florence, my desk, and my studio. Not to mention the community and the instructors. Everything is feeling a little a miss about the whole thing, and it's all left me a bit speechless (there's a first time for everything...).

Plus, I wrote a four page paper this morning, and a two pager to my mums. So I guess I'm a little worded out (and, carpel tunnel, anyone?). But, thank you, Jana, Julia etc.s for everything. I'm including some photos, images that around available for me to share. I didn't take any at the opening, but I found some that other people took, so I'm posting those!

Va Bene!
Amore!
Mangia!
what?
I don't know..
Have a super day...
Zoe

Adell

So this is my final piece. I like it all except for one kind of important thing - the composition. It's the sort of mistake one makes early on and can't really fix. On the other hand, I enjoyed going OCD on the mark making and elevating to symbolic form little things that I simply enjoy drawing. And of course, a huge thanks to Julia and Jana! I learned a lot from both of you and I definitely want to explore more conceptual drawing in the future

Allison Shellito

I guess that this is my last post on the blog. Sad. I have been running around like crazy this week trying to get last minute museum visits in and also packing. How am I ever going to fit everything into 2 suitcases? I don't really have any new photos or anything (I had booked a ticket to Sicily a few months ago for the weekend of the show so I had to miss out on the opening, unfortunately). I hope everyone has a wonderful last week and a great summer! XOXO Allison

Windnie Pan

aahh, so i'm putting off my Art and Culture paper because after i finish writing it, this semester will be over!

the show was so much fun and everyone's work looked great! it was fun to see everyone together and dressed up and i think everyone felt a nice sense of accomplishment. i don't know what to say really... so i guess i'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

ps. i'm going to miss florence like mad.

Jessica

Here's my last blog... it's very nostalgic.

For the past weeks I have been working on a video that was built off of my last one. The lack of context in the last one bothered most people so I spent a while thinking about how I could build in context without losing the sense of isolation and generalization that I was going for. I decided to write my own beginning to the story rather than use the one that was already in the story. I thought about it as a "day in the life of Jane" (although I ended up using the name Kate...). In Kate's totally ordinary day she experiences moments of surrealism or insanity amid dull continuity. I struggled with how continuos/fragmented the piece should be. In the end I cut a lot of the video clips much shorter and cut up my music (an Indian drum solo).

Jane graciously agreed to continue to star in the tale though I believe she had no idea what she was getting herself into. Thank you Jane. I owe you one.

There was an incredible struggle trying to burn all of the different videos to dvd. As a group we tried a couple times before we gave up and realized that no one had enough free space on their computer for it to work.

It took an incredibly long time to piece everything together but it came together eventually. I think I may have been as insane as my character by the end of it. Or more insane... ah well. I am well pleased how it turned out.

Good semester. I am kinda sad for this class to be ending.
(btw Jana... thank you for the essay/poem. I realize this was a bit belated but I just remembered.)

river sports

White Neck. That was the title I decided upon for my final Officina piece. I made a photo installation ( my first) using small printouts taken from inside a white balloon. Through the mouth hole you could see any of four themes: light streaming in, views of my pink bubble gum piece, other ballons with hair sewed around the rim, or white easter grass. I then tried to affect the immediate area of the balloon surrounding the camera and sewed some hair into that, and so played with long focus shots versus up close shots. I feel that these photos were closer to getting my message across about how sculpture can draw you in whereas photographs may not always.
As for the barnacles.... well, I made a slew of them. I researched them, found out they consisted of little marine animals with the longest penises relative to their size and that they grope around for places to cling on to and they just bunch up regardless of how different they might look from the ones they're surrounded by and... they just weren't doing it for anyone, including myself. They look cool, but there is not much transferred there in terms of reationships making sense or whatnot. So, while I can say that I learned a ton about giving form to those little suckers, using everything from crumpled toilet and wax paper to the plastic containers used to display fruit at the local market, I did not pull the various mixed mediums together. Maybe next time.

Just wanted to give a shout out to everyone who took ( and taught) this class, especially in these past two weeks where we've all been in studio nearly all day. I had an awesome time getting to know what each of your works were aiming for. Hope you all got the good artistic inspirational shivers at some point this semester, and that those shivers continue to ring in the passion for art making. Happy Summer y'all!
~Nicole

Catherine Hite

so i suppose this is my last blog. i have had a great time in this class and have learned alot about process and how to problem solve in my work. here are pictures from my photo shoot and one of me and the lovely windnie in my dress which she wore to the show
-catherine

GOOD LUCK TONIGHT!!!!!

Hello everyone,
I'm thinking of you on this early Friday morning, wishing I was in Florence so I could come to your show tonight!
You have all worked very hard this semester and the work demonstrates your engagement and dedication.
I am very proud of you and I know the show must be beautiful! Please please please take pictures and post them!
Know that if I was there, I would cheers you (and maybe shed a tear or two), so raise your glasses and have a blast!!!!
love,
Jana

Allison Shellito

Link to my final project!

Catherine Hite

these last few weeks i have been working my butt off to make a dress that describes my idea of the heavy/burden and the transition to lightness/freedom. i chose to use tulle for the material and i have been sewing in rocks along the bottom. for the top i made a bodice and i filled the breast parts with lighter fabric and a variety of lace and flowers. i will continue to work on the kinks such as providing a better fit for my lovely model windnie
-catherine

Emily Gordon

I worked on printing the pictures of the hands on watercolor paper, and made some tests to see how it works. With Julia, we decided that the middle image was not necessary, and that I should print the pictures larger (A3 size) and make the last one vertical. I printed a few different versions, some darker and some lighter to see what would work the best with the watercolor and I've been working on a few different ones at a time so that in the end, I can pick the ones I like the best. On the larger version, the toner does not come up off the page as easily, which I think I am happy about. I'm not sure if you get the same feeling from these images as your do from the original photographs, but hopefully in the end they will work out. I am soo excited for the show on Friday!

Windnie Pan

i can't believe things are already winding down. everyone is frantically getting things ready for the show, but it has been fun to see everyone together in the studio. as for my project... i decided to run with the idea of napkins. after facing some problems with materials, i finally decided to do photocopy transfers of online news articles onto paper and cloth napkins. Some are more graphic and decorative while others are more ambiguous and cluttered. every one is different but i've enjoyed seeing what kinds of designs i can come up with and how i can manipulate the medium. i'm liking the idea that the paper napkins will be there for people to use, read if they want to, and then throw away. all i have to do now is print as many as i possibly can in the time we have left before the show!

lee graf

now that the video has been finalized for the most part, ive been working with the wax spheres. it took me quite a while to actually figure out how to make them, but i think i have the system down now so now i just have to put the halves together and see how the displaying of them will actually work.

here are some fotografias of the hemispheres

Allison Shellito

Wow this week has been intense!! But I think I am more or less finished with my video. I plan on uploading it as soon as it gets the final "ok" from Julia (sorry to keep you waiting Jana!). I can't believe final crits are already here. I am sooo sleepy. I think I am going to go to bed really early tonight and catch up on sleep. Show this Friday- good luck everyone!! Allison

ring around the eye

Barnacles!!!!! I decided that this was going to be the answer to my 2-dimensional art piece. This week I began with a quest to find single colored ballons. I went to the balloons because they have lip/eyelid like forms that one puts their mouth on to inflate. I wanted to affect this mouth piece in some way. Light them on fire? Grease them up? Put pins along the surface? Fingernails? In the end, I just started sewing. I used some of the long locks I'd chopped off at the beginning of the semester and added some clear acrylic easter grass and the brown shiny stuff found in tapes and cassettes and then I brought in rotting foliage. Yet after all this play with materials and abuse of my digital camera, I realized that all I had were pretty pictures. Soooo.... thinking about how sculpture invites the viewer to experience a piece at a certain proximity, versus photo which orders the experience for the viewer, I came up with barnacles. As of now my plan is to make barnacle-like plaster molds and situate my photographs behind them, so that in order for the viewer to see the photos they have to come up real close and look through the orifice. I was thinking of incorporating smell into this somehow: maybe the smell of rubber, which reminds me of going to the dentist. Ick. At a rummage sale today I bought some plastic mushroomns which I am using to form the plaster, but I'm also thinking about branching into the arena of "other materials". Latex anyone? Still playing around, but working on pulling things together. Should be a fun night/week.
~Nicole

Daniel Lubniewski Final Project

It has finally come! This week I have been devoting my time to adding colors and tones to my drawing for my final project. Laying layer after layer of inkwashes and watercolor pencil was methodical and took more time than I had expected, but I am for the most part satisfied with what how my project turned out. I also spent a considerable ammount of time at Officina, the cafe we will be displaying at, to get a feeling of the place. It is amazing how quickly everything this simester is wrapping up. This will most likely be the last time I will ever post on this blog, and while there is time I would like to say that it was an honor to be accepted into this program, to be taught by such good teachers, and to learn about myself and about art in the grand city of Florence.

Sam

Sorry about the delay in this post- but there hasn't been alot of overall change in th eproject at this point.Toyed around for a while with changing th ending, and if there is time I plan to make an alternate, but the final for the show is pretty much done, except fo rsome continuity and transition errors that need ot be adressed. So...sorry for the lack of photos- I'll try and get some good ones at the show.

Ciao!

I eat happy hippos yum yum I stuff them down my tum...

No new news for the work so no photos. will hang square with string, two dimensional. The semester is whisking away and so i plan on getting out of the school. right now.
much love mags

Ally Glazer

I can't believe that the semester is almost over and I'm working on my final piece. I changed my idea around because installing the hanging mirrors at Officina wouldn't have worked. I took all the mirrors I had and put them into lots of different compositions to make a 3d work. The mirrors reflect one another and they're layered so it shows a lot of space when looking at it. I took photos of the 3d piece and put them into a book, similar to what I did for the midterm crit. I'm really happy with how the photos came out and how many dimensions can be seen within the mirrors. Jana - it was so fun talking to you the other day. Come to the opening!

Emily

It’s so weird to think about how I am making the pieces for our final show! Last week I put up three new photographs from the batch of new pictures I took. I printed them larger and on mat paper. They are still tinted slightly green, but they look pretty much like what is up on flickr. During critique, there was a pretty good response to the images I chose.

I also soaked a bunch of paper in ink and watercolor and attempted to draw more fluidly upon the backgrounds I created in a similar fashion to my previous drawings, but I got really frustrated and tried a different approach. I printed out the same photos in a very light version and quickly painted on top of them, to see what kind of effect I could get. While what I created was not so successful, it made me realize that the combination between the photo and the image is what I would like to make for the show.

I experimented with photocopy transfers on nicer paper and was having a lot of difficulty getting them to work. My next step is to print my photos on the laser printer on the good paper and water color on them. The only problem is that they are going to be a little smaller than I hoped. I’m excited to see if this method is going to work.

Rachel - almost final week!

Hello~
So the last critique went pretty well, I suppose. I did 3 drawings (posted in flickr). One of the biggest issues was that I don't have a background, so people suggested that I develop an environment or something.
Which brought me to a choice - this whole semester I had been sort of planning to do an animation, but doing that would sacrifice drawing quality out of necessity - and I could not do both an animation and a more developed drawing (time constraints). So, I think that I will focus on one drawing, create an environment and make some of the modifications that the class suggested (no random girl). Anyway, that's all.

bacini, bacini, bacini from Jana

HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, I miss you guys!!!!

It was such a kick in the pants to hear some of your voices Friday night!
(And I heard you kept Miss Julia out past her bedtime! Naughty!)

Your work has progressed at a clipping pace. I am so pleased for each of you. I appologize for not "commenting" on every entry, every time.... but be assured, I'm keeping up with you! I have to tell you that I giggle and sigh every time I go through your words and pictures. You have such an amazing combination of humor, seriousness, focus, and freedom. It's an incredible mix.
I wish I could be at the Officina for the show. Please, someone, take photographs and post them somewhere!

I wanted to tell you a little of what I've been up to.
The Drawing Game show in Kansas City went great. You can view the work at thedrawinggame.com (Regan and Melissa are both participants...) The show is called From Flat to Phat and it's about printmakers who break the mould. Phil Slien and the curators of the show have been talking about bringing it to STL to the Des Lee Gallery.... So hopefully next year you'll get to see it.

The Arcadia workshop was amazing. I posted pictures on my flickr site so you can check them out.
I collaborated with a Landscape Architect named Jane Wolff and we organized a workshop (for 10 students) and a public symposium based on different aspects of Arcadia: found, made, and lost. These activities all accompanied an exhibition of artist's books called Arcadia Id Est which was curated by a Brittish woman named Sarah Bodman. You can learn about the exhibition at http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/arcadia.htm

Tonight the artist Leslie Dill is giving a lecture at COCA so I'm going to that.... and in two weeks I go to Arizona to be a visiting artist. I've asked if we can go up to the Roden Crater and see James Turrell's observatory that he's been building (http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/turrell/clip1.html)....

And for boring news, I did my taxes today..... and now my tummy is rumbling..... so I better sign off.

good luck getting ready for the show..... I just KNOW it's gonna be awesome!!!!!

BIG HUG!
Jana

meredith nelson

my project from last week is a mess, both conceptually and visually. a mess that i happen to like, but the criticism i got was valid. it was really more like two different projects in the same place. i feel like doing something different for the final show, but i haven't really thought about what that would be. i should go back to my ink drawings, i liked doing those. i don't feel very connected to the sculpture i was making. sculpture isn't really my thing. i went into officina this morning to check out the space. it was awkward trying to explain to the guy at the bar why i was taking pictures, my italian is not very good and neither is his english.

Adell

So I'm working out a very restrained style of tight hatch marks, sometimes using them along with paper cut-outs to make delicate little images that involve personal, idiosyncratic images (and a lot of little houses). My final piece will be a more abstract but still figurative rendering of the nesting/home thing, involving my own personal little city of marks on a very large background. I'm hoping it will look like a very large etching.

lee graf

this past week i arranged another little video with accompanying music. i think it turned out well, though i still do have to edit some of the transitions.

unrelated to the video, im interested in pursuing the globe idea i had previously briefly mentioned. im still unsure how i owuld go about it, but i have a plastic ball and am thinking about incorporating wax. i really have no idea where im going with this, but we shall see.

Alessandra Perez-Rubio

My camera has been broken for the past few weeks! finally works now though... i know thats no excues for not blogging, but ill make this one extra good. Since spring break i have been looking into more specific forms, versus the abstract ones i have been experimenting with. The form i was inherently drawn to for some reason were chandeliers. I just started taking lots of pictures of chandeliers and then rendering them on plain bristol paper. I experimented with different types of rendering, using tracing paper, layering these images and conecting them to each other. I also chose not to completely render some of the chandelier beads and just outline them. I didnt want to comepletely break from my initial ideas of shapes and pattern Then i decided to have them all compiled on one sheet of paper on a high rez file on photoshop. I took this to the printer next door, and had them print it out on velum, instead of normal paper. I wanted to play around with the idea of how transparencey reveals layers from underneath. I also wanted to experiment with how light showed through this transparency and how it enhanced/detracted from picture plane. When i had the image printed out, i felt that they werent stong enough to exist on their own, which is why i decided to go over the images in a black penn, and further bring out the shading and the outlines. Throughout this process i had been walking around the city and taking pictures of decaying walls and rustation in the buildings. I printed these photos out in black and white on plain paper and gave them all a very subdued watercolor wash, similar to that of my midterm piece. I then applied glue on the front of these images and pasted them on the back of the paper, so it would show through the velum, and then after a few seconds remove it so only a thin and slightly torn up abstracted part of the image of the decayed wall would show through.

Zoe Hillenmeyer

So I know it's been forever. It isn't because I don't like you or miss you, Jana. But that things have become quite wrapped up, being the end of the semester, and the sun has been out, and thus, I've been avoiding the computer like the plague.

So here is the stuff that I've been thinking about. I've been thinking about stepping back a little bit, and, as Officina would probably be less than delighted if I tried to install bags filled with honey dripping, or moldy beans in their toilet... I think I'm going to use this as motivation to try and refocus my next peice and work on the sanitary and containment. I'm planning on doing some mind mapping tonight, and seeing where it leads me. Everything is closed today, as it's easter monday, so my garden store that I just found is all shut down - but I am going to visit there, tomorrow, too.

I just wrote my art history paper, and slept like poo- so my writing has gone extremely down-hill. I will update again, sooner than last time..
sorry!!


hope you're well. Heard it's snowing a bit, there.
Zoe

Allison Shellito

Now we are in gear for the big show in a few weeks, which is fun. Everyone is working towards finishing something that can go into the show. I am working on my short film. After the critique last week, I got a lot of helpful feedback, so my goal for the next week is just to make some of the changes everyone suggested. I am finding that one of my biggest struggles is finding the right music. The mood changes so much depending on the music, so I need to find the perfect song to go with my film. I also need to make it shorter and have some of the clips move more slowly that are too fast. And transitions! So I am keeping busy. A dopo, Allison
P.S. No link to the video as of yet because I don't want to upload it to youtube until it is more or less finished.

Amy Scott

Crit this past week went good and now I'm taking my boxes to the next level. I'm still experimenting with materials and trying to make the boxes even funkier. I have a major box fetish that I can't get away from.

Daniel Lubniewski

This week I have been working on getting everything together for my final project. According to the feedback I got from my class, my mastery over the choice of medium is great. I now have to work on the narrative that will tie together all of my pieces. I spent a considerable amount of time doing storyboards and sketches before I even touched the paper I will be using. They also recomeded that I add the feeling that there was a three dimensional space to make it more engaging, so I am now focusing more on the background for this project than my previous ones for this class. I wanted to relate my project to the cafe we will be displaying in, so I took a few photos for references. Last but not least, I tweeked up the designs of my characters to make them unique yet mysterious.

Windnie Pan

So I decided to stick with the same concept I had in my last project but present it in a different way. To recap, the concept is the cycling and disposability of the news in the media-crazy society that we live in today. I decided to make wallpaper or patterns of some sort where individual news articles get lost among eachother the a mass of decorative forms. I am working on the computer to come up with different designs. The more I play around the more interesting the patterns get. I need to look into manipulating the articles even more with size of text, different ways of making patterns, and possibly with the idea of having a series of wallpaper patterns that work sequentially as more and more articles get added in. I was also playing with the idea of printing the patterns on napkins or something... disposability? hm. I plan for them to eventually get pretty elaborate.

Catherine Hite

well i have moved in a completely different direction for the next project....the only images i have to include are the steel wool and fake apples from last week, but this week i am moving into fashion.
i have bought lavendar tulle and white and a deeper purple to creat depth in the skirt of the dress. i intend to sew rocks into the bottom and perhaps feathers and flowers into the top bodice part. right now i still need to play will the form and how to construct it
-catherine

Let me see your grill...for nicole

hey there,
so let me start by apologizing for doing a horrible job keeping up with the blog since spring break. i kinda suck at life. okay, now that that's done with, onto the work. so immediately after break i had started on two works, one using the tunnels again and the other using cone shapes that still had the same linear perspectival element, but allowed for more experimentation. i also by this time had become tired of making tunnel after tunnel, so i decided for last week to just stick with the cones, and experiment with this shape that seemed to me to be more organic. i made a bunch of little cones, and then arranged them in various places in the bathroom, to look as if they were sort of growing out of little corners and crevices. i think it had an interesting effect. it seemed almost moldy, especially since i used various shades of blue and green fading to white paper for the cones. it had an especially interesting contrast to the stark whiteness of the bathroom. i'll put up pictures (i swear i really will this time). for the last stretch, and for the show over nextdoor in officina, i am currently trying to figure out what is the best spot for me to do a continuation of the cones as an installation.
katey

Joey Again

After the critique just thinking about ways to expand my pod repertoire...maybe making them out of different materials, and perhaps in different shapes. Possibly even hanging them different ways. Although i need to be careful not to completely abandon the style i've already developed because in the end, i want to integrate them all into one piece. Part of me feels done with this project, but deadlines are deadlines and theres really not enough time to start something completely new before the next critique and the final show. So for right now, its kind of game of add on. I dont know if i like that feeling.

Ally Glazer

For critique this week, I set up my mirrors in the courtyard. I painted on the reflections so that they matched what I saw in the site. The mirrors matched up to everything that I saw from one specific location at my height. In this sense, the work turned into a self portrait of what I see in my surroundings. I had one of the mirrors reflect a mirror in another location in the courtyard to make a viewer move throughout the space. For my final project, I think I am going to work with black paper on the mirror instead of black paint. The paper can be more exact and wont show my brushstrokes. I think I might cover the mirror with black paper and cut out the space that I want to be reflected so that if it lines up, all a person will see in the mirror is that one object. I thnk I'm going to install the mirrors in the bathroom because the bathroom doesn't have mirrors within it so my project will add something that one would expect to see. Also, my mirrors need to be seen with a lot of light in order to see the reflections, and I think the bathroom will be the lightest spot in the bar.
Happy Easter!

Fiber Arts

Jesus is going to rise tomorrow, I'm going to go tomorrow and figure out if its amen in italian too. There is a parade in the square. I looked up some fiber artists and picked out the things I liked and not suprisingly its by and large its all two dimensional so I think I'm going to display the work up on the wall to emphasize the two dimesionality and because it was a suggestion in crit. I havent solved the issue of borders yet however. Maybe hem them, maybe let the sides drape a bit I need to try it on a space I can back up from.
mags

smile for me daddy: for K Albro

I feel like my project may have been a little cocky in some sense. Maybe it was too planned out. I had originally planned to show two pieces for the last crit, but Brett accidentally bumped my unsteady plaster mold with her big booty ( just kidding, about the booty thing that is) and it came crashing to bits, which was expected in some ways but still a bit of a bummer. On the plus side, seeing the remains of the cast kinda proved the point I wanted to make with that piece about how we don't leave behind any trace of ourselves except in what we affect. The story is all there on the floor, splattered across Emily Gordon's space. I left the crash site untouched and plan to melt my ice feet on it anyhow, as something of a private piece/experiment. Is that cocky? Quirky?
As for the blindfold piece, I just stood back and let people talk about their experiences. I set the piece up on the lift for sculpture storage over by where the sink is in studio. I had people climb an unsteady ladder in order to view the blindfolds, which were hung from the ceiling using clothes pins. The pins reinforce the idea that the "blindfold" is merely a piece of fabric, but that it has so many connotations associated with it: Pin the Tail on the Donkey games, sex, medical healings, executions, war, etc... depending on the light streaming in through the windows the piece gave off different 'essences'. During crit, it was rainy outdoors, so the blindfolds seemed ominous and somber, one of death and the threat of hangings. Maggie snuck a peak during the morning when it was lovely outdoors, and she said she got the feeling of adventure and tree house play. So, the piece got various things across. Still, despite the different meanings associated with blindfolds, the constants are submission and trust. By having the viewer climb up the ladder, they become the active participant and thus become submissive to me as the artist. The ladder works in the element of trust: you have to trust that the ladder will hold you up, or that, at the very least the person spotting you won't allow you to fall. So, you experience the same heightened sensibility without actually sporting the blindfold. I made casts of my eyes using glue, and thus continued the exploration from midterm crit's project. It all tied in really smoothly, but maybe a bit too smoothly? Do you know what I mean? There wasn't this sense of hesitancy there. It was a bit too confident. For now I'm playing around with photos of the blindfolds: self portraits in a way . I think I want to get two dimensional, but with a twist of sorts. I'll just go with it as usual.
~Nicole

Sam

Hi Jana,
Sorry about the lack of pictures, but I have to reformat my video before I can get it nto Youtube. At any rate, I know this is late, and I will try to get you the video soon, even if by e-mail (hopefully it will be up before then). At any rate- allow me to expalin what I have been up to.
After the last project, much debate and discourse was brought up about the idea of a third way, beyond complete sorrow and joy. After much brainstorming, and sketching, and writing, i finally decided to work with the idea of overcoming your troubles through perseverance and determintaion. This worked fine- for about a week, I created another cheracter, an every man this time, who faces daily defeats and keeps going. This being cartoon, I tried to make it humorous, but with some meaning. After a week or so, I realized I was going around in circles. My narrative was dull and uninspired. Basically, the chearacter was taking abuse and coming back with softhearted attempts at getting over his troubles and paying back the favor. I was quite frustrated, until I talked to Julia.
She suggested that the narrative was too soft, and that the main cheracter was being too nice. I didn't know how to react to this, as most of my narratives involve themes wherein acts of trangression against others are relatively moot. So, a few more days went by, and my frustration grew. I was sure that I would end up with another depressing narrative and I didn't want to retread. Eventually, I got so irritated that I complained ot my roommates aobut it, who suggested I follow Julia's suggestion and have the cheracter react to his problems in an over the top way.
And so- I decided to go for it and see what happened.
I turned the cheracter into a crazy freak who exacts morbid revenge on everyone and capped it off with the most disturbing, off the wall finale I could think of, an image that attempted to mock the idea of the arrogant jackass who gets everything he wants through cruelty and revenge. Oh, I also took potshots at the idea of good taste and shock value. You'll see when you view the video.
The critique was great, as the film inspired a host of responses. I feel that I took a risk in presenting (at least a small one) and that this risk ultimately paid off. Through discussion we figured out that the movie did have some drawbacks thats needed adressing, such as continuity prolems and the ending. I'm not quite sure what I'll do with the ending, but some peopel really didn't seem to like or get it, so I'm not sure what to do about it yet. At any rate, taking Julia's advice and discussing the project with my roommates really paid off. I've never had such an exciting, nervewracking and ultimately rewarding critique before.

Emily

For critique last week, I put up three photographs of my hand that I printed in black and white (but were actually tinted green) and three watercolor drawings. The feedback from my group was helpful and they commented that they enjoyed the abstract and watery quality of the drawings and they were able to pull a general feeling from each of the photos that was pretty close to what I intended. For this week, Julia wants me to experiment with dipping my paper in water with ink before I begin my drawings, to get a better feel of the water, and to also try being less controlling with the paint.

I reshot my photos to try to get clearer images and ones that communicated the idea of flooding/overwhelming and aftermath more successfully. I’m not sure if I need a third photograph to communicate this concept because I think the picture with my hand at the top and the water dripping from it communicates the idea of aftermath and everything is going to be ok at the same time. I’m not sure exactly which photograph I want to use for flooding so I will probably print a few and then decide because there a couple that work pretty well.

In terms of the watercolor drawings, I haven’t decided yet how they will work with the photographs, or if they are going to be a separate piece. I like the idea of having three sets of this concept using different media and slightly different images. Perhaps when I finalize my photographs, I can photocopy and do transfers onto watercolor paper and paint on the images, which would create a link between the photos and the watercolors.

lee graf

So this past week I showed some clips of the videos I made and people in my group had suggestions to refine the videos and grasp more of a mood so I can unify them and portray exactly what I want. So by working with different colors and different kinds of glasses, I'm continuing to play around but also focusing the videos more on what I want to ultimately show. I also am going to experiment with different effects of putting ink or oil, etc into the water to see what happens.

Julia's

Sorry I'm so late! I'm bad at keeping up with this stuff...basically I'm experimenting with different ways of applying the medium, so as to rather than illustrate a space, actually mimic its properties through the handling of the paint. i like to think of it as a writing metaphor--show it don't tell it...so here are some studies and in progress shots of my purple painting.

Rachel

Sorry about the delay in posting! I've been sort of stuck as to what to do for this next project, and I couldn't really blog if I didn't have anything to post. But I finally started working on something!
For the next project I'm making three pictures all dealing with different variations of the same theme (oblivious girl playing near monster trees). I had been thinking about predators such as angler fish, which have a lure to attract prey (in this case lures are a swing, a treehouse, and a branch to sit on). I love illustration, and I wanted to deal with combining elements of animal and plant to create something completely imaginary. I've been working with pastel and watercolor on these, which has turned out to be a really good combination!

Jane Philipps

I realize now that I was very vague in my last post when describing my new ideas. That was partly due to the fact that they were not fully formed, and now that I have come up with more concrete plans, I can explain them better. We had a silent in-process critique last class where we displayed what we had so far and received written feedback from three other people in class. I only had some writing and small sketches to show, so I was unsure of what kinds of reactions I would receive and I was anxious to start working. I got great feedback and I immediately went to work on making little cubes out of green wire in an attempt to transform the Fibonacci spiral into a series of 3D objects. I find that I tend to work quickly after I've brainstormed because I've refined my ideas so much that I can see them in my head - I like this way of working and now that I have something made, I have something to work off of. I am trying to capture the idea of organic vs. inorganic in making these cubes, however, the materials I have chosen to use are all synthetic. I like the way my objects look, but after listening to suggestions, I am trying to figure out how I could incorporate natural materials into these objects. I like the idea, but I don't like the fact that whatever natural substance I could use will die...but maybe I will rethink this.

For my other project, I am planning on using the balcony railing in the school. I am going to tie green string to the railing in a pattern relating to the Fibonacci sequence so that I am subtly playing with a system already in place. This idea is simple, but I think it will complement the objects I am working on now, which I plan to display in a nearby location. In planning these two pieces and in thinking about the final show (since it is coming up quickly) I am beginning to consider how can shift installation locations without having the pieces lose their meaning. This will certainly be something to continue to consider in the next few weeks!

(Pictures tomorrow!)

Effect an Affect

Happy Fool's Day! Can't believe it's already April! Anywho, the experiments keep getting crazier and crazier. Today I woke up wanting to mix vaseline with crushed charcoal, and so I did and experimented with how it might look on plaster casts of what I refer to as gun muzzle inversions. See, I wanted to work with the idea of blindfolds and guns and a news reel documenting the treatment of soldiers in Irac made me think that I should create art that made a statement .... but, I don't know much about this war ( war on terrror? on Sadaam? on rising gas prices? ???) and I figured there are tons of people protesting as it is, so I focused my energies moreso on the blindfold itself, its relationship to eyelids, and how it requires both trust and submission. The installation of that work will be great fun, but I'll update on that next week so as not to ruin whatever type of surprise it might present for any readers out there who have yet to experience the piece. That is nut number one. The second deals with the ice cast I made of my feet and how that will drip away and leave behind no real trace of its own existence except on that which it affects. I'm thinking of melting some sort of photograph with the water that drips from the ice. The photograph so far is one I took in the train station restroom of Attigliano this weekend when Sam and I sojourned to il parco dei monstri in Bomarzo. The pic is of a clogged up drain in which a spider and some sort of flying insect have drowned. I was thinking of how humans seem to have averse effects on their environments, but how we won't be here forever: along the same line as the dinosaurs if you catch my drift. They ruled the world for millions of years and then... swoosh. They started to melt away. That piece of pie still needs some baking but like all things sculpture, it will pull together at the last minute. Hopefully. Hope'fool'y.
~Nicole

Jessica

After some deep contemplation I recalled a short story that I've always been fascinated by. Hence, The Secret Dog (written by Peter Cameron), became the basis for my next project. I choose a very specific scene from it and decided to recreate it using... film. What else? Furthermore, I decided to shoot it silent movie style, with all of the dialog on still frames in between certain shots.

The story and the silent movie both emphasize the akward, stilted nature of the interaction. The scene is about namelessness and desperation.

Technically...I don't like it. For some reason, even though I used the same camera as before the quality is a lot lower. Like significantly a lot. This is probably because the lighting is very limited. I will probably redo it in the next week. Also, at the moment I'm missing the last two shots simply because everyone was tired and we wanted to stop. I've put up some screen shots from what I have so far.

At the moment I haven't decided it I want it to be silent silent like Nosferatu or with a song playing in the background like some of the other "silent" movies. We shall see.

Amy

this week is all about the boxes. i've been busy making boxes out of different materials, doing a lot of experimentation. i have a box fetish that i can't get away from. right now i'm just trying to make as many boxes as i can before tuesday. the other thing i'm trying to figure out is how to glue my plexi-glass box together. blah! nothing seems to be working and i've tried a lot of things. i'm sure it will come together to make my confinement box. no worries.

Catherine Hite

this week i have been playing with steel wool and seeing what kind of things i can make out of it. i have actually enjoyed it qutie a lot because it is very maliable and lets me do to it what i want. i am continuing with my work on weight and to add to my weighted apples i have created objects out of steel wool that have a strong conitation of weight, ie things that have a universal presumed weight. i am working on creating more objects before the crit and on the arrangement of this steel wool pieces intermingalded with the apples.
-catherine

Windnie Pan

i'm glad i stayed in Florence this weekend. It gave my more time to think about my work since I decided on Tuesday that I wasn't going anywhere with my last project and basically wanted to start over. As wonderful and cheap as Tutto is, I realized that the materials I bought from there were not doing my work any justice. It started to look really crafty and too sweet. I also wanted to focus on a subject matter other than myself.

My initial idea was to choose a specific person or event...in the news or in the past... and make a portrait of them with found objects. I felt like I needed a concrete idea to start out with so that I would know exactly where I was going. The problem with that was that I'd have to be really lucky for my objects to magically match up with the person/event I wanted them to represent. Despite my frustration I took Julia's advice and went in search of objects on the streets anyway. While gathering my junk I felt like i was going to have to make up a fictional character to make a portrait of... but I really didn't want to. I went online and started to look at news articles since CNN is my homepage (but i dont read it much)... what better place to find stories. However I wasn't having much luck and just decided to keep looking for junk.

One night I was walking through San Lorenzo after the market had closed. There were trashbags everywhere and I was able to find little treasures that may have fallen out of them. The street cleaners were driving through as I was doing this and I found myself trying to beat them to these little objects (and got funny looks in the process). I began to think about how all of this "trash" has a history. They had a function at some point and then all of the sudden are being washed away to never be seen again. As I walked home I began to relate the little pieces of junk that I had picked up to the news articles I had just been looking at. There is this section on the CNN website with the most popular news articles... which get renewed every 20 minutes. It got me thinking about the constant cycling of news and how stories can be a big deal one day and then all of the sudden it gets replaced by a new, more interesting story. So that is what my project is about.

With that idea in mind I sat in the studio for hours trying to figure out how I was going to create a piece of work out of this idea. My frustration with working 3d and making installations was revived and I somehow ended up with a pile of junk wrapped in wire and a pile of grey ribbon I had cut down and written the top 10 news articles of a certain 20 minutes of that day on. The next morning I went to the Science museum for kicks although i probably should have been working and was attracted to this object (i honestly dont know what it is.. i just liked the way it looked) and thought i might be able to use it as a sort of inspiration. I feel like I'm finally getting somwhere.

Joey Again

Ok, so i just read my post and realized there are a bunch of type-o's and unfinished sentences and stuff. Welcome to my brain...you get what i'm saying anyway dont you?

Daniel Lubniewski

This week was devoted to creating three projects that reflect my strengths in my artwork. In class, my classmates gave me advice on how to improve my skills with watercolor pencils. The majority of the rest of the week was devoted not only to developing this characters and my skills in my chosen medium, but also developing another aspect of my art, narratives and interactions. Two of the pictures I worked on explored the ways that my characters could interact with each other and even touch each other.I am already thinking of a large, multi-part narrative for my final project.

at the bar near the door

This week I did some french nots and then proceeded to leave my materials at the store of a man who has optional hours because of medicinal issues, that put a bit of a damber on things, but weaker beings have conquered far greaterconflicts which offers some comfort in the cold night. As for other matters my primary concern is how to display. Up on a wall? Drapped across some of the back furnature? suspended midair? wrapped around a table? wrapped around some fabric? who knows.
Belu knows.

Joey

Finally in a good place I think - I've figured out what I want to do (for the most part) and now im sort of in production gear, creating this little hanging pods. I can't say exactly what the piece is supposed to mean...its not SUPPOSED to mean any one thing, which is the kind of art that i like to make. I'm intending more for this installation to feel however it feels to each person that looks at it. I'm hoping that I can achieve the air of intimacy and preciousness that i was, but also allude to some sort of universal...ity. hah.

The last step is kind of figuring out how exactly i want to display the pods...whether they should be in a clump or more spread out, hung at all different heights or whatnot - all the details. Also, something i still need to experiment with is possible having some of the pods somewhat destroyed, or breaking open, or being burst out of by their contents. I don't know what this will look like visually yet because i havent tried it yet, but i think it could add an interesting conceptual element - more action, or conflict, or direction...yet another layer of this mysterious pod community.

Note: the pictures aren't the best quality. Also, I just photographed them as i've been stringing them up in the studio. They will not necessarily be in that same arrangement when they are actually displayed.

Allison Glazer

This week I combined my two nut ideas into one project. The two basic ideas were the changing 2d and 3d space and my personal interaction vs. the viewer's interaction. I used these nuts to sort of change my project into a self portrait. I wanted to put myself in the space and have the viewer recognize where I was without my actually being there. I set up some mirrors in part of the courtyard where I found the reflections interesting (similar to my midterm project). Then I picked out the parts of the reflections that were important to understanding where I was standing. I painted onto the mirrors part of the reflections (the poles, windows, doors) that defined where I was. This way, when I stand in my spot, all of the lines on the mirrors line up to where they are in the reflection so that they blend together. But when someone else is standing in my spot, since they're not the same height the lines wont line up and the mirrors will be uneven. In this sense, it is a self portrait of where I was standing at that time so that for me the painted lines lined up with the reflections. I don't know if that explanation made sense but hopefully my pictures will make the idea clear. I'm not sure how this will work at Officina. Hopefully I will be able to install mirrors there. It would be interesting to trace my motion through the mirrors - maybe I can install mirrors that show how I move through the bar and what I see at my eye level reflected in the mirrors placed throughout the bar. Or maybe I can install mirrors in the bathroom - in the stall and by the sink - which is a location where mirrors should be - and highlight with the mirrors what is seen in the reflection. I like where my project is going with the self portrait idea and putting myself in the space.

Allison Shellito

This week we are getting into gear for the end of the semester show, which is both exciting and terrifying. I had great feedback from my group in Theme Sequence, who advised me to go ahead with making videos (which is also terrifying and exciting, as I have never done this before). My videos are going to show the spinning better than any 2D attempt I have made thus far, I think. My challenges are going to be making good transitions and not making the "plot" too predictible. I am excited to see where this goes. A presto! Allison

meredith nelson

so after feeling lost and hating this project for several weeks, things came together really well the night before and morning of critique before spring break. thanks to some of janna's suggestions i finally put things together in a more interesting and effective way. i was pretty excited to get back to work after break as i was at a point where i had a lot of new directions i could take things. following the nuts assignment, i decided to keep working with the space in the sink area. i liked the way the vines worked, some i'm basing my main project off of that, having more material coming in and out of the wall, and blending it with drawing. i'm putting more up in there and incorporating new materials. the other nut i tried was picking a new object and doing essentially what i'd done with the stems and petals before, basically, drawing it a lot. i had a shell left over from some of my source materials so i did some drawings and tried to get the feeling of something curling in on itself, to compliment my earlier drawings which were all about growing out. i don't think its really working for me. if i kept it up i could probably get something new out of this, but i'd honestly rather just focus on my other work, i feel like it's already at an interesting place.

Adell

So I was fooling around with textures and 3-D elements, and it was supposed to go somewhere, and then it didn't. Most half-baked ideas of mine don't. Also, I've been ill. So last night, a little frustrated, I decided to think about the kind of art I do when no one's looking, the kind of personal drawings that I have never shown for crits and have never considered making into final pieces, and that I often destroy or give away. I'm going to try and incorporate that kind of work into larger work, and attempt to take them beyond sketches and into pieces. Even if this doesnt go well, at least I'll enjoy the process.

Cassie's Long Overdue

Oh my. What can I say, I am so sorry to be so late. Ridiculously late. I am not good at this! Okay, so the midterm critique. I heaped a pile of grass onto my desk and a stack of cardboard boxes. And then I called it a waterfall. I tried to loosely imitate the movement that I saw in the Arno waterfall - the changing stages, the gravity pulling the water (or top substance) from one level down to the next, and the feel of one material covering/laying over top of another. For me, this felt good. I liked the way it looked. But as an object, as something that was put on display for "the viewer", for others to see and react to, it did not arouse much of a reaction, other than Zoe asking, "Can I roll around in it?" and Alessandra wanting to stick her feet in it. After this critique, I question what it is, exactly, that I am trying to do. Am I making this for myself and only myself, or do I want to offer it to others? The answer is yes, I do want to give something. To the world maybe, or maybe just to my friends. Maybe just to this class because I know that the people in it are excited to see what I have to say. But what about everyone else? Sure, I'll do it. Photo and video material have been the media that most accurately portray to others the thing, the feeling that I want to communicate.
What is this thing?
It's the feeling of being comforted by being covered, even if that means covered with sunlight or submerged in open air.
It's the visual sensation created by a steady, constant, either slow or fast but definitely pulsating movement.
It's the smell of earth and things that are natural to it (grass, dirt, mud, mold, wood, moss, flowers, manure.)
It's the tactile sensation of plushness and softness.
It's the oratory sensation of quiet that arises from a combination of absorbing and tuning out background noise at the same time.

I think it might be meditation, although I'm not really sure what that is.


Whew! So this week, I talked to Julia about some of this, and decided to make a series of bed/chairs that will be called "resting places". They will be cushion-y seats placed in various places near school (depending on weather: the courtyard, the sidewalk, a seldom used street with a nice view...) and will be meant for people to use as an escape from...anything. They will be filled with substances (so far I have settled on "grass" and "cloud", surprise surprise, and for this project's time line, they might be the only ones) in which the sitter can feel submerged and comforted, but at the same time, still has access to the surrounding environment.
I hope that this project will work out. In some nervous moments (nervous because I was afraid this project would not cut it), I thought I would also like to try filling a room (one of the classrooms upstairs) with grass, like FILL it, and create a welcome-ramp at the door, invite people to come in, and then place signs on the wall (made out of grass, as well) inviting people to lay down and/or play in the grass. This invitation would be entirely set up through visual clues, I would not play a physical role in the piece. I'm not sure how possible it would be to convince Regan to let me do this, but I think it would be awfully nice and I'd love to try it...

Jana - I hope all is well back in the states and thank you again for a wonderful two months! (and I promise I will be better with the updates in the future...)

:-)


ps. the photo site: www.flickr.com/photos/cassiehamrick

lee graf

so through thinking about what the "nuts" of my project are, i came up with a few essential parts. of course, the rhythm and patterning of light reflection based on audience interaction. but also a kind of quirky, off, subtle humor as well. sound in conjunction with the visual is also important to my idea i think. so going off of these things, and by talking to julia, i brainstormed a couple of ideas that i have no idea how to carry out. the first, which ive mainly been working on but failed miserably, was a callback to chianti when i was spinning my wine glass and it was making all sorts of crazy beautiful reflections on the white tablecloth. thus, i tried to imitate this with...not appropriate wine glasses. the reflections are alright, but theyre not really what i was looking for. i also tried to string them together as i did for my other video, but it just is not working as id like. i think i either have to shoot the videos with more planning, but then that kind of takes away from the idea of the quirky/jerky randomness of the rhythm that i was aiming for. so that was idea number one that im rather unpleased with.

another idea was to make a room with the same contraption as the box, and at the same time to have the video projected in the room in order to make the audience feel as though they are in the box. this can't really be done due to...many reasons including money, space, supplies, etc etc.

then the third idea is a preliminary one. julia showed me an artist who made these huge clear globes and put them in water. i think this would be so cool to make to capture the reflections on the surface of the globes of the light while also having it interactive with the viewers who get to play with the objects to get the random rhythm involved as well. i have not as yet figured out how to do this. i think that really i need to find a material i can use to make a small scale version, and see if it achieves the different parts of my concept. so as of right now, i think i may need to leave the video realm and go in a different direction with this project.

Sam week 9

Hi Jana!
Ok, so when you look at my photos it will look like I'm just doing another storyboard- but THIS TIMe I'm making a crude sort of animation- its set to music and everything. I'm also planning out an illustration depicting the inward idea of choices. For the animation, the theme is "moving forward". The ideas are still very much drawn from the self, but I'm trying really hard to give them universal appeal,
welp, hope things are going good

Emily Gordon

It took me a while to grasp the whole nut concept but I started thinking about which drawings I put up for midterm critique and how the whole theme of water and flooding pertains very personally to my beginning experience in Florence. The first concept that I’d like to explore is aftermath. This refers to the image of the water on the ground after the flood. I started to think about what happens after the flood? What is left? Is it problematic or is there relief that it is over? Next I started to explore the idea of control. How can I prevent the overflow and flooding of water? Is it beyond my control?

In my meeting with Julia, we talked a lot about whether it was important what the liquid is that was overflowing, or if what I am drawing is something found or set up. I realized that I really like the photographs that I created in the first half of the semester as source material and I decided that I want to produce a combination of photographs and drawings, to play around and see what fits the concept best. Julia pointed out that I should be careful about the objects and where I photograph them and the choices I make in general. Also in her slide show, she showed me two photographs of people who had submerged parts of their bodies in water which gave me the idea that I could also use myself to represent my ideas because depicting the fountain basin is not as important to me anymore. Then my two ideas kind of morphed together into a progression of flooding, from the overflowing (lack of control) to an attempt at control, to the aftermath and finally to being ok. I’ve been thinking about a lot of ways to express these nuts but the first thing I came up with (an decided to execute immediately) was to photograph my hand expressing these stages (the pictures of this are posted). I’m working on other ways to show the aftermath of flooding. I might continue to work on my watercolor drawings as well and see what happens if I try to separate the nuts, because that might lead in an interesting direction as well.

Kelly Diehl

JANA.
Meeting with Julia was encouraging. For this week, I'm making another small-scale thingy in a different material and making something that interacts more with the space. My last thing was only a frontal viewing...experience (?) and too much like a drawing. So, onto the next step. I'm using nice paper and working from a drawing again, more loopy-twirly this time. I don't think I'm going to just hang it somewhere though. I might actually attach the pieces somewhere in the room, somewhere. The damn heater has completely obliterated my last one. That's an exaggeration, but, it bugs me. I have to think about my "nut" still. What is it all about? Every project has been a process in itself, a cleansing of sorts. Like you said about my little clay "relationship balls" as Julia called them. Ha ha. What is it that's left at the end? Those little gray lines at the end of last week's thing? What are those? I guess I'll figure it out. Stuff.

Allison Shellito

I can't believe how quickly the second half of the semester is going!! We are already discussing final projects and in a few days it will be April. I had a lovely spring break trip to Athens and some Grecian islands, and now it is time to buckle down and finish the semester. I was stuck for a long time with my spirals, but this past week has been very inspired for me, which is a relief. I finally know what I want to do: I am depicting the spiral using photo and video from different vantage points and from inside and outside of the spiral. I wanted to include places around Florence (such as piazzas) in the spirals, but for some reason (no matter how I adjust my camera), I am only able to get the effect I want in my photos when I take pictures of people. However, I have been pleased with the photographs I have taken so far and I soon hope to make some videos to add to my work. A presto!! Allison
P.S. Love having Julia here- she is very inspirational. Miss you Jana!!!

Katey Week ????

hey there!!
sorry i haven't updated in a while, things have been pretty crazy for the past couple weeks, and it completely slipped my mind. i'm continuing on kinda in the same direction, adding more tunnels to the cieling of the computer lab. i'm also going to try to work with the same idea of perspective in a bit of a more organic way, using paper still, but changing the type of space i'm using to not be so tunnel-like. i'll post some pictures really soon, so that you can see the transformation of the computer room in progress...unfortunately i forgot my camera, but don't worry....i'll remember in the next couple of days.

ciao,
katey

Zoe Hillenmeyer

So we've been focusing on "nuts:" what the core of our thoughts are. Not so shockingly, my nut, is actually nuts. Well, seeds - well, recreation. Germination, and how this relates to the human body, both as a child and as a conceiving adult (well, not currently, but having that potential). The human condition relates back to birth, and it is a common experience to have had lived within the womb. This fascinates me, and the way that it engages the interaction of protection, the maternal, PODS, private/public, and sex are really interesting. Upon more distillation, I've been working on my materials, and making sure that the materials I am using carry the weight of the concepts that I am trying to promote. The materials I am playing around with right now are honey and pipes (and still plastic, clear, containers). I like the way the honey drops slowly, I want to engage its smell and taste, as well as the way that it relates back to the natural world. I intend to spend a good chunk of time outside in the natural world, and seeing how some of the soybean/condom pod clusters look in a natural space. Rather than bringing the "organic" into a "sterile space" I am going to try to bring the "sterile things" into the organic space. I want to see if the honey can attract the bugs and bees. I think that perhaps changing the interactive participant could be interesting as well. Video, and photo documentation are open to this too. We'll see... as always, I feel like I'm on a bit of a branch, reaching out and not quite sure what I'm reaching for, but that's just fine... they say risk is rewarding.

hope you are well, Jana... we all miss you.

Joey

Please note: I’ve posted my 3 drawings from the midterm critique but only as closing
gesture, one last hooray before I depart from my ideas about meandering lines. No, no, this is not entirely
true. In fact, the ideas that I was working with earlier will probably always be present in the back of
my mind, they have been inside me from the very start. Which is why I can’t make art about them right
now. It is too big…

I am starting fresh, so very very fresh…

The process began with a brief walk through the streets of Florence, picking up scraps and
bits and things and strings. Back in the studio, I made a pulp out of the things that were
pulp-worthy, and selected a few object to display within a my pulpy sculptural thing. I used wire mesh to
make a form to spread the pulp over, creating niches in the shapes and sizes of the objects I wanted to
include (which happened to be a broken pair of glasses, a bunch of cut lock tops, and a cut bike lock
chain. I thought maybe there could be some sort of narrative here). After allowing the pulp to dry onto
the screen, I pealed it off and was surprised (and delighted) to find it held its shape quite well and
was rather strong. However, when I placed the objects into their respective niches, and took another look at
the piece, the combination was not that masterpiece I’d been envisioning. In fact, my reaction was more
of a “hmm, well there that is…” But I do really like the aesthetic and the conceptual possibilities
presented by a form made out of pulp from existing objects.

Next, I took all the envelopes from letters and packages my mom has sent me and made them
into a pulp. My original idea was to cast them into sort of a hanging nest-like shape, but that
didn’t quite go as planned. However, I do think im going to continue using materials that have some sort
of significance to me or my life. I might do a similar sort of thing that I did in at first
with niches, or at least creating the pulp form with certain objects in mind. I’m not sure exactly what
aspects of my life im going to deal with yet.

Another possibility: when I was talking to Julia about this, she mentioned that the cast
pulp looked to her like a topographical map. That’s not something that I’d seen right away, but
interestingly enough, when I started taking closeup pictures of the stuff for this blog, looking through the
camera lens totally made me see these structures are like huge land masses. Especially when photographing the
piece that included the objects, it almost felt to me like I was looking at a landscape with a pair
of huge glasses in it. So I think there’s some there. I think its pretty obvious that im not exactly sure
about what im doing at this moment, but I do feel on the verge of something. Clearly this blog entry is
so long because im trying to get all this stuff straight in my own mind…you all just happen to be
privy to my thought process!

Rachel - Midterm

Hi, Jana!!!! Sorry, this is kind of late. I only have one picture on flickr - the pastel well - wasn't sure how to capture the flip book, but oh well. Anyway, midterm was exciting! Got food poisoning and all that good stuff :D But I managed to participate somewhat. I felt like I got some really good feedback. I really like the idea of working up toward a higher quality animation. That will be my ultimate goal - I suppose I am going to use this time to try to come up with subject matter.
Anyway - back to work!!!

Catherine Hite

i have three nuts:
heaviness/weighed down
lightness
and the transistion between these two things

i brainstormed about heavy and light things then went to tutto a 99cent and bought a bunch of random stuff. from here i played around with materials and came up with ideas for two of my nuts.
i bought fake apples and hollowed them out. then i filled them with metal nuts and plaster, wood chips, or sand so that they each have a different weight. it was quite an intersting experience going to the hardware store and trying to buy the nuts because i stil have no idea what they are called in italian and the men kept wanting to know what function i needed them for and it was well quite an interesting time.
for my second nut i am thinking about creating hand weights out of light materials. this would be for the lightness nuts so i guess perhaps an underlying thought is tricking the viewer or rather challenging their notion of what ought to heavy vs light.

-catherine

Jane Philipps

After midterms I was so ready for spring break that I forgot to post! I thought my crit went well - I ended up making 4 small rice paper books using my previous images. I liked the effects that the paper added; the tactile quality was nice (and gave it a handmade/natural feel) and the way you could see through to the next page was an effect I liked. I also made a movie to supplement the books and it was interesting hearing the reactions that people had to the books vs. the movie. I didn't get very much feedback about how to move forward with my project, but in the last week I've come up with a few new ideas.

Julia told us to think about the "nuts", or key aspects, of our project and I've come up with three: systems (or the Fibonacci sequence), infinity, and organic vs. inorganic. Though these are rather broad, I've started brainstorming about how I can illustrate each of these concepts. Since before break my thinking has changed and I am now more interested in working three-dimensionally. I like the idea of finding spaces that suit my concepts and working with them and, conversely, coming up with ideas and fitting them into spaces. I first thought about using the staircase inside the school because it is a pseudo-spiral staircase and people move through it going either up or down, which fits with my idea of how the spiral moves in and out depending on its direction. I wanted to mess with the system of banister poles that is already in place, but subtly, so that it's not necessarily noticeable at first. After some thinking and measuring, I've decided that the staircase is not going to work, but have found a new place for my idea. I still plan on using the Fibonacci sequence as a base system to work from, which will be the element that connects the different pieces I end up making. For my other two "nuts" I am thinking about playing with fabric and/or synthetic materials in some way, but I need to develop these ideas more. Pictures of mid-term work is up and next week I will have in progress pictures as well as more detail about the ideas I am developing for my next project.

2 in 1

a blog for spring-break/post-crit so this blog and subsequent pictures will attempt to fill in any gaps and bring everybody up to date. Chronologically:

For the presentation of my work I diverged a bit from my original plan, which was more like an outline at best in the first place since it depended on change and influence to exist at all…But anyway, I had originally intended to put the pieces of fabric up, mounted on cardboard rather like pictures on the wall in the main school. When it came down to it though that just seemed a bit too cold and like I would be trying for a clean picture plane or something that wasn’t actually there. So by virtue of a divine muse or lack of any other ideas I tried wrapping the bits of fabric around random cloth things I had around, rather like bitty pillows. This was all very informal, I think I used my scarf, a mitten, and an apron as filler material. If anyone had bothered to look on the bottom of the ‘pillows’ they would have seen some distressed looking masking tape holding it all together. Technically this wasn’t the best route, and even some masking tape could be seen on the sides (distracting!) Half the problem (not really a problem more like thing) was that I hadn’t intended to do this so the wool was a bit short and the fabric a bit random. This influenced my later decisions for this week….Okay. Then the wall/shelving in the studio itself just seemed the right place for the work.
reasons:
1. I wanted people to look down on the pieces rather than have them mounted up. Mainly this was because I thought it would reinforce the sense of surface imposed on top of something, ie how we look down on water.
2. the shelf size was long and skinny which inclined it to be a good sequential display area
3. the wall above the shelf had gaps and crags in the white paint that reflects not only the rather arbitrary shapes of water but also the color with this great neutralized teal color. Fantastic!
4. I used the other fabric I had bought (Jana said it was un-something silk…I had thought she was crazy and it was plain linen…but then when I thought about it that was probably why it cost an arm and a leg fool…) this gave a clean surface to present on and a softer, earthier brown/white.
5. It all very happily informal and surprisingly intimate, the wall especially allowed connections to flow up and down through the forms

Feedback from class: generally it went over well and indicated more than I had intended but perhaps what I had hoped for. The whole intimate nature and reception of it was not expected but did in fact reference things I had been thinking about when working on the project, the pillows were unplanned but led into that as well and referenced a feminine strand of thought I had been pursuing as well as an absolute comfort that I had been actively pursuing, the search was in fact the initial impetus for the project. the softeness of the fabric base also led to emphasize a textural quality I hinted towards (more on that later). Finally the works were received cohesively when they had about a 40% chance of being knaves of disorder. Also people said they got a sense of water which wasn’t necessary for the work but nonetheless nice because it is what I’ve been inundating myself with and it allows more speculation and well, peacefulness or connection because everyone can recall it even though its never the same.

As for this week I’m clarifiying a bit, nuts and all but I think it would be more fun to call them cheez-its right now because that’s what I’m thinking about. Just like nuts cheez-its are the coming together of critical elements (as the back of the box will tell you) and the purification of distracting elements. There is the ridged edges for improved grabbing quality, the specialization and saturation of chedderness and the addition of salt because, well, it helps. I’m gonna do that in my own work. Gonna add a little salt and saturate some bits so that people can grab it better. So what is all that? Tactility and flow. Here’s the bit I wrote up in class post-nut conversation:
The moment I connected with the work was when I let go of my restrictions, impositions put on my hand and the material and when I began to listen to my instinct and let the material determine itself. The main thing is to not forget that, and in turn, expand on it. Open the work to more experimentation. I need to free myself of my fear of branching off too far. In itself, that was a restriction. My instinct will impose enough restrictions through preference and if my instincts wrong then I’ll just change paths. This is all linked through ideas. In actuality, it means I’m going to not going to pre-cut my fabric (if I cut it at all) and I’ll work in the same give-and-take manner and hopefully on a larger scale of fabric, and maybe also thread, the work will stand as evidence of that process and give a continual sense of movement as before. I’ll add things in, threads, other materials. I’ve been eying a specific ribbon, and maybe expand beyond the thread world with what strikes my internal fancy or aesthetic. There are recurring concepts, frozen moments over change, consistency. Tactility and the way it feels to the fingers or skin in general. Specificity and detail against a larger sensual experience. This is all formal stuff. I think I am concerning myself so much with the formal because actually just sewing with that as a loose base gives me the time and the lingering mind to think about other things which I haven’t figured out yet (not on the whole, its impossible! but on an incorporative level)

In there is my reaction to the problem of my fabric being too small to tape around stuff in the previous presentation. I mentioned how I’ll hopefully work on a larger scale but that doesn’t quite seem to have my interest so I’ve axed it in one sense, but in another its still working on a larger sense because of the way I’m letting the strings just keep rolling on in one fabric even if the work is still activating the space the same way as before.

Alright now the time gap is closed and not a single question unanswered (what?! impossible, they never go!) seriously any major questions send along (the grapevine or email or whatever.) Maggie

ps I included some other fiber artists work and pics from class don’t forget to click on the space or place class set or it will be all jumbled!

Doves and baby mommas

So, I went to Assisi for an afternoon last Saturday and instead of being tickled pink by the churches and the artwork and the beauty of the surrounding countryside (which were amazing, by the way), I found my enchantment in the fake doves strung before all the major churches. The doves had the same shape to them as the chins that were included in the group of lids and lips at the start. This got me to thinking about creases: as in, the creases of the body. This is a "nut" of my focus, as Julia has phrased it. I discovered that the arch of the foot also has the same shape as that of the plastic dove wings. Plus, it's another part of the body with sense receptors similar to the lips in that they are different from those of the hands. I made plaster molds of my feet and will attempt to make them into bird like figures cast in ice ( back to that sticky stuff I misused/abused in shaping my mom's breast- lets see how it goes this time). I was thinking about the religious iconography where the crane pecks at its chest to lure out its own blood and guts to feed the babies. "I love my baby momma..." (rap song lyrics). There's a link there with melting ice.... not quite sure yet how to resolve it. Aside from that I've been going crazy drawing hands and feet: goes back to the main de venus idea (you can find the lid/lip form in the palm of the hand), so maybe I'll make a drawing exploring this further. And if that leads to nowhere, then...
there's always Paris.
(Bit of randomness never hurt anyone.)
~Nicole

Jessica Rogen

Sorry no pictures. I have nothing to show except for increased brain activity. Thinking about the knuts (nuts?) of my project, I pickd out two small things that I am intested in pursuing futher. The first is the idea of falling and the second is altered time sequences/narratives. This small things being kind of broad (or extremely broad as it were) I'm currently trying to narrow them down. For the falling, I am trying to figure out why exactly it is a frightening obsession/fear of mine. Currently I'm dropping things down the stairs trying to get at it. It's something about the lack of control and the way the body stiffens but can't stop itself.
Second is the alterned time. Stopping and starting and starting over again. I have no clue what I'm doing for this. I'm kind of thinking of the idea of negative space and if it can exist. More later (next week).
Jessica

Amy Scott

So this week we started brainstorming for our next project. I've chosen to focus on the actual box itself. What's it made of? What's a box used for? I'm pretty much just trying to think of different materials I can make boxes out of that will hinder the boxes function. The other focus for my project is confinement and breaking free of confinement. I'm still trying to discover ways to show this concept. Unfortunately I don't have any photos to share but there will definitely be some next week.

Daniel Lubniewski Week 9

This week I thought a little bit about some of the things about my art that makes it unique to me, and I've come up with a few things. The first thing is my ability to create things that can express abstract qualities, and the second is my interest with the textures one can create with wet media. There are also a few things that I have started to catch my interest in my art. The first thing is my interest in creating fictional characters, something that comes from my interest in cartoons and comics, and there is also my mostly untapped potential at creating interactions between characters and forming narratives. Over the weekend I started doing practice for a few projects that I will be doing next week. I created a series of characters that reflect parts of my own personality, and I continued practicing with watercolor pencils while I was at it.

Allison Glazer

I think I know what my basic underlying ideas are in my project. The first is about the individualized experience that a person has with a reflection. The experience is personal and cannot be recreated. In order to show this idea in a project, I was thinking I could set up my mirrors in a public place (where people do not know that the mirrors are an art project). I would take pictures of the reflections I find in the mirrors and then I would have other people take pictures of what they see in the mirrors. I would show the contrast between my experience in the reflection as opposed to other peoples' experiences, who don't know what they're supposed to be seeing, or if they are even supposed to be seeing something in general.
The second nut is about the 2d/3d nature of the mirrors. The mirrors are reflecting a 3d space but within the mirror the space is 2d. It deals with the reality of space. I want to try doing something in a trompe l'oiel style to further change reality. I tried painting a curtain on the mirror so that when looking at the reflection, part is covered by the painted curtain. This deals with the idea of what is in front of what, what is real, etc. I am only putting up pictures of my second idea because I have not yet installed the mirrors in a public place to try out the first idea. The pictures in the blog show a curtain interacting with grass/nature and the concrete ground, which also brings about what is real and natural versus what is fake.

Windnie Pan

I was fairly happy with the way my midterm project came out. However, after looking at the final product when I came back from Spring Break, i realized that I really need to start working 3-dimensionally. You just cannot get the sense of the knotting or texture of the ropes without it physically being there. After meeting with Julia I decided that my "nuts" would be 1) an interaction with space/basically just making something 3-d and 2) the use of materials as symbols. I've been hurting my brain trying to come up with ideas for the two projects and am having a hard time separating them into two different pieces. I decided to go to the 99cent store and ended up buying a lot of junk that I will be weaving together to form my own rope. I've been playing around with the materials in the studio and have made a couple of different ropes. I will be leaving for the weekend, but i am excited to work on this again on monday.

Sam Week uh... 8?

Wasn't sure if I needed to post for this week, so no images yet. The crit went well, as my project produced, fo r the most part, the reaction I was looking for. It wasn't totally successfull, but I think I conveyed the majority of what I hoped to. I ended up doing two endings, one where Boris has the typical "happy" ending, and another where he jumps off a cliff. So yep, I'm pretty glad about how the project went, but I'm happy to start something new that doesn't have anything to do with walruses. Maybe I'll tackle Rhinoes again... or hippos.
Thanks Jana!

Allison Glazer

My final project was a mirror installation and a book containing images I found in the mirrors. The installation was meant to allow a viewer to find images within the mirrors. I wanted it to be personal because that was my original reaction to the reflections around the Arno. I made the book for two reasons. I wanted to have something permanent because I knew that after the crit, I would take down the installation. I wanted something to show for it afterwards. I also made the book because I wanted to show what I saw within the mirrors. They were the images that I found interesting when I looked in the mirrors. The installation and the book contrast each other in that the mirrors allow the viewer to see a range of reflections while the book only shows what I saw.

lee graf

so for this past week i worked on compiling all my different videos into one format. i was pretty happy with how it came out. i set it to music that worked really well with the rhythm and oddities of what the images were. there were some technical difficulties, but it seemed like they weren't too important as the subject matter was sort of this homemade quirky thing. im not sure what ill do next really, but the class gave a few suggestions of making a larger installation, more reflections, etc etc. im just not sure if i want to take it to that point or not - it will be a nice break to think about things and see where i want to go with it after spring break.

supposedly this link will take you to youtube with the video i tried to upload but...i haven't been having much luck with technology as of late.