The Oddly Isolated Giant Bird

The small 4'' sculpture of a bird, which i have incorperated in past work, never seems to be at home in any context. I put together this image to, in a way, magnify its strangeness. It stands among skyscrapers absentmindedly searching the ground, much as it would appear to be doing among cups of half finished tea and stack of books on my desk. 

Botanical Drawing

Tom Vance, my drawing professor, assigned us a drawing of an old print of a plant (from the 1500's).  The prints, each being different, were about 6x8'' and we were tasked with copying the print on to 3x4 ft paper, adding color and value.  The print given to me was of a garden pea plant.  This plant has a very diverse structure, with small oval shaped leaves, larger winged leaves, small flowers, pea pods and meandering vines that reach and twist rather wonderfully in all directions.

 The end result was a seemingly decorative piece.  I leave it to you to decide if its more in the vein of Matisse or of 19th century European decorative art.

The Beginnings of my Second 2D Project

Here is the basic pattern created from an 8''x 8'' linoleum carving of an even more basic pattern that has been repeated four times. The resulting pattern has so far turned out to be rather better than I had expected, though maybe that isn't saying much. My Adobe Illustrator skill are improving quite a bit and it makes things like designing patterns wonderfully easy, but it still can to me be perplexing at times. The physical act of making the prints- of rolling the ink, placing the printing block, slowly lifting away the paper to see the result- is an exhilarating experience. The whole process of printmaking is for me a joy.

Roberto Capucci at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

      I have been for the past two or three years interested in the world of fashion, and have payed some attention to what some of my favorite designers have been creating each season. I have my sister Kowa, who majored in fashion merchandising, to thank for this. She introduced me a while back to the work of an Italian artist/designer of the 20th century named Roberto Capucci. What is fascinating about his work is the incredible amount of skill and time necessary to finish a single piece, not to mention the creativity and vision behind his work. His work is particularly outstanding because it bridges the gap between fine art and high fashion- Capucci dresses are free standing sculptural pieces that can be worn, rather than couture pieces of clothing that have artistic aspects. There is going to be the first ever exhibit of his work in America at the Philadelphia Museum of Art starting March 16th.

Layered Self Portrait Assignment

Clay Mold Casting Project

      For the past seven weeks my 3D foundations class has been going through the intensive process of making plaster casts of on object of our choosing, making the molds and finally painting them and packaging them.  To make one mold takes up to three hours, and in all we had to have eleven molds- eight of them being of good quality.  Creating plaster casts is actually quite a fun process in the beginning stages, and seeing how the first clay mold turns out is reminiscent of the sensation of watching how the first print of a woodcut or linoleum cut turns out.

I chose to make molds of a small pair of binoculars. Here is one of the molds:

Drawing Assignment

      This week a 36'' x 48'' drawing is due or my Foundation Drawing class.  The assignment is to make a large scale drawing of a fragment of the figure. The main idea was to get across the sense of giant scale using a strong value pattern and a monochromatic palette.  I chose to draw my own hand holding a shirt. This is my progress so far, and I plan to go into it with yellows.

Project 1 for 2D Foundations

      The first project for this foundation class is, as expected, time consuming.  This photo shows the first stage of the project. The first stage is to lay down the base composition from which to build upon later with greater complexity.  My plan is to go into the composition with numerous shades and saturations of blue. I will also collage in cut-outs of fabric textures from different shirts that I made xerox copies of.  I rather think it works as a finished piece as it is, but my professor would almost certainly disagree.

A Visit to the Penn Museum

      This past Sunday at around 11am I made my way to the Penn Museum in order to complete an art history class assignment, which was to choose a piece from the Ancient Egyptian collection to write about. I chose a remnant of a life sized statue of the goddess Sekhmet. This statue was in the corner of a darkly lit room. At first, I couldn't help but stare at it. It seemed ominous and frightening without being monstrous. It was beautiful and terrible. I'm starting to sound ridiculous.
      Sekhmet was a protective and warlike goddess. Her image often accompanied the Pharaoh into battle, and she was invoked to ward off or cure disease. She is depicted in this way because she annihilates her enemies in the guise of a lioness.

Freshman Lecture Feb 22

The subject of this weeks lecture was printmaking and graphic design.  The speakers talked about the possibilities open to students with each major.  I am very interested in printmaking and have worked with linoleum and woodcuts in the past. Woodcut prints in particular are to me very exhilarating. The anticipation and element of uncertainty one feels while the first print in being made is one of the most exciting experiences I have had so far in art and I will definitely like to pursue an education in this field.
The MOMA website has a great source of prints made my the artists of the Brucke from the early 20th century. i find the work by these artists fascinating. moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2002/brucke/

Layout of my room

This is a map of where the furniture and some other things can generally be found in my room.  My room is rather large but sparsely furnished, allowing me to spread out and have enough space to work on projects for various foundation art classes.

I find it easy to be skeptical of old paintings and in general see them as old fashioned and out-dated. I have many memories of being bored senseless in galleries displaying dozens of antique landscapes like this one, and it is likely that there are hundreds just like it.  Even still, I find this one fascinating. It is almost irrelevant what the subject matter is.  The shapes and composition seem to put the world into focus in such a sublime and simple way.  I suppose, then, that simplicity and directness is what makes this piece so fascinating to me.

http://www.stephenfry.com/dongle/painting1dl.html

Type Drawings and Pattern

  

The first three images are done using mostly unaltered text and the last image is a pattern made from the letter Y.  The fonts used were Myriad Pro and helvetica.

Project 1: image combinations

  

This is a drawing of three apples I bought combined with a photograph of the pile of apples they were taken from.

This is my cup of tea combined with the book of collected poems by Frank O'Hara I was reading from.  These images relate because they are what made up my morning routine.

The photograph on the left is of one of Isaiah Zagar's mosaics and on the right is a scan of a small wooden bird carving that I borrowed from my sister, who bought it while she was in Egypt. I combined these two images because of their ornate and arabesque qualities and because they share a sense of beautiful randomness.

Daily Routine, or what i did on January 22

I started the day with the usual cup of tea with breakfast. To start the five drawings required for this assignment I decided to draw my tea before drinking it. It was cold by the time I finished the drawing, but never mind. Thinking it still too early to leave the house, I read some from a book of Frank O'Hara  poems I took out from the library. I read his prose piece Larry Rivers: A Memoir, written about the artist Larry Rivers.

"What his work has always said to me, I guess, is to be more keenly interested while I'm still alive. And Perhaps this is the most important thing art can say." 

I then left for Whole Foods because I was running low on food.  I took the subway to South St and walked for a few blocks. There is a lot of interesting mural work on buildings on the way there but I also tried to focus some attention on less obvious things, like discarded orange peels on the sidewalk.

I then went to Blick to pick up some supplies. This visit was short because they were sold out of the paints I needed. I tried to take some interesting shots and then decided to head back home and make some more tea since my hands were starting to freeze.