Cycles, Cycles, Cycles

This video is the perfect representation of how my last two weeks of classes are going to be. Beginning with jewelry my plans run thus:

Here are 13 blanks for trillium shawl pins just annealed that need to be chased and have the copper leaves soldered to them. After that its clean up, sawing forming, patina and lacquer, plus the creation of the pin stem too.

For those leaves I have been making these sheets of copper very holey. Other products for the student sale include ye olde interlocking triangle, link a dink, pins. I have 17 of those mostly together and am currently cranking out some extras to bring it up to an even 20. The planned d-pad pins I think will have to wait until next years student sale, where they will at least fit with the theme I preemptively chose, so consider this a hint as to what it will be.

I'm hoping to be done with the production stuff by Monday so I can focus on the actual last project for jewelry: a large flower necklace with lots of texture.

The run down for the other studio classes looks like this:

Weaving! A scarf! Fibers! It's much more fun (despite loom threading mishaps) and makes more sense to my 3D oriented mind than dyeing or screen printing. for my 60 inches of scarf I'm just going to repeat the brown-red-orange-yellow-blue section 15 times and go all out for a striped scarf.

There's no picture for 2D Design since that project hasn't really been started, and is a retread of things I learned in 6th grade, namely one and two point perspective. This time I have to draw up a city and paint it in black and white acrylic. Couple with the other studios and my lecture classes requiring last minute papers these next two weeks are doomed to be spent in absentia from my blog until finals week when I can breathe and unveil my grandiose plans for next semester.

Pins Go Marching In

Seeing the brass forest instead of the trees right now.

Whhhhirrrr, Clank, Clunk

In the past few weeks I have been something of an art machine cranking out piece after piece and being largely unsatisfied with it.

My fibers screen printing project here I thought looked very good but it was practically destroyed in a very schizophrenic critique. It was further evidence that whenever I like a piece everyone else hates it and when I hate it everyone else loves it. Case in point, jewelry:

These shawl pins based on trillium I wasn't really feeling. Plus I didn't think they were up to snuff for the student sale since I know every little problem with them. But, the class loved them backwards and forwards literally as they liked both sides of the piece. Still not sure as to whether to put these into the sale.

For 2D design we began by drawing an egg for homework after practicing shading spheres with no reference in class...

Then we had to draw junk from the professor's basement and our own objects separately, then cut them out and arrange them in an 11x14 rectangle...

Then we had to arrange the objects physically the way we did with the drawings...

then redraw it again and mat it for the final piece. No, I have no idea what this is suppsosed to teach me. All I know is that the only reason I can sort of draw is because of taking Drawing I my spohomore year with the difficult professor. Once again no clue and I'm bored in class working on it.

As a bonus here is my last project for 2D, a transition from a gun like object to a penguin which I some how got an A- on. I choose to believe that this qualifies me as half a Rembrandt. Now to gear up for the student sale, the texture project, and see how big a pain in the ass weaving supposedly is.

Sad Sculpture Safari: Bonus Footage

While going around campus for pictures of most of our bad sculpture, I annoyed a red tail hawk eating dinner. Such is the college ecosystem, consisting of squirrels, pigeons, and the occasional hawk.

Plus a bonus sculpture I completely forgot about because I walk past it daily.

Sad Sculpture Safari

So in talking to an artist friend of mine I discovered that the clay people on the benches were done by her ceramics class who were given some old clay and told to do an installation somewhere.

Then another friend doing glass making at Alfred University found some one had lined up all these salt shakers on the wall, and there was some debate on Facebook to whether it was an art project or just a prank.

This got my artist friend and I thinking about how its the Year of the Arts at Buffalo State College, and how terrible our campus sculptures look.

 This sundial one between the library and Bacon Hall is getting streaks of rust and dirt down it

These by Rockwell appear to be surviving well...

This one in the same area is rusting away, and I have no idea if the artist intended it to do so. Besides, none of these are labeled at all and there isn't any info about them on the college website either.

Can you spot the marginalized sculpture hanging out next to a dorm for no reason?

Here it is! this one at least rusted appropriately but that doesn't excuse it being a smaller sculpture all out on its own in a quad.

Now this ice fountain sculpture doesn't exist anymore....

Neither does this one, the weather of course did a number on the wood...

The one on the left was switched out for the "torch" on the right.

Which means currently the giant yellow C in front of the arts building is currently the best looking sculpture on campus. Bonus fact it was made in 1981 and I know that only because it has that date inscribed in it.

So looking around at the campus sculpture a lot of it is outdated, installed in goofy spots, and on the verge of being ruined. Since its the Year of the Arts and all, why can't they spare some money for a new sculpture? It would add interest to the campus and there's plenty of room. If cost is that big an issue I'm sure there's plenty of students who'd love to make one and the college technically owns our work anyways. There also must be some successful design and fine arts alumni who'd love a commission. Plus we even do an iron pour each year, easy access to a durable medium!

Oh well nothing to do about beside use the college presidents email as a complaint box, or perhaps do some guerrilla installations?

Motivation Again! Sort of...

Now that I've gotten pass the whole narrative problem with the first project I'm motivated to actually work again! This time the project is production, and I have many grand plans for that, probably too many to make before the student sale in December.

So here's how my jib is currently cut:

Thus far I have a headstart on making my Link a Dink triangle pins by cutting out forty textured triangles to make 20 pins. Now I have to file, solder, and clean them up. Provisionally they are going to be priced at $25, not sure if that will change. From the scraps I hope to make more "Melty" pins as well.

My third plan for production is to tap into the geek market a bit (I have no idea how far art nerds overlap with regular nerds) by making d-pad pins from this controller. I have yet to double check that the patents and copyrights to the NES design have expired but I'm mostly certain they have.

You may notice the lack of my theme in these projects, but don't fret! some flower and weed modeled hair pins are in the works!

I have thick copper wire to use for the pin part of the hair ornaments (graciously given to me by a plumber friend) and only one idea for what to stick on top: a clover. That will be done by layers of copper sheet cut into thin petals and bent upward. Though since hair pins are not popular at the moment, I may not put them into the student sale.

For fibers I have been making julienne fries out of a linoleum block carving a train wheel to use as a background for the unit on fabric printing. I went with a fun harmless theme of trains just to have a break from the serious development of a semester long one. So far I will use this block to have a random base pattern of yellow, orange, and red. I still don't know what to put over it, perhaps I will emulate a train poster form the 1930s.

For the record this is what the inside of an NES controller is like. It also works exactly like a Genesis controller does yet the Sega ones wear out faster. I also have another project brewing in 2D design and went to the opening night of the Art in Craft Media exhibit at the Burchfield-Penney Museum. If I ever get a chance to go back and take decent non-cell phone pictures I may write up a full review, but for now I leave you with this: The craft exhibit as a whole has some solidly designed pieces and good craftsmanship of course, but seems to lack some sort of wow factor or break out work.

Upton has been bugged!

Quite a beaut, isn't he? perhaps this means a production run of cricket earrings... still no ideas on that front but check back soon.

A is for Rembrandt

Recently I've found myself chafing under the one fallacy many art professors are stricken with. It's the whole conception that an A is unattainable, the holy grail of grades, and more endangered than pandas. To use a quote heard through the grapevine, "I'll only give you an A if you paint a Rembrandt."

After encountering so many professors that hold to the unattainable A I have to wonder where did this idea come from? Is it extrapolated from the fact that A= 100%= perfect? Last I knew 90% to 99% was also an A and none of those numbers are perfection. Why even bother having an A at all if it represents such godlike presicion?

I can see being sparing with the As in junior level and higher studio classes, but it just becomes a crime in the intro level classes. How can an intro level student create a perfect project, or "go above and beyond" while learning the concepts and making mistakes at the same time? Why would I even need to go to school at all if I could create perfect art every time and never made errors to learn from?

It's rather a self defeating idea here and leads me to two possible conclusions:

1. I suck at art.
2. The department guidelines need another rewrite.

So the only solutions I have at the moment are to resign myself to my fate of the dreaded B or work myself into the ground and burnout trying to get an A. And we all now how successful quests for the holy grail are not.

Bada Bing Bada Boom.

The past week (or two?) in pictures, consisting of...

Burning pitch.

Happening late night studios.

Dyeing mishaps.

Chasing leaves.

More dyeing mishaps.

Craaazy soldering set ups.

A finished 2D project.

A finished jewelry piece.

Bored ceramics majors.

And a scenic view.

Sketch Drop, or What I Should be Doing in the Studio

And now a sketch dump, this is my tentative plan for fibers, where I have to dye a piece of cloth themed around  a season. I picked winter for no special reason and am planning to have black shibori vines/branches with a turquoise blue sky. The problem is that discharging dyes never returns the fabric back to white, and the professor likes fabric to have a massive amount of over laid pattern and dying, to the point of obliterating nice patterns you obtained on the first go. So I guess i'll just have to see how it develops on it's own...

But, while I was finishing working on this thing in my 2D Design class:

(can you spot all the craftsmanship errors I will be docked for? I can!)

An idea finally occured to me for jewlery design and here it is!

I've always wanted to do a swivel  locket since I saw one featured in a Lapidary Journal magazine, plus I did encounter an acorn on my earlier attempt to get inspired by walking through the park. The narrative portion of the project comes in with having a little tree inside the acorn when you open it up. that will be formed by  a copper wire, most likely with prongs to hold a wad of green fabric for leaves or perhaps threads.

The bail will be an oak leaf which I will probably have to shut up and patina it green, as much as I hate patinas. Thus I've already gone out and gotten spray lacquer for the occasion, to try and keep the patina from rubbing off too quickly. Currently this is my best plan to have a piece of jewelry that represents a walk in the woods, use of chasing and repousse, and a narrative all at once.

At least I'm closer to having a plan now and can finally begin work, woo.

Greentopia Aftermath

I nearly forgot to talk about how much fun the Greentopia Festival was and my piece on display!

Case in point me looking like a goober behind my piece in the "gallery" space which was the atrium of a bar/restaurant right in the heart of the festival area. Next to my piece is a work that is supposed to represent a tea pot and behind me is the first place winner. I have forgotten the title of it but over a period of 180 days the artist collected some of the garbage she threw out each day and put it in a jar. Thus, the line of jars on the free standing wall with a braided rope of plastic bags trailing down in front of it in a sort of showing-the-audience-how-much-trash-they-throw-out kinda way.

Here's a detail with patrons standing in front of it. I will say one thing and one thing only about it: after seeing a wall of jars at the Burchfield-Penney Art Museum in 2009 and a rack of them again in 2010 or so, it's safe to say jars are played out by now.

Third place was this coat rack welded together from scrap metals and discarded decorative metal fencing. The artist who did this had just discovered welding and was all excited about it in their artist's statement. In the background is another large scale work made of copper and brass which was 8 feet tall or so.

It was styled after an armillary sphere and rather nice looking, and reminded me my of my goal to make a metal garden statue of some kind for my mother. After this point however, my pictures take a turn for the scenic so here's the falls that gives the High Falls area of Rochester it's name:

All in all its was a fun day, and the rest of the festival was quite interesting too, ranging from food to music to purses made out of old plastic feed bags, plants for sale, and naturally jewelry made from old electronic bits.

Finally, here's a parting shot of my piece on display with the placard that had my artist's statement on it. Luckily I was able to keep it afterwards as a litle souvenir of my "win" in the contest. And that just about wraps up my day at Greentopia and the Recycled Art Competition.