In preparation for my third mentor meeting...

Questions I am asking in general with my work are. . .


Does knowing more about the past give one better insight into the present or who they are?

Does the natural world (in our immediate surroundings) have an impact on who we are culturally and individually?

How does nature and what we consume from it influence us culturally and individually?

What is the importance of documenting the existence and personal stories of my family to me as an artist? Why?

Questions regarding specific works. . .

Water Secrets - How can we connect with the past and our ancestors through our interactions with the landscape? Are we connected with others through sensory cues and stories of particular places? What can our experience with nature tell us about ourselves? 

"A landscape should establish bonds between people. . . art also belongs with landscape studies as I interpret them for it is only when we begin to participate emotionally in a landscape that its uniqueness and beauty are revealed to us." - J. B. Jackson

Papier-mâché forms and transfers - How can the tactile qualities of objects and the narrative qualities of images be combined to document changes in a place over time? Can the work create an emotional connection between the viewer and work while also drawing connections between people and place, the enduring and ephemeral, experience and memory?

Hand photos and shells - The woman in my family show love and devotion to family through their work. Can my elders and ancestors be honored through my labor? Can my work connect me through time or space with them? Can the objects we touch and utilize tell as much about who we are as our stories?

Collard Leaves and Food memories audio - Can food and natural sustenance establish bonds in the same way  that a landscape can? Can what we consume connect us to place? Can it connect us to people? How can we be defined by what we consume? Where is the line between cultural and individual identities in regards to diet and traditions? What is the connection between memory, food, and place?

Inventory - What do our belongings say about the lives we live and our values? How do we determine the value of an object or a person? What can be learned from the way we organize and document our lives or our belongings?

Reflections - Sculpture & Installation

Hannah Wilke, Fork and Spoon, 1974, kneaded erasers and metal utensils
Image source

The following reflections originated with my Residency Summary from July. In italics, I have included my thoughts about how the ideas have developed over the last couple of months and how I plan to proceed now that I'm back in the studio.

Shells
- Really consider how the shell work functions beyond the memorialization of a gesture. In thinking about how I can incorporate some of the photographs I used over the summer and cross reference work across different media. I will translate my mother and grandmother's gesture photographs into shell forms.

- Revisit Hannah Wilke. I'm very interested in her gestural forms, especially when she combines abstracted gestures with representational imagery/objects. The interior space in my shells also resemble yonic forms, as well as mouth and ear cavities, creating possibilities to reference narration (what is heard and spoken)

- Consider other material for this work (etc. silicon, resin, clay) In response to my desire to create work that encourages and rewards interaction, I want to use a material that is pleasing to touch, while maintaining the sense of immediacy and level of detail that plaster lends to the work.

- Should these be multiples? Or unique? I think with the way that the idea is developing definitely unique is the way to go. I am capturing specific moments and referencing different people.

- Think about how to arrange or display work to encourage viewer interaction. Packaging? This is still under consideration.

Papier-mache
Ontologically, sculpture on the floor is confrontational to the viewer. The forms that I use are also much more aggressive (almost grotesque) than the narration that accompanies them.
Find a way to resolve this disconnect through ontological shift, use platform and/or Plexi cover, or make experience more immersive. Intentional or not, this work has Pop/Surrealist references. Consider a shift in scale.
The tactile relationship that the viewer has with the work is very important to me, which leads me to believe that limiting the work to a handheld scale should be my goal. These objects can then be displayed as collections on a shelf or in a vitrine.

Work on consolidating tone with other works
Certain motifs are more eloquent in the pictorial than in objects. In this work the motifs are too obscure, becoming illustrative of ideas rather than interactive.
How can I increase the complexity of this work? I believe the scale shift and clarifying my conceptual intentions will help answer these questions. This work displayed in context with the other work (quilts, images, audio, and reliefs, etc.) will also help build a narrative. The tone in this work should help lend meaning to the other objects rather than detract from it. I will also reintroduce papier-mache reliefs to my practice, but rather than depicting archetypes of land forms as they did before, they will map specific places and memories. This will help bridge the gap between object and pictorial.

Are these works necessary? I can't really determine this right now. I need to continue making them following the guidelines I set above and see where that takes me. Keep making and experimenting, maybe they will be absorbed into the other work. Maybe not.

If so, how can I improve their construction? Work on armatures, surface, and color.

Make sure that materiality and form connect. Why am I using paper to create this work? Is there a way to use paper in a more intentional way with this work? These questions need to be clarified for me personally and it the work itself.

Reflecting on the Residency

Specific ideas to explore from critique feedback that will guide my research and practice this semester…

·         Use collage as a way to sketch ideas, using metaphor to create narrative.

·         Material-based language can still help me realize my vision.

o    Look for objects that help to tell a story.

o    Think about the difference between found object vs. translating object through a different material.

§  What are advantages/disadvantages of each?

o    How can objects encapsulate a moment?

o    How can objects appeal to the viewer’s senses and emotions?

·         Work toward a unification of tone in text, narration, object and image-based work.

·         Can my work be framed as a fusion of scientific investigation and fantasy?

·         Consider more carefully ironic elements present in my practice; photographs of ephemeral sculptures, topography depicted through kitsch, etc.

·         Combining narration and the pictorial is more easily accepted by the viewer than narration and objects. Find a way to resolve this. Either make the objects/installation more immersive or more pictorial.

Gratitude

Reorganized crit space

The third residency has come to an end and today I begin a new semester. This past residency was extremely beneficial and I felt that I learned a lot about myself, my work, how to articulate my ideas and the art community I will soon be a part of. 

I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the support and guidance of my cohort, residency friends, and the faculty at Lesley. Thanks to everyone! It was truly an honor to be included in the curated group show, Missing, with artists that I love and admire. Thank you to everyone involved in organizing the show and to those who attended the opening.

I'll spend the next couple of days sorting through all of my seminar and critique notes. A detailed plan for the next semester will be posted here by the end of the week. 

Mentor Meeting Notes

Artists

• Arthur Dove 
• Bryon Kim 
• Isamu Noguchi 
• Leonardo Drew 
• Rose Marie Trockel 
• Dario Robleto 
• Whitfield Lovell 
• Niki de Saint Phalle 

Books
Poetics of Space – Gaston Bachelard

Things to consider

• Personal mapping/archaeology 
• Use of a legend to read a map 
• Keep drawing. The drawings are loose active and expressive. They are also a gift. A method for exploring ideas to add color to 3D objects without experimenting on the work. 
• Get in the habit of making samples. Start to build a library of samples for material, surface, and color. Take detailed notes and include this information with the sample. 
• In regards to the creeks, think about time and sequence 
• Strive for forms that are richly processed (not just one thing) 
• Make everything that comes as an idea, don’t try to make a consistent body of work, edit later 
• Experiment with adding color to plaster works. It might make the work feel more complete and less familiar. 
• In regards to the leaves, the specimen display emphasizes individualism and the content is more loosely implied. The monochromatic stacks are more mysterious. 
• Consider how rigorous I have to be with personal/family content driven choices 
• Where is the line between aesthetic and being faithful to memories? 
• Expand the spectrum of work, include everything from diagrams/maps to objects 
• Pedestals are the most neutral way to view a 3D artwork. Consider frames/pedestals as furniture contextualizing artwork within its time. Experiment with shelves/brackets, cabinets, tables, a set of shelves? 
• Start experimenting with object arrangements. Look to modes of natural history display to start putting these objects together. 
• If each object is one word, what sentence would they make when assembled together? 

Reflecting on 2nd Residency

The last two weeks, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the 2nd residency and what it's going to take to move forward. One thing became evident very early on, even before the first critique. Although I feel a lot of progress was made with the technical aspects and conceptual ideas surrounding my sand paintings, continuing that body of work in its current form is not very high on my agenda. I plan to explore paper as a medium more in the current semester; in the form of papier-mache embellished objects, cast leaves, and possibly biomorphic forms. I feel paper is a fascinating material to work with because it comes with a history and it has a physical memory. Paper begins its life as a natural, living object and is intentionally transformed in form and function. I believe this transformation is echoed by my artistic process. I also appreciate paper for its tactile qualities and versatility.

From A Distance

“Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it but can only describe it from a certain vantage point of distance.” 

–Charles Lindbergh

Now that I've had some time and distance to ruminate over the conversations, critiques and seminars of June's residency, I have determined which areas to concentrate on over the coming months.

Questions gleaned from critique feedback that will guide my research and practice this semester…

• Where am I in the work? Find a way combine personal connection with topography/patterning.

• What is ephemeral? The meaning behind concentric circles, spirals, paisley?

• Where does labor have value in everyday life? Where does the material become secondary to labor?

• What creates pattern naturally vs. man-made processes that cause stylized patterning?

• Is the work about making/constructing or material?

• How would the viewer relate to different materials?

• How does one record an ephemeral experience?

• How can painting and sand work inform one another?

• Historically women have preserved culture and traditions through their work. How can I reference this in my own work?

• What is the role of pattern? Where are pattern and ornamentation derived from?

• Why use sand? Is it specific to me?

• What is more important in the sand work media or pattern?

• What role does map making and topography have in the work? Research these topics.

One

This is the work and artist statement I brought to the first residency. The majority of the work was made in 2014, although a couple of the paintings were made the year before and one was completed this year. They represent three bodies of work: Mineral Pop, Below, and Sandscapes. The Mineral Pop series fuses geological surface micro-landscapes with their imagined iconography, while the Sandscapes and Below series reinterpret aerial and ground view landscapes as patterns of color and movement. 

 Artist Statement

I create work that combines qualities of natural and artificial worlds using primarily sand and acrylic as my media. My sculptures and paintings reflect an admiration of nature and humanity’s attempt to balance its role as steward of the environment with an innate desire to objectify and control it. My creative process mirrors this relationship by constructing space, both real and imagined, through the act of pouring and sculpting media. My work is unified by the thematic exploration of landscape, process, biomorphic shapes, and use of color and texture. Process is emphasized by manipulating media. In addition to the gesture of pouring mounds of sand or sculpting paint, my work requires intense preparation procedures like dyeing sand or mixing various blends with paint medium. Using colors that can be found in nature, but in vibrant hues, I reference the use of bright, isolated colors in popular culture and advertising. Texture engages the senses, indicative of a tangible connection to the work and its content. I use biomorphic shapes and forms to give life to inanimate objects implicating a connection between nature and the life it supports.

I choose natural materials for my three dimensional work. I utilize sand and rice as metaphors for the earth and humanity’s connection to it. In the context of my work, these materials also symbolize the instinctive desire to manipulate nature. My sculptural body of work borrows from a non-Western spiritual practice, creating artwork that incorporates design and performance: traditionally sand painting rituals are performed to bless and purify those present. My pieces break away from the confines of sacred geometry and imagery to additionally serve as a metaphor for human manipulation of nature by emphasizing repetitive gesture, pattern, and process.

 

 

I have been experimenting ways of photographing my sand practice so that its documentation serves also as an extension of the work. I brought a collection of these images in addition to creating a small table top sand painting in my crit space.

Installation view of crit space

Installation view of crit space

Detail of Pennsylvania Hills