In class:
Had a sub today, spent time looking at the concept of socially engaged art; or art that engages people in social issues. Condé and Beveridge were used as a study. Their work is photo-collaged and surreal. The subject often deals with social issues.

This image deals with the privatization of water.

After looking at images we came up with some social issues that are relevant to us or are current in our culture. Some of the key ones are:
- the removal of all bunnies from UVic
- Rising cost of tuition without equal raises in funding for students
- issues related to the recent renovations on campus (lack of sprinkler systems in Mac, continuing classes while asbestos removal was occurring)
- The slaughtering of 100 dogs in Whistler.

Following the class discussion we divided into groups and make collages related to the dog issue using images taken from materials in the magazine/paper bins in the class. The result was three different, but effective socially engaged art collages.
This class was extremely helpful in defining what engaged art is and looking at some of the devices used to create an engaged experience for the viewer. The exercise creating the collages of the dogs in groups was good as well. We were able to develop an image as a group that had more punch than would likely have developed if a single individual had developed it.

The Mask We Wear

So there it is, The plaster mask after a couple days of play and experimentation. Even though I dont enjoy the feeling of the plaster covering my face and I ended up building a rather featureless face-shape from a news-print built form, I had a lot of fun with this project. Once the plaster was dry, I brought it home to put on some finishing touches and decided that I didn't like any of the sketches I had done. Instead I decided to take the opportunity to dig through my various boxes of collected odds n' ends and have some fun. I started by painting the base with a lot of different colours in a mid-value range and then gave it some form by sinking in the eye sockets and cheeks with some very deep purples and greens. After dug through the boxes and selected some bits I thought could work for this. Some National Geographic images of predator animals on the hunt, some watch gears, bits of foam, etc. I am extremely pleased with the way that it turned out in the end. If I were to change anything it would be to put more hair on the top of the head and to carve the sponge that makes the mustache more or use a different material. Something I like a lot is the mono-goggle/eye-piece thing. The ear pad from a broken set of head phones found in my neighbors recycling was perfect for this. I had used it to make some marks on a painting last year and the dried paint on it really adds to the playfulness of the whole thing.

Feb 2nd Class recap... or something like that

First up was putting our juxtaposition/transformation/distortion pieces along with our statements on the display boards in the hall. Not knowing how many pieces and sizes of pieces were going to have to fit on the boards, we haphazardly posted. We were then asked to look at the boards, and re-arrange the pieces so that they were more cohesive in overall appearance. We then briefly told about our piece, one thing we would change, and one thing we like. The thing I would change is to add more detailed pen work, and what I liked was the composition and the form of the octopus/pigeon beast. The feedback I received was:
"I really love this piece - it shows the concept well and is beautiful to look at :) "
"I really dig your picture! It reminds me of the old school tattoo style. I love the combination of a pigeon and octopus."

In class we did a value exercise that involved creating a gradient on the page in some way and then drawing a landscape into it afterward.

I created the gradient with charcoal from one side of the page across to the other. Other people created gradients in a thin band down the center of the page, from the outside edge inward, from the center out, or from corner to corner. I chose to make my landscape fictitious and the forms are very "Tim Burton" inspired.

When the exercise was complete we engaged in a class discussion about which ones stood out and why. Overall I think it was the ones with the highest range of value and high contrast that people like most.

Following this we brainstormed around the concept of "Enduring Ideas". Some of the ideas we came up with were:
Change, Existence, Empowerment, Family, Courage, Love, Growth, Peace, Emotions, Freedom, Knowledge, Understanding, Happiness, Music, Communication, Respect, Empathy, Loyalty, Friendship, Companionship, Art, Expression, Creativity, Story, History or Lineage.
These ideas manifest in all kinds of ways; in the people around us, in our actions and reactions, in records or logs, in physical objects, in our art, etc. There may be different types or ways that they can be divided. Some categories they might be divided into are: Values, How we relate to one another, and how we identify with ourselves (self awareness).

The second project was to create a piece that utilized either Juxtaposition, Transformation, or Distortion. I decided to focus mine on Transformation. I looked around the internet at some other works done on transformation, and tried to come up with two or more things that I could transform. Animal transformation and metamorphosis draw my interest so I decided to merge two animals into a single creature. After some thought I decided to do a bird and a sea creature. Initially I thought I was going to do a rooster and an octopus, but after some initial sketches I decided that I didn't like the rooster because the colours were not working for what I was trying to do. I looked around some more and settled on a Pigeon. This also lead to the idea of exaggerating the size and having this Pigeon/octopus creatures size and having it attack a sea-side city. At first I had the head positioned upright on the body of the octopus, but it was loosing some of it's awkwardness and was far too rigid. I decided to maintain the soft, malleable fleshy feel of the octopus up into the neck of the pigeon which made the head tilt back. I further emphasized the uneasiness of the creature by adding back in the eye of the rooster as well as an altered version of the neck warble. This made it somewhat phallic, but I decided to leave it as it works well with the rest of the image. After the image was painted and inked in the way I had planned, it felt as though something was still missing, so I went back in with a fine tip and added more sketch/scratch marks around some of the areas like the clouds and hatching in the rocks. The addition of some black splatter relates back to the ink defenses of the octopus portion of the creature and creates some interest and contrast to the soft watercolor.

Jan 26th Class Recap

Today was mostly about the boxes. We placed them together on a table and then engaged in a group communication about them. What were the obvious differences in the boxes, interior vs exterior, open vs closed, types of containers used, etc. Following this we proceeded to communicate to the class on an individual basis, taking turns presenting our box to the rest of the class and telling a little about it. This would be a good follow up to the exercise in a high school class, but time might become an issue in a larger class. To get around this issue one might ask the students to stand up and tell the class 3 things about their box.

Following the P/R for the boxes we were introduced and began working on the next assignment; masks. I have done these kinds of masks before and really did not enjoy the feeling of the shrinking/drying plaster covering my face. As a result myself, as well as a couple other students, built head shaped forms from news paper and constructed our plaster forms on top of those. I decided to keep mine fairly featureless in construction and will end up creating the features with paint or other materials. My thoughts on the design, at the moment, are to create a slightly disfigured older being. beyond that I have a couple of ideas and have begun sketching some of them out.

at the moment I am leaning more towards the one on the right, an aged ninja-turtle type creature.

Enduring thoughts

I started thinking about enduring ideas. I started by looking at the words themselves. what are the meanings of "enduring" and "idea". I looked at dictionary definitions, the roots and origins of the word, and found a quote I enjoy about ideas.

From here I decided to do a mind map of some of the qualities of "enduring" and see where that lead me.

I quickly realized that the page I was working on was going to end up being far too small so I started over and expanded my central thought from "enduring" to the whole concept "enduring ideas"

There are several things that came out of this exercise that I am going to investigate further in fleshing out a single idea for the project: the idea of archetypes as cross cultural enduring "forms" is incredibly appealing to me. The other one is "courage" or "bravery". I'd like to see where that one could end up going.

the Life Box

The box: to be constructed from the above book. I decided to build a "box" from a book because the largest part of my life at this time is being a student.

and so with a lot of glue and a lot of time waiting for things to dry, the pages were all glued together and the center cut out

I contemplated just filling the box up with some things that reflect the "inner me" but instead decided to take it in a slightly different direction. I did some sketches and came up with some visual metaphors to represent the things I hold closes to me and transferred them onto acetate.

and then painted them all in

at this point the walls of the box were divided into sections to keep the painted pages separate, creating some depth in the scene.

all that was left was to do the outside of the box. I took some of the pages that came from the book and tore them up and pasted them onto the outside to cover all surface. I also added some images torn form a Where's Waldo book as well as some photographs and drawings.

This life box exercise was interesting for me. Exploration of self is something that I have explored before in the studio, and I always find it to be a revealing experience. However, because this followed the mandala assignment so closely, I did not have any trouble of have to invest much thought into what I was going to do for as far as visuals go. The one thing I felt through the creation of this piece was frustration - with the time investment in gluing all the pages of the book together, with the knives I was using dulling quickly and ripping pages, with the glue not adhering to the outer surface of the book, all technical things.