Sunday, January 30, 2011

What next?

With as many studio classes as I have this semester, I'm already beginning to feel a bit burned out.  Which isn't good, since we're barely two weeks into it.  I have 3 months left to go.  So here's what I've decided.

I had my concept that I'd been working from.  The idea of looking back at family history.  I won't go into the details again, you can look at previous posts for that.  But basically, I've decided to sub divide that concept so that while all my work is in a similar concept, each class I'm dealing with different content.  That way it breaks up my day a bit.  Otherwise I'm dealing with the same thing all day Tuesdays and Thursdays, and it gets dull and monotonous and it starts to feel like I have to force it.

So in Painting I'm going to focus on the Trundle Bed Tales, the book of family stories from my maternal grandmother's side of the family.

In Printmaking I'm going to work with The Grandma Christine Story, the autobiography of my maternal great grandmother.

And in Sculpture I'm going to go a bit more meta and focus on the entire idea of written history, and the value we give to the written word even though it's completely subjective.

For the next sculpture project, the one I have to start on Tuesday, I've been thinking about what we did the first day of class.  Two Truths and a Lie.  We've all played the game.  It's just a silly, fun way to get to know people in class.  But it does make me wonder.  Did/does my family play the game when passing on family history?  What they don't say is almost as interesting as what they do say.  Am I getting the whole story?  Is there any way to reliably pass on the 'truth'?  It's really all just a story.  One supposedly based on real life events, true, but how can we really be sure?  Especially in the case of the Trundle Bed Tales, which involves stories dating back to around the time of the Civil War.  We can look at their letters and pictures and listen to the stories, but we can't really be sure that it's 100% accurate because there's no one around to corroborate. 

But we still treat it like it's an accurate record of our family history.  Because it's written down.  If you pass something on verbally, it's like a game of telephone.  You expect there to be little inconsistencies or embellishments.  But something written, well, that means they took their time and got it all right, right? 

As with my last 'planning' post, I don't really know yet how these thoughts are going to manifest yet.  I have the beginnings of an idea, but it still needs to percolate for a little while before I share.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Busy little bee

Nothing like spending 7 hours in the studio to start your relaxing weekend off right.

I decided to make a structure out of fabric and wood with the express intent of installing it outside so that the elements can wreak their havoc. Because of the time constraints I wanted to keep it fairly simple. I ended up building a cube frame.



Simple, and also has that man-made/did-not-come-from-nature feel to it.



I ended up painting it white. The paint helped hide some of the construction boo boos I had to fix with putty, and the whiteness will help show any wear and tear. I used muslin for the fabric. I wanted something simple that would show degradation, and, well, muslin's cheap and I had some already.

I used upholstery tacks to attach the fabric to the frame (also ended up throwing some finishing nails in between the tacks since it was gaping just a little too much and I was out of tacks). They didn't hammer in that well. They'd go in about halfway and after that I was really more bending what was left until the head was flush. One in particular wouldn't go where it needed to go and I kept having to reposition, until finally it decided it had had enough beatings for one day and jumped ship.



But a little 90 second epoxy from Walgreens took care of that.



I stretched 4 strips of fabric on the inside of the cube. I wanted something that at least vaguely referenced the source story, about the bridge that washed away. After they were on I soaked them with water so that they'll stretch tight (hopefully...it works with canvas, I'm just assuming it works with other fabric).





I'll need to touch up some of the paint. The corners are looking dingy from getting turned a million times, even though I cleaned off the table first. It's all going to get dirty eventually, but I want it clean to start off. I also have a length of rope that I still need to attach. It's supposed to be a hanging sculpture. But I have to look up good strong knots first. I want to make sure it's not going to fall on anyone.

My plan is to hang it somewhere (where exactly, I don't know yet, I haven't gotten that far) and photograph it at regular intervals. I haven't gotten any more specific than that yet, but for now I'll just settle for finishing it on time for crit Tuesday.


Sculpture wasn't the only thing I got done today, though. The paint was still drying when I was done sewing the muslin panels, so I went up to the painting studio and got my plastic and fabric nailed to the wall so I can start painting it on Tuesday right away.



Yes, that is a vagina cut out and embroidered. But that's a story for the next post.

Friday, January 14, 2011

And so it begins

For those coming to this blog who aren't part of my UNL Sculpture class, you may want to know this is technically an assignment.  I don't want to treat it as such, and hopefully it doesn't read like something I'm doing because I have to.  But if, from time to time, I throw up a post that seems out of place or put together quickly or just generally half assed, it's probably because I had to put something up, even if I'm having an off or particularly busy week.  But I hope that most of the time I post, it's because I have something to say.

We've been given a small, very open to interpretation assignment to start off the class.  Just something to help us get back into the swing of things before we have to suddenly come up with our own ideas (sometimes much harder than it sounds).  We pointed blindly at a map and picked a city.  And that's it.  That's our jumping off point.  Anything goes.

I should probably point out that I'll be graduating in May (knock on wood), so I'm trying to create a cohesive body of work throughout all my studio classes (sculpture, painting, printmaking), so that I have a good selection when it comes time to put together my capstone show.

Since I'm trying to fit everything together, it would probably help to understand what it is I'm doing.  I'll have to write an organized, professional looking artist statement this semester, and in fact I have to have the first rough draft done next week, but for now I'll just ramble a bit.  

Late last fall I rediscovered my love of sewing.  My mom's handy enough with a needle (she made her own wedding dress, after all), and I think it was probably her who first showed me how to hand sew.  I honestly don't remember learning so I can't be sure.  I know it was my grandmother who taught me how to use a sewing machine.  It was an old one, built into a little table/desk.  It didn't have a foot pedal.  I think there was a little lever you had to push to the side with your knee.  I'm pretty sure she's still using the same one.  Anyway, she threaded the machine, and drew some lines and spirals on pieces of paper, and showed me how to follow along the lines.  I was very proud of myself.

I went in and out of sewing phases throughout my childhood and teens.  Helped my mom make a few (matching *groan*) dresses for ourselves, made a baby blanket quilt for my new cousin Sam.  It was fun, but I tended to bounce around between interests somewhat schizophrenically back then.  OK, maybe I still do sometimes.  Point being, I never got so into it that it became a big part of my life, but it was always there.

In the last year, as I approach graduation and potentially moving away, I've gotten very nostalgic.  I've gone through photo albums and rewatched so many Disney movies I could probably quote whole scenes perfectly.  And most importantly for my art, I finally read a book I've had for most of my life.  The Grandma Christine Story.  My great grandmother's autobiography, with the cloth cover she individually embroidered for all of us grandchildren so that each copy has our name on it.  There are also the Trundle Bed Tales, another family history (I admit I'm still not sure what relation the woman who wrote it is...there are a lot of Margarets and Georges and I'm not even a quarter of the way through it yet...but I think she's a great great something or other).

I really found myself connecting to my family history.  And with that it seemed natural to reconnect with sewing.  Most of the women in the family seemed to have sewn, if only for practical reasons.  My grandmother still makes quilts (she made me a really beautiful starburst quilt for my high school graduation).  

It's that connection to family history, who my ancestors were, what they chose to write down, that I find myself exploring in my work.  Not just finding a story I like and illustrating it, but thinking about what it means today, how the context has changed, and how it's relevant to a modern world.  Sewing plays a part in most of my work, not only as a connection to family history, but also as a reclamation of a traditionally 'crafty' medium.  


All of that was a very long winded way of explaining how I went about approaching this project.

I pointed to Kennewick, Washington, a place I knew nothing about (which is probably more interesting).  It's a decent sized city, around 55,000 (or was in 2000).  But what I was most drawn by was a story about a railroad.  In 1887 the Northern Pacific Railroad built a bridge across the Columbia River, to connect Kennewick and Pasco.  It was meant to be a temporary bridge, but they probably weren't planning on having it wash away the very first winter it had to go through.  They built a better, stronger, more permanent version shortly after, which still stands today.

But I find myself drawn to that idea of an unstoppable river.  Because really, nothing's changed in over 100 years.  We have incredible feats of engineering and architecture all over the world, but mother nature still kicks our ass on a regular basis.  Flooding, snow, earthquakes, tsunamis...we can do our best to make our infrastructure resistant to damage and destruction, but in the end we're at the mercy of the elements.

And in the last decade in particular, the elements seem pissed.

So how am I going to translate the idea of the insignificance of mankind compared to the unstoppable power of nature into sculpture?  

Eh, I have until Tuesday to figure that out.