Rebecca Solnit (Art Author)

Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit is a writer based out of San Francisco who has written several books on a variety of topics including the environment, politics, place and most importantly, art. She grew up in Novato, California where she attained her GED from an alternative junior high and eventually enrolled in junior college. A study trip to Paris interrupted her college education, but upon return she finished what she started at San Francisco State College. Following SFSC, she attained her Masters Degree in Journalism from UC Berkeley.

Solnit has published thirteen books total as well as a huge collection of essays for museums and catalogs. Although she is most widely known for her critiques and literary works on art, she clearly has an interest in humanitarian and environmental efforts as well. One of her more well known books titled Savage Dreams for example spoke out against the war during the Bush era. Another popular book by Solnit titled A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster began as an essay but was later reworked into a full book detailing issues surrounding Hurricane Katrina.

Collection Project

When assigned this project I wasn't quite sure what kind of collection I would want to arrange or organize in a new way. Since I live in an apartment I don't have a whole lot of space to store collections of physical things. But after I thought about the project for a little while I realized I have a decently sized music collection on my laptop. Since I don't spend a lot of time looking at my album covers or making sure that they are accurate I decided it might be interesting to pick out a handful that caught my eye. After picking out about 35, I arranged them in a specific way and narrowed it down to 35 covers.

My initial idea was to have a progression or gradient from most color to least. But as I began organizing them in this fashion, I noticed that some of the columns had their own characteristics as well. For example the middle column tends to have covers that contain geometric patterns and shapes. The far left column also tends to have organic features. 

Artist Research #6: Michael Wille (Painter)

Michael Wille

For this weeks artist research we had another student's choice. Since the painting and drawing list is so long I wanted to find another artist within it whose work I enjoyed. After looking through just a handful I stumbled upon Michael Wille's work and was suddenly fascinated by his abstract paintings. His works are simple, geometric and colorful in general. He uses several techniques to portray an variety of moods with seemingly little effort. Each has their own color scheme, collection of shapes and story to tell. He has several different series of works that each have their own pattern of overlapping and placement. 

Series: Looping

                              

Michael Wille is another artist who doesn't have a whole lot of biographical information online. According to his website, he currently resides in Normal, Illinois, but has been a part of several group and solo exhibitions around the globe including venues such as the Space Art Gallery in Pittsburgh, Hoffman LaChance Contemporary in St. Louis, Resolution Gallery in Johannesburg (South Africa) and the University of Mississippi Art Gallery. A number of his works can also be viewed at corporate businesses like The Four Seasons Hotel in Boston, Vinson and Elkins (LLC) in Houston, The Benzinger Family Wineries in California and the Renaissance Suites Hotel in Chicago.  

Series: Subterranean Gateway

Project #2: Wood Joints

For the second project we were assigned, we were simply to recreate three different types of wooden joints that were shown in class. Although this was a very simple and quick assignment it was great for introducing us to the wood shop and getting us comfortable with using the different saws and tools. Also, after working with the compressed cardboard, Tim in the wood shop gave me some other wood that was much easier to work with.

Although cutting the boards down was the quickest and easiest part of the job, it was also the most frightening. Cutting through the first few gave me instant comfort, but I made sure to take it slow and be cautious of where my hands were placed.

 The part that gave me the most trouble was the initial hole that you bore to give the screw's head space inside the wood. The bit used for this step was very dull and was the only one available at the time so the most complex of the joints has screw heads slightly sticking out. Normally I would redo them if I were making a functional object since they could easily snag clothing or even skin but since these were for practice I feel like I understand the importance of pre-drilling those holes.

Artist Research #5: Chris Burden (Performance, Sculpture, Installation)

Chris Burden

For this week's artist research we were to choose from the performance artist list. Like I normally do, I browsed many of the different artists work to find one that really stood out to me. What I realized when browsing a lot of these artists was that I was pretty unfamiliar with the performance art world and that a lot of it was purely to draw negative emotions out of the viewer. None of the artists that I looked at really impressed me with the beauty of their work, but some definitely stood out due to the ideas behind them. Chris Burden is a prime example. He is most famous for his 1971 piece, titled Shoot, which involved an assistant shooting his left arm from a distance of about five meters.

Most of his well known performances come from a series where he focused on personal danger as being the artists form of expression. Trans-Fixed was another gruesome performance where he basically was wheeled out of a garage on the front of a Volkswagen Beetle. He had both of his hands nailed to the surface of the car much like a crucifixion. The performance involved him on top of this car while the engine reved for two minutes before being wheeled back inside the garage.

Another very famous and dangerous performance he performed was entitled Doomed and took place in 1975. The idea behind this work was that he would lay motionless underneath a slate of glass in the middle of a Chicago art gallery. There was also a clock next to him marking the time he lay under the glass. His intention was to lay there without moving until someone interrupted him and the piece. It eventually ended over forty-five minutes later when a museum employee brought him a pitcher of water and placed it within reach. This prompted Burden to smash the glass and the clock, ending the performance.

TAF Project #1 Progress

This is just another update of our first project using the totem, amulet, fetish molds. Right now I have one of my positives completely finished and two are on the way to being completed. Here are some pictures of the wax sculpture that I finished. After both sides had hardened, I popped them out of the molds and cleaned them up. This step took a lot longer than I was expecting since there was lots of plaster dust that stuck to the wax positives. After touching them up and removing as much of the plaster as possible. I heated up both sides and formed them into one object. More heat was applied to smooth everything out and to bring out the smooth texture it once had.

My other two positives are made out of paper and plaster. Currently the paper mold is about finished and is just drying. I will sand off some of the imperfections and smooth it out a little more as well. The plaster positive is still drying in two pieces, inside the original plaster mold. I am hoping that the more detailed half comes out cleanly so I won't have to do a ton of maintenance on it later. But overall I am confident I will have all three positives finished and cleaned up by the due date, Wednesday.

Artist Research #4: Benji Whalen (Fiber & Craft)

Benji Whalen

Normally when I choose an artist from the list on the syllabus I research a few names that pop out at me and I pick which of their works are most appealing to me. Since this week's medium was up to us I wanted to find an artist whose work was not just visually attractive, but made me question it as well. When I first started viewing Benji Whalen's work, I was somewhat confused. He seemed to focus on two or three distinct subjects or themes in his work which had many different variations and designs. A large number of his works are cotton arms, separated at the shoulder with various tattoos embroidered on them like the one shown above. The other vast majority of his works are 3D collages which look like piles of people on top of one another, doing a variety of activities, some more vulgar than others...

Not a whole lot of information on Whalen's life is available but what is known is that he was born in New York, New York and raised in Plainfield, Vermont. He attended Columbia College where he was a Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in English. After being awarded the Cadogan Scholarship, he attended and graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute with a M.F.A. in painting. He currently resides in San Francisco but has contributed and been featured in many exhibitions around the globe. 

After looking through some of Whalen's works a few more times I can't say that I understand his works any more than I did the first time through. I also noticed he had a few series of paintings of very unusual subjects. One series is of various still life images of folded blankets and sleeping bags. They are draped over objects and positioned in ways to maximize the dramatic depth of each fold and groove. Among his more popular works I was very impressed by his ability to make cotton embroideries look more solid and almost lifelike. He clearly has an interest in tattoo arm sleeves and has done an amazing job making the sew job look like ink on human skin. He also has quite an interest in the absurd which can be seen in his 3D collages. Like I mentioned earlier, they tend to be piles of figures who are all unrelated and are all engaged in their own activities. The figures are depicted as almost gruesome, animalistic creatures who are stepping over each other to get to their goals.  

Mold Project Progress

Update on TAF Project Molds

Here are some pictures of the second oil clay model that I made. The first one didn't work out as well because I was impatient when casting the plaster negative and the whole process ruined the texture of my original mold. Sculpting a second mold actually allowed me to modify some of the problems I was having with the first one anyways. For instance I changed some of the dimensions and replaced the stack of newspaper with a custom cut wooden plank for more stability.

The top picture is what the second model looked like after I had popped it out of the negative mold I casted. As you can see it is mostly still intact - much more so than my previous one. The bottom pictures show each side of the mold. They turned out as I had hoped but with a few minor imperfections. There were a few little bubble that got in and I had to smooth out the bottom with a putty knife but that was no problem. 

Today I started working on my wax positives using my plaster negative molds. After soaking each half in water to release all of the air bubbles, I attempted to seal the two together using strips of clay. After applying some pressure I accidentally cracked the thinner, bottom mold. This set me back somewhat as I had to recreate one half of my mold. Once I had two solid halves of my mold I decided that instead of sealing the two and filing it with wax, I would make two different halves and weld them together to make one whole positive. Currently the two halves are hardening and I will finish putting it together and cleaning it all up tomorrow.

Artist Research #3: Frank Stella (Painter & Printmaker)

Frank Stella

When browsing the list of artists for this week's artist research I noticed the category 'painting and drawing' had many artists to choose from. After researching a selection of them, Frank Stella's work stood out to me instantly. I 'm a big fan of abstract, colorful, geometric designs which is exactly what Stella achieves in his pieces. Many of his prints and paintings are elegant and symmetrical whereas many others are warped and extremely complex. Those that are simple tend to employ circles and semi circles in different arrangements. The more complex pieces feature colored checkerboards mixed with swirling tornado patterns. All of them catch the viewer's eye in a different way that is unique to Frank Stella's style.

Frank Stella was born and raised in Massachusetts where he graduated from Phillips Academy. After high school he studied history at Princeton University. Visits to art museums in New York influenced his artistic side. Specifically, the abstract expressionist work of Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline is what inspired Stella to move in that direction. Expecting to get drafted by the army, he spent a summer in New York. When he wasn't drafted by the military he decided to take up painting as a serious career choice. 

Stella's later work moved more towards 3D sculptures and installations after having been stuck in a repetitious cycle of creating similar prints and paintings. These works were highly experimental and utilized many different techniques to create the cones, pillars, French curves, waves, and decorative architectural elements that Stella was so fond of.