we've all got our junk...

Since our discussion on Wednesday about gas welding I felt much less daunted and much more excited about my next piece. I began looking at the artists Greg had recommended and was really struck by the work of John Chamberlain. This piece, Dolores James resonated with me, first of all because of the color and also because of the way the individual pieces interact with each other.

(Dolores James, John Chamberlain, 1962)

I had been thinking of my piece as a tangled mess of “wire” but realistically I don’t want it to be a mess. In Chamberlain’s work while often made of multiple components doesn’t simply appear as a jumbled pile of car scraps. The pieces bend and mold around each other with some appearance of intention even though the work remains gestural and intuitive.

I hadn’t really thought about color in my piece and even in thinking about our trip to the scrap yard I hadn’t considered the prospect that there would be colored materials to choose from and work with. This seems odd to me now since last term I thought a lot about finding ways to incorporate color into my piece. As it stands now I’m in a holding pattern until our trip next week to the junk yard. I think whatever I find there will definitely be informing the actual shape of my piece and how they’re transformed.

What happens when we melt something? The objects are disfigured? destroyed? maimed? ruined? transformed? united with another object? relaxed? stretched? twisted? reconfigured? freed? re-thought? reduced? re-used? re-cycled? undefined? redefined?

What happens when we see this piece? The faces emerge. They’re not disfigured. We see creation not destruction. Not even the records seem defaced just repeated. The face disappears slowly from one to the other as if we’re losing ourselves in the music. or are we finding ourselves? Is it even about music?

But who are we kidding this face isn’t ours. We’re not finding or losing anything, we’re looking at melted records in a frame. It’s cool yes but does it actually say anything?

What if we consider the name Through the Barricade. Where are the faces coming from? What barricade are the pressed against? The word through can’t be already completed because nothing has passed through the records - if those are in fact the barricade - so has the sentence been edited? are we “passing” Through the Barricade?

and what if we look at it from this angle. They look sad.

But so what??

The reason I ended up looking at this piece by L017 was because I wanted to melt things (still do, always have really) so I wanted to look at what other people have melted and called art. While I appreciate this piece for its cool factor I really feel no connection to it. I don’t doubt it has meaning to the artists or to other viewers - if anyone reading this has any thoughts on the piece I would really love to hear them - but for me I can’t get much past the wow that’s cool part which is why I started asking all those questions; to try and realize why melting is interesting. What I realized was that what’s interesting or cool about this is not that it’s melted but that it’s transformative. It’s faces into records or records into faces.

I actually started out looking at another “piece” that I saw in the British Museum three years ago called “The Throne of Weapons” by a Mozambican artist Cristovao Canhavato (Kester).

This piece is striking for the obvious reason - that it’s made of guns. What makes it so much more interesting is the significance of the guns. It’s no surprise (or shouldn’t be) that many African countries since the end of colonization have had a lot of political unrest. The chair in that context alone becomes more intriguing. What’s more is that the weapons Kester used in this piece were acquired through a program called Transformaçaõ de Armas em Enxadas (Transforming Arms into Tools) through which both sides of the conflict voluntarily turned in their weapons for farm and construction tools. What I learned in going back to find this piece was that chairs and stools have even more significance in many African countries where they’re viewed as symbols of power and prestige.

Personally, I connect to this piece much more than to the first. I think both pieces have an amount of weight and realistically I think the difference is cultural. I would LOVE to make a piece like this with so much weight and symbolism and significance but it comes from a place of violent political unrest that I imagine penetrates much more of a person’s life than any sort of political unrest we may face in our own country. Even without any history the piece addresses obvious violence which is universally recognizable while the first piece, Through the Barricade, is much more emotional, specific and personal to the artist which I think is indicative of our modern western culture. While both pieces could be said to be trying to connect with the world I think L017’s work is reaching out asking for our attention while the Throne of Weapons is silently commanding our attention and focusing it on a universal condition rather than a personal crisis.

Okay a quick two-parter....

I've come up with a possible new idea for the base of the sculpture, I'm going to look for a table to pull for the installation to set the typewriter on, something fitting the tone of the piece and to ground it in space.

I'm also simplifying the piece for now. I'd like to finish it to the way I described earlier with the wave over head and the pieces dispersing but for now I want to make sure it looks clean and finished for next weekend when we install. I'm going to keep the wave (?) I have and get that stable in the type writer. I'm also going to finish the back of it so that it has options for where it gets placed in the space.

Part Two!

As for the next project... While, I don't know exactly what that will be yet I've been thinking about layers and what's always there in the back of your mind. While that doesn't necessarily have to equate to torment it's at least one possibility.

I searched wire sculpture because the self contained seemingly tangled mess has always been an image that reads torment for me and I came across Antony Gormley. A lot of his collections include a lot of figure work but the work that caught my eye was his collection called Extended Polyhedra Works. On his website (www.antonygormley.com) he describes the collection as "In these dematerialised works the bodies are free, lost in space, weightless, and with no internal determination. They appear as emergent zones: you cannot be sure whether the bubble matrix is produced by the body zone of the zone by the matrix."

What I find so interesting about Gormley's work is that despite what I expect to be chaotic because of the wire it's still very structured. As seen in Touch (2007).

The Search for the Title

Okay so my plan for Spring Break is to finish Sculpture Numero Uno. What this involves (in no particular order) IS (drumroll please.....)

getting the base cut out

painting the base

finding a way to secure the "wave" to the typewriter

completing the wave

probably securing the typewriter to the base

finding an aesthetic and secure way to hang the whole thing

at least coming up with a second base option just in case hanging fails

I'm still on the fence about the base. I like the idea of it hanging but I'm concerned about it falling or looking bad or whichever. I'm also having problems imagining it hanging because with the suspension of the wave itself I'm wondering if it needs something to ground it.

Now that I'm thinking about it, depending on the placement of the piece in the space I'm not sure how to "complete" it. If it's going to be free standing should it be conical? Is it a volcano?

Back to making stuff land!

oh and I have to find a title

I get by with a little help from my friends

Like I said in my last post, I don't know many sculptors or installation artists. For me these blogs have been pretty empty as far as providing actual sculptural images but I've found it very helpful looking at everyone elses blogs and having ideas to bounce off of. So for now here are pictures from other peoples blogs that I've found useful. Thanks guys!

From Kim's Blog: From Rudy's Blog:

Let this be our little secret...

Once upon a time I realized I didn't know many installation artists. This was a problem because I was in this sculpture class that was doing an installation and I didn't really know what that meant. One day I remembered that every Sunday I read Post Secret, which is "an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard." (http://www.postsecret.com/).

The creator, Frank Warren, along with speaking tours, books and his own blog, also displays in galleries in what I would define as an installation. I began looking at these displays when I was thinking about font and text and how to take up space with flat objects.

Even though I'm not totally sure Warren counts as a sculptor I think the way he displays his work uses space in interesting ways. What I find most interesting in this picture specifically is the way the light interacts with the free standing walls and the shadows it casts from the

post cards. Considering the subject matter of the post cards I think the shadows can carry a lot of weight.

I know we've talked a lot about suspension but I also thought this was a useful visual of the impact of hanging things and reminded me to think about the height of the hanging objects and how people interact with the hanging elements.

'I can transform like Optimus Prime.'

So we've been on this Translations thing for two months. To be honest everyone seems to be saying it's so broad and I suppose it is but under the circumstances of what we started talking about it was a bit more reasonable. I mean we talked about facebook and technology and communication and how technology changes not only how we communicate but how we are able to understand each other, if in fact we still can. We're not translating any more from language to language but rather from interpretation to interpretation or tone to tone or emoticon to emoticon. I think we've all kind of taken steps out of this discussion in various ways but maybe breadth isn't a bad thing. We won't really be able to tell until it's all put together.

Personally, I think I've struggled a bit with translation versus transformation. So I looked them up.

translate (trans lāt')

v.t.

1. to turn (something expressed, esp. written) from one language into another.

2. to change the form, condition, or nature of.

3. to explain in simpler terms

trans·form

–verb (used with object)

1. to change in form, appearance, or structure; metamorphose

to change in condition, nature, or character; convert.

I feel like translation is the audial or the literal version of transformation or that transformation is the visual representation of translation. At the same time, when I think of transformation I think turning one thing into another where as when I think translation I think of pushing the understanding of something or maintaining the essence while presenting it in a different way. So then with the piece I have now am I transforming objects or am I translating ideas into a visual vocabulary? Or is it all just semantics?

Drop Beats not Bombs

I've made a step in a direction.

This Saturday I started on my see where it goes plan and while I know I'm not creating in a vaccuum I'

m not totally sure how this all developed.

I started by taking apart my typewriter and found to my surprise that a typewriter is all one piece surrounded by

it's case. I don't know why I was struck by this, it is after all a machine, but

once the case was off so was my brain. While the outside was somewhat shiny and new the inside was as old and dirty and thus to my eyes beautiful as I always romanticized typewriters to be.

Somehow this sparked in my brain a ton of paper flying out of it. So that's what I did. Ideally what I want these pages to do is to create a wave of sorts that extends over the head of the viewer and then trickles out across the ceiling.... that will make more sense with a picture.

But this image I realized reminded me of an illustration I can't find where there's a flock of birds flying into a tree and a group of fighter planes flying out the other side dropping bombs.

Vaguely, it's something like this. I think this is because I view the pages as flying out of the typewriter, or even exploding. I think the reason I connect my image to the birds dropping bombs because I think I see a transformation in the trickling out of the pages in the same way that the birds come out of the group that forms the feathers and bombs transform the birds into airplanes.

(www.Threadless.com)

I was really excited about this break through and I still am. Wednesday I went into

class to re evaluate what I'd done when I saw a subconscious inspiration.

Now I do still like what I've done even though I feel somewhat unoriginal. But this all got me thinking again on what made this piece - I don't know, original? Or more importantly I guess I tried to figure out what my motivations were .

I see it as a visual translation of my process aka my word vomit of the last post. It all comes out in a jumbled mess but through it one or two ideas trickle out or escape to actually be manifested.

So what's left? Complete the wave. Attach it to the typewriter. Suspend it from the ceiling? Hopefully more to update when these questions are answered

42 aka the reason people hate blogs aka mind map of my week

So I've been thinking about the project and myself and about what Greg talked about the other day and so this may be kind of word vomitous but what else is new.

So from where I was with text and font I couldn't get anywhere. I think there's something there but I can't find the right things that will really raise the questions I'm looking for.

While that was hitting its stand still I was starting to worry about the end of semester stuff, not the least of which was this project that I've done barely anything but think about and these blog posts that I haven't done and the fact that the ideas I had for blog posts are now somewhat useless with the haulting set backs of the last idea - [Insert Panic Button Here].

When I hit these walls planning goes out the window. It's like my plans and the project are two different things and very rarely similar. So we make a U Turn at the wall and just drive....like I said word vomit... Pretty much I just needed to start doing or making something on this project that was actually productive. So I turned to the things I bought on our trip to Goodwill - two coverless old law books and a typewriter- and I went back to my first blog post about book art or art books or books as art or whatever it is and I started drawing and painting in one of the books.

At the same time as I'm trying to just make stuff that looks cool to quench my self indulgent I need to do something mood I was thinking about how I could turn this into an installation and what it could possibly have to do with translations when I remembered Greg's blog post about translators and the idea that in order to translate we need to have a full understanding of two languages or two ideas etc... and what I decided was that the only thing I could really be a master of and really make a statement on was what I thought was beautiful or even just interesting to look at.

I've never really given myself any credit or legitimately thought of myself as an artist because I've felt I lacked a personal vision or specific hand. But I think what I never realize is that how I literally see the world is not how everyone else sees the world and I've never provided an outlet for that.

So now I present my world, the way I see it. My translation of beauty.

Here's a taste --

"We must not be afraid of ideas..." Richard Nixon

PLEASE PROCEED TO THE END OF THE BLOG POST FOR THE SHORT VERSION

So I've been approaching this blog in a completely different way then I have been approaching the class. I think about the blog and I think I don't know what to post but I think about the installation and think I know what I want to do. Then eventually I realize that that is what I should post about.

When we landed on translation as our topic and the film Helvetica came up it started the ball rolling. Around the same time I heard about Helvetica in 2008 I heard about the Cold War Modern exhibit at the V & A Museum in London where I was going to be spending the fall and I was stoked. So probably because of this time line the two are linked in my mind. At the exhibit they showed the plans for Stalin's memorial to himself which unfortunately I can't find an image of. What's important though is that it's extremely grandiose with tons of flourishes. They also looked at the architecture in the Soviet state which was concrete and impenetrable (See below).

The exhibit then compared these buildings that in a way seemed to hide what was inside with the American

sky scrapers built during the same time- for example the World Trade Center in New York which was finished in the 70s which was steel and glass.

Essentially what's being said is that in America we're transparent and not hiding anything while in the Soviet Union we're secretive hide behind flourishes and impenetrable. Was the exhibit biased? Yea probably the English were after all on our side of the Iron Curtain but these are the design thoughts that stuck in my head from the exhibit.

Now, I still have yet to really watch Helvetica, it was only on in the background once when I was trying to figure out how to register for an absentee ballot, but one of the things I remember about it, or really what I can deduce about it just from observing the font, is that it's clean, simple and easy to read. It doesn't mask anything with flourishes or imply anything with italics. For me in observing it there is a boldness in it's simplicity that is somehow capable of being authoritative and - this may be a leap - in a way calming. It may seem weird that these two things can exist in the same font but here's what I mean.

This is a font called Arial that was derived from Helvetica and is not really too different and since Blogger doesn't have Helvetica will work for this demonstration. I tried to find some of the images I saw in the Helvetica trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkoX0pEwSCw) but couldn't find exactly what I needed which was the gap sign that simply said:

love.

This stuck out to me because, well because I'm a hopeless romantic? maybe, but also because it took a concept that is jumbled and complicated and thought to be so hard and simplified it. It makes it sound easy. And not in a relationship kind of way but just in a global sense. It makes it seem simple.

Compare that with what I found when trying to google search for the gap love sign.

LOVE.

Maybe it's just me but it seems like an order. and it doesn't sound loving at all.

So now I've introduced some other things- capitalization and color.

SIMPLE VERSION STARTS HERE

which leads me to my idea.

How does the way we present our thoughts and ideas- how does font and color and maybe even spacing affect how we perceive ideas?

Here's my plan. Using the fabric we got from Goodwill I want to print in different fonts and mediums (spray paint, etc..)the same phrase over and over again. Kind of in the vein of the famous sign:

(note the font choice ;)

Except the translations aren't languages they're fonts and colors and they're not all presented on one thing but rather scattered about. What will it say you ask? Not sure yet. I either want it to be something emotionally charged because that emotion will read differently in different presentations or some quote or saying that everyone can already recognize like, "To be or not to be that is the question..." except with most of the speech- not just the first lines.

So that's that more to come! Let me know what you think.

“I’ll note you in my book of memory...” William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part I. Act II, scene iv

One of my high school English teachers had the class memorize this quote and recently it’s popped back into my head. In sharing that space with thinking about sculpture I remembered a number of mixed media pieces I’d seen done involving various parts of books. So I went in search of some pieces and tried to figure out why this layering of the written word with images and shapes intrigued me.

On my way I discovered Lisa Kokin an artist who among many other things has a number of different book projects including altered books, mixed media books and book collages. In discussing her works Kokin says that “ [Her] work is about memory and history, both personal and collective, and the area in which the two intersect. I am interested in representing the human condition by using the objects we leave behind.” (Kokin, 2006). This was best seen in this piece Our American Way of Life (Kokin, 2006). What struck me about this piece was the handwritten notes in the book which left a personal touch and a personal history. I especially found this interesting in conjunction with the cut outs on the same page that imply a community or even a lost community.

Our American Way of Life

Mixed media book collage, 16 x 15-1/2 x 1/2, 2006

An important part of these works is questioning the relationship of the visual piece and the words featured in the piece. In the case of Kokin, when words are specifically placed they are often the name of the work being presented as seen in Some, Found (Kokin 2006). Kokin says about her work, “It gives me great pleasure to subvert the original meanings of books which were written to keep people in their place, and to do it with humor and levity.”

Some, Found
Mixed media book collage, 13-1/2 x 10 x 2, 2006

For more of Lisa Kokin's work please see http://www.lisakokin.com.