Theory of Me: Group Pieces & Questions

Ethan Samaha:

1.) Should I have the writing be part of the piece or have two separate pieces?

I think the concept of hold a piece of art is very meaningful to the viewer and makes the viewer's experience of the art very individualized. 

2.) When I created the piece, I had boxes that reminded me which portion of the paper was which number. Should I have kept the boxes to let viewers follow the lines and make their own discoveries? 

I like the artistic choice of not keeping the boxes in the background because it shows the symbolic aspect of the lines and points. I think in this case less is more and each line had a meaning and you did not need any extra lines in the piece. 

3.) In this piece I was unsure whether or not to have every set of numbers be a different color to represent the different numbers that represent myself. What do you think? 

I prefer the choice that you have made with just keeping the piece in black and white because I think it adds more character to the piece. I personally think of the dehumanization of the individual in society. 

4.) If I kept all the lines black, should I either give a key to the viewer showing the paths to the numbers or not? what do you think I should do? 

I personally prefer the idea of mystery and having to figure out the artist's thought process. It makes it more interesting and up to how the viewer interprets the art. 

5.) Does the shape work in relation with showing the connection between all the represented numbers of myself? 

I think as you read the text provided it is all literally connecting the dots on the piece. 

Here is the Artist's blog and contact information

http://ethansamaha.wixsite.com/home

Claire Stephenson:

1.) If you had to describe the piece of art to a friend over the phone, how would you do it and what words would you use? 

To describe this piece I would describe it to be abstract and my interpretation of it would be about human connection and hearing/interacting with others. 

2.) If you personally made a piece like this, what would you have done additionally to it before a final review/critique?

I think I would have used another color to contrast the lilac color used. 

3.) What are your eyes drawn to?

I am drawn to the the section that looks like an ear. 

4.) Is the piece obvious to what the message really is?

I think this piece makes you have to think deeply of what the meaning is to you which I think id really nice and refreshing. It is not a concrete approach but it is more abstract and up for interpretation. 

5.) Should I have created something 3D?

I liked the idea of having it be abstract and 2D rather than 3D. 

Here is the Artist's blog and contact information:

https://clearlyc1aire.wordpress.com

 Aleister Huntley:

1.) Is the title "Washed Out" fitting?

Yeah, I think the title is fitting of the piece. The piece looks very airy and light with handling of your medium.

2.) Can two dimensions and grey scale express melancholy?

If it is done right, I think you can but that can also contribute to the composition of the piece.

3.) Does the drawing look finished?

It looks like it is almost finished. I think if you added a simple background and some thinner strands of hair would benefit this piece a lot.

4.) Does it actually look like me?
When I first saw the piece I could instantly tell that it was you. You did well on drawing your facial structure and features.

5.) Can you tell I am sad in my drawing of myself?

From my interpretation, I can see you deep in thought or wondering about something.

Here is the Artist's blog and contact information:

https://putrescinesoup.wordpress.com

Chloe Kottwitz:

1.) I almost just left the pictures in a pile, what do you think?

I preferred the pictures to be placed like a collage. I think it added more meaning and a personalized touch to the piece.

2.) Would it be different if I gave each of you a cookie personally?

I think giving the cookie individually would make it more intimate because you are eating the art as well as interacting with the artist in the process.

3.) Did you feel like you were allowed to touch it?

At first I thought that the cookies were just for display but when you said that we could eat it and interact with the art I was really surprised.

4.) Did you wonder why this round?

5.) Did you smell any or just look?

I decided to just look because when I ate the cookie I thought that was the scent that also connected to the sense of taste.

 Here is the Artist's blog and contact information:

https://sincerelychloeweb.wordpress.com

Jacob Willcox:

1.) What is it you see upon first sight?

I see the glass sphere in the rocking chair. 

2.) Is the choice of colors effective?

I think they contrast nicely and add to the mood of the piece. 

3.) Do the mediums interact well or clash with each other? 

I think the mediums work well with each other. However, my only question is why did you only have the far back wall of the box be decorated with the colored pieces of paper and not the other sides of the box? 

4.) Is the sound distracting or add to the mood?

In my opinion I think that the sound adds to the mood of the piece. My interpretation from the piece is that it is very dreamlike.  

5.) Is the space scary or inviting? 

I think it is neither inviting nor scary. It is more like how you imagine a scene in a dream and you are simply observing. 

 Here is the Artist's blog and contact information:

https://jacobwillcoxblog.wordpress.com

Nic Osinoff: 

1.) Do you think I could have challenged myself a bit more artistically? 

I really liked this piece, I think it is a great start. I think if you added some more detail into the drawing of you at the bottom middle section I think it would have added to the piece to make it more realistic. For example, if the hair was more detailed it would draw my eye there first than to the rest of the text. 

2.) Is it too on the nose? Is that a bad thing?

I like how it is not just the eyes. I think he nose shows more of you and of yourself in the piece. 

3.) Could I have stood to use color differently/more mindfully? 

I love the ombré  and the gradients that you add into your piece. I think it is really nice. Were they supposed to be thought bubbles or clouds? 

4.) What emotions does is provoke, if any?

I think this reminds me of deconstructing the concept of personality and thought process. I think it makes me do a lot of deep thinking including all the aspects of a person that makes us... us. 

5.) What other words do you think would fit into the piece? 

Growth: the process of developing of maturing physically of spiritually. (dictionary definition) 

Here is the Artist's blog and contact information:

https://tchatchkes.tumblr.com

Daily Practice:

This week my theme was the countdown until I get to go home. Each day I would countdown the days until break and my last exams and think of something that reminds me of a memory from home.

One day I was walking back from my  classes and dinner and I finally got to get a closer look at King Alfred with the jack-o-lantern on his head. When I was looking at the face I noticed that were was a candle on Alfred's head which I thought was really funny. When I was little I would always carve a pumpkin with my dad each year around Halloween as a tradition. And every evening on halloween night we would always put the candles in the jack-o-lantern. It reminded me of home because of October break approaching and in my hometown the leaves all change around this time of year.

Daytime

Night Time

Theory of Me

How do you understand the world and your place within it?

As a millennial, in my first semester of Alfred Foundations, in October, in week 7 of the Fall 2017 semester, in the Northern Hemisphere, in America, in latitude 42° 15' 15" North, in longitude 77° 47' 26" West, in the southern tier of NY in Alfred, at Alfred University, within the SoAD, in Studio: Research course...

I am a creator. I am similar to a little sprout, like a cherry blossom. I can only grow in certain places of the world where I can thrive and bloom. I am here at Alfred University to grow and learn about life and how there are many different branches to my existence. For example, like I am an artist as well as a dancer. I want to be an educator for the youth and teach them more about the world. Like every teacher that I have had they have helped me understand the world in some way or another and I want to impact others and help their world be a little more colorful. 

My job right now is to be a good student and be the best person I can be. In art class I am constantly questioning things and discovering new information that I did not know previously. In Studio Research I have learned that art and movement are much alike as well as how sound influences how you interpret art. I have gained a deeper understanding on what it means to be an artist as well as a dancer and how I impact observers in different ways. I never really thought about performance art being a combination of art, music and dance/theater which I thought was very eye opening. I never even thought about how much the arts overlap with one another. 

Personally, I think being a dancer as well as an artist is a very unique combination and gives me a understanding of what is means to perform art and create it. I think my place in the world is to create beauty and curiosity because an artist is always questioning reality and testing the limits of a pen and paper. A dancer challenges their emotional strength as well as their physical strength when dancing acting a part as well as showing emotional vulnerability for people to watch. 

Young children are always curious and constantly exploring their wold around them. Children have many first like first word, first birthday, first steps, first day of school and teachers help them with their firsts. I was lucky to have an amazing elementary school art teacher and she let her student's imaginations run wild in art class and let them be children and for it to be ok to be curious. I strive to be like that teacher. She was always nice and encouraged her students to get their hands dirty and discover what things are. I want to be the one to introduce kids to their first art experience because several years later I am here as an art student at Alfred University. 

My representation of Theory of me is a painting of cherry blossoms and a blue sky. I am still growing and changing and the place where I bloom is here in Alfred, NY. I am also in the image in a dance costume in my pointe shoes to represent both the part of me that is an artist and the part of me that is a dancer. The location that I took the picture is in front/inside Harder Hall because that is where I am doing what I love each day being taught by college professors that I strive to be one day.

Glass Studios

This previous the foundations student shad the opportunity to work in the glass studios to do core forming of small sculptures that we made. We also had the opportunity to have a tour by our senior students in the School of Art and Design which was really interesting. We had an art students perspective of they daily life in their art studios which was very interesting to observe as a first year. Having the tour gave me a deeper respect for my upperclassmen because the first years are just doing a bit of everything discovering who we are as artists and the seniors are focusing strictly on their specific medium and working on perfecting their craft which is very admirable. Here are some images of the tour and the glassblowing demonstration by one of the glass professors.

Neon Studios

This past week the foundations student got to take a tour of the neon studios and the glass studios. Here are some of the photos I took from the neon labs at Alfred. It was a major opportunity to get a tour of the workplace because there are not many facilities where you can work with neon as a college student. Here are some of the images that I photographed of the neon labs to give you a sneak peek of what the Alfred University neon department looks like.

Daily Practice:

My daily practice theme this week was light around us. I took images of the full moon for the mid autumn and images of the street lights on academic avenue but my personal favorite was the picture of the sunset from the window of the Scholes Library. I think that it was my favorite piece because ever since I came to Alfred I noticed that the sunsets were very unique each night. I really liked how my camera picks dup the rays of the sunset because it shows the gradient from daytime to night. If you look closely you can see the library books on the shelves which I think adds a lot of the photograph and the overall composition of the piece.

Week in Review: 10/2-10/8

Day One: Observational Drawing
On Monday we did a group critique at the beginning of class of the charcoal box drawings that we had to draw for homework over the weekend. The requirements for the drawing was that it would be in charcoal, to have the drawing be on Stonehenge paper, to use sight lines, and for it to be a value drawing. After our critique the professors split the class into two groups and had individual critiques of our pieces. Each student put their piece that we did for homework on their easel and the professors would come over and give us specific feedback on our artwork. After our critiques our homework was to draw another value piece of the boxes with spotlights over the boxes.

Day Two: Observational Drawing

Tuesday started with another group critique of the homework assignment to draw the boxes in high lighting. We had our pieces on the wall and we reflected on the group's progress over the past six weeks and how our works improved. Most of the feedback was minimal because of the individual critiques the previous day in class. After we had time to tweak our pieces and the professors told us about our final assignment for the course. The final assignment is to basically utilize all the skills and techniques that we have learned the past six weeks in class and to show the professors what we have learned.

Day Three: Combined Class
The professors decided to not have class today so we can all work on our art pieces for midterms and let us use the time in the studio and use that time how we choose.

Day Four: Studio Research
Studio Research was to be held in the glass blowing studios to perform glass casting on our small sculptures that we made from the materials in the performance art piece. (There will be a separate blog post about the whole glass casting process in the future)

Day Five:
Class was still held in Harder Hall today and my group took a tour of the glass studios and the neon lab. We also watched a glassblowing teacher do a demonstration of making a glass vessel.

Month in Review: Video

Here is a visual summary of most of the projects and things I have been doing the first month of college. There are many images of field trips, art pieces and extra videos of my daily life at Alfred University. 

Daily Practice:

My daily practice this week was not of photographing things but it was of viewing wildlife. I think my favorite day this week was of it being evening after dinnertime and I was sitting on the bench in the statue garden on campus and I saw something move. At first I was really startled to see something move because it was really close to be but it was really a tiny white and gray stray kitten. It looked really curious to see me and we just looked at each other for a minute. The kitten seemed a bit intimidated by me because it was a stray and it did not have much experience with human contact but I did not move as all and tried not to scare it. It slowly got a bit closer to me but then it hid behind a small tree a few feet away. It kept watching me from afar just like how I observed it. It eventually went off into the bushes but I thought it was a very interesting experience because it looked so curious but it did not see me as a danger to it. The other days I saw a chubby white and brown cat, some weird looking mushrooms and some birds in the Whitney Museum and some deer at night time. I personally enjoyed this week because it was nice to go on little walks to view wildlife each evening after dinnertime.

Glass Casting: Experience

September 28th in foundations class was held outside and when I came up to the studios I saw a long table covered in brown paper. We were told by our professors that we were going to eat that day. We were part of a performance art piece that class and we were provided breakfast. We got to sit down wherever we wanted to and we set out our places with plates, bowls, spoons, etc. We had to trace where we placed all of our utensils and things at our place setting and we had to get up and were told that we may have some coffee and juice. When everyone was socializing we were individually called to sit down at an assigned place by the professors across from another student. We had our name written down at our place and it was not the seat that we were originally at. We were then able to get our food and after every five bites of food we had to stand up. After everyone was done eating we had a partner activity to do. The person across from us was to be our partner in our performance art piece and we had to give each other instruction on something that we are good at. For example, I told my partner the instructions on how to draw a tiger and she told me the instructions to make a cappuccino.  After the sets of instructions were finished we had to use our leftover food and plates to make a sculpture. After we made our sculpture we had to redo it to a smaller scale. After our pieces were reduced to the size of a small plate we had to work with our partner to create a combined piece using the materials that we were given. Later we find out that we have to stabilize the form to be cast in glass the next week.
For me and my partner, we decided to put glass over our piece instead of having our relic be imprinted in sand. We had to instruct the students/teachers working with the glass what we wanted them to do and after the glass was poured, we got to use glassmaking tools to manipulate the glass to the shape we wanted. In our piece, we used baking soda to add a frosty look to the glass and give it a unique texture. 

Our "Relic" of our performance art piece

Glass Studios

The finished piece casted in glass

Daily Practice:

This week my theme was to incorporate pointe shoes into photos each day. I decided to do this theme because I am dancing daily and go by the Miller Performing Arts Center everyday and I thought it would be fun to practice my skills of photography and creating interesting compositions. My favorite photo of the week was when I went to take photos at one of the main libraries on campus and I liked how the photo was positioned on camera. 

Sound Drawing: 9/21

Out of studio

For me when I made my piece it was late at night and I was very tired from a long day and that transferred into my art. When I went to the sound area it was later and I had taken a lot of classes that day and it made my artwork be made differently. I think the sound contributed to that because it was very weird and avant gard to stay the least. I used colored charcoal and a very muted color scheme.  But when I was in the sound booth I noticed that I used more color like my emotions were heightened in that specific art piece. 

In studio

Daily Practice:

For my art class of studio research I was assigned to do a daily practice where I record an everyday moment throughout the week. I was deciding on themes for my weekly theme and I had the idea of doing splits across campus because I am a dance minor and I am constantly dancing and fidgeting. So I made it a mission to do playful and humorous photos throughout the week my adventures going to class and getting meals.

Some of the locations I did splits were:

1. The information desk at Powell
2. The middle of the road in town
3. Under a bridge on campus
4. In the dance studios at Miller
5. In Cohen Studios 
6. Openhym Residence Hall
7. Walking path after Midknight 

I think my favorite picture this week was of my second day of doing the daily practice in town. In this picture I had to run out in the middle of the road when no cars were passing by. 

I thought it was really great that I had a fun task to do on my way to classes which I personally thought it made the hours go by faster and gave me something to look toward to after a long day. One moment that I thought was very amusing was on Friday when I was at the Cohen Studios in town and my group was working on a project due the next morning and I had to do my daily practice so I told my roommate to take my picture and in the middle of our display I dropped into the splits and my group thought it was really amusing that I have been doing this every day for a week. 

To see all the images I took throughout the week click on the link below of my daily blog of progress on my art projects and daily practices. 

https://dailymybart.blogspot.com

Field Recordings 9/14/17

Every Beginning Has an End. A Piece inspired by John Cage. 

Review Collection Installation

Explanation of the Assignment:

Students were divided into four different groups and were assigned a set of prompts/topics to recorder a museum display. To record our themes we could photograph, sketch, write, take the item back to the art studios, etc. There were topics like something that is painful or something that makes you cry. Each group was assigned a specific area to collect items from. Over the week we were supposed to record or collect objects relating to our topics. Each group had about 40+ topics to find so each person had about three or four topics to find and record.

Map dividing the groups and where to find their items

Working on the Project:

For me personally I was in group four which meant that I had to go to the college across the road. I felt a bit intimidated because I had to go to a campus that I was not familiar with. However, I went by myself to do some exploring. My topics were: one thing that is circular, things that become one, and one object that is painful. I was wandering around campus a bit nervous because I did not really know where I was going but part of the assignment was to find things that are unexpected and not totally planned out.

 I ended up photographing a hidden clock tower next to two buildings which I used for the theme of an item that is circular. I also wrote in my sketchbook of what I observed. 

"One thing that is circular"

The next thing I found was a building that had glass cubed windows. I was walking by it and I thought it was really interesting because it was unexpected and very low to the ground. After observing a few of the window panes I saw one panel that looked like it had been broken or punched through. My initial reaction was surprise because the missing cubes had plastic or paper trying to mend the open holes. It made me think of the prompt called something that is painful because it looked like the panels were trying not to break down and deteriorate even more than they already were. 

"Something that is painful"

The last topic that I had was something that had become one. I was walking around feeling like I couldn't find something to relate to that topic and I was just about to leave so I can go to class but then I see this tiny wooden pavilion and since I was walking around aimlessly lost at the college's campus I sat there and took a break. When I was resting my feet I looked up at the roof and I saw all these different panels together to form the roof. It looked like the wooden panels were supporting one another to make a sturdy roof and that made me realize that it would be the perfect example for my last topic. I photographed it and I did a write up about how I found it and why it related to my topic and I left campus. 

"Something that has become one"

Setting up the Display:

Thursday night I went to the art studios to bring my objects and photos of my experience of going out and exploring my group's designated area. Not everyone was present but we had over half of the members there to show their objects and findings. At first we did not have a specific vision for our display so I decided that we used a nearby table to set out all of our object to see what we had for our display. I noticed a group member had a small branch of berries and a flower stem and I instantly thought of making a wreath of leaves and branches. I suggested it to the group and they all were a bit taken back because they did not know how to make a wreath. When I was younger I remember helping my mom make Christmas wreaths for the local museum in town to donate money to charity and I knew how to make them. So I had some members help gather the branches we found and I used tape to bind the branches to make the wreath. My group decided to have the pictures on both sides of the wreath and made a sign to put in the middle. We had a few three dimensional objects to set up in the center of our exhibit which had viewers walk around the pieces. In the images shown there are other elements added to the display as we were working. 

Reflection: 

In my opinion I really enjoyed this project because it made me work with other artists that did not have the same style as me but it helped us all work together and understand each other more. I thought it was great to see what people brought and how they interpreted the themes they were assigned to. I think that I would enjoy doing na project like this agin because it made me go out and explore more of Alfred. It was fun to see everyone working together as a team to finish the project. 

More Photos of Other Group Displays

Group One's Display of the Assignment

 Group Three's Presentation

 Group Two's Museum Exhibit