PIG 05049

Christien Meindertsma did this amazing project that I believe took over three years to complete. She followed all the products made from one single pig [PIG 05049]. Every little piece of that little piggy was used for something, most things you would expect and a lot more that you wouldn't. For example: ammunition, brakes, gum, photo paper, porcelain, paint... The exhibit of PIG 05049 looked incredibly interesting. Meindertsma packaged each thing as you would see meat packaged in a grocery store and placed everything in the freezer set up. A wonderfully detailed beautiful looking book was created as a catalogue for each product from PIG 05049. [I found this project relevant because of using pig gut in textiles]

Re-Revised Artist Statement and Rational

I

AM

MAGIC.

Alchemy

I make baskets. Big Baskets. This project ['the container and the contained'] was for my fiber sculpture class. I didn't have much of a concept or idea while I was working I was just in 'coilingcoilingcoilingcoiling' phase. It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to though there was going to be a lot more elements involved on the outside but I think the simplicity/complicatedness of the piece is a lot better than what I had been planning. It is almost a foot tall and it should have been bigger but I fell asleep in an awkward wake-up-sprawled-on-the-floor-with-needles-in-your-shirt-and-yarn-in-your-mouth-wishing-that-you-had-a-rager-party-but-instead-had-just-spent-the-last-8-hours-coiling... kind of way. Jute rope coiled with white yarn and layers of netted brass wire nestled into the basket. It looks better when you stick your face in it and hold it up to the light although you look like a complete idiot... it's pretty.

For You and Yours

This was for my fiber sculpture class for a project on memories. I decided to work with memories I never had; I never knew my mother's mother or my father's father. So I asked my parents to share some memories of their parents with me because I know nothing of my family's history. I chose my father's memory of his father reading hardbacked books from the library on the beach, smoking non filtered Camel cigarettes. And I also chose my mother's memory of her mother sewing and taking her out of school to go shopping for fabric. The needle is crocheted with 32 gauge silver plated copper wire and the cigarette is crocheted from thick white thread and dark brown hand dyed yarn. Both pieces are to scale of the objects they are imitating. I am hoping to finish a box I started on to keep these pieces together. It will be in the style of a match box but longer and made from layered sewing pattern paper. The top will be embroidered with a cellophane camel from the Camel brand label. I am happy with the way these turned out; both are a bit wonky but I am not that experienced with crochet and especially working with a size 11 hook [tiny!] it was difficult to try and make it exact. Soft sculpture isn't an exact art...it's always a bit lopsided.

Illuminated Encryptions

I really enjoyed the hours and hours of making this book [no sarcasm; art school has sucked it all out of me]. The words were made by single letter stamps and I filled about 100 pages full of nonsense automatic writing I did last year in my English class. I then Xerox transferred some creepy images of children throughout the coptic book. The paper is some kind of legal document paper and it is super thin and has a great crinkly sound while you flip through the book even though the pages are really soft. I have an obsession with all things shiny at the moment so textured gold paper? Yes, please.

WindBlown

I make baskets. This was one that I started last year and just finished while spending 16 hours cooking kozo [a plant fiber for papermaking]. It is twined out of 26 gauge silver plated copper wire. I still haven't figured out how to finish it off especially now that Longs is not Longs and therefore does not carry 26 gauge silver plated copper wire.

I am an Asshole

The first paragraph is my artist statement the second is my rational for wanting to become an Individualized Major. I win.

Artists have become advocates, pioneers, crusaders, defenders, and saviors. I am not an ‘artist’. Art has become everything. I do not make ‘art’. I am simply and selfishly my thoughts and my hands. I create for myself; to challenge my mind, my ability, my sanity, my body. I have no intention other than to make things for the sake of the instinctual process of combining. There is no reason or meaning, concepts are fleeting, and the end result just begins a new cycle of ‘what could have been’ or ‘what will be’. I read, I research, I observe, I discover, I experiment, I think, I play, I fuck up, I learn. I fashion allusions, wit, and intellect into conundrums. I recontextualize and juxtapose contradictions. I materialize irony and duality into ambiguous narratives. I create tension between the materials, the viewer and the piece, between connotations already associated with the objects used, and the precarious situations I place them in. I am an alchemist. But my reward is not the gold or immortality; it is the act of transforming.

I am here to learn and to challenge myself. I want to enjoy my work; to create for the sake of creating. I am here for me and these are my terms. I believe that to understand something, one has to go beyond the given and the norm. Therefore, to work within sculpture, I must transcend sculpture. I must branch out and learn all types of medium in order to become well rounded in the art of creating. There is one absolute truth that I know of my future: that I will not be satisfied with one set path of study. I want to study the art of combining mediums, methods, materials, thought processes, ideas. I want film, robotics, glass, plastic, metal, holography, chemistry, textiles, bookmaking, printmaking, photography, found objects, research, history, literature, nature, sound, smell, taste, touch, wisdom, sarcasm, intellect, humor, wit, duality, conundrums. I say ‘I want’ but it is a need; a need to create with my hands, a need to challenge my ability, a need to exercise my mind. My goal is ambitious: to create a major of an encyclopedic nature, but the standards I set for myself are high and I will not accept anything below the expectations I have for myself and my work. I have thrown down the gauntlet and I have accepted the challenge.

Illuminations

I have been wandering around the CCA library just looking at all the titles. It is seriously a magical place with lots of hidden books on the bottom shelves. I found a whole section on illuminated manuscripts awhile ago...soooo pretty. I still don't understand how they made them but that's because I haven't researched them. Anyway so I was scanning them and for some reason they all came out with this yellowish glow from the light of the scanner? I liked it so I didn't mess around with it in Photoshop. I can't remember anymore but I think the collection is called Hours of Mary or something along those lines. It surprisingly has a lot more unicorns than can be expected in a religious manuscript.

Water Drawings

seaweed and psychedelic drip

is it the ink or the squid? and microscopic

eggplant and honey

This was something I started over the summer...trying to fill a watercolor moleskine with horrible muddy watercolors and then picking out the individual colors with a sharpie. I have a lot more but these are the only ones I feel like scanning today.