Because I Felt Like It...

Today, after dealing with a high level of stress due to choices about the future, applying to grad schools, keeping up with school, working, and being social I had no patience for conceptual art.  I went to my studio to work on a sculpture that I am currently struggling with and felt numb.  I often get so worried about the reasoning behind my work that I forget about what I'm making and why I'm making it in the first place.  But today was an inspiring day; I went to a show at the 840 Gallery at DAAP, visited the painting studios at DAAP and had positive conversations about art with my peers. In the end, I came up with a fantastic idea for a photo shoot that will occur next Tuesday evening. AND! Once I returned to my studio, I grabbed a piece of wood from the discard pile, made some plaster and made art JUST BECAUSE I FELT LIKE IT. There was no message, concept or connection to an audience that I was aiming for.... just making art for art's sake. For my sake. I cannot express how lifeless I would feel if I could not make something on a regular basis. The piece is not done and there is no title but I know that the next step will be to add color.  

In Progress

     

In Progress (close up)

My friends and I call this process plaster painting.  I mixed thick plaster and painted it on plywood with my hand.  As it hardened, I was able to sculpt the plaster more to a better shape.  My sculptures, except my foundry work, typically lacks color.  I hope to see where my inspiration takes me and if I can successfully color this impressionistic piece.  All of this was completed on a spur of the moment "grab-random-materials-and-make-something-awesome" feeling and in less than an hour.  This is why I love art. Anything is possible.

Special thanks and shout outs to Max, Sarah, Andi, Mamie, Farron and Abby!

Thesis Proposal

I have struggled greatly over the past semester to nail down my thesis.  I believe that this has been so challenging because I want to make art about a large plethora of topics, not just one.  However, I just may hove found the one topic that I can grow and build upon for the remainder of the year while remaining true to my passions and interests. I present to you, my thesis proposal.

Through extensive studies of the human figure and facial structure, I have developed a strong interest in using the face and body as a canvas and tool for interpretation and suggestion. As a sculptor, I use mediums such as plaster, clay and metal to add to the repertoire of the human figure in the art world.  Since my interest in makeup escalated and my plans to pursue a career as a makeup artist, my attention has turned to the character that can be brought forth from the human figure with the use of visual allusions created by makeup.  I want to bring my audience into a narrative that they can relate to in some way but still be removed at the same time.  As human beings, we emote and force the understanding of our own personality traits and features onto fictional beings in the simplest desire of creating something new but still familiar.  As a sculptor, I want to take fabricated characters from the imaginations of others and myself, bring them into existence and put them before an audience, forcing them to come face to face with a being that is foreign yet known. 

I have researched ancient mythology, current fantasy novels and contemporary artists that focus on narratives in their art.  Throughout history, people have imagined creatures that combine features of a human being with animals or other fictitious beings to create an entirely new creature.  The number and variety of these beings fascinate me; Examples include the sphinx, the centaur, angels, and the satyr, to name a few.  Fictional characters with mixed human qualities have existed since ancient times, often in myths or have served as deities.  The Egyptians worshiped multiple gods that were depicted as humans morphed with animals.  As a culture, we even personify objects to have human characteristics.  Disney’s Beauty and the Beast

is the greatest example of lifeless objects being given a face with a personality and the freedom to move about as humans do. 

To prepare for the projects that will be born from this concept, I have been experimenting with various mediums and tools.  Each character will be life size; therefore, I must consider the weight of the materials I use.  I plan to use materials in unconventional ways, such as hollow plaster.  This is a process I have already used for my sculpture Lay In My Body.  I am currently invested in using wax and plaster dipped paper cranes.  These cranes will be adhered to one another to form the body of a creature conjured from my own imagination based on a character that represents war in the Wicked Lovely book series written by Melissa Marr.  This creature will have an altered human body with a concave torso, a beak and will consist of nine hundred and ninety-nine paper cranes.  In the hollow of her torso, will rest the skeleton of a baby bird.  For now, I am titling this piece as Aves, which is the scientific word for bird.  Aves will rest on a bed made to look like the bed of a person but will be made up of materials that could be found in a birds nest.  I believe that creating an environment for Aves to exist in will help build the narrative and invite my audience in.  An artist that I found inspiration from for my current sculpture project is American sculptor Petah Coyne.  Coyne uses taxidermy birds and wax among other materials in her sculptures.  I coincidentally discovered her work after I began designing Aves.

I believe that people have invented these imaginary beings to be symbolic in nature.  For example, Marr’s character that represents war is a woman with a face that is combined with a raven’s, the bird that symbolizes ill omens or death.  I want Aves and the other characters that I create to be symbolic in nature.  My goal is for the audience to see the narrative and interpret the 

metaphors and morals within, much like Greek mythology where each myth contains at least one principle that was significant to their culture. 

To be true to my original focus of the human figure, I will ensure that each character’s human traits are very present in their make up.  This is my attempt at merging theater with fine art, by setting the stage and building a character with the main goal of telling a story.  I understand that my focus has shifted from the fragility of human life, as I stated in my fall research statement.  However, I still maintain that the basic subject will remain the human figure as I had originally intended for my senior thesis.  

Artist of the Month #5

I have been long over due for an artist of the month, my apologies.

This month, I present to you an artist who became a coincidental source of inspiration for my current project Aves is Petah Coyne.  Coyne is an American sculptor who is known for her organic, large-scale sculptures.  I have begun dipping my paper cranes in candle wax and one of my peers asked me if I had seen any of Coyne's work.  I told him that I was not familiar with her and he said that my project reminded him of her work.  So I did some research and the similarities are quite uncanny.

Untitled #810
Mixed Media
Coyne, 1995

Above is an example of here earlier work, fabricated birds dipped in special wax attached with ribbons, chicken wire and meshed together with other objects and materials.

Untitled #1336
Mixed Media
Coyne, '09-'10

Above is an idea of Coyne's newer sculptures.  I enjoy the whimsy of her work and the elegant, dark beauty of the creations.  The following is a portion of a review of her work by Sebastian Smee at the MASS MoCA,

"Unlike many contemporary artists who focus on social or media-related issues, Petah Coyne imbues her work with a magical quality to evoke intensely personal associations. Her sculptures convey an inherent tension between vulnerability and aggression, innocence and seduction, beauty and decadence, and, ultimately, life and death. Coyne's work seems Victorian in its combination of an overloaded refinement with a distinctly decadent and morbid undercurrent. Her innovative use of materials includes dead fish, mud, sticks, black sand, old car parts, wax, satin ribbons, artificial flowers and birds, birdcages, and most recently, taxidermy animals, Madonna statues, and horsehair."

I am very happy and thankful to have found such a unique contemporary artist.  As I look at her work, I find myself pushing my thesis farther towards the characters of the imagination rather than the human figure on its own.  I feel like Coyne's sculptures belong in Grimms' fairytales.  For more of Petah Coyne's fantastic sculptures, here is a link to her website.

www.petahcoyne.org

Lost In No-Thesis-Land/The Start of Something New

I am still searching for my thesis.  I am lost in the valley that exists between theatre makeup and fine art sculpture.  I cannot decide whether to focus on sculptures of the human body, examining how the human figure is represented and portrayed through context and mediums in art history or explore the creative and transformative properties of makeup in the context of fine art.  My sculpture professor suggested that I combine makeup with my sculptures but I find myself at a complete loss to find the means of how to do so.
As I thought about my future in the theater world, I came to think about why makeup is used in the first place.  Makeup is used to create and enhance the characters on stage and build upon the allusion of their existence to the audience.  Ultimately, makeup is for a character. There are artists who create characters that are accepted as a valid form of art.  Local artist Abby Langdon, also known as abbydid, creates plush characters and creatures.  She recently was part of a show in the Reed Gallery at DAAP.
 My favorite piece of hers was Stompy McThumperton.

Me with Stompy.
(I was quite excited.)

You can see more of Langdon's work at www.abbydid.com

Thus came the inspiration for my most recent piece.  I wanted to create a character from my imagination that retained human figure traits.  Over a month ago, I found the skeleton of a baby bird on campus.  I kept in because I wanted to use it in an art piece because I have a strong fascination with skeletons.  Now I have the perfect art piece to include the skeleton.  I have been folding paper cranes for several days now, working towards my goal of 999.  I will use these cranes to construct a birdlike creature to act as the mother of this dead baby bird. The baby bird will rest in a hollow of the mother bird's pelvis.   Since this project is still in the developing stages and I cannot move on to construction until all the cranes are folded, I am unsure if I will be using actual makeup.  For now, I will refer to this project as Aves, which is the scientific name for birds.

In progress - Sketches and paper cranes

Baby Bird skeleton

I see this piece as a further exploration of the ties between theater and fine art, two of my greatest loves.   I will be posting in progress photos as soon as I finish the remaining 500+ cranes and am able to move on in sculpting this character.

I'm Singing in the Rain!

Backstage of
Singing in the Rain
2013

Backstage of
Singing in the Rain
2013

At the beginning of the semester, I signed up to take lab hours at UC's College Conservatory of Music's  Makeup and Wig Design program.  The class requires that I work a minimum of three hours every Friday and crew a show at CCM at some point during the semester.  About a month ago, one of the girls in the Makeup and Wig Design program asked if I was available to crew the musical Singing in the Rain.  I was beyond thrilled as this was a musical I grew up watching and knew it by heart.  

I have just finished the 10 day experience of crewing a show at CCM.  I had one of the most enjoyable experiences I could have ever hoped for! Everyone I met and worked with was so kind and helpful, from the cast to the other students backstage.  I was responsible for wig and hairstyling of eight cast members of the ensemble, four girls and four guys.  I did not do makeup because I have not been trained at CCM and the ensemble cast typically does their own makeup.

The process for girls required pin curling and wrapping their hair, setting the wig cap, pinning on the element (microphone), placing the wig and setting it with wig pins.  In addition, I had to add a headband and set their fake eyelashes.  Below is one of the girls that I worked on.

Female ensemble member, Hannah
Singing in the Rain
2013

The process for the boys required far less and wasn't as time consuming but was still a challenge.  I had to spray down their hair, add the gel Groom & Clean (which makes the hairspray can slip out of your hands), clip in the element, comb their hair to follow their natural part, styled for the correct time period while covering the element and then hairspray the heck out of it.  Below is one of the boys I worked on.

Male ensemble member, Chris
Singing in the Rain
2013

I had to do this every night for over a week.  I had never pin curled, wrapped or styled hair before and I was very slow the first few nights.  The girls in the makeup program suggested I don't converse with the cast as much to help speed things up.  I felt bad because I wanted to be polite and get to know everyone but, sure enough, once I cut out some conversation I was on time by the third night.  

During the show, I was responsible for multiple wig changes, one makeup removal and assisting with a couple of costume changes.  The adrenaline rush was ridiculous every night as I participated in and observed quick changes.  The shortest one I assisted in was about 20 seconds in which the lead had to change his entire outfit and a wig.  The costume students deserve major respect for what they go through each show-costume changes are ridiculously intense.  When I had down time, I was able to watch the performance from the sides of backstage and I never tired of watching.  I made several new friends in a variety of majors while backstage and in the makeup shop; none of them could tell that I wasn't in CCM and that I was a senior in DAAP!  The atmosphere was just so artistic and inspiring, filled with positive energy. I even found an idea for a new piece for advanced sculpture related to my thesis!  I cannot wait to apply to the Makeup and Wig Design program at CCM!

Here are some more pictures of my wonderful time at CCM:

Nate (as the sugar daddy in the first two scenes) and I before
the last performance.

Tyler (my favorite to style because he always got so
excited about the swoop) and I down in the makeup shop.

Here is a link to a site that will lead to multiple views of the show:

http://ccmpr.wordpress.com/2013/11/02/its-a-smash-rave-reviews-for-ccms-singin-in-the-rain/