final blog prompt

Abstraction and Representation: Modularity, Relationship, and Tension

 'Riding with the Devil', 2014

Abstract, wild, unnerving, and eerie are just a few adjectives that begin to describe this wire sculpture. The composition of this object is pure chaos, and it is completely intentional. In collaboration with Sam Quagliana, this sculpture represents a dance of growth and destruction. Inspired by objects in nature, the focus stems from the heart of the object, a hand perhaps reaching into a wiry highway of veins. The title of the object is reminiscent of Jean-Michel Basquiat's, 'Riding with Death', 1988; a piece in which a faceless red figure is shown riding a skeleton. Similarly, our object reflects a very skeletal aesthetic and childlike craftsmanship, encapsulating both frustration with the creative process as well as confidence in the unknown.

Paper Pulp/ Combat Paper Project 

 'Revival', 2014

When exploring an abandoned apartment, I came across beer cans, 35 mm slides, soup cans, nails, a wooden slide holder, bottles, paint cans in addition to many other decaying objects. The objects that we leave behind tell a story, and when we leave a particular space, they speak for us and how we lived during that time. This narrative is something that I am extremely fascinated with. Using blackish-purple paper pulp as a way of defacing these objects brings a new meaning and existence to them. By contrasting the two, I think of loss, abandonment, and revival. Revival because the covered objects have something new to brag about--to be found, to be discarded eventually, to be forgotten about. These are the things we leave behind, these are the objects that stand the test of time. 

Constructed Collages

'327 Van Buren Avenue', 2014

These objects are sharp and decaying, smooth and jagged--they represent memories and nightmares, dreams and nostalgic bitterness. 327 Van Buren Avenue was the house that I grew up in; it was the house my father grew up in. I find that objects that we are most drawn to reflect how much we are willing to accept that in them we find a bit of ourselves. We connect to them as our own, they remind of us something or someone. The combination of these objects reflect my experiences growing up; from the first time I accidentally cut myself on a sharp blade, to the swing set in Herrick Park down the block. These milestone moments made me who I am, they reminded me of my own mortality and livelihood. 

Site Interventions

'No One Knows Her Name', 2014

We find rich browns, deep and thoughtful shades of green, and beautiful swirls of white and yellow in nature. There are colors that simply cannot be recreated by man that we find in an outdoor environment. The combination of these colors is what I am most interested in, the way they interact with each other and how we interact with them. In this very contemporary age of art, we have become increasingly reliant on technology as means of communication and survival. Incorporating a pixilated background into this portrait was necessary for me to express the way I interact with nature. I see it no longer as wholly pure because of what we as a human race have done to destroy it, my view of it is obscured and confused; yet fully appreciative and indebted to. 

Final Project 

  

'10 p.m.', 2014

As college students, we are all too familiar with those late night moments when you slowly scan the room, wondering who dares to utter the words, "Who wants to order a pizza?" Fast food, delivery, and take-out--you name it. A good percentage of what we consume as college students is spent on instant satisfaction and gratification. Who would argue with this concept? It's beautiful. Anyone can enjoy a dinner that is delicious, cost-effective, and delivered right to your doorstep. It is as ideal as much as it is convenient. One of the biggest environmental concerns is overconsumption. We live in a society that thrives off of consumption, and our habits become visually striking as the garbage bags spill over and the pizza boxes stack up to epic proportions. This sculpture is an extremely small fraction of the amount of pizza boxes that remain in my home, and it represents the lifestyle I have come to accept and enjoy. I was very much inspired by Alicia Escott's environmental art in which she uses containers  of food that she consumes and repurposes it through drawing and rearrangement.

Collage Ideas and Inspiration

For the collage unit, I'd like to explore creating a cardboard sculpture that represents the idea of places that we inhabit throughout life. My inspiration comes from the two images below found on pinterest- one of a multi-storied house and the other of some type of terrace door. My goal is to create four different doors, some representing doors to the house I have lived in, and others that I've imagine living and have dreamed about.

Paper Pulp Project / Artist Research

The artist that I researched for my paper pulp project is Roni Horn. Roni Horn works in many mediums that include sculpture, drawing, site-specific installation and photography. Roni was born and raised in New York; and received her undergraduate degree at RISD and her MFA at Yale University.  Horn is very drawn to the idea of site-specific art and claims that her art is wholly dependent on the site, the entrance, the exit, and the experience. Horn's artwork is said to explore 'the mutable nature of art' and she was very much inspired by her upbringing in New York City as well as Iceland, where she spent a great amount of time. When talking about her love for landscapes Horn states, "Growing up in a very “old” landscape—New York City—it’s origins are secreted from the present. I mean that the geological aspect of the landscape in New York City can only be experienced theoretically at this point. In Iceland, you understand empirically exactly what this place is: its what and how. That accessibility effects the nature of one’s experience, the experience of the world. Any place you’re going to stand in, in any given moment, is a complement to the rest of the world, historically and empirically. What you can see in that moment, what you can touch in that moment, is confluent with everything else."

These are a few of the pieces by Horn that I was inspired by:

 Pair Field, 1991
solid forged copper, stainless steel
eighteen different pairs of identical objects

These images below are of the final resolution of my project. The objects that I found in an abandoned apartment: beer cans, 35 mm slides, a condensed milk can, nails, screws, and bottle caps that are covered with white and black paper pulp. I was struggling to find a way to present these found objects, and I wanted to present them in the way in which I found them. I decided to incorporate them in the space in which I found them, and I believe through integrating them, they now become part of the many objects inhabiting this space, yet they are defaced. Defacing the objects in which they are somewhat identifiable in contrast with the recognizable objects is a concept I found interesting visually. By contrasting the two, I think of loss, abandonment, and revival. Revival because I have now turned them into something new--to be found, to be discarded eventually, to be forgotten about. These are the things we leave behind, these are the objects that stand the test of time. 

Paper Making ideas/theme

For the paper making project I gathered materials that I found in an apartment that was once lived in well over a decade ago. I collected a beer can, a condensed milk can, a bottle top, a small shot glass, nails in a plastic bag, about 10 35mm slides, and a wooden slide-holder (possibly?) With the exception of the beer can and condensed milk can, all of these objects seem to be in pretty good shape. I am really fascinated by the preservation of these objects and the dichotomy of something decaying, and another looking brand new and fully functional. When looking around this uninhabited space I found myself putting together different narratives at stories in my head based on the objects I found. After learning more information about the man that occupied this space, I became increasingly curious and picked out these objects in hopes of telling a story about what we leave behind. I want to explore urban decay as a theme in this project, in addition to some emerging ideas about abandonment, revelry, and loneliness. I like to think of these objects as relics and fossils, and although there's a profound sense of decay and abandonment, I also have a strong sense of someone living and breathing through these objects.

Abstraction and Representation

Sam and I worked together for the first project "Abstraction and Representation" and I think that we had a lot of fun just playing around and experimenting. It was really exciting to see Sam just go for it and truly let go. I've worked with wire before and I'm still learning how to get better with the handling of the material. We didn't really have a plan coming into this project, but we tried to stay true to the main goals which were to make something modular, that has a relationship to tension and connection. I was hesitant to combine our pieces together, because our styles and objects were very different, but we decided to go for it anyway. I don't regret that. After we combined our pieces, I started to like what was happening and felt like they connected in an unusual way. Overall, I think our form is a bit confusing. I feel like there are too many different things happening in it, and it doesn't necessarily evoke anything in particular. We're still trying to figure that out. The next step for us would be to spray paint our piece to establish some consistency. Or maybe add some more wire or mesh in more areas. I feel like our handle on the 5 C's will be stronger once we make these final actions. I will post a picture of the final piece when we decide on a spray paint color!

Part I- Introduction

* I forgot to hit publish on this post last week! Oops!

Hi guys! Welcome to my blog. My name (as some of you may know) is Natalie. I was born and raised in Teaneck, New Jersey. Growing up was a lot of fun because of my close proximity to New York City. On the weekends, I would go to museums, broadway plays, basketball games, and hang out with my aunt who had a brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn. What a place. What I love most about the tri-state area in general is its rich biodiversity, culture, and history. I love that I can go to Ramapo Mountains in NJ for a hike in the morning, or maybe a canoe ride, and that night, go to NYC and explore the city and get lost. I love getting lost. What brought me to Allegheny to be honest was my Uncle Terry. He is an assistant provost here at Allegheny, and is heavily involved on campus. I would not have known Allegheny existed if it were not for him, and I feel very glad that I found myself here. I am taking this class as a requirement for my major in Studio Art, but also because I have always been interested in the interplay between art and the environment. I am very excited to learn more about public art, and how manipulating the environment we live in with art can change my perspective and others. Some things that I am passionate about come from where I was raised and my experiences. I find myself drawn to feminist art, art that depicts the struggles of blacks in America, and conceptual/performance art. Some of my favorite artists are Louise Bourgeois, Kara Walker, Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, and Adrian Piper. I would like to believe that I was born to make art, and more specifically to change the way art is perceived and traditionally thought of. I like pushing boundaries and I think it's important to experience art in many different forms, not just one medium. My hopes for this world and my generation is that we can live in peace and create a better world for generations to come. My fear is that we will continue to live a world where we are too afraid to acknowledge that racism and sexism are very much alive and prevalent and we need to change that sooner than later.

I've attached some pictures of the work I've created in the past year :

John Garrett and 8 hour projects

John Garrett:
I was extremely inspired listening to John Garrett's lecture, and really enjoyed working with him during our class and collaborating with him on his piece for 8-hour-projects. In his lecture, John spoke about his art and his influences. He was influenced by his surroundings growing up as a child in New Mexico, all of the patterns, and colors and textures. What I think is really interesting and important as an artist is to work with different materials, and he certainly does. He has worked with rust fabric, bamboo, plastic, aluminum, fabric and pretty much anything he can get his hands on. What really resonated for me during his lecture was his ability to find materials in the dumpsters and on the streets and reuse them in a way that gives them an entirely new meaning. I think that can really relate to our class because I assume we will be working with found objects, and recycled and reused materials. He spoke about one piece in which he took debris off the street and used it to symbolize how him and his friends felt like they were being treated like trash at the time, with many of his friends dying from AIDS. Being able to find meaning like that and turn it into a work of art is so inspiring to me.

8 hour projects:
It was really interesting to see the final presentation of the work from the artists involved in 8-hour-projects. For example, John Garrett decided to do a white coating over his piece, and initially I did not understand why, but he explained that a loss is a loss, no matter if it is a person or an object or something intangible, and all of our losses are different yet unified through this white purifying coat of paint. I thought that was really cool. Also, I really enjoyed seeing Ian Thomas' final presentation of his performance. He included nearly everything down to what he was wearing in his piece, and this to me is a new way of viewing art. Traditionally, I think we feel that once the mess of the creative process is over, we want to clean it up and make it look nice and tidy and pretty. Ian really pushed those presentation boundaries and for someone who did not see the 8-hour-projects work day they can piece together what he did during his performance. I was also really pleased to see Heather Brand's digital work presented as big ambiguous cluster of ghostly people that participated in her piece. On Saturday I remember speaking with her and her being unsure of how to effectively translate all of the videos she took of participants into a cohesive piece. I think she nailed it!


                                   Here is a picture of my object I'm creating out of wire:

Part II- 8-hour-projects

My experience at 8 hour projects this Saturday was a bit different than my other experiences attending it because I was there from 9-6 working as a gallery assistant. I enjoyed seeing the very beginning of the projects because everything was really quiet, and all of the artists were doing very different things to prepare for their pieces. It seemed that some artists came in, and knew exactly what they were going to do, while others seemed to have a bit of a harder time trying to really grasp what it is they were intending. What I really liked about the theme "Loss" was that it became a completely subjective word, wide open to interpretation for each of the artists. For example, Steven Prince created a drawing of a historical fight that took place in the early 1900's in which one man seems to lose, while the other dominates. This is a very literal approach to "loss" rich is history and culture. His process was very meditative to watch, because as the day progressed he kept on slowly chipping away at his end result. Towards the end of 8-hour projects, for about 3 hours, I helped Zimbabwean artist Lucia Nhamo create a recreation of a newspaper headline that she had seen in her native Zimbabwe recently. It was interesting to talk to her and hear how she feels about this massive epidemic, and collaborate with her to create something that is extremely relevant today. While I was painting with Lucia, I messed up a couple times and the paint began to drip. I apologized immediately and her response was really beautiful. She said that she wanted to keep in that mistake that I had made, only touching it up a little bit. She didn't want her piece to seem too forced into just being a replication of a newspaper, rather something that someone is creating with their hands, and she wanted signs of life in her project that is ironically rooted in loss and death. For me, that was a really cool experience because I was so afraid of ruining her piece, but in the creative process, I feel like sometimes it is those mistakes that turn the project into something different and unexpected. In general, I really enjoyed my experience of being there all day and helping the artists. It was very uplifting for me to have some of the artists ask me what I thought would be best, and were genuinely interested in my own thoughts and opinions about their piece. I really liked that about half of the pieces in the 8-hour projects required participation and collaboration. The pieces would not have became what they were if people did not participate and openly engage in this work. It was refreshing to hear how humbled the artists were, and how they did not expect as many people to participate that did.