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: