descriptive lines + fleeting and not-so-fleeting impressions.

look what i made today! silk screen prints on a t-shirt and a tote! i'm pretty happy about it. i am kinda a lot obsessed with triangles right now. {the tote got crayon on it unfortuantely, so that's why is looks a little dirty. anddd the middle section of the line didn't come out all the way. third time's a charm}.

{machine used: yudu, image used: original drawing}

AND:

will lamson held a lecture at byu's museum of art tonight as a special guest speaker. i think he is just great.  here are some of my favorite works of his, and if you want to check out the rest, go here. 

A Line Describing the Sun. (melted earth in the Mojave Dessert). 

Vital Capacity. 

your first impression is to laugh, because it is quite funny. even though you anticipate the balloons, each unexpected pop still makes you and him jump. but when you watch it there are these tender moments where will and the balloon are in equilibrium. the balloon is floating and his breath is sustaining it- it's intimate. then the inescapable happens- will runs out of breath and the balloon falls towards his face, bringing a resounding pop once more. 

Automatic.

and then there are these drawings made by things like the sea, a kite, a tree, etc. wind and water automatically make the marks. it's a beautiful idea. art and nature working together, as it should be. the energy not only shapes grand art objects like cliffs and mountains, but it also is used to translate that movement and life into less permanent art. {excuse the blurry screen shots}.

Hunt and Gather. 

this is probably one of his most well-know pieces. because it is great {of course}. he hunts shoes in brooklyn with a razor bow & arrow, gathers them, and then replaces them with the shoes he is wearing, all on a bike. it is the act of making visible but invisible marks. he is changing the environment, but only slightly. 

Levitation Exercise. 

you will just have to go watch it on his site since i can't find a youtube clip. i love the simplicity of this video. he just bounces a white orb around. it is quiet as the celestial sphere slowly fades into the distance as he tries to keep up with its movement. { i suppose i might like it so much because it reminds me of when i lit thai lanterns in chiang rai}. 

also, i just got three rolls of film back today from the developer, so look forward to those posts! and i promise to blog about the naea conference in new york asap. and by asap i mean hopefully tomorrow. happy weekend. 

and i'm a mormon.

last semester i filled out a profile on mormon.org. i checked it frequently but every time i looked it still hadn't been approved. tonight i remembered i hadn't checked in a while, and just like that it was up! there are some things about it i wish i could change/re-write and it's not even been that long...funny how quickly we change {i even used a picture of me when my hair was red}. the rest of my profile is cut out of the picture, so if you want to read all of it you will have to go look me up!

anyway i recommend you all make one. and if you aren't mormon go check out the site for more info on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or ask me any questions you might have and i will do my best to answer them! 

also, check out this video of my awesome professor dan barney's wife cassandra. he is one of my favorite teachers ever. have i mentioned how much i love the opportunities i have as an art education student at BYU? because i do. i have the best classes, with the best of people. not many people can say that they welded or screen printed today.

oh hey and i also created this person in photoshop in one of my classes. she is made up of six different people. {body/face shape: ellie, eye shape/brow: stacey, eye color: holli, nose: me, mouth: courtney, hair/ears: emily}. the background is a picture i took of a field in france, and i even added a sheep. don't believe everything you see in magazines folks, because all of it is photoshopped. and as you can see, pretty much anything is possible thanks to adobe. {and she definitely isn't perfect}.

ceramics.

last month i finished my [block] ceramic fundamentals class last month. thank goodness. {i am now in sculpture as well as 3d design}. here are some of my pieces, many of which are in really bad lighting, and i have no desire to take pictures of the final product of some of these either. oh well.

 manmade: owl earring

 manmade: pillow

organic: mustache installation

 these took a really long time. each of them are hollow and i couldn't let them dry all the way so i could put black slip over them to scraffio texture on them. i had 15 in total, i wanted 30 but after spending all weekend with them there was no way. 

after firing them, glazing them, and then firing them again, some of the hole i put in them closed up with glaze so i had to use a mason bit to re-drill the holes. and miraculously none of them cracked. 

i then spent the night trying to figure out the best way to tie knots in fishing line so i could hang them from the ceiling. i am no fisher...i always felt bad for the fish and even when i did go fishing my dad tied the knots for me. so what did i do? just tied a bunch of knots. the picture above is 3 different shots of what it looked like hanging in the classroom the day of critique. they are now in my apartment waiting to be hung. they were awesome and i am still pleasantly surprised that they came out just how i planned. 

 organic: bubbles? molecules? lots of tiny hollow spheres.

 a shot of my unglazed mustaches, fired organic, and wet final piece. the final was an enlargement of the organic piece and measured to 22 inches. one of the spheres was literally as big or bigger than my head. it took a lot of work getting it all to stay together and not cave in.  

 then i get a an email saying some of the piece had blown up in the kiln. i go in to check and i see that one of them is mine. great. i had built it so carefully...but i was told i had some bubbles trapped in the clay. {i heard that one of the professors heated the kiln too quickly, so that is my theory of why it exploded}. the biggest sphere was irreparable. but after grinding down the edges and glueing them together with this stuff strong enough to repair a car, it kinda looked something like its old self. 

 so i used the only colors of spray paint they really had since i couldn't re-fire it. and voilà.

 some of you have seen my mini diana before right? well this it but less mini with a ribbon added on. manmade: camera. 

in total: 7 pieces. {i already posted about the raku}.

definitely don't miss the long nights covered in dust and clay. but then again i live in fear of chopping my finger off in sculpture and 3d design. i am currently bronze casting, carving alabaster stone, and welding steel. until then. 

UAEA: ST GEORGE

i am so very behind on blogging. it has been a long while. hello again blogosphere.

two weekends ago a group of art education students and myself took a trip down to the ever sunny st. george for a utah-wide art education conference. classes and workshops were held, speakers spoke, and adventures ensued. we have a great collection of people in art ed. put us all together in large vans and it gets pretty entertaining. we also went on a little hike to slot canyon with dr. mark graham but it was all so sudden and spontaneous that i forgot to bring even one of my four cameras, so i have no documentation of it yet. but i did collect red dirt in a water bottle so i can make paint or pastels out of it. now, i suppose i should educate you on what i learned and experienced. 

{and as a side note, seeing palm trees in utah was just plain weird. those belong in florida}.

 i took my nikon dslr but only used my iphone to take pictures. life moves fast. go figure.

watercolor painting the red rocks.

 paint out.

 

 the next three were taken by diane.

 our chair from DI stuffed in the van. 

 street painting workshop. 

brandon with model magic clay on his face. he provided the hilarious stories, we provided the laughter.

kolob.

the keynote speaker was dan goods. he is an artist that works for the jet propulsion lab {jpl} at nasa. sounds awesome you say? that's because it is. very. he has worked on some some amazing projects including typography on fog, eclouds, and an installation of sand representing the galaxies. 

read about him here. and then watch these videos:

i learned about collaboration, fingerprint drawing flipbooks, ink monsters, shaving cream screen printing, portable art galleries, post-structuralism, autonomy & identity, cooperative studio practices, a lot of other things, and most importantly, using all of these things and more to become a better teacher. i love everything about the education i am pursuing. art is important, remember that. and watch this ted talk: {i can't figure out how to get rid of the large gap unfortunately}.

we have awesome professors. who may or may not have helped facilitate the making of street art in downtown st. george. we visited the local DI [skipped class] and once there brandon proposed an idea for an installation. we bought a chair, some information/inspirational books, a book rack, and sidewalk chalk. the purpose was for passersby to take a moment to sit in the chair, read and/or think about things, and then write their thoughts with chalk. we even created an email so that others could share documentation/thoughts with us after we had left. randallsvandals@gmail.com. {randall is the name of brandon's hedgehog if you were curious}. shelby also made a video about it:

this week will you please stop, sit, and think about it? write your thoughts in a journal or even better in a public place. life is better when you slow down and take a look around.

thank you art ed friends and st. george for a wonderful weekend full of laughter, learning, and adventure.