Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Friday, October 7, 2011

oh, and this.

Can you spot my cat and I? (hint: I'm not wearing glasses.)

I've been thinking a lot about a film-noir crime drama involving bugs...

Really strong coffee, cinnamon roll, bargs root beer.

          I've just started my Senior year at the University of Washington and am kicking it off with a fabric embelishing class and introduction to glass. Towards the end of the summer I didn't know where to go with my art and was frustrated with my limitations with drawing and painting, actually discarding my pencil instead to write a little bit of fiction and poetry... For now I want to instead of drawing figures and elements that look like singular objects on a picture plane actually create objects that take power over their surroundings, or become part of whatever environment they're thrust into. Not that I won't return to drawing and digital media, but I'm excited to try a different way of approaching what I want to communicate or give people when they experience the art.

There's a certain quality of light here, especially during fall that lines even the most dilapitated work spaces with gold. ALSO, love the structure of the naked clothing rack.

Learning how to mix dyes and use them on fabric. Here are our first swatches after they've been ironed out and proudly displayed. The entire experience of washing and treating the fabric was a lot like Christmas. That's one of my dyeing buddies, Monica. She was laying stuff out but retreated when I tried to take a picture. So obviously I made her look busy again haha thus her goofy smile. (Note: See that cobalt blue piece? yeah, I mixed that dye :)

Learning how to use kilns with glass and our first assignment is to slump glass into a wire/ metal frame.  I'm hoping that the open bottom part will warp into a sagging cavity linked with tubing. Intention wise the goal is that it will be read as an ambiguous biological structure like a stomach, uterus etc. and that the glass will become liquidy enough to fuse into all the grooves and crevices of the tangled wiring, picking up that complicated woven/ veiny pattern. The other way this could go is that it will actually capture the metal frame within the glass. A possibility I'm very ready to work with! Am a little worried about the weak outcrop  but maybe it will be saved after some reinforcement when it's fired.

         I think my problem has been that I pick a nonexistant place I want to be (ex. success) and then make these lists of criteria that I think will get me there, which just immobilizes me in fear of moving or doing the wrong thing. When really I should just work as hard as possible without a specific idea of the future and see how far I get on my own terms and ready myself for opportunity. This direction seems really exciting to me.