Summer Mentor

This week kicked off my requirement for a mentor outside of CCAD. I will be working on Parsons Ave with Dan Colvin in his papermaking studio. I will be learning the ancient process of making paper and the more contemporary art of pulp painting. This week has involved research and reading about the history and traditions of making paper. Today I accompanied him to an elementary school that is making a pulp painting mural. It was a long day but I learned the basic concepts of working with the pulp, mixing colors, and other process oriented details. Because I was learning as I went and instructing kids at the same time I feel like I gained a lot of knowledge in a short amount of time. It was nice to go to a school and see kids excited about creating and having fun with the pulp. Next week we will be in the studio with a crash course on all the papermaking basics and finer details. There is so much to learn! I am looking forward to painting with the pulp and seeing where that takes me with my thesis project.

TA week 14 and 15

The last two weeks of class where the final critiques for the last two projects. Students really waited until today to finish everything so there was more work to look at today than last week. But everyone seemed unenthusiastic and barely said anything. I think everyone just wants to be finished, myself included. There are several seniors in the class that seem to be thinking only of graduating. There were a few students who shined, learned all the process, put forth a great amount of time and effort, and made great prints. The rest were very mediocre and I am not sure how a few are passing. We also graded the screens they built the first week of class. It makes since to grade them at the end, to see how well they held up using them throughout the semester. They all did a nice job making them, a few were warped. Kathy and I will be discussing the grading later tonight. It seems like a balanced class, a few A's lots of B's some C-D's and one student is going to fail for missing the last half of the semester and not dropping the class. I am also slightly confused by another student that didn't really do any of the assignments, but made some prints. Kathy said she has taken the advanced class so she is giving her more lee way, I still fell like she should be doing the assignments that everyone else is doing. I am interested to see how that works. She also skipped class today to turn things in. I am also interested to see how not having work for critiques will impact students grades, since this was a major problem with this class. Overall this experience has been wonderful, Kathy has been a great mentor. I am looking forward to teaching this class in a similar manner next fall!!!

TA week 12 and 13

The past two weeks have been working weeks in the print lab. Unfortunately no one has really been working on anything too productive for me to help them. Lots of tinkering with computers and a little bit of drawing. I am not sure when it became cool to procrastinate until the absolute end, but this is definitely the case with this class. We have critique next week, it will be interesting to see the quality of work they produce.....I did however have a pleasant one on one teaching experience with a student. It was good practice at giving instructions/explanations and also rewarding to help him begin the project and get him the tiniest bit excited about what he was doing.

Screenprints

New prints: Screenprinted and a few include monoprinting techniques. I have revisited the sound poems I wrote at the beginning of the semester and have made this series of prints based of them. The poems are more like titles and are written by spontaneous though or chance. The images refer to the poems in some way but are also open to interpretation for the viewer. I have decided that the titles will not be underneath the print in a traditional manner but in a list at the beginning of the wall, this way the inspiration is present but the images stand alone.

I am enjoying screenprinting, as always. I now have two series of prints based off of the poems....They are very different from one another. It has been beneficial to have a stronger focus, making a line with spaghetti and then pushing this idea to exhaustion. For variation I have also been adding some shape and texture but line is my main interest. This is a whimsical quirky line, it is strangely similar to how I draw, which is why I am attracted to it. Unfortunately the colors are a bit off, damn you iphone you aren't perfect yet. I really need to bring my camera around the studio more.




Apocalypse

Apocalypse International Print Exchange with Iowa State University.
A CMYK color separation screenprint, something I usually don't do but I wanted to experiment with using a bleach pen on a photo and then seeing how that would transfer to screenprinting. I think it became a little too bleach out.

TA week 11

Our second critique happened this week. Even though students were given an extra week at least three didn't have anything to show and one student didn't come at all. The students seem so blase about not having their work as well, no excuse made or anything...just, "oh I haven't done it." Wow things are easy for students these days, these are seniors too!!! Good luck in the real world telling your boss Oh I didn't do it. I have a hard time relating to this because I was never that kind of student. The class has a good balance of those who care, those who try, and those who are wasting their money and energy...making it a great learning curve for me. The critique went well for the most part. Kathy wanted me to run it...which she told me right before class. I was a little mentally unprepared for that. It worked out for the best with her leading it and me interjecting a bit more and asking the students some questions as well. Maybe for the next one I will be ready to lead it. The forum for critique is excellent, I think. It feels relaxed, leads to good discussion, commenting, with criticism that isn't too harsh.

Experiment with sculptural print. I am intrigued by the shadow from the pasta, the embossment pressing into the paper vs. the lines exploding out of the paper, and the more hidden element of the screenprinted white noodle lines. I am trying to convey energy without color....The lighting and photo could be better of course.....


I want to print this in neon so it will have an electricity feel to it. This one is about motion and the vibrating rhythms that make the world go round.

TA Week 10

Things were interesting this week in the lab. We were suppose to have a crit and only two students had finished their projects! I guess people took all of Spring Break off!!! The students must be way behind since they were suppose to have completed project 3 and be half way done with the 4th. We moved the crit to next week....It is understandable to have done this, since there are many technical difficulties involved with the process. Still...I didn't see too many of them around the lab working, hummmm. typical undergrad slacking. they better have some amazing prints next week! Instead we did a health and safety presentation, which could have been dry but Kathy's speed reading was entertaining!

Print Conference

As close to the arch as I got....there was no sight seeing on this trip, only printmaking!!! The conference was mainly at Washington University, which has a wonderful art department and sooo much space to work in, it was unreal! Events were held in the evening around the city, which I give the art scene there 2 thumbs up, so much going on!!! It was especially awesome to see so many local print shops and galleries supporting the print.





Local Letterpress Shop with amazing posters and cards.


Edible silkscreening in tortillas!!!

Work by street artist Swoon, who also gave an inspiring talk at the conference.

Pulp painting demo, what I want to do this summer.

TA week..8?

Losing count of the weeks! Today was actually our first critique of the semester. The first project was building the screens and the second project was doing the reduction method of screenprinting. I was impressed with the flow of the critique. It did not seem too long, which is amazing because they always seem too long. There was interesting input from almost the entire class, another amazing plus. Kathy has the students decide which piece to talk about first, her rule is that the artist waits to speak about the work until students have had time to comment and wonder about the piece. She also asks questions relative to the work for people to respond and to keep the conversation flowing. Then the student puts in their opinion/explanation and then that student picks the next piece to discuss. I have done critiques set up in this way where the students pick what to discuss. I think it is successful because if you are at the bottom at some point, the next project you will work much harder for success and a completed piece. It is kind of passive aggressive competition. I also had a great discussion after class about grading, her attendance policies, ect. I think Kathy is a wonderful mentor for me, I really enjoy her style of teaching and would want to have a similar approach and classroom atmosphere.

MId semester thoughts

I have enjoyed the guest professors coming to seminar class. It is great to hear an outside perspective and improves our discussions most of the time. Now that we have all had our first round in this critique style..... maybe we could change it up to include a written critique in the coming weeks, along with our normal discussion. The next round we could try another style....I think this would mix things up some and could help everyone.

In regards to my project, I have had a rush of ideas!!!!! With Danielle's advice to focus on a concept, I am going to further investigate making the plates from spaghetti.

Spaghetti Considerations:

The noodles come alive after they are boiled, they have a story to tell.

*cooked vs. uncooked......geometric vs. organic
*study of line, relation to etch-a-sketches
*pasta widths.....line weight
*Italy, experience of living in Florence
*embossment
*monoprinting and ink viscosity
*cursive wiriting
*Keith Harring
*Cermaic Tiles
*String Theory
*Brain Coral
*Throwing cooked pasta at plate

Other thoughts............

Icicle Freedom.

Come over inside read between the lines

punch the porcupine.

Wallow in the willow, polygon.

Where fantasy breath

reaches beyond time.

When the dew turns violet

Multiply half the hour,

Will all be revealed?


Mars wonders breathlessly around.
Gathering acetic molasses ashes while
burnished alloys follow frequencies unknown.
Drip apart with invisible movements.
Iota fragment fingerprint retains voltage.

TA week 6

This week was another demo, this time reviewing the photo process...which is what every student can't wait to do. We also reviewed tons of prints from past students and discussed methods of mixing the photo process with reduction methods. I enjoyed looking at the examples and seeing the variety of imagery and expression screen printing offers. I am eager to see the students finished projects and their critique in two weeks. I will be doing the next demo in a few weeks, which will be great practice, I am not the best at speaking in front of lots of people.

New Prints

CThese images are not the best quality. I will post the poems and titles later. I am balancing the non-sensical improvisation writing styles with carefully crafted plates and it is a fun way of working. I have been writing a title, making a plate, and then writing more after the plate is made, it makes for interesing play on words and imagery. I am having a good time with this.


Octagon spaghetti, madness consumes.




















TA thoughts week 5

Today was a work day in class and it was pretty quite around the studio. I am trying to learn everyones name and get to know them more. The print shop is a fun place to hang out, I have always loved the social part of it. I am building confidence in answering questions, sometimes I have a slight panic feeling that I told them the wrong answer. I have already learned SO many little details this semester from monitoring the lab and interning in Kathy's class.