Recipe for Setting Up an ASC Art Gallery

18 or so ASC girls

1 Nell Ruby

50+ Pieces of artwork

Brain Power

A smidge of an artistic eye

As much creativity possible

100+ thumb tacks

A couple of pencils

1 Ruler

1 or 2 levels

Lots of Floor/Wall Space

Time, time, and then some more time.

Last week, the Art 160 B class helped Nell finish setting up the student exhibit at our school. I have set up numerous art exhibits before because I went to an art school before Agnes, but I never had to do anything so frustrating/awesome at the same time. Before, we would just have to line them up correctly and not really put them into an array on the wall, but this time we had to continually change the structures of pieces so they could create this spiral of art on the wall. The first thing we did was line up all the chair pictures on the floor to create and line that consecutively had all the chairs starting at one angle and each picture would branch from the angle before creating this panoramic view. we then had to measure and level off each picture before we could hang them up. As if that wasn’t hard enough, we had an entire blank wall to cover. I specifically helped with setting up some of the black and white “negative space” pictures in a formation that would fit what Nell wanted. We spent 30 minutes just laying out the pictures on the ground before we could even hang them. Trying to put pictures in a spiral that cohesively worked is not the easiest thing. Especially when you have 8 different girls with 8 different opinions. Coming to one conclusion had to be the hardest part. While some others pinned those to the wall, my next duty was the fill in another blank wall with the “Word pictures” that we did before the animal project. We had to create 4 rows with 8 pictures in each. We had to measure each picture equal distance apart and each row had to cohesively work. It took another 30 minutes just trying to decide what needed to be next to what. Overall, this experience was something that I felt was necessary to test how far our minds could expand with other’s artwork. The ‘behind the scenes’ action allows you to appreciate how hard and how much work is put into something. I love using my artistic abilities in other ways than just drawing or having my own artwork. Being able to critic others and create a cohesive art world tests the boundaries of my artistic mind. Overall, hard work does equal success and knowledge. El Fin.

Little Animal Project

My little seahorses have become my obsession. I was talking to my brother one day and he said making wire animals was extremely difficult (he was right) and that I should steer clear of doing it (he was wrong). I was destined to prove his prodigy art skills wrong. So guess who decided to use wire as her only medium? ME! I loved working with wire regardless of the pain and frustration I endured. I first created a 2D seahorse structure and had to figure out how to make it 3D. So i made another 2D seahorse structure and inserted it perpendicular to the first and added some wire ring bases on the inside for structure. I felt like I captivated every intricate detail from the ridges in the tail to the spikes on the head. I felt wire was the only way I could truly express that definition. I was not satisfied though with just the 3D figure I created so I decided to cover it with a thin wire to give it mass. I feel like it gave it the body and mass it needed to come alive. My favorite part is the nose and the tail of my seahorses because of how playful they feel. For the wings I decided to use material and make a bow. I needed something to give these seahorses an airy, floating feeling. The wire weighed them down and then little light-weight, delicate wings protrude them upwards. I feel like the bow for wings makes them playful and almost girly. I loved this project, I loved my medium, I love my little animals. El Fin.

Analyzing Other Marta Projects

In class on Thursday, each person had to present their Marta project. The point of the class was to pick one that appealed to us and blog about it. So here we go. The one that stood out to me was Rachel’s. The quality of her pictures sucked you into this vortex of being so intrigued. I think I’m drawn in to black and white pictures for some reason. I feel there is such a mystery and beauty to them that is indescribable. I think that’s what drew me in. Once I got to see her pictures up close, she really captured the people of Marta. She captured the movement by not having perfectly still pictures. The blur captured the reality of the movement. I also like how she didn’t have everything the same layed out in her book. The pictures she chose to place on a single page or two she decided to put together really made a difference. Some seemed to run onto together because of the lack of color. It made it that tad bit more intriguing. Overall, I was drawn to Rachel’s because of her ability to capture the life of Marta in one book. Props to her. El Fin.

There’s Gotta Be a Word for It: Part II

Emily Ledbetter, Emily Tan and I were in a group together. The goal was to pick two people’s pieces of art and try to guess what their word was for it after analyzing it. The first square we picked was one with all these ripped pieces of paper of different colors and layer sporadically all over. The paper had torn edges and there was no order to the picture. Our first reaction was agitation and aggressive. We couldn’t decide what was the word and we went with our gut reaction and picked agitation which ended up being right. We picked agitation because of the lack of order and the frayed edges the piece had to it. The viewer was agitated themselves trying to figure out what was going on. Our second piece we chose was one with a gray ball in the bottom, right hand corner with these lightning bolts that were white shooting towards it. The word we picked was afraid because we felt the little gray ball was being pushed in this corner by these overbearing white lightning bolts. We felt they were overbearing because of the contrast of black and white and the ball was weak and scared because of his gray color. The word ended up being aggressive which we soon were able to see because of the attacking that was going on. Overall, we did really well reading others works and guessing words. El Fin.

“We’re Taking Marta!”

In my thought process for this project, numerous ideas came to mind and it was hard for me to choose. My first idea was “The Life of a Graffiti Artist.” I was going to find as much Atlanta artists that liked to spread their word in a different way. It was more of a project of the rebellious life. After considering other ideas, I decided I wanted to be more 3D, more intimate with the art. I thought to myself, “What is the grungiest, detailed features of Marta?” The first thing that came to my mind was the floors. They are the grungiest, right? The trash, the puddles, the gum, the leaves, the spilled paint all played major roles in this decision. It gave the floor such life. You knew there was a past, a long, long past that made it that way. It intrigued me from the beginning. So we were sitting in class one day and I started to tell me friends about my idea. Carolyn looked at me and replied, “That is an awesome idea, it gives your project such life.” Avi, in reply to Carolyn, agreed and thought it was something I could really expand on. We then discussed how I could create a book about it. I didn’t want to make a book. That wouldn’t be able to capture the 3D aspects I was going for. I was discussing how I wanted to put in the leaves and make the appearance of water. Once we got started talking about it, we somehow branched into this epic idea. We were ALL going to collaborate. I was doing the floors, Avi and Carolyn were doing the walls, Charla was doing the ceiling, and Emily was doing the trip between the stations. We had all these ideas ready. It was time to take the Marta! We decided the best idea would be to go from an indoor station, Decatur, to an outdoor station, Avondale. We took different pictures and tried to find different angles to really capture what we wanted. Once we got back to Dana, the work began. When I started, I began doing this grid to create tile for the Decatur station. I did each tile one by one to make sure each had its own life. Once I was done with the tile, I moved onto the concrete and the gripped floor. For the concrete, I had to decide what was the best what to give it that 3D look. I decided to put dirt in my paint and use a sponge to give it that ‘imperfect’ look. For the gripped floor, I decided to use bubble wrap. It was the perfect thing to give it life. I laid a grey sheet of paper underneath it so it added some color. Floor one was finished and it took a long time. I moved onto the Avondale station floor. It was brick instead of tile. I decide to just free-hand each brick and it seemed to work out well. It also gave it that imperfect look. I then did the same thing for the concrete and gripped floor. It was the only thing that was the same in both stations. For both floors, I decided to add more character. On the Decatur, I added the spilled paint I saw, gum, and a leaf. On the Avondale station, I added a puddle with glue and also a leaf. I felt overall I captured exactly what I wanted. For the amount of time I spent on this project, I was completely satisfied. I accomplished, in my opinion, the 3D aspects I was aiming for. I was so happy with how well we all worked together and how epic our project all turned out being. The biggest shocker of all was how we only decided to put it together at the end, but we each did our own individual projects. It was cohesively awesome. El Fin.

There’s Got To Be a Word For It.

Joyful. That’s the word. Wonderful, blissful, carefree, pleasurable, fantastic, and enjoyable. I tried to create a picture that had nothing identical, but also a common theme that could symbolize the one thing that made it joyful. I tried to capture energy to give it a carefree feeling. I used different colors. White as the main color to express the simpleness of joy and also the pure feelings joy leaves you feeling. The grey shadows are there to remember how everything may not be joyful, but right now, the white is overpowering. Right now, this explosion is joyful. The energy is flowing off the square. Off the plain, black square, but focused on the ball of energy in the center. Joyful, bliss. El Fin.

Numero Cuatro: The Fabricated Jumble Project

Welcome to the horrible world  of FRUSTRATION! I walk in the studio and was like, “You have got to be kidding me!” Nell wasn’t kidding. So once reality sunk in that I HAD to do draw this toule, fabric concoction, I decided, might as well go all out. So I walk around to the different still lives and choose which would challenge me the most and where could I sit to vent to my friends about how much I would not enjoy this. Reality was, the challenge was beautiful and I ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would. I started in the top, left hand corner thinking it might be the easiest place to start. The fabric really was the best place to start. To have a solid medium was a good escape. Once I hit the toule, I knew hell was coming. I didn’t exactly know how to draw layers and layers of see-through fabric on top of each other. So I just started experimenting to see what would work best. I found my eraser was the best tool. It gave me the ability to make true white lines that were clear and discrete. I also used the pencil graphite more than the stick because my picture was so detailed. I enjoyed much more working with the concreteness of the pencil.

The strongest aspect of my picture, in my opinion, is the knot in the middle and how the fabric swoops around it. I feel I captured the shading there and the movement of the fabric. Some of the comments I got in discussion were that my picture felt like it was 3D and had the feeling that it was flowing off the page. I think that is the biggest complement because I worked extremely hard to make this feel like it was almost real. I wanted that aspect of something more oozing off the page. I enjoyed this picture so much because I feel that I ‘wanted’ to work on it and once I got on my roll there was no stopping me. I forgot how much I enjoyed drawing for a second. Its back now. El Fin. For now.

Fundred Dollar Bills!

Mel Chin is out once again trying to save the world and guess whose always there to help? Scotties of course. We spent the first half of our class in Evans Dining Hall coloring this “Fundred dollar bills” to help save money for a clean soil project. On my Fundred bill,I decided what I love the most and depicts one aspect of my hometown, Savannah, GA. This aspect just happens to be the beach. On the front side,  I chose to do the Tybee side of Savannah and on the back I decided to draw what was more of the true island life, the life I see when I go on my boat. My clean soil is sand and I would love to donate my time and dedication to keep this world BEAUTIFUL! YAY =]

Numero Tres: Frames. The second “Messy” picture.

This was the most frustrating picture. Once I got too frustrated, I just decided to let myself go and learn to make mistakes. Can’t be that bad, right? So I start off drawing the main straight on frame and then from there just kept adding things. I had to erase a lot because my proportions were not working out the way I intended them to. The main problem I encountered was getting way ahead of myself. On this picture I would draw one piece and then go straight to shading without checking exact proportions and how they related to the other pieces in the view frame. Once I shaded, it was a lot harder to go back and fix my mistakes. I felt like I didn’t dedicate as much time and appreciation into this piece and I feel as if that shows in the outcome. Guess we all must learn from our mistakes. El Fin, for now.

Art Gallery Opening

So we walk into this room and already we can feel all the excitement. There are tons of people of all ages. We walk in and then, we see the magics of our childhood staring us right in the face: Seesaws. Three very colorful, wonderful, magnificent, seesaws. We stood in line contemplating if we were too old and if this would be embarrassing. “Screw it!” I say. I was getting on this seesaw regardless. They were too spectacular to not do it. Once all that excitement was over with we moved onto the skateboards and then to the piece that we helped with earlier that week. We cut tons of strips of cardboard so this man could make ships and boy was it amazing. The lighting, the colors, the atmosphere made it so intricate and beautiful. It was definitely my favorite piece. We then continue through the gallery to find a wall, a black wall with a chalk eraser just going up and doing creating this white line. We sat and tried to figure it out, but figure there was no way to understand this unless the artist explained it so we moved on. The instruments were next and we wanted to play with them, but no can do. They were still cool to look at regardless. So here we go, the last room. The sink, toilet, bathroom paintings. They were spectacular. I love when people make new things look old and vintage. I loved how the artist put them in the antique frames that just made the painting seem so much more than it was. Overall, I really enjoyed this art gallery and definitely had a blast. Seesaws? Really? Who couldn’t have a blast?