Thursday, April 28, 2016

Filing Cabinet inspiration

               Tom Sachs is basically the sole inspiration for this piece everything i want to embody in my work is influenced by his studio practice and the way his work influences himself.


COLOR. By Tom Sachs: https://vimeo.com/33998046
This needs to be watched.


3.68 inspiration

$3.68 was inspired and mostly funded by my addiction of coffee, many artist dwell on the thoughts of repetition and ritual. Every morning i get dressed head down to the studio and then proceed to find my way down to my favorite coffee shop pay 3.68 for my cup of coffee then leave, consuming my coffee way too fast.

        Inspiration for this piece came from artists who combine fabricated and found items as well as ritual into their own works.

         Tara Donovan, possibly one of my favorite artist in the field of ritualized repetition, her use of found objects piled upon each other create otherworldly objects, taking these found things out of context.

Examples of Tara Donovan's works



   
        Another influence on my work was Tom Sachs in how he combined found objects into fabricated objects, though where we differ is in the functionality of our objects, i take away the function while tom adds it to its skill set.

Examples of Tom Sachs works



Untitled filing cabinet

           Mediation in self loathing, being with ones self for too long, filing feelings.











Dwell inspirations and readings

           Throughout the creation of Dwell, i learned various handicrafts to help complete the project one of these was wax dipping objects, usually bones, twigs, and feathers, though the occasional bug made it into the mix. This helped not only preserve the pieces but added a tactile nature to them. The waxes came in yellow and white and were often dripped on top the pieces, occasionally i would immerse the objects within the wax. It is something i greatly enjoyed doing in my practice and found it influencing other projects as well.
          Learning how to restore and maintain pieces also helped me significantly within this practice as well with the help of Russell Maycumber i was able to remove the various paints and stains that coated the wood, then try to identify the type of wood and then getting the bed ready for staging.


            Inspirations for Dwell, one of the obvious ones is another bed simply called Bed by Robert Rauschenberg, the beds both combine various objects both fabricated and found to protray the message they want to send. Both are self portraits of the artists and their dreamscapes, mine an empty void, with various totems tying me home, while Rauschenbergs is more of an assertion that his life and his art were connected.

                                                                 Bed by Rauschenberg

             Another thing that spawned this idea of partial bed making was a NY Times article i had read on the death of a man who isolated himself and how the city on New York would try to handle it. The article made me thing of my own connections and the things i keep to myself and the dreams i tell no one about. The empty bed was inspired by the empty vessel, the body hoe it holds all these things that it can choose never to release, the objects hanging within its maw is the disconnect between the physical and dream world. Thoughts that are active in sleep and dulled during the period you are awake. Whenever i think of this article and all the feelings it gives me it gives me hope that i will someday not die many lonely deaths but rather one fulfilled one.
     The Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/nyregion/dying-alone-in-new-york-city.html?_r=0
         

Insipration for Urban Solitude

Urban Solitude was meant to show the entirety of a group trip, in a single persons guise, the idea was a last minute execution, but was well thought out.

          The first inspiration was the trip itself, in the spring of 2016 i ventured with 21 other students to the great city of New York, their we wandered and explored the nooks that the city had to offer we explored museums, galleries, and the streets we trekked. In all these places i chose to wander by myself, taking the time to observe that art i wanted to see and take in. Often sketching objects within the places and planning the next portions of my exploration. I found here i thought more about movements and myself, i became more self aware? The whole process of entering a mecca of art finding your niche within its vast system and then taking the time to observe your surroundings and ponder.

       This is Water, possibly the biggest inspiration to this piece, considering the surrounding and how insignificant my adventures were in the vastness of New York City.

                                          This is Water:

$3.68

 $3.68, is a piece on ritual and consumption, each straw came from a cup of coffee, the sheet they are sewn on is the remains of that coffee, each one costing $3.68. The piece itself will remain incomplete until either the sheet is filled, or my love of this coffee shops coffee wanes. Each straw is placed around 2 inches from each other both in height and length, to create order and symmetry. This is my vote as the consumer this is what I have deemed as fit for consumption, me paying 3.68 is validation as the consumer that my money and voice does matter,  because it keeps others well, and maintained. 

Urban solitude

This spring I travelled to New York City, a city of millions of people, and myself isolated. 21 students also took the trip but I felt alone bound by my own fascinations of New York, so I decided to show the viewer my own personal journey through New York, one that is winding, self aware, and on the roads most travelled. The pieces simplist nature is meant to act as the backing for the information, the handy craft is weak, and the colors are soft and plaitable, the viewer can easily chew on the adventure of the lone adventurer. Places of significance are marked with X's, while dashed lines mark movement, the travels that were arduous to the artists are clumped together on a map, showing I the grand scheme a lack of movement.





Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Dwell, Sweet Dreams

        Dwell was mostly a restoration project taken over by my love of wood and free objects, this piece is about construction, the order and functionality of an object, and the meanings behind said object. It was cleansed of its many layers of paint, lacquer, and stain, to reveal the maple hidden underneath, The object is then taken out of context sheets are placed over the void in the center and totems are hung from above, to lull the dweller to sleep. Soft light illuminates it from behind sending you into purgatory, an in between dreamscape, a false reality. What has happened to our viewers reality.













Hearing inspirations

          An obvious inspiration for the piece comes from The Nature History of the Senses by Diane Ackermann, Especially the parts about how moods are developed through sound and how tension plays a role in how we perceive sounds.

          A lot of inspiration also came from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, I have always found it fascinating the way Stanley plays with space and sound, the way he forces your prescriptive to change, making spaces that cannot exist, and continually using noise as cues and ambience, i famous instance of this is how similar the opening sequences theme later matches the sound of Danny riding his tricycle before his encounter in room 237. He also uses forced perspective within the same scene with Danny to show the tension and scale of the building making you feel small, and lost within a maze like building.

  • Danny's Tricycle Ride, https://youtu.be/cy7ztJ3NUMI
  • Opening Sequence to the Shining, https://youtu.be/TgCejsyS0t8

      Information about forced perspective, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_perspective

Examples of Forced perspective,

  Fluorescent Buzz Example

           

The Natural History of the Senses, Hearing.





         This piece was meant to evoke a certain level of anxiety among the viewers, the piece was essentially a a portion of the art building being walled up, leaving only a little glimpse of what remained inside, a fabricated hallway. The viewer was meant to then become aware of the Fluorescent buzzing in the background and the anticipation of whats next.