The most interesting lecture

This weeks lecture was given by Melinda Steffy, a jack of all trades in the art world. The main topic she spoke on was Esty.com, a place to buy and sell hand made arts and crafts. Before the lecture started the G-Man, Gerard Brown ask the audience if someone could help the squid through the door. A kid in a giant squid costume was trying to fit through the door, he made it in and plopped down in the back, the costume still touching the ceiling. The lecture wasn't too bad, Melinda has some good points. She mentioned that you need a website, she told us how a lady at this one craft show Melinda was at didn't have a website and people didn't take her as seriously. Then half way through the lecture a kid ran to the front, covered in full super villain garb, and threw down a black circle and yelled "The infamous hole strikes again!". If I had any doubt I was in an art school it is now gone. The lecture continued after a few jokes, Melinda Steffy was not phased.

The Tenth Lecture

I chose to go to the Superflex lecture this week and was happy I did. It took me a little while to understand what Jacob Fenger was saying because of his accent but once I understood I really started to enjoy the lecture. Superflex is a group of Danish artists that work all over the world. What really interested me in this lecture was what the artists where doing with their talent. Instead of just wasting time and making art for art's sake they were making art for the sake of common people, for farmers, for the unprivileged. One of Superflex's main projects is Guaraná Power, a soda pop that is made from the guaraná berry. The farmers who now produce berries for Guaraná Power were being screwed by a big corporation that monopolized the guaraná industry, but because of Superflex the farmers are now getting fair pay for their work. Because Superflex is using their talent to help people and not just make art for galleries is why I was so interested in the lecture.

Number Nine

This weeks lecture was given by Tyler's very own Doug Bucci, a metals and CAD CAM teacher. Doug went to school wanting to be a painter despite his rich 3-D heritage, his dad was a carpenter, mom was an interior designer and his grandpa was a blacksmith. He took a metals course as an undergrad and got hooked on it. His work now is done almost all on the computer using 3-D rendering technology. A few years back Bucci had a wake-up call, he was reading an article about two artists he admires and found out they had recently died from complications from diabetes. Doug has diabetes and was living a raucous life, he decided it was time to get serious and his art reflected it. His art now is somehow drawn back to his diabetes. His latest conquest is quit an advantageous journey. The medical devices that keep him alive are now also feeding his art. His blood sugar meter sends its readings to the insulin pump and to his computer, after enough info is gathered the 3-D printer goes to work and makes something. If Doug has a good day health wise the piece will be aesthetically pleasing but if his blood sugar is a crazy coaster then the piece will be grotesque. Doug Bucci is on the cutting edge of technology based art.

Another Lecture

This weeks lecture was given by Eileen Neff. She is a photographer who challenges perspective and space by installing huge prints that give you a sense of being inside while the image happens outside. This lecture left me livid, her work is so simple and elementary but yet she is a recognized artist who makes a living off her work. I feel that she is taking advantage of one good discovery she made. The work she did collaging the still tree over the blurred background is great but the piece "Horizon" is less than mediocre. I don't see how she can get away with a snapshot of woods and then put a strip of blue and green next to it and then get it in a gallery. What makes that different than my ten year old brother doing the same thing? What if I did it and had the same thought behind it, could I quit school and make a living of work like that?

NYC and the Met

This Saturday my art history class took a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. We spent a good bit of the day in the museum but I had some free time to go walk around the city. I got a few pictures of the art in the museum and some of people out in the city. Here's a link to my picasa slideshow http://picasaweb.google.com/DaveFauvell/NYC#slideshow/5397654799660274002

Lecture number seven

This weeks speaker was Sharon Louden, she dabbles in drawing, painting, film and installation but just considers herself just an artist. All of her work except the installations are very simple and bland. Throughout every piece of hers there is an elongated curve that she says is a figure or representation of a person. Her installation work is very awesome, she incorporates fiber optics and glow in the dark paint in most of her work. Her pieces are so popular that people actually buy parts of them after they run their course in the gallery. One family bought part of a piece and installed it in their living room. She was commissioned to make a chandelier and the finished work was very good. Her newest conquest is in the realm of film and animation and she is failing. The piece she showed, "The Bridge" the picture above is a still from the movie, was meant to make you feel as if you were in a drawing, I felt like I was watching a cheap bowling alley animation. Trying to stay true to her minimal style she avoids the bells and whistles and the eye catching effects. She needs to embrace all aspects of technology to advance her animations because right now they come across as poorly thought out and cheaply made.

3-D class

So this week the lecture was just an advising meeting so I decided to write on my 3-D class. As of now 3-D is my favorite class because its new and I have never done sculpture work before. I like the freedom to make pretty much anything and just really explore sculpture. My most recent project is a treat to work on. It is made of 2X4's and cardboard and is as tall as me, 6'5", and has multiple moving parts. The lecture last week reminded me a lot of my sculpture, art and engineering fused into one, granted my piece isn't as advanced as Brad Litwin's but the underlying idea is similar. A reason I really like this project is because I was and still am a tinkerer, I enjoy taking apart and putting back together things that are too complex for me to understand. My favorite thing to dismantle are remote controlled cars and from that I got a rudimentary idea of how you can get linear and circular motion from one rotating source.My sculpture is basically a stick figure with moving arms and a spinning head that are all powered from one crank near the base. So far my creation is coming along and should be finished by crit time but is nowhere near finished, when it is I'll have another post about the finished piece and how the crit went and i'll include a few pictures.