Squarelawn Chair

My new RSS reader is compelling me to share these nuggets of delight with all 16 of you out there.

So, ummm...anyone care to weigh in on this handcrafted wood chair art piece?  you know! the one that looks like the shitty plastic chairs everyone and their gramma have rotting (actually they'll NEVEREVEREVER rot) in their yards, sheds, cottages, garages, carports, decks, patios, poolsides, landfills, or what have you. 

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Good Morning Noon

Good Morning Noon, originally uploaded by snailbooty.

So I finally got all my marks and my final average is an 83! I was really happy. I ended up with a 94 in critical theory!

Yesterday I started summer school and really like the instructor. Thank goodness because I'm going to have her in June for the next class. So this one now is called Contemporary Issues: Art Today and it runs until the end of June. Here's the description:

This introductory studio-seminar course exposes students to some of the issues, theories, conceptual and formal strategies that inform contemporary art practice. This specific offering concentrates on drawing and painting with reference to other media. Each weekly seminar explores current ideas and discourses through some of the following: presentations of artists’ works, analysis of assigned readings, and students’ presentations of their own projects.

1313 Mockingbird Lane, originally uploaded by snailbooty.

The next one is a 3 week intensive course called Painting and Digital Imaging. I'm super stoked to take it, but am a little nervous about having a painting assignment due for each class. Here's the description:

The capacity to manipulate and synthesize images digitally from a vast number of sources allows artists increased latitude in generating ideas for paintings. In this studio/lab-based course, students use the computers, digital cameras and scanners to gather images and create compositions for their paintings. Through a combination of painting and digital experiments, students explore a range of possibilities for expanding the painter's vocabulary.


I've got a shitload of old photos and some crap from my teen years that I'll probably work into paintings. I also have a whole box of slides we found at Goodwill last summer that I'm going to try and use.

side dish, originally uploaded by snailbooty.

Then from the end of June to the first week of August I'll be taking History of Modern Art. Here's the description:

This lecture course surveys major artistic movements and artists from the 1860s to the 1970s. We begin by examining the roots of Modernism and proceed to a consideration of movements such as Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism and Constructivism. We then examine Duchamp and the Armory Show of 1913 to illustrate the influence of the early-20th-century European avant-garde on North American art and aesthetics, particularly Abstract Expressionism. We conclude with a discussion of mid-20th-century art movements, including British and American Pop, Conceptual Art, Minimalism, Performance, Land-based Art and Post-Minimalism.

This will probably end up being mostly essays and exams, and I have a friend taking it as well, so it'll be good to have someone to study with.

hush puppy, originally uploaded by snailbooty.

I have so many photos from my first year drawing class that I just haven't had time to tweak and upload yet but I'll get to it eventually.

OH last night I started a dance class.

A hip hop dance class.

...

STOP LAUGHING I'm serious!!!!

Katie Hip-Hop Dance - Delmar Loop 9, originally uploaded by kocojim.

I haven't taken a dance class since I was 9 years old and even then it was Royal Conservatory Ballet - ugh. I do love shaking my ass on the dance floor (the 2 times a year I actually go out dancing) so I thought what better way to get in shape an learn some new moves.

My ass and obliques are KILLING today though, ya'll. Maybe by the end of the class in June I'll have the balls to tape myself dancing and share it with you.

Maybe.

P.S. Here's a shot of a sculpture that I made last November. Just totally forgot to post photos of it!

one more assignment done...

Kirk and I have been dreaming up fancy houses we would love to live in. So here it is:




Wanna see the whole fabrication process with slideshow-y goodness?

holy crap! i'm a 34C!

Since school started, my sleeping schedule is all over the place, so I basically eat smaller meals whenever I'm hungry, which is about every 2-4 hours. I've also been a weight training once a week with my personal trainer brother.



Last fall, and now that the snow has finally melted, I've been riding my bike 4 times a week to and from school which ends up being 10-15 minutes each way.



Just one year ago I was a 38D and 2 dress sizes bigger. I also pretty much sat on my ass all day at a desk, sometimes in front of a computer that I shared with 3 other people.



These are shots from the last project I submitted to my Art and Design in the Social Sphere class.


SUBJECT: Create a recording of something. Interpret the word "recording" as you see fit. This could mean a literal recording, a trace, data analysis, a copy, etc...

CRITERIA/MATERIALS: Format and materials are open.

MY INTERPRETATION:


'7 DAYS'
mixed media on canvas
32" x 36"

I saved 7-days worth of packaging and non-perishable trash from whatever I bought or finished and used a glue gun to collage it to an old canvas I had lying around as a record of my consumption.

this is my latest sculpture homework. no really.

props to Kim Adams for inspiring me to hack a bunch of war toys and hand it in as homework. And I got an A on that last project!

you are what you eat

This is my third assignment for my Form and Structure course, and it's due tonight. The assignment was called 'The Body'. The guidelines were:

1. The structure of your work can either be a fragment of the body OR a relationship/association created between 2 or more body parts.
2. Your completed broject will focus on, and be expressive of, a theme/idea/meaning
3. Your sculpture can be abstract/representational/self-contained/assemblage/installation/personal/political
4. Materials suggested: mould-making medium, plaster, plaster bandage, air-drying clay, sculpy, wax, wood, fabric, organic materials, etc.

SO, the idea I wanted to explore (as this post title suggests) was 'you are what you eat' in relation to how little we think about all the invisible stuff (fertilizers, pesticides, hormones) we put into our bodies when we consume seemingly innocuous foods, like fruits and vegetables. This is exemplified in the fingers that are bitten off along with the apple, as if the "biter" didn't notice. This also touches on the theme of the psychological impact of the mindless consumerism western culture, which is on my mind a lot lately with Christmas coming up, and me not having much money to spend. In fact, Kirk and I are considering making it a Buy Nothing Christmas.

Anyway, I really wish I had taken pictures of the whole process for ya'll. Instead I'll just tell you how I did it. I used alginate to make a 'negative' mold of my friend Melissa's hand, holding an apple, sans bite. Then I made a 2-part plaster bandage shell to hold it all together while it set. The shell also allows for you to pour your material to make your 'positive'. We then melted down some oil-based clay and poured it into the alginate/plaster bandage mould and poured it in. Once it was set, we pulled off the mould and had a great clay positive of my sculpture.

Then Melissa took a few bites out of the clay (yuk) and I used some hand tools to clean it all up. Then we repeated the alginate/plaster bandage process to make a new negative to pour the hydrocal (white gyspum cement) into. When the hydrocal started to set, we inserted a 3/4" wood dowel into the base, for mounting, and let it dry overnight. During the curing process, the dowel expanded with the moisture and heat and unfortunately cracked the base below the wrist. So I had to mix up some more hydrocal and work it into the cracks. Next time I'll remember to use a metal rod.

Once it was all dry, I sanded it and used spray primer to get it as white as I could. Kirk helped me make a plywood base (phew!) and I primed that as well. Last night I put it all together and this morning I epoxied in a real apple stem that I also had primed, and VOILA! Done, aaaaand done.

Ok. I'm off to school to present it to my class, where I will endure all manner of critique. Wish me luck!