Art Events Response

Artist Lecture: Mary Early

Mary Early Mary Early was the guest art speaker on February 2nd. She was here, discussing her own artwork as well as the processes involved in creating her art. She has had exhibits up in several different well-known galleries. The interesting thing about Mary Early’s artwork is typically constructed of wood and bee’s wax.

The particular materials Mary Early use to build her pieces are quite unusual. But the choice of material connects with her personal interests with line and repetition in form along with the physicality within the creation process. She spoke of her interest in the irregularity of the work because she hand makes all of the pieces of her work. The slight differences change the repetition element within her artwork, and for one of the pieces she showed a picture of, it even caused a crinkle effect with the structure. I thought her hand making touch along with the subtle changes added to the work overall. Especially being able to be hands on with materials as natural as the ones she is working with helps to make the concepts really consistent.

As for the lecture itself, I thought she had an interesting presentation that kept viewers attention. I enjoyed hearing about the actual creation process of dealing with materials, though I wish she could have expanded on that topic a little more. I was surprised that she introduced other artists’ work, but she linked it together by talking about the similarities in the concepts of the linear element in the form. It definitely helped to work as extra background information in forming her own ideas for her work. Overall I enjoyed the talk and thought highly of the work she had produced.

Artist Exhibition & Talk: Gabriela Bulisova

Gabriela Bulisova came to the college on March 22. She was here, exhibiting a gallery of her own artwork as well as the discussing her experience and process of the projects on display. She is a documentary photographer and the work on exhibit included photography of Iraqi refugees who have relocated in the U.S.

During her talk, she showed photos of other previous projects she had worked on that went along with other work from the middle east. She talked about them, the process and experience she had while taking them, and facts about iraqi refugees. Apparently, it is one of biggest refugee crises in todays history, and many who come to the US work as translators and experts for the government, corporations and NGOs. Her work and the information shared encouraged awareness and advocacy of this issue. It was similar to the work I did for her class last year in photojournalism, and her process of getting into the community to take the photos reminded me of the difficulties I came across while photographing homelessness.

I thought that her photos were visually very moving both in content and composition. Her talk was interesting because of her personal experience she discussed while taking those photographs. I enjoyed the talk and the gallery opening, both were successful, especially because it was an interesting topic that many were unaware of.

Art Event: Interdisplinary Discussion on Public Art

There was an interdisciplinary talk on public art with two studio art professors, a political science professor, and another speaker who studies art in public spaces. The two studio professors, Billy Friebele and Lisa Scheer, discussed their personal work and experience with public art from an artist point of view. While the other speakers discussed the public art in terms of society’s reception and the impact.

Between the two art professors, they emphasized the importance of the space itself and the interactivity within that space. I thought that was interesting because it related to a similar project my digital class worked on with projection art, where the space we choose for our projection was very connected with the content of our project. There was also a connection to digital art, while they mentioned viewing the internet as a virtual space. The other two speakers discussed the political side public art can hold, and how art in a public space is active with the viewer, whether its with stickers or installations.

I thought that the discussion was interesting and with speakers from various backgrounds gave a wider view of the subject of public art. All the speakers had good view points and I thought the discussion was overall successful.