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Art Event 1
Public Art is something I have always loved. I especially love seeing public art up close and in person. When I heard that the Boyden Gallery was having an exhibit on public art, I was very excited at first. When is stepped into the gallery, however, I found it very hard to relate to. All of the pieces described were very intriguing, but that was the problem, they were described.
The exhibit is called Remiediate/Re-vision. The gallery is set up so that every public piece has its own section of wall. Often, the work is described and photographed. There are building plans and concept drawings as well, which helped to envision the spaces. I suppose I have such a hard time relating to these places, is because there are only two or three pictures being displayed. There are, however, running film blurbs about the places, but the sound was hard to hear.
Attending the talk was one of the smartest things I could have done. To be honest, the talk was a thousand times more engaging than the exhibit. Jennifer McGregor and Amara Geffen spoke about the pieces, and I learned so much more than I did by simply visiting the gallery.
What Jennifer had to say was very intriguing, I found that she spoke more about her process and what she was involved with. I was very struck by when she described her process of being on the committee for a memorial. The memorial in question was the Flight 587 crash. She talked a lot about memorials and brought up the question of, what makes a good memorial?
She put emphasis on the town and the people affected being part of the committee very step of the way. I liked this talk so much, because she went through her entire process, starting with visiting the site and observing the people as well as creating proposals and selecting one that everyone was pleased with.
This reminds me of this class, specifically the last time I took it, because for the last project, we had to work up the project proposals.
I thought a lot of the community pieces were interesting. The exhibit emphasized the community, and the presentation was full of in-progress photographs of kids and community members working on the projects.
I discovered a lot of details, which made me appreciate the work even more as I continued to listen. For the Newtown Creek Nature Walk by George Trakas, he creates an accessible access point to the water around the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. The steps leading up to the water are actually water molecules from an aerial view, which I though was an interesting idea to directly, relate the people to the water. I also appreciate this work because it is a very dynamic environment, people are meant to walk down to the water and sit and observe the shoreline. This work makes a treatment plant something interesting.
I have decided that I love this exhibit, and that I would really love to visit all of the sites mentioned. I also loved the environmental aspect of the exhibit. My favorite piece would have to be the floating islands in Finland. As I listened to the presentation, I found out that island are made entirely eco friendly and were made to help the ecosystem of the water. I was very excited by this, because I am very involved with the environment and current issues surrounding the environment. I wish the poster had made it seem this exciting.
Art Event 2
Pam Cardwell’s lecture was very process based, and I could truly see how she got her ideas. When I first saw her work without explanation, I was not really drawn to it. To be honest, however, her work is not what I would be naturally inclined towards.
I was surprised by how much she worked and reworked her pieces. Her works were very sketch oriented, and she explained how she started out with a more complicated idea and erased and reworked until she was satisfied.
I was able to visit the artist’s house and I saw the work she was doing around St. Mary’s. She was very interested in water and nature, and had this whole series of pinecones and shapes she had seen while walking around.
Her process reminded me a lot of my own this semester, especially with the idea of roughly sketching out ideas, and making multiples. I have found that making many “rough drafts” or “mockups” often helps me to get my ideas across.
Art Event 3
The first final SMP presentation I saw was Remina Greenfield. Her work was not so very different than her mid year work, and it was interesting to see how her idea developed. I loved the comments she made on the “Self” in the age of a new media, because I see this happening everyday.
What I loved the most about Remina’s smp, as a whole, was that I made me think. It made me consider where I fit into this world of technology. I love when art makes you infer and take things closer to home. I felt that I could relate to her videos, when I realized what was scrolling across people’s faces.
I love technology, and I love that her topic is very current. As she was talking about her process, she mentioned that she asked the people who was filming about their lives on the internet. Then she continued to say that she had gone further and looked up what she could find on the internet about these people. I found this very creepy, but then I knew she was getting somewhere, because anyone can look that up. What has become of our self?
She said that technology was meant to bring us together, but is only separating us, which I see everyday. Texting and Facebook are meant to keep old ties and relationships strong. How many times, however, are our faces buried into our computers or our cell phones?
I liked how she mentioned avatars and second life, because so often have I created an account somewhere, unaware that I was adding to my online persona. Her smp hit me in an almost creepy manner, but a creepy jolt to reality.
Her explanation of her videos added to that creepy factor, especially because I knew some of those people, yet I had never visited the webpages scrolling across the page.
ArtEvent 4
I attended the second smp show as well as the first. The first speaker was Jenny Metz, and I was intrigued with her work, because I have ever used photography as a medium, and it is something quite foreign to me. I saw her work from last semester, and I was interested to see what happened to the photo collages.
She talked about her influences, and I was interested to hear that she was looking at Georgia O’Keefe. I could see this a little more as I looked at her art. It seemed very odd for me, for some reason, to think of a painter as a reference for photography. She continued on to say how she used a lense as a paintbrush, and I really loved the way she worded her process. I had never thought of photography as similar to painting.
She talked about her first exhibition, and she stated that she felt the photo-collages had become more and more sculptural. Perhaps this is why I liked them, but also the fact that they were not typical photographs mounted to a wall.
Her exhibit consisted of “close ups” of various moments in nature. I recognized some of them from plants I had seen in the woods, and I enjoy the small moments. I enjoy them more after know her intentions and inspirations.
Nature is one of my favorite subjects, and I like the fact that he work could be seen as local, which is why I liked her original collages. Her works, can still be applied to St, Mary’s, because nature is such a huge influence everyday to us.