Final Pieces of Junior Year!

Well now I'm a senior. What? I still feel like I just finished foundation year! I'm not ready to graduate! I haven't made anything good yet! Here are the final pieces from my three studio courses I took the past spring semester.

This is an untitled, it's approximately 3 feet long. I made this by dipping a bundle of horse hair into a mixture of soy and bee wax. This piece was a struggle due to the fact that it actually fell and broke in half twice and the wax would over time slip off of the hair.

This is my Projects II final. Our prompt was beauty and how we interpret it. I titled this "I haven't showered in a week...still wanna fuck?" It's loosely based off of the relationship I had while I was making "This Just In". The materials used were horse hair, wax and satin ribbon. I needle felted the hair on the right and brushed the hell out of the one on the left.

I think this is beautiful because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. While someone may be beautiful on the outside they may be a real bitch in reality. Are they still beautiful? And sometimes a person may be crusty or not fit into what our society say is beautiful but is also the most wonderful loving person. Does that make them beautiful?

Finally this is my Advanced final. We had to pattern out something that was hard and make it out of fabric. I chose to make a toilet. I used linen to make the piece and it is clearly not a very sturdy material causing it to sink in multiple spots. I should have used canvas but what can I do now? I'm really satisfied with the pattern and the sewing. This was actually the first time I used a sewing machine!

I have a lot of plans for this summer as far as making is concerned. I really want to make a solid portfolio and all that jazz!

Fancy Things

The Wetherill Ball was amazing. Even though I only attended the cocktail party, I had a ball! I ate caviar and other fancy appetizers and met some pretty amazing people! The picture above is of the three university representatives giving a quick speech. Curtis Nouchi and Chiyan Tse were the other's with me. Both their pieces sold, mine didn't but I did over price it. Whatever. Below is my piece all done up on the table in the ball room. I am so glad that I painted it silver instead of the flesh color I originally wanted to do.

Wetherill Ball

I feel like fucking Homer Simpson, not physically, I just feel like an idiot. I finished my piece for the Wetherill Ball last night at about 3am and then today with the help of my wonderful friend and artist Amanda drove to ultra South West Philly to deliver it. She did not come with me I just borrowed her car. After sitting in traffic for an hour on the Schuylkill and getting a truck drivers tan I just realized that I never photographed my piece! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

No worries though! I was selected to attend the ball this year so I will just take a few while I am there. According to Jim Makins...and everybody else in the crafts faculty it's a pretty big deal that I was selected to attend this event. I can't wait to rub elbows with the art elite of Philadelphia! Last years honoree was the fabulous Sharon Church. This woman inspires me and challenges me every time I see her! I hope this year's award winners are as amazing as her!

The award of merit this year will be going to Lynee & Harold Honickman. They will be honored of Friday, May 6, 2011. Apparently Mr. Honickman is number 227 on the Forbes 400. Ms. Honickman is the founder and president of the Honickman Foundation. This foundation helps the community with art and education for all. She is also a trustee at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The medal of achivement will be going to Jane Golden this year. She has basically done so many amazing things that I really don't have time to list. But I am very excited to meet her!

Zoe Strauss

I recently did a presentation about Zoe Strauss. She's bad ass, check out this video that the ICA did about her.

Lots of Things!

This past Thursday, April 14'th my friend Ana Thomas had a show at the Bahdeebahdu Galleryin Fishtown. Due to lack of money I could not make my way up there for the opening of the show which is titled "Fresh Blood". The show included work from Rebecca Pulver, James Hughes, and Ashley Goldfinger. I suggest you all try to make it out there to see the show, I know the first free second I get I will! The show runs until May 7, 2011 and check website for their hours! http://www.bahdeebahdu.com

What I did do this Thursday was go to one of the Philadelphia Art Alliance's Commonwealth lectures. This past year they have been offering a wide variety of artist lectures (free to students) which have so far all been amazing. This past artist was Adelaide Paul. Adelaide is currently a ceramics professor at MICA, but does not limit her work to only clay. She uses taxidermy forms and a wide variety of fabrics stretched over the form. Her work is not limited to clay or fiber materials, she brings in found objects which help bring the point of her work across. She owns seven dogs studying them closely, which she then bases her work off of. My opinion of her work is in one word AWESOME. She made me think of how the idea of perfection in the body and how it can be distorted.

This is Adelaide with one of her many dogs!

This is a piece she did titled "Bitch". This was made in 2008 using porcelain and pink leather

On the first and second floor of the Art Alliance Tania Mouraud, an artist from Paris, France has a solo show currently being displayed. The show titled "j'entends les trains depuis toujours / I keep hearing the trains for ever" is a video installation. In each room their is a new video being played. I thought it was particularly interesting to see her work along side Adelaide's due to it's content. In many of the videos it shows vicious dogs with others showing clapping hands and fish. I've been very attracted to film and video art lately. Hopefully I will one day be able to explore it!

This is a video of Tania Mouraud. I could not find any from the present exhibit. If you can, I recommend you go and seethe show! It is up until May 8, 2011. The Art Alliance is opened Tuesday-Sunday from 11am until 5pm.

Artist Statements...blah blah blah

After a miserable trip to NYC last week my hopes and moral were lifted by the great Sheila Hicks. I still can't believe I got to meet her!

I was talking to a few friends of mine outside of the crafts/fibers department and I was amazed to hear that they do not need to make an artist statement. They also laughed at mine but I did too. This is my first draft of my statement, I made it for my junior review.

"As an artist beginning their career it may be difficult to find what moves us. That being said I feel that I am moved by the feelings and jesters that occur in my gut. When making I know that I am progressing positively when I feel the sensation of being sick, as if my creative process needs to be vomited out of me."

ZZZZZZZ

When ever I come to studio I am filled with A) rage and B) the uncontrollable want to take a nap. I am choosing B today....like I did yesterday.

Sheila Hicks

My sculpture teacher is the man! Barry Parker you are now in my top 10 favorite people!! I told him how excited I was for the Sheila Hicks show opening, and he mentioned that he and her were close friends and that if I wanted to he would tell her that I was interested in meeting with her....well my dream has come true!! I GET TO MEET SHEILA HICKS!! He told me that she would be interested in meeting with a few fibers students and that she will be in contact with me! AHHHH!!!

glen ligon

On Sunday (March 13th) I went to the Whitney Museum with my family to see the Edward Hopper show they had up. Needless to say I have fallen in love. Not with Mr. Hopper, but with the amazing artist Glen Ligon. I spent almost the entire time on the third floor looking at his work. I didn't even make it to the second floor to see Edward. His work is so raw and inspiring to me.

This is his self portrait.

This is titled "Invisible Man". It's made with oil on canvas along with gesso and charcoal.

SPRING BREAK

SPRING BREAK! WOOOOOO Why is it called spring break if it is in winter?

This time last year I was dancing with the idea of weaving with monofilament...well I've got that itch again. To bad there aren't any open looms. The above photo is my sophomore projects final. It's all monofilament, and 15 feet long. We were supposed to base our objects from either a book, song or poem we like. I based mine of off the Beatles song Revolution 9. I actually spaced out the weft to represent patterns in the song, I don't think that was a very successful idea. The viewer really can't see it. But still, this is probably one of the most influential pieces I've made for myself. Ken took this picture, it was a real challenge he said because it is so reflective to light.

thursday is projects day!

The second semester of projects has been pretty boring so far. All the seniors are going crazy with planing their thesis show so I have the entire room to myself. Woohoo? We were given a project to design the center pieces for the Art Alliance's galla or something like that. I really don't understand Rod, he said this was a time to "whore ourselves to the art community" but we aren't even invited? Should I screen print my face and number onto some napkins? Since nobody is around today I think I'll just clean up my little space. God help me!

I think having a studio in the senior room has only made me even more messier. The girl in the studio next to me has been working with sprinkles all semester. She however does not cover up them when she is finished. This has cause a massive cockroach problem...not for her, but for me! I keep finding them dead all over the place. It is disgusting!

I don't have any pictures from my first projects crit, so instead there is one of my advanced one. Just simple stitching with gray and white 5/2 cotton. I like sewing, but lately that's all I've been doing.

Hello!

This is my first post in this new adventure! I've spent the day working on/trying to avoid working on my embroidery project. Mi-Kyoung seems to really like what I'm doing so there for she is pushing me even harder...I just want to be a little lazy.

I'm sewing the above picture my friend Sydney took of me when I was Seoul onto silk organza. The scale isn't very large, about 12 inches wide and 6 or so inches high. I've broken down the picture into 5 layers(TRICKY), so there will be 5 separate images making the one! I'm thinking of using horse hair, my hair and some dyed linen thread. But we will see how that goes!

I think this has been a successful first entry!