The Final Lecture: Sarah Zwerling

It's a peculiar sensation, that itching feeling of losing time so quickly and yet knowing so much has transpired. The lecture series has come to an end and within a week, so will the semester. There is always so much variation of mood in the final days of a school term. So much work is due but it all means there is a light close ahead. I find myself jumping quickly from calm relief to mental asphyxiation and back again. Today was mostly a sustained rough patch with an occasional hint of self-reassurance, so it is difficult to give today's lecturer, Sarah Zwerling, her rightful share of consideration. Now in my twenty first year, I have come to a great crossroads. Is my real dream to be an illustrator as I have thought in recent years? Should I pursue music instead, or would my true calling be to leave school and get a full time job, and in my time off pursue freelance writing? With a consciousness left feeling stagnant and teeming with viscious little pirhana of doubts, I struggled to weather both the lecture and my subsequent class. Despite all that, I'll try and take this time to alleviate my anxiousness by giving my due credit to today's lecture, the last of 2009.

Sarah Zwerling was early on a glassblower who was fascinated by the involvement of the body in that art form. After more intimacy with fine art, she began to make glass pieces about ideas, rather than form, and she was on her way in a new direction. Sarah's early video work left me very unimpressed, to be bluntly honest. It seemed she was trying too hard to be an artist, too hard to think outside of the box, to the point where maybe she was only acting outside of the box. I'm sure that I'm wrong and that there was some intent in the 30 second beach scene that featured Sarah with a face-full of sand, but whatever it was, I didn't get it. Her installation pieces that followed in her presentation seemed to hold my attention considerably less than previous speakers' work as well, and I gave thought to whether or not this had more to do with my current state of dissatisfaction and unsettled emotion than with the merit of Sarah's work. I think the latter is true though. While I am able to appreciate the thought and labor put into such art, I don't think installation art will ever truly capture my admiration.

It was when I saw Sarah's digital prints and screenprints that I snapped for a much appreciated 20 or so minutes out of my funk. Now she was speaking my language. I found more power and beauty in these single images alone then I could in practically any installation piece. Her digital work is modest and gentle but stuck with me all day in a much more aggressive manner. I saw a lot of sensitivity to the manipulation of images with computer software, that I have been exploring myself this semester. It was satisfying to see someone with a similar taste in imagery and presentation as myself succeeding in her work.

I feel as though after so many weeks, I could not possibly form another thought about art and technology, let alone a written sentence, but I can see where Sarah Zwerling's work will find a place in this foundation year chapter of my studies. Maybe tomorrow, I will awake refreshed and re-enthused about thinking about art, and today's lecture will mean something more substantial and entirely new.

Silkscreen Experiments

Silkscreening has been for me much like music is for non-musicians. You know it when you hear it, or see it in this case, but have not a clue as to how it's made. In our last class that was cleared up for me, or at least to a very fundamental degree. We screen with one color of ink, and Eva made the screens for us, so there are still fathoms of depth to screening that I haven't even yet been informed of, let alone that I have explored.

But I still cannot help but feel like I did when I first figured out what a power chord was on a guitar. Although nine years later, playing just about any chord is as unchallenging as blinking an eye, I remember where I started. Who knows what kind of screening I will be doing nine years from now.

I really wanted to make the paper what was fun about these prints since they are all the same graphic. The graphic itself is a drawing I did this semester for a Graphic Design project. The final for this was actually a completely different drawing, but I'm still really proud of this one. I had some reservations about using such a detailed image, but even though some details were lost, I was impressed by how faithful of a recreation the screen made. These were printed on an old watercolor test sheet, lined notebook paper, and a paper towel, respectively. The loss of black on the lined paper was accidental but produced an interesting outlined effect.

Tank Man for the Environment

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not.

-The Lorax, Dr. Seuss

Brett Cook: A Creative Person

To begin, I am a rabid appreciator of painting. To be more precise, I wear thousands of paintings on my psyche at all times, Like a bodysuit of tattoos within the skin. My favorites include old masters like Caravaggio and modern day artists like Leonid Afremov. Paintings and drawings are symphonies to me, while posters, ads, and so forth, are catchy jingles. Brett Cook is a composer of the highest measure, and yet in the video he showed us about his community project in Durham, NC, he was labeled as a Creative Person. It seemed very peculiar and provoked a few restrained laughs last night when this appeared on screen. I can only assume that this is his title for himself, because the production company that made the video would almost definitely prefer something more streamlined like artist. But this title speaks volumes to what Brett is really climbing toward in his work and in his life. It's simply him talking the talk to support the walking the walk he does so well. I am biased by the fact that I have long worked toward perfecting a style that is similar to the work of artists' like Brett and Lucien Freud. If I were him, you can wager your life I would call myself an artist. But Brett truly understands what he wanted us all to define; Community and Soul. Every human being is a creative person. There is not one man, or woman, or even infant who has not created something, even if it simply a thought. Brett is not a creative black person, a creative man, a creative teacher, just a creative person. He is more than the sum of his parts because painting is something he does, (Very, very well, for sure) but a creator in communion with all of the people he surrounds himself with is what he is.

Doug Bucci Lecture

Last week, Doug Bucci, from the metals and jewelery department talked to us about his method of using CAD(Computer Aided Design)/Virtual programming to create his tangible and very visceral artwork and jewelery. What interested me even more about Doug, although I enjoyed his work very much, was the story of how he got to where he is now in his work. He did not begin his work with the intention of working exclusively in CAD. I can relate very much, because I feel each new semester of art classes I have taken at Temple and at Tyler have bombarded my senses with new ideas about how I should be expressing myself. In the past, I have worked solely in traditional forms; drawing, painting, building, but now, having had a semester of four out of five classes being rooted in computer based work, I often feel frazzled. This is not because I am not handling the transition, but because I am handling it very well. The ability to make complex, clean, and professional looking work is strangely alluring to me. I find it harder and harder to simply draw for the love of the process, while my schoolwork demands so much technology-based attention. The jury is still out as to whether our arts and technology lecture series has exacerbated or alleviated the pangs of this dilemma. What I am sure of, is that I still wish to pursue a career of traditional illustration. My love will always lie with watercolors and ink, but I think the lesson that Doug has to teach is that the accesibility of technology is a beast of burden more than willing to make our lives easier as creators. I'll try to learn it well.

Phanatic Caught in Broad Street Riot!

Less than a breath after the Philadelphia Phillies won the National League Championship last Wednesday night, the streets of the victorious city flooded with people. The celebrators, some well beyond intoxicated already, and many well on their way, were joined by an unexpected and very welcome fellow reveler. The one and only Philly Phanatic, known for his famous dancing, tongue taunting, and rival-belly-bumping, the Phanatic took his bad boy mascot behavior to an unprecedented level, when he showed up at the corner of Broad and Shunk, wielding a bat and taking it to an overturned vehicle. Clearly impressed by the Phanatic's handiwork, one onlooker tossed the big green mascot a can of beer, which he struggled with in his large furry hands, but managed to crack open and spray the crowd with. The Phillies organization has yet to comment, but this is certainly one vision of our beloved Phanatic that will linger on for a very long time.

Grit and Beauty

Life, by its very nature, is messy. In our sometimes solemn, sometimes selfish, quest for meaning amidst the chaos of our given niches, we fail to notice that both the ordered and the haphazard truly exist together, and are made of the same elements. Any landscape in which one may find him or herself will surely provide both grit and beauty. Grit can be both earthy and manufactured, and the same can be said for beauty. In my city, no matter how grand the skyscraper, or how sublime the lush green park, grit and beauty coexist. Sometimes the grit hides in shadow while light reveals the beauty, like an elegant statue illuminated by streetlights, while nearby an innocent human life is being taken. The opposite scenario can occur as well. Light can show us a street carpeted by garbage, while in the dark, that same empty urban block becomes a quiet, ethereal vision. I wanted to play in the light and the shadow alone, removing color, and in turn removing the distraction of giving things names. To see beauty requires an experience beyond recognition. I wanted to illustrate the duality of nature and man's influence. In Philadelphia, the two seem to coexist, until one looks closer to see roots cracking through brick and stone, and birds flattened by vehicles. Each is always taking a stab at the other. It's messy. it's gritty. It's beautiful.