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.

Sharon Louden: Making Magic From the Mundane

Yesterday's lecturer was Sharon Louden, a multi-media artist who produces her work through a myriad of ideas, materials, and workspaces, and yet always with an aesthetic and conceptual voice that is uniquely hers. While many, including myself, would not make much of her early gestural drawings; showcasing the cilia-like characters that so often live in her work, in her installations she brings these raw broken down figures to life in a way that makes us recognize a sort of similarity to ourselves while retaining as well a sense that the viewers are experiencing something entirely alien to themselves. Her animations on the other hand, while actually moving, seem less alive than her static pieces. Something about the three minute film she showed us seemed to be under par amongst her other work. Perhaps it was the lack of sound, as someone mentioned, or maybe it is just that I prefer the characters' activity to occur in my imagination alone. Of course, with the intimidating amount of innovation in her other work, I would assume she'll figure out exactly how to make animation bow to her commands. As someone who does not to very much multimedia work, I think I could learn a great deal about using it to create your own artistic identity from Sharon Louden.

1 Part Technical, 10 Parts Silly

Here is my Photoshop Painting from last week's class. Before this semester, my skills at illustrating with a computer were limited to Windows Paint. In less than two months, through my Computer Imaging, Graphic Design, Computers for Design, and this class, my hands have been on a keyboard and mouse far more often than a pencil and paper. It's been a welcome challenge, because I feel that my skills in traditional art have been tested and realized already as impressive, though of course there is always room for improvement. In this exercise , I couldn't help but feel the connection to traditional oil painting. I savored the familiarity of laying down layer after layer of color; starting with the general, ending with the precise. The difference, I believe, shines through in the playfulness of this piece. While handling a real wet medium, I feel more a part of my work, but I am much more reserved in my experimentation with color, as the finiteness of my material rears its head. Here I could lay down colors, and easily remove them a moment later. I think making a mock up of my future traditional paintings, whether oils, watercolors, or acrylics, or some other tangible source of color, could greatly enhance my ability to explore and master the hues that I could possibly create.

Pairing Project 3!

Shapes, shapes, shapes! Both of these photos break the mold of what one envisions when provoked to visualize each subject. The angle skews the perception of the building, and the real life desecration of the bird breaks away from the generic "bird" image. This bird could not be more grounded. Likewise, in the building image, the viewer could not be more grounded. Perhaps, had the bird still eyes, this building is what it would see.

Pairing Project 2!

These two photos are very different according to composition and color palette, but I put them through the same color and contrast filters. I think they remained dissimilar, but feel more as though they exist on the same Earth.

Pairing Project!

I chose to include two sketches with these images because they are both photos taken so intimately close to their respective subjects that they become patterns. In my city sketches, I emphasized pattern as well. Also I think the dirty palette in in both photos compliments the pristine white of the sketch paper.

Bradley N. Litwin: Renaissance Man

Have you ever met someone who has accomplished so much in their life that you simultaneously envy, hate, worship, and admire them?

I have only known of Brad Litwin for this one day so far in my life, and he has already become an inspiration. I was thoroughly impressed by his lecture; his humor, his displayed work, his resume', even his formidable guitar skills... but I didn't feel the weight of his impact, until I experienced his kinetic sculptures face to face in the lobby this afternoon.

I once stared at a Dali painting in the Philadelphia Museum of Art for five minutes... Five minutes! I took much longer today finding my way out of the piece I featured here by Litwin. His work is like a dream and yet so factual and tangible, that the viewer can't help but feel they've slipped into an extra-dimensional coma that they have no desire to wake up from. Litwin makes corporeal and animated the kinds of dreamworlds that the undeniable genius Dr. Seuss could only paint or draw. The exhibit reminded me that mechanical spectacles like these occur on the smallest scale inside of machines as massive as cruise-liners and as small as an iPod Shuffle. The real world can often seem too crude to catch up to our imaginations. In the rare cases of artists like Bradley N. Litwin, Jim Henson, Henry Sellick, and Leonardo DaVinci, a razor sharp mind can command the material world to look and feel like something... imaginary.

Restoration and Preservation

Last week's lecture was about the kind of work that people do in the field of restoring and preserving art. The anecdotes about the German artist who left the fat to rot in a box and the American artist whose sculpture broke due to unstable metal, illustrate the range of ways artists respond to age and decay. In the first case, decay was the desired effect, and when a team of restorers tried to change the acrid, and moistened box years later, the artist was displeased. The second case also involves an artist's disappointment. Had he known when he made the sculpture that his material would decades later canyon and break, he would have alerted those charged with the upkeep of the work to be mindful of what they must do to keep that from happening. The subject reminds me of the discourse that surrounded to restoration of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling by Michaelangelo between the years 1980 and 1994, where technology had advanced to the point that the original vibrance and saturation of the frescoes was fully realized after four centuries of fading. Michaelangelo was of course not around to defend his work, and it is assumed he would prefer the frescoes to look just how he painted them, but many people were very upset with the new(old, actually) look. Many felt it was not somber enough for religious purposes. They forget Michaelangelo was a Renaissance painter, a humanist. It was no longer the middle ages and he was painting for art, not God. Still, it begs the question for every artist. Four hundred years from now, do you want your work to look as good as new, or do you want it to look four hundred years old. A restoration and preservation expert would be the one to call.

It's Me! On a scanner!

Here's my face scan painting for tomorrow. I stopped here because it is due but as with all paintings, I think that I will continue working on this whenever I get the chance.

Here is my completed Alphabet Landscape of the Walt Whitman Bridge. Every letter is in the Georgia font, which is the same font that my posts are typed in. Since my central object, the bridge needed to feel architectural and not organic, I chose a font that is extremely common in typing, one we see almost every day. To me, fonts like Georgia, Helvetica, Times New Roman are the steel beams of type. They are uniform and made for function, not aesthetic. The challenge for me was to make something visually pleasing out of something visually bland. Also, I chose not to distort my letters in anyway, so to keep with the theme of building with plain letters. I did resort to scale changes, stretching, and rotating quite often. Drawing with type, surprisingly to me, was not an idea I ever came upon myself, but now that I know about it, I'm going to make a habit of doing it more often.

Third Lecture: Art and Innovation

Yesterday, Philip Glahn spoke to us about art and technology. According to Philip, the thought that art and technology are two entities that simply cannot or should not merge, is a total myth. I have to say that even though I tend toward more traditional hands-on art forms like painting and drawing in my own work, I have to agree.
I have always felt that calling oneself an artist is not only pretentious, but usually false. In my work here at Tyler and my own personal work, I have seldom thought I was making art. I believe the best that we can do is create things. Images, sculptures, ideas. Whether or not something is art should be left up to others to decide. I feel that this notion coincides with Philip's idea about de- and reskilling artists and laborers. The factory worker makes a product while the artist makes art. That has always left a sour taste in my mouth. Probably because I want to become a great illustrator. Illustrators are published in books, magazines, ads, etc. but few are considered artists, or at least not in the sense that Renoir or Picasso are. A question that sums up the underlying theme would be "Who is the real artist, Andy Warhol or the designer of the Campbell's Soup Can?" Many would say Warhol, that he has been reskilled. I on the other hand believe it is the designer that has been reskilled. What that particular work of Warhol's has done for me is not present his genius but the genius of the craftsman.

Basekamp

Last week, the foundation lecture was about Basekamp, an organization that promotes and sponsors collaborative artwork, both local and international. While the speaker seemed to be a bit frazzled about adrressing the gathered crowd on the subject of the group, i was able to find my own interest in what he was talking about. The idea of place here in Philly where people can have weekly discussions about their work is very enticing. While I have never been one to relish talking about artwork to death, I can most definitely see the benefit of a unified front of artists right here in the city. In the business of graphic design and illustration, I don't think I'd much like to do gallery shows but being able to connect with local professionals in person or online could only help my future career. Basekamp seems like a good and even necessary idea.

Week Two: The Scene is All the Same, But There's Something So New.

"Now he was hurrying carefully, stepping from root-tangle of ivy to stone to earth, confident that this was his graveyard. He could feel the graveyard itself trying to hide him, to protect, to make him vanish, and he fought it, worked to be seen." -Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book.

I have lived near the airport, in a Temple dormitory, in Fairmount, and in South Philadelphia. Though I grew up in the suburbs, Philadelphia has always been a constant in my life. Over the past 3 years, I have come to know these streets, as a local. I often feel like I have vanished into the scenery. Tourists have a way of sticking out. They take photos, they linger in one place for longer than 15 seconds, and in Center City, they do something I forget to do almost every day as I pass by 10 subway stops worth of Broad St., riding my bike to and from school. They look up. Today, I took my camera to Rittenhouse Square and looked up. 'Wow', I thought. 'I forgot how @#$%^&* tall these @#$%^&* buildings are.' Pardon my french.

I chose Rittenhouse for two reasons. One being, that I just really love riding through there. It's the kind of place you think all cities look like when you're watching Sesame Street and you're too little to actually go find out. The second reason, is that it is filled with artists. With the Univ. of the Arts nearby, I knew there would be aspiring somebodies like me all over, and maybe I'd feel less like a tourist. Well, it didn't work. The local in me moved from point to point around the park and surrounding neighborhood with purpose and self-awareness, but the tourist in me kept reaffirming, 'I live in one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the U.S.! Holy @#$%!' I promise, my inner monologue has a much filthier mouth than I do. I took this concept of looking up and lingering and translated it into photos that are almost uncomfortable in angle. Also, I wanted to get as many shots that mingled vegetation and architecture as I could, because Rittenhouse is the best balance of the two in the city. I no longer felt part of the scenery. People were noticing me as they walked by. What they thought, I could only guess: Freshman just moved in from the far off countryside, (No.) Private Investigator, (No, but I'll take it.) peeping Tom, (No, I swear!) future master of the Graphic Arts sowing the seeds of his genius. (I hope so.) Whatever people may have thought, it was nice to be reminded that in a big city, individuals exist, not just traffic and crowds. In the square I saw a man, in his early sixties, wearing a very expensive, very 'I'm so important, you wouldn't even understand what I do for a living' black suit. He looked every bit the part of the imposing, filthy rich, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, who secretly runs the entire world with his golf buddies. But he was walking this little dog that was so white and fluffy that it looked like someone ripped open a bag of cotton balls in a hurry and they all just spilled out into a few amoeba-like shapes. The two of them made for such an absurd juxtaposition that I had to sketch them. Who walks their dog in a suit anyway?

After Rittenhouse, I figured I would head to City Hall nearby, which at night is just as creepy as it is enchanting and beautiful. Passing through the courtyard of City Hall is my favorite part of my ride to work and school. I always look at the detail and variation throughout the architecture and wonder why we stopped making buildings like that. Instead, we have the Comcast Center, which is impressive in height, but oddly resembles a giant flash drive.

On my way home, I found a few scattered objects on the streets. The most interesting I thought, was a fold-up map of the city. I found it on a sidewalk near a half-empty bottle of brandy right out front of a church in South Philadelphia. The church was open, even though it was late at night, and I imagined that an old drunk had stolen the map from a street vendor while nursing his brandy, used it to find the church, and gave up the bottle right there on the steps in exchange for sanctuary. The church, the bottle, and the map all took on more meaning then they would probably usually carry, with this story in my mind.

When all was said and done, I couldn't help but think how hard we try to be seen, and yet we so often make lasting impressions on those we encounter, completely by chance, like the man and his dog, or the map of Philadelphia, did on me. I wonder what impressions I made today, and even though I'll fade back into the scenery, I wonder what impressions I will make tomorrow.

Week Two: Lectures and Art Communities

It is Wednesday now, at 2:12 AM. There is no need to be alarmed, because as tried and tested night owl, this is when I am at my sharpest. I woke up 20 hours ago and drove myself to where I work, Temple University Hospital. I had hoped that there would be a particularly slow influx of jobs coming my way so that I could photograph my daily surroundings at the North Philadelphia campus. Over two years of employment at the hospital, I have collected several volumes of stories in my memory, many involving belligerent homeless and domestic disputes in the surrounding area. While unsavory, these experiences have served my anecdotal repertoire quite nicely. Unfortunately, today was one of those rare busy days when my boss sends me on an epic quest to find a box that doesn't exist, in a warehouse with little to no semblance of organization. My hopes of taking some North Philly snapshots were trashed as I soon needed to report to Tyler for this week's lecture.

The lecture, as I'm sure everyone knows, was about reconciling the arts with internet technology, and using the web as possibly the most useful tool for undiscovered artists. The name of the game seemed to be "blogs and social networks are your friends!" I was, until a little over a year ago, a confirmed hater of all things myspace/facebook/etc., but I was eventually unable to deny the merit of sites that help an artist get serious about displaying his/her work. One site that the Peter Hanley mentioned was deviantart.com. In March of 2007 I first discovered this site and set up an account. While it is an open forum for all who would call themselves artists, many phenomenal, many less so, it is a great place to not only display, but to connect. You can watch any artist you like and receive updates on their latest posted work. It is globally known and attracts some high profile professionals. Famous painters, illustrators, and photographers often have deviantart pages. I follow several comic book illustrators who not only post new work regularly, but also journals about the the way the business works, and step by step tutorials on their processes. Whenever I draw, paint, or photograph something I am proud of, I always post it on deviantart.com/iturnedintoamartian

I was happy to learn about more serious, and exclusive art communities like CFEVA and inliquid.com These are sites that I have since this morning looked into and would like to contribute to. While a world that is so intrinsically tied to our computer screens can be intimidating and frightening at times, it is actually a relief to know just how much I can better my visibility for future employers just by participating in an active online community life.

Foundation Computers Day One

I am looking forward to sharing my work as well as seeing the artwork of all the students in the class.