“No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still just be stationery”

This project was huge for me. Not only was it a big job, but I really pushed conceptual meaning in this one. It turned out to be very personal, and ended up having a great deal of meaning for me. I found myself questioning what it means to be an artist, how the world views artists, and the struggle we face when presenting something that we've poured our creativity into.

Art is a very competitive world, and as artists we're always trying to "push the envelope." In this piece, we have the hand of creativity pushing a stack of envelopes, which are leaning at quite an angle but will never fall over. The hand of creativity, splattered with paint and filled out on the inside so it has dimension, obviously hasn't given up. It keeps pushing, even though it's getting no where. There is an optimism there; even though it isn't accomplishing what it wants to, it keeps going and trying. I've been there, and I think we all have. We don't give up, even when things look hopeless.

The other glove is flat and colorless. It is literally deflated. The hands belong to the same person, but this glove represents that side that isn't so sure.

The letter that this hand wrote reads:

Dear World,

An envelope is an envelope is an envelope. You can call it whatever you'd like, whether that be mail or art, but from an objective standpoint it is what it is. I will look at it through my eyes, and you through yours; we'll be looking at the same thing but seeing it differently. It will be a never-ending struggle to understand one another. I can't make something out of nothing. Will you see an envelope when I place it before you, or something more? No matter how much I push and shove, this tower will never topple. I will keep building up, higher and higher until I kiss the sky, but can I ever escape the confinements of this stationery?

Nothing is new; everything is recycled from something else. Does that make my ideas less valuable than those before me? Can you find value in an envelope that is not an envelope? I hope that my ideas can extend outside of this paper and touch your mind. Then this stationery will not just be stationary, but alive and breathing. You will see beyond paper and into something more.

Sincerely,
An Artist

I'm so proud of how this piece turned out. I was able to experiment with a lot of different things, like how to keep the envelopes up and how to make the stack appear bigger. When I look at it, I just feel happy. It was very cathartic, and I couldn't be more proud of the end result.

Cardboard Red Pepper

This is the first cardboard sculpture of the year, which we did some time ago. I had a total of two hours between the beginning of this project and the end; it is completed in only hot glue and cardboard. As a first attempt under time constraints, I'm very proud of this project. I really like how I decided to keep the inside of the pepper white, and the outside brown. The texture I was able to achieve on the inside with hot glue is also very successful. I wanted it to look shiny, and I think the hot glue really helped with that. Attaching the stem of the pepper was perhaps the hardest part, but everything worked out in the end. I was able to learn a lot about my medium through this project, and how cardboard bends (and doesn't bend). It really helped me create my cochlea later on! This was a fun, if not stressful project!

Blind Contour Face: Riley

This piece, one of the first of the year, was completed on August 26, 2010. We had to do a blind contour drawing; essentially I drew Riley, who was sitting across from me, without looking at the paper or lifting up my hand. In revising the piece I cleaned up some of the lines and had to add five shades of value. This piece was done so long ago, but I think I did a great job achieving value around his neck and chin. It was hard to work with at first, especially since I had no drawing experience, but I think it turned out nicely for one of the first things I did in art!

Lend Me Your Ear: Text as Art

Again using my body part sculpture, I had to create a piece using only text. I am most comfortable in photoshop, so I decided to work in there instead of drawing by hand. The theme to this piece is idioms. Continuing on the concept of how we hear and listen, I wanted to expand that idea to how we interpret cultural oddities, like idioms. There is so much more to it than just listening, but understanding as well. I purposely made the background text small, because upon first glance it's not important content, just as color and shape. I hoped, however, that if someone was truly interested that they could get closer and read the background. There it defines various parts of the English language, such as idioms. I was able to combine my love of English and art in this piece. I love how this turned out!

Are You Listening? Digital Collage Project

For this assignment we had to incorporate images of our body part sculpture into a digital collage. Since the cochlea is a part of the ear, I thought listening was a fitting theme for my collage. My sculpture has an impersonal, science fair sort of feel, so I wanted to pair that with a human element it had been lacking. I used personal photos of friends and family, all in black and white. I wanted to contrast the foreground and the background, and I found this to be the most effective way of doing it. This piece turned out to be very personal for me, and I'm pleased with the results.

Primordial Soup: Final Stage Collage

The third and final stage of my collage project! I think it came together so well in the final stage, I really enjoy how it looks. It feels finished to me, and I'm very pleased with how it came out. The little circles dotting the piece, all in the colors used in the ooze creatures, really tie it together. It feels fun and happy, which is quite a leap from my original collage. The second stage was really what led me to this point; the ooze creatures, as I call them, were just starting to emerge from the background. They were still bounded though, both in color and form. They connected into the background. The colorful bunch was finally able to break free, overcoming the black and white to create something new and beautiful.

Collage Project: Stage 2

The second stage of my collage, where I had to add organic shapes on top of my geometric base. These little guys are what I like to call my primordial ooze creatures! I love how they look, and how they're able to interact with the background while still interupting the pattern. These were really fun to make, and I love how this stage turned out! The third and final stage will be uploaded soon!

Homage to the Rectangle

For my midterm project I researched three fantastic artists, Johannes Itten, Josef Albers, and Robert Irwin. Their connection is color. Each artist helped further our understanding of color theory, or used color in innovative ways. In conjunction with a paper and presentation, I had to create my own piece, taking inspiration from these three artists. The title is a play on Josef Albers' series, Homage to the Square. Color has limitless possibilities, and when faced with this project I was overwhelmed and indecisive about what I wanted to do. Since I've used some very bright color schemes in past projects, I wanted to use this project as an opportunity to use mellow, but still powerful colors. I stepped away from the pure primaries, instead using greens, yellow-browns, and greys. I think they go very well together, and I always feel happy and peaceful when I look at this drawing. Enjoy!

Collage Project: Stage 1

This piece has a total of three stages of completion, this being the first. The assignment was to pick a shape -- mine being the triangle -- and create a pattern out of black, white and gray, using at least 2 sizes of your shape. This was a very labor-intensive project; I decided to use paint chips, and each triangle had to be cut and glued to fit into the pattern. I'm very pleased with how this came out; the pattern is called 'Flying Geese.' I love how each triangle retains the integrity of its color while still working together in a larger pattern. There's a lot going on, but it doesn't seem busy to me.
On a side note, after gluing triangles every which way for hours, I had serious perceptual problems.

Corrugated Cochlea: The Finished Sculpture

So here is the finished product! Countless hours went into the construction and coloring of this sculpture but I really like the result! I definitely found some creative ways to work with cardboard to create a desired effect. The internal tube was especially difficult, but it's definitely my favorite part! I also really like how the colors turned out. I was afraid that I would run out of oil pastels, so I picked different colors for each section. The internal part is warm colors, yellow, orange, and red, and the outside is their cool, complimentary counterparts! I was a little burned out on this piece towards the end, but I'm glad I put in those last few hours to pay attention to the details and make it all that much better!

Cochlea Sculpture: Paper Model

The second step in creating my cochlea sculpture was to make a miniature model out of paper and tape. This was especially helpful to see how my sculpture will stand, and the best way to create it. It was fun, and made me think more about my medium and how things would be held together. I think of cardboard as the stubborn older brother to paper, so this model was a lot easier to shape and bend than cardboard would be. It got me thinking about how the finished product would all work together!

Cochlea Sculpture: Initial Drawings

We were assigned to complete a cardboard model of an internal body part which took several stages before actually being made in cardboard. These were the initial drawings I made while planning my model; you'll see in later posts that my plans for actually executing the sculpture changed from these designs. Sometimes you just have to roll with it. I apologize if these are difficult to see, they are sketches made lightly in pencil. Click on the images to see a larger version. =)

My body part is the cochlea. Here is a description of a cochlea from Wikipedia:

The cochlea is the auditory portion of the inner ear. Its core component is the Organ of Corti, the sensory organ of hearing, which is distributed along the partition separating fluid chambers in the coiled tapered tube of the cochlea. The name is from the Latin for snail, in reference to its coiled shape.

Inked Still Life

Completed Sept. 22 2010.

This is a half page still life completed in pen. Pen is a medium I'm not very familiar with, so this drawing was a great opportunity for me to get acquainted with it. At first I was frustrated with the permanence, and was scared to make marks on the page. Eventually I got bold, however, and I think the end result is awesome. I love pen now, I think it's a very fun and bold medium; I especially like the shading under the hula hoop on this one! The texture on the basketball took ages, but was well worth it!

Fruit Still Life

This is a piece I completed a while back; it was actually the first full paper graphite drawing I've ever made. Looking back at it now I can see how much I've learned and grown as an artist, and the things I would do differently. The biggest fault I see in this piece is the overall gray look; I had trouble making dark shadows and light highlights. Since this is the first drawing I made, however, I'm proud of it. It was a challenge, but fun to do. =)

Self Portrait

This is a distorted self portrait completed in pen. Working on the horse's fur was tedious and a lot of work, but I'm very pleased with how it came out. I've always been intimidated by pens, but I found myself becoming more and more comfortable as I continued with the project. Just because it's permanent doesn't mean you should be afraid to make mistakes.

Candy Apple

This drawing started with a regular apple, but as it progressed the drawing became less about the apple and more about color and the shapes within the fruit. The contour lines are meant to show form, and I decided to make each one a solid color to play on the idea that every object contains every color. I'm very pleased with this piece. I think it's fun to look at and can be viewed on many different levels. The lines and bands create a separation in the apple, but I feel like the colors pull it together as one object. Enjoy!

-Kelly