Here We Go!

Wow! What a week! Sorry I've been MIA for a few days but it was a busy, busy week. On Tuesday our BRAND NEW electroforming chemicals were delivered! So yesterday, the awesome people from campus Environmental Heath and Safety came over and helped me and a fellow grad empty the old chemicals out of the tank, and clean everything up. I then cleaned up the anodes and bus bars and after one little bus bar mix up we are back in business! I've seriously been waiting for this for over a year. I'm so excited! I swear it's one of the prettiest things I've ever seen!
Also this week, we had the Valentine's sale, and I had 3 Japanese stab binding books due (These were really frustrating, but I really like the way mine turned out. I didn't get a chance to photograph them before I turned them in, so I'll post when I get them back.) Our first crit was this week and I absolutely love the pieces I did. (Again, no photos, sorry). Oh, and my birthday was in there somewhere I think. Busy busy! Next on my plate: pins for SNAG.

Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend!

Bad Blood (Pressure)

I attended one of the most aggravating critiques of my life today. I won't go into the details, but suffice to say that I called out a classmate on a piece that was supposedly about family and blood connections but her forms (spiky balls) looked obviously like viruses. Everyone then got very testy. I got a lot of flack for saying that, and the rest of the class came to the artist's defense saying that they they didn't see that, because they weren't familiar with what viruses actually look like. Even the former biology major didn't know what viruses look like.

I googled "virus" and this was the first image that popped up:
These are some images of blood cells that I found:



That white thing is a white blood cell.

Sometimes the extent of scientific illiteracy in this country (world?) takes me by surprise and slaps me in the face. And sometimes other artist's inability to take criticism gracefully takes me by surprise and slaps me in the face. It makes me sick to my stomach. The whole experience made me sick to my stomach and made me so angry my insides were quivering. The critique when downhill from there.

How do you handle people who get angry and defensive when you try to give honest constructive criticism? Where's the line between a piece being too literal and just not getting the point across at all? How much do you consider what each viewer brings to the piece and when, if ever, do you begin to disregard it? At what point is blood pressure medication needed?

"These God Made Things."

Today I critiqued with Simon Cottrell. One of the first things he said about my work was that making rocks was almost like an act of God. Not saying that I'm god like, or even anything spectacular, but referring to the fact that I make these naturally occurring objects with some degree of realism. It brought to mind a phrase someone else used to describe my work; speaking of my bits and pieces and replica rocks as "these god made things."

After kicking these things around in my head I began to wonder if there is a more spiritual side to these things that I make. I wonder if on some deeper, almost sub-conscious level making this type of work is my way of paying homage to whatever power put these magnificent things here in the first place.

But I also wonder if this is a level of the work that I even need to understand. I think it certainly plays a part, but it's not my main aim for the work (Although I think one of my aims is to get people to see rocks/geology with the same amazement and reverence and curiosity that I do.) I just wonder how many levels of meaning a work has to have before it's deemed "good" or even "well thought out"? And how many of these levels of meaning does the artist have to think through or consider? Especially since the viewer will bring their own levels of meaning to the piece no matter how clear the artist thinks they're being.

I don't know. Maybe this is an attempt at looking at the work through a different lense. Maybe it fits, maybe it doesn't. Maybe this is just an attempt to sound smarter than I really am.