Thinking of You. . .

Sorry for the lack of posting, but my Christmas break has been super busy. There were six consecutive days of Christmasing and visiting with family and friends, much baking and even more snow, a very productive shopping trip (jeans that fit! one pair for $8!), some cleaning up and clearing out, lunch with a dear friend, and a mild but obnoxious head cold.

Amongst all of that, I managed to finish up my sketchbook for Art House's Sketchbook Library. My theme was "Thinking of You". I was a little unenthusiastic about this theme at first, but I got into and I'm pretty happy with the results. Some pages are stronger than others, but I guess that goes for every sketchbook. These are just a few shots of some of my favorite pages.

Hope you had a great holiday season, and wishing you a happy and safe new year! Thanks for reading!

Quote of the Week

"A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."

Merry Christmas!

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?

Whew!

Well, there's two more days of finals left in the semester! I finished my paper, graded all my student work and posted final grades, took a final and finished up a piece today for my textiles crit tomorrow. I'll post some pictures of it and some of the other things I've been working on. Sorry I've been so lax on the pictures the past few weeks, I'll try and make up for it.

I also registered for the SNAG conference in Houston. I was super excited about it until I figured out how much it's going to cost me. It's wicked expensive! But, I decided that since I skipped the Philly conference and I probably won't be able to go once I'm not a student, I really need to take this advantage while I can. Plus, I'm rooming with three other seriously awesome cool people! Now, I just need to figure out what I'm going to make for the pin swap!

Oh, and I'm defiantly going to go see this while I'm there!

And I got my passport! More on where I'm headed later!

Dogon Wisdom

I took a class on African Art this semester and it was really pretty fascinating. I'm currently working on my research paper for the class and came across this interesting tidbit about the Dogon people:

"A woman must have secret parts to inspire desire. If she went about in the market with nothing on, no one would run after her even if she were very beautiful. Undressed and unadorned she is not desirable; but dress and ornament make men desire her even if she is not beautiful. From a very beautiful woman without adornment, men turn away. . . To be naked is to be speechless."

from "Conversations with Ogotemmeli: An Introduction to Dogon Relious Ideas"

Holiday Trades!

Well, as most of you know, it's that special time of the year where posting becomes a bit sparse. That's right, FINALS!!!! Our last day of classes is tomorrow, and finals begin on Thursday. Everyone is busy, busy, busy. Also, last week was the ECU Holiday Sale. It was pretty great. All the guilds get together and set up in the Gray Gallery (the school's main gallery), so you can shop from everyone at the same time and place! There was tons of great stuff the the Metals Guild made a nice amount of money.

I purchased this great shirt from the Printmaking Guild. It was my only purchase, but I did do some FANTASTIC trades! I got a brooch, which I've been absolutly coveting from fellow metals grad Laura Wood. These pictures don't do it justice at all. I also got a great scarf from fibers grad Amanda Micheletto. It is also prettier than it's picture. It's a lovely sapphire blue merino wool scarf with machine stitching in red.

I've got a couple of more trades in the works, so stay tuned!