SNAG Houston Pt. 4: Rothko Chapel

On Saturday during SNAG, I went to the Rothko Chapel with a few friends. I took some images outside the chapel, but none inside. I don't know if it was permitted or not, but it just didn't seem right. Here's a stock image of the interior, although there were more benches when we were there:

It was interesting to see who came through and stayed awhile, and who breezed right through. I mean, why come at all, if you're only going to spend five minutes in this sacred space?

SNAG Houston Pt 3

While taking in the excellent exhibitions at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, I was able to touch base with Gabriel Craig and his partner Amy Weiks, who are both working as artists in residence at HCCC. Gabriel and I got a chance to talk a little bit, and he was nice enough to let me shoot some pictures of the space that he and Amy share.
I absolutely loved the work Amy had on display. Unfortunately my pictures of her brooches didn't turn out so great (I've done a lot of apologizing on this blog for all of my bad images. Maybe I should take a photo class.) I also love this neckpiece of hers (top photo). A larger version was in the Exhibition in Motion and it was difficult to tell what the materials were, especially since I couldn't hear the announcer from where I was. Both are made out of hand dyed terry cloth and glass beads. I love that Amy uses glass beads, which always seem to get a bad rap in the metals community. I started out as a beader, and still love beads, but haven't ever been able to work seed beads into my work successfully. It's great to see an artist who has. I was also very intrigued by these sketches of Gabriel's (bottom photo).
Gabriel also gave a talk at the conference. You can read the entirety on his blog Conceptual Metalsmithing.

SNAG Houston Pt. 2

I think I said this before, but I feel that this conference had the best work on display out of three conferences I've been to. I don't know if it's just my personal taste, or the fact that I got to see more of the shows this year than in the past. The gallery tour lasted two nights, with different shows featured each night, which gave everyone a chance to see more. One of my favorites was Caroline Gore's show Interventions, Observations and Simulations at the Lawndale Art Center.
I've admired her work through photographs for a while now, but seeing the work in person is always a different experience. Her entire show was quiet and lovely. The large installations had a certain quietness to them, and they didn't over power the small works at all. I love her combinations of metal, fabric and photography. For me, it was a gem of a show.

We also hit up the Extreme Tea Exhibition. I made a tea infuser in two days, right before the submission deadline for this show. It turned out great and I was super happy with it. It didn't get into this show and after seeing the work that did, I can totally see why. Although I thought this show was great, it was overall not the aesthetic of my work at all. My piece totally wouldn't have fit in. I still glad I made my tea infuser, and was able to show it here at ECU.
Here are my favorites from the Extreme Tea Show, which I managed to photograph before they told me to stop. These were probably the most non-tradition pieces in the whole show, and unfortunately I don't know who made them.




And here's my friend Marissa with her enameled lady tea infuser!

SNAG Houston Pt. 1

I'm back from the conference, safe and sound and mostly recovered. Houston was my third SNAG conference, and overall pretty good. The conferences keep getting more interesting for me as I get to know and meet more people in the field. I've got lots to blog about, and I'm going to take it one piece at a time. I'm going to start with the student show, because I haven't photographed my pins from the swap yet.

My Salt Vessel piece was in the Student Show, the Student Slide Show, and an image of it was also in the conference program (Thanks Arthur!) I wasn't super happy about how it was displayed at the Student Show. I should have included an image of the piece being worn to display with the piece. Oh well, live and learn.

Overall, I though the work was really great. The past two conferences I've been to, there's been a lot of work that was in both the slide show and the actual show, but this year there were only a few repeats (mine included). It was nice to see a wider variety of work.

Sorry the lighting on these pictures is so bad, and I'm also sorry I don't have photos of my favorite pieces from this show. (What the hell was I thinking?) Anyways, my favs were Loring Taoka's bowls and Erika Uzmann's sea slug brooches. There was a lot of other stuff I liked, but these are the pieces that I still remember days later.

Away We Go!

My bags are packed. My business cards printed. My pin swap pins finished. My flight leaves at 11:00 am tomorrow. I will see you in Houston!

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!