Sunday, February 27, 2011

Martin Puryear, Artist

The manner in which Puryear uses line, shape, repetition, form can be useful when composing your hybrid forms. Link here to see more of Puryear's work.



Saturday, February 26, 2011

Clay Hybrid Assignment Guidelines

Assignment - Complete five sculptures. Two from life, three hybrid. For the hybrids - observe the apparent elements and principles of your two chosen objects. Exaggerate, Elongate, Repeat, Dissect, Magnify these elements and principles in order to create the hybrid forms.

Materials: Roma Plastilina clay, Kemper ribbon carving tool set, banning wheel, two objects approved by Laura.

hybrid |ˈhīˌbrid|
noun
a thing made by combining two different elements; a mixture : the final text is a hybrid of the stage play and the film.

Form the Walker Art Center:
In art forms, hybridity could mean the blurring of traditional distinct boundaries between artistic media such as painting, sculpture, film, performance, architecture, and dance. It also can mean cross-breeding art-making with other disciplines, such as natural and physical science, industry, technology, literature, popular culture, or philosophy. Hybrid art forms expand the possibilities for experimentation and innovation in contemporary art.

Today’s artists are free to make art with whatever material or technique they can imagine. This freedom creates new opportunities to express ideas and concepts. It also opens up a number of challenges, choices, and decisions for artists:
Should I work to master a traditional art form or should I work to create innovative new art forms? Or should I do both?
Should I experiment with materials that are industrial or outside the scope of my studio if those materials seem to be the best way to express my artistic goals?
How can I define myself as an artist if I am shifting, combining, and recombining techniques from inside and outside the worlds of art?
Blurring boundaries, breaking rules, and creating hybrids occupies much artistic work today. However, making meaning in art—whatever tools, materials, or techniques are used—remains central to artistic practice. It is important for viewers to keep this in mind as they explore innovative art today. Link here for more resources.

Step 1 - Research "hybrid" design. I have a few links on this blog. Check out the right column, under the heading "hybrid". Read above information.
Step 2 - Prepare (well developed) sketches of your two approved objects. Three sketches for each object. Each sketch is a different view. In addition to the visual documentation that occurs with sketching, document what you see in written form. Include your written notes somewhere on the sketch page. TOUCH your objects and LOOK at your objects - document every detail. Use moleskin for these sketches.
Step 3 - Begin sculpting your (two) objects. Pay Attention to proportions and details.
Step 4 - Prepare sketches for three hybrid forms. Sketch in your moleskin.
Step 5 - Sculpt three hybrid forms.
Step 6 - Draw from life. Use hybrid forms as your subject matter. Three drawings - one for each hybrid. Impose a color scheme to each hybrid. Complete drawings in your moleskin book.

Patricia Piccini, Artist

How does Piccini's work demonstrate hybrid form?




Link here to see more of Piccini's work on her website.

A sample of Piccini's artist statement:
"In 1996 I was drawing in medical museums, meticulous pencil renderings of old specimens, pathologies and aberrations. My interest was in the way that the discipline and technology of medicine constructs our ideas of the normal and the natural. I was fascinated by these ideas and happy with the work but I was concerned that the particular representational technology that I was employing to discuss these issues was somehow anachronistic. Increasingly, the ideas I was dealing with revolved around genetic mapping and manipulation, body imaging technologies and media culture. If the aim of my work was to look at the increasing impact of medical and media technologies on the body, then I wanted the work to engage with contemporary technologies on a formal level...Currently, my deep interest is in the status of 'the natural', which to me is a political question, grounded in lived experience. I am interested in how our understanding of the natural has shifted. I am interested in what is natural now; w what might constitute the nature (as in natural habitat) of the contemporary, movie watching, in-vitro fertilised mall-rat. As such I am interested in an expanded, hybrid nature rather than the purist 'return to Eden' concept that is usually opposed to the artificial." Full artist statement on website. Link here.

Make Your Bed - Oh And A Chest Too

Materials:
White copy paper, Winsor Newton ink set, Exacto knife, cut matt, water and brushes for ink.
DO NOT USE TAPE, GLUE, STAPLES or ADHESIVE OF ANY KIND.
DO NOT USE CARD STOCK.
Take pictures of the work in process to post on your blog.

Assignment: Make a small scale paper model of your bed. Respond to the reading of Kafka and Bachelard by constructing an object/form of metamorphosis and a chest to contain the object/form.

Step 1 - Take a picture of your actual bed. Post picture on the blog you created for this class.
Step 2 - Read Kafka and Bachelard handouts. Do a vocab list, outline and response for each handout. Handwrite in your moleskin notebook.
Step 3 - Construct paper bed. Remember, no tape or glue. Use ink for color.
Step 4 - Using the writing of Kafka and Bachelard as inspiration, ask yourself what you would turn into. Construct this object/form using the same processes as above - white copy, no tape or glue. You may want to employ molding methods for this portion of the assignment by wetting paper and setting over a mold to dry in order to make your desired shapes/forms. This object/form should fit inside the chest. Use ink for color.
Step 5 - Construct chest. The chest is of your own design and it should accomodate the object/form you created above. Again, no tape or glue. Use ink for color.
Step 6 - Photograph finished work and put on class blog. Make sure the photograph you take to document the work is professional quality.

Checklist:
Paper Bed, Paper Chest, Paper Object of Metamorphosis, Kafka handout (vocab, outline, response in your molesking), Bachelard handout (vocab, outline, response in your moleskin), process pictures on your blog, final solution pictures on your blog.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Elitism and Pop Culture, Hybrid Sculpture by Lee Tang



In his Manga Ormolu series Tang enters the dialogue on contemporary culture, technology and globalization through a fabricated relationship between ceramic tradition (using the form of Chinese Ming dynasty vessels) and techno-Pop Art. The futuristic update of the Ming vessels in this series recalls 18th century French gilded ormolu, where historic Chinese vessels were transformed into curiosity pieces for aristocrats. But here, robotic prosthetics inspired by anime and manga subvert elitism with the accessibility of popular culture. Link here for more.

Wood

The idea of stacking can be adapted to many materials such as foam board, cardboard and paper. 
All of these materials can be manipulated to form other shapes. 
These shapes can then be stacked. Below are examples of stacking with wood. 



Relief Sculpture


Above, artist James Florschutz. Link here to artist website.



Above, artist Ursula von Rydingsvard. Link here for website.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Caroline McCarthy, Artist




Still Life
2002
archival print
 wet toilet paper sculpture
23 ½ x 31 ½ inches.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Robert Gober, Artist, Born 1954, United States




Robert Gober, wax and human hair, 1992
Museum of Modern Art
 Link here.

Stacking - A Few Examples

Egyptian Civilization. Link here for more.


Jackie Ferrara, Pine, 1979, at MOMA. Link here.


Link here. Stacked cardboard by Tobias Putrih at MOMA.

Brendan Austin, Artist



For his series entitled “Paper Mountains,” NY-based photographer Brendan Austin used paint and crinkly paper to create miniature mountains. He then photographed his creations to alarming realistic effects. Austin shows us the intricacy that lies within the sort of things we see, make, and discard on a daily basis; he reminds us of the tremendous aesthetic potential of basic art-making tools.

 From Junk Culture. Link here.
 Artist's website here.