mail art

Mail art project

The objective of this project was to mail an art letter to a classmate and recieve one from them. It was a way for our proffessor to finish with the same kind of art we started with.

on the first day of class we watched the movie about an artist who did some mail art. I thought it was a neat artist and really looked forward to recieving mine.

The first picture is the one that I mailed to the person that I was given. It is a poem with some pink snowflake styled border and flowers drawn on around the poem. The red and orange flowers on the letter have small glass beads on them. They did not come out in the picture, but made the flowers shine.

The following is the poem

Thank you, every day by Leanne Herrera

Thank you

for the smile

that you gave freely

I appreciated it

every day

Thank you

for all you spoke

information I needed

and will keep in mind

every day

Thank you

for being nice

it felt really good

to have you around

every day

I loved this project very much. It has been forever since I recieved snail mail that wasn't a bill.

This is my very first performance piece ever. I wanted to give the sense that sometimes it is just better to be who you are instead of spending so much time and effort to make you into someone else that society will accept. the actual filming took about 3 hours to apply all the make up, curl all my hair and then smear it all off and destroy the hairstyle I had created. The of course the ending is me in front of the mirror with my hair all pulled into a ponytail and no make up on, exactly where I began at the beginning of the film.

The editing and speeding up of the video so that it would not go over 1 minute was a little more difficult as I had never done a video before. It was frustrating, it took me over 12 hours to figure out how to use the software that would allow me to add and subtract from the video. I also struggled with removing the sound and getting the time of each segment perfect.

This was definately a new experience for me. I enjoyed it very much and was pleased with all the audience reactions.

In the studio

This is Jim McCullough's studio. He is a local ceramic artist. He and his wife create platters and vessels of glass and clay. The first picture is of a booth that they have in Austin where they sell their creations. The second picture is Jim placing a piece in the Raku kiln. The third and final picture is of his molds and platters awaiting glazing.

Jim incorporates a lot of nature in his pieces, which I personally found very interesting as I can relate to it in my own pieces, where as I often incorporate symbols or pieces of nature in my own art.

I chose this particular artist because of the projects I am currently working on which involve paths and nature on platters. I also chose him because he is local and a lot easier to access than someone across the country or world. Over all I was pleased I chose this particular artist.

self portrait

self portrait

9 inches by 9 inches

mixed media

This is a self portrait that I created using paper, paint and parts of my daily life, it also contains clay and glass. I hate self portraits in the traditional sense for myself. I prefer to let people see the parts of me that i feel are important rather than my physical self.

With this piece I really felt that since my life is always so hectic I would show a hand throwing tossing or juggling this ball of everything special and important to me and that the hand would sitting in the middle of a very feminine plate.

I enjoyed this project because it allowed me to find out more not only about myself but about my classmates, some which I had never met.

landscape

Solitary

video

2 minute duration

I created this video from pictures that I took while on the downtown campus. I decided I wanted everyone to see how lonely it is for me. Every day I go through the day lonely. I often get lost in the shuffle or left behind.

I am often the person last to leave, or left out at lunch time, forgotten when it comes to group projects, it kind of feels like being the last person picked for a team sport. Generally I use my time alone to think or work through new projects on my own, but more often than not I just feel alone and that my disability has left me in a solitary confinement of sorts.

So this project was my personal landscape, what I see around me as I struggle to walk almost always alone.

walking

The assignment was to walk with a pair or more and take pictures as you went. I did not have a pair so I went alone. I did meet up for a few minutes with Krystal, but my legs could not take me where this assignment needed me to go. So I changed it up a little. 

Being handicapped is often very lonely and difficult to manage. The ramps are always far away from the building and we walk slower than most. So I decided that because I was going to do this alone that I was going to take pictures where I cannot walk and where I can walk kind of the landscape from my perspective. 

Mandala 2

Mandala2

size 10 inches by 9 inches.

For some reason I cannot draw a circle, as a result this one is an oval.

I began doodling across the circle vine like lines, connecting each one to another. Once I was satisfied that the negative space between lines was sufficient, I began adding leaves on both sides of each of these lines. I noticed however that once the leaves were on the lines that I had blank spaces and decided to draw little spirals. I have not finished this but decided I really like this pattern and may use it on vase or platter or something in clay.

I like this form of drawing and I will be using it in the future to come up with ideas and patterns for my ceramic pieces.

Here is the design on a small cup. It is not fired yet, but I will post more after it is fired.

mandala1

Mandala 1
size: 8 inches by 7 inches

In the six years since I began my college experience, I have never heard of the mandala. I realized with this project that I learn something new every day.

I began my circle ( ahem ok it is oval) with random lines and kept turning the page. I am not very good at drawing so I guess until I was halfway through my drawing was completely random. When I paused for a moment and kept turning I saw what I did not expect to see. It was a landscape, or more to the point a path.

Normally I work with clay, and currently I am working on round platters with paths in them. I am not sure if this drawing will end up being in the series of paths that I am producing now. But it will definately be an option later on down the line.

I actually scanned this at school and had my partner send it to me. unfortunatly it was scanned as a pdf file and blogger will not allow me to upload it either. I will be rescanning this at school tomorrow as well.

still life

second still life
10 inches by 13 inches












First student still life.






8 inches by 10 inches













I created a still life as a project for my contemporary studios class. I will rescan it and add it at school since the one i scanned is not compatible with this blog.

I really do not remember a whole lot about the still life other than I was studying for a geology exam and liked the set up I had and decided it would be a great still life. A students still life.

I had not realized how messy I am when I am studying until I finished the drawing and stepped away from it.

I also realized that drawing while recovering from surgery and on percoset are not compatible when it comes to a good drawing. Of course I realized this after I was off the percoset and attempting to scan the drawing.

Still life's are normally not something I enjoy, but honestly, I have to admit that I enjoyed creating this one.

blog 1 contemporary studio

This is a scan of our first assignment. As you can see drawing is not my forte. I prefer to express myself artistically in a 3d format.

The assignment was to draw blocks and put pictures in them from that are representative of the alphabet.

This is part of the assignment as I wanted to keep this small.

Being the mother of 3 teenagers and taking care of a disabled husband takes up a great amount of my time. When the day is over with and I am able to do my homework, and work on my pieces, it is generally very late at night.

This past week for this assignment was really no different. I was awake doing work for my other classes until after 2 am nightly. I chose to work on this piece in the mornings when the kids were out the door to school and I was getting ready for school myself.

I had a difficult time doing this project, simply because I misinterpreted the actual assignment. Instead of using real life things, I used my imagination. Hopefully she will not discount the effort, despite my inability to follow her instructions.

leanne

Last Thursday we watched some audio/ visual video's. some I did not understand and others were really neat. one that really caught my eye was H2O by Ralph Steiner. Even though it is neither new or different, i really felt the music and saw the notes in the movement of the water. the waterfalls reminded me of piano chords and the music match the movement and splashes of the water in nearly every part. the swirling bubbles were neat to look at and let you see the motion of the music. the spirting from the hole in the pipe was a really cool thing to watch especially since it matched the spirts of music at that moment. the fluidity that followed the music as the pictures changed were astonishing and made it easy to go from one scene to the next with ease. the reflection images waved as if bonded by the music itself. i love how he even matched the music simulltaniously with the raindrops on wave filled water. the shapes he caught n the water reflections were amazing to watch. some of them you could tell they were grass blades and tree limbs, others were so odd that it appeared to difficult to recognize. one part had an almost silvery sheen to it. he even had some water images that he flipped the negative on, which was a truly awesome effect. it gave very different view of the same image and fit in nicely with the mix of pictures and music. this was an amazing audio visual mix and i recommend that should anyone have a chance to watch it, to definateley view it. it is worth more that the few moments it will take you to watch it.