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.