the FLUX series (more fun with alcohol ink)

I have done some more experiments with ink over the last few weeks. I feel as though I'm getting closer to not calling them just "experiments" anymore... soon...

This reminds me of an alien landscape. For some of these, I had a hard time deciding which way was up and which was down. I had them pinned to boards as I made them, so I could easily turn them to get the ink to run in different directions. So, even as I make them, they don't have a top or a bottom.

This one is going to be one half of an art trade; another artist, Megan, will give me one of her pieces in exchange for this one. She liked the way the blue streaks look like wood grain.

This one is a bit overworked, maybe, but I like the colors. It looks like one of those pictures taken by the Hubble space telescope.

This is the first print I made with this technique. I sprayed two pieces that I didn't really like with alcohol, then I pressed them together face to face. After pulling them apart, I ended up with two images that were perfect mirrors of each other. I plan on trying this more, because I have LOTS of rejects to mess with...

I like the neutral colors of this one.

This is another print; it has a mirror twin. I like the way the ink rearranges itself during the printing process.

This one is on acetate (the others are all on vellum). Acetate is harder to work with; it gets sticky and messy and curls up on itself. As a result, I'm less likely to overwork the image. This ended up being one of my favorites.

 Next up with ink: I have some very large sheets to work with, of both vellum and acetate. They are expensive, so I have been wanting to get more control with the stuff on smaller pieces first.
I also have glass, mirror, and ceramic tiles to experiment with.
There's a big, scary, pre-thesis show coming up in a few weeks, and I would like to put some of these ink pieces on a gallery wall, to see what people think of them.

Curio

Installation Studio Class: Project 1

What the heck is installation art? I get asked that a lot, especially when I'm whining to my non-artist friends about my workload this quarter.  Installation is a specific genre of three-dimensional, site-specific work designed to transform a viewer's perception of the space. Installations can be permanent or temporary, indoors or outdoors. This type of work is totally outside of my comfort zone, so I may have been crazy to sign up for this class.

Imagine my delight, when at 8 a.m. on the first day of class I learned that I would be doing a group project for Installation Studio. For those of you who are sarcasm-challenged, this was NOT good news. (Group projects are scarier for art assignments than for any other kind of work!)

Groups were chosen at random, and I was thrown together with three strangers: Megan, Daniel, and Jessie. We were the only group that had complete freedom as far as location of our piece. We quickly chose a site: the giant atrium in Tangeman University Center. This huge building is sort of the center of campus- like the food court at the mall.

Our first thought was something like "Crap! How are we gonna build something large enough to fill this space?"
Which was quickly followed by the idea of putting something very SMALL in the large space, to emphasize the extremes of dimensions. There's a huge, 30' red carpet in the atrium; we thought of putting something small in the middle, then surrounding it with fancy stanchions so people couldn't get close to the small object. The idea would be to get people to think it must be really valuable and to engage their curiosity.  BUT the object is actually ordinary, simple, and plain- an apple!
We chose a site and a concept so quickly and so easily that I felt sure that problems would start once we got down to work.

We started by discussing our respective strengths. Megan and Jessie are into ceramics, Daniel is into sculpture, and I'm into 2-D. Not only was it nice to know we had a wide range of abilities, we also had access to a wide range of free materials, because we had all paid various lab fees in our other studio classes. Aren't we smart? So Jessie and Megan made the apples, I made the hand-printed signs, and Daniel built the pedestal for the apple. We all worked on building the stanchions. Daniel and I cut and forged steel rods, while Megan and Jessie set them in plaster. We painted each of the stanchions black. We all worked on making the velvet rope, and we all assembled the piece on site. WE ALL WORKED. Weird, huh?

Curio from above

This shot shows one of my signs with the installation in the background

This is Saturday, right after we installed it; nothing's protecting the apple yet

For the critique on Monday, we made a velvet pillow and encased the apple in glass.

Close-up of the velvet rope. We made these out of lengths of pipe insulation, less than a dollar apiece!

These are the extra apples, which we handed out to classmates during the critique.

I made 30 hand-printed apples, and hung them throughout DAAP in the weeks before our installation. We wanted people to be curious, and it worked! Everyone wanted to know what was with all of the apples! Lots were stolen, which was fine with us- it meant that our apple had gained value. I made color copies of these apples and continued to hang them.

I made these signs with wood-block printing also- we hung them throughout DAAP and TUC. They are deliberately vague and simple- we wanted people to be uncertain about what exactly Curio meant.

The grungy bulletin board outside the sculpture studio got the first sign and apples- I wanted Matt, the professor, to see that we were following through with our plan to promote the project. (He seemed skeptical that we would actually do so much work so far before the due date.)

This apple hangs high above the DAAP cafe. I tried to put them in unusual places, where they would be noticed.

 Interesting development:  we joked that it would be sort of funny if our porcelain apple got stolen. We kind of hoped it would happen, because it would mean that our goal worked- we had assigned the apple so much value by displaying it the way we did that someone wanted to steal it.
Well, it worked- someone stole it and left a ransom note, of sorts. I scanned it.

If any of you want to tweet a message, to help solve the mystery, feel free. So far, we've made no progress.

 Another fun development: around DAAP, where there are still apple prints hanging on the walls, someone hung paper caterpillars behind them, as if the caterpillars were about to eat the apples. I haven't gotten a good picture yet, but if I do, I'll post one here. I'm hoping someone else will make paper birds to eat the caterpillars.
Curio went so well that three of us have decided to work together for the next project, even though we had the option to work alone.

Studio Work: Printmaking

Just as I suspected, printmaking is SO MUCH FUN!!!

Professor John Stewart, the same talented guy who taught Advanced Figure Drawing last quarter, is teaching Intro to Relief Printmaking this quarter. I am officially a big fan of J-Stew. It's mutual- the other day he confided that he liked me because I'm "a grown-up." Ha- that's what he thinks!

Project 1a: Pink Kiss, 5" x  8"

Project 1b: Ugly Me, 8" x 5"

PROJECT ONE: Self-portrait (again???) 
Having more than enough self-portraits, I decided to do a kiss-portrait instead. I donned lipstick, kissed paper, scanned it and enlarged it, and traced it onto a linoleum block.
I was totally happy with the results, but I finished early (what a STRANGE feeling!) so I decided to be an over-achiever and do another one. For Ugly Me, I was inspired by a conversation I had with John. We talked about how because we are used to seeing mirror images of ourselves, our own faces can look really strange in photos. I decided to do a self-portrait in which I exaggerated all of my asymmetry. The result was a pretty accurate depiction of me before my morning coffee.

PROJECT TWO: Shape and Shadow
The challenge here was to show volume and form with black and white only. This can be tricky, as I learned last quarter in Comics class. But with printmaking, it's more difficult because positive and negative space are reversed- you don't draw in the black, you carve out the white! I drew a larger-than-life ice cream cone, and threw in a dark shadow for some drama. We also had to complete an edition of three identical prints.

Project 2: Big Scoop, 14" x 10"

This image shows the inked block next to some prints.

The one on the upper left is known as the "Artist's Proof." It is not included in the edition because the registration is slightly off and I carved a few minor adjustments before the next print.

John expects the very best prints on perfectly clean, handmade Japanese paper. The registration should be perfectly straight, with symmetrical borders (a little extra on the bottom margin for a signature). The ink should be applied just right- just enough for solid coverage, but not too much! It takes forever for the oil ink to dry on the cotton paper.

PROJECT THREE: Stay Tuned!
For our next assignment, we will be doing double color prints, using the press, and pulling a larger edition. Fun!
 If anyone has any ideas for subject matter, let me know!

Yee-Haw for Printmaking!

Today I visited Yee-Haw Industries in Knoxville, Tennessee, with my friend Rhainy. (She's gonna be an art teacher too!)

Yee-Haw has been in operation since 1996, as a unique storefront/ studio/ print factory. The small area up front is packed with merchandise, including hand-printed signs, posters, cards, fabric, and clothing, all manufactured on site.

The staff allowed us to prowl around the back, where we were fascinated and overwhelmed by the vast amount of printing blocks and typeface. The walls were filled with their unique products, and the ceiling was partly covered too. Everywhere we looked, there was something amazing. They let me take pictures of everything, as long as I promised not to steal any of their designs.

(Side note: I hate shopping in a store full of amazing stuff when I have NO money to spend!)

Posters to the ceiling, and then some

Yee-Haw is in a 100+-year-old building on Gay Street in historic downtown Knoxville (just a few doors down from where Hank Sr. was last seen alive).

 The studio has recently collaborated with the National Gallery of Art to design & produce a unique line of Dada merchandise, available exclusively at the National Gallery for the duration of the 2006 Dada exhibition.

By Yee-Haw artist Kevin Bradley: It is a Hugo Ball nonsense poem from 1917 - during the Dada period.

HUNDREDS of drawers of typeface

thousands of antique metal dingbats

Yee-Haw Industries located in the heart of downtown Knoxville, TN, 413 South Gay Street with a neon Yee-Haw in the front window. You can't miss it.
Unless you're me and Rhainy... we drove past it twice. Maybe three times. 

countless one-of-a-kind wooden and linoleum plates

So much fun stuff to look at!

http://www.yeehawindustries.com/home.html
Visit their website for more info. Once there, you can also link to their Etsy store and their own blog.