So Catch up: Collaborative Shows

Since the last time I posted in here, I have participated in a couple of smaller collaborative shows which have been fun. I'm going to put up a few images here, beginning with the oldest and moving on to the one that happened on 11.11.11 (at the start of this month.)

BFA Collaborative Show: Rattles

These are images from the collaborative BFA show, that happened last year actually. *chuckles*. I was paired with and worked with one of the ceramic's BFA's and he created the lovely ceramic (the ones that look like bark), tiles that created the rattle part of the center rattle. Over all it was a fun project.

Textiles Artists Assembling Show: Forces

The theme behind the TAA show was 'Forces', I played around with a circular weave and the way that the wool constrains that when it's felted. The idea was the way that we conform to and confine ourselves to forms within society for various reasons and in various ways. In the end I just liked the form and wanted to try making it.

Eventually I would like to see these things much larger and a whole lot more of them. I would also like to incorporate something coming into or going out of them in some way as well--possibly with a larger or longer fringe on the end of the weaving's.

Cheers!

Trashion, ReFashion

So, for a few months now I've been playing with the idea, working on the idea and sometimes getting somewhere with it. I planned this piece out last semester actually and then did a couple of thing's wrong. Anyway, the idea was to use a great deal of the trash yarn/cord that I have. Unfortunately I spaced out on that when I was setting up for this project. However, all things considered it turned out fairly well. ;)

The above are some images of the top modeled by my friend Clara. ;) The top is made out of cotton and wool, the pleats down the front are plastic (the same plastic that's used for the skirt bellow). The top is all of one piece at the moment, depending on who's going to model it for the show, I might have to make it a bit smaller. We'll see. ;) So that was all done end of the semester last year. Over the break I started working on the monstrosity bellow.

The skirt is made out of trash plastic and was going to be all one layer. However, the single layer was not poofy enough for what I wanted. So I ended up fashioning a fathered under-layer. You can see the under-layer as modeled by myself at the end of the collage. The lamp shade model is wearing the entirety of the thing as it is right now. I plan on fashioning an adjustable waist band of some sort today. Vanishes.

Slide Show Event

So, I've shown you some of what went into putting this project together. Here's some of what went on that night. Most of these images are mine; however, there are a few that were taken by a friend of mine. I'll mark those. ;)

Here's some of the shots I took of the work it's self. Remember, is sort of a collage of memories and a visual representation of the way that we remember things. I've been thinking a lot about how we remember things lately. For example, I'll be talking with a friend about something that happened years ago and what she remembers of the event is completely different from my own memories. So, the idea was to create windows that are windows but overlap and cross over in a way that makes it no longer simply a window. The second and underlying idea was about childhood and reading books beneath blankets at night. So the piece is actually made out of old bedsheets, that are worn to the point of being see through. The slides represent a different sort of window, a visual window. That glimpse into another world that we get through memories and through books.

I'm not and wasn't completely happy with the lighting system for these piece. However, I did what I could with what I had at the time. Which was mainly four clip lights set up behind it. In the future, I think I'd prefer one main light or a more seamless lighting system.

The slide towers were created by Sara and Candace. Sara is the one in the window, Candace isn't in this set of images. They were created out of old slide trays, filled with slides and then lit from the inside and zip tied together. :)

Here's a few shots of people who came to the event, and of the larger space. And below are the images that were taken by my friend Mica (the girl in black in the first frame above in the center).

So my piece decided to fall down about half way through the night. This is me fixing it with the help of my friend Jim and my mom.

And then here are just a few more images, all of which were take by Mica. The first one is me wearing Amy's piece. The second one is Candace and the third one is Amy and Sarah, both wearing bits of Amy's piece. ;)

So, that's the update on that. Enjoy and I hope that your day or evening is a good one. ;)

Furniture Sex and Fungi

V. A giant comb, and... Ooh, wait! What's that!? One ultra-rare photograph of picnic tables mating... :-) Wow, do they allow this stuff on DA?

J. I don't know. I think might have to put up a mature content warning on this one. I hadn't thought of that until you said something. Amazing, I captured that moment without seeing the obvious... I wonder how big we can blow up the image, print it and plaster it around campus. Everyone will be totally amazed! They won't know what hit them. Heheheheheh!

V. Great idea! Won't the faculty be surprised...

J. Unfortunately, I'm afraid we might have to include diagrams to that people truly understand what is going on. Other wise they just might miss the awesomeness of the moment and that would really be sad.


V. Ah, yes, must include the detailed, educational diagrams without which any discussion of other-species mating rituals is so incomplete.

J. People get so bogged down in the details that they can not truly comprehend... after all most do still firmly believe that such objects are inanimate and thus incapable of such actions. That, I know a great many people when faced with such a truth have not been able to handle it.

V. But now, with your photos and diagrams, and the video out there on the net, they'll just have to believe! It'll open a whole new world.

J. And then no one will ever believe that I managed to do anything else with my life in the future. Because all they will remember is mating pick nick tables.

V. Oh, yes! You do not want to be one of those authors/artists who do one really big thing and then everyone forgets that they ever did anything else. Like Carl Orff. J.D. Salinger. Harper Lee. Pachelbel... ;-) So, I agree. Better to bury the mating tables, and let someone "discover" it after you're gone. Then people will say, "Wow, that J did all of that and this fabulous undiscovered work, too!"

J. Of course then there is the risk that they will somehow try and name this variety of mating pick nick tables after you and that can be a rather scary thought as well.

V. ! :lmao: Oh, yeah! But that could be lovely, couldn't it? Doesn't every woman want to have a species named after her? ;-) (Hmm, OK, you have to wonder about guys who name gross little parasitic worms after their wives and stuff... I mean, a species of flower is one thing, but.)

J. "Honey, I'm home."
Kiss, kiss, "Welcome home, sweatheart. What did you do today?"
"Well... I got a surprise."
"Oh, what is it?"
"Here," Hands a photo.
"Mmmm... and what is this little wormy thing?" Tries to sound polite and interested.
"That my dear, is the new species I named after you today. Isn't it great," Pulls out a wad of papers from his pocket, "See, I have a certificate of authenticity and everything. You my lovely are looking at the new form of fungus, the Mildred. Or as I call her Milly for short."
Btw, on a side note these things are cool [link].

V. Yes! Exactly! The next frame is where she beans him with a frying pan! "Is that all I mean to you?" :crying: "Frank's wife got a new rodent named after her..."
And those fungi! Ooh, they look so incredibly ALIEN! Wow! And to think some of them are only
down the road from Santa Banana. I might be able to see some in real life.

J. Poor Bob, he just couldn't do much to please Mildred... besides it would've served her right to have a rodent named after her. Frank's wife was much to pretty to be named after a rodent but ahhh a fungi. She would make a beautiful one.
I know aren't they.

V. LOL, she would make a beautiful fungus...!

J. Fungi just have so much more class then those stinky pooping and eating little rodents.

V. LOL...!

This conversation in it's entirety took place over here, and it was conducted between vanilla-vanilla and myself.

Orange Dots and Alien Artists

Artist's Comments
So, a while back I posted a journal entry about train tracks and why they seem to fascinate so many people. Well there are lots of train tracks around the place but I admit I've never paid them much attention. I decide every so often I'm going to take a walk along a different stretch of the tracks and see what I find. To get out of the studio and do something different yesterday I walked along a stretch of tracks near campus.

Here's one thing that jumped out at me, bright orange dots. ;)


V. These are fun! It looks like 7 or 8 different locations... Hmmm.

J. Yeah I enjoyed it. Same tracks just different spots along it. I don't know if it was someone having fun or someone marking something.

V. It would be nice to think it had something to do with Morse code for aliens or an art project by a devotee of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but it's more likely to be railway folks marking ties that need to be replaced... ?

J. *chuckles* Well it's not really on their scale at least the stuff of theirs that I know. Though that would be interesting and I suppose in some way it could be a massive scale. I think I'll vote for alien code, I like that answer. ;) Or maybe it's the squirrel's, it must be the squirrel's fault.
Yeah, I wondered about the replaced ties, though most of them didn't look any worse then any of the others at least as far as my uneducated eyes could tell.

V. Hi! My name's Crisco. I'm an installation aahrtist from Alpha Centauri. Last week I painted each railway tie with a bright orange dot from Bellingham WA to IN. I usually work bigger, but I've been a little sick. You should see what I did in 1054. Oh, wait, I guess you can see it. One of my finest "plasma balloons"...

J. LOL. That just made my morning. *giggles*
So, Crisco while you're here can I ask you a few questions?
Are you here to take over the world with art? Or is the whole alien domination and take over thing rather over done?

V. Oh, dahling, we don't just take over worlds. Our motto: "We'll annihilate anything for Art." Nothing gets your blood pumping in the morning like a supernova. And, as Joan-Clod says, "lasts longer than a box of radioactive Sharpies."

J. Hmmm... I see. Well then let me pose one of the fundamental questions to you, what is art? I've always been under the impression that supernova's and such were naturally occurring. If you consider the creation of one art; what is heart to you and your people beyond the limitations of Earth?

V. Ah, Ah. As I, Crisco, have written elsewhere in one of my many books available through Rip-Em-Right-Off-Press: Art is {all the stuff you draw/make/write/sculpt/sing/weave while you're trying to become an Artist} minus all the bits involving feces. And the latter is sometimes negotiable, as you demonstrated brilliantly: link.  For example, the Trooblinquat Bemquine tribe of Beta Centauri IV produce very interesting and colorful fecal sculpture hundreds of meters tall and it has been hoity-toity art among them for 10,000 or so Earth years. And supernovae are far from naturally occurring, Grasshopper. You really have to work at one. They take several billion Earth years to actually bloom.

J. Well, then you must've perfected the art of longevity as it seems we short lived humans have missed out on much.
(You know perhaps it's not so much about what artists make it's about the fact that they make it and they present it as art. So it comes down to the presentation such as Duchamp's Fountain. Or for example fecal sculptures; are made and presented as art and thus become art over time because they have been presented that way. We become defined by what people previously have declared as art. Lol as a side note this came up in my search for the above as a picture from Burning Man. lol or link.)

V. Yes, humans do miss out on much with your short lifespans. Someday perhaps you'll live long enough to see some of the art that other species have been making all around the galaxy for eons... :-)
(Ah, Duchamp's fountain. I never learned whether he made the fountain or just presented it. I'd have to argue, personally, that if he didn't make it, it isn't art, no matter how he presents it. In some sense it trivializes the creative act to simply take an object and present it unadorned. This separates goats from Goats dressed in tires and paint [link] a la Rauschenberg. Yes, it's also true that we become defined by what people previously have declared as art as you say. Burning Man. Ah, never been to it, but I keep hearing about it year after year...)

J. So, then you have not uncovered the secret of ever last life? You are simply blessed with long life spans?
(He simply presented it as art. I don't really care for him or the idea or the Dada movement; however, the observation I think stands. Simply in terms of what we present as art then can become viewed as art. So it's those who present things who begin to define what art is. Which doesn't persay answer the question but it is an element of some sort in the whole mess.
Hahha poor goat.
Yeah I haven't been to Burning Man though I to keep hearing about it. It would be neat to go.)

V. The secret of everlasting life? Don't die. Very simple. The trick is living through the next "big fizzle" or "big collapse" and through the "big bang" that follows it on the other side. :-)
Anyway... Dada can be fun in some ways, but it was mostly similar to what young people were doing in the 60s: doing whatever it takes to annoy the establishment. :-)

J. *chuckles* Well in terms of art, and just people in general there will always be some element of that. Annoying the establishment, doing what they think is, 'shocking', but may or may not be anything that's really new.

V. Exactly. It's mostly been done in one form or another through the ages, somewhere on Earth.

This conversation can be found here and was carried on by myself and vanilla-vanilla.

The Ribs

V. Interesting photo, and also interesting subject matter. I like the amusing comment on the lower ribs. Hmm.

J. Yeah, that was what caught our attention. The lower rib thing.

V. Yes, rather wild and interesting. Strange ideas those ancients had...

J. *chuckles* It always makes me wonder what people a hundred years or so from now will say about us.

V. Right. I think, if they're around, they'll have some rather awful things to say about us, but those comments will probably be censored by the corporate screwballs who control the media and the supreme court. Heh heh.
But the question always reminds me of that scene in Woody Allen's "Sleeper" where he wakes up in the future and the doctor is smoking ciggies like a chimney, telling him "we used to think smoking was bad for you, now we know it's healthy"... :-)

J. *chuckles* It's one of those eternal questions that has no answer and yet still we wonder. I think I shall invent a time traveling pair of moon shoes.

V. Ooh! When you do, stop by and pick me up... :-)

J. I shall make two pairs and we can pretend to be skipping down the yellow brick road in moon shoes, skipping through time... never knowing what we will find. Perhaps it will be the emerald city and perhaps it will be a fuzzy caterpillar smoking hookah or maybe it will be a pygmy alien with a taste for birds and a preference for creak monsters.

V. :laughing: Oh, yes. That sounds like so much fun!!

Original conversation can be found here, the images were taken as part of a collection visit that was set up as part of a class.