The thesis paper

The paper is the only thing that i have left now besides installing my piece in the gallery. I feel that my project has completely changed and that i almost need to rewrite my whole dam paper. However, I feel that my project hasnt varied from the core concepts of my piece. If anything i have investigated and involved even more concepts now. I guess I just dont know if my painting and paper still reflect each other....

Panels are finished.

The panels are done being painted and the enamel has been applied to the backs of them. I think this is pretty much how i want the composition to be. If i keep it this way, the piece will be 6ft in height, 4 ft 3in at the widest point and extend 7 inches off the wall at its thickest part. There are 2 layers of panels, the layers will be seperated by 2 in dowel to help create an interesting sense of depth.

Step 3 of light boxes

The last step was to do all the proper wiring for the light boxes. The light boxes are actually ceiling light fixtures and are meant to be hard wired to a power source. Due to this fact, I had to add proper wire and a plug so they will work in the gallery

Step 2 of the light boxes

The second step was adhering the tiles. What I did was made them very condensed at one end and dispersed at the other end. The light boxes then sat for 24 hours and cured.

Step 1 of light boxes

The first step of the lightboxes was to create a composition for the glass tiles on the light boxes. I wanted to make sure it was exactly what i wanted before i permanently adhered them to the light box. What i did was taped off 14.5 inch square on a table in my studio and used that as a template to arrange the tiles.

Camera is up and working again

So... my camera is finally functioning again and im now uploading pics of the progress of my thesis project....

The idea for this project is overlaying foam panels that are backlit by lightboxes. I ran into a few problems with this project so far and still have few problems left to work out. I first encountered the problem of what to do with the foam panels. I originally planned on doing all the panels bright, vibrant colors. However, I thought a nice white/irredescent white stripe would make an interested background. But, once I completed the stripes I really liked how miminalist it turned out and the simplist beauty of the directions the stripes went. I also thought it would compliment the light boxes well. This posed a huge debate bc my whole thesis paper was about color theory mostly and now I basically removed all color from the piece. To slightly resolved this problem by adding color to my light boxes by means of glass mosaic tiles. The tiles are condensed at one end and dispersed at the other end. I had a few other minor problems but none of them are worth talking about. SO the only problem left is figuring out how to mount all of these panels on the wall in the gallery. They have to be mounted about 4-5 inches off the wall in order for them to be infront of the lightboxes and still leaving enough room for any heat produced by the light boxes to be able to escape and not melt the foam panels. So far the only way i came up with to mount them is joining to L brackets together to form a U bracket. However, I am concerned that because of the size bracket i will have to use, the weight of the bracket will be too much that it will rip when mounted to the foam. Any suggestions of other ways i can mount the foam panels?

Crit #2

This week we met at LAB and held crit there. Due to the size of and material my work is made in, it was impossible for me to transport them on the rutgers bus without damaging them. However, I brought with me sketches of my project. ( i will scan them in and upload them as soon as my scanner feels like working again... the same goes for images of my work in progress. just waiting on my new memory card to come in. ) Anyways, some new ideas and aspects were discussed and brought to my attention. I brought up the idea of carving into the foam(something i haven't done yet) and the crit group suggested i should carve the foam to make it very then so the light from the light boxes behind it may illuminate the piece further. I, a few days later, tested out carving the foam and found it to be very tedious and time consuming without great end results( besides very tender fingers that were easy to cut). So I have decided not to carve the foam because this is already a very ambitious project and I am concerned about not having enough time to complete every aspect of the piece to a level of satification if I added carving foam to the To-Do List.. The group was very interested in my idea of using light boxes and suggested some artists to look at. I think this will be very helpful to see how others have incorporated light into their works. It was brought to my attention that I need to think about the lighting of the light boxes further. I didn't really think about what kind of lighting I would want in the room that my piece is installed in. Plus I havent really thought about what kind of light would be in the light box. I just thought I would have a soft white glow of light. I never thought about color light or blinking pattern effect or anything of that relevance. Sooooo.... now I have so much more think about and it feels like this project has just become even more ambitious. But I feel that the added qualities that I now have to think about will only develop and push this piece even farther than I ever expected it to go.

Critique #1 spring2010

so my crit basically went like this.....

• more "pop" than elizabeth murray
• gray panels fuctioned as a grid
• panel is compelled to be read as a narrative(gray panels "buildings" succeeded into a void)
• sides of paintings: investigate how the line moves from the piece to foam piece
• Jenna suggested cityscape (organic shapes-> city life)
• Paul suggeasted it referenced a grid
• Joe said the circle is central optical point and seems like a visual vortex. He asked if there could be a balance to it.... something to comtemplate
• Paul wants me to contemplate the lighting source for my pieces. He says the lighting is an important aspect of it. I totally agree.
• the layers of panels come off as interesting and I should investigate the landscape aspect of it when building my piece for thesis.
• group says I should keep focusing on the color theory of my pieces because it seems to be an important aspect.

* I am open to another opinions or suggestions.

MFA SHOW............

I just checked out the MFA show in the gallery and in general I thought it was an overall good exhibition. When viewing the show, I focused on the setup and placement of the work more than the works themselves. I felt that the groupings and the arrangements of the show weakened the presentation. There just wasn't a good agreement and fluidity between the pieces. For an example, the room in the back right off of the main room, the hanging sculptures, the sculpture and the paintings were all individually very strong and well executed. However, the grouping of them seem to not complement or create a dialog. I felt that the hanging sculptures needed more space and room to breathe. In contrast, the first room off to the left from the main room, was well put together and seem to be a very strong selection of pieces. Now this could be because they were all be the same artist and the fit the space well. Another thing that I had bittersweet feelings about were the temporary walls set up in the main room. The walls were awesome. They created more wall space for work to be shown and filled up some of the emptiness I always experienced in the past shows I have seen. But.... the fact that one artist was on all on one side and another person on the other side just seem awkward. I felt the walls weren't being used to their fullest use. It was hard to take in the artist full body of work because you saw a few but then had to turn the corner to see the rest. There was no possible way of seeing the whole series of work at once. This exhibition was good to see because there were some amazing pieces, but the physical setup and the groupings of works made it harsh to view. But for that point alone, it was an important show to see in relation to the thesis class. It made some valid points that should be considered when we start to plan our own exhibitions in the spring.

Frank Stella...

The Spirit-Spout, 1988
Oil and enamel on aluminum, fiberglass, corrugated aluminum, wood, and metal fixtures, 125 x 110 x 43 in. (317.5 x 279.4 x 109.22 cm)

"Hacilar aceramica", 2001
epoxy and spray paint on cast aluminum


“Severinda” (1995)
mixed media on Fiberglas
is part of “Frank Stella: Painting Into Architecture,” at the Met.


"The Pequod meets the Bachelor", 1988
Mixed media on etched magnesium and aluminum
126.7 x 125 x 33.7 inches

--I choose to include more images of Frank Stella's work because they also relate to my work for multiple reasons. First, the sculptural elements are interesting and similar to my work. I don't work with the same materials (i mostly work with foam because I am still feeling out working in reliefs), but I am concentrating on the relief elements of these pieces. Seeing that most of these are mounted to the wall, I looking at how their compositions maybe somehow relate to being shown on a wall. Plus, its educational of how so someone established approaches the stacking and layering of panels and objects. Second, his color palette in these intrigued me. I like how its bold and vibrant in some pieces and others are more muted but still exudes vibrancy. Third, these pieces also give me examples of patterns and shapes in an organized/clean way and also in a loose/painterly way. As i mentioned before, I am interested in perhaps moving away from the flat solid shapes and moving to a more fluid/loose/painterly depiction of shapes.

Santi Moix

Santi Moix
Untitled, 2008
crayon and oil on paper
55 1/4 x 68 inches
140.3 x 172.7 cm


Santi Moix
Untitled, 2008
crayon and oil on paper
55 x 66 inches; 139.7 x 167.6 cm
framed: 60 1/2 x 71 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches; 153.7 x 181 x 5.7 cm


Santi Moix
Untitled, 2008
crayon and oil on paper
53 3/4 x 68 inches; 136.5 x 172.7 cm
framed: 60 1/2 x 73 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches; 153.7 x 186.1 x 5.7 cm

-Santi Moix shows at the Paul Kasmin gallery. The medium is different than what I usually use in my work, but I found the composition and shapes used in these works to be very interesting and relevant to my work. The shapes are very organic and there's a sense of space. What I found interested about the composition is that the placement of the "image" adds a certain weight to the piece. Also, I like how everything springs out from the center, which creates some massive sense of depth there. The concept of placement and composition in these pieces is something I might want to apply when construction my work because my work is flat shapes and flat colors and sometimes I feel like it needs some depth to it. Also, I was debating last week about maybe moving away from the flat, solid colors and moving to something a bit more painterly. So this seems like a good example of what my work could look like if I started working wet into wet paint when creating the shapes in my paintings.

---I tried to read up on this artist and couldn't find much besides that he has a fellowship to the Guggenheim museum. Any suggestions of where I can find more info on this artist?

Hitting a Brick Wall....

As our thesis proposal due date approaches, I have seem to hit a nice solid wall of uncertainty, panic and confusion. I know where I want my art to go and a few artists I really get influenced by... BUT.... i really don't know what I should be researching for my thesis proposal. How do I find more artists that have relevancy to my work? Do I have to talk about nothing but artists and specific genres of art in my proposal? What if I draw inspiration from random things? like how my shoes laces fall and composed themselves on the floor after I took my shoes off? Or what if I create the composition of a painting from a the feeling I get from a James Brown song? Those are just some of the werid things that factor into my art. Should I be talking about this in my proposal as well? Can anyone suggest artist I should look at? Is there certain types of articles I should be looking at more than others like interviews more than reviews or biographies or show catalogs? I just need a little guidance and help here... I understand we are seniors and no one is going to hold my hand through thesis. I'm not expecting anyone to do so. What I need though is for someone to give me some pointers, suggestions and guidelines to help direct me into the right path.

Research for thesis: Elizabeth Murray

Artchive: Greg Masters' interview with and article about Elizabeth Murray...

"Her major accomplishment has been to find a way to express her emotional responses to an object, letting her passions go in abstract painting and, at the same time, fusing that rawness within a finely tuned precision, the shaped canvas. Though the boundaries of her canvas are often a bit eccentric, they restrain and give a form to the explosion of impulses. She's made a happy marriage between the exhilarating freedom to express of the action painters and the clean basics of the minimalists."-G. Masters about Murray's work

"She repeatedly opens herself up for examination, maintaining the vulnerability necessary for probing the self. The playful decorativeness, aggressive colors, large biomorphic shapes, are infused with an intense honesty and integrity in the process of relating the personal reaction to the geographic environment."-G. Masters

"That's a specific formal idea to have those shapes up there. In the beginning it feels like time breaks through the formal stuff and you get paint on it so that you begin to have ideas and it begins to get very emotional. That color feels like what you are at that particular day, particular moment, like what color feels like the right container for all those feelings."- E.Murray talking about how she starts a painting.
- It's interesting to me that she starts with an idea, but, once the paint gets flowing, she feels it all out and begins to depict emotions.

GM: When you started making shaped canvases?
EM: Yeh, it started with some very small paintings. I was reading books about Gestalt therapy and I was reading a lot about Zen at the time. Very briefly, I got very involved in Japanese Buddhism and Za-Zen. That was the spiritual thing in a way that was an influence to it but it was also very much from just looking at the Minimalists. What I needed was something, an underpinning for all my emotions, I really needed something to settle me down and some kind of a plate to put this stuff on. Then I began to understand what that was. It gave it some boundaries. I have a real desire for structure and for order. But also the chaos of the feelings feels like the thing that has to be in there. I think it's totally emotional. For the emotions to be seen you have to have a format.

GM: When you started making shaped canvases?
EM: Yeh, it started with some very small paintings. I was reading books about Gestalt therapy and I was reading a lot about Zen at the time. Very briefly, I got very involved in Japanese Buddhism and Za-Zen. That was the spiritual thing in a way that was an influence to it but it was also very much from just looking at the Minimalists. What I needed was something, an underpinning for all my emotions, I really needed something to settle me down and some kind of a plate to put this stuff on. Then I began to understand what that was. It gave it some boundaries. I have a real desire for structure and for order. But also the chaos of the feelings feels like the thing that has to be in there. I think it's totally emotional. For the emotions to be seen you have to have a format.

"I think it probably develops and evolves. I'm sure it does. I could be wrong about this. Who knows artistically what is right or wrong. You just do it. I change and things change and one thing seems to lead to another. For me that seems to be what happens in my work." - E. Murray talking about her work developing, changing and evolving over the years. I found her opinion to be rather comforting to me because this is how I feel most of the time about my work. I see all my peers having a set style and the work just progressing, but my mind frame changes and it's illustrated in my next pieces.

GM: Does the artist have a political responsibility?
EM: Yeah. I think so. More than ever. People say well, your work isn't specifically political. But I think that art is political. Being an artist is taking a kind of stand in relationship to the world. What I want my art to do is really make people feel things differently. Slow down and take a look and be provoked in almost any kind of a way. To see a kind of foreign object that maybe has some meaning that is jolting in some sense. It's not that I think I necessarily succeed or don't succeed. That's not what you're asking really. That's what I would want. I think that art does it in very different ways. I think that is political. The ultimate value in this society has always been money and art has always been the thing that's gone against that. I think the irony for me right now, that I have not come to terms with, is that I'm in this position where these are objects and as objects they're expensive. But to make them I have to make a certain amount of money. So I'm in this kind of bind where they have to sell. I want Paula to sell them. I don't mind that, I mean, I don't want them [laughs]. After I've done them I've gotten what I want out of it so it's fine with me that they sell. I think that the disturbing part is that the people who can afford to buy them are fewer and fewer. Most of the people who buy them are people that, politically, are totally on the other side of the fence than I am. Completely. I don't kid myself that their lives will necessarily be changed by having them.

~ I found this interview to be very helpful in understanding an artist I have idealized for so long. I already understood and knew that alot of "feminine" icons/symbols can be found from her work which could be because she draws influence from her everyday life. What I found interesting were her answers and how plainly spoken they were. I felt that in some ways my our process, inspiration and composition is very similar to Murray's. For example, how she emphasized painting being more about the emotions or emotional state. Most my work isn't commenting on global warming or our political/economic state, instead is focusing on the my emotions or thoughts that are occurring and influencing the decision in the piece I am working on the current moment. I guess it was just comforting to find out that I'm not working the 'wrong" way and that established and revolutionary artists like Elizabeth Murray shared some of the view points as me.

Ian Davenport

Ian Davenport shows at the Paul Kasmin Gallery, which I saw. The minute i saw his paintings i was awe-struck. Davenport's palette is incredible and pure heaven to my eyes. I did some research on his work and found some interesting things out. He creates his work by use of drips and gravity, similar to early abstract expressionist like Pollock. He uses house paint in syringes, ejects the paint onto the canvas(which is mounted vertically on a wall to amplify the gravity effect) and then manipulates the pools of paint at the bottom of each piece by tilting the fiber board in different directions. Davenport is an artist i am looking at because of his palette and his style of dripping paint is something i am considering incorporating sparsely in future work(to break up the organic shapes and geometric patterns)

Erik Parker

Erik Parker shows at the Paul Kasmin Gallery in Chelsea. He seems to be an influential artist to me because of similar style, palette and subjects inspiration is drawn from. I love how intricate his forms are and how the build up to form a larger subject. I like his playful and creative use of words. One thing that I have learned out of looking at his work is a better understanding of how to create depth and mass by use of color combination. I researched him a little bit( so far a quick google search, but i plan on doing more) and there wasn't too much info out about him. But from what i read so far... he draws inspiration from all over the place like music, life, people he knows, famous people and places. This seems to something similar to me because i draw inspiration from all over. When i looked at his earlier work to his present work, i noticed the progression of development and intricacy of his forms and works. This gives me hope that my work can progress the same way because sometimes i feel that i kinda pigeon hole myself with my style.

Revsions...

I elaborated farther on my gallery review of the Frank Stella Show in Chelsea I went to go see.....

Gallery Visti to the Zimmerli Museum with Hannah!!!!

Sorry about the lateness... all the homeworks I had to do this week for this class and other classes... this was the one thing that slipped my mind.... sorry!!!
I did accomplish something productive on my birthday by going to the Zimmerli Museum with Hannah.. haha. We showed our I.Ds and got down to business in the museum. The first room we were both not so impressed. In the second room though, we were both intrigued by similar works. I am guessing because our work and palettes are similar. Well, Karen Kunc's were interesting. I really was drawn to her work for mostly her palette. I did some work in printing making, but Hannah was more interested in the process than I was. I loved her choice of colors and sparked some ideas for my own work. I really enjoyed the yellows, blues and purples. I also was interested by the over laying aspect because alot of my work is an overlaying of patterns and colors.. So it was interesting to look at how someone else approached the topic. The next thing on my list of likes was Dan Walsh.... his work totally reminded me of Hannah's but i was completely infatuated with his color use. Walsh's use of color was insane!!!! the colors seem so vibrant and that is one goal I always try to achieve in my work. I love making my colors pop to the extent that people viewing it are like "whoa!!" His soft edges give a good argument of different way to my work, since I usually use sharp edges in all of my work.

Top Picks For Graduate School

My Top Picks for Graduate Schools:

• Hunter College of the City University of New York- M.F.A. in painting from the Art Department
• The University of the Art (Philadelphia)- M.F.A. in painting.
• School of Art Institute of Chicago- M.F.A in painting.
• University of California(Los Angeles)- M.F.A. in painting from art department
• California Institute of the Arts- M.F.A. for painting in Art Program
  

Chapter 3- The Fair

• Pg. 81, second paragraph. I found the description of the administration/counsel of the fair to be rather fascinating. It was interesting that all the power and decisions didn't just rest with the director, Samuel Keller, but instead was divided up amongst his counsel, "ambassadors". I thought that basically the director would make all the decisions about who gets what stand and who gets in, but instead there is a whole counsel of people who choose. This, I guess, makes it more fair to the galleries wanting admission, but it makes it harder because you will have to get everyone's approval.
• Pg. 81-2. the description of the building was interesting because they really thought of every aspect, or factor, of what was needed for a perfect exhibiting conditions. Such as the layout so everyone is crammed altogether, "...each[floor of gallery stands] arranged in two easy-to-navigate concentric squares." The fair was split to have the "blue chip", more expensive galleries, on one floor and the other galleries on another floor. This catetered to the interests of the collectors and dealers, but, also, gave the galleries the fair/proper competition. The structure of the exhibition space was considered with high ceilings so they don't interfere with the view of the art work. Even the lighting conditions were considered to enable the work to be shown at it's very best with "... the expensive, artificial lighting being clean and white." I just found it interesting that all of these conditions were considered because I just assumed they used a building that was presentable and able to hold the proper amount of people.
  
• Pg. 82-3. I found the "characters" the Rubells to be rather interesting because of their contradiction to the assumed stereotype given to art collectors. The Rubells are very wealthy, but you wouldn't guess that unless you were told, I guess. They even said, at one point, "Sometimes I'm embarrassed to identify myself as a collector. It's about being rich, privileged, and powerful." Whereas the stereotype is that art collectors are dress expensively, stuck up and act superior. You can also tell that the Rubells were wise, experience collectors because of the way they spoke about collecting art, what art they are interested in and how private of a process it was to purchase art.
  
• Pg. 85, second paragraph. "The trick is to find a space for everything, so each work has a chance to breathe. It means hanging less and thinking about thematic connections and the sight lines." I thought this was an important quote because it is something everyone should keep in mind while hanging work in a public space, studio or so forth. I also think it is something we should keep in mind when we get closer to arranging work for a thesis exhibition.
  
• Pg. 84-91. I found the descriptions of all the different gallery stands and owners to be an intriguing comparison. You had your very involved, enthusiastic gallery owner, such as Gladstone. Gladstone was present for the whole fair, wanted to be there, very confident and personable with somewhat commercial and graphic style art. But, I guess that suits the personality of a woman that use to be a stay at home mom. However, in contrast, you have Victoria Miro who doesn't like the fair and only shows up for the required time she needs to be there. What I found interesting about her, wasn't her lack of involvement, but was the fact that there wasn't prices or any kind of indicator on the works. I liked this idea and how it made the buyers start a conversation, clever idea. Thinking more about it, I guess the "not pricing the pieces" seems logical because most of the works were more of museum collecting than personal collecting. On the whole other end of the spectrum, you have the Lisson Gallery and Nicholas Logsdail. This gallery showed sculptures and minimalism work. The difference with Logsdail was the fact he actually went to art school and that he doesn't flaunt his wealth. So far there wasn't any mention of the gallery owners having a academic art background.
• Pg. 91, first paragraph. "Many successful gallerists see themselves as mavericks. Some are artist-oriented dealers-they generally go to art school and give up being an artist when they discover they have an aptitude for organizing exhibitions. Others are collector-focused dealers- they tend to apprentice at Sotheby's or Christie's and often start out as collectors themselves. A third set might be called curators' dealers- they study art history and excel at scholarly justifications of their artists' work. In any case, there is no set training or certification. Anyone can call himself or herself a dealer or gallerist."- Logdail. I just found this to be a very interesting insight and explanation to what one of the motif questions of this chapter, the definition of a dealer. It slightly gives me hope that you don't have to be wealthy to be a dealer and maybe I could achieve being one. (haha)
• Pg. 94, third paragraph. "Artists tend to view art fairs with mixture of horror, alienation, and amusement. They feel uneasy when all the hard work of the studio is reduced to supplying the voracious demand, and they wince at the sight of so much art accompanied by so little substantive conversation." This point is relivant because the whole time I read this chapter I was wondering why none of the artists were there. So my question was answered. I think this quote doesn't just apply to artists at fairs but just in general of artist being around when people are looking at their work. Ok, well at least for me. I go through a whole wave of emotions when I have to present my work for crit or have it in a show or show it to my friends. It's a vulnerable place to be for many reasons.
  

A little Frank Stella & Elizabeth Murray

Two of the most influential artist on my work. I remember seeing Murray's retrospective a few years back and falling in love with her work. Frank Stella had me at the black paintings.

Elizabeth Murray







Frank Stella