week 8 conclusion...new ideas?

I'd like to say I'd be hard pressed to think of a time when I was this stressed, but unfortunately it happens to me quite often. Sometimes it is for good reason - a test, a big project, too many hours at work, other times the anxiety comes with no triggers at all. All the same, it's something I continue to struggle with and this week, is one of those instances.

That being said, I'm worrying about IP and the progress I have/have not been making. It seems as though many other students have things much more figured out than I do - though I'm sure that's not necessarily the case. Either way, I'm feeling very pressured to "make" something every week, and I don't think this type of experimentation is working for me. The things I've been making just have not been to my liking and I feel as though I'm just going in circles.

So, per Amanda's advice, I'm taking time to reflect on my ideas, think about what isn't working, figure out why, and change my plan of attack.

I've been thinking of possible revisiting the idea of the cabinet as a container for a collection - with drawers that held vignettes of a person's (maybe Doris Duke's) life. I love the idea that text may be included in some drawers...maybe a scroll with a story is pulled out of one of the drawers. I also think that one or more of the drawers could be locked, keeping part of the piece a secret.

However, I've also been thinking more about taking a step away from others (like Doris Duke) and doing something more personal. I think I was afraid to do something personal after my pretty rough semester last year (I did many projects about my grandmother in the midst and after her death). But looking back to the doll dress piece (seen here in the past) I like the idea of working with fabric - a collection of fibers - as a means to talk about family, domesticity, relationships, togetherness, and tangibility. Which led me to think about doing an installation more along the lines of something by Sam Gilliam (seen above). By sewing together and "collaging" clothing I've collected (or my family has collected) over the years I could create a piece that really said something about the inter-connectedness of my family and its history.

This week:

Tuesday - sketched, freaked out.

Thursday - talked to Amanda and Seth, regrouped, wrote, looked back on my previous work, thought about new ways to look at collections.

What's next:

Try not to freak out. Draw. Write. Take a look into fabric and clothing and how those materials could be used to convey the idea of collection and family.

week 7 conclusion

After a difficult yet fruitful trip to my grandma's house, I have more supplies than I know what to do with. I brought back boxes of ribbons, thread, books, buttons, fabric, hats, matchbooks, and other knickknacks. I used some of them (mainly matchbooks) in a small study on Doris Duke. This piece shows Duke herself, as well as objects and elements that indicate more about her life. Duke was a relentless smoker, which makes sense considering her vast fortune came from her father's tobacco business. I painted Islamic designs on the frame; Islamic art and patterns were a passion of Duke.

This week:

Monday - 3 hours collecting

Wednesday - 2 hours making

Thursday - 1.5 hour making, 1 hours reading and blogging

What's next?

More research on Duke in or to create more experiments/studies which explore different aspects of her life (maybe next I will tackle her trouble with motherhood and the painful loss of her only daughter, Arden).

week 6 conclusion

This week I found a concrete direction for my assemblage - an object based piece based on the life and collections of Doris Duke. She is an incredibly interesting person and I can't wait to find out more about her. I just need to find a way to express my passion for her story through my work. I'll be collecting things this weekend when I go home, but I will also be experimenting with creating - in order to have a physical exploration done for Thursday.

This week:

Monday - 2 hours reading in the Curatorial Research Center at UMMA.

Tuesday - 1.5 hours watching Art:21 video clips, 0.25 hours talking to Amanda, 1.25 hours researching Doris Duke.

Thursday - 2 hours writing midterm proposal, 1 hour watching clips from "Bernard and Doris" (one of the biographical films about Duke).

freaky!

joseph cornell's work, dedicated to the actress lauren bacall, gave me the idea to create a piece dedicated to a famous collector. i'm doing my piece about doris duke. who played doris duke in the biographical film "too rich: the secret life of doris duke" ??? .....lauren bacall.

FREAKY.

snippets + new ideas

I spent some time reading from the Curitorial Research Center library today at UMMA. I picked up Stephen E. Well's A Cabinet of Curiosities: Inquires into Museums and their Prospects, as well as a book on each Joseph Cornell and Betye Saar.

A Cabinet of Curiosities had some great discussions of what a collection actually means - I loved the story of "The Renowned Kelly Sock Collection," where a young boy decided that his sock drawer can in fact be a collection as long as he establishes it as such. Here are some additional snippets from that chapter:

-"what actually made a diverse group of things into a collection...was not any thing-in-itselfness but a specific outside viewpoint"

-the idea that a collection is simply "temporary togetherness" of objects (it is fluid and may change over time)

-things in a "transient conjunction"

-collection as a relationship between objects rather than a thing in itself

While the book on Betye Saar gave some great imagery, I feel I gained more from taking a look at the book on Joseph Cornell. There were many works in the book that I hadn't seen before. Here are some more snippets:

-"chests, cabinets, and museums fulfill man's need to preserve, classify, and display specimens, documents, mementoes, and treasures"

-looking at northern renaissance altarpieces

-creating reliquaries dedicated to historical figures or fictional characters (medici slot machines, penny arcade portrait of lauren bacall - seen above)

What does this all have to do with my IP?

I was thinking more about what excites me when it comes to the idea of collecting, and I know objects excite me, but their relationship to their collector is just as important. I also find famous collectors, and their stories, incredibly thrilling. I remember reading about Doris Duke and her amazing, yet in many ways tragic, life. Joseph Cornell's pieces which serve as sort of altarpiece-like dedications to people got me thinking - maybe I could make a collection-based altarpiece dedicated to a great collector. So, this is an avenue I'm going to begin to explore. Wish me luck!!

week 5 conclusion

I honestly can't believe it's been five whole weeks already. I feel as though I've made some great strides, yet my work is still unclear - but I suppose that's why they give us an entire year, right? This week I completed the small assemblage I began last week. Though it was a good experiment and allowed me to get started with my hands, it really isn't what I intended. I began with a personal photograph but quickly got too broad and conceptual, instead of focusing on a specific story. After speaking to Seth and Janie, I realized I just need to try a couple of different paths until I find the one that feels right. A couple options I want to explore are: working without a photograph as a guide, and working with a photograph and creating a very specific story.

This week:

Tuesday - 0.5 hours reading about Marianetta Porter's work, 2.5 hours finishing assemblage.

Thursday - 1 hour looking at artists (I liked Mark Dion's work a lot), 0.5 hours watching some Art:21 video clips, 1.5 hours writing fictional review.

week 4 conclusion

This week was both fantastic and troubling. First the fantastic part - I spent much of my time collection object and materials, picking things up at the ReUse Center, the Scrap Box, Found, and the Salvation Army. All in all I was really just reminded why I love objects and digging through them. So much of the fun is just spending time uncovering dusty bits of this and that - I loved looking at all the antiques at Treasure Mart and I didn't even buy anything. Now for the troubling part - I began working on an assemblage using some of the things I purchased this week as well as some materials I happened to have (my big black trunk in my studio houses tons of odds and ends perfect for such occasions). Using a found photograph from 1937 as my inspiration, I've just been having some issues getting my narrative across. Seth and Erica came by and thought I was maybe working a little too abstract - that my audience may not be able to read the kinds of things I was putting together.

So I guess the next step would be to really establish a concrete story or atmosphere I'm trying to create and then use my materials in a bit more focused way. Overall, I've really enjoyed getting to work with my hands as well as clear up some of my issues with content this week.

Time Spent:

Monday - 2 hours collecting.

Tuesday - 0.5 hours blogging, 0.5 hours talking to Amanda and researching.

Thursday - 3 hours collecting, 0.5 hours talking to Seth and Erica and seeing faculty show again, 2 hours working on assemblage.