Kristen Kieffer

On Thursday afternoon, I saw Kristen Kieffer, a visiting artist in the ceramics department. She was an amazing artist who makes elegant and detailed works of art using mostly porcelain. She is a potter, so her work is functional, but it has so much detail and care put into every step, so a mug or flower box done by her is a completely unique piece. It was amazing to watch how fluidly she was able to throw on the wheel, and it was inspiring to watch her process and find out where her inspiration comes from.There are a number of alterations that she demonstrated for us in the studio that she uses on her pieces such as: darting, stamping, and slip trailing. Darting is a term used mostly in a fashion world, but clothing is one of her inspirations. She cuts away and then seams the edges back together to create a new shape in the form just like the process of making a corset. Stamping on her pieces gives them a new texture in beautiful patterns. She showed us both how she makes her own stamps, and how when she does the stamping into a mug it can change the profile of the inside and the outside. Slip trailing is how she gives a raised texture to the piece by squeezing think slip (a mixture of clay and water) onto the surface of the piece. All of her work was beautiful and exceptionally detailed. It was also great to listen to her talk about her work and her sources of inspiration and to see her sketchbook.The images were taken from http://kiefferceramics.com/ where you can read more about the artist and even purchase pieces!

Galeries in Chelsea

On Tuesday, November 11th, my Concepts and Processes class went to New York City to visit some galleries in Chelsea. It was a really fun trip, we got to see a lot of artwork. My favorite experience of the trip was in the Kent Gallery, an exhibit of Charles Gaines titled Manifestos. This work was created using music, four manifestos: the Black Panther Manifesto, the Perspective for Conscious Changes in Everyday Life Manifesto, the Socialist Congress Manifesto and the Zapatista Manifesto, were written into musical format based on the letters within the words that were written. All the letters A-G were played as their musical equivalents, and the letter H was used for B-flat, as this was the code used in the early Baroque period. All other letters, punctuation, and spaces were played as rests. The music that was produced from this system was a bit random, but it sounded so beautiful, soothing, and relaxing. The most interesting part of that for me is that as speeches, these manifestos would have been delivered with force and passion, yet the rendering played by the piano quintet (one piano, two violins, a viola, and a cello), was just the opposite.

I also enjoyed most of the other exhibits we saw, some of the work I did not like so much, but I appreciate the fact that I got the chance to see it anyways. But among the work I did enjoy, these are the names of my favorite artists from the trip: Beth Campbell, Ben Durham, and Storm Tharp at the Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery; Petah Coyne at the Galerie LeLong; Ernesto Neto at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery; David Barnett at the Denise Bibro Gallery; and Christa Parravani at the Sara Tecchia Roma Gallery. There were many others, but these were my favorites which I found tobe the most inspiring to me as an artist.

Some of the information paraphrased about the work of Charles Gaines, as well as the image example of his work, was taken from the following website: http://www.kentgallery.com/exhibitions/current.html

UMass Amherst Visit

*This post was written last week, but I have not been able to get it up because the Internet was down*

This weekend I went to visit my cousin at UMass Amherst, and I had a really good time. UMass is famous for their Marching Band, and I got to see them perform on Saturday afternoon, and they were spectacular! Between the band, the color guard, and the twirlers, there are almost 400 students who all perform in unison, which creates a moving visual art piece on the football field. They sing and dance as well as marching and playing music, and they are so well coordinated. The band was truly a work of art, I had a great time listening to and watching them perform.

I did not do much work on my mask this weekend because I was away, but I am happy with the state it is in. I changed my mind a little bit for what I want it to help me with. I decided I want it to act as a connection between my father and me. He passed away from a heart attack when I was twelve. I decided that it does not literally have to cure me of an illness like the original purpose of the masks I researched. This meaning is also personal and purposeful to me, and it seems more appropriate based on the personal background the idea came from and it is also more connected to my idea of God. I think this form of the mask is like a sketch of what I would want it to be like in another material, like a wood carved mask.

My God Mask Developement

After our meeting on Monday, I've decided I should try subtractive sculpting, but I am going to use clay, so that if I make a mistake, it will not be very costly and I can get some extra practice if necessary. I went to the clay studio on Wednesday, but I didn't have enough clay for the full size mask, so I just worked with a small amount. I realized that I would have to buy more clay, but I have to wait until Monday, because it has to be done in the morning, and I have mostly morning classes. At first I was upset that I would have to wait to get more clay, but then I remembered that in the mask book I have been using as a reference said that a miniature mask would be worn concealed beneath the clothing of the person who had the problem. I have decided that I will keep working with the small amount because I have it, and then it will be one more aspect of my complete project. I still want to work on a larger scale, I will just have to wait a little bit longer to start it.

As for the "cure" my God mask is going to provide for me, I have been thinking about it a lot, and I have come up with a simple idea. Just as with my first mask, my inspiration came from my boyfriend. He lives in Falmouth, MA, and I don't get to see him very much. I miss him a lot, so the mask I make is going to be a cure for my distance from him, to help me not miss him so much when I can't be with him and remind me that we still love each other even when we have to be separated. I don't really need a mask or an item to carry around for me to know this, but it is the power that any God that I believe in would possess if I had to choose one. I will call it the cure for homesickness by binding loved ones together throughout times of separation or long distance.