You Can See/Can You See?

Finals Progress & Process

I recently learned that one of my friends is also colorblind; we spent a good hour messing around on all these different websites taking all the colorblind tests and reading up on the topic. I've known about my colorblindness for a few years, but it still fascinates me because it isn't 100% or anything; I can tell the difference between green and red just fine. The same goes for any other color, really. Sometimes I'll have trouble telling greens and yellows apart, or blues and purples, but it's usually because they've got some of the other color in them and aren't totally obviously separate.

It's always been this big ha ha with people that I want to be an artist and I'm colorblind, and it got me thinking that maybe that would be a great topic for a piece. I decided I wanted to make reliefs of circular colorblind tests a) because I wanted to do something more sculptural b) because I wanted to work, even on a small scale, with wood. 

My original idea was to make 12 circles, 10" in diameter, and then cut different sized dowel rods into the circles that would compose my colorblind tests.

The tests themselves would be arranged in four rows of three. The first three would be composed of mostly gray circles, with colored circles spelling out "you can see." The second row would have the same words, but would be all colored with greens and reds, like a typical colorblind test. The third row would again be gray with colored circles but this time asking more of a question, "can you see?" The fourth row would be the same question, but in colorblind colors.

Collectively I've probably spent about 12 hours cutting dowel robs for this project. I figured out pretty quickly that I wouldn't have enough time to complete the project as I originally intended, so I sat down and reworked the idea, and it actually turned out to be for the best. I decided that my original idea was more repetitive than I realized, so I trimmed it down from 12 colorblind circles to 6. The first row will be gray and color stating "you can see." The second row will be colorblind colors and will be more of a question, "can you see." That way the joke is still there, because everyone is going be to able to see the first row because it's gray and colored, so both colorblind and non-colorblind people will be able to view it. And even while the colorblind circles are asking if the viewer can see the words or not, only a non-colorblind person is going to be able to see and answer that question. 

First I gessoed all the dowel rods and overall circles so that they would better take the paint.

Next I arranged the cut dowel rod circles so that I was sure the word would appear in the larger overall circle. Then I filled in the space around it with other circles.

I painted the words for the colorblind circles by hand because there were so few of them, and each of the circles needed to be different from the one next to it. For all the red circles surrounding these words, I was able to divide them up into groups based on size. I then placed each size grouping into a bag with paint and shook them around so each was covered. Once dry, I further divided each size category into three groups, one for each circle.


I then arranged all the green circles upside down, so the words were spelled backwards, and then arranged all the red circles around them, careful to get good variety. After that, I coated one of the 10" circles with wood glue, placed it on the backs of the smaller circles, and compressed while they dried.

Arranging the red around the green, upside down. Then I'll smoother another circle with wood glue, press it on top, hold, and flip.

ALMOST DONE.

Collaboration Project - Melting Easter Africa Stake

Context

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHRM4G4FteM

Connections

Eric/Illustration

Tuesday, Bobbie and I had a good two hour conversation with a senior illustration major, Eric, the son of one of my high school teachers. For one, it was just really interesting to finally meet him after having been friends with his brother and a student of his mother, hearing his name for the past couple of years, seeing pictures of his work and shows, etc.

One the whole, Bobbie and I agreed that he was pretty repetitive in the things that he was telling us. Our opinions differed in that Bobbie found him very articulate and therefore his repetition wasn't useful, whereas for me I felt like he was trying to say something at times but couldn't quite communicate it, so it drew me in but took the repetition for me to really understand it. That, and he used a lot of metaphors.

I wasn't surprised to hear that he was somewhat disappointed by VCU's Illustration department, because that's what I've been hearing through his family members for the past couple of years. People bringing in projects they "weren't feeling" or had done the night before or just didn't care about, wasting their time and money, skating through, trying to figure out what they wanted. His community college experience was a lot more intense, professors who would literally toss late projects on the ground, "you wouldn't get the job," with students who wanted or needed the experience, the work, to get the job, who maybe didn't have the best drawing or designs but had the energy, the motivation. At the same time, he seemed to qualify or contradict (I'm having a brain fart trying to find the right word) his answers, stating all the reasons that, regardless of its downfalls, the illustration department really is amazing and totally worth it.

A lot of the things he said he had learned since coming to VCU didn't seem specific or exclusive to the Illustration department, and both Eric and his friend readily agreed with this. There was this repeatedly touched upon idea of work outside of class involving observation, problem solving things, analysis, being able to really see something and communicate it, knowing the entire picture so that you know what to include and what to leave out in your piece.

A lot of his time when he first came to VCU, and in a sense a lot his time now, was spent just drawing, even if it was just for 30 minutes a day waiting for class to start, really observing trees, or cars, or whatever, and being able to practice drawing, and understanding the entire object in order to communicate it even if you couldn't see the entire object, see the steering wheel in the car or the axel that the wheels are attached to. This idea of the technical, of a foundation for really understanding things as a whole and how they work, of observation, comprehension, communication (I feel like a lot this doesn't necessarily make sense unless you were there).

Both Eric and his friend, again, agreed that college or illustration as a major was something that was necessary, or a set in stone thing. They both knew guys who had dropped out and still made it because they did the things they could have done in college, that the things you do in school aren't exclusive to school but a matter of discipline, of wanting the knowledge and education more than most peers, of being able to work for it regardless of the class. They both touched upon the idea I've heard so many times in the past two weeks that one of the greatest things you can take away from college is the idea of a community of artists. Critiques came up, of wanting and needing a group that was really able to objectively look at your work and maybe hurt your feelings, and being able to take that and learn from it and grow from it.

Eric mentioned his professor Sterling Hundley repeatedly, an illustrator retiring into fine art at the age of 35, world renowned, etc. After our conversation I immediately went out and bought Hundley's book Blue Collar White Collar. 

I'm really torn between the idea of going into Comm Arts for illustration to maybe yes or maybe no get a better grasp on all of these ideas when they essentially told me I didn't even need Illustration as a major to have them, that I could develop them on my own and their ideas really almost were developed independently, on their own; and yet they so endorse the idea of majoring in Communication Art. They didn't necessarily talk bad about other majors, painting or sculpture; they said that you could definitely apply the same principles to each. I think maybe they meant that wasn't normative; at one point Eric said something about painting majors "dipping their hands in paint and smearing it on a canvas" and talking about "liking shapes, colors" and such, and not really knowing how to draw or being too lazy or afraid of really learning how to draw. 

What I want is a marriage of all of this. I don't want to have to major in Communication Arts/Illustration to develop these skills. I don't want to have to major in sculpture or painting just to learn how to "sculpt" or "paint," and I wouldn't want any major to be just about it's title - just painting without all these concepts they talked about as being part of Illustration, and yes still applicable to Painting or Sculpting, but hey, you should really major in Illustration. I don't want it to be a mistake, or missing out on these ideas, if I decide to declare a fine arts major; I don't want to exclude those ideas, that knowledge.

I've thought of the idea of double majoring in a fine art degree and then maybe Illustration, but how suicidal would that be? There's all this talk about really being hungry for it, and really wanting it, and being able to work for it, and then also the idea that maybe I don't need my major for either. Besides that, I'd like an influence outside art, an English or Anthropology major.

Again, Eric used a lot of metaphors that expressed things a bit more clearly for me, like the idea of being a boxer as being comparable to being an artist. It's one thing to get all oiled up and flex your muscles, but another to knock someone out.

He also talked a lot about "intellectual property," doing things differently in your field, for yourself, your own ideas. Right now he's doing these types of previews, in a sense, of a graphic novel he's working on, posting scenes or something from it on t shirts as a sort of partnership with this girl and her company. Basically it was the idea of being an artist beyond the portfolio you show your potential employers.

Interesting quote/concept: "Talent and skill are both just the ability to see things and make decisions."

Hopefully I'll come back and read this later and I'll be able to pick out things that make sense, because right now I'm feeling vaguely overwhelmed.

Sculpture Department Odyssey

By some stroke of luck, I ran into my friend Elaine this morning waiting outside for Molly so we could break into the sculpture department and explore together, and she told me she was just on her way to her sculpture project class. GASP, the very same one I'll be taking starting... oh my god, two weeks from now, what? OKAY, anyway, so I sent her as a messenger asking if Molly and I could sit in on his class, which ended up being fine, and essentially he showed a powerpoint and talked a lot about these found object sculptors (Tara Donovan, John Freedmon, and Bill Woodrow) as inspiration for their next assignment, using found objects to create a "charged" sculpture. He seemed like a really laid back and sincerely interesting teacher, so now I'm pretty pumped about his class and will probably try and take his Space class next semester.

After that I ended up roaming the building by myself working up the nerve to corner someone and start asking questions. I walked around a small exhibit that was in the process of being installed involving some ceramic block hands in "thumbs up/down" stances, some "body adornment" plaster/silicon molds, some myth based jewelry, and a really cool bent wood project.

From there I ended up wandering into this huge room with ridiculous caged off work areas and I freaked out because they were all so large and "extravagant" and filled with so many interesting looking things and in-progress works and I was like, "THIS WILL BE ME NEXT YEAR, I COULD HAVE THIS." And then I worked up the nerve to waltz into one of the open cages and talk to girl working inside... and I found out I had been wandering around the graduate studio spaces for the past half hour. Lesson learned: ask more questions, and earlier.

I was redirected to the opposite end of the building to an even larger room filled with probably at least 4x as many cages, albeit smaller, and equally interesting myriad of materials and people and pieces. It was essentially a ghost town, but finally, in one small corner in the back of the room, I found a girl working on a huge wall sized weaving, and finally got some info.

Somehow I always seem to run into juniors who have also had double Fridays with Val and therefore know exactly why I'm wandering around like someone with amnesia, so she was really accommodating and friendly. 

• Very conceptual department; materials less important, big portion is the conversation (especially junior and senior years)
• Really strong community: artists sharing tools; coming up when they see a person working on a project and asking questions about concept, materials, etc.
• Awesome teachers, funny, laid back, etc. Tim Devoe for really detailed, clean woodshop or metals work. Eric Masters, building off of everything they learned from Tim (even though he told them to basically forget everything Tim taught them).
• Sophomore year: one major sculpture class that will demand most of your time. A sophomore seminar class, learning about what sculpture is, writing proposals, etc. Art history. Something along the lines of a concept/concentration class, like in molds, welding, etc, to learn more specifics. And then project/studio classes in other majors, or gen eds (hopefully I'll get that all out of the way early though).

I expressed the bit of a struggle I've been having over deciding between applied and fine arts, mostly concerning wanting to have the technical skills that accompany applied arts like illustration, but then loving the freedoms of fine arts in terms of concepts and materials and such. She said as much as she did love sculpture, she was sort of wanting a more applied arts job now that she was getting to the later end of her college career. She recommended I could double major in an applied and fine art, which I've definitely considered more than once, but I've also been considering a double in a more academic major. Plus, double majoring in two arts sounds mildly suicidal/is that even humanly possible?