Monday, March 31, 2014

Printmaking everywhere

In todays digital environment CMYK, halftone dots, and pixels are inescapable in the areas of production and entertainment. In the past 10 years or so there has been a real swing back to laborious processes and "traditional" ways of making. Many have seen this evident in fonts and letterpress as well as other forms of art processes such as sign painting, chalk menus, hand tools, typewriters etc. But I have seen it in one area more than most…. and that is in children's books. So here are a couple of ones I  saw on my most recent trip to the bookstore as well as one of my favorites. First one called "If you want to see a whale" by Julie Fogliano. The title is hand set type but my favorites are the illustrations using mono prints and woodblock hand printing. I acted like an absolute printmaking nerd if front of strangers when I saw the use of the woodblock grain in this book. Some sample images are below.
This grain texture seen is made by thinning the ink and pulling the mono print while the ink is still freshly rubbed into the wood rather than rolled.
This wall of sea color in the back is what is called printing "Salty" 
The next book "The wolves in the walls" By Neil Gaiman uses hand drawing as well as silkscreen and mono print. 

And one of my personal favs in the area of kids books (primarily because of its printing) is "Sick Day with Amos McGee" by Philip C Stead. The use of woodblocks and drawing are just fantastic. I have collected a few in process images from the artist so you can see how the final images are achieved. 

Great story of a zoo keeper who gets sick and while he usually takes care of the animals this time the animals take care of him. It is all done in relief blocks and graphite. 
Click for larger view
Click for larger view
rough sketch of the scene 
A more detailed sketch to start blocks and place at scale
Carved blocks based off of colors needed using the drawing for placements
Print without the drawing on top. Combining two woodblocks. 
Final image with drawing on top of the woodblock print. 
 Anyhow I hope that in all areas of visual culture you can begin to see where the handmade and the aesthetic of the artist is coming further forward. And rather than visual culture being dictated by technology or technical gimmick the visual culture is being produced by choice.



Thomas Doyle Video

Thought you all would enjoy a mini sculptor. Has some fun things going on.

Cool Hunting Video: Thomas Doyle from Cool Hunting on Vimeo.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Today's Tigers Events


Dawn, a senior Japanese studies major, offered a taste of Japan today in the College's LRC as part of Today's Tigers. Photos of her event are below.
Dawn and Dr. Brad Hadaway enjoying mochi (Japanese sweet)

Students milling about the LRC and talking with Dawn about
her experiences and other study abroad opportunities

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Opportunity: Job at GC Pub/Dup


SUMMARY:
This position supervises the day-to-day operations and staff of the Publishing and Duplicating Services of Georgetown College.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

TAKE A DEEP BREATH (Jeanette's Ode to Senior Thesis)

This week the Senior Art Department Class of 2014 is installing their work in the Anne Wright Wilson Fine Arts Gallery. Be nice to them - they are stressed.

In case you don't know, their exhibition opens this Friday, March 28th from 5-7pm. There will be refreshments and snacks as well as some great art and art historian lectures. All are welcome and all should come.



BUT my advice to them over the course of installing has been this: Take a deep breath. Everything will be fine.

As they put the finishing touches on their exhibition pieces, check all of their commas in their written work, and level their wall text these Seniors have a lot to reflect on. This is not only their concluding work but also their culminating work as well at Georgetown College. They set the standard for the next year's Seniors (no pressure) and also give a base to jump off from.

Even though I have only known them a short time; I am proud of their accomplishments, I will be sad to see them go, but most importantly I am honored to have had a part in teaching them some of what they know. Though school isn't over yet and neither is this week (it feels like it has been the LONGEST WEEK EVER) this is still a very big step for these nine Seniors.

So as my advice through installing will also be my advice for the rest of your life: Take a deep breath. When you don't know what to do: Take a deep breath (maybe call your mom next). When you have run out of money and your student loans are due: Take a deep breath (then call the 1-800 number for help). When you except your first 'real' job: Take a deep breath (then celebrate). When you get married, have a baby or adopt a dog/cat: Take a deep breath. The list goes on.

Much luck Seniors. You will be great. Take a deep breath. And remember, if you need to spend your tiger dollars I really love coffee and muffins.

Happily and a little stressed myself,
-Jeanette



OXFORD, UK / On Display


On View Now:
14 New Photographic Works
Gallery 108 (beside the Cochenour Gallery)
LRC, Georgetown College

I had the opportunity to travel to Regent’s Park College at Oxford University during the first week of December, 2013 to make photographs of the college, our visiting students, and the city itself. The trip was two-fold: to create promotional materials for Georgetown College’s Oxford Programs and to produce some new personal work.

While there I resided in the Wheeler Robinson flat, a space dedicated to Georgetown faculty for times of research at the university, often while on sabbatical. Staying on campus allowed me to survey Regent's Park and mingle with both faculty and students, including coffee and biscuits in the Senior Commons Room and formal meals in Helwys Hall.

Each day afforded new opportunities to explore Oxford, from the bustling city centre to quiet farmland and pastures on the edge of town. Having travelled before to London, I was quickly reminded of the sense of tradition and history that is palpable as I walked the streets. It is a feeling I rarely encounter here in the states, and one that draws my attention as an artist.

The photographs presented here are only a small snippet of the larger body of work I created while in Oxford, but they are a few of my favorites – recounting moments of awe, discovery, appreciation, and perhaps a little humor.

Omnia probate quod bonum tenete,
Professor Darrell Kincer

Footnotes:
A special thank you to Dr. Brad Hadaway and Jason Snider for helping me organize and plan my first solo trip abroad. After all my worrying, it could not have gone any smoother.

Thank you to Georgetown College and my wife, Kristin, for granting me the time and opportunity to pursue this project. I could not have done it without your support.

Thank you to the viewers, for your interest in my work. If you think you would enjoy traveling to the UK to make photographs, I will be leading a CCSA trip to London and Dublin next winter. I’d love for you to join me!

And for further reading, you might check out Jennifer Moses' recent article in the New York Times about visiting Oxford.

Photo: Overlooking the Radcliffe Camera, 2013



Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Earl Grey on Enid Yandell

On Tuesday afternoon, I will be at Transylvania University in Lexington offering some thoughts about Enid Yandell, Kentucky's most celebrated sculptor. My talk is related to my current research on Yandell and is being offered in conjunction with the exhibition of the sculptor group ENID: generations of sculptors which is on view at Morlan Gallery through March. 

If you're free on Tuesday at lunch time, come with me to Lexington:) 

Monday, March 24, 2014

Opportunities: Call for Artists: Students and Faculty & Part Time Position

Call for Artists!

The Jubilee Museum is a non-profit 501c3 whose mission is the preservation, restoration and exhibition of Catholic liturgical artifacts and art and the evangelization of our faith through these Catholic treasures.


Friday, March 14, 2014

Thursday, March 13, 2014

What Made You Fall in Love?

There was a post on NPR's blog by prominent reporter Robert Krulwich on March 7th but should be thought of often: Boy Meets Painting. Painting Grabs Boy. Boy Mystified.

What was the first thing to ever grabbed you? When? Have you ever been able to explain it? In this blog Krulwich describes his 8 year old little self being completely and utterly grabbed by a piece of artwork, a Cezanne. He asks the question, "How did Cezanne do this to me? I was 8!". One of my favorite blurbs is when Krulwich is describing the painting and remembering the first time he saw it at the Museum of Modern Art. "Paint became tree; tree became paint."

Detail of: Paul Cezanne, French, 1839-1906

Pine and Rocks (Fontainebleau?), c. 1897


Oil on canvas




Take a minute, it will really only take you probably two to read this quick blog post. Then think back to what is was that you saw that made you fall in love with art. Why are you making or writing about art? What GRABBED you?

This is mine.

Francesco Mosca, called Moschino, Italian, 1525-1578
Atalanta and Meleager with the Calydonian Boar, ca. 1564-1565
Carrara marble
I don't know why, but I have ALWAYS adored this piece. It drew me in instantly. Perhaps it was the size (the picture doesn't do it justice but it's huge; can you see the tiny text label off to the left?). Perhaps it was the emense detail carved into STONE. Who knows but every time I am home I have to stop by and see my old friends living at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. And just like Krulwich, they said, 'Me too... and we have been talking ever since.'

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

R.C. May Photo Lecture at UK Friday, 4 PM


EUGENE RICHARDS
Exhibition: March 14 - April 27, 2014
Lecture: March 14, 4 pm in the UK Student Center's Worsham Theater



A conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, Eugene Richards joined VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) in 1968 and found himself working in a community service organization in eastern Arkansas. Running afoul of the Ku Klux Klan earned him a serious beating and numerous threats, but he left Arkansas with a series of haunting photographs of rural poverty that launched his career. For seventeen years, he traveled the world as a photojournalist for the agency Magnum and now focuses on his own projects. Intensely personal and deeply felt, his work also reflects a lifelong commitment to social activism, whether he is photographing the ravages of cocaine addiction, his first wife’s struggle with breast cancer, or the emotional aftermath of 9/11.

Image credit: EUGENE RICHARDS, After the Birth, 2008 gelatin silver print photograph ©Eugene Richards, All Rights Reserved

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Opportunity: Artist Directory


http://www.kentuckyarts.org/education-camps/
Calling all artists! Kentucky artists who are qualified to conduct residencies in schools may apply to be included in the online Teaching Artists Directory. The Kentucky Arts Council says it is accepting applications until March 15 for the index. Applicants must reside in Kentucky and have the skills required to work with teachers and students to design and implement arts education programs.
Council Executive Director Lori Meadows says the council requires schools applying for grants to work with artists from the directory. Eligible are artists working in any medium, including visual arts, performing arts, literary arts and folk arts. Artists are allowed to apply in more than one discipline or medium but must submit separate applications. For more information, visit http://artscouncil.ky.gov/Opportunities/TAD.htm

Monday, March 10, 2014

Memorial

Thought I would share a wonderful memorial proposal from Norway.
Full link HERE

The memorial was for the horrific shooting that claimed more than 77 lives on an island in Norway. The proposed memorial would be a gap in the landscape, removed by people. Visitors would be able to go inside the landscape to look across the divide and see the names of all of the victims engraved in the rock on the other side of the gap. Dahlberg (the designer) said that the names would be "close enough to see and read clearly, yet ultimately out of reach. The cut is an acknowledgment of what is forever irreplaceable." I thought that was quite nice. Much like Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial, it is below ground and focused on the names. This however denies touch and creates distance.



Saturday, March 8, 2014

International Women's Day

Celebrating International Women's Day!
K. V. Switzer running the Boston Marathon in 1967 and
being attacked by a marathon official

In honor of International Women's Day, the Google Cultural Institute is partnering with an incredible mix of museums, archives, and cultural groups from around the world to launch "Women in Culture," a special collection of exhibitions highlighting achievements by women artists, leaders, and innovators. Check the link out, if you're interested:)


Maybe you'll have time to check out the PBS series 

MAKERS: Women Who Make America which tells the remarkable story of the most sweeping social revolution in American history, as women have asserted their rights to a full and fair share of political power, economic opportunity, and personal autonomy.


And, there's a Google Doodle in celebration of Women's Day. See here:




Celebrate!

Friday, March 7, 2014

Opportunity: Volunteer to work with artists


Volunteer for Francisco's Farm Arts Festival in historic Midway! This is a juried art festival which takes place at Midway College and attracts over 5,000 visitors. We are in need of volunteers from May 17-18, 2014 (as well as the days leading up to the festival). Art students will particularly benefit from volunteering since they will be working one on one with prestigious artists with unique backgrounds. Of course, professors are also welcome to volunteer. For more information or to register online, visit www.franciscosfarm.org

Mary Penn
Volunteer Coordinator 

Figure 1

Here's figure 1! I finally finished welding it! Now to work on my other figures and paper them over spring break! I can not explain how excited I am! And I found giant tracing paper which has completely changed my life! 

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Activating History

I recently came across an exhibition by Valerie Hegarty that was apart of a continued series Alternative Histories curated by the Brooklyn Museum. This series invites contemporary artists to ACTIVATE their recreated Period Rooms. It has always secretly, well I guess not any longer, desire to direct a historic home that charged contemporary artist with a similar mission; so, I found this exhibit particularly interesting. The Brooklyn Museum Period Rooms are specific reconstructed rooms that represent prominent homes on a specific timeline as a way to showcase contextually the decorative arts collection.

This quick video highlights the curator and artist as they discuss the exhibit: Here are some images from the exhibit itself from 2013:


The most interesting thing for me was to research the room that was recreated by the Brooklyn Museum to start with which is the Cupola House. Here are some images of the original room:

It is interesting the amount of research and artistry that first recreated almost to a tee the Period Room at the Brooklyn Museum; then the interaction of artist with the space to recreate then destroy these items.

What would you do if you were given these resources and charge?

From the Brooklyn Museum's exhibit page:
'Valerie Hegarty: Alternative Histories is the second in a series inviting contemporary artists to activate our Period Rooms. Hegarty’s site-specific artworks, which address themes of colonization, Manifest Destiny, and repressed history, are on display in the Cupola House parlor and hall, and in the dining room of the Cane Acres Plantation. Her installation in the Cupola House parlor includes a Native American–patterned rug that appears to be overgrown with grass, roots, and flowers, as well as two portraits in “conversation,” one of George Washington and the other of the Pawnee Chief Sharitarish. In her signature style, Hegarty has fabricated the portraits to look as though they are partially dissolved. In the Cupola House hall, she has replaced some of the furniture and dishes with her own, while adding her version of The Pic-Nic (1846) by Thomas Cole (1801–1848). All of these objects are riddled with holes. In the Cane Acres Plantation dining room, she has created a tableau that includes nineteenth-century still-life paintings come to life, with fruit bursting from their frames and into the room, to be picked at by three-dimensional crows. The installation’s cultural referents include Alfred Hitchcock, racial segregation, and vanitas paintings (still-life meditations on mortality).

Born in Burlington, Vermont, Hegarty received an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, most recently Figure, Flowers, Fruit at the Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York and Autumn on the Hudson Valley with Branches, a High Line Public Art Project in New York.'

10 Things You Can Learn from Garry Winogrand


Absolutely fell in love with this website about the 10 things Garry Winogrand (one of my biggest inspirations) can teach you! 


#1: Shoot, A Lot




Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Michael Kenna Lecture and Reception Tonight


Michael Kenna Lecture and Reception
Wednesday March 5, 2014 7:00pm
Fath Auditorium, Cincinnati Art Museum
953 Eden Park Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Lecture

Free and Open to the Public
No Reservation Required, but early arrival is recommended.
Reception
A reception will immediately follow the lecture in the Great Hall.
Parking is free for Cincinnati Art Museum members, $4 for non-members.

About the Artist
Michael Kenna’s landscapes are unpopulated, simple, serene, and subtle.

Often using very long exposures at night or dawn to soften the hard edge of reality, his minimalist images demand quiet attention from the viewer. Described as elegant, pure, and ephemeral, his work speaks eloquently to the strength of simple beauty.
Kenna’s small, quiet, black-and-white photographs have been published in over forty books and exhibited extensively, both internationally and throughout the United States. His work can be found in public collections such as the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Kushiro Art Museum, Hokkaido, Japan; and the Cincinnati Art Museum. Born and educated in England, Kenna now makes his home in Seattle, Washington.

For more information about Michael Kenna, visit:
 www.michaelkenna.net

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Conference Report: College Art Association 2014

Every year, I look forward to attending the College Art Association annual meeting in February. It's the largest gathering in the US of artists and art historians and provides a platform for smaller groups to come together and share their passions, interest, and knowledge with colleagues, as well. The conference is several days long and offers the opportunity to hear papers about pedagogy, conservation, technology and art history itself.

Renoir's paint box on display at the Art Institute of Chicago


Over the several days of the conference, I was able to attend a session on "Curatorial and Exhibition Studies: Bridging Theory & Practice"; a special session at the Art Institute of Chicago on the online scholarly catalogue initiative; a session on American collectors; and several other panels and discussions. I attended an off-site visit to the Glessner House and the stunning Second Presbyterian Church. In addition, I was able to further work on a project that I am coordinating (a volume on provenance research in conjunction with scholars throughout the United States. This publication is nearing its final stages of production. Yay!)

Monday, March 3, 2014

Classes Cancelled/College Closed: Art Building open today!


J.M.W. Turner, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, exhibited 1812


While the College is closed today, the Art Building is open. Seniors—come on in and make some work for your show! Everyone else—use care when coming to the building, if you choose to do so.  While Georgetown's roads and sidewalks are quite treacherous, they pale in comparison to the snow storm Hannibal faced (above).