Oct 19th

As usual the season of deadlines never stops. I just finished up and delivered the final edition of 50 CSA prints to the lexington art league. (Image seen below) And now I have the rest of my October deadlines creeping up. I have a some commissioned woodworking gigs to start, some in louisville and one for an old student, I have to finish making and packaging items for a Craft Fair on Oct 19th in Louisville (Darrell beat me to the punch in his last post) I will be making prints and some small woodworking things like the tops (seen below in progress), train whistles, and cutting boards. I also have Nov deadlines to already start thinking about...goodness. We will see how it goes. Anyhow I laugh heartily thinking back to when I was in Grad School and I made the mistake of telling my major professor that I was "So busy". He just laughed and said "It never gets any slower than now". I did and did not believe him. Now... I don't see how I could have doubted his words. I like to think some people have it all figured out. I look at people like Stefan Sagmeister (talk below) who work with time rather than against it.

Time moves so fast and there is so much that we feel "has" to get done. Somethings do have to get done but so much of what we do is choice even when we don't feel like it. Make sure to take the time to choose how you spend your time.

"I once was over the water, now I lay my brother down" 

Tops roughed out

7 of the final tops

Field Trip: Aegean Echoes

Detail of work by Helene Steene

Orientation to the show

Students in art history survey this semester visited the Headley-Whitney Museum in Lexington today to take in "Aegean Echoes." The purpose of our visit was to connect our studies of the ancient Aegean art with contemporary works by Helene Steene (whose work is also on view in our campus' Jacobs Gallery) and Ray Papka.

Homecoming Show—almost there!

Our beloved bench! Thanks to our friends who made it possible *>) 

We did it (sort of!). A good portion of the Homecoming exhibit is now installed. Yet, several finishing touches, including vinyl and photos need to be completed. Stop by the Cochenour Gallery in the LRC to see the exhibit and please join us for the official reception for our exhibition, "90 Years and Counting: Homecoming Through the Ages." That event will be held on Homecoming Friday, October 10 from 2:15-3:15.

On Monday, the Curatorial Studies class moves on to Project #2—the extended captions for the GC Historical Markers. More info to come!

Find humor in what you do.

As artists, historians, teachers, and students we need to view the world around us as what it is. Don't get frustrated with what you can't change. Turn a challenge into a masterpiece, find value in the roadblock, and always remember to laugh.

Peace,
Jeanette

Back to the Darkroom

New prints hanging to dry in the darkroom.

In the middle of October I will be participating in my first art fair of sorts. It will be in Louisville at Sojourn Community Church as part of their Affordable Art Show. Daniel Graham and I will be sharing a booth. With this deadline in mind I'm producing more new work along the lines of what I did for the Lexington Art League CSA project.

A wet print in which the veils were not popped. Too bad it didn't look this interesting once it dried.

I have been back in the darkroom experimenting with more botanical mordançage prints. I've learned a number of things since I made the Silver Dollars print. For starters, my enlarger was totally set up wrong, from the condenser lenses to the lamp height. It's a wonder the print even worked. After some quick adjustments and tests, those issues were worked out.

Some very unusual results in the background, although I'm not too crazy abut the final image.

The other part of the workflow that I've been able to explore more is the mordançage process itself. After making so many prints in a row (and now experimenting with a whole new batch of photograms) I've been able to find ways of controlling the tones and finished image. That said, there are still many results that seem unexplainable and random. But sometimes that bit of surprise is a boost that encourages me to keep exploring and finding something new.

This one turned out a little more predictable/traditional.

For the Affordable Art Show I am planning again to finish my prints with 11"x14" mat boards. In addition I'll be making digital reproductions, probably 5"x7" and/or 8"x10" prints on watercolor paper, to sell at a much lower price.

So far so good. Next thing on my list is to find a 10'x10' white tent.

Senior Thesis: A Weekly Update

And now an update on my fellow art/education major, Shelby Eden!

Shelby has been making tremendous headway with her students inside the classroom. This weekend one of her art students happened to appear at her tennis tournament and asked one of her coaches, “Is Miss Eden here today?” No doubt Shelby is already making an impact on these kids’ lives!

To recap of last week, her students learned about color theory, how to mix colors and create tints and shades, and learning the relationships between primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. She also showed in class examples of well-known artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Matisse, and Frank Stella.

This week, Shelby taught lessons to her art class on two types of printmaking-the basics of etchings and found object prints. She let them bring in their own objects and coat them in paint and press them on sheets of paper. They also did a sort of print exchange by passing around their papers and making their prints on every student’s paper so that they can all have a print made by each other.

Found Object Print

When art is used to explain history it creates a powerful message

International Day of Peace was this past Saturday. Since then the image below has been circulating the internet.

Two British artist, Jamie Wardley, 33, and Andy Moss, 50, conceived the idea to give visual representation to the lives lost on D-Day on the beach at Normandy, France.  9,000 shadows were drawn in the sand by over 500 volunteers.

Onlookers watched as the 'bodies' were taken to the sea as the tide washed in through the course of the day.

It is one thing to learn about D-Day in your social studies classes and talk about the thousands of soliders's deaths.  It is quite another to see it.

What a powerful experience it must have been to be a volunteer as well as watch the sunset that day.

Peace,
Jeanette

Read more here.

Senior Thesis: A Weekly Update

Hello all! This week for my weekly update I will be sharing some details of what Maddy has been working on over the past week! At this point Maddy and I are working hard to get a good idea of what components are going to be a part of our final show in October and how we want our work to be displayed.  Here is a sneak peek of what Maddy has been up to so far and what she is in the process of creating:

Some sketches to be incorporated in product packaging!

Plaster Experimentation

As the semester has progressed, so has my thought process with my work for my independent painting study. I spent a lot of time with my nose in a book-in particular Aesop's Fables. I stumbled across this book in the basement of my grandmother's house this past summer. There, I felt nostalgic as I flipped through the pages of old children's books that recharged memories. I never realized the deeper meaning or moral in the fables.
One story that really stuck with me was the story of "The Hart & the Vine".

"A Hart, who was being pursued by hunters, hid himself under the broad leaves of a shady, spreading Vine. When the hunters had gone by, he thought himself quite safe and began to eat the leaves of the Vine. The rustling of the branches drew the attention of the hunters, and they shot their arrows toward the sound and killed the Hart. As he lay dying, he admitted that he deserved his fate for ungratefully destroying the friend who had kindly sheltered him in time of danger."

MORAL: Ingratitude often leads to ruin.

I immediately started to sketch and began the process of abstract representation of the fable. The moral of the story really spoke to me.

Here are some process pictures....

1. Foam board cut out of antler- positive and negative

I Am Cheating on Art...

I have had this growing love affair with psychology since I became a student at Georgetown College. Recently my love has grown even more and I see it spreading over into my work. I’m not exactly creating paintings based on psychological theories or anything like that but more so focusing on feelings, emotions, the way people interact, etc. If you look at my vacation pictures they are always of people interacting with the town; I rarely take pictures of the sites tourist are there to see. 

Fall 'Trip'

So it is a norm that there is a Fall Trip taken to an exotic locations such as Chicago, Savannah, or D.C.  This year, however, the stars did not aline for this magical trip to happen... SO to replace the weekend trip, I am volunteering to drive the GC van to Indianapolis Art Museum for the day!

IF and only IF there is enough interest we will leave THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3rd close to 8:30am.  Indy is only about 3 hours from here.

'I am an art student who is SUPER interested in this trip!' You say?
'What do I have to do to secure a spot on the bus?' You say?

WELL I'm glad you asked.

• There will be a sign up sheet on the white board as you walk into the art building.  
• This Thursday (September 26th) you need to have a signed waiver and $10 given to me (my office is in the LRC Jacob's Gallery closet).  
• Show up with coffee and a muffin Thursday morning at 8am!  

You will be responsible for your own lunch which we can discuss along the way.

If you have any questions please email me at jeanette_tesmer@georgetowncollege.edu.

Peace from your friendly van driver/gallery director,
Jeanette

SO MANY THINGS!

There are so many things happening in Lexington this weekend I just wanted to let you all know!

http://boomslangfest.com/about/

Festival Latino de Lexington

http://www.lexingtonky.gov/index.aspx?page=239

galleryhoplex.com

http://cravelexington.com/

A Rough Beauty

This is a painting that hangs in the living room of my host family. It encompasses all of San Lorenzo. It's a beautiful, wild, rough place. There are mountains everywhere and people do not go for walks here...they hike. Everywhere is a hike. I love it and loathe it all at the same time. I love it because the nature is so gorgeous and raw and the sky is always a wonder to behold. But I hate it because my hip screams by the end of the day if I go too far. From a distance, the painting could be of any season in San Lorenzo. The snow covered fields could be mistaken for bodies of water and the brown of the tall grass could be taken as a sign of heat.

In this painting, all of that is captured with the monastery as the center. The mountains in the background look far off, but when you hear one of the mountain cows baying, it sounds as if they are right at your door. The sky itself is a palette everyday of fresh colors. Since I have yet to view a storm here, I have never seen the sky gray. The purples and reds I'm very familiar with by now. There isn't a lot of greenery in the painting because there isn't a lot of greenery here period. A few years back, there was a terrible drought that killed everything but the pines as demonstrated by the dead tree in the foreground. The people here now have turf as their backyards and front lawns. Easy maintenance, so that's a plus.

I really like this painting because it shows an attention to detail. This is not the San Lorenzo that I would have been living in had I come here 10 or even 5 years ago. The countryside was still rough but it was more lush. The mother of the children I am teaching tells me that the fields are green again the colder it gets, so I'm waiting to see it happen. As this is a depiction of winter San Lorenzo, I'm guessing that will happen in the fall.

New Photography Course this Spring

Gelatin silver print by Hannah Davis from ART 370 Alternative Photographic Processes

Since I have been at Georgetown there has only been one photography course, ART 120 Photography. Over the years I have changed and tweaked the course content, primarily due to the medium's sea change to digital. So when I first started (6+ years ago), everything was analog, film-based, and nearly all accomplished in the darkroom. In recent semesters, we've barely ventured into the darkroom at all, which is a shame considering the history and broad array of photographic methods available.

To overcome this gap I have almost always offered an ART 370 Special Topics course designed to expand on ART 120. In my first year we offered Digital Photography. Another semester was Alternative Photographic Processes. Most recently was a digital course on Portraiture and Lighting. In addition I regularly have students doing Independent Studies to further develop their knowledge and experience of photography, often based on shooting film. So beginning this spring I will attempt to broaden the photo curriculum by adding a regularly occurring course to compliment ART 120.

Toned cyanotype by Jessie Pennington from ART 370 Alternative Photographic Processes

Currently ART 120 is a sampling of both analog and digital methods. My plan is to separate and expand each into its own course with Photography: Digital Methods in the fall and Photography: Analog Methods in the spring. There will be no prerequisites for the courses, so students may take either, or both if photography might be an area of interest/emphasis. Digital Methods will utilize the digital lab, Lightroom, and digital printing perhaps exclusively. Analog methods will allow students to shoot film with 35mm and medium format cameras, process film, and print in the darkroom. I am also considering some alternative processes such as cyanotypes and salt prints. Inevitably there will be some film scanning and Photoshop work as well.

For the spring I will be offering both courses: ART 120 Photography with a digital emphasis and ART 370 Photography: Analog Methods. (Next year the analog course will have its own course number.)

If you have time, let me know what you think by posting a comment as I consider how to broaden the photo curriculum.

Thanks,
DK

Senior Thesis: A Weekly Update

And now, a little post about logo evolution! Above is the final logo I am using for the business I am branding as a part of my senior thesis project. The composition at face value is very simple: a combination of a word and symbol using lines of varying thicknesses, not much color. Simple enough, right? Wrong! This logo took me nearly four months to create... I didn't work on it constantly of course, but the idea for my senior thesis and this logo came from an unexpected project... Below I have a 'spark-notes' edition so to speak of the evolution of my logo from start to finish...

Senior Thesis: A Weekly Update

Hello all! I can't believe its already the 5th week of the semester! Its flown by. It seems like this week everyone is really stressed out and studying hard for quizzes/tests and working on projects (I know I am!)

Over the weekend, I was studying for a computer science exam and I happened to have the VH1 music video countdown on in the background and a song that I have been listening to a  lot lately came on and 30 seconds into the video I was completely amazed! Usually I am bored by most music videos these days but this one struck me as different and I really wanted to share it with all my lovely art fans! If you have seen it already, great! If not, enjoy! (Hopefully it will help you forget your stress for at least a little while!)

Capital Cities
Safe and Sound 

I hope you enjoyed that video! I just couldn't do my weekly update this week without including it (Random, I Know).

Id like to give everyone a glimpse of how my lessons last week turned out! I love the kids that I am working with and they love love love art! Last week I explained that my lesson for Tuesday afternoon was Watercolor Techniques. On Thursday, I taught a lesson on Landscapes where I told the kids about the parts of a Landscape (Foreground, Middle Ground, Background, and Horizon Line). I showed the students many examples of a well-known American artist, Grant Wood, who created many landscapes of the rural Midwest. Here are a couple of examples of student work:

Beautiful Fish!

Landscapes in the making!

A Golf Course Landscape!

I look forward to teaching my lessons this week and sharing an update with you next week!
Have a great week, don't get too stressed out!

Shelby

Too much

A number of friends have sent this to me over the past few days. It was just too funny not to share with you all if you have not seen it already. CLICK HERE

Quicksand Trip

Thought I would share a quick update of my participation in the Lexington Art League's CSA project. For my contribution I am make a 7 layer print entitled "Once I was over the water and now I Lay my brother down". The process in making this has been months in the making. Each layer of color must be registered (lined up with everything else) and printed by hand. It is a final edition of 50. As with anything with multiples you have to have extra and account of mess-ups so I am printing 84. So here are some shots of the progress thus far. I still have one layer left, the main figure, which is causing interesting challenges of his own. To make the figure I am trying a new process. I have been working with a place in Quicksand Kentucky to laser engrave woodblocks that I will then print by hand.  I will be sure to post finished images of the project when it is done. It is all due to be delivered Oct 1st so if you see me looking like I am on fire it is because I am.

Layer one. First color of the whales

Layer two. First color of the whales

Table full of first color prints

Layer three. Third color of the whales

Layer four. First color of flowers

Layer five. Second color of flowers

Layer six. Last color of flowers

Finished Laser block

Test prints from test laser block

Quicksand is a land that time forgot. But within this little town there is a woodworking fabrication facility that has not been forgotten. Originally created in the 50s this facility was state of the art in its tools and process. It has now become a custom fabrication center that is still up to date with CNC machines, laser engravers, and every kind of large tool you can fit in a old train depot. Included below are some shots from my recent trip.

Bridge to Quicksand. If it looks like dawn..it was.
I had to get there when the main manager was there
which was at 7. It is a little over two hours from GC

Its in the middl of a corn field 

Front Door

Crazy clamping system

Laser at work

Awesome carts they have to move everything around.

More laser

Finished block.