Pix from Homecoming Reception—Friday 2:15 in the Cochenour

Thanks to everyone who joined us today. Here's a few photos from our event. 

Homecoming Reception—Friday 2:15 in the Cochenour

Organized by my Fall 2013 Curatorial Studies course, this year's Archives show features an accurate history of Homecoming since its introduction in 1923, the evolution of Songfest, a tribute to an individual who embodied the “Spirit of Homecoming,” Coach L.E. “Brad” Jones, and many artifacts that date back to the youngest days of the College.

“90 Years & Counting: Homecoming Through the Ages” offers a glimpse into the past and present and invites you to share your memories with us.

Please join us on Friday, October 11th from 2:15-3:15 for the reception and discussion with the students who researched and created this exhibition: Steven Faulkner, Caity Hagan, Sarai Kidd, Abigail McPeek, Shelby Riddell, Joey Schulte, and Kendall Wills.

Thursday, 11 am NEXUS in the Chapel

You won't want to miss it! 

And, head over to the Art Building for pizza after the event. 

Read the story here!

Senior Thesis: A Weekly Update

Short and sweet post today, my Senior Thesis work in 15 words:

Using design as a platform to support artists and create networking opportunities with their audience. 

11 Day Countdown. Get excited.

-Maddy

Senior Thesis: A Weekly Update

Happy Tuesday! I hope everyone had a great fall break. For this week's post, I have been challenged to describe my senior thesis work in 15 words.

My work in 15 words: 

Teaching students fundamentals of art, with the ultimate goal of fostering creativity and making connections. 

Also, here is a preview of the outcome of one of last week's lessons! 

Exquisite Corpse Project

Senior Thesis: A Weekly Update

"Your senior show is in eighteen days!" my mom said super excitingly on the phone Thursday.  Now just shy of two weeks away, I am spending my extended Fall Break weekend tying together all the loose ends of my senior show. 

Balancing the time I spend on each aspect of my senior show is what I have learned is extremely important. The final big picture includes more than just my body of work. Things that I have been working on besides my body of work include the overall display, marketing strategies, professionalizing my résumé, and preparing for my defense.  

The Cochenour Gallery (and the Gallery 108 space) in the LRC is where Shelby and I will be displaying our senior show.  The two walls that face each other are over 22 feet long.  I personally have never installed my own exhibit; I have had some experience installing work in Dr. Decker's curatorial class, which installs the annual homecoming exhibit (which is currently on display in the Cochenour). It is important to know the space you are installing in. For instance: the Cochenour wall I am installing my work on is 22 feet and 4 inches long, by 8 feet tall. However after analyzing the space more in-depthly, I noticed that there is a baseboard that runs around the gallery, and the light source casts a shadow around the top of the wall, also the walls were not built to hold a lot of weight, so it is important to research and talk with Jeanette Tesmer (gallery director) when hanging anything in that space. Always double-check your installation space!

For any opening date of an exhibit, marketing is important to get people to show up! Shelby and I have been working on a press release, invitations, and social media will also play an important role.  

I am nothing

I always like ever now and again to be reminded that I am nothing. I see things like the following two videos and it reminds me how much of a novice I am.
A 240 year old writing automaton. HERE
and a mind blowing work below

Variations on a Theme

This week's post is a follow up to last week's. Since then I've been able to finish off this current set of prints, press and flatten them, and scan them on my antique flatbed scanner setup (as evidenced on my Instagram blog). In the end I produced multiples of 12 different photograms with a final total of 39 unique prints. The results have been quite nice in a number of the pieces. I've mentioned before that the mordançage process can be a bit unpredictable (although with more and more practice I'm developing a better feel on how to create certain results). As evidence I wanted show you four variations stemming from the same original photogram. With specific timings, manipulation, and chemistry combinations, a wide range of final prints can be achieved.

In the coming months I will be continuing to work in the darkroom to extend on a series of mordançage photographs in anticipation for a show at the Jane Chancellor Moore Gallery in Frankfort, KY in December.

Senior Thesis: A Weekly Update

Happy Tuesday! Fall Break is here (:


Last week, my senior thesis mate, Maddy gave an excellent update on my lessons from last week! (Thanks, Maddy).

This week, I wanted to share with everyone my lesson from this past Thursday and give you a preview for my lesson tomorrow. Last week after meeting with Hannah Davis (for those of you who don't know her, she teaches ART234 & ART336, she's spectacular, you must meet her!) I realized that I really wanted to incorporate more art history into my lessons. Yes, in the past few weeks I have always used fine art examples when discussing various principles and elements of art but for these next few lessons I want to focus more on artists, their styles, and which movement they belong to. So, for my first art movement lesson, I chose to teach the students about Impressionism and Claude Monet (Thanks to Leah Castleman and ART313 for giving me the idea for this lesson).

The first item on the agenda for this past Thursday's lesson was to explain to the students exactly what Impressionism is, so I gave each student a brightly colored piece of square paper and had them write the definition of Impressionism, and give an example of an Impressionism artist that we looked at (for this lesson Monet & Degas...but mostly Monet). Once the students understood, we moved on to their favorite part... the project!

For the project, I passed out four of Monet's landscapes and I asked the students to identify what type of landscape that work was (seascape, cityscape etc.) Once they did this, I had each student pick a work they would like to replicate using tissue paper (in many different colors). The works they could choose from were: Water Lilies, Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies, Sunset Over Venice, and Impressionism Sunrise. 

Here are some examples:

A students version of Water Lilies using tissue paper

Claude Monet's Water Lilies