Two More Baby Rattles...

Two new arrivals, the Feathered Serpent and the Mt Lion rattles, both of royal blood. That is if Gods and Royalty are the same.

New Sculpture: Louie

The new sculpture Louie was excepted into American Art Collector.
Welcome to my world Louie and congrads.
If you must know... Louie was the name I gave to my stuffed lion, he was given to me in hospital when I was burned at 2. I went every where with him.
He was lost in the Cedar Fire when I lost my home and studio.
Came with a fire and left in a fire.

The rest?

One more Mixed Media Soft Sculpture.

I forgot Ruth's piece Menopause how could I forget to include this wonderful one....

two finished rattles...The Easter Bunny Baby and the Elephant.

Project 5: Soft Sculpture Media & Meaning. (Construction Method)

In this assignment you get to play like a god, really let the act of creating (process) influence your art object (product) .

Project Description: This project is about alternative media and what meanings that provokes. Sculpture for Centuries has been made from hard media, marble, clay, wood, stone and steel. This project is in part about what happens when you change that. It also covers the history of images and more specifically our history of naming species. It’s your turn. 

Project 3: Hyper Realism Carving Project (Subtractive Sculpture)

Using polyurethane foam the project is to replicate an object as accurately as possible by copying the shape, proportions, color and texture of the object.  The light weight  quality and history of foam added content to many of the objects. i.e. a rock is normally heavy and a tool is useless in foam. They were asked to think about simulation, were does real begin?

Right to left:Barbara's fake of a fake book, Drue's strawberry candle, Rose's Fantastick, Ruth's glass pear, Gosia's souvenir horse, Liz's antler, Karen's rock, Ryan's Counterfeit drug bottles,  Marc's Pair "O" Hammers, Mateo's  spray can, Ron's ukulele and Antonia's R.I.P. pillow.

More Sculptures

Project 2: Modeling, Transformation and the Surreal Project. (Additive Sculpture): 

We used a product called Carton Peidra to transform an object into something surreal. What would you never combine and why, how would that change the meaning? What strange combination would make you laugh and why? Or use chance, let the object guide you. Remember you’re on a journey, you don’t need to arrive anywhere.

Left to Right: Christian’s La Fuente Original, Drue’s Grave Digger, Joseph’s There’s Always a Bigger Fish, Ruth's This Boys Life, Antonia's Nature and Nurture, Ryan's Shedding and Karen's Stock Still. In the bottom row is Jeremiah's A Babies Hunger, Malgorzata's Perfect Female, Lauren's Sir Real and Ron's Happiness.

All the photos didn't turn out so sorry if your piece is missing...next time. 

 

Sculptures

Thought I would share some of my sculpture students projects.

Project 1: Drawing in Space, Wire Project. It’s time to move off a page into space. Think of the wire as a line that has come alive, moved from the flat world of 2 dimensions into our world of three.  Use a roll of wire to create a three dimensional object. 

Left to right: Antonia's Advance in Women, Ron's Ewa Beach, Marc's Oh Honey, Mateo's Tree, Karen's Pointy Bird and Barbara's Female Movement Through Life. In the second row is Drue's Smooth Operator, Liz's Wire Hair Terrorist, Ruth's Evolutionary Pondering and Lauren's Sunbating Vulture.

 

Rattle Musings

I sent the rattles off to a show in Santa Ysabel, at the Santa Ysabel Gallery and it got me thinking...what was I thinking you ask? 

Rattles are instruments of ritual used to put the participant in the correct state of mind for the ceremony. They also have the history of being toys given to infants, also to put them in the correct state of mind, i.e. quite.

         The rattle babies seem to scream quietly, until shaken. They are a combination of our animal and human selves.  As is the tradition in composite creates they are given aspects of the animal they are combined with, sort of a shadow self and or an animal guide. I also feel compelled to give them the tools they may need to survive. A baby human, bird or deer all need protection and camouflage. A hawk needs the rabbit, a fish the sea. Batboy instead carries the weight of our fear of our animal selves in his little body. He carries the burden of the love/hate relationship we have with this myth of the super hero/monster. A human who carries too much animal, the unwelcome aspects (the wolf-the bat) becomes either a hero or quickly an evil creature to be avoided or stamped out.  But as a baby we feel connected somehow to this animal and thereby to ourselves. I know some may look and see only the strangeness of it all but I’m hoping for a small recognition to the self. 

Exquisite Corpse Fun

In October I invited seven artist/friends to play the game Exquisite Corpse. A method by which a collection of words or images (Images in our case) is collectively assembled, the result being known as the exquisite corpse. The game was invented by the Surrealists and is similar to an old parlor game called Consequences in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution. The technique got its name from one of the initial writings, "Le cadavre / exquis / boira / le vin / nouveau" (The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine). It seemed like the perfect game for fall and Halloween.

We played with abit of a twist. The body was broken into proportionately correct sheets of paper, i.e. the head is around 1/8 of the body. First we word associated body parts to warm up. For example what does arm make you think of? Then we all drew, one part at a time. The results were then put on the floor were each of us choose in turn our body, part by part.

This is where we really changed the game, everyone went home with there body and we agreed to reassemble in January. Once home your body was the inspiration for a piece of art. Everyone received canvas, paper or velum that was 2’ x 4’. Your only obligation was to your art and to keep the sense of play, after all this is was a game.

The players are Antonia Consentino, Judy Nachazel, Tracy Potter, Nancy Ferguson, Susan Bainbridge, Rath and myself. If you’re as interested as we are, (no one has seen all of the finished pieces) come to Packards Pluss on January 14^th at 7:00 for the unveiling. If you would like to get into the swing of things, we planning on coming dressed as a favorite artist, you can play too. The work will be up for at least a month. 

Edan Drawing

So it begins...

New Class!

Hello everyone it is time to think about enrolling in Spring classes and some changes have occurred in my schedule.
So here is the news.
I will not longer be teaching Portrait in Escondido and Art History in Ramona. Both have been cut for budget reasons...but the good news
I will be the Instructor for Sculpture I and II, Mixed Media Sculpture on Palomars main campus and I would love to see some of you there!
This is a 3.0 unit class.

I will still be teaching the "Mixed Media Painting Intensive" in Ramona. And I have a great group of fun artist in this class. Come join us.
If you think these programs are important make sure to enroll in one of the Community Education (noncredit) classes this spring.

Water Cats

The cats like water, how strange.
It rained enough to get the creek running and once I let the cats out, they went right in.
The two brothers turned out to be brother and sister.

So Lover and Leaver are now Lover and Leavem.