Thesis Photos

Just got a hold of some photos from my friend Jenn. I am working on getting some close up shots in the near future.

Thesis Exhibiton

This is a picture of me right after I finished installing my work.

The thesis exhibition was such a surreal experience and I had such an encompassing feeling of catharsis throughout the two hours of the opening. It was the culmination of an entire year of drawing and writing my heart out, literally, and I didn't realize how much of myself was in these writings and drawings until I was observing people interacting with my work. Any feelings of being vulnerable and exposed because of how much of myself was in my work dissipated the second I saw people pointing and taking pictures and coming back to look at what I did. I felt like people were really spending a lot of time looking at my pictures and reading my writing which somehow I didn't expect. I don't necessarily spend a ton of time at museums looking at each individual piece so I expected others to do the same thing, so to see people really spending time looking at all my work made me feel like all of the work I did the entire year achieved the intensity that I wanted it to. Even the installation process was cleansing in itself. Through the process of being present in my work the entire year a lot of my problems, emotions, and thoughts sort of seeped into my drawings and especially my writings. When I was staple gunning, tacking, and taping these things on the wall it was like I was releasing each drawing and the emotional state I was when I completed each one, and the obvious physical pain of stapling hundreds of drawings one at a time on the wall was an added layer to the process. I felt a very deep and genuine sense of happiness during the opening being surrounded by family, friends, and teachers that had inspired me and encouraged me throughout the year. Looking back on the experience I almost feel like it happened years ago if that makes sense. The whole opening put my senses into overload with all the people that were there, the things going on, observing others, having conversations. It was a beautiful thing to be able to share this experience with the people I care about as well as strangers taking the time to look at my work, and some of the people in my thesis group that I have gotten especially close with this year. I was experiencing a lot of emotions simultaneously during the opening, sort of the way I wanted people to process my installation which I thought was funny. The opening was a two hour span of time that denoted the end of my time at Mason Gross, as an undergraduate at Rutgers, and in that moment I felt a sense of stillness. During the opening I felt a lot of suspended moments, and I felt a sense of sadness especially as the opening came to a close, but I could take a deep breathe for once. A deep breathe where I was really ready for my time at Mason Gross to come to an end. There were several people that came up to me and told me they were really affected by my piece, and they had a lot to think about especially from my writing, and I smiled because I had accomplished what I set out to do. I think that was the biggest release of all, knowing that I did what I said I would do when I started this whole project in the beginning of the year. Anyhoo, I'll have more pictures up soon. I need to hunt down my family members and teach them how to upload pictures. Oy vey...

Crit Response (from March 7, 2011)

I really enjoyed the last critique that we had. I think some of the work shown has really progressed throughout this semester. I thought Jenn's presentation had a lot to say, and she was very focused on executing her idea. She is making this catalog archiving her possessions, like lipstick, pins, and a large mirror, which pertains to her actual installation of these objects that will be in the gallery displayed on shelves. Although for me it was not about these possessions being attached, defining, or part of her, just objects as objects. These objects are things in themselves, like a universal aspect of being a human, accruing crap over the years and things that we think define us when they are really just these inanimate objects. The mirror in Jenn's piece is the most powerful thing to me where the viewer gets to look and see themselves, imagine themselves owning all these objects. For me it really made me think about my own possessions, and looking at them objectively. I think in a way it is odd that we all have favorite items, or objects that we cling to. In a way Jenn is elevating the importance of these objects by displaying them in a gallery setting, but the objects are the only thing we have insight into, not into Jenn as an actual person which creates this interesting disconnect between the objects and Jenn. It speaks to how our objects, our stuff, defines us, but not in any tangible deep way. We have all these objects but they do not really let others gain access to who we really are from looking at them. You could learn that Jenn likes a certain color of lipstick, or that she owns a pair of vintage playing cards, but I still don't know about her character, decisions she has made, what she thinks about when she is by herself. I also feel like our objects mean so much to us, but it's never really about the things themselves. They are in essence little vessels that we put a lot of energy and feelings into. Jenn's concepts and the book she is working on for the show really impressed me. It's nice to see someone executing something with a ton of ideas and concepts to back up the work.

Crit Response

This was actually my first critique of the new semester due to complications that interfered with the past two classes. I thought I got some constructive criticism and appreciated how supportive the members of my critique group were. I realized through discussing this with the group that the way I was displaying my drawings was really not conducive to the actual feel of the drawings. Now I’m going to space them a lot closer, which somehow seems like the obvious choice now, with more of a collage-like element. Another good point was brought up about using a stable gun to hang some of the drawings since they are mostly drawn on found material, as well as tape and tacs, (which I was already considering). I guess one of the difficult things about a critique is that in this scenario the person leading the crit might not know anything about your work and sometimes it is difficult getting your point across. In a sense it is a challenge to represent yourself and your work accurately, but it is also a good exercise in being able to articulate yourself and being able to control the way your work comes across. It’s nice to be able to witness that struggle with other artists in their process as well and problems they are encountering. I have a lot of friends who are not art majors, especially the friends that I live with, and although they can appreciate the work I show them I can’t really get any constructive criticism or suggestions because they feel like they don’t know enough about things in the art realm. It’s such a wonderful thing to walk into a room and say “hey, does this work?” and get seven people answering at once with their opinions about what you’re presenting. I feel pretty focused after the critique especially since I have been wanting to make 500 drawings and I was told that I shouldn’t count the drawings, I should just do them. I think that comment has kind of made me a little less anxious about thesis and has made me tune in a little more to the actual process of just doing my art, which was what I wanted to concentrate on in the first place.

Studio Journal #3

I've done about fifteen or so drawings since my last post but this one might be my favorite. I know this is hard to see but this is about the most detailed image I can capture with my cell phone camera. Anyway, drew away most of my lecture hall today working on this. It is a girl about to go play in her dollhouse where the dad doll has just murdered his wife, children, and someone in the bathtub (haven't decided if it's the grandpa or uncle yet.) I had a dollhouse similar to this when I was younger and fantasied about the dolls coming to life and living our their lives in this house I had created. Somehow I never imagined a quadruple homicide, but c'est la vie.

Studio Journal #2

It has been a month since my last entry but I have been doing a bunch of work. I sort of abandoned printmaking (my concentration) for the moment to work on my thesis which consists of drawings on different materials. I've been working every week on doing at least one drawing a day. I also have to work on things like varying the materials more or at least pushing the materials I've been using, but I feel very focused right now, and that clarity is making me really enjoy this process. Only about 150 or so more drawings to do...

     Here is the overall view of the drawings I've done so far, since about a month or so ago

 

 

 

 

 

 

Closer views of the images

 

Some of my favorite drawings

I should go for now. I'm at work so obviously it's drawing time. I have a few ideas I'm excited about. I was thinking about these on the train on my way back to New Brunswick tonight: man kissing woman with no head or without a body, and a homicidal oven. I'm not even sure where I come up with these ideas/ where in my brain these little creatures and scenes manifest themselves. It would be pointless to try and psychoanalyze myself plus I sort of enjoy the mystery.

Studio Journal #1

My critique went a lot better than I expected. I think as artists we are programmed to automatically question our work, and hate it just a little bit. I mean, these are the things that are in our head that we try to regurgitate onto paper via print, or drawing, even collage (at least that's what I do) hoping that in some way it will cleanse our brains of the disorganization and the images and ideas that constantly ravage our minds. One of my printmaking teachers looked at my prints this week and told me that if I want to draw more than I want to print, I should do that. And also to make my creepy images a lot more creepy, which I was pretty excited about because I felt like it was the confirmation I needed to push myself. I just spend the past hour printing out reference images for small scale drawings I'm going to complete this week, which will be incorporated into a possible idea I have for thesis. Found these images tonight:

These dolls were used in the 18th and 19th centuries in what was Edo then, now Tokyo, as entertainment pieces in sideshow carnivals. It is also believed these dolls were mainly used to teach midwives how to deliver babies. I think these could definitely be considered disturbing, although somehow I recognize the fact that they are but I don't necessarily see them that way. I just draw the things that make me happy, that I have in my head, things that I'm interested in. A lot of times my prints or collages do use unsettling imagery but to me I treat those images like I would anything else. I'm not silkscreening a picture of a guy with wires and tubes coming out of his nose and ears and thinking, "Gosh, what is wrong with me? This is really gross," I'm just printing these images because I feel a connection to them, and I need to express an emotion, something in a dream I had, or I have an image stuck in my head I need to get onto paper. Maybe that is why some of the people in my critique group said my prints have a presence. I never thought of them that way. Well, I'm gonna do a collage/drawing with these tonight, and then tomorrow I'm off to tackle conjoined animal heads and mothers walking their children on leashes. Wish me luck.