Friday, May 7, 2010

Emulation Project


I chose to emulate the style of artist Matthew Craven. He has a series of mixed media drawings entitled: "History is Written by the Winners." http://www.marvelligallery.com/Craven01.html. I chose to focus on a religious figure rather than a figure of a Native American or cowboy because my previous work for this class has been to highlight some of the terrors and absurdities of modern and primitive religious practices in the US. This piece was a specific reaction to the recent sex abuse scandals by the catholic church highlighted in the news. I chose to cut out the priest's hands and face because I feel that they are allowed to get away with whatever they want, simply by donning the particular garb a priest would wear. It is almost like a suit of armor for them to hide behind, and I find it atrocious. The simple pattern in the face and hands were simply ornamental, to coincide with Mr. Craven's "horror vaccui," or the need to fill up space with ornamentation. I found the concept interesting because I have been told that white space and minimalism is hot right now, and I wished to do the opposite.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

2 new pieces!

ONE MAGIC GALACTIC BOX VIEWING AT A TIME, PLEASE
I find myself drawn to the unknown reaches of space. Those around me seem less then thrilled to look up and enjoy the amusement that is the night sky. Okay, occasionally when a meteor shower news gets thrown around people make an event of it. And that is a great thing. But there is more than just that out there. I want everyone to have the same level of enthusiasm about space and its secrets as I do. I ran across an amusing thought the other day that inspired this piece to be made. It was saying something to the effect of imagining that space could only be viewed for 5 minutes every year and that there would only be one viewing port in which to experience looking at space. I thought I would recreate that effect in an old wooden box. Something that looks unimportant when in fact the opposite is true. You can also view a key that is in the foreground directly against the viewing glass of the piece. This is symbolic of the fact that we are SO close to truly exploring space, but are not quite there yet. Space is the "key" to our existence and survival.
CLOSE THE POD BAY DOORS


I felt so saddened when manned space missions were put on hold recently, in lieu of other efforts. Now who will kids look up to growing up? We nee astronauts to be heroes, and we need manned space flight. I agree with Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson who pleads for that very subject and shouts out to everyone that WE ARE MADE OF SPACE! I wanted to shout that out, while highlighting the sadness of the loss of the space heroes. I quote a line from 2001:A Space Odyssey for the title because it was one of the forces driving my initial interest in space, along with Dr. Tyson. The gold in the piece is meant to symbolize hope for the future space exploration.