Pittsburg Visit

Last Monday my Dad and I went to visit Colleges up in Pittsburgh. Yes it was 30 something degrees, but it also was beautiful with the leaves in vibrant reds and yellows. We got a few pictures (unfortunately when my dad takes photos they come out a little blurry), and the park we visited was absolutely gorgeous, overlooking the river.

 

To kill some time(and be someplace warm) we headed into the Carnegie Museum of Art which doubled as the Museum of Natural History. While exploring the Art galleries, my Dad and I started with Modern Art, and I started thinking of how people view/define art. I narrowed it down to two definitions. People value art as a means of expression, or as a mastery of a technical craft. Depending on what value determines what you consider as "true art".  People might consider it pointless to write political slogans on a chair and call it art, while others think it's unnecessary to capture an image people see often onto a canvas. I realized art doesn't exactly have a definition, it all depends on the person, making it that much more complex. Just a thought.
A few things from the museum.

Always a favorite: Monet!!!

Things from the Gem/Stone exhibit that caught my eye
 
 

Art from the Backyard

So last month when I was out sick and construction kicked our class into the library the other students went on an exploitative art project. Looking at their blogs I felt slightly deprived of that project and decided to make it up on my own today. Inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy, it takes natural objects from nature and arranges them into a visually attractive sculpture. Here are a few of his pieces:
 
  

Working with my hands after the backyard scavenger hunt(which really reminded me of days when I was younger and would go outside to make flower bouquets) I was gathered up a variety of materials.

Here our the sculptures I made! My favorite is the first one, where I braided the cattail stems.

Another favorite!

 

Since I am now in the midst of my time-consuming module project, it was really nice to do a project that had beautiful results that only took an hour and a half (most of that time was fiddling with the camera).

College Art

On another note, this week I was really excited and nervous to send in my portfolio work to colleges. It feels so nice to get MIT's app completed! I'm a little nervous because I'm sharing some of work for the first time. I've been designing dresses for sometime now on my own, and haven't really showed them to anybody before. Gosh I feel a weird sense of terror, excitement, and anxiousness about it. Since I'm already sharing it with a bunch of people I don't know, I thought I would share my piece here as well. (Also "Don't Stop Believing" is playing as I type it so I'm feeling a little more confident).Hopefully you(and the admissions reps) like it!

Multiples and Modules Project/Artist Inspiration

This project is interesting first because I didn't know there was such a difference between multiples and modules. Multiples usually emphasize color/surface treatment and often say a statement with the way their components are arranged. Modules have many more pieces (our project needs at least 100 components) and is purely focused on maintaing a visually rhythmic arrangement. It's exciting to get into some more technical terminology!

While on Pinterest( I have re-surfaced my account for this class) I came across this fantastic picture:

This was exactly perfect in all ways artistic for what I was looking for inspiration! The artist is Fenella Elms, and on visiting her website there were many other pieces I loved:

 

 

Fenella Elms says her constant travels and frequent change of residences as a child helped contribute to an amount of adaptability and a sense of curiosity. She undertook psychoanalytical training, and  her past career in mental health influences her work: a subconscious approach with clay. Noticing the similar mindfulness of the enabling what it hidden to emerge and the formation of new patterns, Elms says she felt she couldn't make something with just one part. Fenella Elms was first introduced to clay by a Lucy Rie exhibit in 1981. Working at workshops and classes she eventually got a wheel in 2004 and began the teaching that college offered her. She has been featured in multiple magazines, had designs in 2007 which lead to become factory made samples in China, and last year was featured in a review of the best from London Design Week.
Feel free to visit her website, and thanks for sharing your work with us Fenella Elms!