I did two different monologues today for this art performance piece. They're both poems, but they're totally different styles.
Lemme show you what I mean...
Here's the final take (out of half a dozen :P) of the first one, "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" by Walt Whitman (most definitely one of my favorite poems)
And my second one was much sillier. It's based on 60 seconds of a poem by Shel Silverstein called "I Cannot Go To School Today". It's about a little girl who doesn't want to go to school because she's "sick" ;P
If you haven't read either of these poems, I highly suggest you look them up. I chose to perform them because they're both favorites of mine in different ways and very few people have the patience for poetry. If you ask me, it's all about how you hear the voices in your head. ;)
Night!
-Emily
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Lists
I wasn't in class when we got this assignment, so I'm not sure exactly if I'm doing this right... however, from what I've heard, even kids who were there don't exactly get it...
Here's a taste of what I have so far of this mapping assignment.
Here's a taste of what I have so far of this mapping assignment.
Lists
Lived in Locations
1) Plano House 1: The house my parents first moved into from their apartment in Dallas; older than me. Very close to my elementary and middle schools. Nursery room had Noah’s Ark mural, second room (shared with sister) had Cinderella’s castle mural on closet doors. Played pretend a LOT as a kid with my neighbor and sister. Third room painted purple with a yellow bed spread (still have it in my closet at home); first room alone since my sister was born. Really hard to leave, sold super quickly (one weekend!) Moved April 25th, 2003
2) In between Apartment: Where we lived between Plano House 1 and Plano House 2. The summer between 6th and 7th grade. Sister and I both had strep throat the day we moved in. We were excited to have a pool for the summer, but the apartment itself sucked. The Neighbors were loud, the apartment was dirty, but I had a surprising amount of friends who lived in the complex too. We had a hamster while we were there. She was really good at sneaking out of her cage and running around the apartment at night. We ended up staying longer than we thought we would., by a couple months while the new house was being built. We moved out September 2003
3) Plano House 2: We built this house when the house we wanted to buy was sold before we could close on it. We lived super close to the new elementary school, where I went for 5th grade and my sister went for 2nd-5th. My new room was much more understated; white furniture, powder blue walls. I also had a lot of new furniture in the form of a large bookshelf and an armoire; I had a lot more books, trinkets and keepsakes. It’s very soft and cool and much more mature. I also spent a lot of late nights out in the loft area working on little art projects. I practically spent a week on that couch when I got swine flu, fall 2009. I did really badly at the vocal all-region phase II auditions at the end of the week because of that.
4) Jackson-Shaver Dorm: My first collage dorm!! So tiny, I couldn’t believe it. Took a while to get used to. My roommate is nice enough; we knew each other before we came here. I spent a lot of my first semester sitting on Facebook with my roommate. When I went to the Harry Potter 7 premier with the Qudditch team, I met some a group of new people, including a guy that I instantly clicked with. I spent a lot of time with him after that and still do.
There's you go :)
-Emily
Modular Madness
Modular Madness Presentation Write Up
MATERIALS
As soon as I chose to work with pennies, I knew basically what I wanted to do with it. The form evolved from a representational sculpture to a larger version of what it ended up as. Due to the limitations of my finances and time, I had to remove a large piece of understructure from the piece in order to finish on time, however, I didn't want to compromise the form because of these limitations. I knew the object (pennies) was almost completely dependent on the form of the piece and vice versa. Without the scale pattern of the pennies, the shape would've been meaningless and overly simplified, and without the form, the scale pattern wouldn't have been recognizable.
I suppose the piece could've been made with some other scale-like object, such as guitar picks or other types of coins, but that would've been too expensive. In any case, the color and abundance of the pennies is unique. The diversity in age, wear, discoloration and placement (head vs. tails) added a life-like quality and an element of shimmer to the tail. Because of this, the piece has a different look from every angle.
I made some discoveries while working with the pennies and styrofoam on this project. For one, when you get a large number of pennies in one place (say, like 2300+ in a CapriSun box), the get heavy. Same when you place all 2300 on a brittle styrofoam understructure. On that note, styrofoam is a very difficult material to work with. It certainly doesn't help that I'm awful at carving. It doesn't like to be glued, either to itself or when having other materials glued to it (consequently, most of the pennies are actually glued to one another as opposed to the styrofoam itself). I had some issues with pennies breaking off from the structure when moving it and the structure even broke under it's own weight a couple times. Also, turns out, styrofoam is expensive. Thank goodness for Christmas gift cards from Hobby Lobby, no? Back to the side of the pennies, they are not malleable like real scales. This made forming around the curves rather difficult in some places.
FORM
I used color, texture and value most of all in this project. The variation in color and texture adds depth to the repetitive patterns. I debated on cleaning the coins for a uniform look or placing them all heads or tails up, however, I realized that the different colors added interest and, as someone pointed out, a sort of natural camouflage look. Nature uses patterns in a similar way, but not always in a perfect, or even obvious, way. The imperfect repetition and rhythm makes the piece interesting, life-like and give it movement.
PROCESS/AMBITIOUSNESS
The most ambitious part of this project was the sheer number of pennies I had to use. I ended up covering the piece with almost $23.00, give or take. It was tedious work to glue them all tot he foam, though I ran out of glue before pennies.
My initial imagining was to do a dragon, however that was before I was told to do a nonrepresentational object. After that, I settled on a ambiguous tail/worm shape. As I got closer to the end, I realized I wasn't going to be able to cover the whole structure with the money I had, so in this edit I took this opportunity to change the form once more. From the worm shape, I changed the form to a tail coming from the wall to suggest a larger creature on the other side of the wall. I felt this added an element of fantasy and suggested an exaggerated scale. I feel that the original idea would've been more ambitious due to the detailed carving involved as well as having to make a more defined shape. Due to the lack of flexibility of the pennies, they would not have shaped very well with the detailed lines.
I didn't get much feed back from the crit because we had to rush so much after lunch. One constructive criticism I received from Kathy was just to make sure it fit up agains the wall better. That precision with come with more practice with the power tools. X)
That's all for now! Thanks!
-Emily
MATERIALS
As soon as I chose to work with pennies, I knew basically what I wanted to do with it. The form evolved from a representational sculpture to a larger version of what it ended up as. Due to the limitations of my finances and time, I had to remove a large piece of understructure from the piece in order to finish on time, however, I didn't want to compromise the form because of these limitations. I knew the object (pennies) was almost completely dependent on the form of the piece and vice versa. Without the scale pattern of the pennies, the shape would've been meaningless and overly simplified, and without the form, the scale pattern wouldn't have been recognizable.
I suppose the piece could've been made with some other scale-like object, such as guitar picks or other types of coins, but that would've been too expensive. In any case, the color and abundance of the pennies is unique. The diversity in age, wear, discoloration and placement (head vs. tails) added a life-like quality and an element of shimmer to the tail. Because of this, the piece has a different look from every angle.
I made some discoveries while working with the pennies and styrofoam on this project. For one, when you get a large number of pennies in one place (say, like 2300+ in a CapriSun box), the get heavy. Same when you place all 2300 on a brittle styrofoam understructure. On that note, styrofoam is a very difficult material to work with. It certainly doesn't help that I'm awful at carving. It doesn't like to be glued, either to itself or when having other materials glued to it (consequently, most of the pennies are actually glued to one another as opposed to the styrofoam itself). I had some issues with pennies breaking off from the structure when moving it and the structure even broke under it's own weight a couple times. Also, turns out, styrofoam is expensive. Thank goodness for Christmas gift cards from Hobby Lobby, no? Back to the side of the pennies, they are not malleable like real scales. This made forming around the curves rather difficult in some places.
FORM
I used color, texture and value most of all in this project. The variation in color and texture adds depth to the repetitive patterns. I debated on cleaning the coins for a uniform look or placing them all heads or tails up, however, I realized that the different colors added interest and, as someone pointed out, a sort of natural camouflage look. Nature uses patterns in a similar way, but not always in a perfect, or even obvious, way. The imperfect repetition and rhythm makes the piece interesting, life-like and give it movement.
PROCESS/AMBITIOUSNESS
The most ambitious part of this project was the sheer number of pennies I had to use. I ended up covering the piece with almost $23.00, give or take. It was tedious work to glue them all tot he foam, though I ran out of glue before pennies.
My initial imagining was to do a dragon, however that was before I was told to do a nonrepresentational object. After that, I settled on a ambiguous tail/worm shape. As I got closer to the end, I realized I wasn't going to be able to cover the whole structure with the money I had, so in this edit I took this opportunity to change the form once more. From the worm shape, I changed the form to a tail coming from the wall to suggest a larger creature on the other side of the wall. I felt this added an element of fantasy and suggested an exaggerated scale. I feel that the original idea would've been more ambitious due to the detailed carving involved as well as having to make a more defined shape. Due to the lack of flexibility of the pennies, they would not have shaped very well with the detailed lines.
 |
| I was so sad to have to uninstall! Especially when it wouldn't fit though the space between the wall and the shelves and it broke :( Super sadface!! :C (The sign says : You Can Pet Me! In fact, please do! Just don't feed me. I'm big enough as it is.) |
I didn't get much feed back from the crit because we had to rush so much after lunch. One constructive criticism I received from Kathy was just to make sure it fit up agains the wall better. That precision with come with more practice with the power tools. X)
That's all for now! Thanks!
-Emily
Sunday, February 20, 2011
More updates!
(Told you there was more to follow. Sure was quick, huh? ;) )
Here's some pictures from our human comp. process. I still need to get the digital copies of the actual pictures from Keenan. :P
We had a lot of fun with this shoot. Everyone got along really well, took and gave direction well, and we were pretty productive! (Plus, the weather was awesome :) )
Super big thanks to Zack who supplied the sheet and plates we used and to Keenan for letting us hang in a tree with his camera 12 feet above the ground!!
**A write-up of the human composition photos will go up once I get digital copies of the pictures from Keenan.**
Now for some MODULAR MADNESS!
Okay, so you know how I said I was totally gonna make a dragon? Weellll, that was before I realized it had to be non-representational... ergo, changes had to be made. But not many! I just simplified the shape a bit and now I have a non-representational scaled penny worm thingy. :) Fun stuff!
I didn't get a final shot before I left because my phone was dead, but I actually got pretty far. I'll take a picture before I start tomorrow afternoon.
That's it for tonight!
Keep a weathered eye on the horizon for more art!! ;D
Night,
Emily
Here's some pictures from our human comp. process. I still need to get the digital copies of the actual pictures from Keenan. :P
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| "Hey, this tree looks tall enough, there's a perfect branch right there. And we can totally get up there, no problem! :D" |
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| "Uh... we sure about this? I mean, it seems a little high. How do I even get up there?" |
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| "Okay, seriously, we sure about this? Maybe if I put my foot here...?" |
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| "Wait, wait, I think I've got this...!" |
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| "Yeah! I've got the perfect shot! Awesome!" |
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| "Okay, now can someone hand me my camera? Please?" |
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| Zach's turn! Quite the little tree climber! |
\  |
| My turn! I totally ripped those pants trying to slide back down. :P But we got some good shots, so it may have been worth it! |
Super big thanks to Zack who supplied the sheet and plates we used and to Keenan for letting us hang in a tree with his camera 12 feet above the ground!!
**A write-up of the human composition photos will go up once I get digital copies of the pictures from Keenan.**
Now for some MODULAR MADNESS!
Okay, so you know how I said I was totally gonna make a dragon? Weellll, that was before I realized it had to be non-representational... ergo, changes had to be made. But not many! I just simplified the shape a bit and now I have a non-representational scaled penny worm thingy. :) Fun stuff!
 |
| Okay, I should say right away, I have absolutely *no* idea what I'm doing when it comes to 3D carving and whatnot. I just tried to so what I've seen other carvers do. |
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| Hack saw! Going at it! |
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| Getting close...! |
 |
| I eventually removed the blade from the hack saw and just used that. *DISCLAIMER*: Be super careful when handling any kind of saw. I'm super cereal, y'all. I used work gloves when working with the naked blade and Val had me use goggles to keep styrofoam particles out of my eyes. Safety is super, guys. Do it! ;) |
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| So, after a few good days (and the odd night) of carving, I got my little wormy all sanded down and ready to go! It was messy! I had a lot of clean up to do when I was done, and BOY was I sore! |
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| So, this here is about $2's worth of pennies and about an hour of work. Not as much as you'd think, huh? |
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| This was from tonight, a couple dollars later and 1 hour in, just before I went to get dinner with Jada. |
I didn't get a final shot before I left because my phone was dead, but I actually got pretty far. I'll take a picture before I start tomorrow afternoon.
That's it for tonight!
Keep a weathered eye on the horizon for more art!! ;D
Night,
Emily
The story LINE (haha, pun-derful! ;P)
My story and picture for the story line assignment.
~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~
The first rung, right hand. One down, forever to go.
Second rung, left hand. Third, right again. Swinging back and forth
How does anyone do this? Hands in line, weight pulling down.
Do I have the strength? Can I make it, do I have the endurance…?
Fourth rung, left hand. Breathe. In and out, in and out…
I can do this. It’s just metal. It’s just line after line of sun soaked, hand worn, silver metal. I can do this.
I can do this.
Fifth rung, sixth… seventh.
I can do this, I can do this… eight, ninth… almost there… I can do this!
The finish line is in sight!
Tenth, eleventh… one last reach…! Yes!
I’ve done it! I’ve done it!!
I have come against this obstacle and defeated it! I have conquered these meaningless bars and used them for my gain. If I can use these lines as my stepping stones, I can use your rules to my advantage. I can draw my own lines, across, though, around yours… I can win!
If I can do this, I can do anything!
More to follow!
~Emily
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Another massive update: Photo Studies, Collages, Pennies and the Menil
Time for another update! I don't have much to say, so let's just get it done! :
And here's some stuff from American Cardboard Idol!!
Ladies and gentlemen, for my next 3-dimensional feat, I will turn $25 dollars in pennies into a DRAGON. I am super serious. This is gonna be awesome. :D
Alright ladies and gents, that's all I've got for now! Keep it real! See ya' soon :)
I actually just realized that I haven't posted any pictures for any of the independent photo studies! :O Uh-oh! So, here are the first two! (Including some extras that didn't make it to the final assignment cut but I still really like :) ) >>>
DOTS
RHYTHM AND REPETITION
On to our next order of business! Collages! We finished up our 3D cardboard collages and accordion books. There was some awesome stuff! Really creative. On the other hand, here's mine... :P
And here's pictures from the Menil! Including Jada and I in a tree :)
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| This is the reflection of the Flavin Installation on Jada's sketchbook... tight. :) |
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| I could not get over how beautiful this chapel was! Seriously! I wanted to go back another 2-3 times and sketch it from at least 6 different angles! |
Ladies and gentlemen, for my next 3-dimensional feat, I will turn $25 dollars in pennies into a DRAGON. I am super serious. This is gonna be awesome. :D
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| DECEPTIVELY HEAVY! :P |
-Em
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