Week Three

This week I finished the Berliner Dom (except for maybe two more add-ons I want to make), the Fernsehturm and two strawberry stands. I also arranged how I would like the Pergamon Museum to look and will try to paste it down tonight (although that can take anywhere from 3-4 hours so we will see).

After finishing the previously mentioned items, I kind of took a step back. Janie made a suggestion to create small-scale cut-outs of the buildings to practice arranging them. This definitely helped but I still feel like it doesn't give a true representation of how it will look, especially because of all the details I plan on including in my final piece (ie: cyclists, tons of children, perhaps historical references like the presence of JFK and books at Bebelplatz, which is where the 1933 Nazi book burning took place, etc.) Regardless, here is an image of the cut-outs I made to very roughly simulate a future possible compositional arrangement. The "grass" and "streets" were added in Photoshop, although I foresee the grass and streets in my mural as being much more colorful and patterned than merely green and grey, respectively.

I also checked out some books on the history of Berlin to help guide my project and provide more context for the place I am creating, essentially. Currently I am reading David Clay Large's, Berlin. The book provides a historical account of Berlin, beginning roughly with the Bismarckian Rule and ending with present-day. It's very well written because it keeps me engaged and I am learning that many things I witnessed while in Berlin (people gathering at restaurants and bars outdoors at all hours of the day, for example) were also true more than a century ago.

I also checked out Belonging in the Two Berlins, by John Borneman; Historic Berlin: Pictures tell the story, by Paul Wietzorek; Berlin: Culture and Metropolis, edited by Charles W. Haxthausen and Heidrum Suhr; and Was War Los in West-Berlin 1950-2000 (roughly translated, "What Was Wrong in West Berlin between 1950 and 2000), by Jürgen Scheunemann and Gabriela Seidel. I also got a VHS (vintage!) from the AAEL about Berlin, narrated in German, so that, too, should be informative.

Throughout this process, I have continually been looking at artists--most notably, Romare Bearden, but also Hannah Höch and just today Erica told me about this artist, Wangechi Mutu, who will be speaking at Penny Stamps in November! Mutu creates beautiful figurative paper collages and I plan on going to her website to check out her work.

So, to break things down, this is the amount of time I spent on "things" this week:

• Bookmarked, scanned, Photoshopped, printed and pasted samples of Romare Bearden's and Hannah Höch's work into my sketchbook: 3.5 hours
• Worked on Berliner Dom, two strawberry stands, the Fernsehturm (television tower) and the arrangement of the Pergamon Museum: 11 hours
• Read books: 45 minutes
• Went to libraries and checked out books: 1 hour

My next plan of attack is to continue making buildings but do so while I read more about the history of Berlin. My goal is to have two more facades done by Tuesday.

I'm On My Way!

I am so, so, so excited! I think I have finally decided on my I.P. idea! I feel passionately about the subject matter, excited about the medium and challenged by my own envisioned elaborateness. The strengths of this current idea are that there is room for development, a clear, personal connection and "issues" I will need to confront along the way.

Okay, so my idea is to create a large-scale map of Berlin (the city, itself, is ENORMOUS)--how I remember it. I lived in the section of Berlin called Prenzlauer Berg and I want to represent the things I most remember from this section of the city--my favorite restaurants and cafes (there was an abundance of Asian restaurants, in particular), weekend markets, REALLY cool graffitit, strawberry stands, Spargel stands (white asparagus), honey stands, annoying people trying to sell subscriptions to various German newspapers, children EVERYWHERE (Prenzlauer Berg, I found out, has the highest birthrate in EUROPE!!!!!!), bicycles EVERYWHERE, my favorite museums and historic landmarks.

Because this map will be how I remember it, things will not be to scale or entirely accurately located. I like that this will be the case, though, as I think it will provide the piece with a sense of whimsicality and, again, my own, personal touch. Whimsicality and a sense of playfulness are important elements for my work to possess.

Here is a preliminary sketch. I worked on it for about a half an hour:

After creating this illustration, I then made a grid in Photoshop, illustrating more technically the envisioned locations of the buildings. This took about an hour:

Once I created this grid, I then transfered it to a large sheet of paper, which is the scale at which I envision my final piece. This took about 45 minutes to do:

After I finished this sort of grunt work, I was finally able to start working on the part I find most enjoyable--collage! I am beginning with Berlin's famous, Berliner Dom. I am using the photo below as a reference. Underneath the photo is the work I have done thus far on my collage. I expect to have it completed by Tuesday's class.

*Note: To give some indication as to the final scale of the piece, my representation of the Berliner Dom measures about 11 x 14 inches.

So far I have spent about seven hours working on this. Before starting, too, I went to the Fine Arts Library (spent about a half hour there) to check out some books on Romare Bearden to look at more of his collages for inspiration and, perhaps, instruction.

As I am making this collage, I find myself being transported back to Berlin; able to relive the experiences I had, particularly in the vicinity of the Berliner Dom. Because the cutting and pasting takes such an excruciatingly long time (though I enjoy it), my brain is wandering, recalling on memories associated with the place I'm working on. It will be interesting to re-experience many of my Berlin memories as I proceed to create more buildings!

My next course of action is to finish the Dom. Time permitting, I would also like to have one strawberry stand done by next Wednesday.

Artist Influence: Romare Bearden

As the title of this post not-so subtly alludes, an artist by whom I am greatly influenced and inspired is Romare Bearden.

Bearden is an African-American who was born in North Carolina in 1911. He studied with German-born artist, George Grosz, who was part of the Dada movement and founded the "New Objectivity" group. The characteristics of this movement--collage, photomontage, assemblage and readymades--greatly influenced Bearden's work, though he, himself, was not a Dadaist.

Bearden's artistic career spanned quite some time, beginning around the 1930s and ending with his death in the 80s. This was a very exciting time in the United States and offered much fuel for Bearden's work. Some key events that influenced Bearden's work were World War II (Bearden enlisted) and most significant for Bearden was the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, of which he partook. He created a large body of work with themes pertaining thereto.

After the WWII, many of Bearden's paintings portrayed abstracted figures tied with metaphorical and/or spiritual themes. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, though, pushed Bearden to create more representational and socially-relevant work.

Important themes Bearden exhibited through his work were those relating to his own, African-American roots. He explored socially-charged issues of the 1960s and African American life, in general, in the southern United States.

The immense personal connection Bearden had to his work--not just by the fact that he made the works, himself, but also by the fact that their content hit so close to home--is something I want to capture in my own work, particularly for my I.P.

I've been thinking more about other potential ideas and one I am currently flirting with is creating a large-scale "map" of Berlin--the way I remember it. Spending this past summer in Berlin was such an incredible experience, and by making a map of the various places I frequented, streets I traversed on a daily basis and people I saw, I will forever have a memory of this special time in my life.

Now, more aesthetically-speaking, I envision this piece as a large-scale collage with hinged building facades that open to reveal their interiors. I am interested in experimenting with work that is interactive for the viewer so if I can somehow fabricate buildings that open, that would be great!

The type of collages I currently make are made almost entirely of papers I cut myself, but I would like to incorporate more found images, both for aesthetic purposes and for the purpose of presenting a challenge to myself and pushing me beyond my current comfort zone.

Bearden's collages are so inspiring and capture an essence I hope to achieve with mine. I respond to his above work of because of the immense sense of movement in it. Nothing about it is stationary, which makes the piece dynamic and exciting for the viewer. This is achieved, in large part, by the angled figures in the foreground and oppositely-angled cars in the middle ground opposing vertical background buildings.

Bearden's composition and color choice is really great, too. The foreground is dense with interesting shapes, and the buildings in the background provide a vertical, rectangular stability in front of which these head-, wheel- and hat-shapes can interact.

The colors in the piece demonstrate Bearden's keen sensitivity to--and knowledge of--visual space. Muted tones pervade throughout the piece with elements of black. While black can serve to stabilize a work, it can also provide dynamism, which is exemplified here. Additionally, the sienna-colored car on the left-hand side of the work is simply genius. Its boldness of being the largest shape of (relatively) uniform color and value makes it pop against the hecticness of the overall piece.

P.S.

Below are some images of the work I mentioned in my paper. The first series are selected pages from my 20-foot Japanese hand scroll. The scenes are each made entirely from cut paper. Following that set are images of the book I made for CFC. For it I used my own photographs of nature, combined with threads, twigs, leaves and other various embellishments. The very last piece is a bracelet I made in a Metals course. The materials I used were Goatskin hide, sterling silver, Playmobil toy figurines and snaps.

Too Many Ideas!!

My brain has been absolutely whirring with ideas lately. Every night before I go to bed the last thing I think about before falling asleep is I.P. I am so incredibly excited for this year and even though I have so many ideas, the really cool thing I am beginning to notice is that they are not all that disjointed (even though on the surface they may appear to be).

Here are some words that reflect my current interests, curiosities and intrigues:

antique toys (dolls, in particular)

miniatures

frames

mixed media

old books

vintage photographs

old magazines

history

true crime

flea markets

Alfred Hitchcock

old films

The Shining

houses

antiques

containers

childhood

collage

papers

narrative

1967 Detroit Riots

family history

state of being trapped

I have been working on small assemblages at the moment, using small containers with various clippings and other collected miscellany. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this but I hope that by doing, I will be able to weed out some techniques/ideas that I'm not responding to and expound upon those I am.

I experimented with weaving by creating my own loom and weaving a small outfit for a doll I had. I thought it might be interesting to create a large-scale necklace with a doll woven into it, as the pendant. From experimenting, though, I know I don't want to continue in this direction. I think now I am definitely interested in making non-wearable art in the form of 2-D mixed media collage.

In terms of time spent, I spent upwards of five hours weaving, assembling two "containers" and gluing rhinestones to a doll's head. Here are some pictures of the bedazzled dolls:

In addition to that, I started reading Dickran Tashjian's Gifts of Desire, which is a book about the work of artist, Joseph Cornell, whose work I really respect. I read, in total, for about two hours.

Lastly--and I will get to this in a just a few paragraphs--I went to the AAEL, Hatcher and Shapiro libraries today to check out some books on dollhouses, more books on Joseph Cornell, some books on Hannelore Baron, a book on Jim Dine, a book on Stanley Kubrick (I want to read the part that describes his making of The Shining) and a book on Alfred Hitchcock. This took about an hour.

Shifting gears here, another idea I've had lurking in the back of my mind is creating a large scale mural (about two-by-five feet and done in paper with found clippings) of the city of Detroit, from around the turn of the 20th century and leading up to the 1967 Riots. This subject holds particular interest to me because my grandpa was the former mayor of Detroit. His term ended with the onset of the Riots.

He did a lot of good for the city, however, which is why the conclusion to his mayoral career was so sad. If I decide to pursue this avenue, I would likely interview my dad's side of the family to learn about my grandpa (whom I'd never met) and older Detroit residents who lived during that time. I would be interested in learning what of my grandpa and the city, in general, they can recall.

Another idea I'm really excited about is creating a large scale paper collage/montage depicting the cutaway/inside of a house (think dollhouse). I am very interested in creating a narrative within this space and using its inhabitants and room designs to tell this story. I'm incredibly inspired by Overlook Hotel from the film, The Shining. The film's essence lies in the totally creepy atmosphere of the hotel, itself. This "atmosphere" is created by the distinctive architecture, enormity of the building, claustrophobic hallways, multitude of doors and interesting room designs. These elements are something I would like to capture in my own project. I want to create a creepy atmosphere (like that of Overlook Hotel) that tells a story. Maybe I create Overlook Hotel, itself--that I don't yet know.

Regardless, my next course of action is to create four different sketches of different possible cutaway structures with different stories. My goal is to have this done by next Thursday so that I can decide which of the buildings/stories I am most interested in pursuing.

Here are some images of artwork that inspire me:

The Brothers Quay

Romare Bearden

Joseph Cornell

Joseph Cornell

Jane Hammond

Jane Hammond

Emily Dickinson

Diane Arbus

Marina Bychkova

Betsy Youngquist

Lynn Whipple

First Entry

Here is my blog. Assignment one: complete.