y.oh.y.

The last week of the semester. Finals time. I’m feeling pretty good about it, actually. 

I should start by saying that the Zhenya show was really nice. I really enjoyed seeing everyone’s work hanging together. All the hard work paid off. Now everyone can breathe a little. :) 

I had Saturday off work yesterday! It was soooo nice. I love when I actually get to sleep a little bit, because I wake up being able to think about things. Yesterday I woke up with video ideas in my head. It felt amazing. I feel so unproductive sometimes because I get so tired. 

All of my hands are done and attached to arms. Tomorrow I am going to take some final shots with my Nikon and edit them and send them in to print. I still haven’t decided on the size of the print that I’d like to use. I was looking up photojournalism rules, and they use the golden ratio most of the time for their photographs, which is basically like most film formats. So I will pick a size that will match that since it is sort of meant to be based off of news and photojournalism.

I’m just not sure how big I want them to be.

So here are the project 4 hands:

I really like the way the overhead light hits them. 

Tomorrow Miri and I are going to edit our video of Lisa Walcott. I’m really excited about this! I love video stuff. Even though it’s kind of difficult to try and figure out on my own, I don’t mind it so much. 

So it’s gettin’ down to crunch time. 

Friday, I went to the Indianapolis Musem of Art with Laurel and a few people from my art history class. We had a really great time. I really love their contemporary collection. There is a James Turrell there that I am absolutely in love with. I can’t really explain what it is, because, like all of his work, you just have to experience it for yourself. Also, I always really enjoy seeing the Do-Ho Suh piece that is in their collection. 

So all I’m saying is, I felt really inspired. I wish Louisville had an art museum that was as great as the IMA. Who knows, maybe the Speed Museum will give it a run for it’s money when it reopens. We’ll see.

Also this week was the art sale. I bought this beautiful mug from Jay Whitman.

I’m pretty excited about it. I’ve been using it at work all weekend.

I got an alginate hand done this week, too, with the help of Mr. Jeffrey (my new hand model haha). 

Just look at all those plaster boogers. I haven’t gotten out the sandpaper yet…

I’ve got one more hand to make, paint, and attach to an arm. Then the accompanying photographs. 

I’ve really enjoyed working with these alginate hands this semester. I’m really happy I found out about it and figured it out! Work work work!

My research paper and presentation are due Wednesday for Art History, then it’s nothin’ but ceramics final critique stuff! Miri and I are going to work on our video next Monday since no one has class because of finals week. So that will get knocked out luckily. 

I also need to figure out where I want to get my photos printed for the final critique. I’ll probably go to Murphy’s if I have the money for that…

I just love the quality of their prints.

Noodle dreaming of the wild inside on thanksgiving.

Miri and I with our yin yang macs studying for art history on a Friday night.

The arms in suits.

I am really grateful for this thanksgiving break! Although I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped because I worked and went to Evansville to visit family, I still got some stuff done.
I have arms for this final project now, I just don’t have hands for them (I feel like a broken record.) I am going to have Jeff be my hand model because my hands just look weird with the suit stuff. I cut the sleeves of the jacket and white button-down and put them on the arms. There was a lot of lining in the jacket so it took me a bit to get it on there without cracking the plaster away. When I attach the hands, I am going to fill the arms with plaster so that they will hold up a little better with the weight of the hands.
So that stuff will be done this week.
I am assuming that we will be editing our videos of the artist interviews this week as well. Miri and I are going to have to get together to get our footage together since last time we were having technical difficulties. (again with the broken record.)
I can’t believe there are only 2 weeks left in the semester! The pressure is on! I have been working on editing this research paper for a while, so this week I am going to focus on ceramics stuff. Especially since our tests are all done in art history.

Researching Zineb Sedira’s work is just so interesting. I just feel so inspired and moved by the layers of meaning in her work, which is also aesthetically beautiful.

My paper is a comparison of 1 of her pieces from before she returned to Algeria, and one from after she returned. 

This is a clip from her video work from after the return, titled Saphir.

It is all about the landscape and seaports of Algiers, but also alludes to colonialism and the postcolonial state in really subtle, beautiful ways.

http://www.zinebsedira.com/video/saphir-2006

I got a pretty good mold of the hands for the project! Here it is coming out of the alginate.

So for the first critique of this project I had 2 of my body pieces done, but the one of the arm wrestling hands needs some work. When I painted it with watered down acrylic, the colors didn’t look so great on the plaster, so I am going to go over it with an oil paint of a flesh tone. Also, I need to re-do the photo of the arms/ hands because I shot it on a green wall and didn’t realize that it really does look like a greenscreen. Whoops. So I am going to try to re-shoot it with more of a background.

Here is my first go-round of shots. I am pretty happy with the one of the legs. 

Anyway though, I am still trying to figure out how to display the body parts separate from the photographs. The placement seems very key to this project since it is about the fooling of the eye and our willingness to fill in the blanks of what lies outside the frame. I don’t really want them to be displayed right beside one another. I want them to be photographs, and then you realize they aren’t actually people when you see the plaster body parts. Maybe a curtain separating the two or a wall or something would work best. I don’t know for sure!

I also have to figure out how to get the arms to stay up on their own for display purposes. The hands are much heavier than the arms because the arms are hollow plaster and the hands are solid, so it is a little top-heavy. 

I have one more that I want to finish for this project.

Also I have been thinking about ideas for our final project of the semester. It has to be an interactive piece. So my mind is reelin’. I have a few different things that I want to do for it but I’m meditating on them for complete thoughts.

Also I went to The Little Loomhouse and got my latest weaving, fresh off the loom! I am pretty excited about this one because it is the first time I used a huge floor loom instead of a table loom. I wish I could figure out how to bring weaving into other work that I do, but I haven’t figured out how it fits yet. Hell I don’t really know how anything fits. But I guess that’s ok for now.

Oh my gosh this plaster gauze has seriously made me physically exhausted! I had to sit in the same position for so long earlier to make my legs that I am shaky now and my back is achy. It’s sort of weird. Am I old? :)

I did the leg in sections this time. And I only did the frontside of the legs for now and will do the backs when I get a 2nd wind.

So they are still sitting in front of the fan drying. I am having a really good time figuring out this alginate.

Here was my first attempt:

It’s pretty cool. You just dip your hand in and wait for it to set. 

The fingers broke off on this one, but I superglued ‘em back.

I also have been sanding it down because it’s really uneven. This was the first one I did.

So then I decided that it would be a better idea to have Jeff help me and put our hands in an arm wrestling position and put them in together so that I don’t have to worry about making sure they match up completely. We tried it but I didn’t have enough alginate left so this is what the mold ended up looking like :(

So today I went and got more alginate and we are going to try it again tonight. I am really excited about this project and a little nervous too. I really hope that everything works out the way I am wanting it to. So far I am almost done with 2 pieces (just the hands are left on one, and the backs of the legs on the other), and if things go as planned, I will have 3 done by the critique. I don’t know if that will happen or not because this has been a slow process and a learning process. I have all three pieces planned out completely, so even if I don’t get them all done for the critique I am still going to do them all because I really like this project. 

I thought a lot about newspapers and photojournalism during this project. And feminism and cultural identity history and critical thinking and all sorts of things. I don’t think I have ever made an art piece that is this layered with ideas before. I don’t know if that is for the better or to its detriment, but I feel like the ideas will all be pretty subtle. At least that is what I am going for…we will see.

On another note, Tuesday I attempted throwing again and it wasn’t so bad.

So…note to self….when trying to make a leg with plaster gauze, do it in sections. 

Failed.

It was just really hard because my kneecap kept moving around and it kept breaking. I had no idea just how much a kneecap moves…So yeah, next time, in sections.

This is definitely a learning process. But I am having fun! ?@#!$

This process has been much slower than I thought it would be. I have been trying to get the wax cast of my hand all week but I have had trouble figuring out when to stick my hand in. Sources online said to get it between 105 and 110 degrees, but when the wax gets down to that temperature it is basically solid again. So then I have to wait for it to heat back up again. It just takes so long…Another site said to pour it into another container so it will cool more evenly and that when the film starts to form on the top, that’s when it is ready. Trust me, it is not.

I got a big chunk of wax and a crockpot for it.

But I am done trying this.

I burned my hand 2 different days this week trying to figure this out, and it is just wasting way too much time. I want to stay productive because I want to keep moving and get as much done as I can!

The arms are done, I just need some hands for ‘em. I went to Goodwill to find clothes to put on the arms. I had something very specific in mind and I went to 2 different Goodwills until I felt satisfied. I got the clothes to put on them, and they have been sewn on. Here is one of them.

So I went to an art store today and bought some alginate, and have been watching videos on making molds with it.

You can just stick your hand right down in it, and it gets a lot of detail. It sets up really fast which is good because I have a feeling it will be hard to keep my hand still in it for that long. It said that your hand will want to float in it so to make sure to keep pressure at a steady level. It says online to use it within 30-45 minutes after you make it because some serious shrinkage occurs. And also you can only use it one or 2 times. Probably just once.

This is something I have never used before other than when getting dental molds. So this should be interesting. 

Also, I bought some more plaster gauze to make some more body parts. I’m thinking about doing some legs and maybe one side of a body. 

Anyway I am off to make some hands. 

So, this week I am going to reshoot my obelisk video, but this time just playing with the light and shadows instead of worrying about switching them all around. 

But I have already started on a new project. I am making body parts and I want to photograph them where you can’t tell they aren’t attached to a full body and somehow juxtapose the body parts with the photos.

I was thinking of displaying them directly beside, but it takes away some of the mystery that way I think. It seems too obvious. I haven’t quite figured it out yet.

I didn’t really have a good solution for materials at first, but that is the good thing about a community of people. You can get all kinds of help from other people!

So, for the first one I am going to try to make 2 arms that are arm wrestling. I want to make a lot more, but it just depends on how much I can get done before the deadline. 

Dan luckily had some plaster gauze and let me buy it from him. I had never worked with this stuff before so I tried to do a little research, and apparently you can sand it smooth.

So this is the first arm. I cut it off once it dried and sealed it up. It still needs to be sanded though.

Last night Miri and I spent a lot of time in the studio. I tried to melt down some candles because she told me about something she had done before where she melted wax and dipped her hand in, then when it dried, took it off and filled it with plaster and you can see every line and wrinkle in the hand.

So I tried just using a candle warmer and the heat gun. It ended up not melting into enough wax. But I set it up to look like a little ceramics shrine at first.

Then I got serious with the heat gun. And got wax on the astroturf in Miri’s studio.

So anyway, I still haven’t gotten a hand done because it wasn’t enough wax to dip my whole hand in without it messing up. :(

But I looked up some stuff about candle making, and it said the best thing to use is a Presto “Kitchen Kettle” and melt the wax. And to use a thermometer so you don’t burn yourself. But the “Kitchen Kettle” is only like 20 bucks and I’m sure I can use it again because it’s just a crock pot. So this is the solution. Hooray! I just have to get one now.

Another thing I am still trying to figure out (other than how to place them) is how I am going to put clothing on the arms. I am down to a few solutions. I am going to go to Goodwill and just get some long sleeve shirts that will go over the arm, and then I am either going to cut it off where it ends and sew up the end, or leave the whole shirt on still attached to further relay the emptiness. I just haven’t figured it out yet. I am leaning more towards sewing it at the end right now. But that could change.

I saw Ira Glass tonight at The Brown Theater. It was awesome. I think I took a lot away from it that is a-stewin’ in m’brain right now. But it isn’t quite ready to taste yet.