Response to Lecture: Nature “Hike” for Art at Cypress College

Last week instead of having our usual lecture, Mr. Z took us outside
to find art in the nature of Cypress College’s campus. We broke up
into groups of two and three and my group found a piece of art that we
found interesting in the window of a staff member’s office located
down a rock path between two tall buildings covered with small plants
and trees. From the outside the windows at the school are darkened,
but when we walked by this particular wall of glass we saw something
different. From far away it looked like two paintings had been leaned
against the windows and all you could see is their faint silhouette.
One of  the silhouettes looked like a bunch of birds flying in a
circle and the other looked like it could have been of a beach.

Ch 12 #2: "Tree of Jesse" in the Chartres Cathedral vs. "Persian Chandelier" in the Royal Botanic Gardens

Sculptures created with the use of glass are an art form that has become greatly appreciated of the centuries. Glass art sculpture dates thousands of years with Pieces dating back to the ancient Egypt. Today, glass art uses many of the same techniques as these early glass artisans. However, people have added new techniques and skills That were not possible in earlier days. The three main techniques are glass blowing, hot sculpting, and cold working.

The Tree of Jesse, in France, represents the family tree of Jesus. The the technique used in this piece is cold working in the form of stained Glass. The name is taken from the book of Isaiah where Jesus is referred to as a shoot coming up from the stump of Jesse. The ornaments on the Jesse tree show the ancestors of Jesus and of the events leading to his birth. Its size alone shows the time it took to create.

Dale Chihuly created the Persian Chandelier in 2005. This very modern piece was created with very difficult techniques. The fluid form of the flowers is identical to the look of nature. The size of the piece shows that not only is Chihuly an amazing artist, but an engineer with his oversized structure.

I appreciate glass as an art because of the contrasting nature glass itself.  It can have such beauty and power but is completely vulnerable shattering into pieces. If a person is not careful the glass art, repairs can be quite costly. The same techniques in repairing were used in the creation of these amazing glass art pieces. Both pieces have very different meanings; Tree of Jesse with a religious history meaning and the Persian Chandelier with the organic flowing look of something in nature. I love the Persian Chandelier and how it looks so fragile and can easily be broken. The Tree of Jesse, although a representation from a book in the bible, does not draw me in the same way.

Ch 12 #1: Maria and Julian Martinez Blackware vs. Magdalene Odundo Burnished terracotta

There are many different Techniques in the art of ceramics. When you change your method just slightly, the outcome can change sometimes drastically. These simple variations such as molding, pinching, rolling, or coiling can invoke very different feelings. 

The way that María Montoya Martínez made her piece is what is called coiling. A coil pot is made by forming long coils of clay and slowly shaping the container to the desired form. Most of the time the rigid texture from the coils can be smoothed to produce a uniform texture. Maria became a famous Pueblo potter because of this simple coil pot technique. The Blackware she created in 1939 is very symmetrical and almost looks as if it were made on a throwing wheel. The perfection in her coil pots and glazing process through her unique finishing techniques made Maria Martinez one of the more famous potters of her generation. Julian Martínez used yucca-frond brushes to paint the designs on with slip producing a dull exterior that makes a faint contrast with the highly polished areas. This look is difficult to see from a distance but when approached the details in the work show. 

Magdalene Odundo grew up in Kenya but settled in Britain.  She training as a graphic designer before turning to ceramics. Odundo's was mostly known for her use of the throwing wheel. However,  by hand she created also using coiling technique. Most of her work was left unglazed and each piece is burnished, covered with slip, and then burnished again. The pieces are fired in an oxidizing atmosphere which creates a red-orange finish. A second firing in an oxygen-poor atmosphere causes the clay to turn black. This firing technique is known as reduction-firing. Many of the vessels she creates are reminiscent of the human form. For example, they resembled the curves of the spine, stomach, or hair. Odundo's ceramics have a universal appeal that can move all cultures and walks of life. Her work may be found in museum collections worldwide.

I Prefer Maria and Julian Martinez’s vase with their contrast between glassy and flat black. Plus, I appreciate the unusual silhouette of the vessel that makes this pot so visually exciting. The painted designs, while abstract, nevertheless suggest certain natural forms and relate harmoniously to the proportions and overall style of the jar. I am not a fan of the abstact pottery shown by Odundo.

Response to Lecture Graffiti Good? or Graffiti Bad?

Last Tuesday’s lecture about graffiti and the documentary “Bomb It” I found to be very interesting but did not change my negative opinion about graffiti overall.  To me Graffiti is vandalism, not art.  If you look up the definition it says that graffiti is “unauthorized drawings or words that are scratched, painted, or sprayed on walls or other surfaces in public places”.

During the start of class Mr. Z asked the class to vote whether we thought graffiti was good or if we thought graffiti was bad, and I was very surprised to see that 21 students voted Graffiti good and only 4 (including myself) voted Graffiti to be bad. 

Graffiti consists of gang symbols, bad words, and sometimes pictures you see painted or scrawled on fences, bridges, in subways, on the sides of buildings, houses, and elsewhere, otherwise known as tagging. Most of it is junk that looks like 5-year-olds have done it. But some of it is colorful and might look artistic if it hadn't destroyed someone's property. That to me is the problem with graffiti — it is “unauthorized”, as the dictionary says, and it destroys someone's property. It is a crime, like stealing, because it steals the property owner's right to have their own property look clean and nice. It also makes repairs costly for the property owner. Graffiti scribblers never offer to pay the cost of repairing their destruction, which may cost thousands of dollars.

Mr. Z also brought up that some graffiti is legal versus some being illegal.  Some people pay to have colorful murals and other large-scale paintings on their walls and fences, which is perfectly legal. Although some people try to say that is graffiti while the unauthorized scribble is “tagging”, the dictionary does not make a distinction. That's because graffiti already has a bad meaning in people's minds, so people who think they are “good” graffitists will need to find another word if they hope to ever make a positive impression.

Ch 11 Leopard Society Emblem of the Ejagham Culture vs. Petah Coyne's Untiitled #1111

The Leopard Society is a secret, all-male organization that, according to Ejagham belief, draws its power from the leopard spirit. In their culture the leopard is admired for its speed, stealth, and lethal power. Emblems such as this one, created between 19^th to early 20^th century, were hung on the inmost walls of the sacred space of the Leopard Spirit society's house where business and ritual were conducted. The Leopard Spirit societies in villages of southeast Nigeria and southwest Cameroon serve to govern in place of centralized chieftaincy systems. Young Ejagham men initiated into these societies make their way up the ranks to gain power and prestige. The skulls of monkeys and baboons on the emblem were meant to scare away evil. The two brooms framing the center were to sweep away magic and evil and protect the society's members from harm.

Untitled #1111 (Little Ed's Daughter Margaret), is an eleven-foot assemblage of tree branches, feathers, ribbon, thread, tassels, and hundreds of silk flowers dipped in a specially formulated midnight-blue wax. The underlying figure is a cast-fiberglass statue with a hidden mechanism programmed to cause its eyes to well up with "tears" twice a day, at random times. The sculpture also includes remnants of a couture gown specially made for the figure by a dressmaker, two large stuffed fighting birds, and empty bird skins. The artist also incorporated a braid of human hair given to her by an art collector. The braid, according to Coyne, belonged to the collector's mother, a Victorian woman named Margaret who was a musician and early feminist and who died when the collector was a child. After a long and hard look at the piece, buried elements within the sculpture emerge. To me this piece is an elaborate and beautiful thing, but has a deeper, darker story.

Both the Leopard Society Emblem and Petah Coyne's Untitled #1111 (Little Ed's

Daughter Margaret) are interesting pieces that are assembled from materials that we don’t normally associate with a sculpture. The African emblems components have religious and societal meangins to their people while Petah Coyne’s work does not have such deep rooted meanings, but to me has a deeper meaning to the individual viewers of the work.

Ch 11 David Smith's XI Books and III Apples vs. Mark di Suvero's Origins

David Smith’s XI Books and III Apples stands 7 feet and 9 inches tall and was made of stainless steel in 1959. The shape and look of this piece to me looks very modern for the time that is was made, yet oddly enough it does look like a bunch of two dimensional metallic books and apples assembled together. I agree with the book exactly that this work appears to be an odd but friendly being with no arms. In the photo it stands almost warily in the shade, but in the sun I think it would gleam brightly and look a more vehement.  I find this piece most interesting because David Smith was working as a welder while trying to establish himself as an artist, and then when he started to focus on his art he adapted his welding skills to an artful purpose.

Mark di Suvera’s Origins was finished in 2004, it stands 36 feet and 4 inches tall and it is made of painted steel, the preferred material for this contemporary sculptor. The artist makes his sculptures from steel I-veams which are the same kind of girders used in construction. He bolts the elements together in the same fashion as a constructions workers bolt together the steel beams of a building. I think his piece featured in the book, Origins, is also a modern looking piece but instead of friendly it seems more intimidating. I think the black swirls atop the steel arrangement give it some beauty while the rusty orange/red base gives the piece a feel of ferocity and strength.

Some similarities among David Smith’s XI Books and III Apples and Mark di Suvera’s Origins are that they are both made of steel, they are both modern, and they are both set on a grassy hill.  David’s Smith’s piece much smaller than Origins, it is very modern for the time that it was made, and is a 2-dimensional structure. Mark di Suvera’s piece is more common in the modern time it was made, it is very, very tall, and it is a 3-dimensional structure that looks nearly the same from every angle.