The End to the Dec Review Drama

So how was it? Umm... interesting. "Interesting" is what my father says when my mother cooks something he doesn't care for. Reviews are something necessary and valuable, but no one says "wow, when can we do that again- that was great."

The set up that Hannah and I created was the best possible in order for me to feel as comfortable as I can be in these situations and I'm really grateful that it was an option. For me to not give in to my urge to bail which would have been bad for everyone, I really needed the understanding and support which i received :)

I was really worried about timing because in both practices I had stopped to ask questions during it and had no idea if my timing would be off. It turned out just fine- I ended at 20 min 11 sec.

I have mixed feelings about the comments. Some seemed helpful and it was interesting to see what was taken away by people that aren't me. However, I felt some comments were unrealistic and if I followed them I'd be sacrificing quality strictly for conceptual reasons, which I am not willing to do... ever.

The first comment I received referred to the tattoo lamp and referenced how in the holocaust they killed jews in a specific way so that they could be skinned and their skin used for lamps since their skin was tattooed. There was an awkward silence as they waited for my reaction. I am politically and historically retarded, so I'm not surprised that I had no knowledge of this. I think it's an important thing to be aware of but I feel that the artistic choices I made made it obvious that I was not making a statement about that and I think that's ok. I did search for other tattoo lamps while I was making mine and I'm not the first person to make a lamp like this since the Nazi's. If my audience thinks I'm a Nazi I suppose I'll have to deal with that but I have no desire to make a statement about the holocaust. I believe that the majority of people would not think of the holocaust when viewing my work.

A comment was made questioning my photo choices that I used in my slides. I had good reasons for my choices and since the comment only referred to my work previous to the start of the term, I am trying to forget it was said. I made my choices in order to have clarity and use time wisely so that I could get to the more important issue- my IP project. Let's stay productive shall we? You need to when you only have 20 minutes to explain a college career that started in 2003!

I continually heard things like "you're playing it too safe" or "you're not taking any risks" or "you're not letting yourself be vulnerable." I've found that if a work is too personal, you get asked to verbally explain it more but the more personal you make your work, the more uncomfortable yo are with answering any questions. If I could ship my work to a gallery and have it viewed with no explanation, I'd gladly make work that disturbs and confuses you all. However, that's not going to happen in this setting of academia because silence is not an option. Right now I'm straddling that line of making work that is meaningful to me and my existence but doesn't dig too deep. I guess it's a choice I have to think about.

I was asked why I'm making work about myself and yet I'm not the one in the photographs. The answer: I considered that and found it to be impossible. I cannot be a model and a photographer. I have no desire to do self portraits, and I loathe trying to direct someone else to capture my vision- I'm too picky and I want the visual control besides the fact that if I don't take the photos I don't feel like it's even my own work. With tattooing in particular- I do not have money to spend getting tattooed at this point in time. My camera takes 2 hands to operate and when you're getting tattooed you're too focused on trying breathe and trying not to move so that you don't have messed up artwork on you for the rest of your life. I'm not going to accidentally move while being tattooed because I was trying to take a picture. Not happening people.

I was extremely happy to hear Lisa's suggestions as far as materials other than that this particular film is hard to find and expensive...

I'm curious to read the written comments in order to see the whole picture instead of the few things that were shared in the moment.

So that's my longer version of "it was fine" with an expression of horror on my face.

WEEK 12

WHAT I DID: I finished my first lamp. yay finally. I got lots of feedback including two small group crits. I heard a lot of good feedback about things to incorporate in my second try. I feel good about it because I thought it was a good first attempt, but I definitely wasn't happy with it. I felt changes needed to be made that I couldn't pin-point. Things that I thought were problems other people confirmed these intuitions for me. I am excited to try again but frustrated that I don't have a clear idea of what I want to include in my new design. I keep looking at lamps online but haven't seen any that include elements I would want to have in the lamp i'm currently working on. Here's some lamps I like:






WHAT I DISCOVERED: That I have things about this lamp that I'm willing to change and things that I'm not. Some of the suggestions I got I really didn't like and thought they ruined my original concept. I'm going to stick to my guns and I'm ok with that- there are still a lot of things that i agree need to be changed. I have a very limited experience constructing 3D objects and everytime I do I learn a little bit more about what mistakes I made and what tools I should use/what's available. For one thing, the shade wobbles because I drilled the hole for the lamp nipple too large. Oops- won't make that mistake again. As far as the shade and the painting- I chose paint because I feel comfortable working with it and I chose canvas because I knew I could paint on it. Those were not the right choices for the effect I originally wanted. I guess you don't kow these things until you try it though.

WHAT'S NEXT: Since I don't have a clear idea of how I want to redo the lamp (which is super annoying because I'm running out of time.... aaahhhhhhhh!) I've started brainstorming different shapes which either sit on a table or hang on a wall and use wood, metal, and shade. What I really need to do next is a material test. I need different fabrics and I need to experiment on them with things like ink instead of paint and see how each one looks when illuminated. I have no money at the moment so I may have to wait until I can buy some materials to do this. However, this would be a good thing to do while I'm deciding on the shape. I've included some sketches of different shapes and I'm sure there will be more- there's just too many options. Here's a few sketches:


ERICA: I looked for you in the studios 3 times yesterday and couldn't find you- I should've just talked to you right away- i'm a dummy. Anyways I hear you're into fabrics so if you have fabric suggestions for shades let me know. I'm looking for something that will hold paint or ink, has a higher thread count, and has some give to it so it can be stretched over a frame without perfect sewing. Any suggestions of things to try?

Here's my lamp- try #1: The first pic is without any diffusion material which made the painting look horrible :(