Artist Statement

I do not consider myself an artist. I don’t really create art for art’s sake. When I create something, it is for the purpose of creating. Sometimes it has no purpose but in aesthetics, but more often than not, my creations are meant for more practical purposes. I love the art of practicality. Being able to make objects that serve a distinct purpose is both a science an art in itself, and usually that object has a beauty of its own.

I love things that move. I am entranced by things that can create motion by itself or seem to make motion on their own. Marionettes are one of these things, and I like to incorporate marionettes or marionette-like structures in my work when I can. Really, I like to work with anything that uses strings to move parts.

The mechanics of the body fascinate me. The physical body is a practical structure that uses a series of elastic strings to move. Emulating that structure is the goal of my work. I have already studied and mastered the visual aesthetics and structure of the body; now my & aim is to construct a working replica that can be manipulated with strings.

Killer Bear Progress

So, being Easter weekend, I didn't really get much done outside of class. I currently have the stomach and half of the back cut out. This week I should be finishing all of the cutting and sewing and I should be in the process of stuffing the bear by Sunday at the latest.  I've still been collecting newspapers and I now have a 2 1/2 foot stack of papers sitting in my living room. Hopefully that will be enough to fill the bear to the point where it will stand freely.

Since I am going to be performing in this piece, I'm going to need someone to record it for me. I have a camera, but I can't really take pictures while I'm face-down on the floor.

Christina Dietz

Artist Statement

I place meaning in my work through the juxtaposition of something normal and something unexpected. I like to use unlikely pairings to create a response in the viewer and often pair the beautiful with something grotesque or shocking. Wood and metal inside an orange peel, a meat face at a beautiful dining table, and a casual personal funeral all contain an element of shock and humor. These surprising couplings catch the viewer off guard and force them to reconsider appropriate contexts of objects. With my meat face dinner, the cannibalistic meal served so nonchalantly referenced injustices overlooked in society. I wanted the viewer to wonder why no one was questioning this out of the ordinary dinner. Often my work contains an element of beauty but a closer look reveals a darker side. The birdlike tar paper dress when approached shows rough, expressive stitching. The normal funeral scenario for my final project is challenged when the viewer realizes I will be playing all of the parts performing the ceremony. In my pieces, I address feelings of vulnerability and being out of control. I use my own anxiety and personal experiences to fuel my work but the meaning portrayed often changes as it comes into fruition. I find it interesting to expose feelings we prefer not to show the world. With the popularity of social sites like face book and twitter, the image one puts out to the world is controlled and refined. This image is a false projection of the individual. In reality and behind closed doors, individuals struggle and face their imperfection. We put our best self on display but the dark complexity that we try to hide is what really fascinates me.

Lia Artist statement

People always ask  about the kind of art I do, and I have no good replies. Over my last 2 semesters at Penn State, I feel my art work developing as I experiment with different mediums, materials, processes and also presentations. From static sculptures to installations to performance I enjoy pushing the boundaries as I explore myself in these realms. In my recent work I realise a common thread of self portrayal in my work where I have used thoughts and beliefs as grounds and inspiration for my creation. I want to continue to pursue this area of introspection and express my innermost ideas and thought processes through my artwork.

Most of my artwork involve some processess of systems, I believe that nothing is final and as artist we can never actually finish a work because even as each individual views it the work is incomplete as the last step to completion is the viewer's reaction may it be emotional or physical. I enjoy installations too as I like manipulating all the senses to experience exactly what I intend it to be. In my Lost piece, the viewers could walk into an actual space of what the mind is like when its in turmoil.

A lot of my artwork is still about me experimenting, just like in drawing and painting how I enjoy experimenting with different medias, in my sculptural parts I like to experiment with different mediums and processes that would enhance my pieces.

I hope that as time goes on I will not only become sure of the kind of art I do, but to make it so distinct that everyone would know the kind of  art I do- a kind that allows others to see what I see, feel what I feel and react differently. 

doughnuts!

Artist Statement Bari Blanga

I see good ideas, irrelevant ideas, failure and accomplishment in my work, but above all I see the recreation of what I want to portray and how each and every one of my ideas comes together in my final piece. What I like about my work is that when I begin a piece I am most of the time unsure of the meaning but as I continue to progress and work on it I find that definite meaning instantaneously.

Nostalgia is a reoccurring theme that tends to come up over and over again throughout my work. I enjoy exposing this theme because I am the type of person that is able to look back on past memories and recreate them in my artwork.

Techniques that work best for me are scale and color. As a child all my toys seemed very large- but I guess that was due to the fact that I was physically smaller. I upscale all of my art to make myself and my viewers feel like a kid again. The overwhelming emotion that a toy has over a person is to me- the best feeling.

Although black and white are colors used to represent the past, I believe that bright, vibrant colors reflect my past. Color definitely adds a lot to my pieces. I used vibrant colors such as red, yellow, green and blue to bring life and make my work come to life.

Food is something that I like to incorporate in my work as well. Whether it is photography or sculpture I believe that food is absolutely a great way to bring people together and celebrate life. I love capturing the realness and tasting it in my artwork.

All in all, my art focuses on the past as well as bringing people together in the future.

My previous post wasn't letting my add the pictures, so here they are

Progress

This weekend, I started thinking more about color and lighting for my cave.  I got several cans of spray paint, which I will use on the interior of the structure (pictured below).  I got three small flashlights that I will insert in the interior of the cave to emphasize the color and make the viewer want to enter the miniature cave.  They easily turn on by twisting the top, so I will embed the entire thing except for the top so that it is hidden as well as possible within the walls of the interior.  And of course, I got plenty of more great stuff foam!

Art as a Language of It's Own

Artist Statement

Kayla Tompkins

Something that I am particularly interested in is how different mediums are able to coexist with each other.  I have a mainly two-dimensional mind and have primarily focused on creating an illusion of a space throughout most of my art.  More recently, I have come to the realization that my art does not just have to stay within the confines of a conventional rectangular canvas.  Sculpture allows me to create the space and not just paint it. 

I rarely create something that is representational of an object normally found in reality.  I would be bored if I was only creating objects that already exist simply because they already exist and do not need to be replicated.  If I do replicate something that already exists I typically saturate the color to an extreme or mutilate that object or figure in some way.  In my paintings, I believe that it is important to represent humanity as it truly is instead of the outside shell that is shown in real life.  This is where I incorporate the role of fantasy.  

I believe that every artist creates a world in his or her head out of life experiences and creates visual representations to portray that world to others. Using exaggerated color and abstract manipulations, I am able to create my world.  Most of it comes from my subconscious and becomes a language of its own.  My process typically consists of experimentation that eventually produces a final piece at the end.  Throughout the making of a piece I go into a sort of meditative state in which I reflect and analyze why I manipulate the material the way I do. 

An important part of my process is to fall in love with the material.  It is essential that I feel as though a material can take control of me, rather than being completely malleable.  If I know that I have full control over a material, it becomes too meticulous and the boredom shows in the work.  It is important to always feel some level of discomfort with a material so that I am challenged and forced to problem solve throughout the process.  This is why my true love is paint.  It only allows me to manipulate it to a point and then it takes on a life of its own.  Its color is also something that takes a lot of problem solving.  Some of my best work has been the most challenging to create.

I also think that it is essential to think about how I want the audience to feel when interpreting a piece.  It is important that I entice the audience to become interested in the piece initially.  I usually accomplish this by using exaggerated colors, or making the audience physically have to move in a way that allows them to view the work more fully.  I always have to keep in mind that I can never fully manipulate the viewers to feel the way I want them to when looking at my work; I can only suggest how they should interpret it.  The work is never finished without the interpretation of the viewer. 

Most importantly, I create art as my own language.  It cannot be translated with the perfect set of words.  My work is the way I speak to the world when words are not enough.  Without some of that ambiguity, it would lose all of the magic that art is able to make a person feel.  Above all, I make art purely out of the love of making art.

Bud Hunting

 A Goodwill run has never been better. I found this gem right away for under 10 bucks, and with the student discount, this baby was only 9 dollars.

 Looking for cigarettes has been tricky...but now that i've been on the hunt, I feel like the walkway up to Pattee from the back entrance can have hundreds of buds littered at a time. Bracing some funny looks from students and faculty on campus, my stock is building. Hopefully I can relieve the sculpture studio from the smell of cigarettes soon.

This is one of many boxes I have picked up :) hoping to have enough to make a quilt or a pillow cover from the boxes.

Building a fo mattress out of some 2x4's, cardboard, and foam, an easier and cheaper alternative to purchasing an actual mattress. 

Tomorrow I will attach the layer of foam and begin to cover with the buds. I also purchased a sheet set that I plan on incorporating in the design. 

All in all, my piece is starting to come together!

Artist Statement

Kaye Saxe

4/21/2014

                                                                      Statement

As an artist, I feel like often I can’t always see the same connections that appear obvious to viewers. When someone works so closely to a project, sometimes it becomes a mind over matter—meaning that you see what you want to see and possible connections can be overlooked. So with the task to find connections within my work, I hope to raise connections that I have noticed and connections that have caught me by surprise.

I know what I like and have interest in, and ultimately this semester that has been exploring furniture. This connection takes root in my love of interior design and home improvement. From the start of this semester it was not my intention to make the design of each piece so strongly rooted in furniture; but as the semester progressed, furniture and design became a essential ingredient in my work. I am discovering that my work plays off the idea of domesticity as well. But I also noticed that my work doesn’t necessarily take a stand on feminism or anti domesticity, but a connection to creating a space or making the notion of my work being in a space (in a way that being in a space is important to the piece itself.) In my third piece, I created a 17^th century style lounge chair and wig with a quote. Although it was a very feminine piece, creating a space was a very component. I needed to make sure that the pieces fit together and I knew that to make the piece effective the pieces had to create a space. For my second piece, I made a chair from metal and wood. Although it was only a chair, I created a space through the chair itself. My chair created a space because of how the chair emoted a sense of belonging to someone. My chair had many elements of nostalgia in its craftsmanship: with it’s tiny belt buckle of a horse and buggy on the foot rest and the warm colors of the seat and belt buckles I used. The piece not only created a space in the gallery, it created a sense of space because it felt worn and used.

My first project guidelines were to draw out of a hat a topic and a material; luck of the draw, I picked consumerism and bows. A quick Google search definition of consumerism, “the theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable.” Another definition, “protecting consumers against defective products, misleading advertising, etc.” so while consumerism can be a form of protection, it is also a beacon of greed. While bows can be a symbol of beauty and femininity, as well as  masculinity. So with all of that information, I was drawn to make a pillow because of it’s ties towards consumerism in itself because it is a product, but also because it can symbolize protection and people’s inner emotions all wrapped up in a product meant to sell.  My tattered pillow showed the emotion of someone scrunching up and screaming into their pillow, which symbolized the consumerism people fall into that goes much more than simply buying stuff; the idea of buying into doubt, fears, entitlement, etc. Which I felt also connected to my most recent work (the lounge, wig, and quote,) where I was also making a commentary on life and this suffocating ignorance. The pillow piece was about release, while my wig piece was about containing. I noticed that between these two pieces,  they both showed the effects release and holding it in can do. While the wig seemed to show no strain at all, that perfection to me, is imperfection in itself. This semester my work explored emotion in inanimate objects My final sculpture for the semester will be a bed made out of cigarettes; which is a personal piece to me as it relates to my sister. Which also connects to my overall theme of domesticity and how furniture can reflect the quality or condition of the home and the people who reside there.

I am drawn to the materials wood and metal, found materials, and combining the colors gold, bronze, and silver. In each piece from this semester, I have elements of all of those things; exposed through small detailing of gold and silver on the shells in my wig to the random collection of objects mixed and matched in my chair piece. What I like about art is how it can be made out from anything. My resolve is to show how art can be made out from inexpensive materials. This also connects to my love of home improvement and do it yourself projects that I always watch on HGTV; people will find in my work a lot of materials that I picked up for little to nothing. As a student, being on a budget is not surprising, but my work isn’t about being cheap; my work shows innovation within everyday objects.  My second work this semester was the chair made from found objects. Connections made from meaning is trickier to do since I was really inspired by form, especially the form of the human spine, so there isn’t a story connection like the other pieces. However it connects with the others other than being a piece of furniture. I see in each of my pieces a emphasis on detail—from head to toe, so to speak. I see how in each piece of work I like to play around with lots of material in a way that looks  minimal because the finish is tight. There are connections between the finish in each and how I play around with lots of material. Found or store-bought, I seem to make them look cohesive and like I spent money on everything (even if many were found objects!)For my final project I utilized found objects again with used cigarette buds and boxes, cardboard, scrap 2X4, and a metal bed frame from Goodwill for 9 bucks. Art on a budget doesn’t mean that the work is cheap, to me, it shows creativity and ingenuity that is shown in each of my sculpture pieces from this semester.

Creating a Scene

Much of dentistry is performed in a boring office space, usually accompanied by rooms with no windows and a dull choice of color for wall-paint. In most cases however, dental offices will compensate and try to balance that simple atmosphere with either enticing portraits or visually-appealing landscape photos hung peculiarly at eye-level to the patient. Dentists and their associates alike, want their patients to feel at ease, welcomed, and to know that they are in a safe and pleasant environment.

I want to take this concept a step further and appeal to the more the kid-friendly side of dentistry known as pedodontics or pediatric dentistry and create a fun, cheerful, and upbeat environment. When the audience observes my finished project, I want them to feel delighted and joyful. I want them to get a sense of compassion coming from the dentist himself and know that candy in general isn't the taboo of dentistry or anything along the lines of that idea.

For this project, I bought two 2 pound bags of Sour Patch Kids and a lot of floss. I'm also using one of my classmate's leftover pipes as a foundation to hang the floss to and project my floss of candy through. I think that the material I'm using is closely associated to the idea that I'm trying to portray for several reasons: it utilizes many colors that one would identify as child-friendly, it reinforces the usage of proper dental care - something most of us skip out on such as flossing, all the while it is also propagandizing a different perspective of dentistry.

I think that for this project to be executed well, I need to carefully select the material and be able to set a scenery that people can relate to by tapping into their past and bringing back a bit of nostalgia from their own childhood. Going back to the materials being used, I think that each component is necessary to connect the message across because while the concept is pretty obvious, it'll take a little bit of thinking to bridge the connection - which is what I want this piece to induce. Essentially, I want to viewer to think about dentistry, why they may or may not have have, and form a new ideology of dentistry by using my installation as the link between the old and new conception of dentistry.

Floss as the foundation

Sour Patch Kids to promote the kid-friendly atmosphere

Pipes to anchor the floss to and manipulate the setting

This project will be my attempt at a string installation. I want to capture a very delightful scenery but also promote dentistry as my inspiration for this project. Currently, I have bought all my materials needed for the project and plan to start working tomorrow. I'm going to floss together a lot of Sour Patch Kids while still deciding on how I want the strings of floss to be placed in the gallery considering how much space I've allotted.

I want to be careful and use up as much space as I need because if I make the installation to small, it'll look confined, just like a dentist office - the opposite of what I originally planned for.

One Man Funeral

This is the bottom part of the coffin. I am thinking about painting it a dark chocolate brown.
I also need to line it with foam and fabric.I have white fabric that I think will be the most appropriate. 

I am finishing up the lid and will soon attach it. The lid has two parts so it will be partially open.

I started to experiment with the video of me playing the violin. I think I've decided to change my hair in the video and I need to work on what facial expressions are appropriate for a funeral. I still need to video the "clergy" person reading the service and the "mourner".

Chelsea Jones Sample Artist Statement

While I understand that one day my skin will sag while my hair grays; I also believe that the desire to remain young is not tied to one’s physical state.  Through making, I investigate the nostalgia of youth, childhood and an imagined idealism. As I long to be simultaneously in two states of my life at the same time: young and old; sentimental memories start a process where selective remembrance meets purposeful fragmentation. Larger structures are made from uncanny materials, knowing that their structural and referential bond may not always be seamless or sound.

To channel certain parts of my youth, I pull from store bought, commercially made holiday trinkets, found material, and personal memorabilia. Vibrant pinks, airbrushed gold and candy apple reds are taken from specific commercial products to reference adolescence and celebration. While these materials and color choices allow me to blend factual and fantasized memories from my own life, their commercial reference provides accessibility to others who are outside of my personal narrative.

When working with materials that are familiar to the viewer, I push their connections in surprising ways. Mold-making techniques help this, as its free associative process to joining and casting allows for endless mixtures. A section of a reference can be made repeatedly or one small moment can be isolated to use in a new way. This unpredictable method to casting has allowed me to be willing to take risks as an artist, as I do not define a fractured cast as a “break”. Although a fractured part may not always get me from point A to point B as I necessarily planned, it provides a new destination that I was unaware of in the first place.

Isolating these unexpected moments and skinning them within a new context is what I identify with most. This uncertainty of parts can be displayed in a way that is ephemeral, never to be the same from viewing to viewing.  I find bridges between the fleeting memories of my life and the transitory states of my pieces, as they too will never be the same over time.  While I am interested in the reality of what growing older entails, the fluidity of this process allows me to own a child-like curiosity that is at once: nostalgic and undiscovered.

http://www.chelseajonesart.com/#!artist-statement-/c1sw2

Artist Statement

While I (and many others) wish that the humans of this world could move collectively in harmony, that is not and will never be the case. We are all different, living different lives, having different experiences, and enjoying different perspectives. I believe that art is one of the few ways that can accurately portray a different perspective in a different body. As an artist, I attempt to portray feelings through the use of color and body.  Having dealt with anxiety while also having a strong interest in psychology my art always deviates towards a darker approach.

           

The goal of my art is to unveil the stereotypes that go along with mental disabilities, I wish for the viewer to step out of their comfort zone and experience a different perspective. I think empathy is an incredibly important tool when it comes to interacting with and understanding others.

For those who deal with anxiety and depression, I want to identify with them and possibly isolate, and capture the feelings of those disorders. While in the midst of an anxiety attack, if you can capture the essence of it, and portray it in front of the world, it loses its power to hurt you. By showing this to my viewers, I believe I can help them gain insight and understanding of a world that they may not be so comfortable with.

 Overall I want my art to pull people out of their comfort zone and make them feel something. I want them to stop and smell the dying roses and be happy that they did. My art is about self-reflection and the old and new emotions that come with.

Balloons + Floss + Amusement Park

I have all my materials needed for this project. I think I need to find some sort of adhesive and apply it to my floss and them capture the shape that I want to create with my balloon. I'm thinking about expanding the idea of a playground onto an amusement park too because I think it's much more whimsical and playful. I think that the structures will be much smaller now than the original playground idea to compensate for the huge amount of area that I'm covering (all the rides and stands of an amusement park).

Adhesive of some sort, (it can be glue or even sugar and water) to the string or floss in my case

The first application

After encasing the shape, popping the balloon will commence