Joy: Rendered

Hello again from Florence! This past week has been very busy; I had my first full week of classes and a school trip to the cities of Pisa and Lucca yesterday!

On Mondays and Wednesdays, my first class is High Renaissance Art History, which is the class that I have out of class field trips for. In class this week, our professor gave a few presentations on the life of Leonardo Da Vinci and a few select works of his. Luckily we’re allowed to take our laptops to class and take notes, because I cannot write as fast as she can talk!

After art history on Mondays and Wednesdays, I have a few hours before my next class to relax and have lunch. I’ve been making my lunches and most of my dinners in the apartment to save money for traveling, so my meals have consisted of a lot of different types of delicious homemade sandwiches and pastas. 🙂

After lunch, I have my Intermediate Painting class. On Monday, we got our materials list and project assignment. The first project involves creating both a drawing and painting at the same time of the same subject. Instead of working on one piece and finishing it and then doing the other piece, we have to work on both pieces a little bit at a time in each sitting. Also, the two pieces have to be of the same subject but not the exact same part of that subject. For example, it could be a drawing of a whole building and a painting of one of the windows on the building. I’m planning on using photos that I took of my best friend as reference, and doing my drawing of her face and my painting of her hands. In class on Wednesday, we brought all of our supplies to start work on our project. I printed out my photo references and started sketching!

I have a little under an hour break before my next class, Advanced drawing. I have the same professor for both my painting and drawing class. On Monday in class, we went over his expectations for the semester as well as a small presentation on gesture drawing. After a cappuccino break, our class had some time to do a few gesture drawings of a nude model before the end of class so that our professor could get a feel for how we draw. On Wednesday, we had another nude model to draw from. We started out doing some more gesture drawings and worked on a longer pose for the second half of class.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I just have one class- Color Photography. This is quickly becoming my favorite class. On Tuesday we did a review of the functions of the camera in general, and on Thursday our T.A. explained the basics of some computer settings and software that we’ll be using throughout the semester. For homework, we should have a few pictures for next class for an open project.

On Friday, my High Renaissance class met at the famous Uffizi Gallery to view some Early and High Renaissance Art throughout the museum, including the beautiful Birth of Venus. Afterwards, since two of my apartment mates’ birthdays were this weekend, a big group of us went out for a delicious pasta dinner.

Yesterday, my roommates and I went along with the Early Renaissance class on their field trip to the cities of Pisa and Lucca! The day was long and freezing, and it poured rain all day, but everywhere we went was so beautiful, it was hard to complain. We went to the city center of Pisa, which includes the Pisa Cathedral and Baptistery and of course the Leaning Bell Tower. We had a detailed history of all three and a few people in the group even climbed the tower! After going to the museum behind the Leaning Tower, we had lunch in a nearby pizzeria and headed on our bus to the city of Lucca. Lucca was very small and beautiful, with a 16th century wall around the city with a walkway on top! I would love to go back there once it gets a little warmer outside and take a bike ride around the perimeter of the city. We toured a few cathedrals and museums in Lucca, and our reward for bearing through the chilly rain was a cake tasting at the end of the day!

After my second full week in Italy, I still can’t get over that I’m really here. I’m excited for my classes to really get rolling this week, and I’m so happy about the amount that I’ve been traveling. This coming weekend, I have a three day trip to Paris planned, so when I get back on Sunday, I will have a lot to share!

I’m writing from Florence, Italy, where I’ve just finished my first week studying abroad at Studio Art Centers International. What a crazy week it has been! This post might be a little lengthy so that I can catch my blog up on everything that’s happened so far. Every day has been jam-packed, so I’ll be thorough.

Day 1/2: I flew out from Chicago last Sunday afternoon, arrived in Amsterdam around 7 am the next day, then had a connecting flight to Florence which arrived around noon. The first flight was around 8 hours, and I spent most of it watching movies and reading, so I was super tired the next day of travel! When I got to Florence, I met a bunch of other SACI students near baggage claim and we all got taxis to the Palazzo dei Cartelloni SACI building. There, I picked up my information packet and housing assignment! My apartment is only 5 minutes from the building, so that’s really great. I share a room with one person, and there’s also another double and a single room, as well as a living room, kitchen, and 2 bathrooms. It’s a beautiful and roomy place! After my roommates and I got settled into the apartment, we went to the Palazzo dei Cartelloni SACI building to turn in some forms and then found a snack bar for our first Florentine dinner: paninis!

Day 3: Tuesday was our first day of orientation. We spent the morning filling out forms as a big group and hearing introductory speeches from one of the founders, the dean, and the registrar of SACI. We had a lunch break and a little time to explore, so my roommates and I found a big open market that sells fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and cheeses from all kinds of vendors. We did some shopping there and at another grocery store. After we brought our groceries back to the apartment, we had our first tour of the city. Our tour guide, a SACI teacher’s assistant, brought us around to the Jules Maidoff SACI building, the Piazza del Duomo, where the Florence Cathedral and Baptistery stand, Piazza Republica, a square in the middle of Florence with shops, cafes, and a carousel, Ponte Vecchio, a beautiful old bridge on the Arno river, as well as many interesting spots in between! After our tour, there was a free buffet dinner at SACI so that we could meet other students as well as our professors. On our way home, a couple of my roommates showed us their new favorite spot: the gelateria down the street from our apartment. 🙂

Day 4: Wednesday was our second day of orientation. There were optional meetings during the morning (which meant sleeping in for me!) and a more educational tour of Florence in the afternoon, given by my High Renaissance Art History professor. We toured more Palazzos and Piazzas than I can count, and my professor knows everything about every. single. one. We had headsets to listen to her tour as we walked, and I can tell that I’m going to learn so much from her class. After that tour, a group of us went to a restaurant near the Duomo and I had some of the best gnocchi of my life. We walked around for a bit after that and got some gelato again!

 

Day 5: Thursday was the first day of class! On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I only have one class, while on Mondays and Wednesdays, I have three! I went to the other SACI building, Jules Maidoff, for my color photography class on Thursday morning. The professor is awesome and interesting and there are only about 5 or 6 people in the class, so I’m excited to get started! We spent the class getting to know the professor, the syllabus, and each other, and on Tuesday we’re bringing in our cameras. After photo I was done for the day, so I came back, made myself some pasta, and relaxed. Later on, one of my apartment mates and I did some exploring and found an excellent pizza place. Afterwards, we met some friends at a bar and a dance club!

Day 6: Since I only have classes Monday through Thursday, Friday I relaxed all day. I slept late and hung out around the apartment because it was pretty chilly outside. I also started some travel plans. I knew when I chose to study abroad that I would want to travel as much as possible, since it’s so easy to get around by train and cheap airlines. My art history class takes a lot of field trips around Italy, but I knew I wanted to go outside of Italy as well, so I started planning my trip to Paris! I found a cheap flight for two weekends from now, and I think I’ll be going alone, staying in a hostel and just exploring as much of Paris as I can in a weekend. I can’t wait to try traveling independently! On Friday I did most of my travel research and booking, so that took up the majority of my day. Later on, I did some exploring and shopping for new clothes.

Day 7: Saturday was another relaxation day. I think I’ve been sleeping so much trying to get over my jet lag, which is really tough! I didn’t sleep all day though; I knew I wanted to get out and see the city. My art history professor mentioned that the famous Florence sights get busier as the spring goes on, so that we should go and see them sooner rather than later when all the tourists are here. So, on Saturday afternoon, I set of to find the Accademia Gallery, which houses Michaelangelo’s David. The sculpture was breathtaking in person, and I’m so glad I went when I did! After I got home, my roommates and I went grocery shopping again and made ourselves dinner.

Day 8: Today, Sunday! This morning, two of my roommates and I had to get up at 6 am so that we could catch our 7 am field trip bus. Our first field trip for our high renaissance art history class was today to the town of Vinci and the Medici Villas. The bus left from a nearby plaza and took us to the first Medici Villa, Villa La Petraia. We walked to the gardens of the Villa di Castello before getting on the bus again. The Villas and the gardens were so rich with history and elaborate decorations! Then, we went to Poggio a Caiano, a beautiful villa designed to view the Tuscan countryside. It rained throughout our visit to this villa and its gardens, but we got a hot caffe after our tour to warm up! We then traveled to Carmignano to see the painting “Visitation” in the church of S. Michele before heading to Vinci. The drive to Vinci was long, winding, and hilly, so I was happy to get off the bus when we arrived at the birth place of Leonardo Da Vinci! We visited his birth home as well as Museo Leonardiano, which had reconstructions of some of Da Vinci’s ingenious inventions from throughout his life. After our visit in Vinci, with feet aching, clothes soaked through, and eyes and ears full of art history, we set home for Florence.

Since then, I’ve been relaxing and reflecting on my time so far in Florence. I can’t believe it’s only been a week! I have a busy day tomorrow- High Renaissance Art History, Painting, and Drawing- so it will be a long day, but I’m excited to get going in my classes. I’m also thrilled to have so many travels in my near future; there’s a SACI field trip to Pisa and Luca next weekend and of course my trip to Paris the week after that! I’ll be sure to update my blog as often as possible on my classes as well as my European adventures. 🙂

Hey everyone! This will be my last blog post of the semester and the year. It’s been a crazy semester! I worked a lot, drew a lot, and learned how to paint and print for the first time. I finished all of my finals today once I had my ethics presentation. I had my drawing review on Monday and my painting review on Wednesday. It’s been so interesting to see all of my work together from over the semester. I’ve posted pictures from my three studio reviews here.

My printmaking final, as I mentioned, was a print exchange. I was inspired by a particular section of my ethics class in which I learned about Parmenides, a philosopher who believed that although it seems that nature is in a constant state of change, that our senses are giving us an incorrect picture of the world, and that nothing is really changing at all. I wanted to use these thoughts in some way for my final print, but I wasn’t sure how. I figured it out when I was listening to music and heard the lyrics “If vision is the only validation then most of my life isn’t real.” I thought that the lyric took the thoughts of Parmenides and made them current and relatable. So, I screen printed Parmenides’ words in gold in cursive, then the song lyrics in black on top. Then, I splattered some gold ink on top of all of the prints.

For my final Painting review, I sat down with my professor for an individual review. Those are nice because you get specific feedback for just your work. I hung up all of my paintings from the semester and we looked at them together and discussed what I learned, what I gained from the class, and what I struggled with. It was great to see all of my work from the semester because before this class, I hadn’t ever really painted before.

Since the Fall semester is over and classes have ended, I’m home for winter break now and won’t be posting. I have decided to post while I’m studying abroad in the Spring, however, so expect posts again beginning in mid-January! I’ll be posting updates on my drawing, painting, art history, and photography classes as well as hopefully plenty of travel tales. See you in the spring, ciao!

Fall semester is quickly coming to a close, and there’s still so much to do! I had my Ideas of Western Art final yesterday, which I think went pretty well. I still have to write a research paper for my Ethics final and present it to the class next week. In my other classes, which are studio classes, I have a different set up for finals.

In Drawing class, we are doing portfolios in the same way that I described earlier in the semester: we bring in all of our work that we’ve done since the last review and talk it over with our classmates and professor. In Painting class, our professor is just collecting all of our work from the whole semester and then giving us a total grade on it. If we would like to, we can schedule an individual meeting with her to discuss our work. I am most excited for my Printmaking final! It’s really not a final at all, it’s called a print exchange. Each of the students in my class creates a final print using whatever printmaking technique they would like with an image that has significance to him or her. Then, each of us has to create 14 prints, one for each of the people in the class. That way, everyone ends up with a print from each person. I’m very excited to finish mine (of course I’ll post it) and to see what everyone else decides to print!

In this post, I’m posting a few drawings from Drawing these past few weeks. We’ve been working a lot with pastels; as I mentioned before, we worked on that mixed media self portrait for a few classes. The past 4 classes, we’ve been working on a new type of drawing. It’s still in pastel, and we drew from a model, but the structure was very loose. Our professor asked us to draw the model’s body parts as well as bones of a model skeleton all over our big drawing paper, periodically turning our whole canvas so that the body parts were turned all directions. The body parts were meant to look fragmented, scattered, and almost unidentifiable. We worked on the body parts in bright colors to bring some of them forward and then put a blue background down. I’ve posted my finished body part drawing here!

In other news, I’ve finally finished my study abroad application process. After 5 application processes, countless stamps, and many trips to the Visa Office, I’m accepted and registered to study at SACI in Florence, Italy for the Spring 2013 semester! The classes I’m taking are: Intermediate Painting, Advanced Drawing, High Renaissance Art History, and Color Photography. I’m so excited to take these classes and I cannot wait to travel around Europe every weekend!

 

Hello! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving break. I took a week off from posting for the holiday, so I have a lot to catch up on! Last week, my mom flew into Boston on Tuesday from my hometown of Chicago. We spent a couple of days hanging out (and shopping!), then on Thanksgiving day we rented a car and drove to see family in New Hampshire. We ate ourselves into a stupor and spent the night there. Then, on Friday morning, we drove to Vermont, where my cousin has an awesome off-the-grid house on a mountain, complete with beautiful scenery, a garden, and chickens! We drove back to Boston, had some awesome Oaxacan food in East Boston, and I said goodbye to my mom on Saturday morning. The rest of the weekend, I did some apartment organizing and logged a lot of Netflix time.

The school week has been in full force- I’ve been finishing up my study abroad preparations and applying for a student visa, plus my classes are picking up pace as they come to a close. There are less than three weeks left in the semester, so it is definitely crunch time! December 7th is the last day of classes. Portfolio week, this year from December 9-14, is an extra week for NESAD students in which some professors schedule finals and single or group Portfolio reviews. Here is my To-Do list to finish by December 7th!

Drawing:
Do 1 or 2 more homework assignments of your choice (should have 4 or 5 in total)
Separate all drawings from 1st and 2nd halves of semester
Assemble 2nd half of semester drawing portfolio for review

Printmaking:
Decide on an image to print for Print Exchange (final project)
Develop a plan and create prints

Ethics:
Aristotle/Plato Homework Assignment
Final Project: 3 parts (biography, analysis, oral presentation)

Ideas of Western Art I:
Define vocabulary terms
Study for the final exam! (Dec. 4th)

Painting:
Finish self portrait painting
Assemble entire semester portfolio

It feels like I won’t have enough time to do all of this, but all of the tasks seem much more manageable to me if I can see them all written down. An added stressor, however, is my computer situation. You may have noticed a lack of photos from this week’s post: I’m sad to report that my MacBook Pro-which I’ve had for a little over a year- has crashed and is in the Apple hospital. There’s a chance I’ll lose all of my files, because it seems to be a hard drive issue and I never backed up my computer. If you don’t already, please take my advice: if you care about your files, back up your computer, especially if you have a lot of irreplaceable things. I have (or had) over 3,000 photos, and I am learning that lesson the hard way. Hopefully I can resolve the issue though, wish me luck!

Hi all! We had this past Monday off from classes for Veterans day. I spent the whole three day weekend getting over a nasty cold with tea, Netflix, and lots of sleep! I’ve been hard at work these past few weeks on a couple of different projects. In drawing, we’ve been continuing our homework assignments every week, and we’ve each started to develop sort of themes for our homework. Lately, I’ve been using charcoal to draw close up parts of the face with different piercings, such as the ear, the nose and the tongue, concentrating on the lights and darks of the face and skin. In class, we’ve been working on a totally new medium and subject from our usual graphite or charcoal drawings of nude models. First, we covered a very large sheet with assorted tones of paper, such as black, brown, and newsprint, in large areas. Then, using a mirror, we sketched our own faces onto the large paper with pastel and put in line and shadow with ink. We’ve had two classes to do this sketch and work up the skin and facial features with different colors of pastel, and this is what I have so far. We have one more class to finish it up so I’ll be sure to post the finished product as well! I’m a big fan of mixed media projects in drawing and on my own time I love to collage. I’ve been so busy this year that I haven’t done much of it, but I hope to get back into personal collaging soon.

The subject of mixed media also relates to my next painting class project. The assignment is another self portrait in either acrylic or oil paint. We have to include ourselves and things about us or that describe us in the painting. For my objects that surround me, I’ve picked out some of my favorite foods to paint. The medium, besides paint, is pretty open, so I may collage the self portrait first with photographs and then I’ll paint right over the pictures.

 

Being a woman, an LGBT advocate and a college student, I am thrilled about the results of the election. A record 18 woman senators were elected, the first openly lesbian senator, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, was elected, and same-sex marriage was legalized in Maine, Maryland, and Washington. Most of all, I am elated to have Barack Obama as our president for another term. Obama has been a great advocate for women during his presidency so far and during his campaign: the first bill he signed coming into office was the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Fair Pay Act, and with Obamacare being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition. Women’s health has been a huge talking point during this year’s presidential campaign. Romney has stated that he would cut funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides healthcare to thousands of people all over the country, would let employers and politicians limit women’s access to common birth control, and would let health insurance companies charge women more than men for the same coverage. Obama believes that women should be in charge of their bodies and their healthcare decisions, and so do I! That is why I chose to wear this shirt to the polls and all day on Election Day. The bottom of the shirt is in reference to Romney and Ryan using their religious views to justify their treatment of women and women’s healthcare. The first line is a quote from a PSA made by women about the presidential campaign and featuring the Leslie Gore song, “You Don’t Own Me”, seen here:

You Don’t Own Me PSA

I owe a big thank you to my friend Amelia, a fellow Fine Arts Major here at NESAD. She made these shirts in printmaking class and worked hard to get them ready in time for election day! First, she designed the image. She drew the rosary beads (which, if you haven’t noticed, are in the shape of ovaries!) and the text and used pictures of Romney and Ryan for the heads. Then, she printed the image onto a screen-printing screen using emulsion and UV light. The emulsion takes up the space on the screen that is not the image so that ink doesn’t go through, and the UV light burns the image onto the screen. Then, Amelia pressed ink through the screen several different times on paper and a few shirts, one of which I was lucky enough to wear on Election Day!

 

What a hectic week! I’m sure everyone has heard about Hurricane Sandy hitting the east coast this week, and although we didn’t get a lot of the flooding in Boston, we had some pretty serious wind and rain on Sunday and Monday. Suffolk and NESAD classes were cancelled all day Monday and started up again Tuesday. That combined with midterms this week and last week have made for a pretty crazy time. Besides my drawing critique, I’ve had a written midterm for Ethics and for Ideas of Western Art. The ethics midterm involved describing and analyzing different ethical theorists and theories. It would’ve been a lot to study, but my ethics professor decided that the test should be open book! I got to use my text book and my notes from class while I took the test, which took a serious load off of my stress. I didn’t have the same luck with my Ideas of Western Art midterm; I had a lot to study and definitely no open book. The exam included some multiple choice questions and short answer questions. Mostly though, the test consisted of identifying and describing pieces of art. This was the tough section: we had to memorize – for each piece of art – the title, the material it was made of, the date it was created, the time period it was created, and the historical, symbolic, and functional significance behind it. The professor only put six images on the test but those were selected from a group of about thirty from the semester so far. Needless to say, the majority of my weekend and my hurricane-day-off were spent studying notecards diligently!

Outside of studying, I did manage to have a little bit of fun this weekend! Since Halloween is so close, my friends and I wore costumes on Saturday night for a party. In true art student form, my friend and I dressed up as the painting “American Gothic” by Grant Wood. I was the tall old guy- let’s just say I can really pull off a bald cap. My friend wore a blonde wig and an old dress, and I silver spray-painted some Harry Potter glasses and made my own pitchfork.We wore our costumes to NESAD on the actual day of Halloween, and there were plenty of other great costumes from my peers and professors. I hope that everyone has a safe and happy Halloween!

Winter is coming in Boston, and the windy weather is upon us! However, I did sort of the opposite of bundling up this week, I cut off almost all of my hair! It was almost down to my shoulders, which is the longest it’s been for a while, and I needed a change. I try not to be a slave to my hair; I feel like a lot of women let their hair define them and grow it long because that’s what feminine “should” look like (I also am super lazy, and this haircut requires almost no maintenance). Just because long women on TV have super long locks does NOT mean that you have to, ladies! Your hair doesn’t have to define you, but it can be a form of self-epression, much like art. For me, having short hair is expressing my thought that being a woman does not mean listening when people say women should have long hair. I can’t wait to express this thought with other mediums!

The rest of my week was dedicated to getting my portfolio together for midterm critiques. Halfway through the semester, most classes here at New England School of Art and Design have a sort of check-in with each student to see how their work is progressing and looking as a whole. In my drawing class, this is in the form of a critique. If you’ve never experienced a critique, it is basically talking about your own artwork, getting advice from your classmates and professor  about your artwork, and in the case of our class, discussing how we’re going to move forward with our work for the remainder of the semester. For each student, they put all of their work up from the semester on the walls and we spend about 20 minutes on each person. This took up two classes. I’ve put some photographs I took of my drawing critique to show what my body of work from this semester looks like. The first photo is of my drawings from class time: we worked our way through gesture drawings, line drawings, work with ink and conté crayon, and charcoal. The second photo is of my drawing done out of class for homework. As I’ve mentioned before, homework for this drawing class is done on a slightly smaller drawing pad with whatever subject and medium we want, as long as the drawing we bring in is finished. I tried to do homework in a few different mediums to develop my skills in each and to see what I like best. This includes ink and pen, charcoal, pencil, and colored pencil.

 

This week, I’d like to do things a little differently with my post. One of my classmates and fellow fine arts major, James, has been hard at work on a very cool project for the past few weeks. I thought I would give you all some insight to what another fine arts major is working on, plus his project relates directly to the Women & Gender Studies side of my blog. For the project, James transferred an image that he designed on a linoleum panel, cut away the parts of the linoleum that weren’t the image. Being in his class, I followed James’ progress with cutting away the pieces of linoleum and I can only imagine the work that went into it. I believe he mentioned spending around 12 hours total on the cutting alone! After all of that, he rolled ink onto the linoleum, put canvas on top of it, and rolled it through the press. This is the result:

James has written an artist statement on his work:

Society has taught us from day one take what you want by any means necessary. It teaches us that the exploitation of others is just a way of life. This can be see all over but most gruesomely is the way we are taught to treat women. Advertising has turned them into objects who’s function is purely the action of sex. They have become walking eye candy for men and nothing more. Women who do not fit a specific body type or image are rejected as even being women. Politicians are dehumanizing them further by attempting to strip away their rights for regulating their own bodies. This is rape culture. A disease spreading world wide that humiliates and degrades every single woman on the face of the earth. With such disturbing mentality bred in a society unwilling to question the mush they are being spoon fed, it is no wonder that most women will be sexually assaulted or even raped in their life times. Not only do these women have to deal with the most fundamental and horrifying violation of their rights, but they are also being blamed for being the victims of rape. Let me say that again. Society blames the victims, not the perpetrator of a rape…

My summer in Philly was filled with meeting traveling homeless punks, also known as crusties. They hopped train to train up and down the east coast fully enjoying life. Some of these travelers were the happiest people I will probably ever meet. But without fail, every single female that I met had a story about rape. Now the average woman has it hard if they are raped, but a homeless woman has even fewer resources to call on. This is simply outrageous. Every woman, no matter what her economic situation, deserves support and aid when they have been the victim of rape.

So with this patch I attempted to do a lot of things. First is the popular image of the slingshot revolutionary used by Avskum, a swedish crust band. Instead of having my figure shielded by a bandanna I revealed the face since no one should feel ashamed to share their story or support this cause. Fear of identification only perpetuates what society has created. I also changed the figure to a woman to more directly relate to the subject matter. Though men are raped, the majority of victims are female. The stories I heard from the crust punks affected me deeply which is why I roughed up the canvases rubbing them in dirt and staining them with various liquids to replicate how most of their clothing looked like and how they themselves felt. As a patch this piece becomes an easily transported billboard to spread the word. I honestly couldn’t care less if people are interested in buying a patch for themselves, my goal is to bring this problem to the world and force it into their faces. This is something that needs to be talked about and not hidden in the dark.

Being in class with James, I had the privilege of following along with most of his printmaking process, watching the productions of his patches, and hearing the drive behind the work first hand. I love the idea of creating art that is not only meant to send a message, but that is meant to be shared and spread so that the message is as well. On top of that idea, the message itself is a topic that I feel strongly about: women everywhere are victims of rape, and nothing will change unless people everywhere fight against rape culture. I believe that art should not be simply aesthetically pleasing and should not just be for display. I am proud to have bought one of James’ patches!

If you’re interesting in buying a patch or have any inquiries about it, email James at levandedoda@gmail.com