Joy: Rendered

Hello again, I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend! It felt to me as if the three day weekend came just in time- I definitely needed that extra day to relax and regroup. This weekend, my friend from NYU came to Boston to visit me, which was great. On Friday before I went to pick her up from the bus station, I had my painting class. I had a homework assignment due for class, which was to paint an 18×24 fruit or vegetable in two different ways: one that you can tell exactly what it is, and one that is a little more abstract. I had an avocado in the fridge that was a little past ripe, so I used that! Then in class, all of us added to and fixed up our paintings according to direction from our professor. Here are my finished avocado paintings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, my friend and I went to the MFA! We explored for a little while because she had never been, and we hung out in the contemporary art section for a bit longer. I especially love the pieces by female and feminist artists! Here are a few of my favorites:

This is Untitled #282, a photograph by Cindy Sherman. Cindy Sherman is one of my favorite artists because she uses photography and herself as a subject to convey messages about women and how they are viewed. Although she is the subject of her photographs, they are not intended to be self-portraits; she is constantly assuming a different female identity and playing off of the assumptions of the viewer. In this particular piece, commissioned for the fashion magazine Harpers Bazarr, Sherman poses as a fictional Medusa character in a high end designer dress, updating the conventions of renaissance painting and portraiture.

 

I absolutely love this piece. It’s titled With You I Breathe by Tracey Emin. Emin often uses phrases written with her own handwriting to portray intimate parts of relationships in neon. This particular phrase, “With You I Breathe” is not only bringing across the touching thought of only breathing when around a certain person, but also the thought of breathing with a person, the same air, at the same time. Emin’s piece reminds us how a work of art may breathe with the viewer, with the space around it, and with our reactions.

This weekend, I took a brief trip to Denver Colorado! My dad works for a cool company specializing in homes and other structures with a very high energy-saving standard, and the annual conference was held in Denver this year. My dad hired me to be the official event photographer for the conference last year when it was in Silver Springs, Maryland and asked me back for this year! I got to Denver around 2 am on Saturday, took pictures all day Saturday, and was back in Boston on Sunday by 5 pm. I used my camera, a Canon Rebel XSI to take some general shots for the company’s website and promotional materials. Here are a few of the pictures from the weekend:

I really enjoy taking photographs. I took a photography class every year of high school, from Photography I, which included dark room practices and manual cameras, to Photography II, which taught me Photoshop and digital photography basics, to Art Concentration, which gave me the freedom to explore new and favorite photographic techniques. I’ve continued to bring my camera everywhere I go even after high school even though I haven’t been able to take a photography class at New England School of Art and Design. I’m thrilled to report, however, that I will be taking Black and White Photography during the Spring 2013 semester if everything goes according to plan! I am in the process of applying to study abroad in the spring in Florence, Italy at Studio Art Centers International (SACI). I absolutely love to travel and have planned on studying abroad as long as I can remember, so I am very excited about the spring. Along with the photography class, I hope to take an Intermediate Painting class, an Advanced Drawing class, and an On-Site Art History class!

Hello again! Since this is only my second blog post and I only briefly went over my classes in my first post, I thought I would write more in depth about my classes.

On Monday and Wednesday mornings, I’m in a class called Drawing: Structure & Expression. This is the class that came after Drawing I and II for me. So far, we’ve worked mostly in large scale drawings of figures during class. Typically, we draw observing a live model either in graphite pencil, conté crayon, or charcoal. Here is an example of one of my class work drawings:

Each week for homework in Drawing: Structure & Expression, our professor has us draw a subject of our choice with a medium of our choice, and it doesn’t matter what we choose as long as the drawing is finished. Here is an example of one of my homework assignments:

On Monday and Wednesday afternoons, I have printmaking class! I’m pretty sure printmaking is going to be my favorite class this semester. The class has a format of different printmaking techniques for us to learn, but other than that, the class is very open. So far, some of the students have made over 4 different kinds of prints, while others have spent more time on one or two techniques. Personally, I’ve tried 3 or 4 different printmaking techniques. The first type of print we made was a linoleum print, which required carving a square of linoleum and rolling ink on it with paper through the printing press to create an image. Here are my sloths that I made using this method:

We had a few projects after that, and I’m working on one now that I’m very excited about! Once I get further along in the process I will post pictures and explanations.

On Tuesday nights, I have Ideas of Western Art I class. This class is a survey Art History class on, obviously, Western Art! It’s been difficult the past few weeks for our class due to a change of professors, but now that we’re all settled in the work is quite interesting! This week I’m working with a group of 3 to present on Greek Classical Art in class on Tuesday.

Last but not least, on Fridays from 10 am to 4:40 pm I have Painting class. I thought that this class was going to be super stressful since it’s all day, but we do have a nice sized lunch break and I actually prefer having a longer class because it allows me to completely finish a painting, as opposed to starting it during one class and finishing it another day. So far, our professor has gone over some basic painting and color mixing skills with us. Here are a few pictures of a painting I did in class as time went on:

Overall, my classes so far this semester are intriguing and challenging. I can’t wait to produce more work this semester, and I’ll be sure to post them as I do!

Hello! My name is Elle, a Fine Arts major and Women & Gender Studies minor at New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University. I’ll be blogging about my experiences, work, and daily life here in Boston. To start off, I’d like to give you an insight to the title and thought process behind my blog. My title, “Joy: Rendered” stems from a favorite quote of mine that relates closely to both my major and minor. The quote is:

“Feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack in an otherwise flawless stone. It is art which is not based on the subjugation of one half of the species. It is art which will take the great human themes-love, death, heroism, suffering, history itself- and render them fully human.It may also, though perhaps our imaginations are so mutilated now that we are incapable even of the ambition, introduce a new theme, one as great as rich as those others-should we call it “joy”?” -Andrea Dworkin

Andrea Dworkin was a feminist and author who was active during the 1960’s and 70’s. She wrote on the sexuality of women as well as how women are objectified in different media outlets.

Feminist art, whether it be fine art, photography, installation or performance, has always been an area of work that has enticed and inspired me. Now, as I begin my journey to becoming a fine artist and feminist, it becomes not only an inspiration but an aspiration. I hope to bring the concepts and feelings from my Women & Gender Studies minor to the creation of meaningful art in my Fine Arts major.

These first couple weeks back at school have been crazy! I’m taking five classes. Three studio classes:  Drawing: Structure and Expression, Painting, and Printmaking Studio, and two academic classes: Ideas of Western Art I and Ethics. I have classes Monday through Friday and my work study job at the NESAD Front Desk Sunday through Thursday. All of that combined with moving into my first apartment this year made for a crazy couple of weeks! I’m starting to feel much more settled in now as I’m getting into a rhythm with my classes and work and starting to feel more at home at my new place in Mission Hill.