As for a basic overview of the classes I'm in so that this all makes sense, here we go:
-Visual Practices Studio: First 6 weeks of the semester spent in a sculpture studio for 4 hours a week, and a jewelry studio 4 hours a week. Second 6 weeks of the semester spent in a painting studio for 4 hours a week, and a glass studio 4 hours a week. Plus a lot of outside the studio work!
-Photography: 4 hours a week in the photography studio. Plus the time spent taking the images for the projects outside of studio time.
-Communications and Creativity: I had to take one "art theory" course to get certain credits back home at Carleton. Pretty interesting class actually, 2 hours of lecture a week looking at the concept of creativity.
Having just gotten past the 6 week mark, that meant having to finish final projects in sculpture and jewelry, a large photography project and an essay in the communications class. SO much to do! But got it all done and quite please with how they came out.
Sculpture was a huge challenge for me! I'm used to working in 2-dimensional mediums like painting and drawing, so thinking in 3-dimensions was a massive creative jump for me. But I really liked having to think outside the box and expanding my limits as an artist, it was a great experience. The studio itself was an awesome place to work, every kind of sculpture tool imaginable (from welding to woodworking to a bronze casting kiln), all put in a massive studio with a solid wall of windows overlooking the racecourse and ocean in clear view.
This is only a tiny part of the studio!
Needless to say it was an inspiring place to work. I started off with the idea of metal, and different types of it and how they interact with each other and took that into my final work. It was a series of sculptures with the theme of expansion, and left up to our own personal take on that theme from there. The works I came up with were abstract to say the least, but I'm pretty impressed that I managed to create some 3-dimensional works! Here's 3 of them, turns out the picture I had of the 4th one tuned out blurry unfortunately.
First work that inspired the rest. For my gliding friends out there the idea behind it was a thermal :)
Complete fluke that ended up changing drastically from what it was meant to be, and actually turned out pretty cool!
This one was actually done out of card stock, and then spray painted in silver.
Jewelry on the other hand was a bit more of an adventure. Let's just say the teacher was a little bit...different...and none of us were really clear on what we were meant to do. It was supposed to be about the "process" and not the "end goal", so the stuff that people came up with was definitely creative! Technically what I produced was a neck piece, however nothing made in the class is exactly wearable. Think less jewelry, and more small sculptures that interact with the body somehow.
Final piece sitting on my artist visual journal, the chain lying next to it was made by hand and that's what goes around the neck of a person.
Photography has been a fantastic challenge, and I've learned more in that class about cameras and photoshop in 6 weeks than I've ever been able to teach myself. Having to always shoot in manual mode really hones in your skills on actually creating art with your camera, a challenge that I have readily accepted. We have also learned a fair bit about photoshop and how to non-destructively edit images; it's absolutely amazing how the smallest things can make a photo looks 100 times better! The project that I submitted was 3 different components, each consisting of 5 images. The first theme was people and places, my take on it was Melbourne through the eyes of a tourist. The second theme was the human condition, my take on it was how women use makeup as a mask on themselves. The third theme was the object, my take on it was how everyday objects interact with our own skin and bodies. For fear of loosing control of my images (which I am quite proud of) I won't upload them here. I will try and get an overview shot of the folio however at a later date!
And that sums up my art classes as of now! I'll do another one of these at the end of the semester to show the work I've done in the new studios :) Absolutely love that I get to make art in class and get university credit for it, I still can't believe this is real life sometimes.
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