class blog – Page 5 – we respond together

Thinking about emergence

September 12, 2020

After the lecture about Gestalt principles, I was thinking about emergence and this one study (I can’t seem to find it again 🙁 I looked for it though) where participants were shown different images as their gaze was tracked which found that people tended to look at things that resembled faces. Even in an image of spaghetti that I didn’t even consciously recognize looked like a face, people’s eyes lingered on the meatball “eyes” and curve of the “mouth” because they resembled facial features. I realized I definitely take advantage of emergence (especially how strongly we gravitate towards face-like objects) a LOT.

A few weeks ago I made a cute animation in charcoal of my friend spinning around, but I can’t draw faces for the life of me, so I just sort of made little dark smudges for eyes (they aren’t even in the right place in some frames haha) and called it a day because it wasn’t a serious project, and I wasn’t that invested. But I was pleasantly surprised that it actually turned out just fine! Because it’s moving and you only get a brief glimpse of the face you kind of automatically fill in the details and don’t even notice that the face is a demonic blur unless you stop the animation and deliberately stare at a single frame. yay for emergence haha 🙂 I attached the gif and you’ll see what I mean.

Similarly, earlier in quarantine, I was bored so I did a funky little art project where I made faces by squishing toilet paper tubes. I attached an image so you can see what I’m talking about. Some of my later tubes looked a lot like grumpy people, but some of my earlier attempts only sort of vaguely resemble faces when you look closely (see the first one I made in the third column second row). Still, they’re all pretty immediately recognizable as faces because of emergence.

This all sort of reminded me of what Claudio said in class about how we already use a lot of these principles without thinking about it. Its kind of wild to look back at stuff I’ve already done or artwork I’ve already seen and unpack the unconscious bits of my past thoughts/experiences.

Marley Soden: Typography and Design in Food

September 12, 2020

A recent artist I discovered during quarantine who inspires my artwork is Marley Soden (who goes by “Marley Makes Things” on social media). I’ve always been really interested in typography and calligraphy, and Marley is constantly pushing the boundaries with writing styles, mediums, and surfaces. She’s designed a variety of things from large-scale murals to book covers. Something I found very moving was her story about her struggles with eating disorders and her relationships with food, but how she found comfort and recovery by fostering a newfound love of cooking and incorporating it into her art. A lot of her recent designs are made with food items which she bakes herself (like words made out of sprinkles or flour). Her attention to detail- from the initial design, to the construction, to the digital editing- is incredibly inspiring!

Tomma Abts

September 11, 2020

Noted as a revolutionary painter in the abstract art world, Abts remains committed to the same foundation in all her artwork. She paints only on 19.8 x 15 inch canvases using acrylic or oil paint. Fimme is an excellent example of Abts lengthy painting process that features the use of simple shapes such as arcs, circles, stripes, etc. layered heavily upon each other with contrasting colors and highlights. The end effect is a canvas that has been transformed into one with great motion and liveliness, catching the eye on the spot. In Fimme, the viewer can feel the tension between all the different layers of shapes and paint. The contrasting pointed polygons upon circles gives the painting a more wild and outlandish feel. Ever since I saw her work at the Art Institute of Chicago, I’ve always been interested in how she expands the meaning of abstract art through the composition of her work as well as the materials she chooses to work with.

Upcoming exhibition at FWM – Samara Golden

August 28, 2020

I’ve been working at The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) for the past 3 years. In that time, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a bunch of incredible artists (like Suzanne Bocanegra, Sonya Clark, Joy Feasley, Paul Swenbeck and Jacolby Satterwhite, to name a few). Here’s how it works: FWM invites an artist to collaborate with the institution in the creation of an exhibition of that artist’s work. Over the course of about 2 years, we experiment with materials and processes with the artist and, ultimately, create finished works for a gallery show. In the beginning of the process, we invite the artist to dream big. What have you always wanted to make but haven’t had the resources or time? Then we make the work. Sometimes we make it ourselves with the sewing machines, 3D printers, silk screens and other tools we have at FWM. Sometimes we outsource the work to fabrication shops in the area. It’s pretty magical being an observer and participant in another artist’s process from idea to exhibition. I will share a bunch of stories and details about FWM projects and artists over the course of the semester! The photograph attached to this post is of Samara Golden‘s near-complete installation. It opens to the public on September 10, 2020. That’s an FWM employee carefully walking on and cleaning the mirrors in the installation. With Samara, we made a bunch of half-scale objects and glued/screwed them to the ceiling so that when you look at the mirrors on the floor, you think you’re looking down into some beach scene with trash-covered dunes and a boardwalk. The show is called Upstairs at Steve’s. What else can you find out about Samara’s work on the internet? Post a reply