You can post your lecture responses here throughout the term.
Here are guidelines for responding to the lectures on the blog:
Here are guidelines for responding to the lectures on the blog:
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1) At the top your comment, type the title and date of the lecture along with the name of the
person who gave it.
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2) Summarize the main points of the lecture and point out at least one aspect that was new
information to you or that you found particularly interesting.
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3) If possible, make connections between this course and the content of the lecture.
ReplyDeleteDialogues with Collectors Series
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Given by Barbara Alfond
I thought is would be interesting to hear about the point of view of someone who is collecting art, not only for their personal collection but also for the collection of Rollins College. Barbara spoke along with a curator from Massachusetts that she has chosen to work with her to find contemporary art that would be fitting to go into the Rollins college hotel, the Alfond Inn.
First Mr. and Mrs. Alfond both spoke of their personal collection of American art, which began with folk art and grew to include some modern artists as well. Next Mrs. Alfond and Abby Goodman, the independent curator working with her, spoke about the contemporary art that will be in the inn. While there were a few pieces shown in the museum currently, the lecture was conducted through a series of slides.
Personally I was a little disappointed in some of the choices of art but that is my own personal opinion of contemporary art at times. One piece that I did enjoy was by Mark Waters called Mirror Mirror. Here lace was glued over a mirror and then strategically ripped off in parts. There was a delicate beauty to the work. While I could not appreciate all of the art chosen, I could appreciate some of the connections they made to the art and the college and the reasons they chose the pieces that they did.
I can see connections to our mixed media printmaking class because it is a medium that is contemporary in itself. I feel that some of the work that is done with this sort of medium still involves skill and aesthetical value while at times I believe that contemporary art is missing these qualities.
The Big Idea: Living with Art, Philosophy, and Poetry
ReplyDeleteTuesday, February 19, 2013
Ricardo Pau-Llosa
I knew of Ricardo Pau-Llosa through a poetry class that I had previously taken. I had seen pictures of his home in Miami, which is covered floor to ceiling in artwork, so I was excited to hear him speak about his passion for Latin art. The title to this lecture also intrigued me. He spoke of different tropes that are not only found through language but also translate through art. Through this mindset is how he views art.
He gave a brief summery of how Latin art differs from Western art. The progression of different styles and the synthesis of different styles in one work are very different from the mold that Westerners assume art should fit into. Pau-Llosa describes the Latin people as being very visual and explained how image is more important than words in this culture. He spoke a lot about finding pattern in art. This, he says, alludes to the infinite and makes the impact of representation stronger overall.
I believe that the way Pau-Llosa spoke about pattern could be related to printmaking class. We often use repetition in our printmaking imagery to make a statement to the viewer without even having to use words.
Speaker: Marjorie S. Venit, Ph.D
ReplyDeleteLecture: The Usable Past: Egyptomania as Metaphor in Graeco-Roman Alexandria
Date: Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Dr. Venit broadened the term Egyptomania to include Greco-Roman societies, particularly at Alexandria, that adopted Egyptian styles, motifs, and religions into their cultures. She began by discussing the relationships that Greeks and Romans had with Egypt. The Greeks had a long-standing relationships with the Egyptians as friends, allies, protectors, and eventually both conquerors and liberators. Alternatively, the Romans came at a different time and were predominantly conquerors. Regardless of the types of relationships, the cultures were mixing with one another quite frequently in antiquity as the empires spread and intermingled. Dr. Venit spent the end of her lecture showing the mix of Greco-Roman style and Egyptian style at the Tigrane Tomb. This tomb is filled with rooms of the cultures blending together to create a new style. Dedications to Isis, composite forms, the Ba Bird, and figures dressed in Egyptian kilts meet the classical influences of figures watching over the tomb, the Medusa head on an oculus, the classical architecture, and illusionistic drapery. Together, these styles mixed to show the way the individuals during the Greco-Roman period adapted Egyptian elements into their culture. This is interesting to think about because nowadays we have television, the Internet, and phones to share information in the blink of an eye, but cultural information was still spread and shared through word of mouth and travel.
The information in this talk was very different from the nature of our course. However, keeping with the idea of sharing information, a printmaker takes ideas from others and incorporates them into his or her work. A printmaker may make the work, but he/she also learns from the knowledge and styles of others.
Marjorie S. Venit, Ph.D, the Usable Past: Egyptomania as Metaphor in Graeco-Roman Alexandria (April 9, 2013)
ReplyDeleteMarjorie S. Venit's lecture emphasized memory and metaphors rhetoric throughout history. The first "affording ethical authority" and the second "imparting imparting enrichment by contributing additional layers of meaning." Both magnify the intellectual depth of the work as well as the viewer's emotional response. However, both rely on intellectual audience that understands the reference. Graeco-Roman Egypt yielded this intellectual audience made up of people of all different cultural backgrounds living in solidarity. The two systems opened doors for a visual rhetoric that could be shared cross-culturally. In essence, a summary was given with examples of the bilateral cultural exchange seen in tombs of Graeco-Roman Egypt. It was a bit difficult to follow after the beginning, where Dr. Venit showed various Egyptian symbolism in the modern-day world such as Egyptian pyramids and sculptures/symbols in Las Vegas. However, overall the talk was fairly interesting. I would have been drawn more in the lecture if she engaged with the audience a bit more rather than reading directly off the powerpoint slides without looking up. The main point I took from the lecture was to think about symbols and what they represent in my own work. The majority of the artwork I produce is related to fashion/vanity. I think I do a good job capturing these ideas through appropriate imagery (shoes, status symbols, notable fashion icons).
It should also be noted that the elderly gentleman and college-aged woman in front of me during the lecture were passing flirtatious notes for the entirety of the lecture after about the 15-minute mark. This was fairly distracting and left me wondering more about what they were saying in these notes rather than what was going on in the lecture.
Dawn Gavin, (April 24th 2013)
ReplyDeleteDawn Gavin's lecture provided a clear understanding of where she is coming from and what motivated her to create her artwork. Much of her art is inspired by and in relation to the formation of her identity. She is originally from Scotland and moved to the United States, and began producing much of her work after leaving her home country and losing both of her parents.
I was most fascinated by the way she installs her work for exhibits. After going through the process of just nailing pieces evenly to the wall for the senior art exhibition last week, I can not even imagine how tedious it must be for her to install her work, especially with the fly tacks! Her work requires a lot of patience and exquisite attention to detail. However, this is what makes it all more interesting to look at and appreciate. The time-consuming monotonous/repetitive tasks she has to complete to create her work, however, seem to be cathartic for her, revealing that she punches holes in maps while relaxing on her couch watching movies, or even on trans-continental flights from Scotland to the United States. Learning about her work process and where/how she does it really interested me because I am always curious to see what people do in their spare time and the fact that she is willing to pull out these giant maps and work on them on an airplane shows that she is truly passionate about what she is creating and it has deep meaning to her.
In relation to our class, I think a lot of my work has to do with identity as well- working in the fashion industry in New York City, finding who I am and who I am not on the way. I was inspired to look more into this and what has truly shaped me and my identity.
Event: Composition Concert
ReplyDeleteComposers: The Sophomore Honors Students and the Music Composition Students
Date: Sunday, April 28, 2013
The sophomore honors class performed the first six compositions of the concert. I thought it was amazing that these students created their own make-believe instruments as well as composed music for them. I did not have time to stay after the concert, but I wish I could have so I could have achieved a better understanding of how the instruments worked. The instruments had unique sounds and appearances, as well as creative names like the heliochord, the pavone, and the cantesol. As far as I could tell, the craftsmanship of each was superb, and each functioned as it was intended. The performances were far from traditional musical sounds, but I thought the students still did a magnificent job finding the creativity for such a feat. After these performances, music majors took the stage to perform their compositions on familiar instruments. There were singers, pianists, violinists, cellists and various other musicians. One young soprano wrote a song based upon a poem a deceased friend had written, and the overall sound of her voice and the piano was, to me, the most impactful performance of the night. I also really enjoyed the composition called “Why” because my favorite musical elements are violins and cellos, and the work included both.
Musicians are similar to visual artists in that they create something that can be experienced by others. As printmakers, we convey a concept in physical form by making visual and compositional choices. Similarly, musicians think about what they want to evoke from the listener and create a composition that matches their ideas and goals.
Mackenzie Moon Ryan: Candidate for Assistant Professor of African Art History
ReplyDelete“Global Networks of Trade and the Historical Emergence of East African Kanga Textiles”
March 19, 2013
Mackenzie talked about the colorful graphic designs that made up the Kanga textiles (started in 1886); she discussed the patterns and the wide variety of images. The price of these fabrics was cheap $2-$5 a piece, the material also was see-through. It was very interesting that Africa’s fabric was actually Dutch. There was often Arabic script written in the Swahili language on these Indonesian designed cloths. This made it readable to only a certain group of people. A symbol that was commonly used was an 8-pointed star, and elongated diamond. Spots and stripes were very popular. Every month new designs came out this created many new designs, it was a hot item with the women, and they demanded new designs. There was also a tie-dyed style that was called Bandhani. Mackenzie went to Zanzibar to do her research I thought this was very interesting and cool. I found it particularly interesting that the common colors used were red and black, which are powerful colors, perhaps saying something about the women’s’ strength. They used slim amounts of white because Tanzania is very dusty and it would be hard to keep the white clean.
I felt that Mackenzie’s lecture related to printmaking, and what I have learned this semester because the styles and patterns printed on these Kanga textiles were very flat/geometric, it gave a screen printed type of feeling, the way that the black positive space sat on top of the red or various other colored clothes. Also the way that they had to come out with new designs every month is reminiscent of the way we had to come up with new designs every month or sooner
Courtnay Mictos: Assistant Professor of art history
ReplyDelete“Carnaval in Ghana: Fancy Dress and Preformance Aesthetics”
March 21, 2013
Courtnay talked about the carnavals in Ghana and how they were reflective of people coming to terms with the environment around them. There would be lots of dancing (even synchronized) masks, and colorful outfits that were specially created for these festivals. These festivals lasted for several days. Fancy dress started after world war II and is referring to dress worn for plays or skits that are preformed, it was used to excite and scare. Another word for fancy dress is “Kakabotofo” which means, “group that scare” (referring mostly to young children. Often found in the parades were stilt walkers (12-15 ft in height.) She showed a video example of one parade performance, they used men dressed with a Jesus or Angel cylindrical puppet type tube on their bodies, this was very interesting because it was used to convince them to follow them in the street parade, just as people followed Jesus. It was cool to see the levels of meaning behind the parade and costuming.
I felt that Courtnay’s lecture related to printmaking, because there were many different aspects coming together to make the parade and in printmaking many aspects come together to make the end result successful. They had costumes, masks, stilt-walkers, dancing, and makeup that made up the parade. And we used colligraph, etching, monotype, transfers, screen-printing, letterpress, and Photoshop to make our art.
Dawn Gavin. April 24, 2013.
ReplyDeleteFor this particular lecture she came in and talked to us about her art, the process of her art, and some particular pieces. One particular thing that I found interesting was the video she showed us. I thought it was cool how she took an old video and added a bunch of special effects to make it completely different than what it was before. One thing that to me was completely inspiring was the thought of just how much work she puts into her art. For example, all of the pieces she showed us and talked about where she would put pieces of the map on bug pins and then on the wall are just amazing. To think that she spent hours cutting each paper, gluing it to the pin, then putting it on the wall is just amazing. I also quite enjoyed her stories about how she gets her maps, especially the pilot one. (This part was repeated for my other class)
Related to this class I think that the large piece, which she showed us photos of, which she painted directly on the wall with hexagons and road maps felt a lot like it could be a print to me. I felt like the simpleness of the shapes, the hexagons, as well as the colors really contrasts with the complexity and colors of the road maps. Together it looked like it could have been a print with simply more than one layer. That was actually one of my favorite pieces she did.
Coalescence. April 19. Artists: Drew Berger, Airam Dato-on, Roxanne Bates, Nikki Ann Crewe, Alexis Csenger, Julia McInnis, Countess Payne, Meghan Pearis, Julia Langersieck, Kelly Berry.
ReplyDeleteI was really impressed with everything at the senior show. The whole collection of different artists as well as each individual artist’s exhibit was fantastically put together that it looked like a professional artists.
Although I quite enjoyed the art by Airam, the incredibly creative sculptures made of found materials (many bicycle parts), I have to remain loyal to the three seniors in our class: Kelly, Countess, and Meghan.
Kelly’s collection was really intriguing as to her theme. I’ve never liked doing art about myself, especially portraits, but that’s all that hers seems to be. The idea of dwelling in who you are as a person and finding yourself through art I thought was very captivating.
Although we had looked at Countess’ work before, seeing it in the museum was completely different. I now got to really see her issues with working so small compared to how she worked before. I really liked the size however, and feel that it did easily convey her concept of loneliness as well as integrating the sort of urban look.
The exhibit I liked a lot however, was that by Julia Lanfersieck. The theme of her pieces, gender roles through time, I thought was interesting and felt that she very well portrayed that in her work. I liked the images themselves the most. I feel like the colors she picked for each individual piece not only go well with each other piece, but with her theme. The repetition throughout the pieces at the museum, of both the colors and texture of the text in the background, make it look like a very cohesive collection. My favorite was the African American dressed as a maid with the contrast of the text stating that she is the “example of quiet strength and dignity.” I just overall thought her collection was very clever.
Composition Concert
ReplyDeleteStudents of Dr. Daniel Crozier
Sunday, April 26, 2013 – 7 p.m.
This concert consisted of students playing music they wrote on instruments they constructed in Josh Almond’s studio. These instruments were completely from scratch, producing very unique and at times odd sounds. The names of the instruments were foreign but relating to the sound or physical structure of the instrument itself. The concert was composed of multiple songs played by a couple instruments at a time. The instruments produced sounds like no other, seeming appropriate for horror films; they had an eerie feel to them. Something very interesting to me was the research and understanding of music and instruments necessary before making an instrument from scratch. It never fails to amaze me how many different interpretations come out of one assignment such as ‘make your own unique instrument.’ With this in mind, although very different in medium, I feel our course directly relates to the instrument making process. Forced to commit to one idea, we have spent our entire course devoted to reflecting our idea through one portfolio. In this same way, all the knowledge of instruments and music was funneled into one instrument these students worked on for the entire course. Another similarity was the cohesiveness of multiple works of art. In our course, students were required to create a cohesive body of works. Similarly, the students of this music course had to create music that complimented their instruments, in my opinion, both musically and physically. While there were many differences, one major lesson to take away from this concert is that most artists are attempting to get a message across no matter what medium is used.
Dialogue with Collectors
ReplyDeleteSusan Rosoff
April 30, 2013
This lecture consisted of Susan Rosoff, daughter of Harvie and Mardelle Merrill, giving a walk-through of her parents collecting methods and showing examples of collected images via PowerPoint. She emphasized the importance of the arts in her family from a young age, ranging from a wide array of art books in their home to the role ballet played in her sister’s life. Her family was constantly moving but spent a large amount of time in the San Francisco and New York region where most of their collection was acquired. The most interesting aspect of Rosoff’s talk was her ability to describe images and reasons for collecting pieces with an ease and elaborate vocabulary. Her choice of words brought some images I found lifeless to life. Her vivid descriptions and reasons for collecting lead me to think about the correlation between the artist and collector – the contrast between what is seen and what is intended. Rosoff’s reflection on her mother and father’s experiences purchasing art in galleries made me think of the process behind the work that goes on the gallery walls and the disconnect between creator and buyer. This talk has influenced me to go into collecting on the small scale but for reasons of supporting and appreciating fellow artists, not for the statement that I am wealthy and sophisticated.
Jeffrey Gibson: January 9th, 2013
ReplyDeleteGibson’s relationship with art making is extremely diverse due to his multicultural interactions throughout his life. Growing up he lived in a multitude of varied urbanized settings around the world, some including places such as Korea and Germany. His early exposure to all of these cultures greatly affected the art he produces and can be seen clearly in his imagery choices of his pieces. Most of Gibson’s works on paper have an almost digital or graphic appearing layer to them intertwined with occasional painterly strokes creating extremely interesting patterns and layers. His works are very bold and in your face. In addition to his painting he is a sculptor. Gibson’s lecture offered me a new definition of art making through his nontraditional approaches in his production and technique. This uniqueness to me is seen mostly in his sculptures made of foam and silicon. What made his work so interesting to me is his fusion of his very modern personality in conflict to his Native American roots that play a large role in tensions of his art.
Dawn Gavin: April 24th 2013
Dawn Gavin’s relationship with art making is one that takes on many forms for she works with varied mediums but a common topic. Her ability to manipulate maps in so many different ways and yet not feel monotonous is likely what impressed me the most about this artist. Gavin’s works deal with her exploration of issues of loss, misappropriation, self-identity and a sense of dislocation rooted in her Scottish heritage. This lecture offered a new definition of design for me mostly through her video works that she produced. I am not sure if it is because I went into this lecture expecting to deal with an artist that works solely with what I consider traditional mediums (such as painting, drawing, etc.) but her ability to work with many materials in nontraditional ways is what redefined design and art making for me. Such nontraditional approaches to her works are her displays of these pieces. She showed examples of her art in places I would never expect, like the Baltimore International airport television screens and instillation on trees where they could often be overlooked if not told of their presence.