THE WIND/THE WEATHER/THE WATER: Collaborative book project- see ongoing deadlines in schedule. Students will post works and images on the themes on blog page – throughout the term.
“The Sorted Books project began in 1993, and it has has taken place on many different sites over the years, ranging form private homes to specialized book collections. The process is the same in every case: I sort through a collection of books, pull particular titles, and eventually group the books into clusters so that the titles can be read in sequence. The final results are shown either as photographs of the book clusters or as the actual stacks themselves, often shown on the shelves of the library they came from. Taken as a whole, the clusters are a cross-section of that library’s holdings that reflect that particular library’s focus, idiosyncrasies, and inconsistencies. They sometimes also function as a portrait of the particular book owner. The Sorted Books project is an ongoing project which I add to almost each year, and there there are hundreds of images in the ongoing archive to date.”
Pictured above: What is Art? C-prints, each 12.5 x 19 inches, 1996/2008The series Sorting Shark from the Sorted Books project Pictured above: A Day at the Beach C-prints, each 12.5 x 19 inches, 2001
The series Kansas Cut-Up from the Sorted Books project Pictured above: Only Yesterday C-prints, each 12.5 x 19 inches, 2014
Dave Dyment:
ONE BILLION YEARS [PAST AND FUTURE], 2012 A collection of books pertaining to the past and future, arranged chronologically from One Billion Years Ago to The Next Billion Years.
Nina Katchadourian discusses a new Sorted Books project in William S Burroughs’ library.
What are some of the strategies Katchadourian, Dyment and Park used to select and order books in their final works? What were their decisions based on, and how do the final compositions expand the meaning of each individual book, or come together to have a new and surprising meaning about the library, the family, about language and books, or about anything else?
Book Stacks Assignment:
Make 3 of your own Sorted Books stacks – use your own personal library or visit another personal or public library.
Consider using books to create new images, suprising compositions in language, and forms out of a stack of books. You might respond to words, colours, images, forms, and more in your stacks. Line things up with intention, and illuminate your stacks to take high quality images.
Be respectful of library patrons and staff when collecting books and taking photographs, and return books to trolleys/follow rules please.
Create a composition, with as many books as you may need, and photograph it. Look for concise messages, play with words and concepts with what is at hand. Consider other features of the books – scale, material, colours, and context in the library in your stacks. Avoid clichés and easy statements – be open to accidents and funny surprises, experiment with different titles in relation to one another in different ways. Your stack might be a portrait of a person, a quippy commentary about a historical moment, an ironic collision of surprising titles… be prepared to talk about your choices and how they might be readable to a wider audience.
Include THREE FINAL images, a short description of your stacks, and your process of creating the compositions on your blog page.
A few weeks ago, while giving a tour of the U of G campus, I ended up getting lost in the library. As I searched for the exit, I ended up in the basement of the library – a place I always found myself too nervous to enter previously. I wandered the space and curiously approached the bookshelves. The basement is home to lots of government publications and periodicals with topics ranging from natural resources to psychological journals to food consumption. I found this collection extremely interesting due to the richness of its history, as well as the feeling of loneliness that accompanied it. The sign-out cards hint that most of this collection of literature has not been touched in years – decades even. For these reasons, I chose to isolate the basement of the library as my first focus for the bookstack assignment.
My process started with finding an area that would be suitable for photos, while also not bothering any students who may be working in the space. After I found a spot to set up, I browsed several shelves of text and picked out titles that I thought sounded interesting. I found it much easier to work with books that had short titles compared to longer titles, so as I returned to the shelves to pick out more books I tried to focus on titles one to three words long.
For the weather component, I found titles that were organized based on season. I find it interesting how seasons and weather are a telling sign of the passage of time, yet also highlight the cyclical nature of time itself. Even the university uses seasons to express the passage of time from one semester to another, while also bringing to light the cyclical nature of a school setting.
The equipment that I used to take my photos included a DSLR camera borrowed from the university, as well as a ringlight that I brought from home. It was fun to play around with the camera settings and lighting, and I think in the end I got several usable photos. I am not very experienced with photography, but as I started to get used to the camera settings I found that my images came out much better than I anticipated. There is certainly a huge learning curve when it comes to using a DSLR in comparison to a simple point-and-shoot camera, but the payoff is very evident.
Stack #1 – Wordplay/Poetry
lighting and exposure was a challenge early on
My first book stack was an attempt at a rhyming poem (?). I chose these books from a large stack of titles I gathered, and just sort of rearranged them until the stack felt readable. I like how the colours ended up being on the cool side, with the exception of the word EVIDENCE. I do find the small text makes this composition difficult to read without zooming in, though.
Stack #2 – Framing
Playing around with lighting and framing
For this composition, I wanted to play around with the lighting and framing to see how these aspects play into or complement a bookstack. How does dramatic lighting communicate the stack when compared to normal lighting? Then, using other books on either side of the stack I attempted to create the illusion of a naturally occurring bookstack – merely found that way on a library shelf. It was fun to play around with these aspects of my photos, but less fun to move all the books around.
Stack #3 – Mood/Atmosphere/Lighting
How does lighting affect mood?
The title ‘My City Was Gone’ was too haunting in this lonely library basement for me to not pick up. I was trying to avoid a cliche reference to the pandemic and was worried that this stack would read as corny. However, my classmates showed a positive reaction when I presented the images in class, and now I really like them and think they are my most successful shots. I experimented with the lighting and ended up with some very dramatic shots. I am really thankful that I brought lighting because I do not think that my library bookstacks would have been as successful without it.
Library/Camera Comparison – Personal Bookshelf
Stack A – What’s in a Name
This stack is only composed of titles that include a character’s name. Read from top to bottom, the first letter of each name spells out F-A-K-E, as all of these characters are fictitious.
Stack B – Wordplay
This composition was made with the intention of communicating the ‘last words’ as an individual’s final performance.
Stack C – Forecast Pattern
This final composition was made taking inspiration from weather forecast patterns. Using blue/grey book covers to communicate cloudy weather and orange/red book covers to communicate sunny weather, I illustrated a 5-day weather forecast pattern. This was compared to the crochet forecast blankets that have been made by artisans. The titles in this stack are not meant to be important, however, this intention can get lost if a viewer does not already know the meaning behind the stack. In my reshoot, I took this into consideration and made some adjustments to how this stack was shot.
Re-shoot with DSLR
After I was left unsatisfied with the photos of my personal books, I signed out a DSLR and got to work reshooting these stacks.
What’s in a Name
Famous Last Words
Weather Patterns
While I love the quality of the DSLR photos, I do find them to be a little bit yellow. I think with some editing this could be fixed. I used different positioning and angles for the last bookstack to bring attention away from the titles and focused on the colours. I think this change solved the issue that my first attempt at this stack faced.
Most Successful Shots
Walk in the Arboretum
During the walk in the Arboretum, I really wanted to challenge myself to take high-quality images with my phone camera. I had tried to use the app ProShot for the bookstacks assignment but opted for a DSLR when my photos constantly came out blurry and overexposed. I dedicated this outing to learning how to overcome and correct the issues I was facing, and just hoped that I would come out with something to show for it.
Diane teaching us about weeds
Round Things
Sky
The sky just before it started to rain.
Weeds
White balance – cloudy vs sunny settings
Taking photos of weeds was my favourite part of the walk. I ended up losing the group fairly quickly as I got distracted taking photos of all the weeds and plants around. I think this experience helped me a lot to experiment with the manual phone camera app and proved to myself that I can take high-quality images just using my phone camera. (Although I do still think DSLRs are irreplaceable to an extent.)
ARTIST ASSIGNMENT
JENNY KENDLER
b. 1980, New York City
Jenny Kendler is an ecological artist and activist who is credited with work that focuses on climate change and biodiversity loss. She is passionate about otherness and the de-centring of humans in a more-than-human world – a common theme in the work she produces. Kendler tends to make sculptural representations of thought-provoking ecological subject matter using materials that are reclaimed and repurposed. She has also used organic mediums like bones and fossilized genetic material of endangered species in her work and prompts discussion surrounding extinction and what we currently stand to lose.
Amber Archive (2018-ongoing)
Amber Archive is a project that started in 2018 and is still in progress. The piece is composed of amber nodules that contain a piece of genetic material (fur, leaf, bone, scale, feather, insect wing) of a species that is currently endangered. The piece acts as an analog genetic time capsule that will preserve the DNA of a species for millennia, and outlast cryobanks that rely on energy.
Forget Me Not (2020)
Forget Me Not is a piece that uses a decorated vintage boombox inspired by “Sailor’s Valentines” – elaborate mosaics made using colourful seashells, a popular gift from those returning from sea voyages in the 18th and 19th centuries. “Think of me, when far away” and “forget me not” were popular messages. Kendler’s Forget Me Not is her love letter to the sea as it slowly acidifies due to climate change and the burning of fossil fuels. The boombox plays a tape labelled “soothing ocean sounds” in which the sound of ocean acidification can be heard. Really being played is the sound of the artist’s baby teeth as they dissolve in acid.
1985 moratorium on commercial whaling was finally enacted, but only 5% of humpbacks remained
populations since recovering, but other threats such as commercial shipping noise, fossil fuel seismic exploration and military sonar
Humpback’s unique sonic culture and future survival of species are jeopardized by the acoustic pollution of our oceans.
bells clappers are Miocene Epoch fossilized ear bones: tympanic bullae from an ancient species of rorqual whale related to modern humpbacks
the part of the ear which once received sound, now creates a new fragile resonance, a mournful echo, a ghost knell-suggesting a message from these long extinct whales to today’s endangered whales
Conus textile is a species of marine snail with a beautiful patterned shell known as the Textile Cone or Cloth of Gold Cone
they are infact predatory, venomous mollusks with toxins deadly to huans
collage of digital images of the shell’s patterns to create a textile
presented atop a burial mound of sand, likeness of a shroud
whose death are we to lament? – the patterns of Conus textile recall cellular automata
Conway’s Game of Life or Wolfram’s Rule 30
computational models said to prove that complex design and intelligent organization can arise in the absence of a “designer”
Heirloom (in private collection)
Hackberries
amorphous hydrated silicon oxide – technically a precious gemstone opal
seeds also contain high concentration of carbon-14, making them useful for archeological radiocarbon dating – a valuable technology used by archeologists and paleobotanists to date prehistoric sites – which may be endangered due to the ancient carbon released into the atmosphere where we burn fossil fuels
fear in science community that radiocarbon dating will no longer be viable as early as 2030 – yet another infrequently mentioned threat of climate change
Mending Wall (2021-2024)
collaborative project with the public, Kendler and the Field Museum’s Pandemic Collections Team, with support from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE)
drawing on the American vernacular form of the stone wall – Mending Wall offers a space to honor our collective grief – and share individual hopes and fears in the moment of intersecting crises
global pandemic, gun violence epidemic, the worsening climate crisis, and interrelated struggle for racial justice
piece inspired by Robert Frost’s classic poem, Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea novels and the artist’s childhood visit to the Wailing Wall
25 ft fragment of dry-stacked stone wall made of reclaimed Chicago cobble stone
surrounding wall is natural area of perennial plants and organic stone seating to provide space for contemplation and appreciation of the natural world
wall as something that keeps us apart, as well as how we the people can constitute form, building city stone by stone
public invited to leave a message from this moment of crisis to be archived by the Pandemic Collections team at the Field Museum
Public events held in the space, including guided meditations, dance performances, poetry readings and mending workshops
For this project, I started with the concepts of illustrated child books that built into the theme of weather. Slowly, I then went away from that idea and just thought of various ways to stack piles of books just so it would be pleasant to see, although forgetting the theme of weather in doing so. Afterward, I decided to incorporate the body with books themselves as we forget a structured material, such as a book, holds a humanized materialistic sensation even though a book is so mechanically made. I also thought about how a person’s body can depict the illustrations of the book through the weather itself, showing different seasons or adventures that reveal a consistent theme of weather. My whole process was a bit rethought after our library trip.
My ideas changed drastically and I leaned towards more minimalistic ideas, while still keeping a consistent theme that versus material and weather, which results in decay. Weather corrodes man-made material over time, such as a book, so the idea of corrosion “popped” in my head with the help of the artist Alexis Arnold who took basically “ruined” them by crystalizing their beauty with Borax. I decided to, overall, photoshoot playful pictures of books that are struggling to hold together to represent what weather can do to man-made material.
Alexis Arnold – Inspiration
Library PhotoShoot: Concept on Weather and Corrosion
The idea of Books and corrosion can be seen through old books struggling to hold together, with ripped edges, yellow pages, taped covers, weird stains, and lastly sinful holes. Here we can see the idea of books decaying through the natural cycle of man-made materials going back to it’s origin, the ground. Below, I also incorporated books that are held together by tape, showing the idea of plastic and decay.
Below is another playful concept on the notion of decay seen through such simple things as dust and dirt!
For the next below images, I tried to play with the idea of the blue sky with clouds during a more mucky evening, but I ended up changing the concept to a flock of birds using blue books rather than creating the sky. My idea at the time for these books was trying to make little clouds from the small white books and the bigger (blue-ish) books were the sky itself, but I scrapped the idea for something a bit more playful and interesting under “Update – Edited books”.
Update – Edited books
From a Blue sky with clouds to an idea of a flock of birds, above are 2 images: one with a lightened sky and another with a darkened sky of books in the form of a flock, but stacked together! (note: I need help with my images being blurry)
For the books above, I just played around for fun with colours and tried to experiment more with dust.
Nature Walk: Circles, The Sky & Weeds
Tim Knowles – Tree Drawings
Tim Knowles is an artist based from UK, London. He started a project series that he called “tree drawings” from 2007 – 2008 where he presented tree drawings on paper with ink. He said to have utilized “apparatuses, mechanisms, or systems beyond [his] control to introduce chance into the production of [his] art”. Below, are a few pictures, from the website:
which shows a series produced by trees, located in the Borrowdale and Buttermere areas of England’s Lake District. How Knowles created the project was by attaching sketching pens to the tree’s branches and then placing sheets of paper in the trees’ natural positions to capture the motions, in addition to the motion of stillness. I think wind had a huge aspect to his pieces and Tim probably selected a day of which the weather wasn’t as windy, but more steady, because of how clean and crisp the strokes were, that being always centered on his paper and not exceeding the boundaries, almost as if he still had intention into letting nature take its course where he was “the guiding hand”.
His drawings depicted, somewhat, signatures with each drawing having different qualities and characteristics through various sways in the breeze, that including: “the relaxed, fluid line of an oak; the delicate, tentative touch of a larch; a hawthorn’s stiff, slightly neurotic scratches”. Knowles also explains how “process” is important in his work, like how I’ve said before, where his canvases almost look purposely placed to get a centered penmanship. In the end, each of Knowles’ “Tree Drawings” are photographed or videoed, documenting the location as well as the manner of its creation.
Tim Knowles – The dynamics of drifting
Tim Knowles’ independent solo exhibit on “The dynamics of drifting” is ongoing. Knowles described this project as a journey or motion of drifting that includes inspirations through concepts of gravity and external forces that could also be influenced by people. The purpose of Knowles’ sailor boat project is to truly have no destination, where the wind takes the passenger on a journey of fate, through nature’s course. Below is just a prototype of his industrialized invention having “WTWB4” being an abbreviation for “where the wind blows”.
Knowles’ sailor boat reminds me of people who give in to fate and let mother nature or even destiny take her course, realizing we never had a choice for free will just the illusion that society gives us. The bare elements are what choose our fate, such as gravity, people, and other external forces. Although, Knowles somehow manages to create soothing works that seem to be very mellow and relaxing as his journey seems to be depicted as a slow steady stream, just like in his “Tree Drawings” series, having very manageable and “hand-guided” plans.
WTWB4 drw#93, Digital Drawing, 2017Prototype
“‘Dynamics of Drifting’ presents a series of works that forge and record passages through land and water. Light, ink, water, and wind all travel and pivot on the meeting of human will and forces beyond our control: the direction and force of the wind, the flow of the water, and the pull of gravity.”
Above we have the interpretation of a kitty-cat’s paws in the wild, with the act of aggression and playfulness through the movements and characteristics of a cat. The playfulness of nature and the feat of the complementary glove against the vibrant green grass adds to a questionable nature scene. In the end, the audience overall sees a human’s nicely gloved hands acting as a cat in public! Throughout the video, the acts of curiosity, touch, and aggressive shaking of a tree branch show the nature of a cat and the blissful notion of a cat’s day.
Softness Vs. Violence
Above are hands showing the contrasting movements of the soft touch of flowers and the roughness of concrete, rock, and wood. Here, there are two contrasting scenes showing the difference between the delicacy of nature and the harshness of stone and wood. A variety of movements are also shown throughout the video: punching, slapping, caressing/petting, and back-handing! Below are some snap-shoots of other playful videos that revolve around a ‘hand-shake’ and the game ‘rock, paper, scissors’.
As a group, we collectively produced our works together and decided to go with ASMR, but then slowly moved into the motive of playful hands! Below are examples of our past ASMR videos, but individually shown without editing:
Rock Touch Experiment: Process WorkMoth Touch Experiment: Process Work
Magazine – Birds
Experimenting with layouts and texts while specifically targeting the seagull bird species for this bird-based task!
Below are some of the final tests for the magazine, also having a bird influence. The final image can be seen fully and well cropped on a nice off-white background on the final product of the magazine.
Final Project: multiples – magazine
For this project, I decided to dedicate a magazine to rats. A magazine dedicated to glorifying and manifesting the notion of wanting a rat. The story behind the rat-influenced magazine is my past childhood memories and a slight rivalry against my mother for wanting/collecting rat statues. The magazine is also still in the process of arriving through the mail!
For my multiples project, I appropriated the format of a Ladies’ Guide to Etiquette from the late 1800s. I wanted to update it by removing out-of-date terms, rules, and expectations for how to perform femininity, while adding in queer undertones and conflicting directions. I’ve changed the original by editing each page – cutting out words, reworking phrases, moving sentences around and writing new sections in order to skew the original meaning. I’m still waiting for a printed copy to be delivered, but the modern update for the etiquette book will have 20 pages in all, which I have included above, and will be portable (a 5.5 x 8.5 inch pocket book printed on heavyweight ivory paper for an antique effect). I was only able to complete the first chapter, since the book is too long to fully makeover by the end of this semester, but it’s a project I would like to continue going forward. Here are some previews of the final product, which should arrive early-mid December:
Scans and Spreads
MY SPREADS:
EXTRAS:
Arboretum Pictures
Environmental Videos
Swamp Stuck:
We originally filmed this video to test how difficult it would be to walk in the swamp, but I think the struggle to balance and navigate a space in nature that I should not reasonably be a part of is powerful enough as it’s own piece. The mud sucks you in and you sink quickly and deeply with little time for preparation. Although I had my own expectations of what would happen, I was surprised by how unsteady and helpless stepping into this part of nature would make me feel. I think of this as a reflection to the turbulence of life and the power of nature, which are both things we take for granted and feel we can prepare to face, but it always exceeds our expectations and we end up having to be malleable and adaptable in our solutions. When walking in a swamp, I had to reorient myself at every second, and the struggle to stand still while sinking and tipping was difficult enough, so in my next video that we filmed where I am walking, I felt even more powerless to the environment around me.
Swamp Walk:
In these clips, I’ve pushed myself further to walk across the swamp, which ended up more as a crawl and a horizontal climb than anything graceful. There were moments that I tripped and disrupted the water around me more than I had intended to, but I appreciate the calm at the end of the video even more because of it (after I have left the frame and you can only see the ripples coming from the direction I had disappeared). I like the symmetry of this piece and the singular movement of going across the frame until I have left the same spot I disrupted, but that the “ripples” of my movement and my presence are still there. It’s inevitable that our presence in this world will affect it, though it may not be as apparent as literal ripples in the water, but we leave our mark on every environment we enter, and it is important to be considerate of that.
Testing the Grass:
FutureFarmers
Futurefarmers is an art collective based in San-Francisco founded in 1995 by Amy Franceschini. They work on collaborative and diverse pieces that range from zines to public performances, which cultivate an “ethos of play”, as Franceschini describes. The Futurefarmers design studio both supports artists in residence and community based art projects, which in some cases span internationally. The members of this collective describe themselves as “artists, designers, architects, anthropologists, writers, computer programmers and farmers with a common interest in creating frameworks for exchange that catalyze moments of “not knowing“”. With their projects, they aim to deconstruct infrastructure systems as well as the concept of “certainty” by challenging their effectiveness in a playful, but almost scientific way. In doing this, much of the work that the Futurefarmers and Franceschini create bring attention to the conflict between humans and nature.
Founded in 2012 in Oslo, Norway, the Flatbread Society is a long-term project created by the Futurefarmers collective which grew internationally with a specific focus on the human relationship to the “grain”.
The Flatbread Society Bakehouse, Oslo, Norway. A public bakehouse built in 2017, housed in an experimental architectural structure and their “main hub”The bakehouse was built by the docks of Oslo with the help of local boat builders and emanates the hull of a ship as a reference to the once active port in the area.
“Soil Procession” was a Flatbread Society project in 2015 where members worked together to bring soil from over 50 Norwegian farms to the Oslo fiord for a “ground building” ceremony. The procession included a walking parade of soil transportation, taking over an hour to complete, in order to create a foundation for the society to build and grow off of. This transported land later became home to the Bakehouse as well as the Grain Field, where they grew their own crops using farming techniques passed through generations. One procession member described the journey as: “It is not a demonstration against anything, but rather for! We are bringing forth soil from Norwegian farms to Bjørvika.”
After multiple meetings, interventions, and workshops, members of the Futurefarmers created and installed a permanent, wind-powered printing press. The piece includes the installation, the creation of a unique font, a film about the work, a publication, and an exhibition. The work alone spans multiple practices and encourages the collaboration between disciplines, as well as the exploration of more sustainable printing techniques.
When this project was first announced, my immediate thought of what to base my stacks off of was a foggy night. I wanted to base my first stack after the dark gradation of what a dreary and foggy day looks like. The second idea I had was to create a stack off of a purple and orange sunset. I really just wanted to create a stack like this sunset is just so beautiful to look at.
The Process of Book Stacking and the Images
Here are a few of the images I took with the camera. I am no photographer, so getting used to using the camera was a learning curve for me! As you can see in the photos I was playing around with the lighting, the first few use the normal lighting in the library, and the second lighting was used under the “natural” lighting setting. The natural light setting gave the image a more yellow tone to it. It was a lot of fun to play around with the lighting, but I still have lots to learn about using a camera and all of its settings.
Also when stacking the books I decided to make poetry out of them and I really enjoyed doing that! Having such a broad topic allowed me to create interesting poems, but still sticking within the theme.
These images were taken with my phone. I personally think that these ones turned out better than the ones with the camera, but I think that is just because I am more comfortable and familiar with using my phones. I know what settings look good and how to properly use it. On my phone I was playing around with the regular camera mode, and also portrait mode which gave the blurry background.
This was an extremely fun assignment and has really allowed me to look at books differently. From now on when I am going to a place with books, whether it be a library or book store, I am going to start stacking them. It was a nice way to not only create art, but practice my photography skills!
NATURE WALK
Images from the Nature Walk.
Round Things, A Piece of Sky and Weed Noticing.
Also included a few that I just thought turned out well!
ARTIST PRESENTATION:
Ron Benner
Ron Benner is a Canadian artist who was born, and still resides, in London, Ontario. He studied at the University of Guelph in Agricultural Engineering, but then switched to Art. After switching his path in life, he went to develop a practice that combines photography, installation and gardening. Benner is a strong environmental activist whose work investigates the history and political economics of food.
In Digestion, Collection Museum London, London, Ontario
In Digestion, Collection Museum London, London, Ontario
This piece by Benner has Three components to it, (only two are shown). The first is a wall of red pepper boxes which leads to a wall. it is described as, “Entering the installation, viewers move past a 17th-century map representing Florida and Mexico (aspect that is not shown), and stacks of brightly coloured produce boxes, through a vertically spliced photographic curtain into the simulated shell of a transport truck,” Through that wall leads to a room which is described as, “Inside, viewers find tire shards, galvanized sheet metal, and more than 200 photographs that contrast contemporary transportation systems with the ancient trade routes of the Americas.” This piece is showing the trek of bell peppers sold at London Ontario’s Covent Garden Market and tracing the root of peppers to its origin.
I think this is a very interesting piece because most of the time when buying food we don’t think about where it came from, we just accept that it is now in a store. This piece is very important as it is showing where specific peppers history originated from. It allows viewers to think about where their food comes from, and how it gets to the shelves of the grocery store, or stall at a market.
Trans/mission: Barley – Corn – Maize, 2019 Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, Bowmanville, Ontario
A closer look of image
This piece by Benner is a very important site specific piece. It resides in the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington (VAC) which was once known as The Cream of Barley Mill. This piece is a mixed media piece where the main subject matter includes black beans, sunflower seeds, wild rice, potatoes, maize, amaranth, chili peppers, quinoa, pinto beans, lentils, chickpeas, fava beans, wheat, barleycorn, soya beans, sorghum, flax, and rice. The meaning of the piece, VAC curator, Sandy Saad writes is, “An exploration of the entangled relationships between place and history vis-à-vis food. It employs food to map history, bringing many new places into the site and offering a more complex and intertwined narrative… At the centre of the room lies a collection of various seeds, grains, and cultural deposits: objects from Iraq, Mexico, and Curve Lake First Nation, and London, Ontario. They are a combination of unlikely objects in juxtaposition, reflecting the vast displacement of food crops and culture through various imperial, colonial, and industrial efforts. Benner’s installation creates a room that is both united and divided. Benner suggests the dual nature of the power of food: to bring people together through social and communal gathering, and to separate communities through imperial and commercial enterprises”.
I really enjoy this piece because it is so well thought out and planned, and there is such a depth to it. To understand the full meaning of the piece you truly have to know the history behind it to understand what Benner really made. The grains, the location, everything is just so articulately weaved together that gives this piece many added layers to it.
All That Has Value (was then counted as nothing), Garden Installation, Harbourfront, Toronto, Ontario. 2015
This piece by Benner is an installation piece. This piece includes a small garden with a variety of flowers. The front of the box the garden sits in reads, All That Has Value. Sticking out from the garden is another plank of wood which reads, Was Then Counted As Nothing. I could not find much information on this piece (only its predecessor titled, All That Has Value, which looks very different). I think that this piece means that plants are one of the most important things we have on this planet, but we do not treat them as important as they are. Without plants we would not be able to survive, but we do not take care of them, or the planet to allow them to flourish.
ENVIRONMENTAL VIDEO
Caitlyn, Melyssa and Sam
Hand Battle
This video we decided to be a bit more playful and have a leaf and grass fight and put the two views side by side. I think that this video turned out very successful and it is a very comedic piece. The red of the gloves I especially enjoy as it contrasts the natural colours a lot and creates an interesting composition.
Music in the Outdoors
This video we decided to see the contrasting sounds from the gloves, and rings against a metal bench. I think this one holds an interesting composition due to the fact as one hand comes forward, the other goes back and it holds that sequence. I also really enjoy the sounds that both of them make, and I feel that they work very well together.
Serenade of Sounds
This one was more so a test for us to get the idea of what a 9 video grid would look like. There was some trouble in editing, but it was a good practice video to see what needed to be improved on and what worked well. This video was a good baseline for future videos and how they would look.
Sensations
This video we took what we learned from the previous video, and cleaned it up and made it more seamless. This one is my favourite video and I would love to see it displayed on a large gallery wall, with good surround-sound.
For this assignment my partners and I decided to touch different things in the environment to see the sounds they would make. We not only used our bare hands, but we adorned them with different items such as rings and various gloves. This was such an interesting experiment to conduct and I personally am very happy with the outcome of the videos. Each of the items we touched made such different sounds and all had such interesting textures to them!
Some screenshots from the videos (more to come)
PHOTOS
I did a trip to Elora and walked the Elora Gorge! Here are some photos from it.
BOOK/MAGAZINE
I really enjoyed having the opportunity to create an Artist Book with the class! I learned a lot and I know I definitely will make more books on my own time. This assignment allowed me to learn lots of new techniques (Courtesy of Nathan) which I will use to apply in my own art practice, and even in general when using design applications. I really appreciated the opportunity to be an editor for the magazine. It taught me many technical skills, and having that responsibility too! I am very excited to see the final piece, all of us worked very hard and it most definitely paid off!
For this assignment I had a few ideas how to go about it:
Create a Zine – Of my time here living in Guelph
Create a brand of my iconic face of me as a child – would put on shirts, or make a zine of this
Make a CD based on the weird dreams I had
After chatting with the class I decided to go forward with the CD but instead of just focusing on dreams, I also incorporated some weird experiences I have had. I would talk about both experiences in first person as if they all happened to me. I decided I would speak in a monotone voice so the tone told through all of the stories would give nothing away if it actually happened or not.
Below are the scripts for my stories:
Story One:
I was at my Uncle’s house and a man I have never seen before was there. He came over to me and told me he had a great business idea. I waited in anticipation and he looked me dead in the eyes and said, “let’s breed sea lions”.
We got the sea lions and the female sea lion sat in the middle of my uncle’s living room. She was grey, with large holes gouged deep throughout her body, and black ooze spilling from them. Littered around her on the floor were grey, gelatinous blobs that sporadically moved. The man and I took the blobs and shoved them in the holes. The blobs would spit back out of the holes as baby sea lions.
The sea lions were angry. We were overbreeding them and they wanted revenge. They started to close in on the man and I, before we ran to my uncle’s room. My uncle was putting clothes away when I said to him, “Uncle Darren the sea lions are after us! They’re mad at us breeding them!”
My uncle places the shirt on his hanger and looks at me, I’ve never seen him this serious. “I’ve dealt with this before,” he said, “what you’re going to need is a fly swatter and some good stomping boots.” My uncle, the man and I took the supplies we needed and went back out to the living room to face the horde of angry sea lions.
Story Two:
Tessa and I still hadn’t eaten even though it was close to 9 PM. We decided to head out to the grocery store to get some food. We lived close so we decided to walk. As we were walking, what looked to be a police car slowed down next to us and parked. The man could tell we were startled and flashed us his badge. “Good evening ladies,” he said, even though it was nighttime, “There is a suspicious individual running around with no shoes on, have you seen him?”. Tessa and I looked at each other then back to the officer.
“No, sorry we haven’t seen anyone”, I replied. The officer sent us a smile, “Well, be careful ok, have a good night.” and he drove away. Against our better judgement, Tessa and I still headed for the grocery store. The fear started setting in that there was a suspicious person running around, wearing no shoes. We quickly grabbed the rest of our groceries and headed back home. We decided to cut through our backyard to be safe. We usually went up through the side of the house but it was pitch black. What if we were to go up there and the shoeless man was standing there? Instead we knocked on the basement door for our roommate, Alan to let us in. We didn’t have the best relationship with him, but thankfully he opened the door. We stepped inside and I looked at him. “Thank you Alan, we heard there was a suspicious person running around and wanted to get in as fast as possible.”
“That’s wild” he said, and that’s when I noticed it.
Alan wasn’t wearing any shoes.
Story Three:
had a dream. In this dream a woman who had pale, wrinkly skin, creepy eyes, and a huge smile spoke to me. She resembled the person in the Russian Sleep Experiment. She looked at me and said, “You need to make the brownies.” Then I woke up.
I started freaking out. Brownies,I thought, I need to make brownies. So I spent my morning making brownies. I made a good batch of brownies and decided I would bring them to Dungeons and Dragons with my friends, but make sure they don’t eat them all. I got to my friend’s house and put down the plate and then we played our session. When the session was over I realised all of the brownies had been eaten!
“Oh no!” I cried, “These brownies were meant for the Smiling Woman!”. I headed home still worried about what would happen if I didn’t have the brownies. Though it was a dream I was still nervous.
I headed up to my room to get ready to go to sleep when I heard, “Don’t look under the bed.” I froze. I cautiously did what the voice told me not to do and looked under my bed. I was frightened. What if it was the Smiling Woman? I put my head to the ground and looked under my bed and saw…a guy? He was pressed between the floor and the mattress and looked at me and said “I told you not to look” I was silent then said, “Boy you fiiiiiiine”
Story Four:
It was late. Tessa and I had a bad day. It was our first year at university and we both had received a 65 on our first art assignment. We were both so upset. It was 2 AM and we opened the fridge to grab cheese. We started eating it then she slapped my arm with cheese. I slapped her back. We continued slapping each other. We laughed hysterically.
Story Five:
Alan came over to Tessa and I holding a jar of fettuccine Alfredo sauce.
“Does this smell expired to you?” he asked while smelling it. The jar did not expire until next year. The Jar had never been opened. And cheese does smell.
We repeated this to him and then he walked away. A few minutes later he came back to us and asked us for a wrench.
“Why do you need a wrench? I asked
“I cant open the sauce jar” He replied holding a marinara jar now
“You can’t open a sauce jar with a wrench,” I said. I asked him if I could try opening it. He didn’t think I could, but then after a few seconds the lid managed to pop off and I walked away.
He looked enraged. I heard him murmur, “I’m feeling very emasculated right now.”
I tried to lighten the situation to spare him of his fragile ego and said, “its because Im such a girl boss”
He looked madder after that.
More time passed and Tessa and I heard “Ow” come from the kitchen. The Ow kept repeating.
Ow
Ow
Ow
Ow
We looked over and saw Alan sticking his finger in the burning hot pasta water over and over. He then left the water and picked up a three month old banana, which had fruit flies swarming it off of his shelf. We thought he would throw it out, but instead he ate it.
I felt ill.
Story Six:
I was at summer camp and I was eating chicken.
After having the critique, it gave me a lot to think about in terms of packaging design for my piece. I really enjoyed the suggestion someone gave of the cover being a sea lion in a living room to add to the dream aspect! I’d like to think of more ideas for packaging to play between truth and dreams.
I decided to take photos of my CD up against a background of other CD’s to add to the physicality of the object. I did have a difficult time getting images as the plastic case of the CD was very reflective.
This assignment allowed me to create something I have never done before. I don’t usually make audio pieces, but it is something I would like to explore further in my practice!
For the final artist multiples project I chose to do an artist book. It is being printed (to be delivered December 8-I will post when I receive) but I have attached the pdf of the book. The format is a 7in x 7in soft cover book and it exhibits a collection of hand painted ceramics from a local ceramic painting and firing shop in Guelph, Play with Clay (note that using Blurb, the inside cover must be blank white on the 7×7 and 12×12 square format). The ceramics are painted by a mix of young and old and have a variety of colours and styles. I focused on collecting and photographing ones that had a fantastical feel about them. In the store, I chose figurines from the “completed” shelf that were awaiting pick-up. Some are picked up in the next week or two while others are left for a very long time, forgotten or unwanted by their makers. The shelf looks like a little village to me. In the artist book, I wanted to give a selection of pieces to exhibit the personality of the pieces and also, vicariously, the personality of the budding artists that painted them. I used coloured background cardboard to complement colours and different types of figurines and positioning to juxtapose them against each other. I picked each one with care and wanted to showcase each one. By their nature, these items only have value to the creator and perhaps the parent of the child creators. Once the creator/owner no longer wants them, they really don’t have a reuse market. By photographing and documenting them in this book, in a way I am capturing their value and extending it beyond the initial situation.
I worked with Lily on creating scan art. We foraged for natural materials and she contributed some bones to the project. Here are some of our creations. I love the levels of depth achieved with some of the 3-D objects such as the Swedish Berries and the bones. The black background also adds a goth element with the colour scheme we chose.
Magazine creation
Lots of fun mixing and matching photos from our videos, book stacking projects and miscellaneous photos taken throughout the semester. The editing process with photos on the wall was helpful in pulling together my final artist multiple as well.
Here are the photos I contributed to the final artist magazine.
Week 4, 5 & 6 revisited-reshoot of Nature Feat and Intervention
Wow, I struggled with this project. I know you were looking for something whimsical, but one thing I learned in doing this project is that you can’t force whimsy when you are not feeling whimsical. I went back to basics for my second attempt at this project.
For the feat, I buried myself under a pile of leaves. As the days get shorter, I just want to hibernate. I like how the beginning and end shot look the same with the middle showing me burying myself. The arm coming up to grab the leaves and cover me has an eerie quality to it. A bit of a zombie/Halloween echo (and not a jazz tune in sight).
For the intervention, I went with a simple version of cutting the branch. I chose running water in the background as the “ideal” landscape so that there is some interest/movement in the first part of the clip. The cutters remove part of the tree that would obstruct a viewer from seeing all of the stream, “interrupting” the tree from just being, for the benefit of the viewer.
One more video. I have done several iterations of conversing with a tree and this one is the closest to what I picture in my mind. Rather than communicating with the tree, it is more of an acknowledgement. (Still a bit on the cheesy side, in my opinion, but approaching what I was picturing.)
Week 4, 5 & 6-Nature Feat and Intervention
My initial thought around an intervention was something I still want to do when the conditions are right. Water colour painting in the rain. The weather did not work for me. There was one torrential downpour with wind, which would have been perfect, but it was at 2am and would have been in the dark. I then was going to talk to a tree, but it just didn’t feel authentic, and really, I don’t think the tree was interested in talking back to me. I did some research on latest thoughts around tree communication and there was a study in Israel that has garnered a lot of attention around how trees, and plants in general, scream, tick and squeal when they are under stress, such as drought and injury to their limbs and roots. They were able to measure these vibrations but humans cannot hear them because they are at an ultrasonic level. There are several species of animals that also can communicate and hear at this level, namely beetles and other insects, bats, moths (and the related caterpillars) and worms. (Surprisingly, not birds.) The latest thinking is that the plants, when they are screaming, are communicating with other plants and animals that can hear at this ultrasonic level to either aid the plant or to feed on the plant so that the plants death can at least give back efficiently to the ecosystem.
My first video is probably a bit more edited than what was asked for, but the tree branch being cut and the final shot at the end of the video are the parts I took in one shot. I then added ultrasonic bat sounds that have been lowered to be heard by human ears and I edited in videos of animals that could understand the tree sounds, ending with what can be heard by human ears.
https://youtu.be/zXsWA_Th6jY
Video 1: Talking with a tree
For the second video, I “walked across the earth”. I found a big mound of earth at the arboretum and it was loose so it recorded all my footprints as I went across in. I used different shoes and different ways to get across and examined the prints I left behind. The approach looks pseudo-scientific, but it is obviously casual as well. I first tried having the different approaches on different screens but found the effect too confusing. Also, the approach being somewhat linear and “scientific” came across better as one timeline. I added part of the jazz tune Footprints as the background. It made the viewing more interesting and also alluded to the topic of the video. I think it could work as no sound as well depending on how it was exhibited.
https://youtu.be/gT2JdIQmrU0
Video 2: Footprints-Walking Across the Earth
Week 3-Artist discussion: Terrance Houle and Trevor Freeman
Terrance Houle is an Indigenous interdisciplinary media (film/video/photography/performance/music) artist and a member of the Kainai Nation and Blood Tribe. He studied art at the Alberta College of Art. He lives and works in Calgary and has exhibited globally, winning awards for his films and as an emerging artist. His work often focuses on colonialism and Indigenous history. A powwow dancer, he also works as a youth mentor teaching video production and art at Métis Calgary Family Services in Calgary, Alberta. More recently, Terrance presented an individual exhibition called Ghost Days. This work presents an experimental art adventure, bringing together film, video, performance, photography, and music. Initiated in 2015 this project conjures the spirits and ghosts of colonial and non-colonial history that exist in the light of night, as well as in the darkness of the day. In one piece of work called “Remains” He photographs a chair over a series of time and watches it be reclaimed by the earth as it disintegrates. He is also well known for a series called “Urban Indian” depicting himself in traditional clothing performing everyday urban tasks. His work often involves visuals of things or people in places that are not expected.
Trevor Freeman is an environmental sculptor from Calgary and is a member of the Métis Nation. He studied art at the University of Lethbridge. He is friends with Terrance Houle and was brought back into the art scene with the performance of Portage ‘007.
Together, Terrance Houle and Trevor Freeman are known for a performance piece they did called Portage ‘007. Originally performed in Vancouver, they have reperformed the piece in different cities across Canada. The objective around the performance was to stage and subvert the typical illustration of portaging one finds in a vintage grade school classroom textbook. In interviews, Houle explains “it’s usually a staged photograph with the stern-faced native hoisting the canoe with his friend the Métis voyageur.” In the performance, the two dress up in stereotypical “traditional” Aboriginal and Métis garb and traverse the populated urban terrain of Vancouver’s metropolitan centre. Terrance is dressed up in a loincloth and moccasins and Trevor wears early fur-trapping attire and a Metis sash tied around his waist. They pose with a canoe in front of the Hudson’s Bay Company store on Granville. They pick up the canoe and place it on their heads, one man in the front and one man in the back. They begin their ‘Portage’ through the downtown core of Vancouver. Along the way, they interact with people and occasionally stop to talk, or eat, or rest. The ‘Portage’ endurance performance takes approximately 2-3 hours and they need to deal with weather elements.
Portage ‘007 Vancouver in 2007Portage ‘007 in Toronto in 2008
As they carried a canoe through urban settings, we are reminded of pre-contact trade routes and also the early settlement of Canada during which time non-Native and Native porters would map new routes or take old routes to get to where they were going. These were modern day reenactments of old portage routes to celebrate social relations amongst different cultural groups and to acknowledge this unique history in Canadian fareways. The re-imagined Indian and Métis portaging our urban streets offers a sense of the past, and the fiberglass canoe suggests the present, while we ponder the future of trade, commerce and potential for further cultural understanding via historical narratives and practices.
Video Clip of Portage ‘007 in Vancouver (4min 34 sec)
Houle’s favorite comment: “Hey dude, this is like my grade 10 social class.” A shore patrol officer also asked if they had a permit to put the canoe in the water and asked if they had the required lifejackets, paddles, and bailing bucket. They assured him they were dry landers here to portage across the beautiful city of Vancouver. He said that after a while the city just becomes another landscape and the people are like trees. Most people, when they saw the canoe coming, keep their eyes averted and pretended they didn’t see that particular part of the urban landscape. There was a difference between the way people reacted based on where they were from. Tourists were puzzled. Canadians laughed because they “got” it. Once they changed back to contemporary clothing, people on the streets gave them little notice as they were just two guys transporting a canoe somewhere.
Week 2-Arboretum and outside (Circles, weeds and sky)
Circles:
Weeds: A weed is a plant growing anywhere you don’t want it to.
Sky:
Painting the sky with my camera: Panoramic shot while slowly spinningMy piece of the skyMany shades of grey
Week 1 revisited: book stacks take 2
I re-shot some of the book stacks with significantly less books and like the simplicity of the images and messages. I also added one new concept stack. During my business career, the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, was an incredibly successful book and was forced upon us as must-read material. I decided to have a bit of an intervention and create my own stack of habits, including some referring to weather.
Week 1: Kathryn’s book stacks.
I took a hybrid approach to creating my book stacks. I walked around the University Library and pulled a few books that caught my eye either for the originality of the title, colour or reference to a “weather” event. I also did targeted word searches at both the University Library and the Guelph Public Library to fill in some concept gaps. I found the Children’s section of the Guelph Public library especially good for a few concepts. I first started taking photos on bookshelves or with a black background, similar to Nina Katchadourian, but started playing with accessories or shooting outside to add information or ambience to the story the photo told. I liked these better and found the colours and lighting of the books more engaging. The originals I have are higher resolution and the focus sharper. For some reason, once uploaded to WordPress they become a bit fuzzy.
For the first photo, I followed, somewhat, the style of Nina Katchadourian and approached the word choice as a poem or statement. The resulting stack is quite focused on environment and climate change. I photographed this one with blurred fire in the background, one indoors in daylight and one outdoors at night. My preference is the second one as it has a more violent and catastrophic feel.
Indoors with small fire behind.Outdoors at night with larger fire
Titles that caught my eye were often ones with questions in the title. When seen all together they created some anxiety and tension: Was I supposed to know all the answers to these questions? This led me to thoughts about the popularity of self-help books and how their messages were most often obvious and pithy but explained in a long-drawn-out way how to solve a problem. I had some fun and created a self-help stack with a nature background (a tree stump in my backyard) as an anxiety-calming trope. The questions that start the stack descend (in my opinion) into more and more ridiculous questions. For the weather-related book, I was a bit disappointed that the book I wanted “I wonder why the Sahara is cold at night” was unavailable. The alternative “I wonder why leaves change color” is very thin and a little hard to read (the original is higher resolution and has more clarity).
For the final photograph, I wanted to use the children’s book “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” as it had the weather reference and a whimsical title. I thought about how fun it would be to create a series of posters that had book stacks that could logically lead to a whimsical or unusual saying (almost like a mathematical equation or a riddle) and I came up with this. Aesthetically I thought it would be effective to have some traditional Italian colours and ingredients in the photo to add to the theme.
This prompt was deeply inspiring. I held myself to work simply and essentially during this process. Originally, I assumed I would enact something motivated by props or by creating a scene to act in by manipulating my environment. The more I considered my goals for this performance, the further I understood that it wasn’t fully about me. It was about the nature that supports me in these videos. I moved towards videos that worked in a wholesome and gentle way. These themes reflect the way I feel the natural environment affects my person. Working with Ana and Julianna allowed me to explore the reasons I had for intervening in nature the way I was planning to, we found the process of exploration and brainstorming to push us further into simplistic performances that avoided over-production.
First we made some testing videos, we filmed using ideas that were prompted from exploring to warm up our brains!
Sharing some lunchSending a message to the residents of the pond
These moments were motivation to return to the arboretum with fully formed concepts and a vision for the final drafts we were imagining.
I considered the process of collection and observation in my natural environment making this first video. gently interrupted to shore of a pond to collect my “favourite” sticks as if I was a small creature preparing a nest. The echo of the snapping branches creates a mildly destructive feeling as I take each step. The snapping suggests an invasion of space and disturbance I created by walking over a naturally occurring collection.
The next piece is what I am considering as my final submission. The concept had been my initial want to demonstrate something relating to rest and sleep. I originally planned to use props and include others, but the most effective clip seemed to be one of myself doing to most simple of actions. I put on a nightgown and lay down in the grass that had been pressed down by and animal (or person). I chose to not move and to simply lie in place, in the sun, and meditate on my surroundings. I payed attention to the ambient noise around me, noticing how much noise was being created by visitors is the arboretum.
I wanted to represent sleep and rest because I largely reflects how I feel about my time spent outdoors. Submitting myself to participate in my surroundings in a quiet and gentle sense brings forth the life and sound that occurs naturally when I am not there. It was a reminder to me that I am small and mildly irrelevant, but simultaneously a natural creature who will always hold a place in nature
On our way out, the three of us chose a particularly lush patch of green grass to act out a group piece. One where we enter together and choose a space for our bodies, we pat the grass under us down and curl into the ground for a few moments, listening to the surrounding sounds. The grass groaning under me, the wind shaking the trees above us, then sun casting spotty shadows over us through the canopy. It was a lovely way to conclude our trip and meditate together.
Environmental Artist Presentation – Andrea Zittel
Andrea Zittel is an American multidisciplinary artist who is based primarily out of Joshua Tree, California. Her work confronts themes of life, meaning, and ways of living. She examines space and objects through her work in connection to life and its meaning.
She holds a BFA from San Diego State University (1988) and a MFA in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design (1990).
A-Z Administrative Services/Enterprises
One of Zittel’s major works is a collection of sculpture ranging from shelter, clothing, and furniture that all exist in the same artistic experiment. She created a number of pieces all with the intention of examining the necessities of human living and what we feel is essential to our living. Many of the piece strip away excess, and work to fulfill our most simple and essential needs. This re-evaluation also reflects back to us the needs we have place upon us by social structures. A-Z East became the name for a show room in which she would test these designs through her own lived experience.
This re-examination of needs is said to make all necessities accessible to all as she establishes an environment for creativity to thrive without the stress of excessive living. This theoretical planning proposes a more socially-responsible lifestyle regarding waste and conscious consumption.
A-Z East
In 2000 Andrea chose to relocate from New York to Joshua Tree, California where she purchased five acres of the desert to live and work on. She began to create pieces in connection to the A-Z collection, with the same themes and requirements of reduced living. But they interacted much more with their direct environment. Those five acres are now around forty. She continues this experiment of sculptural exploration always evolving her testing with the questions “how to live?” and “what gives life meaning?” as the thesis for the sculptures. The interest in answering these question continuously reveals the complicated relationships between materiality, environment, and consumption.
Both Zittel’s personal home and guest cabin are actually available for renting and can be stayed in. The camping stations/wagon pods (pictured above on the right) are available for stay as well. Visitors are able to take refuge in the desert and immerse themselves in Zittel’s self-sufficient pods and share communal resources. There is a total of 10 pods, included are composting toliets, a communal outdoor kitchen, and outdoor showers. They are described as being a cross between and alien landscape, and regular campsite, a retreat and an old time “do it from scratch” Western horse-drawn wagons.
The pods are collapsible, movable and feature a transparent ceiling.
Book Stacks
Here are some if my Book Stacks, prompted by “Weather”
Note; I haven’t had the chance to retouch them at all so the images are still a bit raw 🙂
#1
The Sun Placed In The Abys – Melting Point (continued) ->>fast forward 2 – What’s Left -The Saddest Place On Earth
This stack ended up feeling very apocalyptic, I imagine a sort of exchange where the Sun is sacrificed and the Earth cannot stand its absence. Perhaps that is too poetic, but I don’t think it is far off from our reality with climate change in action. We already sacrifice the health of our planet in exchange for convenience in our lives today.
#2
The Earthly Paradise – Cities Full of Symbols – The Sex Of Architecture – The City As An Image of A Man – I Am Architecture – What People Want – Queer Space
This combination felt more natural to me. Finding books that were prompting was good way to flow into the next title (What People What). It was really interesting to find myself categorizing books automatically into what felt like different types of titles and how they could be used. Encouraging myself to not be controlling over the narrative created or to practice consciously putting titles together with my artist’s brain.
This string of titles also felt personal to me. Reflecting on societal structure and how it isn’t build with queer people/space in mind is relevant to my personal life. It also led me to think of the inaccessible nature of a lot of city spaces, I found myself imaging what a real “Earthly Paradise” would be like for me.
#3
Make Space – Queer Space – A Sense of Place – Across Space And Time
This last stack felt like a great conclusion. It works as a sort of final statement or thought, something to consider and take forwards. Queer Spaces are infinitely valuable for those who seek refuge or community. I also enjoy how the repetition of the word space and the rhyming with the word place. It repeats with purpose, but is also just satisfying to read. I think my sense of colours with the spines was most successful here as well, there’s a bit of a gradient happening which is pleasing to the eye!
Not so much weather related, but I still like this one.
Overall, this assignment felt very valuable. Slightly out of comfort zone, but still calling on skills we all have as artist’s to compose something from pre-existing image/items. Loved it!
First working on this assignment i felt overwhelmed with all of the options in the library at Guelph for potential combinations of words and phrases. So instead at the beginning of my process I decided to gather books simply based on interesting titles, combined with visually pleasing spines in order to create myself a micro selection of books. From the titles I liked and gathered, I then worked in my “mini library.”
STACK ONE | ART THROUGH THE AGES
My first collection of books were found all together in the Art History section of the library. I firstly noticed they provided all the colours of the rainbow before noting that they actually also were written by the same author, Gardener. This piece felt more like a natural start to the rest of the assignment, and encouraged me to not just rely on the title of the books, but what books physically stood out to me. What I would naturally lean towards visually felt as if the selection of books did not just speak about the library’s collection, but also my own preferences as an artist.
STACK TWO | EDEN
My second collection, is quite possibly my favourite. I leaned towards more word play, but still wanted to keep visual aesthetics in mind. This was the resulted in the more blunt appearance with shorter titles, and a more muted colour palette. I loved how these titles reminded me of the creation story in the bible of Adam and Eve, and relates to themes I want to explore in my practice as an artist this semester.
STACK THREE | WAR
My final stack felt the most natural to the original assignment. I had originally gathered this series of books based on the worn look of their covers thinking it provided a lot of visual interest. Nearing the end of my time at the library I was stacking books to put away when I finally noticed the titles of each book. I decided to rearrange them to read the most like poetry, to tell the story of the transitions of peace and war and then hopeful rediscovery.
This video was condensed from a previous art assignment, and is my submission for the Images Festival
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Book Research
For our class’ artist book, I really wanted to play around with editing and morphing images together. During one of our first days, I started with the idea of “men with mushrooms” and started gathering images. I noticed how everyone else’s images looked very similar with rectangles or squares on top of a solid colour background, so I wanted to see what else could be done in terms of making a spread. I did not want to only arrange images, but instead wanted to see how I could manufacture my own.
The first two pages I made for the book were produced by automatically selecting the image and allowing for gaps and holes to occur. Then I would layer images and textures playing with the opacity, and finally making all the images black and white for a sense of unity. I was inspired by zines and the idea of mass production, and wanted my images to almost resemble being layered and layered through a printer. Unfortunately, I got sick shortly after these pages were produced, and that maddest extremely difficult to come in and work. I was disappointed when I returned to class and one of my morphed images had been removed without notice because the last update I had received, “Men with Mushrooms” was still alongside another image I had created to compliment each other.
If we were to redo this assignment, I wish that maybe we assigned a set amount of pages for each student, in order to keep the amount of contributions even. Even though we were sourcing images from each other, I find that there was representation of certain student’s work much more than others and that really restricted the feeling of it being a “class book.” This was especially apparent for me when my final image I had created for the book was also nearly removed last minute due to it “not fitting the rest of the book.” Instead of a solution of maybe adding elements to an additional page to make a spread, I personally feel that maybe we were too quick to just remove pages. When it is supposed to be a class work and none of your own work is possibly represented, meanwhile certain classmates have their images present in nearly half of the book the assignment was really discouraging.
Women & FlowersMen & Mushrooms
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Artist Multiple
For my artist multiple, I was inspired by a 1913 love letter a cartoonist had sent his wife in order to tell her about a museum they were going to visit. I love the attributes of pop-up the original design carried and I wanted to make a multiple that was a 3D object in space rather than just a pamphlet or piece of paper.
Original Reference from 1913
For my new artistic interpretation of this piece, I wanted to speak on the inaccessibility of art institutions and how it can be difficult for young artists to even get their foot in the door of these institutions. I included images of famous works I personally like in order to show a bias in the art community. I wanted to capture this feeling of being unable to enter such a closed off space, so decided to remove the original doorway from the inspiring design. I also included a run-on-sentance monologue to cover all four sides of the pop-up. I wanted to the receiver to feel as if they were reading and receiving the same advice over and over again, but not knowing what the advice is wishing to do.
From discussions in class, I think moving forward with this project I would like to have them as a monthly mail-out where people can receive new monthly art history information about different artists, or contemporary artists of all disciplines. I think rather than individually glues pieces, I can easily size the piece to be a single sheet of paper with fold lines for assembly, and then only glue the one edge. The reason I chose to present this work’s packaging as a letter as well, is not just to pay homage to just the original letter, but also to signify the future plans of this project being a mailed form of art. Not everyone is able to go to art institutions, so I really admire the idea of bringing the art to them.
