More on grad school discussion

Hi everyone,

I and a few others in our class attended the FASA event at Caprice’s house last night, where a guest artist Shawn Camp gave a small talk about his work.  I found it interesting that like Daniel Dove, he really hammered on the importance of grad school to his development as an artist, calling it the second best decision of his life next to marrying his wife.  If I understood him correctly, he feels that grad school provides something of a buffer between the artist and the real world, allowing the artist to push his or her artistic exploration in a way that more practical real world concerns would render much more difficult if not nearly impossible.  Anyways, just thought I’d give a shot at reinvigorating this discussion.  Hope to hear your thoughts.

-Anthony

Pencil Attachment Turns Your Drawings Into Sounds

 

Pink is for Battleships

Good article on colors and how their meanings can vary from time to time and region to region:

What’s the most politicized color of our age? Pink, we’d have to say, takes the cake. When we think pink, we think Disney princess, Barbie, and Fifi the poodle, and then we think feminists slashing Barbie and Fifi. The ubiquitous pink ribbon has now become the universal symbol of girl power.

But pink hasn’t always been this way. In fact, pink has a decidedly masculine, even butch side: At different points in history, for different countries, it has served as the color of imperialism, speed, and strength in many forms. This slide show reveals a history of this often unladylike color.

Read the rest of the article at Slate.com

DICKCHICKEN.

We talked in class a bit about artist fame, and how they become as big as they are. Doug brought up the idea of artists making a name for themselves without putting the work it takes to develop, as did the band WAVVES. The class also discussed the fact thats Jasper Johns burned all of his previous work to erase the fact that he spent years to get where he was. Recently, with the popularity of street art growing (such as Shepard Fairy and Banksy), I often wonder if some artists use this outlet to get quick fame. The most recent case of this would be DICKCHICKEN, an artist based in Brooklyn. He has recently started the transition from street to gallery, a move that often makes or brakes artists. The part that I find interesting about this artist is that he is getting criticized from the both art and graffiti/street art communities. DICKCHICKEN is often labeled and blown of as “hipster graffiti”. Similar to a lot of street artists, his real name is kept a secret. The secrecy behind the name, in my opinion, only adds to the  mystique of the “artist”. I have not completely made up my mind on what I think he is worth as an artist, but I do enjoy the humor in his work. Below is a short video Playboy made about the artist.

Feel free to comment.

-Evan Hublein – Getloose.wordpress.com

Daniel Dove – Visiting Artist Lecture and Discussion

via Shannon Gowen.

Hey guys, just thought I would give you my take from Daniel Dove’s visit to Texas State last week and perhaps a better understanding for those who did not attend.

Tubescapes, 2007. Daniel Dove

oil on canvas. 60″x84″.

Although some of Daniel Dove’s earlier works deal with chance, his latest paintings are highly controlled. Dove works from a variety of source material. This includes manipulated photography, 3D forms or models built through a program called FormZ, as well as real world models that he sets up in his studio. His work is developed from sketch to small painted versions of the actual piece. With all of these sources he is able to control every aspect and get exactly the look he is trying to recreate. Dove strongly believes with the idea of driving around with the “art eyes” on at all times.
Dove is attracted to things in the world that are what most would say is unattractive or generic. The collision of the idealism of what an image is an idea that is seen throughout his work. A series of his paintings focuses on playscapes and gives them an animated presence. He is attracted to them because it is an object that doesn’t age well.
For these pieces he first takes a photograph of the object because he might like the way it is lit. He will then go on to build the 3D model of the playscape, and later set up pipe objects to get the right color of plastic when it is lighted. The Focus on shadows of light of objects he sets up is meant to get the right lighting. He uses “color as a function of light”, rather than the other way around.