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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Stilts and H20

Inspiration spurred by my part-time photo management position with Virginia Tourism Corporation:

Fishing House

Today I logged a video of a stilted fishing house plopped right out in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay and it made me realize how much I miss semi-yearly visits to the Outer Banks and the ocean.

Imagine something like this in the middle of the bay.

Stilt houses were originally built as fishing lodges before gas or diesel-powered boats were common. Fishermen would pole their way out to the flats to fish where these structures would provide a place for them to rest and eat. The original owners of the houses never bought the 'land' they were built on, but would simply scope out a spot and let the building commence. All lumber had to be floated out to the site and pilings had to be sunk into the ground beneath the waters to support the houses.

Not only are these houses visually attractive, but it would be liberating to [truly] escape humanity and technology every once and a while. Plus, fishing can be a fantastic stress relief.

Fresh Salt Air, we will rendezvous in short order.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Giles Ripley's "My New Best Friend"

I stumbled across this short film by Giles Ripley and thought it was absolutely amazing! His films are comedic while they satirize man's ever-growing anxiety for achievement. Viewers connect through their own fears of rejection and not living up to life's potential. "The narratives running through the work are often fictionalized or exaggerated accounts of my real life," says Ripley. I think we all have experiences in our life that are reminiscent of this film... at least I can think of a few.

My New Best Friend

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Visions Show Follow-Up

Thanks to everyone that showed up at the opening night on June 4th! It was the first of many First Friday openings at Visions hair salon. Keep your eyes on 2300 W Main Street! Also, if you're a local Richmond Artist, join The Red Hand Society. ADVOCATE RICHMOND ART!




My work will remain up through the end of June. If you haven't seen it, please check it out!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Visions Solo Show: 6-4-10

Visions the Art of Hair
2300 W Main St
Richmond, VA

7 pm


This coming First Friday, I have my first solo show at Visions Salon! On display will be Still in Life and After I Die in their entirety, Assent (single image from The Ribbon series), and most of my ceramic work from this year. There is also discussion of having a local band at the opening.

This show has been put together by The Red Hand Society of Richmond and Visions' owner Doug Curtler and awesome stylist/representative Meaghan Hobson. Come and enjoy some local art, support The Red Hand Society, or even get a fabulous hair cut! Also, look forward to more collaborations between Red Hand and Visions on future First Fridays.

Visions' Bio:

Visions the Art of Hair opened its doors on Main Street over thirty years ago in the heart of the fan. Owner Doug Curtler planned to utilize the space for two things: hair and art. The front lobby was put to task as an art gallery, showcasing artists from all across America, and permanently housed a collection of paintings by local artist, Greig Leach. The main rooms were used as the body of the salon, and the back as the owners personal sculpture studio. The studio has since been converted into private wax and massage rooms, while the owner has moved his focus to the "sculpting" of hair. The salon is excited about their latest prospect of joining the Red Hand Society in reopening the lobby as a gallery to support Richmond artists and further enriching their relationships within the community.

Rodeo Christmas, Still in Life, 2009

Assent, The Ribbon, 2009

Arctic Mask, After I Die, 2008


Untitled, 15''x10'' Stoneware Jar, 2010

Monday, May 10, 2010

What are chairs, anyway?

Why have I been so subconsciously interested in chairs during the process of Still in Life? Unsure of how this could have gone unnoticed for so long, I have put together a little research on the history of the chair in hopes that it may shed some light on my subliminal self. Perhaps 'the chair' has been anthropomorphically ingrained to represent the following:

Chair:

(n)A chair is a raised surface used to sit on, commonly for use by one person. Chairs often have the seat raised above floor level, supported by four legs.

Types of chairs:

Stool: chair without a back or armrests (when raised, it is a bar stool)
Armchair: chair with arms
Recliner: chair with folding action and a footrest
Seat: permanently fixed chair on a train or in a theater
Saddle: chair meant for riding
Wheelchair: chair with wheels
Swing: hanging chair

"The chair is of extreme antiquity and simplicity, although for many centuries and indeed for thousands of years it was an article of state and dignity rather than an article of ordinary use." [thank you, Wikipedia] Think: thrones, committee directors, academic leaders.

Chairs are often used as a symbol of power and wealth, but they can also represent institution, rigidity, strength, comfort, laziness, absence, and even death (etc). I would say that a chair could probably be fashioned to portray almost anything. Furthermore, it's not always about the physical appearance of the chair, but about how, where, or what is interacting with the chair. A chair with a piece of clothing flung over the armrest gives the viewer a completely different feeling than an empty chair.

Most of the chairs I have portrayed in my photographs are empty. Their emptiness represents the loss or absence of an inhabitant or a space worth achieving (as in "Portrait of a Throne"). Chairs provide a sort of architectural knowledge and stability within their simplicity, not to mention they are universal in their accessibility.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

BFA Thesis Follow-up

Thanks to everyone who showed up for the VCU photo senior's BFA thesis production last Friday. A lot of hard work went into refurbishing the Richmond National Bank building over the past two months and it more than paid off. There was such a great turn out that the show was open for an additional hour. Special thanks to my mom and aunt for driving as far away as Philadelphia for the exhibition!

Here are some installation photos of Still in Life:



It wasn't until I began installing my work last week that I realized how many of my images include chairs. It sounds strange to have gone unnoticed for so long, but the majority of my research has long been focused on animal symbolism, anthropomorphism, the domestication of animals, still lifes, taxidermy, and influential artists.

There must be a subconscious symbolism that works seamlessly with my concept. While all the photos are in a domestic setting where chairs are abundant, I am unquestionably biased towards single-seat furniture... at least in terms of this series.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

VCU Photography's BFA Thesis Show: 5-7-10

This Friday is the VCU senior photographer's BFA Thesis Show from 6-9pm. There will be lots of great work, refreshments, and discussion. Not to mention, it's taking place in the Richmond National Bank building located on East Broad Street. The now empty sky scraper was built in 1929 and still has some of the old interior architecture visible. Check it out!


Some of the participating artists:

Arlie Trowbridge
The 70's Addition,2010
Urban Revisions


Kerry McDonnell
Untitled (Places for Breathing), 2010
Graffiti Skies Photography


John Cameron
Required, 2009
John Cameron Photography


Sarah D'Eugenio
Indentured Servants, 2010
Sara Marie D'Eugenio


Also, look for my Still in Life series.

Sarah Hauser
The Second Departure, 2010

Friday, April 9, 2010

4-11-10 Artist Blog, Christopher Reiger

Christopher Reiger

"My work is principally concerned with contemporary man's mutable conception of Nature." As a child, "I anthropomorphized animals and cast them as key players in an epic production of which I was a part... As I matured, however, my childhood love of nature evolved into a fascination with biology and ethology, an intellectual ontogenesis like that impelled by the European Enlightenment."

"Incidentally, we've realized that the divide between the imagination and reason is unnatural: We learn an increasing number of facts about Nature, we understand ourselves to be apart from it, and our experience of it is therefore less complete."

"My artwork is born of this apparent opposition. The paintings are celebratory hybrids of myth, natural history, and science; the world they picture stretches between the tidy "truth" and the messy question. They depict a world in flux, a Nature imploding and dissolving. But this dissolution is also an opening of the senses, the seepage of magic and mystery into the picture. The drawings are poetic vignettes that explore the same ideas and questions."

The above are the highlights of Christopher Reiger's artist statement. http://www.christopherreiger.com/statement.html


Synesthesia #1, 2008

This was the first piece of Reiger's that I first stumbled upon at http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/seeing_antlers_feeling_dendrites/. The article explains the fascinating condition of Synesthesia and how art can give the masses a glance into its world of meaning.


Didelphis Virginiana (Virginia's Double Womb), 2006


Canis Lupis (Dog wolf), 2006

In his 2006 work, Reiger combines drawing, scientific classification, and words in his drawings.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

4-7-10 Idea Post

Biology

-A natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy.

-The term was introduced independently by Karl Friedrich Burdach, Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus, and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck between 1800 and 1802 AD. It is inspired by the Greek word bios (life) and the suffix logia (study of).

Above is a diagram created by Ernst Haeckel called The Tree of Life
wikipedia.com

-----

Recently I have been thinking more about my collections of animal assortments (if you will), inspired by the work on the very top floor of the Anderson Gallery. I was jealous of the bug collection(s) and wonder if the person/people collected or ordered the bugs. The preservation and presentation wasn't top notch, but was impressive overall.

Collections (particularly of animals) and their presentation are art within themselves, but they are not appreciated in the same way 'art labeled' works are- they're given museum quality appreciation. I'm not sure why I have such an interest in this quality, but I can guess.

The Naturalist Center (Leesburg, VA) is only down the street from where I grew up in Northern Virginia. It is the biggest interactive collection of natural history objects I have ever encountered. They have over 36,000 hands-on collection objects including skeletons, furs, animal preservations, bugs, shells, etc. They are a branch of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

One day I aspire to have a fraction of this type of collection and display within my own house.



^^The Naturalist Center in Leesburg, Va^^

Monday, April 5, 2010

4-5-10 Artist Post, ROA

ROA

ROA is a street artist also known as the Gent Zoo Keeper and the King of Doel Jungle who hand paints large black and white murals of animals: rats, pigs, rabbits, and cows (from what I can find). He often targets decaying urban areas, which began with the outlying abandoned buildings and warehouses in the outskirts of Ghent, Belgium (home town). He replicates animals found in the area and seeks to embody their amazing ability to adapt to urban environments and become scavengers in order to survive.

ROA's artwork went global when he ventured to urban New York, London, Berlin, Warsaw, and Paris to paint his often depicted cross-sectioned animals and city scavengers.

A majority of ROA's work shows a transformation, whether it be through his painting of the animal or emphasized in the environment.

A piece that hung in the Gallerie Itinerrance in Paris earlier this year

[From the same gallery as above] The metal pieces in this artwork are on hinges that allow the viewer to alter the work seeing two sides of the animal (interior neuro-structure vs epidermal layer).

Unlabeled location

Unlabeled location

Unlabeled location: In this piece, the yellow door flips open to show a complete rabbit (instead of a skeletal head) as well

ROA's website has very little information and I'm not sure whether the photographs are taken by himself or by fans. Understandably, he wishes to remain anonymous.

http://www.roaweb.org/

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Anderson Gallery

I entered three pieces to the Anderson Gallery Student show, two of which got in. =) Stoked!


Both are images from the fall semester of senior portfolio (2009).

4-1-10 Idea Post

More thoughts on the domestication of animals:

At what point during anthropomorphism or domestication do animals lost their identity? When (if) do they stop being animals and become humanized beings or objects?

What IS an animal? How does our culture define animalia?

Animals are a major group of mostly multicellular eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently. All animals are also heterotrophs, meaning they must ingest other organisms for sustenance.

The word "animal" comes from the Latine word animal meaning 'with soul.' In everyday colloquial usage, the word usually refers to non-human animals. Frequently only closer relatives of humans such as vertebrates or mammals are meant in colloquial use. The biological definition of the word refers to all members of the Kingdom Animalia including humans.

wikipedia.org

I would suspect most people think of wild animals when they hear the word 'animal.' We use 'animal' as an adjective pertaining to the physical, sensual, or carnal nature of humans rather than our spiritual or intellectual nature. At one point, all animals were 'wild' or undomesticated. At what point do we stop referring to an animal as 'wild'? Is a caged lion or tiger still wild?
Remember: Domestication is a process of selection in which animals or plants become accustomed to human provision/control.

In conclusion:

At what point did the goose cease being a migratory majestic that signaled the change of seasons and begin to play the role of community pond accessory whose fecal matter covers grass to the point of non-enjoyment?

Human ignorance sound familiar?