Failure

For my failure project, I decided to make an Irish dancing solo dress out of butcher paper. I've heard from multiple sources that making a solo dress without a pattern is very difficult. I don't have a pattern but ever since I started doing Irish dance, I've wanted to make one for myself. A dress typically costs $500-$1200, so if one is able, it's more worth it to make one rather than buy it.

Solo dresses are usually made out of high quality fabrics, such as heavy satin or velvet. They are traditionally embroidered with elaborate designs taken from the Book of Kells and accented with rhinestones, sequins, and all things glittery. For competitions, there are rules surrounding the dresses, and performance in the competition can be affected by the dress. The dress always has a cape in back, long sleeves, high neckline, and skirt above the knee. Styles and fashions for the dresses are constantly changing, most recently with increasing amounts of sparkles, brighter colors, and shorter skirts. A few examples of past and current styles:


Past:

Current:

     ^ back view







My failure:

In Irish dancing, you're supposed to dance with your arms and shoulders back. I could not do so very well in my dress. I actually ripped a bit of the collar trying to do so. The skirt was too long. It was very loud when I tried dancing in it. I didn't use a pattern, instead using a dress I already had and tracing its parts onto the butcher paper, so measurements were a bit off and some things didn't match up right. I had to re-fold the skirt several times to get it to the right width to fit the dress. The whole thing is held together with scotch tape. My dress mostly fits the current style of dress, but for the skirt length. I don't have elaborate celtic designs on it, but the designs I have would be appropriate for competition.

Inside view:

Final Test Question 1: Color Theory

I think abstraction is making something we would recognize into something less recognizable. Abstraction isn't typically representational, but one could find representation in it. When we painted our skin colors, we were abstracting our skin into something less recognizable, but one could still figure out that the little squares are a skin color. Our black and white paintings are abstract in that they aren't representational at all. They're just black and white forms on paper, but someone could still read emotions or other representational forms into them..

Modernism is a breaking away of traditional forms. When painting our black and white paintings, we used sticks, which is a breaking away from the traditional use of brushes. They are abstract, which itself is a form that breaks away from traditional, representational painting forms.

Color theory is so interesting. When we painted our skin color, it was interesting how the different colors of paper made the skin color look different. When initially mixing the color, I thought I knew what color my skin was, but then comparing it directly to my skin, it looked really different. So I had to mix in different colors that I didn't think would actually be mixed into a skin color.

A modernist might view these images and just look at the use of paint and nontraditional materials. A postmodernist might look at them and interpret them according to postmodern ideas of race and diversity, how only black and white colors were used for the abstract paintings and the controversies that could go along with that, or they would be interested in the use of skin color and ideas of diversity in color in the labels of black and white.

3 questions to students:
What are some other nontraditional materials like sticks that could be used to make abstract paintings?
What ideas about race could be portrayed through the painting of skin color on the different colors of paper?
Does there need to be meaning in art for it to be art? Why or why not?

Me on the violin

Here's a link to my new Soundcloud station. I may or may not continue to post recordings, but there are four recordings up on it of me playing my violin with my husband on the ukulele. My dad sings in one of them.

https://soundcloud.com/user-522473970

Enjoy!

Art 21 Presentation-- Natalia Almada

Natalia Almada

http://www.art21.org/videos/segment-natalia-almada-in-mexico-city

What are some qualities and manifestations of violence?

     Silence
     Fear
     Pain
     Dehumanizing
    
     Clothing industry
     War
     Domestic violence
     Bureaucracy
     Making food

There are some artists who depict graphic violence in their art, but those displays would not be appropriate in public schools. How can we explore violence or address issues of violence in our art without being too graphic?

     "Empowering" portraits of victims of violence
     Other good ideas that were mentioned in class that I can't remember now. :)

My response:

Natalia Almada mentions in the video that her mother became afraid of water after the death of her sister. The character in her film is also afraid of the water. She says how she wonders what could open a wound such as that in a person and she wanted to explore that in her film.

For my art response, I wanted to go off of her idea of opening a wound. I have an anxiety disorder and it is really painful for me to talk about and it makes certain experiences painful for me. Often, I am not able to look at some art because something about it triggers a panic (for example, the art of Julie Mehretu). I decided to challenge myself to make a work of art that bothers my anxiety. Because I knew it was going to bother me, I couldn't bring myself to even begin working on the project and I had to have my husband start it for me. He drew some basic shapes and I went off of that. This is what I came up with:

Dan Barney

Dan Barney came and talked about a few books he brought and interesting ideas he found in them. The books were "Reading the Way of Things," Alien Phemonenology, or What It's Like to Be a Thing," and "The Quadruple Object." I don't remember the authors. A few notes from the first book that I thought were pretty cool were:
     Artists depict the "space between the tables." Be okay with that space of not knowing.
     Art loves ambiguity.
He also spoke about object orientology.

We took a trip to the MOA and looked at the Potato Eaters exhibit. It was fascinating and I liked the artist's style in her portraiture.