Report # 1

Tara,

 

It seemed like it may be helpful for you and a good exercise for me to put together a report on what I have been up to since we talked. So here you go.

First, our meeting served as just the kick in the pants I needed and I jumped right in. So thanks.

(Note: Text in purple represent action items.)

 

·     I finished, at least for now, the W_P sculptural piece that I was working on. Moving forward with this project, I will be limiting materials, focusing on the papers and films that work best and tightening up the files I use to cut the shapes in order to make them a little more precise. This will address some of my frustrations working on this. In the meantime, I am using this piece to experiment with integrating backgrounds (see next bullet).

W_P #2

·     I jumped right into the sketchbook idea (and ordered a new ones).  I did recognize that I use sketch books more than I may have implied. But I have not used them for a while as a method to thoroughly investigate an idea. I am doing that now. I have been creating these drawings using templates of the same shapes used in the W_P sculpture and combining that with some of the important concepts from Human Geography (something that I have been researching lately with Covid 19 in mind). Space, distance, density, scale, patterns, networks, scale, stimulus, contagion, diffusion. I'm loving the sketchbook work. It's freeing and pretty quick (some quicker than others). I will keep filling pages going forward and see where it takes me next.

Scale

Scale with W_P bubble

Scale with transparent bubble

Rounded W_P shape

Straight edged W_P shape

Density

Movement

                                                                                    

Networks

W_P #2 with background experiments on brown paper

W_P #2 with background experiment white paper

With larger shapes in background

From the beginning, I envisioned these sculptures interacting with a 2D background using the same family of shapes. There are a whole assortment of factors that are added to the thinking when adding the background. Color, density of shapes, distribution of shapes all need to be played with more. The scale of these shapes ended up looking too small so I cut larger templates and found the mix of scales was more interesting. More to come.

I  ordered most of the books you recommended although they are taking their time arriving. The Spiritual in Twentieth Century Art did come and I have been reading it. It is funny because I have also been reading the Hilma af Klint catalogue from the Guggenheim exhibition which argues that she pre-dates Kandinsky and spiritualism in general but she isn't even mentioned in the book because it was originally published in 1988 and she was still mostly unknown. But the take away from both artists and the idea of the spiritual comes as a challenge to me. To ask myself why I make art, what am I trying to learn/deal with/exorcise? I would like to do some writing over the next couple weeks with that in mind and see what I discover. I would like to get clearer on just why I am working with this shape, in this way and what I am trying to learn.

I still need to block out more time for reading, research and writing. I had made a promise last week to spend 45 min a day reading something and I completely failed. I will try again this week!!

Your thoughts?