02.28.11 : Artist Entry : Charity de Meer

Charity de Meer is a dedicated fashionista shooting weddings, editorial assignments, and other fun things. Charity was raised with her nose buried in fashion magazines. This exposure to great images and ideas at such a young age has instilled in her a keen fashion sense but with an individuality all her own. Charity likes to document what’s happening. Her travels have taken her to the Bahamas, St. Lucia, Vermont, Connecticut, New York City, New Orleans, Napa Valley & most recently, Brazil.

The concept is simple, your pet and your favorite pair of shoes shot from the waist down. The idea is to portray your pet as part of what makes you fashionable. The result? One ultra-stylish photograph with you and your best friend. The images can be purchased at Jonathan Adler New York City and Miami retail locations.

“This project started when I was walking around New York City, alas, without a camera. I saw a girl in parachute pants and red spike heels walking her toy dog. I lamented about what a great shot that would have made. A year or so later, I was in Key West and saw a woman standing under a streetlight in a short red skirt, high black heels with a Pomeranian on a leash. It reminded me of the NYC girl, the contrast of the outfit with walking a dog, the fact that our canines have been elevated from ‘pet’ to fashion statement. Thus began my slight obsession…” - Charity de Meer

Charity combines the idea of fashion and dogs with her pet portraits. This is a project I have considered doing without the fashion twist. My shots would be drastically different with more unity between leg positioning and more emphasis on the pets themselves. I do however think she does a good job of using the dogs as accessories of fashion. I do not just focus on the dogs but also the positioning of the legs and color pallet as well.

02.24.11 : Idea Entry : Membrane

Membrane
1. any thin pliable sheet of material
2. a pliable sheetlike usually fibrous tissue that covers, lines, or connects plant and animal organs or cells
3. biology a double layer of lipid, containing some proteins, that surrounds biological cells and some of their internal structures

A membrane can be a layer of material which serves as a selective barrier between two phases and remains impermeable to specific particles, molecules, or substances when exposed to the action of a driving force. Some components are allowed passage by the membrane into a permeate stream, whereas others are retained by it and accumulate in the retentate stream.

K Office

"The flow of the curves is alternated with iron openings in the translucent membrane and large moveable panels in black coloured wood. Reducing to essentiality the variety of the surfaces and materials, glass, iron, wood, resin the formal rigour continues from the offices into the inside space to the conference rooms where the opal surface lets in natural light expanding the whole. Architecture inside architecture: a translucent glass dimension as solid as it is transparent." - Lapo Ruffi Architetto

Translucent membrane
Uršula Berlot

"[Berlot] simply allows the paint to drip through the membrane - she often uses two simultaneous layers. The paintings are always completed (coagulated) very quickly as the crystallization and polymerization of the compounds takes place in only a few hours. Because of her use of these special compounds which dry very quickly, she must have a systematic plan before she begins working, though she also allows for accident and chance. For this reason, the individual shapes created in the transparent membrane are ceaselessly emerging and the artist allows the transparent compounds to run into the colored compounds as they flow over the plexiglass surface where they become part of the whole." - Tatjana Pregl Kobe

I was thinking about membrane in relation to my project. In my images the glass or fence that stands between myself and and animal is not impenetrable. Though glass can not easily be passed through or broken, it still doesn't prevent us from interacting and reacting to one another. Fences can be more persuasive when referring to these barriers and cages as membranes. A human being can easily put his or her hands or fingers through the cage to interact the the animal, which is more membrane related. Even so, I think the membrane between species is like an unspoken barrier that only certain events and action can accrue between the two.

Video Instillation

02.23.11 : Guest Lecture Response : Christopher Ho

Bio : Christopher K. Ho (b. 1974, Hong Kong) has had solo exhibitions at Winkleman Gallery (2010 and 2008) and GALERIA EDS in Mexico City (2009). He was included in the 2009 Incheon Biennial, the 2008 Busan Biennale, and the 2008 Chinese Biennial. He has participated in group exhibitions at the Queens Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, Dallas Contemporary, MASSMoCA at the Berkshire Botanical Gardens and the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art; and internationally at the Freies Museum in Berlin, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Srpska, and the Other Gallery in Shanghai. He received his B.F.A. and B.S. from Cornell University and his M.Phil from Columbia University.
----
Favorite Quotes :
"There is a generational biased against the gallery."

** This is a subject that I was not aware of. Some generations viewed the gallery as holding one back in his/she work or hindering you from being successful in a commercial aspect. I never viewed a gallery as being negative no matter what field of art you may be in.
----
3 Words : Redefining Non-criticalist Regionalism
----
I learned about the importance of working projects and the feedback you can get. He was open with the students about his uncertainty of how to describe his project, "Regional Painting" and were he want to go with it. He almost used up as a feedback session to bounce ideas off of and make a more concrete idea of what he wanted to say or not say with his project.
----
What is "Regional Painting"?
He described regionalism as a kind of eddy or side guard adjacent to but coterminous with the mainstream. In its relative calm, absent the need for criticality and originality alike, intuitive painting emerged as a salutary alternative to conceptual, polemical art.

Who is E.P. Rothko and why is he important to your work? Is there a difference between you and Rothko?
Rothko is a anagram that represents Christopher Ho and the year he spent in the shed in Colorado. “Regionalism is not a style, but a mode of and model for making. It not so much suspends the viewer’s disbelief as it enables an artist to suspend his selfconsciousness. The respite from criticality opens a fictive space where a conceptual artist can be a painter, a painter a writer, an art dealer a publisher.... Regionalism is the protective shell that allows us to be real artists again." - Rothko
----
My favorite project that he presented was called "Emptied Treasury." In 'Emptied Treasury,' a newly constructed wall that seamlessly blends with existing drywall partitions at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Residency Program seals off one of 12 studio spaces, rendering the space physically inaccessible. Inside, 12 industrial fans, blow 1,971 bits of paper—cut from the stock pages of the Wall Street Journal to the size of US currency—in the air. The circulating bills are visible through a 3 1/2-foot clerestory between the top edge of the drywall and the ceiling, as well as through the window from the adjacent public courtyard of the bank Brown Brothers Harriman. A small peephole at 3 1/2 feet allows a glimpse into the room. 'Emptied Treasury' is inspired by the residency's proximity to the New York Federal Reserve, which gained influence after the United States went off the gold standard in 1971.

I enjoyed this project because of the amount of detail Ho put into the work. The face that he but out 1,971 piece of paper to represent the United States going off the gold standard is impressive to me and something I would have never considered. In addition, his work is surprisingly simplistic for the message he is trying to send. To build a room, put fans in it and cut out dollar bill sized newspaper does not seem like a large task to but together but when you understand the meaning behind each object it become important and retains value. Looking through a peek hole is also very important in that it is like we are looking into a room we are not supposed to and exposing the secrets within. I like how well thought out everything in his projects are.

02.22.11 : Guest Lecture Questions : Christopher Ho

What is "Regional Painting"?

Who is E.P. Rothko and why is he important to your work? Is there a difference between you and Rothko?

02.22.11 : Reasearch Presentation : Working Finals

02.21.11 : Artist Entry : Tamara Kenneally

Tamara Kenneally is an award winning, animal based photographic artist situated in Melbourne, Australia. She has a passionate interest in animal behavior, animal rights and animal welfare which greatly influence her work. She has a degree in Media Arts (fine art photography) and post graduate qualifications in Animal Welfare.

She hails from a film photography background and has a passion for creating her images within her camera, this means no cropping and very little post processing on her images. Tamara likes to work with natural light and settings. She believes that animals do not belong in the studio. Tamara has also worked in photographic retail for 10 years and is an experienced photographic printer as well as having a total of 5 years uni/tafe photographic education.

Animal rights and welfare are one of Tamara's main passions in life and most of her work revolves around an animal welfare theme. She is currently working on a series called “No walks today” about neglected suburban dogs.

"The beauty of animals captivates me. Their truth, instinct and innocence grounds me. All I ever wanted to do was to be surrounded by animals, they tell you exactly who they are through their eyes and their behavior. Humans create so much pain for so many animals and without a voice they can’t tell their stories. I try to speak for them through my images.I produce bodies of work which look at animal issues whilst also portraying the beauty of the animal." - Tamara Kenneally

"I like to represent my subjects as the individual souls and personalities they are. All animals are worthy of a happy, enriched life. All of them. The dog chained up in the backyard next door. The chicken at the factory farm. The bird in the cage. The tiger at the zoo.The pig in the sow stall. All of them." - Tamara Kenneally

I researched Tamara as a juxtaposition to my own work. While my work addresses the captivity of animals, it is not meant to speak as an animals rights protest as her work clearly does. The differences in our work is really important to me. I do not want my work to be read in the same manner as her work is meant to. While I agree with some of the ideas regarding animal rights that she addresses, I would not approach it in such a direct manner or style.

Tamara Kenneally
Gallery

02.17.11 : Idea Entry : Capturing Animals

Capture : to gain control of or exert influence over; to take by force
Encloser : to surround, as with a fence or wall; to shut or hem in; close in on all sides

Methods for tapping insects :

• Beating tray : Insects that frequent plants are often reluctant to fly or run, preferring instead to remain still and rely on their natural camouflage and small size to escape detection. Beating tray is a simple affair made of white cloth stretched over a frame of two crossed sticks. It is held or placed under a shrub or tree branch, to which you deliver several sharp blows, taking care not to damage the plant. Insects having taken refuge there will fall onto the beating tray and can then be collected by hand.
• Pitfall traps : Pitfall traps are effective in catching insects that scurry across the ground rather than fly. Simply dig a small hole and sink a jar. Use yogurt pots with drainage holes and check every few hours. Place three or more strips of wood radiating from the rim like the spokes of a wagon wheel; these will guide insects into the trap.
• Bait traps : One of the major pastimes of insects is searching for food, and many species can be lured with bait. Pitfall traps or small containers suspended from a tree branch make excellent bait traps. Cover them securely with a large-mesh screen. A mixture of equal parts of molasses and water, fermenting fruit, or meat scraps all makes a fine bait. Cloth strips soaked in a bait mixture and suspended from a tree branch will attract larger insects, such as nocturnal moths, that cannot fit through the screen covering your other bait traps.

Live trapping is an effective animal control alternative that is both humane and earth-friendly. Whether you are successful in catching a live animal depends on choosing the right bait and location among factors.Many people use live animals traps to capture animals like chipmunks, mice, rats, squirrels, rabbits, possums, raccoons, armadillos, groundhogs etc. They are usually made up of a rescue cage, divider, door hook, and burlap cover with some type of bait in the cage to attract the animal.

Video