On the chopping block for today: tiny closet remodel and under the media-center cubby.

Please come if you can!

Intructions for Movement from WWAWUT on Vimeo.

THE TOOLS OF UNMAKING: CHOREOGRAPHERS & VISUAL ARTISTS ON THE PRACTICE OF PRESENCE

featuring installations by
Hope Mohr (choreographer) & Tracy Taylor Grubbs (painter)
Sasha Petrenko (sculptor)
Christian Burns (choreographer)

Friday April 27 & Saturday April 28
Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th Street, San Francisco, 94110
8 PM  Tickets $10-$20 sliding scale
Info/Reservations: 415-289-2000
Buy Tickets at Brown Paper Tickets

footloose.org

hopemohr.org /// tracygrubbs.com  /// christianburns.net /// sashapetrenko.org

Sneak peak of some new and improved pieces for sale at Holiday Land in Oakland. Opening November 25th! Looks to be a great pop-up shop with something for everyone. I was asked to participate by Kelly-Lynn Jones of Little Paper Planes. Super inspiring lady. Support your local businesses. Shop local this holiday.

wonderful images of cy twombly’s sculpture!

Instructions for movement with Furniture from WWAWUT on Vimeo.

images by kirsten incorvaia

(top, yellow 2x4s, applying black tape, and packing in pocket-house)

Thanks to Kirsten, Jeff, Kathryn and Tracey.

With Tracey Snelling and Kathryn Kenworth. Pieces in process. Work on display will feature models, dioramas depicting urban and domestic scenes and fantasy.

In the last section we created works with bailing wire, chicken wire, plaster and plaster gauze. We worked with line, form, volume and positive and negative space. Our process was experimental and the results organic and expressive.

Today we will begin a new section where you will be making representational work, work that is based on an existing object. This process will require keen observational skills, new techniques, some measuring and even some math. It will also involve the use of new tools and new materials, which will be thoroughly discussed and demonstrated in the following weeks.

To begin I’d like to talk about an important topic, Sustainability.

This will inform the next assignment and i hope all the work that you do going forward, art-based and otherwise.

Camille Seaman, 2009, The Last Iceberg

Christine Seely, 2010, Markers of Time

It is hard to deny we live in a time when our environment is at a pivotal point. Considering the popularity of hybrid cars and how recycling is now an industry in itself, we have begun to act more responsibly as citizens regarding how our lifestyles impact our planet. Artists should do no less. In fact as artists we are educators and culture makers. What and how we bring work into the world has an influence on our community and society at large.

Sustainability can mean many things for an artist. Lets talk about 3 ways we can define sustainability as artists: Financial Sustainability, Evironmental and Physical.

Financial Sustainability- While your imagination is free, art is expensive. And for sculptors it can be particularly so. Consider the scale and material of your work before you commit. Your art should enhance your life not hinder your financial growth. Be resourceful! There are a number of ways to supplement your budget.

Instead of spending your hard earned money at the Art Store, look for materials at thrift stores, hardware stores and salvage yards. Some business offer student discounts or even have a free bin. Did you know craigslist has a great searchable free section?

And some great finds might be right in your neighborhood. Take a walk around. You might just find part of your next sculpture on your street. The following works were inspired by items the artists found for free while taking a walk around their neighborhoods.

Sasha Petrenko, Free-shed with Addition, 2005-2008

Chris Sollars, Left Behind Series, 2009-2011

Sasha Petrenko, We-house, 2006

Chris Sollars, Left Behind Series, 2009-2011

$$$ Ask for help! Some local businesses will offer small donations to artists if they feel your project would benefit their business or community. There are also several websites like Kickstarter that rely on crowd-sourcing and social networks to raise funds. All it takes is a great idea, access to a computer, a camera, and you can start your own campaign.

Future Farmers, 2010

Alora and Calzadilla

Anish Kapoor, Cloud Gate

Combine forces! Many artists today are turning to collectives and collaborative projects to combine both creative and fiscal forces. Even artists who show their work as solo artists may have a team of craftspeople and technicians behind them. Working collaboratively is a great way to sustain your practice and stay inspired. You can divide tasks depending on individual talents and interests, share expenses, resources, and social networks.

Los Carpinteros

Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen

I’ve posted several links at the end of this presentation. Check your school, local community arts center, City website and California Arts Council websites for grant announcements. There do exist a number of grant opportunities specifically directed toward students and young artists. NYFA.org and CAA are good sources plus the CCA library page on resources for artists.

Environmental: Does the world really need another sculpture? Many contemporary artists today are creating work out of existing objects. This is not only clever financially, conceptually, working with everyday material, can make for work that resonates deeply with audiences in that they can recognize their own experiences in the material, like a chair, a car, a mattress, etc.

Doris Salcedo, 2003, 1600 chairs

Doris Salcedo

Simon Starling, ShedBoatShed, 2005

Recycling, repurposing and up-cycling, does not only belong to the DIY generations. Throughout history, artists have been re-contextualizing existing objects and material, illustrated here by Picasso’s Bull, Dega’s dancer, Duchamp’s Fountain and Bottle Rack. Breaking away from the traditional techniques and materials of art-making, these artists who incorporated everyday themes and materials into their work were the forerunners of modernism.

Pablo Picasso, Bull, 1942

Marcel Duchamp

Joseph Cornell

Louise Nevelson

John Chamberlain

Robert Rauschenburg

Some sculptors are incorporating performance, the human body, nature and/or existing architecture into their projects. The art work seemingly springs up from the environment and then melts back into the world, only temporary, existing as an experience and later as documentation.

Erwin Wurm

Sasha Petrenko, Instructions for Movement with Furntiture, 2011

Erwin Wurm

Disposing of materials properly is critical. There are environmental regulations that dictate how we can work and dispose of waste in our facility, but sometimes these regulations are overlooked in an individual artists studio. Paints, glues, glazes, flux, electronic detritis needs to be removed responsibly. Check your local household hazardous waste disposal center, hardware store or the EPA webiste for information.

Only mix up or pour out as much paint as you need. After your process return any remaining material to it’s original container. Or let the residue dry completely before you dispose of it.

When paint and glue are solid they are less harmful to the environment. Use non-toxic material, like white glue instead of super glue, or water based paints instead of oil based paints and solvents.

Avoid using materials like polyester resin and look for safer alternatives, like eco resins, milk based sealers, and water based coatings. In the last decade, low to No VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints have become readily available at specialty paint stores and even big box stores.

The quality of the pigments and performance is often superlative, and it cleans up with water. These benefits do come a a slight mark-up. However, for anyone who is concerned about their environment and their personal health, the slight mark up is a small price to pay.

Physical (Health): Your physical health is the most valuable tool you have. As an artist, a designer, a sculptor, you transform physical material into art. In some stage of the creative process, their is production, the manipulation of matter into a new, innovative and creative form. This transformation may involve tools, and machinery. Be sure that you have received the proper training, you were your protective gear like goggles and ear protection, and make very certain you are physically up to the task at hand. This equipment is safe but only when used properly. If you are tired or distracted, find a less physically demanding part of your project to accomplish. This even applies to cutting cardboard with a razor blade.

Historically, artists have used a wide range of materials and processes to create work from traditional to exotic. Pigments derived from beetles blood or cow urine were highly treasured, known as Carmine and Indian yellow, respectively. Other colors were produced with magnesium, cadmium and lead, substances now known to be were toxic to both the artists and people employed to mine these materials. Certain ceramic glazes can be toxic when fired, pigments particularly in powder form must be handled with extreme care to avoid inhalation and certain metals and welding applications can result in the release of harmful gases. To protect yourself, and to remain productive, you’ll want to be fully informed about the chemicals you are using and thoroughly trained in the equipment necessary to execute your project. Pretty obvious, right?

Jackson Pollock smoking and painting with enamel, 1950s. Though toxic art supplies were not the cause of his death, Pollock epitomizes the mythology of the eccentric, spirited, suffering artist.

Robert Smithson, 1969, Glue pour

Not very long ago, in the 1940‘s, 50s, 60s and 70s many artists turned to industrial materials, like lead, latex, steel, and polyester resins to create formal, abstract and experiencial works of art that still resonate today.

Donald Judd, 1968

Eva Hesse, 1968

Gordon Matta Clark, 1975

Richard Serra throwing molten lead

Unfortunately, the substances used by these innovators had not been thoroughly researched for it’s affects on humans and ultimately were found to be hazardous. In recent years, I’ve decided as an artist and an educator I will do all I can to teach my students about these things so they can continue to make work well past their prime. In recent years I have contributed to several articles on the subject of toxic art and I teach this lesson to all my classes. There are so many non-toxic alternatives today that are less harmful to our physical health. Always do your research and try to find the most non-toxic approach. That way we can really get our hands dirty, experiment and innovate. Here are some things to remember:

1. Wear gloves — non-latex might be best when working with paints, glues and solvents.
2. And wear masks, especially if you have respiratory problems, even when the vapors or dust particulates are from “non-toxic” products.

3. Never eat, drink, or smoke while working with art materials.

4. Wear dedicated aprons or smocks for messy work.

5. Wash your hands thoroughly at the end of your work session.

6. Don’t store food in a refrigerator used for chemical storage.

7. Don’t hold a paint brush or other tool in your mouth.

8. Never use solvents to clean your skin.

9. Remember that “Use with proper ventilation” means using spray paints and adhesives outside, away from people.

10. Know what to do in an emergency. Contact Poison Control: Throughout California, call 800-222-1222.

11. Carefully read the instructions and precautions before you begin and make sure you have done your research to find the safest material for the application.

What I’d like to do now is introduce your next assignment that expands upon this idea of Sustainability for Artists in several ways.

First In the spirit of sustainability, we will be recreating manufactured objects our of recycled paper and cardboard. Here are some examples of student from a previous class. I asked my students to consider how making the sculpture from cardboard might affect our perception. Cardboard is not only the physical material that makes the thing, it is also a conceptual material in that the cardboard informs or adds to our experience and understanding of the sculpture. Seemingly luxurious shoes made out of cardboard? Fruit made out of the same cardboard that carried it to market? A computer made completely out of cardboard?

Here’s an interesting quote about the highly representational work of ceramic artists Marilyn Levine. It summarizes nicely how recreating existing objects out of unconventional material might challenge our senses, making engaging art.

There is a conflict between visual and tactile, between reality and unreality, between presentation and

representation. The material illusion confronts our assumptions and makes us question our perceptions.

It asks us to examine a thing beyond it’s perceived usefulness as an object and then invites us to look

deeper….

Your last project was abstract. You were not trying to reproduce a real thing. This assignment will be representational and you will be trying to reproduce an existing manufactured object. While the figure is traditional subject matter throughout human history, many modern artists reproduce existing objects to comment on some aspect of contemporary culture. Andy Warhol, syro hummer guy. The consumer object is part of our landscape. It might even be said that our things are an expression of ourselves. Artists might look at these objects as a stand in for the figure or some aspect of contemporary human experience. To talk about contemporary life, artists use a visual language we can understand.

Chris Gilmore

Sylvie Reno

You can find cardboard on campus, in your neighborhood, and check local businesses too. Trader Joes, homedepot, Ralphs, almost all merchants recycle a some amount of cardboard on a weekly and even daily basis.

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen

The second way we will be tying this project to the subject of Sustainability is… Remember Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, the artists that worked collaboratively to create oversized sculptures of everyday objects? Let’s have another look. Claes and Coosje’s work illustrates how scale can dramatically affect our perception. Scale is the relative size of a thing. When it is altered, or when an object or figure is rendered larger or smaller, we are forced to look more carefully, we question our own size, and the imagination is engaged. It lends a sense of monumentality to something as everyday as a paper clip or clothes pin. We are forced to really look at the shape, the form, the planes that make up the object. Or we are confronted with our relationship with the figure. It’s not only the thing we are looking at, but our relationship to it as Scale is relative.

Charles LeDray

Los Carpinteros

Like Oldenburg and Van You will be charged with the task of recreating an everyday object, a manufactured object in larger than life scale. Scaling up is an important technique. Scaling is used in design, architecture and art making. Making models in small scale allows an artist or designer to make changes with less expense and effort. If the item is 1/2 size it might cost 1/2 as much to make a change. Model making, which we’ll go into in our last two projects is a great designing tool, part of the making-thinking process.

These items are manufactured, and they’ve been put together by workers and or machines. They are reducible to geometric and planar forms. Planar forms are based on flat planes. Imagine a box, a cylinder or a pyramid. The shape is made up of several planes. Some flat, some rounded. You will have to study the object carefully, deconstruct it mentally, and discover the basic geometric shapes that make up the form.

You will be required to enlarge your object so it is at least 5 feet in one direction. For example, if you choose to create a mail box that is 8 inches tall and 22 inches long. you’ll need to triple your final object so it will be 24 inches tall and 66 inches long or 5 1/2 feet! You must use only found or recycled cardboard and paper for this project.

Because of the scale of these projects you will be also this time work collaboratively in teams! this will make it easier to gather cardboard, and you will be able to work faster together having a chance to experience for yourself the benefits of working as a collective, another one of our sustainable artist topics. Please make sure to take the assignment handout. We’ll continue to discuss this assignment next class, and select teams. Once you’ve settled in with your team, you will determine together what sort of manufactured object you’d like to make. You can consult with me of course, and I will have to approve your final choices. Try to choose a object that will make an interesting sculpture. No ipods or iphones please, you can make a giant apple product for fun later. Tools, like hammers, or wrenches, or a vice. Or a mailbox, or a vault, a giant pair of scissors, a giant flashlight, a vintage object like a turntable or a TV might make a good choice.

Before we break up into teams however I will require one individual project.  I will ask you all to produce one cardboard sculpture consisting of geometric forms. The piece needs to be no larger than 12 inches tall. You’ll need to incorporate into the piece 2 of the 3 following forms, a cube, a cylinder or a pyramid. Here are some examples from previous classes. You will be graded on technique and creativity. Let’s take a short break and when we come back I will go over how to cut, score and bend cardboard and demonstrate some fabrication techniques with hot glue, staples, tape and paper mache.

Break up into teams of 3-5 artists and get ready to smack down some sculpture!

Criteria

The sculpture must be larger than a loaf of bread and smaller than a BMX bike.

The sculpture must incorporate something found, something manufactured, something organic and something hidden. Also you must repeat a pattern or a color.

You have 30 minutes!

Let’s look at some 10 minute sculptures from Erwin Wurm that incorporate people of all things! Interesting.

some more here