10/12-10/18

This week I've been reflecting about everyone's presentations and I am really itching to get some more work done. Looking back on the very first puppet I made this year, I really see a progression that makes sense to me and that narrows in on my ideas both conceptually and visually.

With the weekend being fall break, I had some obligations out of town as well as really intense studying, so I did not get as much done as I would've liked. What I want to focus on for the next week is producing, especially some of the designs I drew up last week. It's hard for me to work small in painting with oils, because most of my brushes are too big to paint a face the size of a postage stamp, but maybe I will at least try it to see these mock-ups come alive so I'm not bogged down in making real-size end-products. This is the time to see what will work and what won't, and so once I get the bodies all set for the two larger dolls that I have in production, I'll get on that. I will also make some more drawings illustrating attachment and how that could enhance my dolls.

So...big plans, and a need for some production. Time to get working. (Arms and legs have appeared for one doll and in the works for the other. Woo!)

Studio Log 10/5-10/11

So this was the week before the presentations in class, and I've been really thinking about what aspects of memory I want to deal with in my project. By chance I happened upon a book in Borders called A General Theory of Love, and I've started reading it. This made me recall the theory of attachment from psychology, which says that childhood bonding with their parents and other loved ones influences how these children interact with others in adulthood.

Wikipedia article on attachment theory

This was extremely interesting to me, because most of my work in the past relates to familial connection, home, and loss. The word "attachment" also has visual aspect that could really enhance the relationships between the dolls I am creating.

Springing from this, I started sketching small drawings of possibilities for doll interaction. What I am most concerned about is the overall set-up for these dolls...how will attachment be expressed and how should I design the dolls to function?

During this time I also started making a body for one of my dolls, which proved slow-going because it was all handsewn. Primarily I just wanted to get a 3d body out there because it felt like I have been thinking through my concepts and working on the heads I showed last week.

So...things I've been thinking about...Tony Oursler's work, attachment theory, my past work, where I want to be, art therapy, possible doll designs. More next week!

Studio Log 9/28-10/4

This week I focused on making. The physical objects...something visually and technically intriguing to me and hopefully others. Making work as my alter-ego Christine, who does anything she wants, when she pleases, let me step outside my grand plans and look at what I really love to do--painting. I had a bit of an identity crisis related to painting because while I wanted to explore and try new ways of approaching painting and my painting process, I sort of turned my back on how and what I like to paint. This was for a specific class and with specific assignments and with what I felt was a specific "ideal" of what painting meant and what we, as students should strive for. I was feeling a lot of pressure to make paintings in this way, and I tried. Oh how I tried. And however much I tried to change my painting, it wasn't received well. But I felt if I did what I love to do--portraits, it wouldn't have been well-received either. I think that was just a perceived limitation I put on myself because I was questioning the validity of portrait-making and what it all meant on a grander scale. In some aspects, they become rote, dry, or boring. I didn't want to create something purely technical that may mean a lot to me, but not mean anything to other people.

While this history may seem somewhat unrelated to my Integrative Project and how I went about formulating my idea, it is very much the essence of how I approached the whole thing. I was afraid to paint again. I know I can paint, and I know I can paint well, but instead of me worrying about other people finding meaning in it, I was really worried about whether I could find true meaning in my own work. I wanted there to be something more to the painting, so I decided to just skip the subject altogether.

Enter the marionette/doll idea I've been working on. I knew I wanted to work with memory and I had worked with marionette making before and really liked it, so an idea was born. I'll post my first and second iterations of my idea in the next post, so you all can read what it is about. The point is, I was all geared up and excited about this new idea that I didn't really remember my old passion, painting. I am not me without it.

Being Christine, the type-A personality, fur-wearing, unapologetic narcissist who has little regard for the feelings of others, allowed me to do "whatever the hell I felt like doing", which was painting small gouache portraits of people I liked. Ahh, painting. My old friend, you're back! Painting those portraits reignited the fire of my love for technical rendering of faces. I looked at the puppets I had made, and something was missing. Real, human features. Things caricature-esque sculpture of a face can't really express. It's like the difference between having eye contact and not having eye contact with a person. Even walking down the street and looking a stranger in the eye ignites something very human within each person, as if asking "Do I recognize you? Are you a part of me? Should you be?" The puppets I made did not feel like they were breathing, did not have that spark. So I got the idea to utilize my painting skills (and love for painting people) and combine oil portraiture on the actual sculptured puppets/dolls. From the experimenting I've done, I really like the results. I'm excited and I just want to make. Make make make.

Next week's log will include the refinements I've been thinking about and making to my idea: honing in on what aspects of memory I want to convey. Here are some photos: