education

Tonight, I attended the first of 3 sessions taught by Patricia Briggs, PhD, Associate Professor of Liberal Arts at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. The subtitle of the series is “Understanding contemporary art.”

I have no art history background, no art education. Dr. Briggs gives an enjoyable, accessible lecture, and I learned a great deal. Any errors below are mine.

She started with a discussion of the history of the Walker Art Museum, which will be the location of the last meeting (she trains docents for the Walker). It was a private collection in a home, then established in 1927 as the first public art gallery in the Upper Midwest. In 1944, a new building and a new focus came together in the wake of MoMA, to recreate the Walker as a museum of modern art. An addition in 2005 adds an architecturally postmodern wing to the modern building.

Dr. Briggs started with a discussion of the function of art. Before literacy, it was propaganda for the church and state. At the rise of the merchant class in the 17th century, different types of art emerged — landscapes, still lifes.

In the late 19th century, art moved away from narrative to art that is doing something else — expressive, abstraction; to colors and lines that don’t mimic nature. Think the brush strokes and colors of Van Gogh. These serve to suggest something, or make you feel something.

On to the early 20th century came the rise of conceptual and philosophical exploration such as Duchamp or Magritte. Think surrealism or Dada. Why is the picture and word of a pipe, a pipe? How do we know that words and signs make meaning? These conceptualists were creating a new audience for art, not entertaining, but art that was meant to make you think. The expressionists and abstractionists were one group at this time, and these conceptualists were in another.

Dr. Briggs said that Duchamp was the most important artist of the 20th century, that in the Dada shadow of WWI, he thumbed his nose at art as bourgeois, that art should be political or shocking, and incite people to think, to challenge them. Art is transforming meaning. He was the beginning of post-modernism, bringing life and art together. Duchamp spoke to a different audience; art of the formalist abstract expressionist tradition viewed art and life as separate, not for politics, not for commerce, not dirtied by life.

The Modern view is that arts’ function is to produce discourse, dialog, discussion of ideas and feelings.

Dr. Briggs went on to discuss abstractionism, usually associated with expressionism, often thought to be the natural progression of art. She showed us examples of paintings by various artists such as Gauguin, Van Gogh, where the paintings became flatter (less depth of field). She described expressionism as a way of painting, where color, shapes, and forms were more important than the subject matter. The progression was away from naturalism towards abstractionism.

She termed Kandinsky as a different type of Expressionist, a major shift to just abstract forms with no narrative. This is art that is meant to speak to emotions, like music it is intended to wash over you. Pure abstraction, no form.

In the 1920’s, Mondrian had a philosophical outlook, that if you surrounded people by soothing, calming art, we’d be a better people and a better world. Art should produce an effect.

Her example of pure abstraction was Hans Hoffman. Hans Hoffman! His work is what I loomed here. Now I know a bit more about him, more than what I read in the Smithsonian blog entry that interested me in his work. Dr. Briggs had a high school art teacher that introduced her to Hans Hoffman. Her description of his work is “form is plastic.” There is push and pull, blurry vs hard edges. Shapes and forms are supposed to dance in front of you, enliven, be plastic. She finds every one of his works “exciting.”

She went on to talk about Color Field painters, those painters who make monstrous, mural-sized paintings of one (or very few) colors. Big blocks of colors. These are meant to create an environment for you. You place yourself in front of one of these big paintings, and it can take you somewhere.

Okay, so if the progression of painting is towards flat monochrome paintings, is painting dead? Are we done? Now, we’re on to Minimalism, a new direction. There is no intended connection with spirit, or emotion. It is painting as an object, not a metaphor for anything. This is form as pure object. Ad Reinhardt was one of her examples of this — he painted black canvas after black canvas. A painting is a painting. That’s it.

Minimalism makes us self-conscious, it doesn’t say anything, it’s just a thing. It talks about the space you’re in, calls to us in a different physical way. These massive minimalist paintings or sculptures? They are intended to be the only thing in the room. There is no evidence of the artist’s hand. This is conceptual art.

Another progression was to formal abstraction. This can be like performance art, a record of the moving body — i.e., Pollock. Art and life together. Art as a stage for the moving body.

And, that was the end of this session. I’m an exuberant note taker. Can you tell?! I’ll write more next week, after the next session.

Session 2

Session 3

Mary Tafoya wrote a great post today about Picasa (the photo sharing tool that Google has) and copyright. There is wholesale scanning of books and posting their contents online in some groups, in flagrant violation of copyright, both domestic and international. Go take a look at her post, and when you’ve got some free time while online, report some albums in violation of copyright, maybe?

Okay, there’s a story here: I had a piece accepted into Beadwork’s The Beaded Figure, their 2005 juried show. I was lamenting that none of the show’s touring locations were near where I lived, and good friends in Manhattan invited me to stay with them so I could see my piece in the show, in January 2005 at its opening location at the Museum of Art and Design. As a thank you present to Bruno, I made a duct tape wallet; Marya got jewelry. While I stood there, he emptied out his wallet and filled his new duct tape wallet, and he’s been using it ever since.

Fast forward more than 3 years, and the wallet’s bottom has finally torn, and he requested another. So, here’s a brief outline on how to make a duct tape wallet:

First, make the “fabric” for the wallet. This is where you can lose a lot of tape fast — sticky side to sticky side is a bit tricky at first, you can’t peel it up and start over. If you want to play with duct tape and make something, I recommend starting with the less expensive gray tape rather than the colored tape.

It’s a good idea to have a leather wallet on hand to check construction details. For example, the inside layer needs to be shorter than the outside layer so that it will close and stay flat. Bruno’s wallet is the black one, I made the blue one a while ago, and it’s on hand for a fun last-minute gift. To get to this point, I’ve cut the fabric with scissors, and taped the bottoms together, inside and out. At this open spot, I’ve encased the edge with more duct tape.

A view of the inside — the right side has been taped on the inside, the left has not. This is both for strength and so your money doesn’t stick inside.

All cut edges enclosed — working on the top now. I’ll carefully trim off the overhang after I fold it. These encasing pieces are half-width of the tape, which is a pain to cut. People who do a lot of duct tape things buy tape in different widths. I make do. So, I put the machine-cut edge on the outside, and my scissors-chewed edge on the inside.

The inside of the blue wallet, and Bruno’s wallet done except for the pockets, which are ready to go. I’ve encased the top edge with another color, both for fun and so you can see the edge of the pocket easily. His last wallet was black with hot pink edges.

Top pockets on. Pockets are attached inside and out with half-widths of tape. This can get awkward.

One bottom pocket attached on the inside and outside. Then I attach it on the inside of the sides, both sides at the same time.

Attaching the outside of the side of the pocket, again wrapping the edge of the wallet for the height of the pocket.

Done! Inside view of black wallet, and outside of blue…

…and inside of blue wallet and outside of Bruno’s.

Now, back to contemplating the loom.

Okay, here’s how it works. I found a paucity of images of the process online, so if you’re curious….

First, change the shed, and made sure the warps are separated, one of each warp pair in front, and one in back. I tend to use my fingers between the warps to fix this. I have read that some use a ruler, or try to strum the warps to separate. They must strum quite hard!

Then I look at the picture behind the warp and see what the next bunch of beads are, maybe 10-15 at a time. This is all red, easy. I put the needle between the warps past where I think the beads I added will end.

Notice that they aren’t lined up like good little beads, I need to tweak them into their assigned spots.

Now I use my fingers to push them into place.

Now pick up more beads. There’s just a couple of each color, so I’m doing fewer beads on this needle. I go back in the warps at the same place where I came out, and continue between the warps past where these beads will fill the warps.

They didn’t go in their places automatically, so I push them in between their assigned warps.

And then push them down with my fingers.

Split Rock has turned 25! And, registration opens today.

It used to be at the University of Minnesota - Duluth, which is where I attended two different workshops, the first led by Joyce Scott, and the second by David Chatt. They were hugely rewarding, invigorating, and challenging. You check in Sunday night, work/create all day Monday through Friday, and go home after breakfast on Saturday. There’s a meet-the-teacher event (Tuesday?), an open studio night (Thursday?), and a great (hilly!) campus and city to explore. I keep looking to see if there’s another that I could take.

Split Rock moved to the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis campus. This is my metro area, so both more convenient — and less of a retreat. There are 3 workshops this summer that caught my eye.

Karen Searle is teaching a “short” (not the full week) in June, Creative Adornments in Knit and Crochet. From her website:

She judged something I entered once, and I met her in passing. She has a fabulous reputation as a teacher.

Another that looks interesting is Making the Ordinary, Extraordinary: Hand Felted Scarves by Chad Alice Hagen. I kind of like taking the idea of something that appears narrow in focus, and spending a week exploring it. Here’s an example from his website:

The other one that caught my eye was Digital Nature Photography: A Retreat. This one is taught by Craig Blacklock at the Cloquet Forestry Center, a campus for the University of Minnesota a bit southwest of Duluth. This is a beautiful area, and Blacklock is a well-known outdoor photographer specializing in the North Shore (the Minnesota shore of Lake Superior). Here’s his website, and here’s the cover of his book:

I’m not going this year, but I’ll keep watching for another class. It is well worth it!