Silicone and Fishes

Good Monday everyone! Hope you are doing well! It has been a crazy week. Quick recap:  My family came into town the weekend before last, it was a blast. This last week has been a series of running to classes, running to work, then running around trying to get homework finished and tests studied for. Thankfully this last weekend was great. I actually worked both Saturday and Sunday, but C.J. and I spent a lot of time just having fun. No homework this last weekend! That was super nice! Last night he popped Star Wars into the DVD player.....and so I can now say that I have seen Star Wars (even if it is only like an hours worth). Haha. Anyhoo, classes today were pretty good, and most of them let out early. So I have an art post for you and a surprise too!

Art Project Numero Uno:  Clay tile, with flexible mold, and mother mold.
Class:  3D

This project has been extremely stretched out as far as the time frame goes. But anyways, we were told to make a 4 inch by 4 inch tile out of clay. The design was completely up to each individual, but it had to work when 9 of the same tile were laid together. I chose to take my inspiration from the Aegeans and the Italians, and then add some of my own flavor to it. It was both an additive and subtractive process. Here it is:

The finished tile:

So there is that project....well, part of it. Because of the weather we were not able to cast our flexible molds out of the silicone sealant as soon as we would have liked. Then, we had to let those dry before we could cast the mother mold out of plaster....which we did today. So...hopefully soon I will have my nine tiles cast out of plaster. Want to know the best part about this project? We get to paint the tiles in as many colors as we would like! I am so excited!

Project Numero Dos:  Zoology Study

Class:  Drawing 2

Oh my goodness. If you have ever been down to the basement of Life Sciences West on campus you will know why I could not look at a glass jar for a few weeks without getting queasy. If you haven't been down there...let me fill you in. You see, below the classrooms of Life Sciences West lies the most perfect venue for a haunted house. No, there are no ghosts, but there are a lot of dead things. The basement is home to the Zoology collections museum which has animals dating back to before statehood. Impressive! So to help you get the visual, think of those shelves you can buy at Walmart and Lowes for your garage or shop....now think of those completely full of various sizes of mason glass jars...you have your pints, quarts, gallons, 2 gallons...etc. Now fill all of those jars with a liquid that looks like Miso soup....minus the tofu. (yum...right?) No. Now...stuff various types of animals into those soup filled jars. Gross...I know. They have all kinds--fish, snakes, frogs, bugs, polar bears, sharks, pigs....you name it, they probably have canned it. Now...that's not all. They also have several sets of drawers that when pulled out reveal dead birds...they are not stuffed either. They just lay side by side in the drawer blanketed with the smell of moth balls. As you walk out of the museum you can see the many deep freezes that line the basement hallway....creeeepy. Animals in jars not your thing? That's ok, they have deep freezes on the first floor with dead mammals and bones....also blanketed in moth balls. So...you might be wondering what I decided to draw....dead snake....dolphin skull.....Elvis the iguana? Nope...none of those. I chose to draw the live fish in the aquarium in the break room. And I loved it! Here are the fish from the break room. (Disclaimer: these fish were alive, not floating in some nasty Miso soup look a like jelly)

Fish One:  Graphite Pencil

Fish Two:  Ink

Fish Three: Charcoal

Now, the project included six drawings, 3 different mediums, and two types of reference materials. The fish above were all live subjects, and the fish below were all drawn from photographs.

Fish Four:  Graphite Pencil

Fish Five:  Charcoal

Fish Six:  Ink

It was a fun project to do, mainly because it was different than what I would normally draw. The live, fast moving fish were a challenge, but I really enjoyed studying the fish and finding out the functions of their designs in order to accurately draw them.

Here is the aquarium where the first three fish live, and then all of the fishies together. :)

Now...for your promised surprise. Well, my current Drawing 2 project involves using one of my fish drawings in an installation at the Postal Plaza in downtown Stillwater. The Postal Plaza will be the new OSU art gallery, and will be hosting a building reception on the 19th of this month. The awesome news? My installation will be seen at the reception! Hooray! I am getting very excited! Here is a link to the art department's blog talking about the reception:

http://osuma.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/transforming-the-postal-plaza-genus-genius/

I will post pictures after the reception. Sorry for the extremely long post today, but I needed to get some art on here. Hope you all have a fabulous week, and remember to just keep swimming. And, as always...it's the random reasons.

Forbidden, but Found

"We dance round in a ring and suppose,

While the secret sits in the middle and knows."

 -Robert Frost

Secrets. What is the point in them? The only kind of secret that is a good secret is the secret kept for a surprise. That is all. But, why do people keep, or try to keep other secrets? Charles Sanford put it nicely: 

"Secrets are made to be found out in time."

Today's post comes from an area of my life that has been a big secret. However, as I learn more about this secret which has recently surfaced, I realize that there were a lot of people keeping this secret. I am from a small town....so it was probably known by a lot of people. Why didn't anyone ever say anything? Why did I have to find out by myself? Why in the world was it such a big mystery that no one wanted me to solve? I may never know the answers to these questions, and I suppose I am coming to grips with that. Secrets are meant to be kept, but they rarely are. It is shocking that this particular secret was kept for as long as it was. And even now that I have discovered the truth, investigated, and took things into my own hands and let them out into the open light, it is still a forbidden topic. It's just a tad bit puzzling. But, I suppose,like most mysterious things it will always hold a bit of secrecy.

The art for today is something I created in high school. It is pencil and charcoal and was an assignment. At the time this piece had nothing to do with secrets, but when I look at it now it reminds me to live like an open box. Be true to yourself and honest with those around you, and everything will be, for the most part, wonderful.

 A long time ago I decided to try my hardest to never keep secrets that are not in the nature of a joyful surprise. Things like surprise parties, gifts, and genders of babies are perfectly ok to be a surprise. It is the things that people keep hidden for negative reasons that are terrible secrets. So I encourage each of you today to be honest, don't keep things a secret from the people who need to know the truth...and as always...it's the random reasons.