roughest of the rough draft

my work is about owning a situation. claiming an experience. by giving this relationship a line i have allowed it to live outside of me. I have both accepted it, lived it, and now am giving it a chance to have its own life. each line will always represent a personal journey for myself, but that does not neglected the viewer. with their fresh eyes and their own beliefs these lines can hopefully create a map within them, either recognizable maybe even plausible.
i can only hope that the viewer finds each line relatable, either to the line that came before it, the day that came before this day, the way in which so much can change, yet stay the same within one years time. that time is permenant, and inpermenant all within the same breath.
my work is about relationships, from small miniscule experience to life changing, irreversible connections.
you can't choose your family,
but can you choose who you meet?
has your path already been choosen for you?
or are you creating it with each step you take?
these are questions i've asked myself and have begun to question by chronicling my most recent trajectory.

allison sloan roberts

so i went to interview allison sloan roberts today.
a printmaker.
a canidate for her MFA at RISD.
she's graduating in May.
currently teaching a freshman course at RISD, but planning on continuing her education by getting a MA in musuem curation.

she was so informative, and really got me thinking about my own work, minus the fact that i'm not a printmaker...

but i could really feel that she could be a really good professor, collegue-- in the professorial sense-- but definitely an educator.

afterwards i couldn't stop thinking about my own work. how i feel like what she was talking about is exactly what i do.
just, she's better.
i can't help but say that, but clearly, see has a better sense of her work, of where and what she's doing, where she's going.

but then i couldn't help but think of her as a RISD student. as awful as that sounds. but there was some parts of her that sounds geniune and down to earth, but there was still a hint of pretentiousness. SORRY!!!!

otherwise it was a really good experience to talk to someone who is similar to my age, and really close to where i am in my education.

i have a lot of work to do!

slowing down...

so basically, as i said during my crit last week. my process has started to slow.
it's starting to feel stale to me.
so i'm experimenting this week.
i just bleached some fabric,
some with stitches
some with out

then i added some coffee stains.

i need to buy new thread.
my spool is almost empty
and the supposed new one is very THIN, not what i usually work with.
it must not be all purpose.

but now i'm thinking about sewing with a darker color and then bleaching it after i've sewn it.

each book can be different RIGHT?

rhetorical question.
but i still don't know the answer yet.
i will once i actually try!

i have been getting a lot of ideas for where to go next with my work in general.
thanks mostly to this book
and tessa!

i'm going to create a whole new map for my printmaking final... and hopefully figure out a way to print on fabric and sew into it!!!

that's another thing i did.
i starched a buttload of fabric to print onto!

but once i get back to the fabric store, either later tonight or tomorrow and get better thread. i think my production level will go right back UP!

fingers crossed!

artists and a statement

nina katchadourian's work...
this i relate to the most because her images relate more to the human body, than to maps with longitude and latitude.



guillermo kuitca....

this i just love.

it's something i wish that i could do myself.

leo saul berk, i found him through a few topographical pieces he made.
but this one... same palette i'm working with currently.


artist statement by ke-sook lee

My work explores boundary of drawing, adopting common marks from everyday life as drawing mark such as worn holes, mended holes, wrinkles and folded marks and layered doily marks on wet pulp. Holding sharp needles like a pen, thread follows the needle pricks in and out of the fabric leaving the dots. Each dot stays in line and accumulation of lines create form until it gives a meaning. These forms are personal symbols and transfigured image of women from my experience of mother, wife, homemaker and an individual artist.

I learned hand embroidery and sewing from my grandmother and great grandmother. They did not know how to read or write like most of the women of her generation in Korea, but knew how to express their impassioned thoughts through embroidery. My work is inspired by their graceful endurance and creativity. Holding my inheritance in one hand and reaching out to contemporary drawing with the other hand, my work continues freeing itself from the boundary of art making, cultivating to find my identity and feminine aesthetics.