Correspondence art: and a scrap/accordion book to document it
2) Honkers
3) pictures of the pink/purple seal (designed with feedback from mail art #1)
4) bees
5) luggage tags
6) a book to document the project
Opiate of the Masses
the triptych about seductive things (with a choice between frames made from luggage and hinged wood)
Yoshimoto-style cubes
composite cubes in five different sizes (in addition to the paper-only failures)
mini Madonna-whore cube
large Origins cube (creation/microcosm vs. science/macrocosm)
upgraded Salome-Annunciation closeup cube (special features include reinforced hinges and clear protective coat)
The artist intervenes
A diptych drawn and painted on vellum
Salome diptych
in oil
Books read:
Essays written:
“The One and Only Original, 2nd ed.”
too many blog posts
Promo pack
Just the usual stuff: burn a cd of recent work, start over on an artist statement, design an image list to death, revamp the ol’ resume, and don’t forget that pesky cover letter
(this is still a work in progress, but that will always be true)
This, by the way, is how I described my goals at the start of this term:
Between fall 2012 and summer 2013 my art concerned the ways in which context and history (and specifically history as we misunderstand it) affect our decision-making, mores, and worldviews. These abstraction concepts took form in personal but heavily-coded artworks with themes of feminism, religious indecision, mapping, honesty, and appropriation. The expression of each theme is highly individual, but the experiences of indecision, inner conflict, and humor are universal.
I want my art to be personal, sincere, funny, thoughtful, and ironic. Appropriating a figure from a pre-Renaissance painting and inserting it into a modern context is amusing, but what alterations or combinations make it relevant? Does this theme need to ape the forms of medieval art history, or would it be more eloquent with contemporary visual vocabulary? At what point does the theatricality of the installation neutralize the art? Is the incorporation of sculptural elements into my painting practice part of my fundamental interest in egalitarianism and open-mindedness, or does it merely distract from the paintings?
I don’t expect answers to all these questions in the near future, but I will certainly understand them better by December. The focus on anachronism and absurd juxtapositions will continue, as will the polyptych format and references to religious themes.
Goals for this term:
One eight-part artwork will address misogynistic depictions of women in Biblical art.
The eight cubes hinge such that they fold and refold to expose either of two versions. On one version, each face of the composite cube will show prints of oil paintings that present female figures from the Bible. The other iteration will show emended versions of the same prints.
Causing viewers to physically manipulate sexist images establishes stronger cognitive dissonance or discomfort than letting them passively glance at them from a distance. Like hinged polyptychs, curating this hinged cube format includes helping viewers to navigate between their impulses to play with movable structures and to avoid touching art. I use this series of artworks to play with ideas; it is completely appropriate that we react to these cubes with the same fascination as to childhood toys or technological gadgets.
One polyptych will have removable panels that can fit into either a hand-crafted wooden frame or an altered luggage case. The portability of hinged polyptychs was a key reason for their ubiquity in religious art of the Middle Ages. Is the visual link to the old format important, or would the same panels have greater impact in altered luggage frames? Would luggage cases be easier to transport between Philadelphia and California than more traditionally framed art?
The framing experiments and preoccupation with portability are conceptual as well as formal. My personal history and particularly my undergraduate and graduate experiences were affected by a peripatetic quality; relocating from one part of the country to the other several times a year complicate the task of generating themes relevant to both spheres. I have no plans to move to a major city, so being able to travel with or ship my art will continue to be an issue in the future.
I will research and apply to a residency and two shows (one juried and one not) outside of Chico. Crafting language to explain and describe the nonstandard features of my current series will be necessary.
Correspondence art (mailed out five times during the semester) will allow an outlet for experimentation and spontaneity. I usually term this work a hobby rather than art, but is that snobbery or necessity? At the very least, it valuable to maintain communication with my peers while we are 3,000 miles apart.
Colleen Wampole 