Better

Just an update and some better photos from my work finished over August break and the rest of fall semester. One of the pieces, the State of Independence has been altered since you last saw it. I burned and roughed it up a bit more. It's still not my favorite piece, self portrait-wise however, it was a good study for me on texture and playing with mixed mediums. It's always good to stretch myself and see what new techniques I might want to use later. The rest, as stated before, are watercolor and wintergreen transfer prints, with collage elements.

Quoth the Raven - Soar!

Quoth the Raven - Carry

Nevermore - She

The State of Independence

Well, I think I'm up-to-date on here, now I just have to hit flickr, and then I will commence with the website-making. Whew.

I'll Tell Ya What

I have to start learning to make things in regularly-found sizes. After realizing that there was no cool way to mount my previously made 5x9's of the row houses on paper, I was faced with making new ones in a 5x7 size. I would have just cropped them, but I found that it ruined the aesthetic and the length that they had. They stay unmounted for now and I'll put them away in my little watercolor box.

Have I completely learned my lesson...? No, probably not, but these new ones are still cool. I made these plates (and printed them on separate 5x7 paper too), I am getting ready to apply for a few shows, and I am sorely behind on my thank you's to my references for my grad program. But I figure, if I'm going home soon I can avoid the post office altogether, and that's alright with me.

As you can see, they are still quite colorful, even after an inking. From the current (titles might be changed) One in Four series..

Aw. They're so pretty, and they're no longer mine.

(ETA: I included a piece of paper on the back of each of these that said: "One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime, and DV is not discriminatory - through the use of Baltimore's row house imagery, the home affected by DV is indistinguishable from the next.") 

Just a Start

Hello again, and seasonal greetings! I have recently created a flickr account for House of Ruth Maryland's Arts Program. I have just started to upload some photos to the site, and it will be growing continuously with new images throughout July of 2011. Keep checking back, these youth are really something special! And their art will be exhibited in a local Baltimore venue in a few months' time.
Until then... http://www.flickr.com/photos/artshouseofruthmaryland/

P.S. Little babies made the angel wings, 2-5 years old. What that says speaks volumes to me. It is a perfect and resounding concept of 'heaven' or the afterlife. Babies who make angel wings out of only the purest and fluffiest of things. Simply. Beautiful.

The Row House

I have a few quick pics I snapped of my work that was up for critique today. I recently changed my thesis to row houses. I honestly felt completely compelled to make them for the past few months, and my mentor Paula had a dream about me, "You and 100 row houses"....she mentioned it to me two days after I had changed it, and before I mentioned the change to her. How'dya like that!

I am planning on using the row houses to illustrate the statistics of domestic violence in Baltimore City, which are staggering for me, and difficult to comprehend. I see the row houses as the souls of those affected, an unhappy house, no longer a home. With the row house imagery, the house effected by domestic violence is indistinguishable from the next. I see the inking process of the plates as saying something about the impact of violence on a person or a family....like an extra layer of gunk that takes away all the color and vibrancy and life from a home, or a person. (There is a photo of the colorful, un-inked plates below.)

I am a whirlwind of ideas and materials and metaphors right now. Unfortunately, I am still working on my new thesis statement, artist statement, and thesis proposal for this body of work, so that will all have to be explained in greater detail later. Until then...

And with that, I am on "vacation" from school. I have four MAJOR things to accomplish during the next month, and with my 40 hours per week at House of Ruth Maryland and continuing my art work, I'll hardly see any of that so called vacay. My work is never done folks. Literally.