When did knitting become an artform? I mean I know there are some really cool knitted works, and like yarn bombing is pretty cool.

But the knitted mile? I dont know if I can classify that actual work as an artwork - but I suppose since there are other knitters involved it could be some sort of compilation work or performance art?
I should tell that to my grandmother...
It looks really warm at least.

i

It's an artform that I could do though so maybe I shouldn't be complaining about it - I should just not finish my scarves when I make them and instead keep going  - will that make me famous? Celebrity lifestyle as a result from knitting? I'm on it.

When I first saw the work of Jason Mclean I immediatly thought of some kind of surrealist work.

Jason Mclean "Rosehips and Bullwhips"

His style is obviously much looser and free than the early famous surrealists, but something about it just connects in my mind - perhaps the mass amounts of hidden symbolism. I feel like Jason Mclean poors his entire story into his drawings, everything that is on his mind at any given time. Rosehips, elephants, clowns, big ears, captains, B.C.. Who really can understand the way that anyone thinks? I know sometimes I will be talking to my best friends and have to stop for a second just because I have no idea how the conversation got to where it was or where either of our minds just took it - but I know it went somewhere very very weird. Like peanuts to everest to arkansas butler trade. Who really knows?

Max Ernst "L'Ange du Foyeur"

Ron Terada 2008

I fell in love with this work the moment I saw it. I believe it was a quote about a poorly done sports game (hockey maybe?).. I don't know a lot about sports, but I do know this quote can apply to just about everything and anything.
[Sidenote, he's from Vancouver so obviously I like him even more for that].
There is no need to stress over the past, it has already happened. You can learn from it, roll with it, go with the punches - learn to punch back so you are prepared for next time, but don't stress if you lose the first fight.
Life is sort of funny sometimes, you almost never get exactly what you want, but we always have to keep trying and hoping that next time it will be better. It will be. It has to be. Without hope we all might as well be dead. That's why people find religion. Love.
These are all abstract concepts, but they are what drives our entire lives.
It was what it was, but the future will be what you make it be - what you want it to be.
You can always get what you try for - if you keep on trying. Maybe not the first time or even the thirtieth, but eventually you will get it right - you just have to keep trying. You have to.

Hashtag, PROJECTOR PROBLEMZZ. only took around 20 minutes out of our class, at least....
Technology is absolutely ridiculous sometimes. How is it possibly to break the projector screen that badly and not report it to anyone, instead just leave it for our class to deal with?? How rude.

This work by Jon Sasaki applies pretty well to my last entry.... http://www.jonsasaki.com/files/hang_in_there.mov #catscatscats

We looked at some pretty cool works today, I really liked the MTA grad Sasaki...
I just can't stop thinking about triangles though.
Can I do an independent study on triangles? I don't really understand the whole independent study process... I don't know. Triangles are just awesome. They symbolize so many different things...

Past, present & future.
Mind, body & and spirit.

A triangle with its point facing up can mean strength and male energy, point down meaning feminine energy (but not weakness!!).

Point up triangles can also mean going towards the spiritual, point down a descent - because obviously us females are all bringing everybody to a fate less than heaven. What sinners we all are...

Leopard Print Everything.

Why is it that our culture is obsessed with animalistic qualities, when at the same time we are a culture of domination over all other species? Why is it that when a women dressed in leopard print it is to be sexy and strong, when at the same time this is a species that, while powerful, we as a culture are constantly trying to prove our power over?
Leopards are the smallest of the "big cats", is that what makes them more attractive? Or is it more of a general obsession with cats in general that our culture has...? Definitely a possibility. My cat's breed is 'oriental', but she was bred to look like a leopard, and if it wasn't for her big belly (and small stature) she might. But why is that such an important thing to note in our society?
Why are we all so obsessed with cats?!

For some reason my embed isn't working, but I really wanted to share this video... it sort of applys to what we have been learning in class and we also have sort of been talking about video as a national style of art.
Don't know if this screams CANADA, but it is a candian artist and an NFB film, so maybe this is what Canada is.

http://www.nfb.ca/film/accordion#temp-share-panel

check it out! sorry I couldn't embed it, its only 5 minutes though and super cool.

This week is international women's week, and last sunday was international sex workers rights day - I just think it is super important to note that.
We looked at film's in class today, so I thought that maybe I could bring the two together for this entry.
I am also a super big music junkie, and I am doing a special CHMA show tomorrow for women's week, so I have been thinking about if there are any songs that I can play on my segment. I probably won't play this song because the words aren't really so applicable, but the video I think is worth pointing out because, well first it is pretty cool, and second because it really shows sort of like what it used to be like to be a housewife in a sarcastic sort of way. Plus just generally a fun song!

We've been talking about Canadian painters, and the most noticeable to me was Andrea Mortson - she is from Sackville, but until today I didn't know that. I remember seeing some of her work on exhibit during my first year, and really liking it, but I didn't know who it was by until we looked at her in class.... I think I might have actually thought that the works were by a man, and I have no idea why.

Andrea Mortson "The closer I get to you"

I love the symbolism involved in her work. I also get really annoyed in classes where you are studying a work such as a poem or a story or a painting, and looking for symbolism that isn't really there - giving it more meaning the the author or painter ever intended. With the case of Andrea Mortson though, she really does include a lot of signs and symbols, and they are obvious to see and any viewer knows that they are there, but not always what they mean.

Andrea Mortson "Where all things start"

I love her use of murky colors blended together into a haze, but then bright clear areas popping out - almost like a dream. Her works are beautiful and I love that we looked at her again in class so that I could be reminded of her and her amazing works, and she is from right here in town too!
Sackville is just this little place full of so much talent. 

February 14th and 19th are the panels - grouped entry time WAHOO!

All the presenters were very good, as usual. I don't know how they do it - the whole public speaking thing is not my fave, I would much rather write an essay.

Some of the speakers talked about performance art - how the shock factor is important, but anything goes.

Here's a cool one I saw the other day by Klaus Obermaier!

We covered alot of material today... but I just love hearing about performance art and public art in all its different forms. Weirdly, it wasn't the performance art by Tagny Duff that stuck with me today, it was the mention that they are in the process of deciding what to do with the spiral jetty.

WHAT?

They are thinking of moving it? How is that even a thought that goes through peoples minds. You can't move something like that  - Robert Smithson chose that location for a reason, it's site specific.

Yea, maybe some years its underwater and maybe its starting to return to the earth - but you know what? That's the whole thing with earthworks art... They are made from the earth and they will eventually return to the earth. That's what is so beautiful about this type of work, it doesn't last forever. It's not the Mona Lisa, no one can (or should) put it in a bullet proof frame and force people to line up to see it, only to be disappointing by how much build up there was for something that isnt really all that astounding (no offense anyone).

Maybe i am getting a bit locked on to this, but I just can't understand how someone would think that it would be a good idea to try to relocate the spiral jetty. I mean sure, maybe you want your grandchildren to be able to see it. But you know what? If that is the case, then they can look at pictures of it just like most people do. It's not like it is the most accessible artwork, its not supposed to be easily seen by the whole world. I still respect and appreciate and enjoy it as an artwork without having ever seen it in person.

Why can't that be enough?

I have fallen in love with Diana Thorneycroft. Anyone who can make a child's toy look as sexualized as she does without adjusting it physically in anyway is definitely deserving of recognition.
Coming from Diana, it is so much more than just a dolll..
"It is the part of the body we use to feed ourselves, make love and express joy or rage. It is also where language exits. These are all things that relate to existence. But the mouth can also be violated and penetrated, sexually, medically, punitively..... so when one reads the visual language of an open mouth, all these layers and possibilities come into play."

But seriously.... who designed that first doll? UGH uncomfortable.
In class we looked mainly at the Group of Seven Awkward moments series, but my favorite series by Thorneycroft is her in progress "A People's History". It is so disturbing, but so much about who we as a society are. This class is constantly trying to frame what the Canadian artistic identity is... I think that if someone were to ask me what I learnt from this class and what the identity is in my opinion, I would point them towards this series of work. As Canadians we have a really dirty and cruel history that we don't advertise or even really talk about at all. I definitely never really heard about it when I was learning History in school.
"The horrors that took place in First Nations residential schools and orphanages like Mount St. Cashel, Newfoundland, speak of atrocities that eradicate all humour."

Today (January 31st) we started watching the film about Edward Burtynsky's "Manufacturing Landscapes".. We finished watching it on February 5th, so this entry is going to be for both of those classes.

My two favorite parts of the class:
1. " I could have marked your reading reports..... But instead I made you all cupcakes!" - Hannah, the best T.A.
2. I'm doing a double major in Art History and Geography, so it's very rare, but when it does happen and I get to mix the two together, it is the MOST exciting thing in the universe for me! I genuinely don't think you could make me more excited about life when things like that happen.

Something that was in the film that I don't even think I've heard about before was the yangtze river cities dam project, or the Three Gorges Dam Project. I can't imagine anything changing the landscape as drastically as that project - how is it possible to build something that literally, cities have to be taken apart and disassembled for?
There is a quote in the film,

"We are changing the nature of this planet"

How is that something that people just do so casually and that the media barely even takes note of?

 

Ed Burtynsky "Three Gorges Dam Project, Dam #4" 2002

Edward Burtynsky "Wushan #3"

Kowloon Walled City

The three gorges dam is the largest and most powerful dam in the world, and its completion means the creation of a 600km lake, which was never there before. 

It is absolutely insane to me that things like this happen all over the world. Then there are other places like Kowloon, where 50,000 people lived within just a few blocks. I've been planning on going into architecture but it's hard not to question it when there are cities like this which are either planned or destroyed out of no where with complete disregard... 
 

Reading reports were due today...... I know obviously we have to do some readings for this class, I just sometimes find it really hard to get through the ones that we have to read. Oh well! At least there are not too many, I think there are even less than last semester, possibly.

Through all of last semester, and probably what will be all of this semester, we have seen Canada represented in SO many different ways. I am not really sure why historians and politicians, and all types of people keep trying to pin point one specific identity, or phrase, or image, to being "Canadian". There isn't a single one!

This is Canada, but its only a small part of it...

We talked a bit about the history of NSCAD. Sooo obviously I started looking into artists who studied there.....

Hangama Amiri "Shahara"Series 2012

Hangama Amiri graduated with a BFA but is originally from Afghanistan. She paints these amazing paintings that are sort of familiar of childhood but are also abstract in the way that Dali painted his dreams as his saw them or how the earth could be represented as a 2D object.

 

Hangama Amiri "The wind-up dolls of Kabul" Series 2011

Siobhan Gallagher graduated with an interdisiplinary BDes and now works in NYC with the Penguin Group, so thats pretty cool! She designs alot of book covers now, and other works for publishing. These are some covers she designed, all for the same book, but targeted for different demographics;

I always thought it would be pretty cool to design for books, because you would probably get to read the books and also keep them, and I am kind of a dork. Also I one hundred percent judge books by their covers, and am not ashamed of it.

First entry for second semester! We looked at a lot of amazing artists today, as usual, but the one that struck me the most was Murray Favro and his version of Van Gogh's bedroom. SO COOL. I always think it is crazy when artists are able to do things like this, it would take so much work and planning in order to have everything line up properly and look realistic. Meanwhile I get bored of my artwork after 15 minutes...

Murray Favro "Van Gogh's Room" 1974

I have a good friend who is majoring in Computer Science and I have spent the last 3 years trying to convince her that she should use that knowledge to create those amazing building projectors that these works remind me of. The ones that transform entire, huge buildings into something completly different and exciting, but just for a few minutes or an evening, such as this one in China..

We also talked a bit about how Alex Colville had originally planned to study medicine at Dalhousie, and it is crazy to think how different not just his life would have been, but how different MTA might be if he hadn't come here. I have to wonder how drastically my life choices have effected my future- its a scary thought. I had never planned on studying art history, I was originally in International Relations in my first semester at MTA, and after that I was planning to transfer to film school, but instead chose to try art history and I guess I fell a bit in love with it. How is that going to effect my future? I know a International Relations degree and an Art History degree are definitly very different, and the doors I will later be able to open will not be the same. I think I did, but I hope that my choice was right and that things turn out even half as well as they did for Alex Colville!
I have had a copy of Colville's "To Prince Edward Island" hanging in my cottage for as long as I can remember, but I never knew anything about it except that the following binoculars creeped me out as a child, until I came accross the country and took art history at MTA. Maybe its fate? If you believe in that stuff.

Alex Colville "To Prince Edward Island"