UArts Summer Fellows 2018

My last day with Myra This time Myra came to my house where I was editing the photos we took. We completed beyond our goals with the loom at her house, now it was time to dedicate some time to Myras future talk, which required high resolution photos of her work in a presentation. I spend the weekend editing the pictures we took in photoshop for us to make a powerpoint slide show together. The talk she was going to make required some powerpoint knowledge, so I taught her how to do some basic powerpoint slides as well as some advanced twek to make her presentation dynamic and overall more fun. Of course she liked the transitions. Again, just like the photoshoot, we ended up having so much fun. I think throughout the intern I learn so much from her it was only fair she learnt something from me too. I also showed her different ways she can edit in photoshop, some basic tricks maybe for the future. who knows? After the intern Myra and I agreed to keep in touch, she really is the swee

8/23/2018 - Fellows Program Conclusion My last few visits to the studio included helping Denise prepare some ideas for future projects.  We used the designs that I had made a few weeks earlier and decided on the best ways to use the designs. I helped with taping the sides of finished work and wrapped her work that she had sold so that it could be shipped to it's new owner.  On our last visit together we painted together which was a lot of fun.  Denise painted a portrait of me which was really cool and I worked on some ideas for school. I have had such a great experience working with Denise.  She is a very creative person and great artist.  Denise made this fellowship such a great experience for me and I look forward to keeping in touch with her in the future.  Thank you Denise Philipbar!

Photo time!!  Myra is having an art talk in September and she needed documentation of her art. All of her photos are somehow very low in quality, and the very good ones are laminated. This meant we had to take pictures of art she have made between the 80s and 90s and others that were more recent. It was super fun and I actually felt like I was helping her. We had a such a good time just modeling and playing with the light. Here are some pictures of her awesome art!  All of the photography will be presented in a talk in media. I will write the details later. 

Myra's Studio Loom looking good! This step is called warping, and we warped 20 yards! the next step is to install new harnesses and new heddles because the ones in the loom are old. With Myra I learnt to do every step from scratch almost like we were installing a new loom becouse she didnt use this loom for over 20 years, so we had to take care of each part. Once the heddles are install, then is time to thread each yarn through the heddle. 

My internship with Kay came to a close quicker than I could have imagined. Though a lot of the time was spent in conversation while I was sewing and stuffing, I was happy to have learned a lot from Kay. I think some of the most valuable things I learned through working with Kay have to do with mindset, how to carry yourself as an artist, and approaching work with an open heart and truth to yourself. We talked so much about existing as a person in the world as it is, our responsibilities as artists and humans in America and Philadelphia, and how to pursue what it is that we care about. There are ups and downs in any field, but to really put your heart and soul into your artistic practice is how to make it sustain through the ebbs and flows. Meeting yourself halfway with solid planning, organization, and foresight doesn’t hurt either though, and that’s something that I could definitely put to practice that Kay has gotten down pretty well. Our last couple days

Kay was involved in a project with a senior living center New Cortland through the Center for Emerging Visual Artists, and a show/party was coming up for their work. Kay explained it’s not like a gallery opening, last year they had a DJ complete with electric slide, and there was sheet cake. Sounds like my kinda gig. I marked it on my calendar since it’d be a slightly earlier day with the drive out of the city we would be making. The day came and we were off. I wasn’t expecting anything huge, but when we got there it was clear Kay hadn’t expected what we arrived at either. It was full on camera-ready setup, lots of suits and ties, the mayor was there. After listening to him and other important people talk, it was apparent that this publicity-type meeting was centered around a new building opening- new facilities, and that the art was an after thought. It was simply not even mentioned. We chowed down on their super fancy lunch spread, and tried to enjoy what time we

No matter what, I could be sure safety was taken into consideration when working with Kay. This is something I think would be good for other artists to practice as well. Kay always talked to be about toxicity of materials, of their grading levels, and that she had nothing above the second least toxicity level in her studio (the vegetable-based screen cleaner that I talked about using with screen reclaiming in the last post). This is something that she was in touch with when working as an educator, in addition to her own persona interest in a green artistic practice, life, and world. In addition to being conscious about chemical safety, Kay would always be sure I had personal protective equipment if I was doing anything that posed a risk. While reclaiming screens, I used gloves, eye protection, and ear protection. Any time I used Kay’s armature wire, I had to have gloves on due to some chemical that California declared as dangerous when handled with bare skin. I al

One of my favorite things about working with Kay was that we would vary our work, it wasn’t always stuffing and sewing. One week Kay and I worked on a personal project she had going on, screenprinting some tshirts for a friend. I have done screenprinting before but it has been a while, since junior year of high school (2009!). It was nice to see how DIY it can be, I had used a big expensive vacuum exposure table in school. The one they had at the studio was made with some tube lights, a table, plexiglass, a masonite cover, and with the help of some weights on top during exposure, you can burn your own screens! I was happy to have seen the process Kay used, because she uses screenprinting in her work a lot despite the fact that we didn’t do any more of it during our work together. Kay has a whole cabinet full of prints and positives for screens in a side room off the studio. She showed me how she would seal the room when she was prepping the screen with emulsion and again

Today was definitely a studio day.   Dot spoke to the director about what was needed to make the space work for the exhibition. The space is roughly a good size for a solo show with a giant window at the front of the room giving good natural light. It was great experience for me to see the process of an artist preparing for a solo show. The curator and Dot discussed what was necessary for the show and the ideal outcome of display. I've leaned that a lot of thought goes into the process of having a solo show, and the artist holds a lot of freedom to express themselves in one room. This excites me because throughout the process I could only imagine myself in the same situation, and one day being able to have a solo show somewhere. After helping Dot with her test piece (previous days) she decided to start working on the actual piece for her upcoming solo show at Allen's Lane Art Center. This piece is a completely different piece with metal wire and cement. First, I started by cu

On Day 4 we took a trip to the Barnes Foundation on the Philadelphia Parkway. The current exhibition features the work of Jean Renoir. I watched a couple of his short films featured in the exhibit and looked at his paintings. Jean Renoir's films caught my attention the most. I enjoyed the black and white cinema, and its arbitrariness. His films were very "avant-garde" like, at moments I could understand and follow the characters but at times the structure of the film would change. I also had the chance of looking at the permanent collection at the Barnes. It wasn't my first time at the Barnes Foundation so the permanent collection was something I've seen before. Throughout my visit to the museum, I had opportunities to snap photos for reference for my future pieces.