art & fear part 2

I really like the idea of whatever abilities you possess being exactly what you need to create good art. A little hopeful maybe, but I think it speaks volumes to the fact that there is no one universal standard of "good" art or a perfect piece.

Although I understand the argument of quality vs. quantity there is still part of me that thinks making crappy things is a waste- not only of time and energy, but of whatever materials as well. I did like the story though, and how making things over and over will help you to perfect your skills and knowledge of the materials so I guess that's just something else to work on.

fluffy stuff: art & fear part 1

The reading was nice- light and easy. Nothing too intense. A lot of feel-good things about how we're all going through the same things... That being said, I can't remember a time when knowing that someone else had the same problem helped me to solve my own, but it was nice all the same. I'm considering it a think piece because although it did absolutely nothing in the way of helping me figure anything out, it definitely got me thinking about things.

The part about trying to make work that is "our own" stood out to me because I feel like that is something that we are all constantly struggling with- always trying to define ourselves, our space, our work. We exist in this strange place and time when both everything and nothing are simultaneously ours to claim. And this can be very frustrating at times.

My favorite words of wisdom??

"The moment of completion is also, inevitably, a moment of loss- the loss of all the other forms the imagined piece might have taken."

....whoa! Very heavy, Dave & Ted. Very. Heavy.

Erin Currier

Diane Nash



Q'orianka Kilcher

School Pen

I like Currier's work because her materials support the message that she is trying to make. Her work is composed of "trash" and found objects combined with really gorgeous imagery. And I love her artist statement. It's very bold and opinionated- and a little wordy but I think that it works well for her purpose.

The Statement:

"Today’s globalized, multinational, international, multilingual, on-line, on-the-grid, for-profit, fuel-driven, free-trading world of satellite-dished-out telenovelas that force feed fast food, Kevlar, Teflon, Zoloft, Botox, Perdue Roasters, and tomato sauce, is one of increasingly fierce conflicts of interest and interest rates, between the conquerors and conquered, dominators and dominated, capitalists and workers, employers and unemployed, overdeveloped and underdeveloped, overweight and underfed, first-class and so-called Third World, oppressors and oppressed, and the blessed and the damned. As an artist born into a system which represents the former, I consequently seek to know and to make known the plight of the ill-understood latter: the nameless, faceless, voiceless, and marginalized, who, as Eduardo Galeano so eloquently puts it (We Say No), “Make history from below and from inside rather than to continue to suffer history from above and from outside.”

As a medium for my work, I have chosen materials that are readily available: the refuse and the packaging of products produced and consumed by every nation, for every nation, and translated in every language, on the planet. I travel the world’s streets collecting the discarded with which to portray the discarded: the women, the mothers, the martyrs,the mothers of martyrs, barrio dwellers, day laborers, forced laborers, slave-wage laborers, shoeshine boys, lady boys, schoolgirls, gang girls, cholos, guerilla poets, Sandinistas, Zapatistas, Chavistas, the indigenous, the indigent, imprisoned, objectified, nullified, vilified, unfortified, unrecognized, silent, forgotten, and ordinary. I especially attempt to lend voice to those who fight for human rights, social change, and who resist unjust established orders. I thus seek to discover humanity and to transform reality by humanizing it through art."

Well put.

Jum Nakao

"We bare ours souls to reveal the ability to be light, dreaming of
unspeakable, impossible, inexplicable, indefinable. There is a possible still
invisible in the real."
- Jum Nakao

Jum Nakao is a Brazilian Fashion Designer, living and working out of San Paulo. Originally, Nakao envisioned himself working in a field with computing and electronics, but quit after he realized these things were too far away human sight.

His website is written in Portugese so its a little hard to understand after being translated, but pretty much I think the images speak for themselves...because these garments are made out of paper!

linn olofsdotter.

Linn Olofsdotter is a Swedish-born artist who works in many mediums, but most frequently illustration. She is educated in both advertising and graphic design, and worked for networks like Fine Living, MTV and Anime network early on in her career. Olofsdotter is currently living in Brazil and working as a free agent for clients in the fashion, advertising and editorial fields.

I'm really attracted to the color compositions in Olofsdotter's work. She has a darker, slightly muted palette that makes some really beautiful work.




Perfume Flowers


Predator, Self Portrait

Oilily, Octopus

Ulrike Hamm.

Ulrike Hamm is a German-born artist who creates absolutely gorgeous jewelry out of parchment (skins of goats, sheep or calves...that part's kind of gross, but the work is beautiful.) She was originally trained as a goldsmith and later attended Germany's College of Design (Fachhochshule fur Gestaltung) to study Jewelry Craft and has since been working as a freelance artist. I'm really attracted to the vibrant colors and organic shapes that Hamm uses in her pieces.

And I really love the way that she talks about her materials and the process that goes into making her work...

“It is a stubborn, mysterious, vivid, precious and unpredictable material that wants to be explored and conquered. Its inspirational appearance and characteristics allow me to constantly discover new aspects and possibilities, which I trace within it.

In order to fully understand parchment I research and explore its features. Various influences such as heat, cold, moisture or acidity bring parchment to its mechanical limits. I develop three-dimensional forms out of a flat surface and test different dying and printing techniques on it. I dye pre-cut parts in various stages in a colour bath, and while they are still elastic I shape and assemble them into jewelry.

The parchment shrinks during the drying process and shapes itself according to its inherent growing patterns. By partly interacting with the process, I achieve an interplay between its natural formation and my active interference.”

Ryan McCourt

The Helmet of Laocoon


Ryan McCourt is a Canadian artist and the winner of the Headdress category at the 2009 Wearable Art Awards in Port Moody, British Columbia.

The winning piece was The Helmet of Laocoon (brass, aluminum, lead and tin), which tells the legend of the Trojan priest Laocoon from Greek mythology. Laocoon was a priest of Poseidon, God of the Sea. Laocoon warned his fellow Trojans against the wooden horse presented to the city by the Greeks. I like that the work has a strong narrative quality.


The helmet "features a nose and cheek guards in the form of the feathers of a sea bird, a brow of crashing waves, clamshell ear pieces, a fish at the forehead, the pate covered by an umbrella, a rearing orca, and more seashells on the back, with hinged strands of seaweed streaming down around the neck. A pair of candles placed in sockets on the front improves night vision." So cool.

McCourt does a lot of various sculptural work but his headress/wearable pieces are by far my favorite.