Critique: Mapping Project

Revealing Derinkuyu's Underground City

I was pleased with the class's reaction to my drawing. We discussed the subtle images that seem to appear within the drawing that tend to detract from the overall visual. The facial image in the left corner is indeed distracting, but could be easily resolved. After looking and drawing the image from different angles for an extended period of time I was unable to see such defects in the drawing. I also think my knowledge of the actual images of the interior spaces I was creating, biased my ability too see the symbolism as well. In my paper I discussed the question of whether my drawing could stand on its own without an immediate connection to the specific conceptual information about the work. I questioned the importance of the artist statement being paired with the drawing and if necessary information was needed to convey the concept of the piece. According to the class's feedback, the drawing works on its own as well as paired with the artist statement, unless my intent is for the viewer to know exact historical information behind the piece. I intended for the drawing to speak of chaos and secrecy, which it successfully conveys. I don't find it necessary to know the specific information about Derinkuyu when initially viewing the drawing, but the artist statement provides help to the viewer if they are curious to move further than the visual. 

Reactions to Class Discussion/Project Ideas

Of the many questions we were asked to ponder in class I have continued to focus on the question "What does it mean to make an unresolved map?" Creating something without resolution provides the viewer with initial questions. They are forced to question the work and ask its significance. Providing unanswered questions creates an immediate conversation and connection with the viewer to the work. It allows them to think deeper than what is presented to them and also allows the freedom for creative interpretation. This relates to the many unanswered questions in life. The human need to seek answers to questions keeps us thinking critically and creatively. Asking questions is what sets us apart as a species. We have the ability to analyze and generate new ideas based on the information given to us. Our advancements as a species rely on our ability to process information, ask how it pertains to us, and resolve these questions to meet our needs. In the world of maps, irresolution immediately acts as a questionable problem because of the practical nature of a map. A map is intended to provide information that can be manipulated to the viewer according to their intentions. The beauty of an unresolved map is its ability to strip the natural connotation of the word and create a new conceptual realm. An unresolved map speaks more about mapping itself than the function of a map. The intentions behind the act of mapping dictates the resolution or irresolution of the final map. An unresolved map functions through itself, while a resolved map requires the use of another's interests or needs to function accordingly.

My project ideas reflect the reoccurring theme, "Tension of the Present" discussed in the reading, in both the process and content of my future project. I am at a difficult point in the process since two completely separate ideas contradict my decision making on how to address the project. I always debate making work that directly relates to my life. I teeter on the line where cliches and things that matter to me intersect in the concepts of the piece. I find it difficult to distinguish between personal interests and cliches. When I begin to think about making work that directly speaks about my personal experiences and memories they seem to take on a form of cliche where these experiences seem like they are no longer mine. Making art directly about myself and my personal experiences tends to make them less of an experience to me. I feel like my imitation or re-creation of the experience will never justify itself in relation to the actual event. I ask, "why would anyone care about my personal experiences?" "why should anyone care about my personal experiences?" which then reverts me from using such subject matter.

That said, my first project idea is to create a map of my yearly experiences to our family cabin in northern Wisconsin. I would use a map of the lake and the area and draw on top of it/manipulate it in layers of my experiences. I've taken an annual trip to the cabin every summer since I was born. The people we went with changed over the years and the place itself was eventually remodeled, but the experiences remain the same. After creating my map, marking the experiences and drawing images of the occurrences, I would like to generate the same blank map I started with and present one to each of my family members for them to do the same; record their life experiences at the cabin. After getting these back I would like to manipulate them to read on top of each other in layers, showing one map of the place and the experiences embedded in the land. It will act both as a representational map of the land and a map of experiences and memories.

My second idea for the mapping project removes any kind of personal attachment to the land and reflects my interests and fascinations. Lately I have learned about the existence of the underground city of Derinkuyu in Turkey. It exists 85m underground and with 18 stories, it is the largest of many underground cities built in Cappadocia. The underground city was able to accommodate nearly 20,000 people with areas built for not only living spaces, but also tombs, shops, wells, and areas for livestock. It is equipped with ventilation shafts and flowing fresh water and even air conditioning. The structure also has large rolling doors, creatively fashioned to only operate from the inside of the structure, denying the entrance of any intruders.

The underground city is said to be re-used for protection and a hiding place during times of early Christians, but the original creators of the city are not completely known. It is said to be created by the Hittites who existed around 1900-1200 BC. They also used the underground city for protection from attacks and invasions. The exquisite carving and style of Derinkuyu is remarkable. The advanced nature of the carving and the individual qualities that separate Derinkuyu from the other underground cities on site suggests that it may have been built much earlier than historians have believed thus far. This brings about mysterious theories about the ancient city, which only adds to my fascination and interest about its history.

I would like to create a layered piece similar to that of Mehretu's working style. My first layer would consist of a map of Turkey and I would slowly build layers through subtraction and addition, eventually revealing the ancient underground city as the topmost layer. My map reverses the structure of the land; bringing the underground, above ground in a revealing strip of the area. It exposes the history and shares the story of a place that intends to be hidden and secret. The map will reveal what is supposed to be unseen and exposes its protective qualities.     

Introductory Post

Hello! Well here I am again in the Spring taking Drawing III for the 3rd time. As far as formal introductions go, I'm Sarah Leslie, 21 years old and a senior here at Stout. I am a studio major with a concentration in drawing. My senior show will open March 20th in the student gallery and I will be graduating at the end of the semester. My current work has focused on animal breeding issues developing in the wild due to climate change. The pieces I will be showing in my senior exhibition present these concepts both imaginatively and representative of those cases occurring in nature.

I am eager to take this course as I feel like it will allow me to break out of the niche that I have been currently obsessing over for the past few semesters. I enjoy the content and it has great importance to me, but I am ready to take a step away and develop a new body of work. Last semester in Painting II I was able to meander from the subject of my senior show and produce work along a similar, but very different conceptual realm. I have continued to create work about animal issues, but I resolved the artistic concerns through abstraction instead of representation.

Sea World consists of 11 individual panels alternating red and white and enclosed in a gold, broken frame. The surface is textured with thick acrylic paint and a water pattern image emerges when the panels are arranged accordingly. The piece is a reflection of my experience watching The Cove and a message of awareness. The slaughter of 23,000 dolphins each year is the result of the human desire to watch animals perform and entertain. Dolphin trainers from aquariums, and marine parks around the world purchase their dolphins from The Cove in Taiji, Japan. After the selection, the remaining dolphins are inhumanely slaughtered, away from sight in the surrounding cove to be illegally sold as whale meat in Asia. Dolphin meat contains high levels of mercury, poisoning those who unknowingly eat it as whale meat.

The root of the problem comes from the entertainment side of the issue. A dolphin sold to a trainer sells for $150,000 compared to a profit of $600 for a dolphin sold for its meat. My piece highlights this notion of performing animals for entertainment purposes through the use of red and white to represent the stripes on a circus tent. The gold ornate frame also addresses the old world circus when paired with the red and white panels. The incorporation of red and white stripes maintains a strong connotation with the American Flag. The incorporation of red and white also refers to this concept since Americans were the first to promote the entertainment value of dolphins through the Flipper television series. The broken frame represents the enclosure of the trapping process and the confinement of a tank in captivity. The frame also acts as a metaphor for the life of an animal living in captivity that was taken from the wild. The water image is enclosed in the corners to represent captivity while the unenclosed sides speak about the endless depths of their natural habitat. I chose to light the piece in darkness with one direct spotlight to enhance the performance quality of the subject matter and the painted object itself. I have titled the work Sea World, in order to give the viewer a hint before diving into the concept behind the painting. The piece is my contribution to solving the problem. Awareness is the first step, and I urge viewers to avoid funding places like Sea World by refusing to attend the shows. The demand for dolphins will continue if we prolong the funding of animal exploiting facilities.

I was very pleased with the critique of the piece. The class gave me numerous conceptual realms to the work, and a few received the information exactly how I intended. It does not bother me that some people were unable to receive my message given that they may have been uneducated on the subject in the first place. I also feel like because of this I have done my job in some respects, since those who did not know the content right away were eventually informed. If I were to display this piece in a gallery the availability of an artist statement would also enhance the visual statement. I enjoyed making the final piece and I am very excited that it was well received. If I could go back and rework the painting with an endless amount of time and funds, I would love to create a wall size version as I think it would create a more powerful encounter with the work and the content. I also think the image of water would come across better. Overall, I enjoy that it fits the content of most of my other work and I am glad that I was able to contribute to helping the cause.

Projects IV and V: Breeding Crisis

Rapid climate change has upset the balance of nature’s proper cycles. Animal species are codependent on the weather for environmental cues that initiate the breeding process. The Canadian red squirrel, European shag, great tit, boreal toad, cascades frog, and painter turtle populations are threatened by increasingly warmer weather. The warm conditions instigate the instinct to breed at an earlier time of season than natural. The offspring are brought into the world before food is plentiful, insuring a higher mortality rate, and ultimately risking the survival of the species.

I intend to force the viewer to take a closer look at the problem. The small scale of the work and the absurdity of the content speak about the fact that the problem is underestimated on the list of world issues. If the animals fade, humans will not be far behind. The pieces spark awareness and illustrate the animals as an exaggeration of the fate of species populations.

Resources:

Red Squirrels: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691280/

European Shag/Great Tit: http://ezproxy.lib.uwstout.edu:2170/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=14&sid=96f73196-a7d0-48c7-b155-2c345264389d%40sessionmgr4&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=aph&AN=13514897

Boreal Toad/Cascades Frog: http://www.google.com/search?q=Amphibian+Breeding+and+Climate+Change%3A++Importance+of+Snow+in+the+Mountains+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Painter Turtle: http://www.pnas.org/content/91/16/7487.abstract

I am very happy with my final pieces of the semester. I have found an artistic niche (for right now) that I feel passionate about and enjoy making art for. I have struggled bringing content into my work and I believe I have created something that begins to merge the two with this piece. I think the drawings are successful and I enjoy the absurd, fantastical quality they capture. My only regret is that I wish I had more time to make a larger series. I hope to continue on a similar path in creating work for my senior show next year.
I learned a great deal about myself and my art-making potential through taking this class a second time. I have come to enjoy taking the subjects that I love to learn about and taking that learning, and turning it into my artwork. It makes the work both more personal and interesting to myself and the viewer. I know I will continue to struggle with this looming concept of content and the visual, but I feel much more confident in the decision making in my future work.

Project III: Emulation Project, Brenda Zlamany

I was eager to begin this project, but I found it difficult to select the artist that I wanted to emulate. I wish I would have picked the initial artist that I wanted to emulate; Monet. I have always found inspiration in Monet's impressionist works. His naturalistic settings, on-sit creating, use of color, and ability to set the mood for a piece are aspects that I would have liked to visit in my own emulation. I decided against Monet since most of my pre-Stout artwork frequently emulated Monet as well. I wish I would have emulated Monet now, in my junior year of college, in order to show my growth as an artist.

Aside from that, I ultimately decided to emulate Chiara Albertoni, one of the artists I chose to write about in my paper. I wanted to revisit photo-realism this semester and I strongly identified with her work. I enjoyed her subject matter viewed in non-traditional perspectives. Her close up, slightly distorted images of natural subjects, her use of black and white, and the photo-realistic style were aspects of her work that I tried to emulate in my own drawing. I shot my own photographs for the piece and I had a lot of difficulty in deciding, which image to use. I had a few images that included the entire tree figure (shown above), which may have been more effective to emulate her work more precise. I tried to mesh the close up style of the flower images, with the content similar to her panned out tree pieces. I also wish I would have used a darker pencil and pushed the darks further in the image. I think the piece would emulate her work better if the contrast was boosted. Overall, I wish I would have done A LOT of different things with this project. I think the drawing is nice, but the process was tedious copying and with all of the work I put into it, I still don't love the finished piece...which is frustrating.

Project II: What Are We in the Beginning?

Words:
Growth/Life/Living
Contemporary
Metal

In this piece I wanted to create a connection between the viewer and the artwork. I am fascinated with the similarities in the early stages of life in all living things. The embryos and early fetal development of chickens and humans have striking similarities. I wanted to create a scene where the viewer looks at the representation of a human embryo and views his/her reflection through the image; viewing themselves as the growth and life of a living human being. I wanted to contrast this personal connection with a connection to a chick embryo. I chose to present the chick embryo in the same form as the image of the human embryo, where the two would be difficult to distinguish next to one another. I would like the viewer to have the same connection with the reflection in the chick embryo as with the human embryo. Therefore, the viewer is intended to see their reflection both as the growth of a human as well as a chicken without immediate realization.

Unfortunately, I don't think I was as successful with this project as I wish I could have been. I felt limited with metal as my material. I would have liked to place the image directly onto a mirror so it would be easier for the viewer to understand the concept of the piece, but I opted for a subtly reflective piece of metal instead. I was able to adjust the piece slightly after critique and removed the distracting "pie" aspect to the piece I showed in class. I think it is a bit more successful, but I would like to find a better transfer method to make the image clearer. I would like to re-visit this piece at the end of the semester and re-work it using a mirror.

Critique Project 1

I was very pleased with the feedback I got from the class critique. I enjoy doing large group critiques with the whole class because I like to hear the concepts and processes of the drawings from each person in the class. I feel like most of that information is missed out on in small group critiques because the teacher usually isn't there to help stimulate conversation and I think students always like to hear what the professor has to say about their work. I think people get better feedback from the students and the teacher where in small groups there are less ideas expressed since there are less people discussing the work.
That being said, the class understood my drawing and received the feel that intended for the piece. I tried to create a lush, vegetation rich atmosphere with the feeling of overgrown chaos. The photographs I chose to work from came from the plants I have growing in my house. I have always been intrigued with the idea that we take nature from outside where it grows freely and then confine it to a pot and display it in our home to make it more comfortable. I addressed this concept last year in Drawing III, but I wasn't very successful in visually presenting it in an interesting way. I think I was much more successful this time around. The drawing is much more abstract and I liked the feedback I received about the use of peacock feathers in the piece. I was told that they add to the idea of ornamentation of the home, which I found to be a nice conceptual aspect that I didn't initially intend for the drawing. All in all I'm very pleased with the final drawing and a I think I've got a good start to the beginning of the semester.