I ended up very pleased with our final product. It came together very nicely with our color choices and the way we brought colors from one piece to another. We made it so no yarn end was clearly visible and everything was draped as loops or pulled straight but it was very uniform and I believe all of us were quite satisfied with the final result. It was a wonderfully fun group project and I got to learn about how to work better as a team with all my group members and watch as our efforts bloomed into a beautiful collaborative piece. The work itself showed both literally and metaphorically how we all came together and came out of our personal comfort zones in order to work as a team using all of our individual strengths. As a first gallery installation and exhibition I have definitely taken a lot of good learning experiences from it and and glad I was able to be part of it in such a meaningful way.

For week two I have mostly finished with my work with the litho crayon. Even since this photo I have embroidered each of three figures and animals in the image. We plan to have yarn connecting from the images to the interior space of the gallery and to each other.

David Spriggs is an artist who has been showcasing his works with layers since about 2001. He has worked on a variety of media such as glass, acrylic, and transparent film, using acrylic paint or engraving to draw pieces of the final image. By drawing only parts on each sheet, it creates a depth that recedes both visually and physically from the viewer. His use of lighting in each piece can often make them appear to be holograms within the film ‘screens’ that often occupy a very large space. Some works fill an entire room but even the smallest pieces are several dozen cubic feet. Each illusion, though, only works from certain angles. By walking around a piece, the viewer no longer sees a singular image but can distinguish the layers upon which each part of the image lays. Interestingly, Spriggs prefers not to hide the layers of his works, instead letting viewers see all angles of the pieces. This allows them to be seen both as a singular image and as a sculptural form.

I finally felt as if I had filed my mylar with a good amount of litho creation and began to embroider just after this photo was taken. I have made a few alterations to it as well, coloring the bed frame with black ink to help balance it, as well as a few other darker spots. All the animals are done in satin and all three figures are outlined in thread.

As part of Morgan’s and Heather’s group, I am working with a figure in a personal area and incorporating yarn into the piece to extend it into space. I have been practicing my crochet as well as learning embroidery as a way to add the yarn to the piece. We had to wait for the mylar to be delivered before working on it directly but I have sketched out my image on it as well.

While our project was unable to stay up for very long, it was incredibly fun to make. We used a method called finger knitting to create chains of yarn thin enough to be fast but thick enough to be visible. With these chains we crafted very elongated stick figures hung oddly from the ceiling in the hallway so that people must walk below and between them to go past. The drooping and unnaturally stretched figures are odd and unsettling in a way but the soft pastel colors we used make them seem less ominous and more fun.

-Ari and Heather

These are the photos of my cardboard project. I never reached the point where i could draw on the piece but I do view parts of it as drawings. The fire’s curves are as I draw most often and the holes in the body are as if drawn marks. I created a kind of house that morphed into a creature as I continued, the flames behind it also resembling a fluffy tail of sorts. It was not meant to be representational; I was simply building and working with whatever came to mind and letting myself work without overthinking the creation which was a nice change of pace for me.

Sheila Hicks is an incredibly skilled and experienced artist, having received her BFA and MFA from Yale University back in the 1950s and has been practicing since then to today. She was born in Nebraska but spent a lot of time in Central and South America thanks to a Fullbright scholarship to paint in Chile. Though she founded workshops in Chile, Mexico, and South Africa, she still wanted to travel and worked in Morocco and India before finally deciding to mostly settle in Paris where she spends most of her time today. Hicks has showed in both solo and group exhibitions or has artworks in museums across most of the globe including Brazil, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Santiago, Seoul, Jerusalem, London, Paris, New York, Philadelphia, and even Charlotte.

Her piece “Pillar of Inquiry” stands out to me as a 3D drawing, despite being fiber, because of the distinctive linear elements. As a huge cluster of cascading, thick strands, it has an appearance almost like dripping paint. They don’t fall completely straight, the strands having knots and twists in them, making it seem as if gravity is fighting to pull it but it fights back in little ways. As a 3D artwork, it is hard to deny that it is physically dimensional but it also falls down from a hole in the ceiling as if from a different plane of existence.

Alessandro Diddi is an artist who works mainly in the simple graphite and paper media. While he certainly has the skill and practice to use more complicated media, he prefers to use the sketchy quality of graphite to prevent his works from looking completely photorealistic. This way, his works look more like the work is in the process of coming to life. He relies more on his use of shading and angles to trick the viewers into believing in a new dimension that isn’t there, which is Diddi’s purpose in his art. He is less interested in sending a message and more into creating a new dimension with his art. Often he even uses his own hands in the photographs of his works to further enhance the illusion. The works are not meant to be viewed from more angles that the one in the photographs he takes for his blogs which helps his goal of viewers being pleasantly surprised but not understanding of how he has created his dimensions.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2358778/Artist-Alessandro-Diddi-makes-drawings-leap-page.html

Julian Beever is an English artist who is most famous for his chalk art on pavement. He worked many odd jobs such as tree-planting and carpet fitting and even a street performer but also as an Art and English teacher for a while before his art became well-known and popular. His earlier works were mostly celebrity portraits he would draw in the streets so that passer-by would recognize and take interest in him. Soon enough, his love of chalk drove him to create scenes in blank portions of pavement and to make them stand out. The drawings are two-dimensional but when viewed from a single particular angle appear to be just as fully formed as everything else around them. While Beever’s works is not suited for gallery or museum spaces, he is often called upon by different corporations and has worked in twenty-eight different countries. Beever does not consider his work a type of graffiti as it is done openly and in a non-permanent media though he has been escorted to police stations on a couple occasions. He does enjoy the impermanence of the chalk, though, the benefits of its speed and flexibility outweighing how easily it can be destroyed. He considers the photographs of the chalk drawings to be the piece itself because they will last much longer and allow it to be seen by millions more people.

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