Amanda Burnham, an American artist born in Pittsburgh in 1975, is renowned for her large-scale drawings and installations that explore the built environment and our interactions with urban spaces. Her work depicts intricate visual landscapes filled to the brim with architecture, signage, and advertising merged together layer upon layer.

One of Burnham’s most notable pieces is “Terra Incognita,” a massive drawing coverinng the walls and ceiling of Baltimore’s Contemporary Museum during its 2009 exhibition. The piece depicted a fantastical city consisting of both real and imaginary structures within its landscape that leave lasting impressions on viewers’ minds.

Burnham’s art has graced numerous galleries around America and the world at large while also receiving various grants, including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2011. Despite this success, she remains committed to educating future artists and advocating for the arts, serving as a Professor of Art at Towson University in Maryland.

This artist’s visuals subliminally induce on-lookers to re-examine their perception of their surroundings. Studying Amanda Burnham’s installations initiates a clear shift in perspective regarding the urban environment. Her explorations allow us to see the background image; taking notice of all ads, signs, or buildings present that we typically ignore and underestimate their beauty due to routine encounters. In addition, through her pictures portraying intercities scapes filled with captivating conjoined human-made patterns, she not only makes spectators realize what was disregarded but educates them on how they can view and appreciate their setting differently.

Judy Pfaff is an American artist recognized for her distinctive and innovative artwork. Pfaff was born in London in 1946 but came to America in 1949 and was brought up in Detroit, MI. She acquired her BFA in 1971 from Wayne State University and her MFA in 1973 from Yale University.

Pfaff applies a mixture of techniques and materials to her art, such as sculpture, painting, printing, and installations. She over and over again creates intricately designed displays applying an assortment of materials, including metal, timber, glass and other items. Her 1994 installation titled “The Sky Is Falling” for the Whitney Museum of American Art is among her most famous works. This comprises a plethora of dangling metallic structures encircled in colorful plastic covers. The effect was both beautiful and breathtaking. Pfaff gained notable acknowledgment for the innovative usage of both crafted goods and space in her work, which was deemed captivating and disturbing. Over the span of her profession, she was granted a few remarkable commendations, incorporating the MacArthur Fellowship in 2004. She is viewed as a standout amongst the most eminent and groundbreaking specialists of her age and her work has shown up in acclaimed exhibition halls and displays around the world. Desiring to defy the boundaries of her art, Pfaff is enthusiastic about discovering novel materials and procedures, notwithstanding her current accomplishments. She is sure to go down in history as one of the most inventive and trend-setting artists of this era due to the way her artwork keeps motivating and advancing observers.

For this project I had a fun time creating something abstract which is something that I normally don’t do. I find it difficult to not plan everything out, and not have a set figure in mind. After looking through the slideshow of the 3D sculptures, I took the most inspiration from the figures that were the least identifiable.

To create this piece, I started cutting cardboard into random “blob” shapes. As I moved on, my shaped became more and more alike and I generated a plan in my head. I wanted to interlock the cardboard pieces together like a puzzle simply because I though it was the easiest and it reminded me of those plastic shapes in elementary school that interlocked with each other. I knew I wanted to spray paint the pieces a certain color just because I work with spray paint so often. After I spray painted the pieces with two shades of green I was very content with it. I didn’t actually love it. I wanted to add more. Later on, I came up with the idea to pierce the cardboard with wire to create piercings. After doing this many times my structure resembled a sort of abstract cactus. Someone in the class said it looked like a “punk rock leprechaun hat” which I loved. After completing this project I realized that I don’t absolutely hate creating abstract work.

**it’s not letting me add pictures and I’m not sure why but I can upload a link that directs to the photos of this project**

For our team project proposals, we each proposed an idea of an idea for an installation space that includes a drawing into space aspect. For this project, we each individually proposed an idea. After voting on which idea we wanted to contribute in, we were able to choose which project we wanted to participate in. I enjoyed the freedom of being able to choose which project we wanted to help out with, rather than being forced to do something we didn’t want to do.

For our group’s project, we decided to create an interactive sculpture where people could walk inside. After we decided to create a cave-like structure, we bounced around ideas that would help this go smoothly. For the base infrastructure, we used long flexible rods, connected with zip ties, and stuck into the ground. The best shape for the “cave” was a sort of quarter sphere. Meg’s initial proposal included a honeycomb-like patter. To achieve this we used plastic tubing creating circles of varying sizes connecting pig panels together with zip ties.

This project was a very minimalist structure in that we used very few materials to create something that we were happy with. I love minimalist art, sculptures, etc. When done correctly I think they’re very effective and so I think ours was effective with what we wanted to create.

In our first project we explored atmospheric perspective. The inspiration for my drawing came from my camera roll. The photo is from the the top of a mountain during a ski trip. You can see the top of the snowy Sierra Blanca mountain in the foreground, the Horizon dessert in the middle-background, and White Sands in the far background.

aim of this project was to depict a puppet that was controlled by a hand to tell a story. The puppet is shown falling and having some of its threads broken, suggesting that it is freeing itself from its controller. We chose to portray the strings and wire figures with line, enhancing the “line” aspects by using a continuous line method akin to blind contour drawing. Although putting the installation on the wall is more visually appealing, our original idea called for laying the installation on a surface with a counterbalance in the arm. We strengthened the installation by suspending fishing thread from the ceiling and fastening it to the wall with thumbtacks to assure its stability.

This sculpture was intended to use natural materials to make a life size bee hive that would allow for students to relax on campus in a space that allowed both light and shade. Due to time constraints the materials did end up being plastic and metal rods instead of more natural means. It was made by first cutting and assembling different sized rings that were then interlocked and connected by zip ties. Then we made large sheets of these interlocked rings before assembling them onto the metal base we had previously made. The intention of the design was to allow for interactivity among students which I believe would have been better achieved if there was some blankets or grounding items to invite people onto the floor. I think adding string into the hoops would also make the space feel more secluded and again invite more visitors. It was a very interesting process and the team of us who assembled it worked very well together so I think something akin to this could easily be remade in the future.

In this project I was really working through a process rather than looking for a particular outcome. I worked with recycled materials: cardboard, newspaper, and fruit packaging. I started by creating the base of my project using paper-mache.

The keyboard went well but the computer face itself started to warp because of the moisture from the paper-mache. It was here that I decided I really needed to push the idea that this is not meant to be realistic but lives in alternate cartoon world. I started the painting process where I painted the whole thing black and then used pink to outline the edges but this did not give the effect of a 2D cartoon in a 3D world so I went back and repainted the whole thing pink. After everything was painted and the outlines were drawn I was still unhappy with it. It didn’t give any of the imagination that I wanted it to and it fell flat. I then decided to add fur to the inside of the computer. Once that was done it began to come alive; with the animal print inside I thought to make this into a living thing. It was then that I started to paint eyes onto the keyboard keys but even then it fell flat. I then started making 3D eye lids to put atop the painted eyes and it started to feel better. It was after our final crit that I spoke about wanting a large tongue exiting the spacebar mouth. So in the final hours of the project I made a 3-4 foot tongue. This was a hasty decision but really brought the piece together in my opinion. It allowed for a more experiential piece, one that you have to interact with as you walk around.

As I was working I also decided that to made the leaning seem purposeful I would create a furry arm that looks as if the monster is propping itself up and possibly about to start dragging itself forward. This was incredibly fun to work on but if I were to redo it there would be several things I would change. Firstly, I would work to make the main screen more structurally sound as I intended. I would also double it in size so that people could walk through it maybe even sit in it as if they were being eaten by the monster. I would also add the 3D elements into the eyeballs, making them different shapes, and really working on a realistic paint job. Overall I am very happy with the work and hope it makes at least a few people uncomfortable.

This was my groups project, we used meg and Sydneys ideas and then I thought we were incorporating Beth’s, but I think we may have taken on more than we could handle. The concept was so cool, but I was really confused during most of the construction. I’m glad it’s held up okay until now. I think we probably should have found objects that were already circular because I think that that was one of the major issues with this structure. Making them was also difficult but I think it was just due to the necessary quantity. It was a super cool idea, but I think everyone was pretty set on that we were making and we maybe should have considered different methods, maybe intertwining the circles , or using something easier to connect like thick wire… I’m not qualified to say what definitively would have worked, but I think that could have helped.

Alright, I never finished this piece. I wanted to, but I spent so long editing an image that I wanted to draw, by the end of it I didn’t even want to look at it anymore. In creating my reference image, I wanted to combine images that I thought were visually interesting on an individual level and then go from there, sadly, even though the image I made was fine it was dark and with that the point of the project was it didn’t really make sense. I gave up after starting on the blurriest layer because I was so frustrated. I wish I hadn’t given up or this might have been kind of cool.