Victoria Bradbury, Applicant for the New Media Art Teaching Position

April 15 2015, 2015 | Kadema Hall, Room 145, California State University - Sacramento

There have been a handful of these on campus lectures for a potential new teaching position and I had only been able to make it to one so far - I was happy I was able to catch another one. It's so fun to see all the new ways to create!

Me and artist Victoria Bradbury

Victoria Bradbury was slated to speak and I did not have time to look at her website like I did for the last of this lecture series that I attended so I had no idea what I was getting in to. She bounced around subjects matters a tad and when she started talking about code, my head almost exploded, but her intelligence and enthusiasm was awesome. I found it interesting that her father was a computer programmer so she was around all that technology at an early age but, ultimately, she didn't want to be a programmer - she knew she wanted to be an artist.

Victoria being introduced

She broke down her presentation into sections with 4 sections focusing on her work: #Archival + Technology, #Code + Craft, #Technology + Culture and #ArtHack + Residences. There were 3 specific installations that she did that I really liked (though I pretty much liked all her work that she presented on): "Blue Boar","Witch Pricker" and "Pharmacuetically Active Crustaceans". 

A slide showing a part of the "Blue Boar" installation

Victoria explaining part of the code involved with "Witch Pricker"

"Blue Boar" and "Witch Pricker" had to do with the persecution of witches in Salem and in England. I found the tidbit about her grandmother being charged with witchcraft was fascinating. "Pharmacuetically Active Crustaceans" was a group project done at a "hacker lab"event at the Tate Museum in London. This project had a few layers to it: stuffed lobsters with LED eyes that light up, Twitter and hugs. They used lobsters because crustaceans have a natural ability to absorb antidepressants from their environment. When someone hugs one of the lobsters, a "happy tweet" gets sent out via Twitter and when a "happy tweet" is received back, the lobsters eyes lit up. It seems a bit silly but I like the overall message it conveyed about engaging with each other and technology.

Victoria's closing slide

I really liked Victoria's presentation and the breadth of the work she presented. All her installations have an audience interactive element, which is fun and also makes you think about what you're experiencing. Her subject matter is wide ranging and can have multiple levels to it, as well as a few "tongue in cheek" moments. I think her emphasis on interactivity, fun and invention would make her a great teacher in the Art Department. Everyone should check out her website!

SHATTERED: Recent works by Lindsey Rose McGrath

April 1, 2015 | R.W. Witt Gallery, California State University - Sacramento

A fellow art student, Lindsey Rose McGrath, had a show last week that I was able to get a private viewing of during my Art Gallery Management class. We took a field trip over to the Witt Gallery and she was able to walk us through the whole process: how she applied for the exhibition, applying for grants and scholarships to help fund the show, setting up and hanging the pieces, reception planning and everything else that was involved. It was very interesting to learn all that she had to do. I was excited for her as I had spoken with her in class quite a few times about all of it and I know she worked hard and paid attention to every detail involved.

Me and artist, Lindsey Rose McGrath

Professor Hitchcock and our Art Gallery Management class

A portion of Lindsey's exhibition

Lindsey's paintings are all relatively similar in size and shape, making it a very intriguing show to walk in to. They are quite large canvases and she did not have a hard time taking up the wall space in the room. She laid them all out on the walls very nicely and had number keys instead of placards, which helped you focus solely on the works. She works with a subject matter that is repetitive and cohesive throughout the paintings (broken glass). I love the moodiness of each of the paintings and how she creates an almost surreal moment or space.

Perception, 2014
Oil on Canvas

Damage, 2014
Oil on Canvas

Submerge, 2014
Oil on Canvas

 

Sunrise at Sunset, 2014
Oil on Canvas

Aurora, 2014
Oil on Canvas

Fracture, 2014
Oil on Canvas

I think, for this body of work as well as her gallery exhibition, Lindsey was quite successful. I am looking forward to seeing more of what she does in the future - if she ventures away from the broken glass subject as the focal point or if she moves towards something different. Either way, she is a talented painter and I know there will be great things to come!

(more of Lindsey's work here)

Clay Vorhes - TRAPEZE

April 1, 2015 | University Library Gallery, California State University - Sacramento

I currently have a class that meets in the University Library Gallery twice a week, which is a great way to visit the exhibitions that come through there during the semester. After class, I stayed a bit and really took the time to observe Clay Vorhes show. His paintings tie into a dance performance that is set to happen during Sac State’s Festival of the Arts (April 8-13) by a performance group called “Bandaloop”. These “vertical dancers” repel off the sides of buildings and mountains and such to music; I checked out some videos on their website and what they do is pretty cool!

Me at the exhibit

Clay’s show is called “Trapeze” and had a bit of a circus show vibe to it, with wire walkers and trapeze artists throughout all of the paintings. His works are all pretty large in scale and all but a few pieces were very mostly painted white. Clay’s paintings seemed very abstract at first, with lines etched into thick layers of paint and patterns popping out of the impasto. After looking a bit closer, there are these human figures placed throughout, putting on a performance. Some figures are more sporadically placed throughout, like they’re practicing, while others seem to be in the midst of the finale of the night’s show. Some figures were on bicycles, some doing gymnastic moves and others looking like they are flying through the painting. There is such movement and fun throughout each of the pieces, I felt like each of the little performers were alive, dancing about the painting.

(from left to right) TRAPEZE #47q, TRAPEZE #55, TRAPEZE #48q
Oil on Canvas

TRAPEZE #34
Oil on Canvas

TRAPEZE #34 (detail)

TRAPEZE #20
Oil on Canvas

TRAPEZE #20 (detail)

TRAPEZE #51
Oil on Canvas

TRAPEZE #51 (detail)

TRAPEZE #17
Oil on Canvas

TRAPEZE #17 (detail)

TRAPEZE #50
Oil on Canvas

TRAPEZE #50 (detail)

I absolutely loved this exhibition and I really like Clay’s work. There were so many interesting elements to his pieces: the lines, the paint application, the size of the canvases. I thought the abstraction of his work and how it played back and forth with the characterized elements was an intriguing relationship. At first pass, it seemed like a very repetitive collection of paintings, but after really looking at each piece on it’s own, I saw the rhythm that each one carried. Upon my departure, looking back and seeing the works together in one room was truly powerful and no longer a room full of white painted canvases. Very much a fun and inspiring show!

(more information on the gallery here)

LUMPEN: Julia Couzens and Ellen Van Fleet, Artists' Talks

March 19, 2015 | Mariposa Hall, Room 1001, California State University - Sacramento

A few weeks ago, I had poked my head in to the Robert Else Gallery while both Julia and Ellen were working on their installations. The diverse amount of things they were working with had me completely intrigued. Ellen had piles of twigs and Julia was sitting at a table sewing fabric around bricks. Seeing these artists while they were working was awesome, since so many gallery shows only have the completed work on display, and I felt that I HAD to go to their scheduled talk.

Professor Elaine O’Brien introduced both the artists and gave a little bit of background on both of them as well as a little bit on the installation on campus. She explained that these two artists had never worked together before but both of them had a long history in the art world. The whole idea for the installation began about a year ago with Elaine conducting an interview of Ellen and then the two of them subsequently going through some of Ellen’s old photographs of her work from back in the 1970’s.

Ellen Van Fleet, giftwrap and chicken wire sculpture

After the introduction, Ellen took over and went through her history and a handful of her works. She said it all started when she worked at a store as a gift wrapper; she became intrigued by the different media and began creating large-scale sculptures out of giftwrap and chicken wire. I loved how she described that she was mostly curious and created things that were fairly simple but had great movement and translucency and seemed to “breathe” within the spaces she put them in (photo of one of her pieces above). She continued to go over a few of her other installations and ended with a little blip on her exploring chicken hypnosis with her piece involving live animals. She had a funny disposition and I really liked listening to her speak about her ideals; she said at one point she wasn’t trying to make any sort of statement with her work, but that she wanted to make things that were pleasing to the eye.

Julia Couzens, a piece from her "Net Work" exhibition

When Ellen was done, it was Julia’s turn. I really enjoyed her talking about her creative process (although it also almost made my head explode) and she sort of has to battle her brain as she is working. She is more interested in the journey or discovery to get to the final piece rather than what the end result is and even talked about how she doesn’t really want to know what she’s doing as she’s doing it. She relies a lot on her feelings – being aware of her own tendencies and also listening to herself with regard to what interests or thrills her. Remove “art”, remove “taste” - she wants to really SEE what’s in front of her. Julia spoke a lot about her starting point for most of her pieces: a grid. She is discussed her attraction to linear energy and entanglements, which I could completely relate to as I tend to more geometric and linear qualities in my art and my taste in art.

One of Julia Couzens' "Bundles"

I loved her discussion about her “Bundles” (photo above) and the process with those; how sometimes she will be working on one, at a certain point flip it over and the piece has made it self. She emphasized that when that happens, she “directed” it but she didn’t “make” it. Her take on the coherence versus the incoherence she has while working was enlightening and revealing. I found myself looking more inward, thinking about my own process. Her talk was a bit like artist therapy for me. It was overwhelming, motivating, inspiring and a whole lot of mind-boggling all at once.

Discussion time: Julia Couzens, Ellen Van Fleet and Professor Elaine O'Brien

At the end of the talks, Elaine had a discussion session with the artists, followed by questions from the audience. This part was a lot of fun and a bit more candid than when the artists were going through their presentations; we got to know them a little bit better, we got to learn more about how they created LUMPEN, it's successes and struggles, and we got to really see how they compliment each other with their collaboration and interactions. I found it interesting that Julia said that she will be reworking her sculpture, that she was not satisfied with it in it’s current state. It will be interesting to see what she decides to keep, change and get rid of! And Ellen made me laugh a few times, clarifying the type of store she was a giftwrapper for (store “for the blind” versus a store “that sold things blind people made”) and making a comment about “not being a &#@$ing artist” all the time. I really loved her attitude!

Artist Julia Couzens and me

This was such a great lecture to have had an opportunity to go to; I believe it will be something that I hold on to even after I graduate and as I continue to create things. Ellen and Julia seem like such wonderful artists (and people) and I am happy to have heard them speak.

(visit Julia's website here)
(more of Ellen's work here)
(more information on the exhibition here)