#6smallworksproject

6 Small Works Project

The purpose of this studio project is to get you into your studios and making work, experimenting with ideas and processes in a specific way intended to initiate growth through targeted expansion on the formal and conceptual aspects of your art.

(This is intended to be a lot of work, so please expect to be in the studio making from today onward, up to the last minute before your scheduled critique session.)

Choose one artwork that you have made recently. This artwork should be something that you are genuinely interested in that exemplifies, in some way, who you are as an artist. This single artwork is the beginning point for this studio project.

Using this particular artwork as the starting point, you will create 6 new artworks (not 6 versions of an artwork but 6 new autonomous works) as specified below:

ARTWORK 1 & 2: Formal Experimentation (change the colors, composition, scale, etc in some new way)

ARTWORK 3: Conceptual Experimentation (same materials and process, but explore a different idea or more specific idea)

ARTWORK 4: Emotional Experimentation (change the mood)

ARTWORK 5: Process or Material Experimentation (same idea with different materials or process)

ARTWORK 6: Systematic Experimentation (give yourself a rule or system to execute the work)

We will look at this work during our first critique, scheduled for Week 5 of the semester, Tuesday September 26th and Thursday September 28th. I will assign specific critique dates for each of you when it gets a little closer.

Its studio time!

Image above:

Honestly, I don’t have much to say about my critique. People were really stoked on the black lights and wanted me to keep refining how I do lighting for my show (combining normal lights and black lights, having each on timers, etc.), but other than that not much was said. Some people were positive about the polaroids as well, and wanted to see them more integrated with the rest of the pieces. I was surprised by the fact that people had nothing to say about the actual contents of the pieces...I was a kind of disappointed that all we addressed were the lights, I had hoped we would get further than that. But it’s making me make up my own mind more about my direction, so I suppose it’s a good thing. I found out I don’t like it when people ignore my concept or the meaning behind my work, so that was important. I think that my box (maybe i’m crazy, or maybe i was just alone) and the existential crisis of leroy jenkins were the most successful pieces, and I’m excited to pursue them further. I think there are a lot of things I can do with them. I think thick porridge was probably the least successful, I need to learn how to work with the material more. I still like what was happening within it / what it was referencing, so conceptually I’d like to pursue it further, but materially I think it mostly failed. Post critique holly (wave) was also complimented. I’m glad people liked the lights though, and I look forward to exploring them more. 

Critique Reflection Post #1

Now that you have each presented your 6 works to the Senior Seminar community, I want you to spend some time reflecting on this first project. Take stock of what you learned about your self as an artist, both from your time in the studio and the conversation that happened around your work in the critique.

Write about your experience. Pay attention to what surprised you, or caused strong emotions, both good and bad ones. These emotions can function to help you identify your point of view as an artist. Try to pinpoint the strongest and weakest works and what you can do to continue with what worked and tweak what didn’t for the best results. Think of this reflection as a way to evaluate critically what the next step might be for your practice.

The back and forth between intense making and contemplative looking and thinking is a constant part of what being an artist looks like, so making space and time to reflect is a critical part of building a healthy studio practice that can persist beyond Biola.

What does reflective time look like for your practice? How can you set up your studio to insure that this aspect of your practice is also considered and growing alongside the art objects that you produce?

Please post your thoughts to your tumblrs no later than this coming Tuesday September 27th.