Craft Forms 2008
When: Thursday, August 21, 6-9PM
Where: Tyler Campus, Penrose Rooms 304 and 306
Bring Food, Drink, and Art!
Entries Now Being Accepted for the 2009 NICHE Awards Competition. Sponsored by NICHE magazine, the annual NICHE Awards competition celebrates excellence and innovation in American and Canadian craft.
Categories include Ceramics, Fiber, Glass, Metal, Wood, Jewelry, Home Furnishings, Judaica, Recycled, Teapots and many more. Two new categories have been added to the professional division for 2009: Art Quilts and Fashion Accessories.
Entries are now being accepted. Entry forms, program guidelines and other information on the NICHE Awards can be found by clicking on the links to the left.
Deadline for student entries is September 30, 2008.
The Summer of Stoop…
When: Thursday, August 21, 6-9PM
Where: Tyler Campus, Penrose Rooms 304 and 306
Bring Food, Drink, and Art!
As a continuation of the last Stoop conversation, we invite individuals to bring examples of their work, for a conversation about the artist and academia’s position in and responsibility to, the larger culture(literature, film, politics…)
The texts linked provide a historical example of a very particular extreme of such a relation between art and life as well as some contemporary reactions to that relation.
Some readings to guide the evening:
UTOPIA
Three artist manifestos from the beginning of the Soviet experiment
Bogdanov, Tatlin, FwOC
Peter Scheldjahl Village Voice review of Rodchenko at MoMA
…versus…
review from World Socialist Web of the same exhibition
For those unfamiliar with his work, a nice page of Rodchenko’s photography
http://www.danyanovikov.narod.ru/rofo/rodlogos.html
And…
A view from the other side of the rabbit hole:
NY Times obituary of Russian Novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Questions?
Contact Mark Shetabi or Philip Glahn
See you soon!
So I went to Montreal's Centre for Contemporary Textiles for a week long class in Jacquard weaving. A type of weaving that uses the computer and programs like Photoshop and Pointcarrè to design a woven fabric, and be able to see it in full color before its even woven. The end result can be photo realistic using different weaving structures for shading, a result that I have been working towards with tapestry weaving but is much more efficiently woven on the Jacquard loom (pictured below, from the side and then from the weaver's perspective).
Knitting Room, complete with knitting machines that are connected to computers. 
Digital Embroidery machine. 
Floor looms, all shapes and sizes, AVL too. 
Table Looms
The class turned out to be an entirely computer based program, sitting at the computer from 9:30 to 16:30 Monday through Friday. It was tiring but the demo lasted the morning and by lunch and with all the editing time went by fast. They had weavers for us, students who now work for the center weaving our samples so that we werent bothered with that step. We all know how to weave, learning the software is the whole point of the class. Thankfully I use Photoshop frequently and also thankfully I didnt sit at one of the computers with french Photoshop installed and didnt have to deal with any translation or learning curves really at all.
The last day I left two pieces to be woven and sent to me, and drove off into the clouds and rainy upstate New York.
Hannah Dumes, one of the second year printmakers is in an exhibition in New York. The opening is very soon.
My friend from undergrad, Stephanie Custance is currently doing a residency at Takt Kunstprojektraum in Friedrichshain, Berlin and recently just got through with a Mini Residency (4 hours) with Many Mini Residencies. Check out the residencies section, they had maximum a half a day to do whatever they wanted in a room. I am going to interview her after her residency is over but you can read her blog at www.scustance.blogspot.com.
August 13 – October 25
Paley Library, Mezzanine and First Floor, 1210 W. Berks Street, Philadelphia
Tyler School of Art Library, Penrose Hall, First Floor, 7725 Penrose Ave, Elkins Park
‐and‐
Inside Artist Books: the Collection of Paley and Tyler School of Art Libraries
Tuesday, October 7, 6 PM
Temple Gallery
Presented in collaboration with Volume Attempts: The Space of Books at Temple Gallery, The Unique Craft of Artist Books is an exhibition exploring the content, aesthetic, and craft of artist books from the collections of Paley and Tyler Libraries. Guest curators from local organizations Taller Puertorriqueño, the Mural Arts Program, Art Sanctuary and the Wagner Free Institute of Science were invited to select and curate groupings of artist books from the libraries’ holdings,many never before on view to the public.
Join us for a special intimate look at artist books from the collection of Paley and Tyler School of Art Libraries. Inside Artist Books is presented with Paley Library’s Curator of Special Collections, Tom Whitehead, and Andrea Goldstein, from Tyler School of Art Library.
I basically have built a very large scale frame loom (now 12ft wide and about 8ft tall) on the wall of my studio with nails and two by fours. Since its on the wall its more correctly called a wall loom, which is a dumbed down version of a vertical tapestry loom which is what William Kentridge's massive amazing tapestries were woven on, (the ones that were in the PMA recently). I'm very jealous of the setup they have and trying to make my wall loom a little more like that with the help of pulleys and such.
The mechanical loom is what most weavers learn on (here at Tyler I got lucky number 13), there are all sorts of variations to different makes and models but they all consist of the same basic principles. Warp going vertically needs to be threaded and kept tight and the weft is passed back and forth horizontally by the weaver, with like 30 steps leading to that simplicity but its a very basic machine, no electricity, no heat or gas coming from this thing. Just a whole lot of woodwork and metal parts and strings laying parallel to each other. 
Then there is the AVL loom, which is a much more expensive loom that is aided by computer technology, programming and that seems to have a lot of glitches (I do not see the perks in having these looms, only the negatives). It has a lot more options as far as decorative patterns go, say the mechanical loom can only give you 100 different patterns, the AVL could give you 1,000, but thats only cool if you are interested in making fancy patterned fabric and lots of it. The thing is hooked up to a computer and you press start, and it weaves, you still have to pass the weft back and forth though. 
Then! Finally!! There is the Jacquard Loom, it is a loom where the possibilities are endless, no longer are you working in a grid that is limited to simple or complex patterns (woven fabric is like pixels) . On the Jacquard Loom all of the warp is acting independently, therefore you can get photo realistic images as well as text (pictured) and various other effects. The weft is still passed by hand on most Jacquard looms that are used to make fine art and still called handwoven. Otherwise there are looms that have shuttles that pass back and forth mechanically and this is mainly used for industrial weaving. 
Some sweet looms that are in Philadelphia are the ones in Philadelphia Universities Textiles department, they have a ton of different looms including the AVL looms and Jacquard looms but they don't make art there, they produce textiles. Also, there is a wire store in Philadelphia, I forget the name but they have looms weaving wire mesh by themselves! Its a crazy thing to see a loom going by itself and producing a roll of wire mesh out the backside.
(stolen from Tyler's website! picture stolen from artblog's flickr, click the picture will bring you to more pics!)
Ceramics Grad Kate Dowell has been interning with a New Jersey organization called Arts Horizon. They have an exhibition in New York for the works produced during the workshops at Arts Horizon and she has work in the exhibitionl!
RECEPTION: Saturday, August 9th, 12-2pm!
Back of the Postcard: For over three decades, New Jersey’s Artist/Teacher Institute (aTi) has welcomed classroom teachers, arts teachers, administrators, student teachers and artists to be immersed in a variety of art forms including book arts, creative movement, music, printmaking, storytelling, theater, visual arts and writing. Led by professional arts instructors, aTi participants break through barriers to creative teaching and learning and connect with a community of peers emerging refreshed, renewed, energized and inspired.
Exhibition organized by:
Jenifer Simon, Director
The Artist/Teacher Institute
Clayton Evans, Director
The LeRoy Neiman Art Center
Andrea Pippins, aka Fly girl, www.flygirls.typepad.com, is clearly one of the cutest grads of the 2009 bunch. She has her own YouTube channel where you can watch Webisodes and follow her and her friend along to a bunch of cool Philadelphia events and boutiques.
Tamsen Wojtanowski a recent photography grad currently has her work in a group exhibition at the Sylvia White Gallery in Ventura, CA.
Art as Catalyst:
I strongly believe that art can be a catalyst for social change and awareness. As an artist, I feel it is my responsibility to ask questions of the viewer and myself. With common refuse or detritus as my medium of choice, I am able to speak on topics such as consumerism and today’s waste society. “The overwhelming alienation and depersonalization of our contemporary inner cities is insistently personalized through the work’s adamant handmade quality, indicating how the ubiquitous discarded and decrepit objects which populate this landscape are perpetually available for psychological engagement as loci of personal or cultural memory.”[i]
I have used such discarded and salvaged materials to build my most recent body of work on the theme of global warming. The mascot I have chosen for this cause is the polar bear, which recently was put on the endangered species list as the first species to be endangered due to global warming.
The first of these sculptures “Get out of here Polar Bear, we don’t like your kind around here, Polar Bear!” consists of a six foot polar bear made of salvaged paper and wire placed in juxtaposition with a looped stop animation film. The center point of this film is a handmade fire hydrant installed on a sidewalk. The hydrant is spewing plastic bags, bubble wrap and other miscellaneous plastics -- representing water -- as well as handmade painted cardboard cans. The combination of the video projection and sculpture represent the cause and effect. The abuse of natural resources such as over consumption of water and the lack of recycling materials aid global warming which is rapidly decreasing the numbers of polar bears who rely on artic ice for mating. The polar bear stands facing the display of wastefulness. His stance is erect in a curious and slightly pitiful manner. His fists pulled in close to his body seem almost defensive. His is a passive bystander and the indirect victim of our consumer waste society.
Another polar bear sculpture “Boo!” consists of a Polar Bear covered in plastic sheeting. The sheeting is a reference to the species imminent extinction unless something drastic is done to stop global warming. By covering the sculpture I both reference antiques covered with cloth to preserve their memories and the use of white sheets by children to dress as ghosts both alluding to the plight of the polar bear and its impending extinction. Much like a ghosts haunting, it is both a warning to the living and a plea for help.
In these works and future works, my goal is to create awareness or reaction to social and environmental issues. In correlation with my belief in art’s power as a social catalyst, I am currently researching the works of Joseph Beuys, Gran Fury, the Guerilla Girls and Peter Schumann, all of who have achieved such an effect through their work.
[i] Quote by.Karen Kurczynski in essay titled ”Reconfigurations: Painting as Drawing” concerning Charlotte Rodenberg’s piece titled “This is my Playground” on TwoFold exhibition at Mass Art
Space 1026 is pleased to present a collaborative installation by San Francisco Bay area artists, Monica Canilao and Kyle Ranson.
Descend, installation with Styrofoam, 38 x 14 x 8 ft, 2008. Night view. This installation of steps was created for an empty pool in the Lighthouse Community Center. The pool is 70 feet long. It's greatest depth is 8 ft, and its shallowest is 3 ft. The Styrofoam is weighted to the bottom of the pool with an internal structure of wood, bricks, and sandbags. Photo by Armando Morales.
The Tree House that God Never Built, 8’ x 6’ x 8’4”, mixed media installation, 2006. This small room was erected inside of a larger space of about 10 x 14 ft. The viewer enters through a door. A real tree limb was bolted to the floor in this installation. Cylindrical pieces of glass were inserted into the ceiling and light was directed through them to create the impression of starlight. Photo by Armando Morales
