Speightown continued with garbage tyres

Some of the garbage will be drawn in black and white and washes of colour will be added.  As soon as I can get my prints I will be putting the composition to gather by hand with several drawings over the photographs.

Speightstown Project continued

This another photo being worked on for the project

Speightstown Project

This is one of the pages I'm working on for my dairy documenting the trip to Speightstown.

Ideas for Images

These are images I found that I'm interested in for Speightstown Project.

New Idea For Speightstown Project

Called: A PAGE FROM MY DIARY

I plan to document our trip to Speightstown with different images that tell majority of what happened/ where we went during the trip. There will be a second message coming out of these images that pertain to garbage. Hidden garbage.

Art 21 Artist ELLEN GALLAGHER

Ellen Gallagher born in 1965 in Providence, Rhode Island, works and lives in Rotterdam, Holland and New York. Her main concerns are revision and repetitious treatment of advertisements that she appropriates from popular magazines such as Our World, Ebony and Sepia. She attended Oberlin College and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and was initially drawn to wig advertisements. She then realized that it was the language that intrigued her and not the grid like structure and began to use these narratives in her own work. Their function was to achieve a chart of lost worlds through manipulation of the characters of the advertisements. The work appears abstract from afar but upon closer inspection detail is multiplied through caricatures; reconfigured wigs, tongues, googly eyes and lips. Gallagher's work influenced by Agnes Martin's paintings and Gertrude Stein's writing were often referred to as an examination of race by critics. Early works show that Gallagher glued pages of penmanship paper onto stretched canvas and then painted and drew on it. She carved images into thick watercolor paper in her own interpretation of scrimshaw as shown in "Watery Ecstatic" (2002-04). Emerging from this was the sea creatures from Dreciya, an underwater Black Atlantis.

Images from the Series "Watery Ecstatic"

Here is a video of Ellen Gallagher explaining her work (Art 21)

This type of work in my opinion is functional, in that it does its part and is executed in such a way that the point of the message is heard. A person after seeing an interesting visual of an advertisement would most likely remember it, especially if it is funny or intriguing. It is however said that Gallagher uses racism in her work. According to Jan Avgikos in the Artforum, Summer 2002 "Blubber lips, hot-dog lips, Sambo lips. They used to call them "nigger lips" in the South (and probably still do)--just writing the words brings back the pain of racism that's pervasive and in your face. Now, ironically, white people have their lips injected full of collagen to get that big-lip look; think of Angelina Jolie's "pillow lips." There's a whole lot of bite in the difference between "nigger lips" and "pillow lips," one an epithet of derision, the other of desirability. The defacing racial stereotypes of the Jim Crow South don't stop, of course, with cartoon renderings of bulbous lips, protruding eyes, and wild hair, but extend to tales of mythically proportioned genitalia and sexual appetite to match. ..... The freak show Gallagher creates is both wickedly hilarious and terribly poignant. There's no escaping the horror, the stigma, the self-loathing associated with being black and female, whether we regard the ads themselves as prima facie evidence or apprehend the idea of abjection through Gallagher's "erasures.""

Im not sure that Gallagher's intention was to be racist in any way. Her goal was to be funny and to create something that will be remembered.

 

Mr Terrific (2004-2005) E. Gallagher

This piece called "Mr. Terrific" from "Deluxe" was done between 2004 and 2005 and is of dimension 13 x 10 inches. The materials and methods used are aquatint, photogravure, and plasticine. Photogravure according to traditionalart.com is 'the image is transferred to the printing plate by means of light sensitive, acid-resisting chemical ground. The photogravure can reproduce an original painting or photograph with an accuracy of detail and tonal depth unlikely to be surpassed in monochrome printing. ...' Aquatint is an etching made by a process that makes it look like a water color.

There is something that seems a little frivolous about this piece that brings out the child in a person. Although the ad is to be taken serious, one can just not help smile at the playfulness. Gallagher seems to think to herself that although she does not use much paint in the piece she thinks of it as a built painting. The layering and relief adds to the 'building' of the painting.  It is aesthetically pleasing but it serves a purpose.

Speightstown Civil War

Located along the north-west coast of Barbados, Speightstown is one of the islands major towns and boasts a long and intruiging history.
Settled around 1630, its name is derived from William Speight who owned of the land where the town is located.
In 1649 Admiral Sir George Ayscue was dispatched by Cromwell to quell the insurrection in Barbados. However Barbadians were loyal to Charles 1 and for 6 months Ayscue was unable to land in Barbados as concentrated attacks on Speightstown were repelled by the small forts along the shore.

 

One idea is to reenact the war of 1649. Don't know yet how I will get that done, but its an idea.

An Idea for Speightstown Project

This I found interesting and possibly an idea for my Speightstown Project.
http://www.youwereinmydream.com/gallery.html

Things we cant AFFORD to do

New Media/'Natural' Media

http://www.markprier.com/artwork/huntingblind/huntingblind01.html

Interesting Video

S-U-R-V-I-V-A-L juxtaposes video footage of 'wilderness' (with increasingly visible traces of the human presence) against explanatory survival diagrams and illustrations. Survival technique is pitted against a wilderness excluding and including the human.

By Mark Prier

Hair Salon

How many people would guess that this is a Hair Salon? I must say that who every designed the place must be artistic. A zebra fetish, must be an artist, I mean who else would be so madd!

Interesting photos

I was messing around with the camera while I was being driven and these are the results. I love them!

Something to think about

Sometimes we take our work so serious that we forget to have fun doing it.  We look at it as work to be handed in and the deadline is approaching. My daughter reminded me of how much fun it is to paint and how in doing so everything just flows, see the hand movement and how natural it looks? She is even at one point painting without looking, lol. Shes good, a natural.

A few questions have come about from this.  Do you really love art? Is it a way of "escape" from doing academics? If you do love art, how much? Do you enjoy making art? What I have noticed is that it really shows when someone enjoyed creating a piece of artwork. I guess I can only speak for myself. I have found that art is becoming a little too commercialized and some of us are only thinking about how much the piece will sell for rather than how much we enjoyed creating the piece. Something to think about huh? Where do you stand? Is it a drag to create work, thinking of deadlines, grades, money, recognition even? Or are you fighting with yourself to take a break from working and  getting something to eat or even getting sleep?

Pixelated Digitally Manipulated Prints

"REability", two pixaleted digitally manipulated prints, Konrad Wyrebek

Konrad Wyrebek, "DiGL" new media digital photoprint 2010

digitally manipulated photo print 

 "Way of Bothered", media digital print on light box, digital based artwork,

pixaleted print, Konrad Wyrebek

This artwork is done by Konrad Wyrebek of London, United Kingdom, what is interesting is how pixelated images are usually not wanted or undesired.  He has taken that and manipulated it to form interesting work.