Developing a religion

This is a question from my art history take home test. I thought it was a silly question, but my professor loved it, so I thought I would post my answer.

If you developed your own belief system, how would it be structured?

My belief system would be based on Polytheism. There would be several deities based on artistic technique and materials. There would be five main gods that would oversee all of the apostles. The five main gods would be the god of Line, the god of shape, the god of texture, the god of value and the god of color. The technique apostles would consist of Paint, Pen, Pencil, digital, music, film, fabric, wood, beads, clay, glass, plastic, adhesive, paper and metal. Each god would be worshipped every morning with a morning prayer reciting the definitions of each god, along with a quick run off of all of the apostles. Once a year there would be a gift to the gods in the form of an art show. Everyone who followed my belief system would have to practice good karma, so that they would be open to good art, along with weekly visits to a large studio where we all drew together for an hour. You would also be required to put up a studio in your house along with the photos of each god. Upon birth, each new child would be given portraits from each of the members as a way of baptizing him or her into the belief system. Upon death, we would be cremated, mixed into paint and a portrait painting would be made to hang on the wall of the large studio, so we could all visit it once a week. The name of my belief system would be TRA.

Tiaras, Crowns and Masks oh my

All other projects were put on hold... The teacher I have for two of my classes, decided last week to throw a contest for Halloween at the school. We must make masks /hats/tiaras/ whatever in certain categories and since we are in her classes, she had us do this as a class project. Since I am in two of her classes, I was told to make two, but got inspired and ended up making FOUR. Yes...nuts I know.

Here they are. The contest is later today (Thursday) and we will see how they do. Hopefully they will score me an A+ in class.

This first one is my favorite and kind of off the cuff. I see it as kind of my inner persona.

My teacher came up with the title for this one as "Go to my happy place". It was all based on these paper flowers that an artist named Jeff Rudell makes at http://www.craftstylish.com/item/7515/how-to-make-simple-white-paper-flowers . I have been wanting to try them forever and somehow it turned into this cute hat with a bench and flowers. It is whatever you want it to be.

This mask is based on my last project that I have not posted the final version on here. It was a equal love (girls with girls, boys with boys and boy and girl kissing poster). If you see it it makes more sense, but basically on the actual pearled mask is part of the faces and on the veil you can very faintly see the rest of the drawing. Not sure about this one yet...

Here it is with the veil pulled up.

Here is my ode to my color fundamentals class or as I call it the Queen of Color. It is a tiara/crown with the color wheel in little sparkly spinning wheels of color.

What is that???

Chris Jordan, is mind blowing with his statistics incorporated into his art. Check him out on his website at www.chrisjordan.com

Plastic Cups, 2008 -----60x90"

Depicts one million plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the US every six hours.

Overview of the work...

partial zoom into the work...Detail at actual print size

Art Institue of Austin

I am sorry for not posting more often. I have been crazy busy since I decided to go back to school. I am currently enrolled in the Art Institute of Austin, and it is definitely hard getting back into the swing of being in college. I have not had time for any craft projects since I have been crazy busy with school, so I thought I would post a few of my class projects. It is very enlightening and humbling to start over from scratch.

As a side note: I just want to thank my partner for making it possible for me to go back to school and my parents, family and friends for all of their support.

These were exercises in Gray Tones.








Gray Tonal Scale

Its not what you think

I ran across this incredible artist today. He works exclusively in paper and was even on the Martha Apprentice Show. His name is Jeff Rudell and contributes to the website www.craftstylish.com. You can read about him at http://www.craftstylish.com/profile/Jeff_Rudell .


The piece can also be found at http://www.craftstylish.com/item/8173/portrait-in-paper-its-not-what-you-think
This piece that caught my eye is actually carved from one big piece of black paper (4'x5').
Noted on the website: This detail of a portrait in paper extends the boundaries of what is usually called "paper craft." This picture is 5 feet tall by 4 feet wide. It is cut from a single large sheet of black paper using an X-Acto knife and it is mounted on a piece of stretched canvas. This is not a drawing in ink. This is not painted. This is just paper on canvas.


A detail showing relative scale between a craft knife and the left pupil. The overall dimensions of the work are 48" x 60".


More of Jeff's work: Stunning!!

Paper flowers that look better than the real ones. Thank you Jeff for making such beautiful work.

The Magic Room

My studio ...I get more done in this tiny studio than in the huge one I use to have..







My favorite Pink chair. This chair and ottoman belonged to my great aunt, but it was in bad shape, so I had it reupholstered in PINK!

Fabric Art

What do you do with fabric that you only have scraps of...fabric art. Here are two examples of pieces I have made. The first one, was for a space I needed a large art piece for, but wanted something different. I used spray adhesive to attach several scraps of blue fabric to a piece of plywood. The second piece is just really really really cool cut velvet that I thought looked more like art than fabric. I stapled it to a few pieces of wood and hung them together. Let me know if you have questions.