Physical Collage Artist Statement Draft

 We are working on artist statements for our physical collages for our Teen Lab exhibition, and here is my current draft, it's a work in progress!
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When I started my collage, I picked out artwork that was mostly from the older galleries. I found that floral patterns were pleasing and were present in the majority of art pieces I chose. The pieces draw inspiration from nature. Thistles, lilies, and abstract flowers were present in the decorative arts, as well as backgrounds in paintings. The second part of my collage consisted of entrances and exits. I felt excited when I incorporated the flight of stairs to the second floor because that was the floor that contained the decorative arts. I chose to put the yellow beaded curtain, because it was also an entrance. It makes one think what lays behind the curtain, or up the stairs.

Project Progress

My theme for the Digital Collage project is Childhood Nostalgia.
Right now I'm split with two different storylines.

One is based on the painting 'Song of the Lark." It shows a girl in a rural setting. Since she had to work in the fields often, she didn't have time for play. I would like to put the song "I Have Had Singing" to the paintings that line the wall along with 'The Song of the Lark." All of them depict rural scenes.

The second part has to do with seagulls and waves and seascapes, like in "Two Sisters", siblings at a beach, along with "The Child's Bath," Summer memories and domestic scenes are very nostalgic.

I've collected beach sounds, including waves and seagulls, as well as ambient farm sounds. Ive collected lark songs as well.

I have to figure out how to combine these two stories. Meredith has suggested that perhaps the girl in the field is recalling her past childhood.

The theme of my digital collage is mostly taking comfort in the past after all . . .

College Fair

I went to the college fair on Tuesday. I was able to talk to all 5 colleges I was planning to apply to. It was very informative and I managed to get a lot of pamphlets. I liked that a large amount of information was all in one place. I found the student financial aid table was very helpful, I even got a bookmark that listed what to watch out for in scam/illegitimate scholarships. "We do everything for you!" / " You are a finalist in a contest... that you never entered." were some of the things listed. With the new and old information I learned, I need to finish up my college applications.

Guest Speaker

There was a guest speaker (Curator Lisa Dorin) today at the Art Institute for the Sharon Hayes exhibit. Her presenting the theme of "Speech" made the exhibit much easier to understand. The first time I went to the exhibit at the opening I really didn't know what to expect. The second time I went with the them of Speech in mind, I found that the album covers and how they were juxtaposed made me be more aware of the exhibit. When I got to the almost silent room with the clicking projectors, I found the sound unfamiliar. I hadn't grown up in the time of projectors and it was definitely not the same as a Powerpoints'.

Later when we went back to the Ryan Education Center we discussed things with our guest speaker. She spoke at length about the artist's work and back ground. Sharon Hayes was a journalism major before she took on art more than a decade ago. It is evident activism shows in her work. Most of the exhibit had presidential speeches from the 60s, a turbulent time in American history. The pictures clicking on the projectors were of protestors with protest signs, however, they were placed in a different time period than they were intended to be. There were interesting reactions from people.

Sharon Hayes Spoken Words DJ Nov 10

 Today the Sharon Hayes exhibit opened today at the Art Institute. She was a spoken words DJ and here is a bit of her performance.

Her performance was very interesting. At Teen Lab , we discussed that the lack of visuals made people focus on the audio. She mixed presidential speeches, interviews and news-clips from the 1960s. It was a turbulent time in American history, I heard JFK's fimilar voice in speeches, several news anchors on the Vietnam War and a really devastated voice announcing that Martin Luther King passed away from a gunshot wound in the neck.

A piece of audio I really noted was when she mixed news of an airplane crash caused by a fog/miscommunication, after audio news of Cuba and the Bay of Pigs.


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Yesterday we learned to use Garage Band and record sounds using cameras. I was in the create sounds group using pencils, paper, hands, whatever we could find. The other groups were ambient sounds and vocal sounds. We will use these non-copyrighted sounds for our digital collages.

Digital Sketchbook Entry

Today we brainstormed themes and voted on them. "Colors" won, but it was too broad, so we narrowed it to "blue."
The first thing that came to me was City by Ed Ruscha.

We wandered as a group over to it on the second floor for contemporary art.We thought it reminded us of the ocean, since we associate blue with the ocean. We also thought it was 'calm' and 'clear' and the fact that Chicago as a city is next to Lake Michigan is a possible reason for why it was titled 'City'.
We also took blue candy from a colorful pile and went to the very very blue Chagall Window. We were working on a physical collage all the while. Many notes were written on post-its.
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We viewed examples of previous student Digital Collages, and my favorite one was the 'Rouge' one. It incorporated live interviews and many images, and text. The music was lovely too. I guess I'll have to learn iMovie and Garageband.
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So far my going theme is Memory, which I associate with childhood memories, which has nostalgia, as well as looking into memories in the past as an escape. Certain memories are also tied to objects. Certain memories remind us of experiences.

Personal Museum Tour recap!

 Today at Teen Lab, I went with LaShay and toured the museum with museum staff Becky and Shahrazod. We went to our favorite pieces. most of my theme dealt with floral motifs and patterns. The European decorative arts was my favorite section of the museum. There is a casket there that was gilded and had these beautiful lions in the back and bird hooks at the front. The decorations were certainly 'excessive' and opulent.

We got to climb up the stairs I had in my collage, as well as see the two separate paintings of the couple I cut and pasted together.

My favorite part of the experience was the fact it was a group experience. I loved the collective group comments on the pieces and I loved the way it drove some interesting pieces of conversation. :)