Chris Jordan

I absolutely loved the Chris Jordan pieces. I especially loved the piece with the Barbies and the tigers (below). The tiger one is such an eye opener, and the Barbie one was inherently clever.

The pictures of the albatross' shocked me. I saw in one a Kinder Surprise container. 'What if that was MY Kinder Surprise wrapper?'

Ever the narcissist, but it still made me think.

BODY OF WORK

the destroyer

my body of work will consist of the following things:

- the rebuilt pot sculpture

- my ninefold mixed media piece

- triptych

- film of the pot being destroyed

- three stills (the pot before smash, a still of the smashing, and one rebuilt)

THE POT SCULPTURE (not yet smashed)

So far I have my pot painted with the body on it and am glossing it. I have decided to use the lid, but I'm not really a fan of it. I'm thinking that when I rebuild it, I can put the collar around it to tie the pot back to the triptych and the mixed media piece. Kind of like that collar holds everything together or something... just an idea.

NINEFOLD MIXED MEDIA

I'm working on this at the moment (while my pot dries) and I'm thinking that, where the heart is down the bottom, to get the same image (but maybe scan it and turn it into a negative to bring some more light into it) and then turps it onto some tissue and tear it into a few sections like a destroyed heart? Then stick it over the other one, but so that the whole can still be seen.

Trying to think how to make that work, but it might also give me a way to fill in the empty section in the corner. Below is how it's looking at the moment.

TRIPTYCH

I had my triptych kind of nearly finished... but I'm wondering if I can start again because I think that they aren't really working how I want them to. I am hoping I can re-photocopy my piece this week and then do a new triptych? I'd be willing to put in the work to catch up.

FILM OF POT DESTROYING

I have a model (a friend of my mother) who is willing to let me film her smash my pot. I am going to have the pot on a black tablecloth with black sheets up behind her, and the woman will be standing behind her. The camera will be straight on getting a shot from her torso to her hips (that's where the table will be ... hopefully). Mum's going to help with lighting and stuff.

The model will enter and the pot will already be on the table. She will be holding the hammer (already painted a kind of purple) and will approach the pot and face it, hitting the hammer on the palm of her hand. She will raise the hammer and strike the pot and continue to do so until it has shattered enough. She will put the hammer down and stand with her hands on the table.

When I edit this and play around with it and stuff I might alter some things. I think I'll put like a heartbeat in the background, getting faster as she hits the hammer on her palm and then slowing right down when the task is done. I also have a turps rubbing of the heart that's got a red tint over it (going to add some shading) which I will baby oil or Vaseline onto her body.

THREE STILLS

I'm either thinking of doing this as photos which I will blow up on cartridge and then work into or sketches that I will work into. I think if I do photos and then gesso into them and work back it would work a bit better than sketches, because I'm a hopeless drawer. The pictures will be the before, during and after that will tie the whole thing together. (the pot will unify the three images, the collar will unify the triptych and mixed media piece with the pot, the heart will be on the destroyers' chest in the second image)

linde ivimey

some of her pieces are a little bit creepy, but i kind of like how twisted they are - especially the ones that illustrate bible stories. she's an interesting lady ... i think i'll do her for my podcast.

Ai Weiwei

ai weiwei

Chinese artist and architect (among other things; extremely talented man), who is an advocate for democracy in China.

While this image is lovely, it's irrelevant.

broken pots, broken dreams

ai weiwei did a body of work called 'broken pots, broken dreams', where ai weiwei painted on different pots and then smashed them to pieces in order to 'save humanity'. an example of this is a pot from the Han dynasty that he painted the Coca Cola logo on, which (moreorless) made the pot worthless and was used as a metaphor for humanity.

other pots he dropped (mostly from the Han dynasty) which was mostly to make a statement along the lines of 'youll destroy it anyway, i'll save you from yourself'.

lovely. (this body was called 'dropping the urn')

i think i like ai weiwei, but i cannot find many pictures that i can paste here (theyre all in little slides on websites), but im sure you've seen it all. i like him a lot.

The Assemblage Unit

At the Op Shop I had no idea what to buy. I looked at lots of different things and had a lot of trouble choosing what I wanted to pick. I ended up buying a green-y urn/pot/thing and I am in the process of painting it flesh colour and the inside a murky red. I am then going to smash it up and reconstruct it.

Quiz

So i got my boyfriend to do it too, and he got

"The Warrior defeats the villain and rescues the victim. Warriors are courageous and disciplined, imposing high standards on themselves. At worst, they run roughshod over others. At best, they assert themselves appropriately to make the world a better place."

Since when does a destroyer need a warrior? Wouldn't they end up killing each other?

Quiz

I did a quiz online to see what archetype it said I was and it said destroyer, which was kind of buzzkill. I didnt know what I would get, but destroyer sounded a bit negative.

Destroyer

When the Destroyer is active within a person, what we see are the effects of tragedy and loss. At best, this initiatory loss leads to a greater receptivity to new ideas, empathy and compassion for others, and a deeper knowledge of their own identity and strength. At worst, it simply decimates a personality, and we see before us simply a ruin of what was.

Donna Marcus ... and a little more

So I realise I have not posted on my blog lately, and there's a fair bit to catch up on.

Donna Marcus! Well, she is just the most adorable and sweetest little lady, and I think she's a very creative woman. In a way I find it interesting to lament on the stereotype (as different to archetype ;)) of the typical modern day woman, belonging in the kitchen, etc, and the funny way that Donna has taken all these stereotypically womanly objects and taken them out of the kitchen and turned them into clever works of art. I particularly liked the salmon jelly molds (or whatever those were) and the steamers. When Miss Hampton showed us the images in class I had no idea how clever some of these things were.

Now Donna had a lot to say in terms of assemblage and turning things into junk. Tomorrow we got to the Op Shop to get a piece for our assemblage unit, and we have now been told to link this to an archetype. I thought I should take this time to have a look at some of the archetypes that most appeal to me. (in the quiz we were given, I mostly got the Magician and the Orphan. This didn't really surprise me, because I know that I'm an incredibly needy and vulnerable person, but I also know that I am quite broad-minded. I also really like dragons.)

So my favourite archetypes are:

Enchantress - I have found a lot on this idea of an "enchantress" - who is not so much of a femme fatale or anything like that as I had previously thought, but more as a morbid, slightly melancholic, but more of the kind of wicked queen kind of image in fairy tales. I always think we treat them worse than they deserve- they're mostly just old and cranky.

The sage or the magician - They probably aren't really, but I imagine them as very similar characters. Both smart, I suppose.

Miss Hampton also said that we are attracted to people who will make us feel how we want to, etc, and kind of complement us how we want to. So I thought about that, and then I thought about my boyfriend who I've been with for about a year now, and the characteristics I attribute to him.

I mostly think of him as like a dog kind of person, like all you have to do is feed them and rub their belly and they'll love you forever, and he's kind of like that. Reliable. Low-maintence.

He's not much of a bad boy really, so I guess I'm not after femininity.

He's smart, so I guess I'm not looking to feel really intelligent.

He's very tall, and I always like to feel short and small, but that's less psychological. I guess because he's all tall and can like lift me over his head I feel pretty safe, and I have some deeply stemming safety issues.

He's very polite.

I don't know Miss Hampton, you might have to give me some help with this one, because I'm not really sure what this one means.

SEE YOU TOMORROW FOR ASSEMBLAGE