Hello to everyone. I am sorry that it has been quite a long time since I have posted something on this blog. I hope your last few weeks have been great. It has been an interesting winter break, something I will talk a bit about in this posting.

Most of you know that this blog was an assignment for my Introduction to Graduate Studies course. Now that that is over I am hoping to use this Internet space in a different way. I am still going to write what has been happening in the last week, and what I planned to do in the weeks coming. I also hope to use this as a study of images. I have so many images that I have collected over the past few years and hope to talk about them, to better understand my own aesthetic, and questions I am thinking about. I would also be interested to hear what you all have to say about the images as well. Please any insight what so ever would be greatly appreciated.

I hope to post images a few times during the week, and then have a big post like I usually have done (I say this now but we will see). The first post back I would like to talk a little about how winter break went and then it would like to do a little something for myself; and I hope you guys can hold me to these things (you will understand later).

What I Did On Break-

As most of you know my December was spent back in California. It was awesome to be back and a bit surreal. Sadie and I were very happy to back in arms length and not having to deal with technology in between us. Sadie and I (mostly Sadie) did have some hard ships while I was back. First off, Sadie had a passing in the family, which I will not go any further into it for her respect (I thoroughly dislike when people let others know about people passing via the Internet). Secondly, I got sick for most of the time I was back there, and got everyone who came near me sick as well. Even though it sucked to be sick I think it made me have a reason to sit around and enjoy doing nothing.

I must say it was very weird being back for three weeks. Being back for that long made me start feeling resettled in the bay area; and when the time came to leave it made my first semester at grad school seem like a dream. I have been back for a week and a half now and it just starting to wear off. I can honestly say (with much frustration) I have not gotten anything done since I have been back. Sure I have organized my apartment a little (I am still in the second one, who knows when I will be out) to make it feel like home. I have gotten groceries, tied some loose ends, read and done some drawings, but the metal work has been a complete stand still. I took the last couple days off to try and get ready for the semester, which has seemed to work.

So that is really what happened in the last five weeks. I enjoyed time with Sadie, ate so much food back in the bay area- I miss it so much! In-n-Out, sushi, Mexican, pizza, Indian, you name it- and getting to enjoy my family for the holidays while I was sick, and then a lot of doing nothing now that I have been back, but feel ready now.

The Next Semester-

Tomorrow the next semester begins. I am a little excited, nervous, hopeful, and worried. My schedule is set up in a way that I will be spending most of my time in the studio. I am excited about this, but I really need to get a lot done, and need some goals. So I want to speak a about my hopes for this semester:

This semester I really hope to find some clarity on my work. Every teacher says the first semester is for experimenting, the second year is for focusing, and the third is to put your head down and work for your final show. So in sticking with the plan I hope to have an explosion of making. I have a pretty good amount of ideas in my head that can go good or bad, I don’t care. All I care about is to keep going. To keep writing down new ideas that comes up while I am working on other projects. Make as much as possible, and when it is done, step back and see what is working and not working.

I also think it need to be working so much that when an idea, form, or technique comes up I need to do it, but not worry about finishing the object. Set it down, let it collect some dust, and see if another idea comes up that fits it. The idea of putting up images on this blog has a bit to do with this idea. I am hoping to take from these images what excites me, and hopefully slam them together into something, who knows what.

I also hope to get bigger, and work more in steel. I am going to be taking sculptures Metal Fabrication class where I will learn all of the welding techniques. I already have some ideas for this. I really floated around a lot in my work, and mostly stuck to jewelry for some reason. I need to get back to vessels, and larger forms.

Lastly, I really want to push myself in the ideas that will come up in the readings for the semester. Even if it never gets to an object I am working on, I would like to write about it on this blog, to see my feelings on the matter on some sort paper format.

So, the first major push will be till the Super Bowl (three weeks). I have some mini-collections already designed out and am interested what ideas they bring up for me and for others (see below). My dad will be in town for super bowl weekend, along with the Universities winter classic. I figured it would be a great weekend to step back and take a look at what I have gotten done. This is where you guys come in. Hold me to that deadline. I need some push behind me. I hope to also get you opinions (whoever you are out there) on images I will be putting up and the thoughts it may be making you think of.

The Ideas to Start-

Paper Cut-Outs- As some of you know one of the objects I made last semester was a paper-cut out of a truck that I then made in copper. I am hoping to keep on this a little longer, and make the house, the boat, the truck (again), and the trailer. I am thinking to them all a little differently this time. I am going to cut them out but only do some minor bending (only a little dimension). Make them look used but not in the final spot.

Dimensions- While I was working on the truck from the Popular Mechanics books, I began to look at the dimension lines a lot. It made me think about the lack of information in these books, and also the space that these objects take (also I think my moving a lot has something to do with it as well). What I have been doing is going through some of the images, and erasing the objects, so all that is left is the dimensions. As you can see below:

Shingles(not the disease)- I have had this one image in my library for a while and I finally deicded to explore it. There is something about the home (also probably related to moving) and also the creating of objects through many pieces that has been intriguing me. More images below:

Tools- I have been drawing tools for a while now. I tried to start work on them in undergrad but the only one I did came out like a warrior from the year 3000 trying to make it back home. I hoping this class in sculpture will give me the techniques to make them a lot more elegant, and more believable as an object for farm use and not for killing.

Car Parts- I carry this truck and van spotters guide with me a lot. I love the images, but lately I have been interested in making fragments of the car. The leaf spring, a side of a hood and see what forms I can take from the inside, guts and fragments.

Mechanisms-I have the book of 509 mechanisms and would love to make a ton of them. Here are some more that I found online.

Some mini-ideas that intrigue me but don’t know what to do with yet-

Sadie just introduced me to storyofstuff.com. Something talked about was perceived and planned obsolescence. These ideas are in the objects the companies make so they will break or wear down so you have to get another one. Something to think about.

Thomas Edison may be the first person to kill someone via electrocution. It was a marketing ploy to try and scare people from using his rivals power Nikoli Tesla’s AC power.

Quote from a Bon Iver song, “I’m building a still to slow down the time.”

I hope there will be a place between all of this that I can find, we will see. All right so this is the first blog of the new semester, I hope there will be a many more to come. I hope your next week will be a good one.

Jaydan

The last chapters of Practices of Looking were pretty interesting. I really enjoyed reading about self-identification chapter; it is something that has a lot of truth in making jewelry. The whole decision of how the viewer (or wearer) connects with the piece has a lot of importance, at least for me. To go even further down the rabbit hole, how does the viewer/owner/wearer create their personality through the objects they adorn themselves with? This idea also plays into the last chapter of the book, globalization. How do we separate from each other when we are able to buy the exact same thing? It is great to keep to be connected with more people then ever before, but with this I feel we lose connection with the objects we keep around us. I go back and forth on this everyday. What is more important the connection to other people (that may not even be very good what so ever) or loosing the ability to have unlimited depth of knowledge to feel more connected with the world we live in. Frankly for me, I am more interested in knowing the life we live in. I enjoy being able to use the Internet to understand things at a small depth, but when it full in depth knowledge I will go to a professional.

When I think about all of these people who live through these second life Internet programs it confuses me. I have played a lot of video games when I grew up, and I can understand enjoying a bit of time being a new character for a bit, but creating a whole new life for yourself and disappearing from the real one seems counter productive. You’re hiding from any problems you may have and creating a situation that is too perfect. As hard as it may be, with so many things stacked against you, the struggles make the person in my opinion. One thing that globalization has the possibility of doing is helping third world countries gain better lives through the knowledge that is waiting for them. But do they really want that knowledge? There is a middle ground between these two ideas, community and diversity, and I think it is our work as artist to delve into these ideas.

Now that that is out of the way, I will tell you about the last week of the semester. It was a crazy one, one that definitely didn’t end the greatest either. I had one more project due and three more meetings set up for the week. All of my meetings (Laurie Beth, Lisa Gralnick, and Kim Cridler) went pretty well. The thing that didn’t go well was the final project. After staying up all night, the piece that came out was not at all acceptable for my standards. It put a pretty bad hit on my semester, and in the end felt confused on if my work really was helpful for my overall graduate studies. I did a lot of experimentation this semester, and in doing that I didn’t get to delve into one thing, and make a great piece. The question that I ended the semester with was would it have been better to play it more safe (work on things close to the ideas of my undergraduate work) and make a good body of work, or explore new options, and maybe not be happy with the work overall, but have some new interests lined up? If anyone has any help on this information on this let me know!

After finally getting some sleep I hopped on a plane and was on my way back to California. It is pretty funny to be back where winter weather is 60 degrees wit some cloud cover. I have heard a pretty good number of people saying that they are freezing in which case I smile, and usually a family member tells the person, “Jaydan was up in Wisconsin where they had a -10 wind-chill!”

The person then says back, “ OH! Well yeah that is whole different kind of weather out there.”

Other than this it has mostly working my way around the Bay Area using public transit to see anyone I can. I am going to get some work done hear, I think I need a week to get my head straight and figure out (or gain more question) what I may want to delve into. Oh Yeah! I also need to get a lot of Christmas gifts done in the next few days as well. It has been nice to be back at home, getting to see family and my girlfriend for a good solid three weeks, I wish it were a little easier to get around and to a studio. I have two places that I am sure I am more than welcome to work; I hope my procrastination doesn’t kick in and I come home with nothing done. We will see.

As for this blog, I am hoping to keep writing it every Sunday. It has been a great way to see how I feel about the last week and where to go from there. I may try to do it more often, but I think the weekly thing has been pretty nice. We will see how it goes. I hope your Christmas (or any holiday celebrations) go well, and eat a lot of food because your going to need the warmth in Wisconsin.

Jaydan

This week has been very relaxing! After sleeping for most of the weekend I had a good amount of meetings scheduled to get me back in the swing of things. On Tuesday I had meetings with Aris and Gail. I will be taking Aris’s Metal Fabrication class and it was great to get to know him better. We spoke a lot about the museum project (since he was there as one of the critics) and where he saw my work going and what questions came up for him in my work. He seemed pretty interested in the work overall and it felt like a great brainstorming session. I think it is going to be awesome working with him and pushing the work in a larger scale, which we both agreed it needed to go.

My meeting with Gail was a little short. I accidentally put our meeting right before my class meeting, which created a rush through all of the work and how she felt the work existed. I signed up for an independent study with her next semester so I am interested to talk with her more. Both Aris and Gail are people I am interested in having on my panel so I am glad I am getting to spend time with them next semester to see how compatible we are.

I had one other meeting this week with Megan Fonstad’s Undergraduate teacher, Rob Neilson. Megan had told me he was coming and others had said he would definitely be a great guy to talk to, and he was. He caught me off guard a bit when he said that he thought all of my work was humorous. I have always thought the rings were playful and lighthearted, but I have always seen the oilcans as a more serious, and intellectual work (I guess who is to say that lighthearted pieces cant be thought provoking, it seems that is what is portrayed in the art world). I have wanted to see if there was a way to connect- what I thought- was two different bodies of work. Maybe they play off each other more than I suspected. Either way it has been inspiring to talk to people about the work and get the positive feed back, and also have people have trouble with the same things I have trouble with. I actually think the latter is much more helpful. When I am able to sit down and say, I don’t like this, like my enameled car. I am so upset with that piece (the problem was I tried to double dip, and that never goes well for me) that I am not going to even display it on this blog. What is great though is talking to somebody about this failure.

I was actually talking to Aris about it and he said, “man! This is a piece of shit! And I only say that cause you know it. The piece has some great places, but it just doesn’t work”. I know what he exactly means, I learned a lot and it has made try some things that I learned from the piece, and sometimes you need that. Last week I read Marina’s blog and she had gone to a lecture and one of the anecdotes the person said was “fail often and fail cheap”. It is a little hard to do in metal, but I have been thinking about it a lot and has a major effect on the work of this week.

Since I have only one more project due, and it is not as important as the museum project I have really been trying some ideas out (and understanding how life is lived in the snow). It has been nice to just try some techniques out. I have a bunch of little things that I wanted to see how they looked and I will turn them into pins for the final critique. I will take pictures for next week’s blog. A minor side note, as much as I love staying in the studio for days, weeks, months on end I was burned out, and it has been nice putting in a solid ten to twelve hours and then getting a full eight hours of sleep.

My Evaluation of myself for Introduction to Grad Studies, the semester, and who knows what else-

I thought Intro class was a great way to get pushed into doing things you know you need to do. Sometimes I would feel like, “ man, I know I have to do this, why is she making me?! Then I would think, “you know you would have just immersed yourself in your studio and only have met the metals people and know one else.

Readings-

I will start with my shortcomings. I will admit I didn’t get all of the reading done. I get sucked into the studio a lot and then all of a sudden it is four in the morning and I have to be at class at nine. I would even try to read sometimes and would fall asleep in the next sentence. I don’t want it to sound like I never read, I did. I think the books were a great way to get a refresher in some of the theory and spur thoughts that would keep with me through the week.

Did you catch it? no chain.

The first fixed gear, I’m hoping to make one soon.

Assignments/Class/Long Table-

I would say this is where I really tried to push myself. For all of the projects I really tried to get the most of it, and see it from the teachers point of view in what Laurie Beth wanted us to take away. I did get good feed back on my presentations, and when there were questions I had gotten enough information to answer them.

The meetings with upperclassmen, faculty, and outside artists I pushed myself to do more than asked. As I said before I need those requirements to “make” me do it, and that helps me keep doing it.

The long table I feel was a strong suit for me. I really wanted to get peoples answers to question that had been brought up in the week before. Every time I got to the I had something to ask or state, and if the conversation strayed from that point I made sure I was following to see what other interesting ideas could come out of my classmates, and also what new feelings I would have. Some of the topics were beaten like a dead horse (ie. Thomas Kinkade, NPR vs. Fox, and artist as a spectacle) but from what I have heard that happens in every Intro class.

Group Meetings-

I think I was adequate at group meetings. I was definitely at a loss some weeks when I hadn’t read. I made it to every meeting though and usually once a topic was brought up from the reading I would try to get some quick reading in and throw in my two cents.

Blog-

I really tried on this. I think it helped that I have some family back at home that are reading it as well. I will say some weeks the thousand words were a little thin in interest. I really got into it and I hope to keep doing it every Sunday for as long as I can. It seems like a great way to cap the week, and do a little retrospective on how I felt the week went, what I want to change for the week to come, and my productivity.

Overall- I thought I put the effort necessary for this class. Where I lacked I tried to make up for it another place. I felt this course was a great refresher for someone who had not been in art education for about a year. I think it has ready me for the next two and half years.

This week I have three more meetings (Laurie Beth, Lisa Gralnick, Kim Cridler) and to finish up my final little samples. It should be a speedy one, and I think these samples and the meetings will be a great way to put a cap on the semester. By the end of the week I hope to be happy with the new ideas going on in my head and I will be back in California realizing how lucky Californians are for their winters.

Since it is the last week of the semester I should tie up a lot of loose ends that I thought I had done, and maybe I did, but I will do it again.

-            Here is the link to my influences-

Tony Esola

Arthur Ganson

Myra Mimlistch-Grey

David Maisel

-            The outside Academic Class I found, Mechanics of Materials.

Jaydan

My old apartment as of the middle of the week.

This week has been a big one. After my last post I got a few hours of sleep and was back in the lovely Madison, WI. My dream weekend of getting to spend time with my girlfriend and show her around Kentucky was quickly snatched away from me. Sleep deprived I really wanted was a quick nap to get me ready to push through the museum project. My couch on the other hand (the only thing I can sleep on at the moment) was knee deep in my stuff that the construction guys had pushed aside. After a full day of trying to stay awake, talking to the management company, and working on the museum I was placed in a two bedroom apartment (the second bedroom I cannot go into because they have there loaner furniture inside the room.

The new apartment with all of my stuff in it.

The good news about this situation was sleeping wasn’t on my things to do list this week. The museum needed a lot of work. This brings me to the next interesting life struggle I had happen to me. My middle finger began to get an infection on Monday and got increasingly worse as the days went on. I woke Wednesday with the pain starting to hurt my whole finger and also getting pain from touching my upper arm. I actually left class on Wednesday morning because the main was starting to get worse and worse. Thankfully the doctor told me the pain in my upper arm was my limp node flaring to try and deal with the infection, and they gave me medication for all of it. Since then my finger has lost its swelling and feels a lot better.

In between all of this was the museum project. It was actually finished on time for Thursday’s critique. I have to say I was not happy with the finished projects. I was trying a lot of things I hadn’t done before or in a long time and it made me unhappy with the overall craftsmanship of the museum. I think the critique made me think of a lot of new things to think about which is great and where I can take or develop these ideas.

The last thing I will talk to you about this weeks happening was my collaboration with Nic. After trying to get something started for a few months we finally decided to get together for a night of westerns, watercolors, and beer.  It was awesome to get to sit down and actually draw for a whole evening and then build off of another person thoughts and aesthetics. We worked until midnight last night which made me very late on this post. There was a lot of interesting topics that were brought up while working together, how we feel about our own medias, how people find that one media, what each other want to do while hear at UW? All around we were excited by the finished projects and made it a goal to bring our work together for a more serious project.

My Three-Year Goal-

This is a pretty difficult question as I am sure it will change a million times over the next two and half years. There are a few things I came here wanting to do that I know will not change. I really want to push myself in scale and also in media. I am already taking a step in both of these desires next semester in taking metal fabrication with Aris. My work has lived in a box no bigger than a couple of feet and I am ready to see if I can break out of that box and see what new problems will arise and also what new branches my work can fill.

The rest of this year I really hope to spread myself and just try my hand at a whole lot of new techniques and ideas that have been rattling around in my head. I will be taking an art history, metal seminar, metal fabrication, and a few independent studies (hopefully Aris, Lisa, Tom or Heath, and maybe Gail). I have a meeting with Gail and Aris on Tuesday and I hope to sign up independent studies with them. I also hope to take an independent with Heath and just go to one of his advanced classes for the meeting, so I can learn more about box making, structures, and just overall wood skills. I hope to create some strong connection with some of these people because I see some of them being on my panel.  With all of this I just hope to work as hard as I can, throwing out ideas and see if they stick for me, and also how they speak to each other and what that overall concept is.

Over the summer I want to take a screen-printing class as well as my outside academic which I hope to be in mechanical engineering. There are some great courses there on materials, movement, and electronics that I really wish to use in my work. Also just getting a summer to work in the studio, get to know Madison better, will make me more comfortable here for the next two years to come.

Into the second year I hope to still be working with the mechanical engineering department on ideas and mechanical movements to use on my smaller scaled work and hopefully on larger longer projects. I also would like to keep having independents with the people I spoke of above, but also meeting with a few others to make sure I am not overlooking someone for my panel. I also plan on taking an art seminar at this time, most likely with Michael J. I am planning to get my MA right now, so I hope to be starting a major of body of work in the later part of the fall semester as well as asking people if they will be on my panel.

The fall semester of second year will be getting my last art history done, working with my panel, and taking the classes needed to push the ideas for my MA show.

Finally my third year here will be in the studio. I know it will hurt a little bit to start a whole new body of work, I will have a lot of feed back from the MA show to work off of and will get right back on track. My last semesters will be mostly independent study (and hopefully just quick meetings with teachers in mechanical engineering and other medias for any quick questions needed to be answered). It should be an exciting time; I hope to be happy with my craftsmanship, and solid in my overall concepts but still having new questions to the concepts to work through in the work. The final show will hopefully have a great amount of work that I am excited by and hopefully others will be too.

Well there you have it, if only it were that easy. Actually in all seriousness I am excited for the problems that will arise, it always makes finding the answer that much sweeter. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great week, much more to come.

Jaydan

I hope everyone has had as great, and relaxing week as I have!

This week I have been quite lucky. After spending the first part of the week running around the studio trying to complete my museum project I got a break. Our critique for the museum will be this coming Thursday instead of the Tuesday which gave me a reprieve from staying up three nights in a row.

Since that point I got a few more things done, and then was off to Kentucky for thanksgiving weekend. I needed this weekend. Getting to be with my dad, step mom, and my girlfriend (who I haven’t seen in three and a half months) has been awesome! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday; the family and food makes for the perfect day and it absolutely was. The whole week has been eating and showing my girlfriend Kentucky. Some of the things we have done; ate the best pancakes in the world at the Overlook café, ate at the great southern restaurant Our Best, Saw “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” (highly recommend it), saw the Muhammad Ali museum, watched football, went to the third largest antique store in the country, “Joe Ley’s” (got some pieces to put in the museum), wine tasted at a winery, saw horses at a family friends barn.

My girlfriend and I posing for the camera

I really needed this weekend to gear up for the rest of the semester. This next few days before the museum critique is a crucial one. I need to get the two pieces done for the show and some posters printed to have the space the way I want it. After this week all I have some meetings planned, collaboration, and a piece for enameling and I will be done for the semester. As hard as I am going to work this week I know that I am going to be able to get it done and I am happy for this time. I feel the relaxing that I got done this weekend was enough to really help me through the hard push I need to get done before Thursday.

One thing that I am not excited about in going back to Madison is my apartment situation. So I am pretty much out of my apartment for the next two weeks because of how much water damage was done to the walls. Thankfully they have let me live in another apartment for the mean time, but I have to figure out what I am going to be doing for the next few days while I am feverishly working on the museums completion. I think when I get back into town on Monday I have to go to my apartment and move my bed into the new apartment with some of the workers so that I have somewhere to sleep until I can move all of my stuff out of the apartment until I can move back in. That has been another great point of being down in Kentucky, and actual bed! My bed at my dad’s house is one of the comfiest. After a week of sleeping on couches for only a few hours at a time, with huge fans blowing, it was nice to spread out.

The other thing I did this week was I went to the colloquium lecture. I have to say I was really interested going to the lecture, but it was swiftly lost. I really was upset with the quality of the images. She had talked a lot at the beginning of the lecture, and I always feel if your going to do that you better have some great work to captivate and in all I thought she did, I just couldn’t see it. The one thing that got me thinking though was how much she has wandered through residencies. Other than that the lecture was pretty lack luster.

Listening to this lecture made me think about the reading that I have been doing for my metal seminar. We have been reading about some popular living artists, and how they got there. Were almost done with the book and it really has amazed me how far some people have come from the furthest reaches to get to art. It also is interesting to see what artist is seen as the most important. The book has three painters, six sculptors, and one photographer. Three out of the ten don’t lay a hand on there work, three more make work that is two big that there are major outsourcer’s.

While I go through the start of graduate school, I am thinking if art is for me, I love thinking about new concepts, but sometimes I feel I am not helping in the most major of ways. I think what I am trying to get at is the same thing I have been trying to look into for my whole college life. The thought that artist never makes it to the crafts person, for example, Sam Maloof. He created a connection with people that I feel some of the artist I have been reading about haven’t. Maybe they need to stay in different categories. This idea is what lets me sleep at night (and I have a bed underneath me that I am trying to soak up). The big question I am coming into grad school with is do I want to be on the art side, or the craft side? I believe I have seen people who can bridge both gaps, but is it a dying art? I hope not.

It seems this is something that always comes up in my blogs. I don’t know if I will ever get the answer, and probably the best thing to do is become okay with it and find the path that best fits. Wish me luck. The first step is getting through this weeks work and critique.

I hope all of your weeks go swimmingly and you feel as contented as this person with his work.

Jaydan

All right, where do I begin? This week has been a complicated one, to say the least. A lot has gone on to make this week difficult, tiring, and interesting.

The first interesting thing I will talk about is my apartment issue. Friday I got a call from my management company telling me that they had found a leak in the basement (ok, I thought, what does that have to do with me) they proceeded to go into my apartment and found that my bedroom room walls had been soaked along with my bedroom (that the water had gone through to get down to the basement. After further investigation they went upstairs to find that the apartment above me had left a faucet running. So my bed is ruined and I now have been sleeping on my couch (the little time that I have been). My management company has really left me in the dark about the whole thing, only asking me to leave a dehumidifier and fan on all the time. Thankfully, the tenant above says he will pay for a new bed for me. I hope to get that done after the thanksgiving break.

The studio life has been very hectic. The Museum assignment is being put together in a feverish pace. The table that I have been talking about for the last couple weeks had to be taken out of the whole design. I have now started making a toolbox that will fit one of the books, tools, and the other pieces that I am going to make in the next few days before I leave for Kentucky. So really there is no sleep in the near future. I took today off to recharge a bit and because my dad and I got a great Christmas gift from my step-mom. My dad and I are big forty-niner fans and we got to go to Lambeu Field to watch them play against the Packers. The Niners lost, but it was nice after a week of high stress to take a day off and hang with my dad and watch some football.

I am very nervous about the next few days. I really have to have all of the pieces done by Wednesday night when I get on the plane. The people who read this blog weekly will see a huge upswing in the next week’s blog though. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and getting to spend it with my dad, step-mom, and girlfriend will be the best celebration of getting this piece done. It is really funny that I wont get much down time, because my family and girlfriend and I have a jammed packed weekend. My girlfriend has never been to the south and so we are going to give her a bit of a “southern exposure”.  Next weeks blog coming from Kentucky will have a much more relaxed, lighthearted reading to it.

I am also excited for this museum to be done because I have some new ideas that I have wanted to see if they are possible and just haven’t had the time to try anything. The last few weeks of this semester are going to be all about trying new ideas out and enjoying trying anything and everything that comes to mind. More on these projects as they start to get underway (I feel like have talked a bit too much about what I am going to be doing and not what is actually going on).

To be honest though nothing much has actually happened outside of the studio. I found out about my apartment in the studio, I have been working countless hours in the studio, I have done reading in the studio, ate in the studio. It’s all there.

The two other things that broke me away from the studio was the 3D/4D get together and the Design show. The 3D meeting was pretty great. Getting to see and hear a little blurb about all of the graduate students was nice. Feel like I know people a little more (isn’t that weird how that happens). Also I tell everyone who is not in 3D/4D, if you haven’t gotten a piece of Lisa Gralnick pie, you need to. I am a lover of pie, and frankly have become against apple pie, because it is everywhere. I would rather have a nice peach or blueberry, something different. But Lisa Gralnick has reopened my eyes, and my taste buds are thankful!

I am going to stop a bit short this week, because frankly I don’t have much more to talk about, and I am hoping to put up a quick blurb Wednesday night about the upcoming couple days and some pictures of there finished state.

Thanks for stopping by everyone; I hope you have a very productive and interesting week.

Jaydan

Good afternoon to everyone, I hope your Sunday has been a fun and productive one.

Last week I left all of you in a bit of a funk. Sadly, that funk slid into this week as well. On Tuesday I had had it and realized that I needed to make a change. I started looking for the one thing that would kick me into the productivity. I was getting ready to come into school and I was thinking about how tired of being tired I was and I needed to get back to the person that was slamming things out and getting everything done on his to-do list each day. Then it hit me!

The shoes in the overall scheme of things didn’t help me much (overall stress of how little time left is what really did the trick) though they have been something that when I have my head down, it makes me chuckle a bit. (WOW! I just realized how horrible of a chuck that was without me even trying)

There has been a steady incline of productivity for the rest of week. The to-do lists are getting longer and it seems my days are spent working while my brain makes plans for the rest of the week. It is scary how little time there is in the semester and how much I need to get done.  I keep thinking of new deadlines and the time to get another break gets pushed further and further back until it’s frankly at the end of the semester now (except for the beautiful Thanksgiving break). One major thing on my plate that I have brought up countless times is the museum. This week will be mainly spent making the table (or known in the popular mechanics books as the “Table for the Outdoors”). If I can get this done before thanksgiving I will be more comfortably. Here are the articles I have settled on making for my museum (and a picture of one in process):

There also going to be some writing attached with this and some more articles up on the table billboard. There might be one more piece that will be a little critique of these books. I want my piece to talk about just how little information is given to you in this book and how little wear these books actually get. I have been doing a little research on other people trying to sell these books and they all seem to never have been used. This is hilarious to me because it goes against the whole idea of the book. When I first got the books I could tell you wouldn’t be able to make a posthole auger with the page of information they give you. The more and more I read the more astounded I was! I began thinking well there just giving creative license to the books owner. Now I have a completely different view. The overall irony of how much prior information you need to make these objects has created a new interest and excitement over these books. These books are like the quintessential idea of what a man is suppose to know and what does it say when you have to spend hours just trying to figure out the diagrams they give you? This is where I hope my added piece will focus on.

A quick idea came to me; I wonder how these volumes would do in the craft explosion we live in now?

I have been thinking a lot about the next project I have to get done. I have a final piece for my enameling class and our piece has to deal with enamel and metal works connection with imperialistic actions. So much of India fine metal work was made under England’s reign and was specifically made for the rich families back in England. Probably the most known enamel object is the Faberge Eggs of Russia. These objects were only made because the Russian Czar family commissioned them. What this has made me think a lot about is how the makers (from and impoverished background) aesthetic is placed on objects that they will never be able to buy. Our world still does this; we put hard labor in other countries, and take imagery from their cultures to help furnish our home. I also think of this from a craftsmen standpoint. How many things do I love to do because I don’t have to do them countless times? Looking at these objects is a little bittersweet as well. In once case I will never be able to get to the craftsmanship that the hundreds of people that the hundreds of people had that worked on these eggs, but at the same time I have the opportunity to make whatever I want. In the end I am happier with the freedom, and I think this is a major statement of the present art world, to quote Calvin Tomkins, “ If art can be anything, where do you begin?”

This idea plays pretty well into the reading. The idea that these objects that these wealthy had made from “oriental” lands was a way showing their vast knowledge and “superiority”. It was the only media they had. The stuff they could bring back. With the explosion of media this adds to our confusion of being a modern artist and ties into the importance of the image. The overall bombardment of information is amazing, and I really don’t know what to do with it half the time. It worries me how much more will be thrown at us within the next ten, twenty, thirty years. My dad once told me that about a hundred years ago the information once person would get in a lifespan was to the quantity of a large book. Now we get a book a day. I don’t know how to take that information…

Here is a picture of the Grandma’s Lamp Ring” with the lampshade on for those who have been interested in seeing it in its final stage (of course without the actual light working, the most important part):

Well thanks for stopping by, I leave you with a couple links. One just amazes me, and the other is a UW student that graduated last year (Matthias Pliessnig) that I have been staring at his work for the last couple weeks. Enjoy.

Jaydan

I finally finished the Lamp ring! Sadly, I wasn’t able to get the electronics working the way I wanted to though. I just haven’t wrapped my head around this crazy thing called electricity yet. I am hoping to take a little more time on it at the end of the semester to work out all of the kinks. I definitely cant spend time working out these problems right now, I am so swamped by so many other projects that are due in the next couple weeks.

This week started on a positive note in the finishing of the lamp ring (the real title is Grandma’s Lamp Ring). After placing the piece in the gallery it has been completely the opposite. As I have said in blog posts for the last couple weeks I have a major piece due where I am suppose to create my own museum. After catching up on sleep, I have been mulling over this project. I have had the idea for the museum in place since the project was prescribed, but the pieces have been another subject. This week has been all about trying to figure out what objects to make out of these popular mechanics books. Also I am trying to make the pieces also speak about this common DIY theme, but also the ridiculously small amount of information these books actually give you. I have also been thinking about how these books were suppose to be the quintessential information to be the best man of the house.  So this week has mainly been spent once again, sitting in my space and trying to collect my thoughts and worrying about the clock quickly ticking towards this projects due date. (And turkey day! Which I am very, very, very excited about!)

A more interesting (though exhausting) thing that happened this week was studio days. It was great to meet some of the faculty in a more personal way. Some of the teachers I hadn’t even heard or seen from since orientation. Getting to have a sit down conversations with a few of them was great. It was nice getting more impute on my work, and set up some longer meetings with a few of them as well. It was also nice to see what everyone else was working on. I took a little bit of time on the humanities day and a lot of time during the lofts day to explore and see some of the awesome work being made by fellow first years and upper classmen. It was great to see where each of us has started to delve in and spend there sleepless nights on. After an up and down week it was also great to get to spend time hanging with everyone in the first year group show and talk about the work, what we have planned to get done before the end of this semester, and questions for next semester.

It was funny to read this chapter this week. I had been thinking about how important the image is in the present art world. I remember talking to one of my past professors and he was telling me that the picture changes everything. He said that he had had pieces in magazines and sometimes the pieces that would get picked were the pieces he thought were the less intriguing of his work. The reason was because the editors found those pieces more interesting on the page.

Coming from a mostly three-dimensional standpoint this amazes me. Making small sculptures I always try to make the pieces interesting from every viewpoint. In reading this chapter and thinking about past experiences I remember how the image has become more important than the actual object is. This is the society we live in now and being a crafts working I am definitely struggling against it. I think about this whenever I take a picture, I think about how I really don’t capture the image because I am not present in the event. I am looking through a camera, and the camera is going to change it in its own way. Like the picture below, I wonder how long has it been since the Mona Lisa has actually been looked at? What kind of concept does the Mona Lisa speak now?  Is the concept of the Mona Lisa the idea that everyone knows the image but hasn’t really ever looked at it?

I guess the real question I should be asking is what is the best ground of showing my work? I want to get my work and concepts to new people, I guess I just don’t want the cost of getting it to people to be the loss of the concept and presence of the piece. Interesting thought, is that out of my hands? Like the Mona Lisa (I mean I know Da Vinci is passed) but it has taken on its own cultural icon via how others have embellished and also created dialogues of its importance. Lately I have been thinking that a piece of art never loses relevance, it just takes on a new one (whether more interesting or not) as time goes on, my new question is when does an object that I have made become owned- in conceptual thought- by another. Who knows if this will ever even happen for me, but it is interesting to think how this slow roll reversal could take form, and how this pieces that get chosen are rather arbitrary.

Quick final note about the week, if anyone were asking my opinion this would be a great place for a week off; Seriously. I mean I am excited about the pieces I am trying to make I just have been in an exhausted funk. Hopefully the up swing I am looking for will come after a good night sleep. Have a good week everyone.

this would suck

Jaydan

This week can pretty much be summed up in five words, “ I was in the studio.” That’s it!  That is the end of the blog. Thanks for stopping by I will have more for you next week! Well, all right I guess I will give you a little more specificity

The lamp ring has been my life. The pictures you see are in the almost done phase. Thankfully I got a little bit more time from the ladies heading up the first year group show and will be turning it in tomorrow. All that is left to do is make a little finial on the top of the lamp shad, make the lampshade out of paper and glue it onto the structure, and get all of the electronics into the ring and make sure they are still working. So, when I say only these things to do, I mean there are a lot of things to do. I know it is going to be another long night. This last week has been mainly concentrated on getting the ring to where it is and the electronic pack working. Let me tell you I thought I planned this ring out to the t, but there have been so many things that have made me scratch my head in confusion. It has been a great challenge and I am excited to make more things light up and move in the future. Later tonight (or early morning) I will put more picture up of the piece, I just wanted to get this blog in on time.

After a 10 days of 14-16 hour days of looking at the lamp ring, I also have another project that is due tomorrow. After sleeping most of Friday I spent yesterday working on that piece and getting a breather from the lamp ring. All right, all right I will call it what it was, I procrastinated, but in all seriousness it was nice to finish something in a day and let my mind rest. This was the piece I spoke about in last week post as the “art as propaganda”. My piece was directed as craft as propaganda. Here is that piece almost in completion. All I have left to do is patina the copper to a solid black.

One thing that I was able to enjoy outside of the studio was I got to go to the DC Garden and the Botanical Garden for the my presentation. It was very beautiful and warm inside. I am going to use it as a safe haven from the snow as it quickly approaches. Also, I was excited to hear about all the other places other people went to. I really want to check out the movie theatres when I get a free night and the insect museum just seems pretty awesome to go and explore.

I know this is a bit late, but a quick word about the reading from last week, I really enjoyed thinking about what the gaze means in everyday life. So much of our lives our under surveillance, and well visual in everyway, it makes me wonder how much are we suppose to control ourselves. The picture below, we all know, and it has always been one that I can’t look away from. In this picture is the question of what the viewer is suppose to do? Journalist are told to be a fly on the wall, the problem with this is no matter what cameraman captures a bit of his thoughts are going to be on the image. The way he frames it, places him in the situation, all say something about his interaction. When I see this picture I wonder what is the real obligation of the viewer both the person taking the photo and us the one looking at it in Time magazine. I try to put myself in the journalist perspective. I know I wouldn’t be a great journalist because I wouldn’t be able to handle watching people dying without gaining some sort of resentment and just overall fight to stop these killings. I guess in this round about way what I am wondering is this picture the only thing the journalist could have done? I mean the only other option is to try to talk the general out of it (which most likely would get the journalist shot) or tackle the general (in which the journalist would be inevitably be shot). The last question I have been thinking a lot about was this idea of surveillance. So much of our lives are about being watched, but violence is even higher than before; are the cameras just watering down our thoughts on our own gaze for the overall sight of “big brother”?

It has been interesting thinking about this idea while working on this ludicrous lamp ring. I really love how the lamp ring looks, but I have been trying to figure out what it is I am trying to say, or if it is just this fun little object, and whether that is okay? I have some many ideas for rings that I want to make, but at the same time I am wondering if there is something in me that needs to say something more important than this. And then I wonder if this might be important to say. So much of art is serious; maybe a little laughter is what we need? Is there a way to make people chuckle a little and then go, “huh! He’s actually got a point there”.

One last thing, after hearing that I made a mistake and had Cheen come to my studio, instead of the other way around we made time to meet again. We had a great time just talking about how she makes work, and ideas. It was nice to have another sit down, show her some newer works and then get to see some of her screen prints on wood. The hand pieces are really great, and the totem polls that she is going to get working on sound pretty interesting.

Here is a few more pieces that i have done this semester.

Well I better get to finishing on this lamp ring. I hope all is well with everyone.

Jaydan

How awesome is this!

It has been a pretty productive week, all of it spent in the jewelry studio working on the “lamp ring” for the first year group show. I believe the show will be called “CMVIII” (908, which is the intro to graduate studies class number). The ring has been going pretty well. I have been trying to keep slow and steady so that I can make the right decisions on how to put it together since the whole electronics thing is a whole new thought process for me. I have also had to change the ring idea around because of some difficulties in making the rings work, but I think I have come up with a solution for this. Below is a picture of the blueprint I made, which I am SO GLAD I took the time to think that all through!

Along with this project I have two meetings on Monday with Kim Cridler and Lisa Gralnick, about other little side things that they have wanted me to do. I also have to design a project for enameling class that is due in the next few days, and also my meetings will be talking about another very large project that will be due the week after thanksgiving. So… There is a lot of work to be done in the next twenty-four hours along with a ton of work by Friday.

One of the projects I need to figure out is we have to make a museum of our own. The museum can be whatever you want it to be, but it needs to bring in found objects, and also things that you have made to bring everything together into a certain idea. Here are some links to some actual museums that I have been looking at (another part of the project that we had to do to brainstorm).

Mutter Museum, Neon Graveyard, and Musee Mecanigue

Here are also a few pictures that I found online of farmland that I am hoping to do something with (I think it just goes with the whole blog theme anyway)! Enjoy.

People who have been on this blog are probably thinking, “alright we see what you are thinking about, when is it actually going to turn into something!?” Well folks, better get use to it lol. Jewelry takes a long time and there seems to be this build up ideas that I hope someday I will get to. Just the nature of the media, and I kind of think of this blog as a place to come back to and say, “Oh Yeah! I should really get back to that!”. Plus just want to give you some nice pictures to look at. Once the lamp ring is done I will bombard you with everything that has been created since the beginning of the semester.

The only thing that I have done outside of the studio in the last week was the Chicago trip with all of the first year graduate students. It was pretty awesome. I have only been to Chicago a few times and never to the galleries and the institute. It was great getting to see everyone outside of the humanities and the loft area and get to joke around. A few of my favorite moments were 1.) I got a little lost in the art institute and got to see a bit of the renaissance jewelry. 2.) Laughing it up at the Mexican restaurant with a long table of thirty people (kudos to Laurie Beth, on standing straight up and saying they don’t have beer here, I am going to go get some!). It was also pretty amazing to get to be serenaded (I use that term loosely) on the bus ride from everyone in the back of the bus. About an hour into the ride and an enjoyable nap, I was awakened by Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” and knew that is definitely the end of that, even though I tried. I must say though we do have some nice voices in our class.

One other thing that happened on the visit to the Art Institute made me realize that when I have a spare moment I really need to work on a website and a business card. I was sitting in cafeteria of the Institute with A big group of the first years and there were these three older ladies sitting to the left of me. I looked over at Kyle at one point and said quietly “how much do you want to bet these ladies are big contributors to this museum”. We kind of chuckled and went on talking. Finally at the end of our lunch there was only one of these ladies left and we began to talk to her. Of course it comes out that she is one of the Provost for the institute. She got really interested in all of us being there and, asking do we do commission work, and right then I knew I should have had a website to give her or a card or something. I mean you can’t beat opportunities like that.

One last thing that I have been listening to religiously is This American Life. I know that everyone probably knows about this radio broadcast, but it has been an awesome thing to listen to while in the studio. I feel like I am using all of my time to its full advantage when I am sitting there working on something and hearing an awesome story.

While I am on the topic of This American Life, I have been thinking about this one statement I heard on one of the shows. “Form is my Function”. I don’t know what to do with it yet, but it seems to have a big connection of craft and this thing we call art. Like I said before, something that will roll around in my head for years and end up somewhere.

I hope you all have a nice week.

Jaydan