Shannon

W1 – Book Stacking

Notes for week 1

I don’t Know the First Three Letters!

I created this book stack in response to my experience in being dyslexic. Dictionaries are only a helpful tool if you know the first 3 letters and yet that was every adult solution for me growing up. I purposely tried to make the book titles hard to read by covering some of them with other books pages.

All Lined Up

Growing up I was very obsessive with these pink books and making the castle be perfectly lined up. So I thought it would interesting to create a new system and line up the titles. This new system distorts the nostalgic illusion of the castle.

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Practice

One of Katchadourian’s book stack ‘What Is Art?’ got me thinking about how artists go about learning from these books and how our sketch books are the peer review process for the art community. So, I added one of my sketch books along side my ‘How to draw’ books. I think this choice draws you to think about whats on the inside of the books not just the titles.

W2 – Notes

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Reflection

W3 – Bannor

Notes

Take Two

I’m intrigued by the concept of time lately so, this phrase ‘ongoing temporality’ jumped out of the article for me. I think it speaks to this global pause we are all experiencing due to the pandemic and how the end feels like it’s being dangled just out of reach. In terms of instillation, I looked at an older piece of mine ‘Everything is Fine’ where I wrapped a very dead plant in green thread to make it appear like it was still alive even though it is dead inside. The plant represents what physically and mentally happens when living in the state of ongoing temporality. The string used to hang the banner is right from the thread used to wrap the plant and the ending to the word ‘temporality’ is leaving the potted plant to add a sense of hope.

W4 – Video Proposal

Notes

Proposal – Ideas

How do I to prepare to go practice death? Why do I feel compelled to make myself feel ‘At home’ in this new environment? Maybe because death is uncomfortable for the living.

What dose practicing death from dead plants look like? Is it still in the pile of blankets and writing notes? or is practicing wilting?

W5 – Video Art with Nature

This is all the raw footage I shot. I had two ideas, the first was becoming apart of the garden by laying/burying myself in the garden along with the other plants. This footage has many clips of the community garden at different angles and different plants. My other idea was to learn a dead plants love language, and so I brought the plant a gift(a blanket to keep warm), act of service (soil), quality time (sharing water), touch, and words of affirmation. This idea was a lot of fun to film but, while editing I decided that I couldn’t pass up the beautiful shots of the garden.

Apart of the Garden

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zz9mzzdm2U[/embedyt]

Screenshots from Dead Plants and Love Languages

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W6 – Proposal for Video Art & Zoom

Notes

Proposal … Ideas

Finalized Concept

‘Friends’

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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xSbI-fgFBc[/embedyt]

Good Company

The pandemic has reconnected me to some old friends and since they can’t introduce themselves I will. First, we have Sprout, the only plant I have that has somehow survived me and is thriving. Next is Jimmy, a tiger I painted on my wall in high school, so I’d have someone to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race with. Then we have Sarah, an empty can of monster’s energy drink which is my only source of serotonin. (ME). Next is Trevor who was my whole support system in first year. Next is The Counsel, who all earned their spot. Thereafter is Monty, a mini deck of cards, who taught grade eight me how to count cards after ‘lights out’ so I could play at the adult table. Then we have Horton, who is very dedicated to his job of keeping the Boogeyman out while I sleep. Finally, there is Maxine who is the protector of my plants and grows whenever I have scrap wire.

I think a lot of people can relate to this crazy feeling you can get during a zoom meeting. Being alone in a room talking to a screen and half the time no-one answers and you just have to continue, is really exhausting. In my other work I’m very interested in the concept of mind palaces and I’ve unintentionally made a connection to this concept through this video in my object selection process. Everyone’s mind palace is unique and is filled with different things that represent their knowledge and memories. As silly as it is I’ve aways felt as if objects have their own emotions/energy/opinions and I would talk to them. I’ve always lived in my imagination, slightly disconnected from reality needing people to anchor me to the present and with the isolation from the pandemic I found myself sometimes talking to them trying to keep myself motivated even though they really are just extensions of myself.

W7 – Video Art

W8 – Bread!

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Blog Post

As a picky eater and apart of a big family I could always rely on bread as something I could eat at our potlucks, holidays, camping, and travelling. Bread seeps into many different parts of my life like as a sobering and a hangover cure, the wheat fields at our family farm, bagels are a depressive episodes sustenance, and fuel for playing sports. One very specific memory I have with bread is when I was a kid and me and my family friend got are braces on and right after we where whisked away to our father’s baseball game and then to a cottage for a vacation. Our mouths hurt so much that we couldn’t eat any of the fun trip foods and his lovely Grandma Dora made us fresh bread everyday. It was definitely the best bread I’ve ever had because I was so hungry, mouth hurt, and the amount of care and comfort I felt from his grandma who went out of her way to make sure we had something to eat. I think this has everything to do with why people are making bread during the pandemic. We all are in search of comforting ourselves in this stressful time and everyone has a memory tie to bread. There definitely is an art in breaking bread with others, especially in these divided times, self care is important. When sharing a meal with others we tend to be nicer and listen to one another, even if it just the pause of swallowing. A new take on ‘breaking bread’ in the social media world is this YouTube channel called jubilee, that tries to start conversations and find the middle ground. Funnily enough, when ever there is a rise in tension/conflict they give the participants food and the discussion almost immediately calms down.

W9 – Food Art Proposal

W10 – Food Art

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJfAPxnkB08[/embedyt]

It’s Just Paint…

Growing up I was labelled as a picky eater. I would complain about most food’s smell, texture, and different food could not touch each other on my plate. When I would be given food I didn’t like, I automatically felt embarrassed because I was either going to fail at not making a face or I felt like a burden if I was given different food. As I got older this became less of an issue, like it dose for most children, but there is still some types of food that I have a lot of anxiety around where I can’t control my reactions completely. Way latter in life when doctor’s finally realized that women can have ADHD I learned that this sensitivity I have to food is a common trait. This piece is me trying to change my connection with these foods by pretending that they are paint; something I really love to do and have on occasion (not on purpose) eaten while hyper focusing on a painting. This piece also has a lot of self comforting elements to it that I didn’t foresee like my laboured breathing, turning away from the cameras, and talking/singing to myself. I choose to ‘paint’ an empty plate because I feel guilty that I feel as if a plate full of food I hate was worse then an empty plate.

This was my ‘Pallet’ which is comprised of celery, beans, broccoli, relish, cottage cheese, tomato guts, oatmeal, mustard, strawberry yogurt and, grape jam.

W11 – Pandemic Cake

I’m not really a sweet tooth kind of person but, on the rare occasion that I NEED something sweet to eat this is my go to. This recipe is great because you don’t really need much of any of the ingredients, it’s quick to make, and next to no clean up.

Recipe

• 4tbsp – All Purpose Flour
• 1/2tbsp – Baking Powder
• 2tbsp – Sugar
• 4tbsp – Milk
• 1 1/2tbsp – Vegetable Oil
• 1/4tsp – Vanilla extract
• 1tbsp – Sprinkles

Mix dry ingredients and then mix in wet ingredients in a mug. Then Microwave for 45sec-1min