SHORT ASSIGNMENT 1:Nina Katchadourian’s book stacks

To complete this assignment I used books from my own collection. Each stack contains 3 books displayed using a neutral background of choice, that is, on my desk. I decided to display the stacks this way as my desk is a nice neutral colour, an area with lots of natural light, while it isn’t obvious from the photos these books are sitting on a desk I do most of my reading at my desk, and lastly, I also complete most of my assignments at my desk (ex: blog post’s for this class).

With Love

When I first took a look at my bookshelf for this assignment, I knew I wanted to use Love, Lucy and Love, Pamela for the sake of their similar titles which appear to mimic the personalized closing of a letter or handwritten note. I’ve had both books for about a year but recently noticed how similar the titles are. It makes me wonder if the title of Ball’s book inspired Anderson. Love, Lucy by Lucille Ball is a memoir of sorts while Love, Pamela is Pamela Anderson’s memoir, of course, she is well-known as a 1990s actress. Entwined is one of the oldest books in my collection, so it felt fitting to join the titles Love, Lucy and Love, Pamela. Both of these actresses are entwined per se, or associated with a particular era/ decade the 1950s vs the 1990s. (Interestingly, Entwined is one of the oldest books in my collection indicated by the worn-out spine which reminds me of the quote: “To be loved, it to be changed”.)

Snow Fairies

For this second stack, I selected the titles with the words fairy/fairies in them and then tied them together with Let it Snow. When the titles of this stack are read it sounds as though it could be the title of a collection of stories about fairies in a winter wonderland or fairytales. Two things are interesting about this image firstly, each book titled is stylized with capital letters, and secondly, on a personal note I’ve received/ purchased each book at a different stage of life. The third book Flower Fairies of the Winter- A Celebration was given as a present to my parents after I was born, my birth month is December, a winter month. I purchased the second book Let It Snow, when I was in 9th grade (2015/2016) and deep in my John Green reading phase. Lastly, I purchased the first book The Classic Fairy Tales as it was a required text for an English course I took in Fall 2022 (coincidently I took Experimental Studio 1 the same semester).

Girls are Strange

I wasn’t sure what I wanted my third stack to be but I knew that, What Strange Paradise could be an interesting title for this project. I keep reading this stack as follows “Abel’s Island: The Land of Forgotten Girls (What Strange Paradise)“, actually this could be a good title for children’s book. I like to think that my desk’s neutral/cream background helps each book’s colourful spine stand out. Green and blue are next to each other on the colour wheel just as the books above and yellow also sits across from yellow on the colour as a complimentary colour. (note: the third book in this stack has some water damage so unfortunately it appears to be very crooked in the photo)

Ideas for Video assignment– Yasmin & Vanni

1) Conversations with Squirrels

• sitting down (possibly wide shot) with squirrels
• luring them with peanuts
• acting as though we (or chosen performer) understand them
  

2) Dressing as a tree and then hugging another tree

• different shots of each of us hugging different trees
  • wearing green and brown to mimic the tree bark and the tree tops
• not facing the camera/hiding
• wide shots
• filming the walk to the tree and a few seconds of hugging a tree
• choosing different trees throughout the arboretum
  • we want to use the weeping willow tree, the one the class stood inside with Chris
    • one person follows the tree hugger into the tree
  • maybe choosing skinny trees to wrap ourselves around
  • climbing?

3) Dressing up as a tree/ bush and rolling down a hill

• camouflaging
  • wearing green or brown tones
  • using fallen sticks and leaves to blend in possibly
• probably not the safest

4 ) Use the weeping willow tree and emerge out of it dressed as an animal or another tree

Environmental Video: In progress pics

FIELD TRIP: 2 showings at the Toronto Biennial of Art and the MOCA

32 Lisgar St and Park

• these works utilize poetry and pair them with inspired musical scores
  • musicology ebb and flow
  • could be played by instruments like the flute
• In our walking tour, we discussed the possibility of code and drawing, range/ indication of volume,
• Upon first glance, this collection of works reminded me of Fluxus works where an artist is given instructions and must complete them simply and effectively
  • the drawing uses musicology/ the scores to indicate what could be happening in the poem/ writing each is paired with

Karen Tam

• Multimedia interactive installation dealing with the artist’s experience/ memory of watching Cantonese opera
  • Tam is inspired by memories of watching 1940’s opera with her grandmother who cannot/ can barely speak English and so the grandmother and granddaughter bond by watching the Opera’s
  • sense of nostalgia which feels culturally important to the artist
• Chinese identity in North America

Maria Ezcurra Passing (2022)

• recovered and deconstructed shoes meant to mimic bird silhouettes
• vulnerability of migrant populations
  • show migrants movement
  • immigration is about people coming together
• environmental protection
• storytelling and creation (is part of the artist’s practice)

The Supernatural Powers of Fabulous Panther (Biimskojiwan) (2024) 

• sculptural installation
  • materials include  industrial felt, silver jingle bells, and tin jingle
• deals with stories of the Anishinaabe oral tradition
• picture the space as being full of movement

158 Sterling Road, 9th Floor

Hangama Amiri The Other Home (2024)

• the artistic experience of being seven years old fleeing with her family and becoming a refugee 
• using fabric from across the Middle East and Central Asia
• composed of various panels, textile collages
  • fabric, especially in the 1970s, was considered a woman’s medium, fabric or cloth relating to a woman’s traditional household chores of sewing clothing
  • female-centred mediums (fabric, textiles) vs traditional male-dominated mediums (painting)
    • traditionally been denigrated as mere craft rather than art, women’s work’ like textiles and embroidery
• seems to categorize pain and loss, of growth, acceptance, and hopeful future experiences
  • deals with landscape and a human being’s place in the world (or finding their place/ safe space in the world

MOCA museum

Video assignment: Arboretum Video: Trees by Vanni and Yasmin

For this assignment, we knew we wanted to interact with nature, so we chose tree-hugging as our gesture. Our idea was based on the connection, and we camouflaged in trees in the Arboretum to hide for the sake of that personal connection.

Tree-hugging in Native culture

“In Native American cultures, for instance, the act of hugging trees was seen as a way to connect with the wisdom of nature and to heal both body and soul.” (Mastrantonio, 2024)

To create this piece we took inspiration from the artists shown in the studio who used camouflaging in nature depicting the concept of ‘being one with the environment’ with a different and literal meaning. The first day we visited the Arboretum, the idea of tree-hugging came naturally to us. From there on we started looking for trees that would be okay to hug as some trees had poison ivy vines. We both felt a special infinity for the weeping willow, hence we filmed our first clip under the tree’s shed. At first, our aim was just simply to hug trees but as we proceeded we discovered that using slimmer trees would be more appropriate so we could film as if we were becoming one with the trees.

Additionally, we intentionally decided to not only both we the characters or performers but to make sure we never directly looked at the camera (except our last shot) to portray a sense of determination and fixation and overall respect for the environment. On a personal (and critique) note, the far shots were so camouflage could be more prominent as we had chosen to dress in green and brown clothing. The long shots helped us appear to be blended with our surroundings.  

“It is shown that spending time with nature can give you an added boost of happiness!” –unknown

HOMEWORK: Maira Kalman from the podcast On Being

https://mairakalman.com/womenholdingthingsbook?srsltid=AfmBOoogqPeP2bsiWdX2y3fEX9Y9bgm3YkwRsmHVk16s6dv8zO2l_WsW

I decided to use the above image for the post because I love every image I’ve seen of the Women Holding Things book, but this one was most compelling to me because women do have to be precieved in different ways, and take on different roles in this image its a woman who is a mother. I think of my mother who is an eldest daughter, the mother of three children, a soon to be grandma, somebody’s sister, a wife, a dedicated worker (she works full time these days), an auntie, a friend, she also has homemaker responsibilities like cooking diner and cleaning and she is the only person I trust to cut my hair. Going back to the image, I think a lot of my own art work is about our mother- daughter relationship. An eldest daughter of eldest daughter.

Quote 1 I found compelling: Ms. Kalman: “I really thought that I was going to be a writer, and everything was born of that. I read Pippi Longstocking when I was 8 years old, and I thought, “That’s it, I’m going to be a writer. I can do that.”

• Something I think about a lot is being about five years old and my dad asked me “what do you want to be when you grow up”and my immediate answer without any hestiation was “an artist”.
  • That’s something I’ve carried with me, like other children I went through phases of other professions I wanted to pursue (a fashion designer, a chef, a hair stylist) but I always came back to art, somehow I think it has felt most natural to me
• I also remeber that same day in reply to my answer my dad then said “well you have to be really famous to be artist and put work in galleries” (or something very similar to that)
  • anyways my dad still (almost 20 years later) does not know much about how galleries work or what it means to be a living artist, per se
• In addtion to this I decided around middle school that I wanted to be a writer, I remember telling a girl in eigeth grade (we were close friends all that year until she moved away the summer before we entered high school) that I would like to publish a book
• I am now studying studio art major and a creative writing minor

Quote 2 I found interesting: Ms. Kalman: “I absolutely think that a museum is one of the deepest places of meditation that there could be, maybe even more than a library, because you’re looking. In a museum, you’re not reading — I mean, you’re reading a little bit, but you’re basically just wandering and looking. And once again, the function of the brain, what happens to the brain is very different than, I don’t know, than being in a supermarket — even though I love being in a supermarket. So wait a minute. I love supermarkets. I love to look at all the packaging. To me, that’s a little bit like a museum. But that’s a digression. I think that we have the opportunity to understand silence around us, and really looking, all the time. There’s always the opportunity. And there’s never a lack of things to look at, and there’s never a lack of time not to talk.”

• This quote may be longer but it grabbed my attention in a different way
• Personally I love running errands, in the event that I find out my mother has left to say run to grocery store without asking me to come along (or telling me she’s leaving) I feel left out. I love walking around supermarkets/ stores. Wether it’s Costco, the food basics near our house, or even wandering around homegoods for something neither of us needed.
• The compariosn of supermarkets to museum makes a lot of sense I think since our class trip to the galleries of the Toronto Biannuel I have been waking around supermarkets and stores differently. I can’t help but feel that they are the same. The idea that the very act of looking feels the same in both spaces to me.
  • in both situations it a lot of wandering and looking
  • in a supermarket my mother may stop, pick an item and then tell me why she needs it or wants to try it or points out the packaging, or hands it to me because she forgot her reading glasses and wants to know what the label says
    • this reminds be of the walking tours we did at the Toronto Biannuel, walking until our guide pointed a piece out and introduced us to something new

Ideas for Artist Multiples

I decided that I would like to work with pins / button making as the medium for my artist multiples.

IDEA 1: Removable stickers (stickers on a pin)

• this past year I have fallen back in love with stickers and have found new ways to integrate stickers into my artworks. As a result I have starting collecting/ hoarding stickers, the same as I did when I was a child actually, however I am quite indecisive when it comes to finding the perfect place to adhere a sticker.
• I thought it would be nice to take images or scans of stickers (likely from my own collection, create an image for a pin full of said stickers and voila! Stickers you can kinda sticker wherever you want aka removable stickers!
• when I look at stickers I can’t help but feel that there’s a sense of nostaglia

IDEA 2: Wearing “makeup”

• I’m interested in the expression of “painting your face” or “putting on” or “taking off my face” as ways to describe putting on to taking off makeup
• For this idea I would like to take images of my makeup products, for example my favourite lipgloss, and put said image of lipgloss on a pin.
  • that way once each of my makeup products are on a pin someone could “put on” or “take off my face/ makeup” on themselves.

• Or I could use text on each pin to indicate what product I use, simply writing for example, “Brown lip liner” and “Brown eye pencil” in plain font on a white background to reference the product I use

IDEA 3:

• LEFT: Failure is an important part of life RIGHT: We cannot stay silent about things that matter, medium, sharpie, Crayola markers, cardstock on newprint, 2020
  • Inspiration: A little Jenny Holzer, and a little Fiona Banner
    • I have always loved Jenny Holzers Inflammatory Essay series
• The inspiration for these posters came out of the 2020 under the first major quartine lockdown. The one on the right was done for an art class in which the assignment was to respond or create an image that dealt with a public issue. I chose to respond to the murder/ lynching of George Perry Floyd at the end of May 2020. Instead of borrowing the phase of “Black Lives Matter” I utilized another: We cannot stay silent about things that actually matter.
  • I have been thinking about how to integrate text into my work recently
  • I strongly feel that the phrase: We cannot stay silent about things that actually matter can in open-ended enough that it can relate to a number of social and political issues (for example the devastating results 2024 American election and Women’s rights to abortion access)
• In regards to Failure is an important part of life, the quote comes from my high school art teacher, I think it’s an important reminder for the end of the semester, but even more an important reminder for anyone in everyday life.
  • there is something so inherently “artsy” about this quote to me I think its a lot about creating art
  • “The act of creating something is more important than the result”
• I like the idea of colourful bright backgrounds and bold unapologetic capitalized black text ( at the time I attempted a sort of jig-saw puzzle background on the image on the right)
  • especially on a pin, sticker, or poster
  • other possible phrases which speak to me:
    • PRODUCTIVITY ISN’T EVERYTHING
    • SICK OF LOSING SOULMATES
    • PERSONALITY IS IMPORTANT TOO
    • I’M SICK OF GOOD PEOPLE GETTING OVERLOOKED
    • I AM MOVING ONTO NEW POSITIVE THOUGHTS
    • WHAT DOES IT MATTER IF ONE PERSON DISLIKES ME
    • THE ACT OF CREATING SOMETHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE RESULT