Rough start

Rather rough start to the semester but at least it's going. The good thing is this semester I have pretty much everything planned, including a series dealing with relationships and heartbreak and other's dealing with anxiety and depression. Time to get to work!

Family photographs so far...

I've been busily digging through old family photos looking for images that I can use for my main glow in the dark mural. Here are few of my favorites.

Grandad, sometime in the late 30's or early 40's.

Grandad as a child, he looks to be about 6 here so this is circa 1918.

My favorite picture of Grandad,  drunk in a field, with guns. Sometime in the 30's I believe.

Grandma (I think), showing what balloons can do for a lady's figure.

Grandma as a child, circa 1924.

Grandma as a child, circa 1924.

Grandma, circa late 30's or early 40's. I never actually got to meet her, unfortunately she died when my mother was 17.

Working on my independent study for the summer.

After a brief, but much needed break I'm back to working on my summer independent study. Throughout the summer I will be studying using glow powders with enamels, furthering the basic research I've done for my small grant.

While initially the main piece I was going to work on was a large necklace it has evolved into a large mural instead. So far my explorations of forms has taken me to altar pieces and puzzles. I'm working within the frame work of memory loss and death so being able to do something that isn't meant to be worn and is more of a display piece is pretty liberating. Depending on where I take this it could be both, part wearable works that fit together like a puzzle to create a larger wall mounted artwork.

So far I've been researching inspirations and scanning in old family photographs that will be worked into the mural. Here are a few inspirations...

Ghent Altarpiece (Closed), Hubert & Jan van Eyck, circa early 15th Century, completed around 1430-1432.

Ghent Altarpiece (Open), Hubert & Jan van Eyck, circa early 15th Century, completed around 1430-1432

Verdun Altar, Nicholas of Verdun, Klosterneuburg Monastery, 1181.

Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle

Critique today....

Everything (jewelry) out for critique today.

The glow box is out to show that the necklace (center) glows in the dark. I was actually able to use the brush and dump technique to create a pattern of glow powder on there. It's promising that the technique worked as hopefully this means that I can apply glow powders in other ways such as stenciling and painting. The small champleve pin was interesting to do as that was the first time I tried to do this on a highly formed work. In the part I've used the champleve technique on slightly formed pieces or flat etches. Definitely need to get a deep etch if I'm going to use the hydraulic press to make the etches three dimensional. I couldn't build up a sufficient layer of the transparent enamels for the colors to really show through and they started to burn off after a bit. Using opaques instead would be one way to fix it, but I think for pieces that small I'll just go up a gauge the next time I do an etch.

Really excited about decals...

Bought a bunch of decal paper and a laser printer so over the summer I can start making my own custom decals for my work. Very excited! If you would like more info about printing out and using your home made decals for enameling, check out this link:

http://www.enamelworksupply.com/Resources/toner%20decals.pdf

Phew...

Glad to know we have an extension on metalsmithing until Monday morning! It will be nice to put some finishing touches on those projects. Getting really excited about the summer, bought a bunch of laser decal paper so now I can create my own decals to take my layered images to the next step. Still, think I just might sleep for a few days, just to catch up. Then back to work!

DaDa

Some further inspirations, just a few images for now.

Raoul Hausmann, "The Art Critic,"  1919-1920

Hanna Hoch, "Das schöne Mädchen," 1921.

Raoul Hausmann, "ABCD," 1923-1924

Der Dada 3, ed. Raoul Hausmann (Berlin, April 1920), cover.