Natural Preserves

These tiny submerged landscapes are brought together in a communal narrative of Natural Preserves.  Take a moment to peer into each little world and study the lives within. 

Materials:

Live Aquatic plants

Mason jars

Wooden pallets

Copper threaded ribbon

Freshwater

Black gravel

Each jar was carefully handcrafted by members of the local community during a series of workshops held at The Texas Reds Steak and Grape Festival and in our very own Viz Lab. 

Natural Preserves was well received.  Thanks to all those who helped set up the exhibition!  And special thanks to all of you that participated in my workshops! 

Didn't get to make it out to the show? Visit our Flikr gallery!

Thoughts for the future

My usual pattern now is to focus on the immediate...I'd like to take a step back and muse about the future.

Body of work:
Create an uncanny vestige of life riddled with memories of my pleasures and abuse.  Transform a series of rooms with nature and decay celebrating vigorous life and inexorable dilapidation. Create a series of experimental hand printed black and white photographs juxtaposing the beautiful and the graphic.  All to lament and treasure the curious corruption of innocence.  

Within the next few months:
Begin more earnest experiments using live plants and found objects.  Measure the potential of these mediums in a series of small scale compilations.  Plant the first crops of materials.  Begin preparations for first photo shoot including costume design.  Execute a preliminary photo shoot.  Explore alternative film formats, developing times, and print methods.  Scout locations and gather more and more furnishings. 

Within the next year:
Increase the scale of these experiments using the most successful processes discovered in the previous months.  Acquire larger space to cultivate and build.  Photograph, develop, and print all I can along the way.  Finalize shoot locations and exhibition spaces.  Hold series of shoots, photograph, develop, and print final shots. 

Workshops

Woo! My first workshop!

Here my classmates and Professor Jinsil Hwaryoung Seo

are creating their first aquascapes with me.

 

It was fun figuring out how to conduct a workshop...so many things to consider when dealing with tricky materials like glass mason jars, live plants, and so much water!  The jars could break if dropped with enough force.  The plants could be bruised if handled too roughly.  And all that water spills everywhere!

I was a bit worn out by the end of the demonstration, but I was really happy with our results!

The Arts Council of the Brazos Valley was excited to see my finished work.

They invited me to hold a workshop at the Texas Reds Steak and Grape Festival.  It was finally time to unleash my idea!

We shared a booth and made it through all the rain, thunder, and lightning!

I'm so glad attendees were excited to participate!

Sketch one

Our first exhibition will feature various forms of participatory art.  I'm a bit of a grass roots artist - if there even is such a thing - and love digging my hands into the dirt and cultivating new plants, conducting experiments, taking photographs, building things...just to name a few of my odd hobbies.  Since this show will be open to kids, I'd like to get them to try new things.  Maybe create a space where they can explore and take part in a series of imaginative activities.  While these workshops may be inspired by some of my own creative passions, I really want the outcome to be a compilation of their works!

A few ideas: 
paper pinhole cameras
transferring graphics to canvas or other items
terrarium or aquascaping workshops with some materials provided
 
I'd like to bring the outdoors in and feature an assortment of repurposed materials within the space..made safe for use of course.  Maybe that can be the overarching theme to this endeavour; reuse, reporpose, recreate...

pallet swings
potted plants
cameras and prints
graphics and transfers

Art as research

Short summary of Stephen Wilson's Art as Research..

Scientific research and technological development are unfortunately subject to various cultural whims, be they social, economic, and political.  And too often are projects in these realms disregarded and abandoned before they are able to reach their full potential.  Thus, risking the stagnation of the larger culture.  Artists, Wilson posits, can play a pivotal role in rectifying "the premature snuffing of valuable lines of inquiry and development" so as not to imperil or empede the discovery and understanding of the "profound practical and philosophical implications" of such research.  

Artists should move to find ways to "integrate critical commentary with high level knowledge and participation in science and technology worlds".  With their notions of "iconoclasm, critical perspectives, play, and sensual communication with audiences", artists can help breath new interest in and stimulate the growth of scientific and technological endeavours at risk of termination.  By injecting "elements of commentary, irony, and critique missing from 'serious' research", artists can help alleviate the threat of forced abandonment by redirecting attention to these studies.  As researches of a sense, artists can also drive research questions and more directly influence the development of these projects as well. 

To new beginnings

I hope I do well this Fall...