Students at Victoria College of Art

Here are the images i have been trying to post on my blog, finally. i think Ms Picasa has fixed the broken link.

These are works in progress by students in the Victoria College of Art in the Mark Making with Machine course i taught over the winter term.

Their final project was to abstract the shapes in an image they liked and produce it using their machines and one or 2 techniques they had learnt in the course.

Everyone did an excellent job demonstrating how they had mastered a technique and made it their own.

VCA Students' Works In Progress

Victoria College of Art Show

In our final class today, we spent the time setting up for the end of year show and sale. The students attached their samples to large boards, grouped by technique, exercise and project. Everyone was impressed with the amount of work they produced over the 11 weeks. We were all pleased with how exciting all of their experimentation looked. The studio is just brimming with ideas with so much potential.

Here are some images of their final projects, as 'works in progress'. The assignment was to take a favourite image, abstract the main shapes and develop a design using to techniques worked in their personal analogous palettes. As you can see the results are spectacular. Each one so different and so strongly reflective of each student's artistic voice.

As is usual with fine arts textiles, the image doesn't do the work justice. So if you live anywhere near Victoria you will have to come to the college this Friday (April 1st, 7-10pm) or Saturday and Sunday (April 2nd & 3rd, 1:30-4pm) to be able to really enjoy all of the students' work. The whole college will have every surface covered with their work, including a new 3D installation in the front entrance by the 3D Design class, which is a 'must-see', fun work.

Victoria & Albert Beach Art

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/textiles/lawty/world_beach/map_gallery/



While Articulation was exploring the Bay of Fundy, we did some beach art and sent pictures of it in to the Victoria and Albert Museum to be added to artist Sue Lawty's World Beach Art project.
On the Google map zoom in on the Bay of Fundy and click on the flags at St Martins beach and Hopewell Rocks.
If you go in to Google maps over the next few days you can get to the 2 beaches quickly by clicking on the 2nd & 3rd pictures on the right, below the world map.

Wolfville, Nova Scotia

One of our stops, while travelling through Nova Scotia, was Wolfville, which has just applied to Italy to become the second 'slow' city in North America (the first was Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island). And what an impressive place it is with its mix of a long history of European settlement, unique marine geography, a magnet for world music, significant centre for biological research...and the list goes on. One of Canada's oldest universities, Acadia University, is located in the small city. Students double the size of the city during the academic year.

Harriet Irving donated lots of money to build a spectacular research greenhouse and gardens. The milder climate (by Canadian standards) has meant they could put in plantings to represent many different bio ecosystems, which can all be accessed by paths and trails.

'Face In Nature`by Judith Leidell

Throughout the walks art has been placed as part of the Uncommon Common Art community project put together by the Alliance of Kings Artists http://www.uncommoncommonart.com/

`The face, decomposing in nature, can be given renewed life if visitors place found natural objects at the base of the tree.``

ACAD Students Decompressing -Graffiti, Gum, Cigarettes, Coffee

More about the ACAD students' graffiti stairwell where they go for decompression time. At the bottom of the stairwell you go through a heavy door and pop outside...

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...to see this - another place for the students to decompress...

and make art.

Return to Earth

I have returned to earth now that I have completed an essay for the Opus BA module I am doing this semester. What a journey. I learnt lots while working out how artists transform used and sometimes dirty garments into art.
This is an image of Maria Ezcurra's work. She has unpicked a woman's swim suit and tacked it to the wall. She says she releases women from labels which are restrictions society puts on her. She has changed something 3D into 2D abstract art.
The problem is, I can see the male gaze focusing on the woman as a trophy, turning her into an object just the same way westerners have mounted and displayed kills from a hunt.
I think these works of Maria's could have their meaning turned around to do reinforce what she was intending to change.
It was her other work I wrote about in the essay because it is exciting stuff.