JCM Proudly Presents: Thesis II- "Warm Geometry"

Here are a few selections from my final body of work for school! I loved doing this project. A combination of photography and quilting? Yes, please! Each exiting art student is required to participate in the Senior Show, where we display our work in Galleries I&II in the art building. My work will be on display August 5-11, 2012. You should come see it so you can read my artist statement and know what it's all about. I'll have more information after my group's meeting with the gallery director.

A Truly Riveting Post

Have I ever told you that I love the United States Postal Service? I do. Getting letters and packages is the best! I've also been looking forward to getting a return address stamp after getting married, because my friend KayLynn has one. It's not that I'm envious of her stamp, it's just that I like how uniform all of the mail that comes from her is. So, last week when Josh called to say that he signed a lease for us, the first thing I did was hop on Etsy and look at return address stamps. Naturally. There are so many good ones out there, this is going to be hard. 

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Stills from "The Tree of Life"

Beautiful film!

Sweet Negative Find

Being a photographer, photographs were important to include in the wedding. Lucky for me, the venue Josh and I selected has a fairly large built-in bookcase that I plan on filling up with family photos. We're talking pictures of us when we were little, family wedding portraits, engagement portraits and perhaps a bridal portrait of myself. The works!

Last time I was home, I worked on scanning all of the portraits from my side's weddings. For the past few family weddings, there has been this terrible scan of Granny and Grandad's wedding portrait floating around. Being the snob I am, I went over to Granny's to see if she had the original picture that I could scan myself. It was not in its spot in the photo album (someone must have hoarded it away for themselves), but she said that she thought she had the negatives. Say what?!

Sure enough, Granny pulled out four 63 year old negatives for me to scan. They were scratched a little bit, but otherwise in great shape to be that old of a negative. Now that I have some good scans of them, I can touch them up in Photoshop. Yay!

The Artist is Present

Marina Abramovic

HBO has a great thing going with their documentaries on Monday nights. Last week, they showed "Me at the Zoo". Named after the first video ever uploaded to YouTube, it was about the internet sensation Chris Crocker. The documentary was mostly about his life after a video he posted the video "Leave Britney Alone", and it went viral and made him into an internet celebrity. It was really interesting, but really emotionally raw, which made me wonder about people putting their inner most feelings on the internets. Like this blog?

This week's documentary was "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present". It blew my pants right off. Such a great documentary. Abramovic is a performance artist that has been working/ showing work since the 70s. She's a legend, but I didn't get her work for a while. The documentary is centered around the retrospection of her work at the MoMA in New York City. Her new work presented at the show was "The Artist is Present". During this performance, she sat in a chair across a table from who ever wanted to sit across from her. A few months into it, she decided to remove the table. She sat in that chair for several hours for several months. It was intense. The viewer/experiencer would sit across from her and just stare at her. I didn't get it until I saw it, but that is one of the most beautiful works of art I've have seen.

There is something about the simplicity of it all. The work is simply Abramovic, chairs, and another person. I can't imagine what it would have been like to sit in front of her in complete silence. Just two people experiencing something out of the ordinary together. Several people started crying during their sitting sessions with her. Of course someone made a blog- Marina Abramovic Made Me Cry.

Her work also brought up a bunch of questions in my mind. Abramovic is part of that group of artists who have been working since the 70s in New York City. Is that group the last group of real artists? People who strictly work on their work and show their work? Can you do performance art anymore as a serious profession any more?

Our professors at school have told us about how rough the art world is, and have warned us that we will have to have real day jobs to afford to make art. Abramovic and crew were lucky to be in NYC went rent was cheap and any kind of art was awesome at most galleries. They were so lucky! They got to put so much more focus on their work than the kids I'm graduating with and myself. Of course it is worth making art on a personal level, but should one even attempt to show their work?

The only connections I have with the art world are my classmates and professors. We'll see how this goes...






PS: The documentary showed some of the people who sat with Abramovic, and I saw James Franco and Orlando Bloom amongst the faces. Way to keep it classy, boys!

Ready to go!

Things patiently waiting to go; July 2012

Dearest Joshua,

I started packing on Saturday! Just the nonessential items, of course. Hope New Mexico is ready for this! I think I'm a moving expert after moving 5 times (including this move) in 4 years. Pack in phases. Be organized. Get rid of things. Buy more tape than you think you'll need. ON IT.

Love,
Jules

Fictional Artists

Rachel, Rachel and Hilary

A few weeks ago, I rented The Vow from the redbox so I could experience the Channing Tatum a good love story. It was a really cute movie, sad, but cute. I got to thinking about my favorite chick flicks and realized that the leading female character is always an artist and something crazy always happens to her.

In the Time Traveler's Wife, Rachel McAdams' character is a generic artist of some sort. Her husband/love interest has a "genetic disorder" that causes him to time travel. He couldn't control when or where he went, so she would never know where he was or when he would come back. What a crazy life!

The Vow starts off like any cute-sy chick flick, but then BAM the car they were in gets hit and Rachel's character falls into a coma. When she wakes up, she has no memory of her husband or who she is after age 20 (or so). The rest of the movie is spent trying to regain her memory and starting over. It made me really sad that she forgot why she loved her husband and how to make art.

P.S. I Love You is one of my all time favorites. It starts out all cute-sy cute-sy, but then cuts to a funeral for Hilary Swanks' character's husband. He died from difficulties from a brain tumor. Someone dies in the first ten minutes! When the movie shows how they first met, she is on a study abroad trip with her art school. That may or may not have influenced both my choice to visit Ireland and to go to art school.

I hope nothing crazy happens to Josh and me since we're in a relationship and I'm an art student. We better watch out.

JCM Proudly Presents: Color Photography Final Project

"Teeluxe"

I had so much fun working on this project. Our professor told us to pretty much do whatever we wanted, as long as we had a reason for what we were doing. I am a subscriber to the J. Crew catalog, because I really like it, but have always noticed that the outfits the models are displaying are usually ludacris. No real person would wear those outfits on the daily. In this project, I chose to make fun of the outfits by making ridiculous pairings of fabrics I own, the models, and in some of the photos I replaced their heads with random items. My very favorite photo from this project is the garlic head lady. Hands down!