Summer plans

This summer I plan to explore feminine issues through making adornment for the body. I am going to try to use alternate materials as a base for my beadwork, as well as create pieces that are quick sketches of things I may do in the future. I am going to try and update this blog once a week on Thursdays, so that I can record my process and progress through what I am working on. We'll see how that goes!

End of the semester wrap up

Here is the work I did this semester accompanied by my artist statement and a video of these pieces being performed: 

My work is based heavily on ritual. According to Walter Benjamin, the advent of photography freed the work of art from ritual, as it made everything reproducible and therefore inauthentic. I find it hard to separate artwork from its history of ritual, and believe that it doesn’t need freed from it. Art comes from every day ritual, whether it be photography or the creation of objects. It comes from inside of a person, and from this person’s interests. Interests become ritual; they become something thought about and seen everywhere, and then looked for everywhere. Ingrained in art is ritual, whether that art it reproduced or not.

This body of work explores ritual in an every-day context. I started this work by exploring cultural rituals that people do every day without thinking why they do them. This led me to explore coming of age rituals. By exploring these topics, I came to the conclusion that ritual is important because of a craving of familiarity. Humans stick to repetitive, ritualistic, habitual behaviors because they are comfortable. These behaviors, though comforting, feed into the restrictions that we put on ourselves in our daily lives.

Carmen Smith is an MFA candidate at Columbus College of Art and Design. She received her BFA in jewelry an metals at Bowling Green State University in 2012.

I'm here, I swear!

Hello blogosphere,
I'm here, I promise! I have been a little lax on updating.
I've been working hard, finishing up pieces and getting photos done. I had two photo shoots over the weekend, and they went GREAT! Liz Roberts is a beautiful model, and the men from Army of Infants were rocking the house. I have a few adjustments to make to the garments before the performance, but the motions are working out well.
I'm also working on final drawings. It's been hard being confident in drawing and creating in a new way, but I think it's going well.

Teaching methods has been interesting, learning about teaching philosophies and how to write them. So much goes into one, I don't know how i'm going to keep it short!

Here are some people I am looking at:

Metal sculpture

Tragedy and art

Huichol Beadwork
Where has this been all my life?

Gregory Euclide

Ronit Bigal

Carol Boram Hays

Imme Van Der Haak
Great work with the body.

neglect

Sorry blogosphere. I have neglected you. But here I am, typing characters on this screen.
I have a critique this week, and here are my thoughts:
I am just working along right now. I am done thinking about my work too much. I have done that all semester, and now is crunch time. I feel I can intelligently justify my work, so i'm just chugging along!

Here are some people I am looking at as i'm chugging along:

Kuma Kuna
Wearable Sculpture

Lorenzo Quinn
Figurative sculpture

As I chug along I am thinking seriously about next semester. I have no idea about what i'm going to do. Woo! But i'm sure it'll fall into place. Or i'll force it. Somehow i'll know. I know I want to use more beadwork. I know I want it to be wearable. I know I want it to involve how the body moves. And there you go. Beyond that, I know nothing.

onward.

Here goes.
I've been reworking since my first crit of the semester. I feel like it was late to get the group crit, and now i'm scrambling to rethink and rework. I've had some individual critiques over the semester, but nothing that made me really rethink everything.
I've taken apart the balls dress and am working on a redo. Hopefully I will have some photos in my Wednesday presentation. Where I hopefully won't get ripped apart. Hyenas, don't be too harsh.
On that note, please come to my presentation Wednesday at 11:00 in DSB!

Right now i'm stressing about this paper for Theory. I realize we don't have to write very much for this program, but I feel like these papers always come at the worst times. Can't we write one right away, then one three weeks before midterm when we don't feel like we're expiring from lack of sleep and stress about our work getting done? In any case, the final touches are just being added and it's a huge weight off.

I'm not ready to go back to Battelle building and live in artificial lights tomorrow. Although I was planning a side trip to Hills Market, if it's not too cold. And if it is, well Battelle, you are my home for 14 hours tomorrow.

Here are some people I have been looking at:
Max Colby
This guy makes his own paper and them embroideries into it. Love it.
Heike Mutter, Ulrich Genth
Public art! A walkable roller coaster, how cool.
Information on yarn bombing
Igor Morski
Surreal
Dran
Hailed as the French Banksy, I like Dran's work better.
Ernesto Neto
How did I not know about this guy before!?!?!? Sculpter.
Julien-Aldolphe Duvocelle
Bae Joonsung
Love it.
Gaudi Cathedral
Lynda Benglis
Gender politics
Weird (and wonderful) fashion.
Contemporary Craft by Bruce Metcalf
If you are at all interested or involved in the craft world this is a MUST READ.
Kathy Ludwig
Mona Luison
Alternate materials. Don't love it, but it's interesting.
Adrian Villar Rojas
Eric Standley
Crazy intricate paper art! Love it.

It's Critique Time! Oh yea.

So I have been so focused on my studio work everything else has sort of fallen behind. My lovely boyfriend and housemate is gone for two weeks, and i've been living at CCAD even more than I usually do. As a result, my mind is way too focused and I need Spring Break! So excited to go home to my parents, and my work is small so of course I can work on it there too! haha. No break for the busy.

In any case, I am working with the piece I have done, taking more photos and experimenting on what is working or not working. Also working on making my multiples of the beaded piece, and combining bubbles from bubble wrap in modular ways. I am experimenting with how to neutralize objects that may have pop culture references. For this I am using colour and combining them in different ways.
As a base I have been using clothing. I am interested in seeing what people think about these very wearable and sometimes oddly comfortable restriction that I am adding to the clothing base.

I am also having a crit with Nari Ward tomorrow before class, so it will be a SUPER CRITIQUE day. I will make sure to put on my big girl pants. And remember my mantra... I am rubber you are glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you!
I'm just kidding. I am looking forward to this, actually, I am trying to get al the opinions I can.

Here are some artists and articles I have been looking at since last time.

Nari Ward video 
The host in this bugs me but he's good at speaking and I feel like we have a lot in common.
Emily
Dead things!
video
Strange video but wonderful video
It's adornment!
Hair as adornment
excess

fashion photography

An early week treat

Here are some photos of my studio, and of a piece i've finished recently. Some little treats for the start of your week.