This American Life

 House on Loon Lake

Rebecca Horn, Artist

But her early body modification pieces were possibly inspired by a year spent in a sanatorium during her youth, not too long after her lungs became diseased, infected by what she terms poisonous materials. Whether such experiences really were the starting point for a career saturated with work focused on body modification is one not worth speculating; but her subsequent bandages, prosthetics and masks have their root somewhere, be it in Germany’s collective post-war experience, or in her own individual psychological makeup. Above image and text source is notey.com

Cocoon

Marisol Escobar, Artist

Museum Ludwig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QebUcwv77hc

The Academy of Linceans

The Eye of the Lynx

GALILEO, HIS FRIENDS, AND THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN NATURAL HISTORY

Some years ago, David Freedberg opened a dusty cupboard at Windsor Castle and discovered hundreds of vividly colored, masterfully precise drawings of all sorts of plants and animals from the Old and New Worlds. Coming upon thousands more drawings like them across Europe, Freedberg finally traced them all back to a little-known scientific organization from seventeenth-century Italy called the Academy of Linceans (or Lynxes).

Founded by Prince Federico Cesi in 1603, the Linceans took as their task nothing less than the documentation and classification of all of nature in pictorial form. In this first book-length study of the Linceans to appear in English, Freedberg focuses especially on their unprecedented use of drawings based on microscopic observation and other new techniques of visualization. 

Where previous thinkers had classified objects based mainly on similarities of external appearance, the Linceans instead turned increasingly to sectioning, dissection, and observation of internal structures. They applied their new research techniques to an incredible variety of subjects, from the objects in the heavens studied by their most famous (and infamous) member Galileo Galilei—whom they supported at the most critical moments of his career—to the flora and fauna of Mexico, bees, fossils, and the reproduction of plants and fungi. But by demonstrating the inadequacy of surface structures for ordering the world, the Linceans unwittingly planted the seeds for the demise of their own favorite method—visual description-as a mode of scientific classification.

Profusely illustrated and engagingly written, Eye of the Lynx uncovers a crucial episode in the development of visual representation and natural history. And perhaps as important, it offers readers a dazzling array of early modern drawings, from magnificently depicted birds and flowers to frogs in amber, monstrously misshapen citrus fruits, and more.

Robert Shields, Author

Between 1972 and 1996, Robert Shields, a former minister and English teacher based in Spokane, Washington, kept a typewritten diary of every minute of his life. “The entire day is accounted for,” according to Shields—and it is, including visits to the bathroom, the weight of the daily newspaper, and every piece of junk mail. Detritus like meat labels, grocery store receipts, and nose hairs, are also included. Sleeping no more than two hours at a time so that he could record his dreams, Shields spent an average of four hours a day at his typewriter. When he gave the diary to the Manuscript Archive of Washington State University for preservation in 1999-2000, it was 37.5 million words stored in 81 cardboard boxes.

Text and image source Cabinet Magazine. 

Tim Knowles, Artist

Larch (4 pen) on Easel #1, The How, Borrowdale, Cumbria, 2005. Above: C-Type print; below: ink on paper (detail).

Oak on Easel #1, Stonethwaite Beck, Smithymire Island, Borrowdale, Cumbria, 2005. Above: C-Type print; below: ink on paper (detail).

The works presented on the following pages are part of a wider practice in which I utilize apparatuses, mechanisms, or systems beyond my control to introduce chance into the production of my art. The pieces here are from a series produced by trees, most of which are located in the Borrowdale and Buttermere areas of England’s Lake District. I attach artists’ sketching pens to their branches and then place sheets of paper in such a way that the trees’ natural motions—as well as their moments of stillness—are recorded. Like signatures, each drawing reveals something about the different qualities and characteristics of the various trees as they sway in the breeze: the relaxed, fluid line of an oak; the delicate, tentative touch of a larch; a hawthorn’s stiff, slightly neurotic scratches. Process is key to my work, so each Tree Drawing is accompanied by a photograph or video documenting the location and manner of its creation.

Images and text from Cabinet Magazine, Issue 28. 

Femmy Otten, Artist

J. Parker Valentine, Artist

Tracey Williams, Artist

A Short History of Some Other Things, 2006

“It’s about storytelling and trying to engage people. It’s a narrative that defies closure – it opens up questions – ie it doesn’t tell you what to think,” she says.
“You are put in a place where you have a different relation to things that you may already know [Disney characters, cowboys, pukeko]. When things are really familiar  you never question them. Images that you have grown up with background your psyche.”
Williams says her work is an antidote to the “grand narratives” people define themselves by. She is interested in the way people pick and choose from their life experience to define themselves. 
It’s part of the adopt-a-culture trend in modern life, she says.
“People look outside themselves to find meaning. It’s a collaging of images. US culture seems to have taken its contemporary rules off TV and we are kind of doing that here. I find that really sad. People are desperate to find an identity but they don’t stand still long enough.
“We have become such a commodified culture. I buy that car, I am that car. I buy those clothes, I am those clothes. There’s a sad lack of ethics underneath it.”
In identifying ourselves or our race as possessing certain traits, we risk overlooking shared humanity, she says.

Image and text source from ARTZONE. 

Andrea Dezso, Artist

Artist Website link here. 

Lindsay Boardman, Artist

Kara Walker, Artist

Gone: An Historical Romance of Civil War as it Occurred Between
the Dusky Thighs of a Young Negress and Her Heart

Kara Walker was born in 1969 in Stockton, California, and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. She received a BFA in painting and printmaking from the Atlanta College of Art in 1991 and an MFA in painting and printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994. Beginning with Gone: An Historical Romance of Civil War as it Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of a Young Negress and Her Heart (1994), she became known for her panoramic friezes of cut-paper silhouettes, usually black figures against a white wall, which address the history of American slavery and racism through violent and unsettling imagery. Gone includes a tree bough that suggests a typical novelistic setting for a lovers’ meeting, yet all manner of surreal activity takes place: the woman of a white couple that is about to kiss has four legs; the man seems to touch the bottom of a nearby black boy with his sword; this boy is holding a swan that has emerged from a black woman, who floats on the water (a set of metaphors for miscegenation). 

Above text from Guggenheim.org

Watch on YouTube. Kara Walker talks about her work. 

Link here.

More work by Kara Walker below.

Drawing as Documentation, Assignment Guidelines

documentnoun |ˈdäkyəmənt|a piece of written, printed, or electronic matter that provides information or evidence or that serves as an official record.verb |ˈdäkyəˌment| [ with obj. ]record (something) in written, photographic, or other form: the photographer spent years documenting the lives of miners.• support or accompany with documentation.DERIVATIVESdocumentable |ˌdäkyəˈmentəbəl|adjective,documental |ˌdäkyəˈmentl|adjective,documenter |-ˌmentər|nounORIGIN late Middle English: from Old French, from Latin documentum ‘lesson, proof’ (in medieval Latin‘written instruction, official paper’), from docere‘teach.’


Guidelines:

• You decide on the process/format. 
• The marks you make will be a result of "marking" an event that happens in real time. 
• Present your ideas to the class on your scheduled day (I will announce presentation dates during class time). Must have two different ideas, at least three pieces of research for each, two must be visual imagery. There is a handout that must be filled out before you present. You can find it on LMS. 
• Once complete, post professional images and an artist statement on your blog. 

Remember:

• You must be able to support all your decisions, conceptual and formal, verbally and in an artist statement. 
• You are expected to make thoughtful decisions that demonstrate research, intellect and meaning. 
• Professional images of the final solution are required as well as an artist statement. 
• Post images and statement on your blog after you have presented final solution to the class. 

Narrative Drawing, Assignment Guidelines

Guidelines:

• You will be making drawings on a two-dimensional surface. 
• The drawings will be cut out and arranged (installed) to visually communicate a narrative.
• No limit on size of drawings/installation. 
• Site of installation will be somewhere on campus. Depending on your idea, the site may or may not be specific to your narrative. Keep this in mind when deciding on a location. All locations must be approved by me.
• You have several choices for a location. Attach to a flat surface, such as the wall. Hang from the ceiling. Create back easels for each drawing so it can stand up on it's own. If you want to use an outdoor site you can fasten drawings to spikes that will go in the ground. 
• Present your ideas to the class on your scheduled day (I will announce presentation dates during class time). Must have two different ideas, at least three pieces of research for each, two must be visual imagery. There is a handout that must be filled out before you present. You can find it on LMS. 
• Once complete, post professional images and an artist statement on your blog. 

Materials:

• A good quality drawing paper and cardboard will provide a sturdy shape. 
• Can also use other materials such as vellum or fabric - just have to devise a way to install. 
• Color or Black/White. 
• Scale is your choice.

Visual Inspiration:

• I have gathered visual examples for you to look at. Click on the category "Narrative" in the right column. Make sure to examine all info posted for the artist and follow up with any links. 

Remember:

• You must be able to support all your decisions, conceptual and formal, verbally and in an artist statement. 
• You are expected to make thoughtful decisions that demonstrate research, intellect and meaning. 
• Professional images of the final solution are required as well as an artist statement. 
• Post images and statement on your blog after you have presented final solution to the class. 

Drawing as Repetition, Assignment Guidelines

Guidelines

• Select a surface.
• Can be any material. Paper, wood, cardboard, fabric. You can also make a surface by taping/gluing/sewing together smaller pieces of material. For instance, used envelopes can be cut up and pasted together to make a surface. Newspaper is also an interesting option.
• Surface area has to measure 40 inches. This approach gives you options – can have rectangle, square, vertical/horizontal format. You can even have a circular shape.
• Once you have your surface ready to go, begin making your mark.
• Repeat the method until you cover/occupy the entire surface.
• Present your ideas to the class on your scheduled day (I will announce presentation dates during class time). Must have two different ideas, at least three pieces of research for each, two must be visual imagery. There is a handout that must be filled out before you present. You can find it on LMS. 
• Once complete, post professional images and an artist statement on your blog. 

Remember:

• You must be able to support all your decisions, conceptual and formal, verbally and in an artist statement. 
• You are expected to make thoughtful decisions that demonstrate research, intellect and meaning. 
• Professional images of the final solution are required as well as an artist statement. 
• Post images and statement on your blog after you have presented final solution to the class. 

Robin Ward, Artist

The Elephants in the Room(s), found paint box with mixed media, 14 x 14 x 17," 2010

Source link here.