Make Up Blog- Weeks 6, 7, 8

Week 7

Allyson Vieira
If I was a . . . but then again, no (1-18), 2010
Plaster, concrete, and drywall
approx. 64 x 16 x 16 inches each

This is about when I started to really think about the idea of mining. Like Jim's friend Allyson Vieira's plaster column statues. That's them over there to the left.  I really like to think about them as these things that the artist excavated or mined out of a traditional art material.  Well, I am calling plaster traditional but I should propably add that I am no materials expert; I recall the artist having said it was historically reserved for casting copies of originals.  So... you know, traditional in the sense that its a raw, uncharged, pure material used in an art making practice (or praxis?)

Thinking about creating artworks through a type of removal action excites me.  I'm thinking about sanding down, drilling out, cutting away a heavily worked painting surface. I started one large painting (its a recycled Erin Donnelly sophmore yr painting on stretched canvas)  and three small ones on wood panels.  Its a good thing I have a pretty hefty collection of paintings and materials squirreled away.

Side note-  I am a very political  person with very strong beliefs.  I also would like to be part of the solution and not the problem.  This is why I believe I, or we, have a duty to one another to share our ideas and knowledge so that true progress can be made.  This is the beauty of our species and puts mankind at the top of the evolutionary chain within the animal kingdom: the ability to learn from the mistakes of another ( in animal terms, we see joe get burned by fire, we don't have to touch the fire and get burned to know now to never touch fire).  See, this has cataclysmic effects on our ability as a species to progress and evolve.... this is what makes knowledge and learning even possible.  So, I feel as though my first duty or call in this life is to really put some good ideas, thoughts, remarks on society out there.  I want to use my voice and brain a lil' bit for the greater good.  I don't know.

Side note cont'd-  So it pains me that my art isn't political.  Or at least I don't see how it is if it was.  Not in the democrats rule and republicans drool kinda way.  But in the, burn your bras/ give peace a chance/ all you need is love kinda way.  More specifically, maybe, or even more quietly, I'm down with it being political in a reduce/reuse/recycle way.

I've been grappling with this idea that making art is selfish. Not to mention, wasteful.  I mean, really, who am I to be making more junk to fill up space in an already crowded world. When there's already so much garbage(not just trash, but like used stuff/"antiques") in the world without a home, I was thinking I can make the forgotten and left behind materials my foster children.  So this is why I've decided to give my old crappy paintings a new life.  And finally use up all the paint.  Save money and some trees. And the polar bears, too.