February 2, Class Notes

Vocab:
Balance
Counter balance
gravity
weight
horizontal axis/ vertical axis
symmetry of bilateral symmetry
asymmetry
additive
kinetic
representation
Nancy Graves

Today we watched a video on Nancy Graves and just a behind the scenes look at the making of one of her sculptures. We were to write down the vocabulary as we heard it in the video. I also took some other notes while watching the film. At the very beginning when talking about balance, it was with the body. It had to do with the vertical axis and keeping that in control. Arms and legs were used to help balance the body and act as a counterbalance. Say your left leg is out in the air, your right arm can act as a counterbalance to keep your whole body balanced. In this film we learned that sculptors like to play with balance in their pieces. It's one of the main components of a sculpture. Nancy Graves later stated that balance has to do with weight, mass, placement and color. I thought the color aspect was interesting. I had never thought of that before, and might not have if I didn't hear it. She said that the color in a piece can bring about balance.
The only thing I heard about gravity was that gravity pulls on each element. Nancy also wanted her piece to look weightless, so gravity was an issue for her.

Symmetry was a big word they went over. To be symmetrical both sides of an object, or art piece needs to be the same. That means with the same weight and same look. Most buildings are built to be symmetrical. When we see things that are symmetrical we feel good. It's comforting and familiar. You can have something that is balanced, meaning the weight, but not be symmetrical. I believe that is called asymmetrical.

There was a little about kinetic. If a sculpture isn't moving, but shows motion, the sculptor wants you to feel movement. You can see the motion that the object is moving in, but it's a sculpture and stands still. That's all I heard as far as vocabulary. I wrote a little more just about Nancy.

She likes using familiar objects, but putting them together in unfamiliar ways. She likes to question what is art and what can be sculpture. She likes to do things that have never been done before. These two things definitely showed in her sculpture from this film. She used a lot of really recognizable objects, but put them together in weird ways so you would question why it's in the place it is. Her style, and this sculpture particularly brought up some discussion in class. One guy didn't buy into the whole weightless look to her sculpture. I can see why he said that, but at the same time I agree with the other side. How the objects were placed we made to look like they're just floating. I'm also not sure how I feel about artists not doing their own work. This was another issue brought up because Nancy Graves just dictated what to do and where to put things basically. She did paint some, but in the video it looked like the other people did most of the work. I've never thought about the work that goes into a piece so I thought that was interesting. I know that i'm not okay if the artist really isn't doing anything, if they never touch their own work. Even if they come up with the idea, to me that's not an artist. An artist is someone who actually makes something. Anyone can come up with ideas, but the whole thing is actually replicating that idea into something tangible.

To change the subject, I actually started on my project. It's looking how I imagined, it's just a slow process. I'm using a really thin wire to connect all the wire pieces and that cut me a few times! I'm definitely going to have to work on this a lot before Tuesday to get it done! i'm a little worried about it all coming together, but I just need to spend more time with it. Right now I need to get to some espanol for class tomorrow. Adios!