Come Back

My roommate told me about this book that I should read titled: Come Back by Claire and Mia Fontaine. She said some parts were really sad and hard to read, but the end is so good it makes it all worth it. I decided I would read it, since I don't read much. It's about a mother and the struggles between her and her daughter who decided to get into the drug world.

I started it last night and read about five chapters until I had to go to sleep. Some parts were pretty disturbing and almost made me feel a little sick thinking about it, but at the same time I wanted to keep reading to see what was going to happen. I like those kinds of books, otherwise I'll put it down and won't pick it back up for awhile. This mother and daughter have had a crazy life and I know it just gets crazier as the story goes on. Mia, the daughter, was sexually abused as a child by her crazy father. Claire, the mother, married this guy who turned out to be a complete psycho. He would walk around naked all the time and read to his daughter in bed naked... this was the beginning of small signs that Claire began to pick up on that something wasn't right. He would say comments like why is child molestation so bad? Or children should be able to experience everything an adult does whenever they want. This guy was really messed up. He would go on rages and threaten to kill Claire, then be fine the next day. When Claire would go to the authorities, they wouldn't do anything. It took a long time to finally be free from this guy.

I haven't gotten too far into the story, but it's already been pretty crazy and it says that it gets worse. The daughter grew up having a good relationship with her mom, then one night just left. She wanted to experience the world-meaning drugs. Their whole lives changed that night.

I'm excited to read the rest, but at the same time I know I'm going to be reading more stuff that I won't like reading. I'll trust my roommate though and know that the end will make up for everything! It's just that anything that has to do with pedophiles, or child molestation of any kind makes me sick. So I hope there's no more of that!

Class Notes-Traditional Sculpture

-Casting/replacement/substitution
-Mold: shape for clay or metal to make object
-Lost wax
-Patina: chemical reaction (penny turns green in rain) can have it on purpose,

like a stain
-Plastic/plasticity: refers to material that can be changed and molded, state

of a material

-Relief:
-Low/bas relief, high/haut relief: sculpture that comes off a 2D surface
-Maquette: small sketch in clay, or small model in metal. Practice before

real thing
-Subtractive/additive: adding materials or taking away
-Armature: something to build onto. An internal support structure
-Assemblage/constructive
-Base/pedestal

(We didn't go over all the terms, or some of them are self explanatory)

Michelangelo worked subtractive. Started with forked chisels. It removes more stone quicker. Then used finer chisels. He started from the front then worked to the back. His form was very different from other artists.

Mountain High

The other week my boyfriend and I went up to the cross that's up on a hill here in Boise. You can see it lit up at night. I think it's on table rock maybe? Anyways I've been wanting to go up there at sunset because you can see all of Boise and it would be really pretty at that time. I was expecting to have to hike up to it, but we found out you drive almost to the top then just have a little ways to walk. Once we were at the top you could see paths that do start from the bottom, so it would be fun to walk all the way up. The view was really pretty, it would be even better once everything is in bloom again. We didn't stay up there long because it was REALLY windy and cold. So unfortunately I didn't get to watch the sunset. We took in the view, took a few pictures and left. I'll have to go back up once it's warmer outside.

Midterm

I knew that this last Tuesday was going to be our midterm in the class, but I had no idea what it would be. We were told that there would be no way to prepare for it, so I just went into class with no expectations or anything. We first went over traditional sculpture. Then we received the assignment. It was the best midterm I have ever had. We had a "contest" to either sculpt something out of spam or soap. I was thinking about using spam, but it all was passed out before I really decided, so I had to go with soap.

We had to have something done by class on Thursday and I was thinking, "I can't get this done in time!" I had no idea what to make out of the soap. I was asking people throughout the day what I should make, and I never received an idea that I really liked. I was thinking about soap and what it's used for. I was thinking about the culture that's associated with it, and I thought of washing your mouth out with soap. It's something of the past now, but I had to do it when I was little and I know others did too. I thought of making a mouth with a piece of soap coming out. I liked it, but didn't know if I would be able to make it look good.

To start, I made some sketches of a mouth. Then I just grabbed the soap, lightly outlined some lines, but then just carved away. I was surprised at how easy it was to carve the soap. I have never used it like this before. I shaved the top to get rid of the dial written on it too. It didn't take me too long to make the whole thing either. I was expecting it to take me awhile, but it really didn't because the soap shaved off so easily. I didn't try to make it realistic, I wanted it to be kind of like those mouths you see as examples at dentists. So here is my mouth, it's not completely finished here:

When we turned them in, we had to leave the class for awhile then come back to see who won the prizes. Everyone did a really good job on their sculptures. I was really impressed. It was nice because after we knew who won we just had to take them over to the PA building and then we were free to leave. I only had one more day to go and then a week of break! (The only thing is that I will be doing many posts over this break to get myself caught up).

Book Project

This post is way after I actually worked on and finished my book, but I never had the chance to talk about my process making it.

I drew out my outline of the different things from La Grande that were going to be in my book. It took awhile because I used a ruler to make straight edges and making the lines nice and even. I drew, in this order, a tree, Denny's, the big red rocking chair, a tree, a house, I believe another tree, a train and a truck. Once I had everything drawn out I went over it with a white pencil. It showed up, but it didn't give it the look I wanted it. It was defined enough, it just looked like colored pencil drawn on black paper. I wanted it to really stand out. I forgot I had a silver sharpie, so I went over everything with that after. I only outlined each thing, I didn't fill anything in because I just wanted it to be an outline of a city, this one being La Grande. I colored the rocking chair red, because that's the whole point of it. If I didn't add color it would just look like a rocking chair.

After I had it drawn I cut it all out, which ended up being quite difficult. I had to cut it all out and keep it connected together. There were some parts that almost came apart because I cut the "hinge" or fold a little too thin. After it was cut, I just drew everything on the back so it would be two sided. It was easier drawing this side because the outline was already there so I really just had to draw in the lines. The part that made it more difficult was adding the truck on. I didn't have enough room to add the truck to begin with so I had to draw it separately and then glue it to everything else at the end. It made it hard to draw on both sides, it's too confusing to try and explain it so I won't.

Once I had everything cut and drawn how I wanted I put my little titles, La Grande, Oregon in the picture frames and then ripped the stand off the back. Then I glued the little flap on each end of the book to the covers. When I folded it all up I noticed that the train and the truck were a lot longer than everything else and stuck out the sides of the book. I didn't want that, I wanted everything to be contained inside the covers. So sadly, I had to fold the train and truck in half, which made it look a little weird when opened, but you could still get the point.

After a few little finishing touches, my book was complete. I was pretty happy with it. It turned out just as I imagined. I would maybe make it a little bit more sturdy and so it would last longer, but I liked it.

Artist # 8 Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol always comes up in classes, but I never really knew what his art was about. I have seen a few pictures of some of his work and know that he is a pop artist, but still didn't really know what that meant, or what the point of his work was.

After reading about him I learned that his work was about mass advertising and media. People retained their information from the media, TV, print, and images. His work was not about time, or conveying a certain light, or anything really deep. One of the most famous pieces he's known for are his soup cans. There are thirty-two of them. I read that they are about sameness: same size, same paint surface, same fame as product. (From American Visions by Robert Hughes)
He worked with different mediums such as paint, photographs and film. He was also talented in writing, publishing, television and music. (Andy Warhol)

I understand that he generated all these paintings and photos of really advertised objects and people, but I still don't really understand it. I don't see how he became so famous for doing these things. I honestly don't really like it, or I guess connect with any of it. It doesn't produce any emotions except confusion.

When I searched Andy Warhol in Google Images, these are the first ones that came up:




His paintings of Marylin Monroe and his Campbell soup cans are of his most famous pieces. Others came up that I have never seen before such as this banana and oranges. His work is very colorful and very repetitive. In his paintings of Marylin Monroe, there isn't just one of her, there's many of her. In his work of Mickey Mouse, it's the same way. There are four Mickey's on one page. I think this ties in with the advertising and showing this person who everyone knows and sees all the time.

Artist # 7 Michelangelo Buonarroti

While I was carving my soap for our midterm assignment I thought about Michelangelo. He believes that sculpture is the truest art form. You start with a block of something and carve away to reveal what is inside that block of marble, or in my case soap. I could understand where he comes from because I didn't really start with anything besides a small sketch on the outside of the soap and I just carved and chipped away at it until it made something. One thing I can't understand or comprehend is how he could do what he did with marble. Soap is soft and easy, marble is hard and i'm sure very difficult to work with.


One of the most famous sculptures of all time is Michelangelo's David. He created this using marble. He stands in cantropasto waiting for Goliath. He is pondering throwing that first stone. The sculpture is made larger than life because it was meant to be higher up so when you looked at it, it would look normal size. The detail of Michelangelo's work is pretty amazing. Especially in his ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.


I was lucky enough to be able to go to the Sistine Chapel and see it. It's crazy how much detail there is on the ceiling and how big it is. It scared me looking up at it and imagining painting it. To me, it's crazy, but it came out to be amazing. Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint this ceiling to try and get Rome back to it's former glory. It took him over four years to finish it. I get sick of a drawing after a day, I can't imagine spending over four years on something.

Here are a few other pictures of his work from Google images.

The famous creation of Adam, and then Moses. Moses was to be apart of Pope Julius II's tomb, but he died and interrupted the commission and so Michelangelo couldn't finish all the other pieces to go with it and the placement of it changed. It is still one of his great pieces, even without the other pieces.


Michelangelo's talent is very evident in his work. We are still looking at his pieces and studying his work, and so I think that proves right there that his work was great.