Merry Christmas!

The Gingerbread Train

Nathanael sees Santa

Well...the word is Nathanael wants a car for Christmas. I'm not sure if he means one that he can drive (since his big brother just started driving), or the remote controlled Hummer that he saw at Burlington Coat Factory immediately before seeing Santa. Hmmm....

Barbie in Art History

In All Her Glory

This is the image for the postcard for my show, The Golden Girl, at DOCS gallery in March.

Barbie...as the Mona Lisa and the Girl with the Pearl Earing

The Yearbook Ad

I think I did a pretty good job here..what do you think? I particularly like the implied horseshoe design for good luck!

Marriage Blessing

Today we had our Marriage Blessed at St. Boniface. I guess Michael does really love me, and I him. We were willing to get married all over again.

Literal interpretation VS. Abstract interpretation

Assignment 3: Create two images or a diptych that offer different interpretations of one of the selected texts at the bottom of this page. Note: You must use the same vignette for both pieces. The first image will be a literal visual representation of the text, and the second image will be an abstract interpretation. Consider your images in terms of metaphor, sensation, emotion and so on. It is important that these pieces communicate first and foremost as a visual medium. Do not use the text in the piece, although you can use typography if it is necessary to your concept.

A spruce is standing lonely
in the North on a barren height.

He drowses; ice and snowflakes
wrap him in a blanket of white.

He dreams about a palm tree
in a distant, eastern land,

that languishes lonely and silent
upon the scorching sand.

—Heinrich Heine

Literal

For the literal illustration of the poem, I opted to make it more artistic than photorealistic. I created and photographed a still life of a tree (found from the Christmas Village collection at Michael's Arts and Crafts) sitting in snow (sugar - with nice clumping action) with a backdrop of a winter storm (found from JoAnn's Fabrics). The palm tree dream cloud was made from scrapbook paper and a palm tree sticker that was scanned. Everything was digitally combined in Photoshop.

Abstract

For the abstract interpretation of this poem, I considered the meaning that I received from this poem. To me, this piece talks of the desire to be someone and somewhere else. This is a feeling that I am very familiar with throughout my life. From childhood onward, whenever a situation became too stressful, I would close my eyes and count to ten and imagine being somewhere else that wasn't so unpleasant or imagine what it would be like to be in the future and how things would be better. The numbers in the image represent counting to 10. They start out larger and brighter and get smaller and fainter to indicate the change from stressful to peaceful. The warmth of the image on the left contrasts with the tranquility of the blue water that represents the same change.

Collage and Montage - Savannah

Assignment 2 for our photo class is the following:

You will use the photographic medium to express a sense of place for the city in which you live. This assignment is not designed to capture a selection of tourist images of your town or city, but rather should express your own feelings and thoughts about the place. The images do not need to be recognizable as the place where you live. It is more important to provide an emotive experience for the viewer that describes an almost palpable experience of the environment.

Here is my work:

I live in Savannah but I am not originally from here. To me, there are two sides to Savannah. There is the tourist side, where the projected image from city hall is one of old money, southern hospitality, and historic charm, and then there is the impoverished side, where the reality is of crime, blighted properties, and a large portion of the population living below poverty in run down buildings. I chose to use imagery that includes icons of Savannah to represent the first side of the equation, and imagery that includes boarded up houses and peeling paint to represent the other.

Collage vs. Montage

Below is a posting for a discussion for my PHOT 714 class at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Photo Collage:
Matt Manley is an illustrator and Tree Book is digital in the end, but is built using a foundation of traditional painting and drawing. The larger figurative elements are photographed oil paintings and overlayed with textures created both by hand and by scanning photographs. The photographs are used to support the image, and not dominate the work.
I particularly like his work because of the peaceful quality of the subject matter, and this image conveys a message of exploring the thought process of creativity and growth.


Joanna Goodrich Whitley uses abstraction suggested by nature as a starting point. Using a camera to look deeply at her surroundings, she finds abstraction in chance composition from life. She then juxtaposes the sharpness of the photographic image with texture and brush stroke of paint, creating an optical illusion. Her paintings evoke the mood of tranquility and beauty. In this piece, Silver Creek Pool, CO I think she is successful in blurring the line between photography and the traditional fine art medium of paint. It is an image that I could imaging being printed on a large canvas to envelop the viewer into the feeling of tranquilty.


Photo Montage:
Madalina Lordache-Levy’s image Rain Spell is composed of many photographs, combined to create a picture that is no documentary recording, but a frame in a story, a snapshot of an image lit by imagination, by memory, or by thought. The result is an image with photorealistic qualities and the feel of a painting.
I really like her approach, as she isn’t trying to convey a message, but rather, invite the viewer into her mind as she conveys a story. The image shows elements that can be viewed as almost a surrealist landscape, which makes it a montage, as opposed to a collage.


Sean Hillen’s work The Goddess Appears in Newry, Easter 1993 conveys his ideas and impression of a soldier being visited by Mary. He views his work as a statement “about how reality is constructed, about the possibility or likelihood that we don't agree on it, and how multiple interpretations of reality don't necessarily negate each other.”
It’s an interesting piece, as it definitely stops me in my tracks. I think any image that uses religious icons and military imagery is loaded for interpretation and asking for a reaction. I definitely think he gets his message across here. While the flowers are placed in a cross-like shape, I feel this is a montage and not a collage because the space works almost an as instillation.

Explore Georgia at UGA

So I took Joshua and Taylor to tour UGA. Joshua was invited to "Explore Georgia," which I believe was for the best and brightest. It seems that all of the kids there had high SAT scores. While we were there, we met up with Peter Lawless, a friend of mine from college who is working on his Ph.D., for dinner. Hadn't seen him in 6 years.

SIGGRAPH 2008 - Wednesday