The Order of Triangles

"Fractured Thought"

"Lovely Ladies"

Hurrah for spring and hurrah for spring break! I wake to a glorious morning (uh, afternoon) that makes me throw open my window and break open my portfolio. All year have I been adding work after work to this portfolio. Never have I taken the time to go through it all. Life has been so busy and I have been caught in the web of it. 

So as I was digging through my portfolio I found a few pieces I have nearly forgotten about. The pieces featured in this post are pieces that have been a bit underappreciated. They aren't prizewinners, but I love them. They were made about two years apart, but they belong to each other the way cousins do. Triangles are a quiet obsession of mine. They seem to evoke a feeling of order, importance and clarity. I love using them in my work, but it doesn't happen often. 

I plan to do lots of art during Spring break, including some commission work with an urban theme. I'll post something about its progress later next week. 

-M

Printmaking

"Boardwalk"

"Sans Vase"

"Textures"

Sometimes I forget how easy art should be. Fundamentally, it's color on paper - or canvas, etc. That's it. I say "should be" because I'm always one to overthink art. A planner at heart, I've had to work at being a better improviser. Printmaking is a medium that is pretty mindless and involves lots of improv. It's wonderful because you can use flat-ish objects from anywhere, apply ink, and transfer its impression to paper with the help of some pressure - and viola! It's art. 

"Boardwalk" is a lithograph made with storyboard, and it won silver in Scholastic this year. I'm quite fond of its absurdity. "Sans Vase" and "Textures" were born on the same day. They were made with plantlife snagged from the university gardens across the street from the school I take after school art lessons with. My art teacher assured me the plants would not be missed, and given that she is on good terms with the gardeners, I don't have qualms about it. 

This spring, I plan to utilize the flora and give printmaking another go. Although I am lacking a printing press, I'm going to test how a car would work. After all, its the amount of pressure that counts, right? Until then, I am quite busy with making portfolio pieces in order to make the AP Art deadline. Time is short, but I'm determined to make it.

-M

What is Beauty?

"Starving Beauty"

Not long ago, I clicked a link that led me to an article about the different concepts of female beauty, showing how they changed over time. The ancient Greek women desired the plumper, hourglass shape. The Egyptians valued the angular and slim. The Victorian women could not resist those unnaturally small, corset bound waists. It doesn't take a genius to notice that today's concept of beauty craves skin showing every curvature of bone. Only the hungry are beautiful, it seems like.

Like any teenage girl, I have compared myself and seen myself fall short of this modern standard. But then I think, who makes this stuff up? Who was it that first thought femininity could be best expressed by showing off protruding collar bones? My best guess is it wasn't just one person but many. It is sad to think of all the girls trying to mold themselves to meet this awful standard. Think of how much cases of depression and how many broken self-images could have been spared had the standard been only three dress sizes bigger. I guess what I'm trying to say is, "beauty" is a concept that was given to you. You did not make it. Making yourself fit the concept of beauty you have may be a painful progress. It is bogus that we cannot all be content with our bodies. 

-M

Prizes

"Childhood"

(Scholastic Regional Gold Key)

"Destination Sunset"

(Scholastic Regional Gold Key)

As a kid in elementary, I would only ever spend one sitting on a drawing. By that I mean I would churn out all my energy to work on one drawing while I sat hunched over my little desk in my room, furiously scrubbing the paper with markers, colored pencils or whatever medium at hand. It was exhilarating to make something; to bring to life something that had never existed before. But it was also a half-hopeless struggle. Running up to adults to seek approval, I knew that what I had made fell far from perfection, but I wanted recognition for the hard work. 

I suppose everyone still wants recognition for something, but everyone is quieter about it now. We all seem to wait for people to come up to us and congratulate us for being such wonderful humans. That never happens. 

To a certain extent, we still have to ask for it. This Saturday, I'm going to a Scholastic Arts and Writing regional awards ceremony because I won a few prizes for some of the pieces I entered. Since I don't plan to be an artist full time after high school, going to art award ceremonies is like playing make believe. I can dress up nice and pretend that I've got a name in art or something, all the while getting handed certificates and pins for making "pretty pictures". It's exhilarating. It's like being a kid all over again. 

-M

Sketchbooking

Three years ago, I had an eccentric friend in my first hour chemistry class. Her career goal was to be a pirate. Yeah. However, she was brilliant in chemistry and every other subject without really trying. In fact, since she didn't try, she spent her day filling her sketchbook with drawings. Her drawings were as imaginative and funky as her personality. She inspired me to keep a school sketchbook and ever since then I have done just so. 

Back in elementary art class, I remember being nervous when other people watched me draw. Making art in front of other people is much like performing. Since I started keeping my school sketchbook, I've goten over my stage fright. People I normally don't talk to come up to me and strike up a conversation about my art. It's made me more open about my work and that's pretty important.

Keeping sketchbooks and sketching often is one of the best things I have ever done. It's good practice and it's a pretty fast exercise. For Christmas, I got a watercolor sketchbook that has plenty of thick pages. They have a wonderful cloth-like feel to them and are absolutely divine to paint on. The images above are my favorites of the few I have painted so far. More to come late on. 

-M

Overwhelmed

 "Overwhelmed"

This oil painting is one of the longest wrestles with art I have ever had. "Overwhelmed" was inspired by the beautiful surrealistic work by Meghan Howland that can be seen here. 

I started painting this piece way back in March and finished it only a few days ago. For six months it sat in some sad corner looking like the image shown below.

Last spring, I applied for Marie Walsh Sharpe, a two week art camp in Colorado. In the application, there had to be a portfolio included, and unfinished and all, "Overwhelmed" was sent along with it. That was about the time I gave up on trying to get the skin tones right and decided to discard it.

Winston Churchill once said, "Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts." 

Looking back on the year, as many do in the closing days of December, I see a great year. Not really "great" in the way that it felt like one big party, but more in an accomplished way. What sticks to me is all of the hard work. The autumn and winter months remain a blur in my memory, and I have to make myself think to see if any of my work really paid off. If it did, either it was pretty melodramatic or it's still in the mail. Even if juggling everything in life can be taxing, it is worth feeling overwhelmed for a while. 

-M

Time Constraints

"Student Life"

I remember having a conversation with a friend at school, around the time everyone was signing up for Oklahoma auditions, about how much of a time commitment the play would be. It was the only thing holding me back from auditioning, but for her, it was the reason why she would sign up. She said she didn't like having free time. It puzzled me that someone could have a problem like that. I'm always fighting for more time and wishing I had a few more lifetimes so I might have enough time to satisfy my interests. I'm a perfectionist to a fault, making everything I do take an eternity. Sometimes I think having a sort of hit and run approach on everything I do would be useful, but I can't change the way I am, and I don't see how that would give any sense of reward in the long run.

Anyhow, these last few weeks have been a blizzard of assignments, tests, essays, art, and finals. Everything coming with nagging deadlines. Since I was falling behind in my independent art class, I whipped together a photography project that took practically no time at all. It was an unexpectedly fun project I did with my friend during a final. In the end, I found the grainy quality of the photos to have a certain preppy-grunge charm. Ever since first using the school's projector, I've been wanting to do a project like this. "Student Life" is about the frustrations of being a serious student. Dealing with grades, identity, and the future takes its toll on me, and I can see it does on other people too.  In the end, the pain of learning supersedes the pain of ignorance, but its still pain.

It's my first day of Christmas break, and my time is instantly filled with new obligations. Christmas, mostly. And Christmas Eve is this Wednesday. Never have I waited this long to do the shopping, but there's always a first time. This only means lot's of cooking, baking and merrymaking ahead. Needless to say, I won't be bored.

-M