Stained Glass Pizza

Pizza and prisms? Well, let’s just say that I’m a very big fan of Gothic stained-glass windows and garlicky stuffed crust. What inspired me to create this piece was translating the idea of “culinary arts” into a literal, tangible object. I do believe that culinary arts are included within the arts because food is created with intention, it can be viewed and critiqued, ingredients and placement of food items can be manipulated and fashioned in a way to create color contrast or balance, a unique presentation, and some type of art form. I wanted to create a piece that would imitate a type of art work in that it would take the shape of the work and ingredients normally used for this food, would be manipulated in such a way to imitate the pieces used to create the piece. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to make pizza because I knew it was something that most people, including myself, would recognize and enjoy. Pizza is also circular and shareable. People can gather around the pizza, grab a slice, and chat with one another, like a circle of friends. Then the idea of creating a stained-glass pizza came from researching the origins of pizza. I found that pizza was first created in Gaeta, Italy. So, from there, I researched Gaeta, Italy and fell in love with the featured Cathedrals and Churches such as the San Giovanni a Mare church. From there I zoomed in further on the cathedrals to explore its designs and became intrigued by the circular stained-glassed windows featured in cathedrals. Stained-glassed windows have also intrigued me because of the meticulous work that goes into to creating this object and light reflected on its glass produces a prism of colors. These colors are what illuminate the cathedrals and create an atmosphere of wonder and awe (that ultimately emphasize the idea of passion, wonder, and awe of God). The circular stained-glass windows also take this idea further with the emphasis of the eternal circle, they can reflect, perhaps the eternal light and love for God? Stained-glass windows are also very recognizable and enjoyable so I wanted to combine the two recognizable elements to reflect both the culinary and visual arts of Gaeta, Italy and the Italian and Gothic culture. The process, of course, was not easy just as the process of actually creating the stained-glass windows was not easy. It was meticulous work indeed from creating the intricate stencil for stained-glass design to chopping up the peppers and placing them in strategic places around the pizza. Originally, I had wanted to replicate the Cathedral of Notre Dame’s circular stained-glassed window, but I found it to be too complicated, however, I simplified it and used it as the basis for my design. It was also frustrating baking the pizza because the oven in the WC kitchen seems to only work when it wants to work, so the baking process took longer than necessary. Yet overall, it was a rewarding process because I was able to get the results I had hoped for. Stepping back from it, I would say that my work is mainly communicating the idea of culinary arts imitating visual arts on a more literal level. That is, that my pizza is meant to be seen as not a pizza or a food item, but rather a stained-glass that just so happens to be edible. It also communicates the idea of friendship and fellowship with its circular design that encourages people to gather around and share and connect with one another just as people do when they go to church. The piece also demonstrates connection to one another in that it is divided into slices though each slice is slightly connected to one another to form a whole. It forms a body just as people congregate in a church to form a body—perhaps the body of Christ? I used red, orange, and yellow peppers to create the stained-glass and also because they are bright and striking colors. I wanted to pick colors that have an illuminative quality to them and those stood out among the other peppers and vegetables. I then used the cheese to create the design lines and sauce to imitate the concrete in which the stained-glass pieces (or in this case, stain-glassed peppers) are placed. For composition, I based my idea of another stained glass window featuring the colors red, orange, and yellow and used to guide me. In all, I am very pleased with this work because I did more research into this than I have done for past works. If I could change anything, I would use more ingredients to enhance the taste but still keep the same color scheme. I’d also make a bigger piece to be able to have more people gather around and share.

Sew It Seams

It was an inspiring experience seeing the works of Laura Hausheer, Cornelia Parker, Remina Greenfield, Elise Kielek, Samantha Nickey, KoKo Olszewski, and Jennifer Metz. Each artist created works that took a life of their own. I saw everything from paper cut images, to a collaborative quilt, to even coded photography. However it was the collaborative quilt by KoKo Olszewski that really captured my attention. The theme of her SMP, titled Sew It Seams, asked the question “what does home mean to you?” The object of her SMP was to gather student-designed quilt pieces all with their own interpretations of home and stitch them together so as to show how we all have something we love about home that is relatable. KoKo even received a little help from Professor Carrie Patterson and Children of the Village who even came in to see their work. So, the theme was home and building community and KoKo, being the head of St. Mary’s Habitat for Humanity, definitely did an amazing job at portraying this theme. Her presentation was not only engaging but it was also interactive. She utilized her space by decorating it as if it were a living room equipped with a rug, a chair and pillows. She also encouraged spectators to relax on the rug and make their own quilt piece. I, of course, took advantage of this option. I had so much fun and learned vital information. KoKo was inspired to do this presentation by her research and work within the Habitat for Humanity club. She explored St. Mary’s County and found out that there was a great deal of foreclosures within the county. Many people lost their homes in the community and we, as apart of the St. Mary’s College community, had no idea. And these many people can be considered our neighbors since the college is also within the county community. We as students are so lucky to be able to afford housing whereas the people who live not too far from us are not. So, KoKo wanted to find a way to bridge these communities, so that the students here will understand what is happening outside of the college and want to do something about it. This idea definitely correlates and even translates the title of her SMP, Sew It Seams. She, in a way, is both physically and emotionally stitching these communities, these stories, these lives, and these homes together and she is educating people about one another all at the same time. I hope see more of her work and progress in the future but what I hope most is that her overall goal of getting the students to take action and work with the county is accomplished. I’m very optimistic that it will be.

The Surrealist Experience

          For this last project, all I have to say is that it was definitely a surreal experience. We were prompted to choose an artist, write a short report, present a presentation, and create an original work inspired by the works of our chosen artist. It was definitely a heavy task but, nonetheless, worthwhile. For my project, I chose surrealist painter and thinker, Rene Magritte. Surrealism has always been something that has intrigued me and I sometimes even use it to describe my style and personality. It’s outward and different in a good way.

       For my original work, I was inspired by elements of Magritte’s style which included the obscuring of people’s faces and the fusion of two random objects together. I coupled these elements with elements of hip-hop and hip-hop culture because I wanted to communicate what I consider an important part of my personality and background. I’ve grown up listening to hip-hop having high regards for greats like the Notorious B.I.G, Heavy D, Run DMC, Missy Elliot, Jay-Z, and Eminem. I believe Hip-Hop to be one of the greatest vehicles for promoting positive social changes in communities, freedom of self-expression, and the communication and the interconnection of lives, stories, backgrounds, traditions and cultures, faiths, and ideas. It’s amazing what Hip-Hop has done for the world but it's sad that some people cannot see it for what it really is. They think its nothing but loud music and Lil Wayne, sex, drugs, and violence. Hip-Hop is none of that. It is a movement that has moved many. So, I wanted my piece to be something that reflects both my view of hip-hop and the world’s view as well. I began my process deciding to try to combine the fusing and obscuring of objects that were from Magritte’s with elements or symbols of hip-hop. In all honesty, this was probably the most frustrating project I’ve had yet because I wanted so much for my piece to stand out and somehow include hip-hop with surrealism. I went through multiple ideas from wanting to create a sculpture, to making clothing (for some strange reason) that reflected hip-hop and surrealism, to creating a large scale painting or illustration with 3-D elements. I sketched a good deal but I was never satisfied. Finally, I decided that I was going to take a large piece of cardboard to make my base for my painting and throw on anything and everything that reminded me of hip-hop and the society’s view of it, then, like Rene Magritte, I would place the objects in such a way to create a series of fusions and obscuring of facial features. I chose red as the background color for my piece because red is bold and powerful color that seems to help the piece and its other elements stand out. On a rather darker note, it’s also a symbolic color for gangs, blood and violence, pain, and pride—all elements that have been associated with hip-hop music and lyrics or have been depicted in rap videos. I then added more light and bright colors like sunshine yellow, aqua blue, light green, and electric orange as well as white puffy paint to depict my positive look on hip-hop. I also used these colors to obscure the red to an extent to sort of translate the message that people should see more of the positive rather than negative things about hip-hop because in reality, it’s music, not malice. I then added black and white etched pictures of people so that it wouldn’t be too much color. Then I went crazy. I added many 3-D elements (using cotton balls) like a Styrofoam boom box that was the head of one of the characters, gold cds, splashes of rainbow colors, and even trash (which was meant to represent some people’s view of hip-hop aka “lyrical garbage”). Even putting this together was frustrating and quite painful considering that I used a lot of hot glue to put it all together. It was also very frustrating because everything little detail and placement of objects required some thought and I kept wanting to start over or completely change my idea in the middle of working on the piece. At one point, I even wanted to throw it away because I wasn’t at all satisfied with it but in the end, it did relay most of the message I wanted to communicate and I ended up kind of liking it. However, if I could improve this piece I would first make it a little neater and clean up my mistakes. And finally, I would definitely make it bigger, bolder, and add more objects to it that related to the hip-hop culture and its own view of the world such as with themes like women, sex, drugs, violence, peace, war, politics, race, gender, friends, family, and the outlook of the past, present, and future. Overall, this project was fully engaging, fully frustrating, fully inspiration, and very surreal. 

Half the Semester

Though it’s only been two months, we managed to cover a great deal of material and explore a world of ideas that could take an entire semester or even more to elaborate on. We experienced everything from time-tangled music videos like Sugar Water, to the mind-blogging movie, Momento, to various readings defining the concept of time and the many ways of recording time. Overall, the materials given in this course were helpful yet what really helped me was the class discussion aspect of the course. I always enjoy the opportunity to share my thoughts with others but what helps me the most in understanding readings or perplexing movies like Momento, is listening to the comments of other people and hearing what they think. What makes a class the most interesting as well as most engaging is when class discussion and group work are strongly encouraged. I like that we are given the opportunity to speak our mind, observe and illustrate, and work with one another as we do so. That is what I think the purpose of art is—to spark conversation, to be engaging and to be attention-grabbing. The course so far, to me, has a type of democratic environment. It exhibits an “artistic democracy” in which the course is not dictated by a single person, but rather by a body of people with a body of ideas to share and to teach to one another. And no one person is wrong and right—we are all equal with equally interesting and good points to present. Yet at times I was confused by the material we were given to observe. The most confusing was watching and trying to understand the manipulation of time in Momento. In trying to explain the storyline when I was writing my previous blogs, I ran into a rode block because I really couldn’t wrap my head around what was going on. Sure, I took notes—lots of notes—but even these couldn’t lead me to the concept. Yet, as stated before, what helped me was asking questions and class discussions. Truthfully, it wasn’t until we discussed the movie after finishing it, that I really understood it. And even today, I still can’t restate what happened. Class discussion on the readings also helped me understand the concept of art and time. Before I never really looked much into how time affects art. I really only knew of the used of space to depict time in art but I really didn’t know of all the ways time could affect art or vice versa. Yet I now know of how different cultures calculate and record time, I’ve enjoyed listening to other’s explanation or interpretation of the question “How did you get here?”, and their theories on the real story of Lenny Shelby in Momento. I also enjoyed the stool project where we recreated the images using the space in-between the drawn lines of our sketches. Of all the topics covered, I’d like to use the topic concerning the right side of the brain (as inspired by the reading and activity Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards) for future projects. The brain is indeed an art form in itself and I’d like to look more into not only the creative right brain side of it but also how it cooperates with the logical left side of the brain. I believe that I could research and write about how art engages both hemispheres of the brain. In art, both sides of the brain are necessary. The right side provokes one to create and the left side provokes one as well as their observers to think about what they’ve created or how they’ve created it. Three artists that I believe exemplify this and that I would like to do research on our Rene Magritte, Marcel Duchamp, and Salvidor Dali. These Dada or Surrealist artist use their work to push the boundaries of art and make people think and inspire them to create works of art that contradict, question, challenge the norms. With that in mind, I can say that all in all, this course and these artists have made me want to think and create and do so both creatively and thoroughly.

Blog Post 2: Seeing Between the Lines

So this week, we continued on to finish the time-twisted, mindboggling film that is Memento. As stated before, one of the most noticeable elements of the movie was how as the movie progressed further and further backwards, the scenes were getting shorter and shorter. It was almost as if it was race to the start rather than finish. The entire class was dying to know what had happened and who the real and infamous “John G” was. Was it Natalie? Was it Teddy? Who is who? What was the significance of Sammy’s role in the story? My first thought was that Teddy was actually a good guy whereas Natalie was the real John G, manipulating Lenny’s short-term memory to work in her favor. Yet as the storyline traveled backwards, the truth revealed that everyone was “John G”—including Lenny, himself. Lenny was both John G and Sammy. He replaced his own memory and accidental murder of his wife with that of a made-up character—one which he thought to be real and not him, of course. Yet in reality, his wife survived her attempted murder by another, unidentified John G and Lenny, in trying to protect his wife, was badly beaten to the point that his memory was incredibly damaged. And the days afterward, Lenny, who would always give his diabetic wife, insulin shots, gave her an overdose of insulin, thus killing her. After the death of his wife, Lenny went on a wild rampage and search for the supposed killer. And it turns out that both Teddy and Natalie manipulated Lenny’s memory to work in their favor. Both wanting revenge, Natalie was able to get Lenny to capture and punish the suspected murderer of her husband while Teddy, or Officer John G, used Lenny to kill elusive and infamous drug dealers and criminals. Lenny was simply a puppet for Natalie, for Teddy, and for himself as he continued to create lies and new memories and new stories in desperate search for the truth—or whatever he wanted to be the truth.

After we finished with the film, we then moved on to observing time in a linear perspective. For one class, we were assigned to read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain  by Betty Edwards and do the given exercises. What I found to be the most interesting and slightly challenging exercise was the up-side down drawing in which we were instructed to replicate a drawing of a man as he was shown upside down. We were to do this by following all the lines and observing their relations and interactions with other lines. Overall, this reading proved to be both fun and engaging in that it provoked us to create a shift in the flow of information in our brains from the logical and empirical left hemisphere of the brain to the creative and visual right side of the brain. For the following class, we were prompted to move around Monty and observe both lines from nature and lines from man-made objects. It was challenging in away because though St. Mary’s is a school fully immersed within a natural and eco-friendly environment, it was hard to find lines other than the ones that outlined trees, leaves, vines, and stones. Yet within those categories I found different types of lines such as the varying lines that create different shapes of leaves and trees or when bugs or bees would fly by. We then moved as a class down to a small part of the woods where we were instructed to observe and draw the natural setting using the hand-eye technique in which we were to coordinate our eyes with our hands as we carefully observed every inch, every line, and every detail of the outline of the object all the while not looking down at our papers or hardly looking at it at all. This too was challenging and even a little frustrating but in the end, we were able to enhance our hand-eye coordination. Lastly we moved to the drawing studio where we observed and drew to stools placed together. We created a basic drawing in which we then cut out the free or negative spaces and recreated the drawing using those spaces onto another paper. In doing so, this proved that line and space are inseparable and related because line exists within space—just as time exists within space as well.

We then were to read Ways of Seeing by John Berger. This excerpt was very fascinating from the start with its opening statement proclaiming that “Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes it can speak”. This quote outlines the premise of this excerpt which basically talks about why and how we connect and associate visual aspects to concrete objects and social constructs or ideas. Berger used the Key of Dreams by Rene Magarite, an early 19^th century surrealist painter, to further delve into this thought of how and why we make such a visual associations to the world around us and what constitutes and classifies an object or even color, like the color red, to be the word “red”. In researching this idea online, I found two pictures relating to this idea of seeing and associating. In the first, it is picture of oranges but in different colors. The second, it displays the names of colors but they are printed in colors other than the colors their names imply. This further leads me to ask the question as to why an orange is specifically orange, “blue” is blue and not “green” or why “red” is red and not “yellow” and who mandated color names to be associated with specific visual elements. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this excerpt and I agreed most with author when he said that “Images were first made to conjure up the appearance of something that was absent”. We all see things differently but we’ve created a universal medium for seeing alike. Because of society, we are conditioned to see “red” as the color red and an apple as an “apple” as well as the color red or an orange as the color orange. Yet regardless, everyone experiences and is free to associate things differently for the world around us as well “art [cannot] be understood spontaneously [and simultaneously]. It is meant to be widely and creatively interpreted. Yet this leads me to question, “Why do we need to make associations?” and “how do people come to an agreement that “red” is red and “blue” is blue?

Blog Post 2: Memory and Momento

This week, we continued delving deeper and deeper into the concept of time and how it corresponds to art and creating the art form. Our newest subjects were that of the creation of time concepts and the idea of memory and framing. Through the readings, What is Time?  by G.J. Whitrow as well as the film Momento, we began exploring how time was and is conceived as well as that of how memory is formed and its effect on people, places, things, and, of course, the art form.

            So we began class with a drawing. We were asked the simple question of “How did we get here?” Yet even such a simple question can leave room for a thousand and one intricate interpretations. Many of us drew maps, some drew feet, and some even went as far as interpreting and drawing how they came to be and the cycle of birth and death. There were so many ways to perceive the questions which ultimately lead back to one of our definitions or attributes of art which is that art is infinitely interpretable. Time, being a critical part of art is also vastly interpretably. So we then referred back to the readings and how early thinkers perceived the concept of time. It was fascinating to see all the mechanisms used to enumerate and order the process and progression of time. The Mayans used astrology and cosmology as their basis for creating a calendar and calculating the movement of time while Egyptians used their main source of water, the Nile River, as well as the pyramids and the sun to direct time.

In the second half of the reading, What is Time?, the subject of memory was then explored. Upon reading this, I found the article to be overall, very interesting but I had some disagreements. One thing I disagreed with was the studies of Kant and how he discussed the superiority of the human race over that of animals and those below them. He made it seem as though animals and insects lack the capacity to recall and remember or distinguish between past, present, and future. This, I believe to be completely incorrect because animals, especially domestic pets like dogs, cats, mice, and other animals like elephants and monkeys, do indeed posses the capacity to remember and it has been documented that animals and even some insects possess an extraordinary sense of memory and are able to recognize faces, schematics, or systems. Like humans, they also possess instinct which is an internal and natural memory that could also be learned or conditioned. Nonetheless, instinct serves as our core memory. It guides us in survival and thrival and allows us to be able to communicate or even be “in tune” with our environment. So with that said, Kant’s claim is simply opinionated and false.

After discussing the readings, we were then shown the first half of the film, Momento by Christopher Nolan, to help us further engage in our discussion of time and memory. Momento so far proved to be a psychological and mind-bending thriller that will have its viewers always asking questions and always trying to “remember” what happened and how it happened just like as the main character, Lenny does. The film follows the story of Leonard “Lenny” Shelby, an ex-insurance investigator who finds himself suffering from the adverse effects of strange type of amnesia or short term memory loss which is similar to that of one of his past clients, Sammy Jankis. He is on heart-pounding and dangerous journey to find the murderer of his wife yet what impedes him is his inability to form new memories or even hold onto to certain memories. It is so damaging to the point that he must make constant notes to himself or even tattoo notes to his body to remind him of where he is, who certain people are, and who is looking for—the real murderer. This story is indeed mind-bending in the way it continually regresses backwards in order to move forward in Lenny’s journey to find the killer. Upon watching the film, I took note of how the story was rewinding but progressing. What was interesting was that as it was progressing further and further back in time the scenes were getting shorter and shorter. I also noted that everytime Lenny started his memory over, it would flash back to a black and white scene where he was on the phone discussing to an unknown person information about one of his past clients, Sammy. This scene was also always progressing and never repeating because it was introducing another piece of vital information that would correspond to the next scene (which was in color) in this progressive-regression story. What’s also interesting is the fact that the further back the storyline goes, the more Lenny as well as the audience begins to question who the real killer is. We learn more about the alleged killer “Teddy” and his connection to this mysterious “John G” whom Lenny is supposed to kill. We also learn more about Natalie, a woman who shares the same pain as Lenny and pities him because she too lost her spouse, yet hired Lenny to find and kill the suspected murderer of her husband. Yet this suspect seems to want to have a plan to kill Lenny first.

I can honestly say that I am purely perplexed and puzzled by this movie and am not sure what will happen next. I have a feeling that Natalie may prove to be not as sweet and pitiful as she seems to be and that she, not Teddy, could be the killer and that John G is not really anyone—just someone Natalie made up to distort Lenny’s memory of what really happened. Another guess is that Lenny himself could be the murderer or his wife may have committed suicide or something totally convoluted and crazy!  I also see the ending of this story turning out to be nothing but a dream or an endless memory and that all of this never really happened. There’s no telling what could happen but I feel that the story is telling us that things are not always what they seem and that even memories can be distorted version of reality and of the truth.

Blog Post 1: Art and Time?

From the moment we stepped in through the doors into IVT, we were already immersed into a whole new reality, a whole new atmosphere, an alternate universe where we would be equipped with thought-provoking questions to aid us in the deconstruction of time and space in art. On the first day of class, we were shown a music video in which the storyline was endless circle of duplication and repetition. Upon watching it the first time, we focused only on the main character as well as the song she was singing. We did take note that both her and her environment were replicating but we remained focused on her. Then we watched it a second and third time. Then, our focused shifted from the main character and the song to what in her surroundings were changing and replicating. There were some things that were dynamic and always changing and there were some things that stayed the same through out the video. In all what we were observing was the interaction of art, time, and space. There were several different stories taking place at different moments in time and in different spaces all the while the main character was progressing in her own story.  In short, it was an organized yet chaotic collision of past, present, and future.

The following class we then discussed the concept and art and asked the age-old question of What is Art? Using the reading, The Whole Ball of Wax by Jerry Salz, to guide us, we came up with our own definitions. Of course, there were agreements and disagreements and thousands of varying definitions of art but we finally came down to consensus that art is an expression of a person that is viewed and interpreted by another person. Simple and straight to the point. Afterward we viewed another music video that further delved into the subject of art and time. We were challenged to view the video and come up with a sort of schematic as to how the video was made. The video featured two characters and members of the band called Sugar Water. They were seen in separate panels and slightly differing but ultimately similar and connected storylines. Yet there was a twist. One story was played in reverse while the other was played forwardly. And at one point the storylines switched and the opposite was played in reverse or forward. It was confusing and mind-boggling at first but we then watched the actual production of the video and found that the video was basically a palindrome. Both featured the same story played but in two different settings: forward and reversed. Indeed, it was clever tactic of the director and a great deal of thought went into it. In all, what I took away from both classes was a better insight into the concept of time in art and how the manipulation of space, replication of ideas or images, and the repetition of forms or concepts create time in 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D medias and mediums. It is a concept that I never had appreciated before but now, want to further explore.

For further insight, we were assigned to read The Whole Ball of Wax by Jerry Salz and What is Time? By G.J. Whitrow. The Whole Ball of Wax  reading, in its discussion of the necessity of art, seemed to be more opinionated in some respects, though it was backed up with historical and philosophical content as well as quotes and facts. Yet the What is Time? reading took on a more factual approach and integrated historical facts and accounts into the discussion to define and reinforce the author’s concept of time. Overrall, both readings made sense in that they were clear as to the mission or purpose of their writings and that they had wealthy amount of facts or outside sources to better reinforce their ideas and concepts. Upon reading the What is Time? reading, I’ve gained more insight into the Christian, Ancient Egyptian, Mayan, and Roman and Greek concepts of time and I find it to be fascinating. I also enjoyed how Whitrow even included scientific information with Kant’s study and theory of the origins of the solar system and how the positions in correspondence with the sun, and their direction of orbit as well as differing gravitational forces affect the passage of time on each planet. What I took away from the The Whole Ball of Wax  reading and I really liked was that “art is not optional; it is necessary” and “Art is an energy source that helps make change possible; it sees things in clusters and constellations rather than rigid systems.” I agree completely with Salz in what he says and in addition to being necessary and an energy source, I believe that art is an unavoidable force that drives the existence and progression of humanity. Without it, we would cease to know and acknowledge the past, stay static and unprogressive in the present, and make no moves toward the future. Art is indeed not an option—its life.

One thing that I’d like to know more about is how art plays a role in people’s live and the creation of society or even humanity for that matter. I believe that art surrounds us and aids us in everything that we do. It designs and dictates the way we interact with an environment, the way we travel, the way we learn, the way we communicate, and even the way we govern. It has fabricated history and connected past to present. Without documentation of cave paintings, I believe that we wouldn’t know or even want to know as much about those who lived before us thousands and even millions of years ago. I want to know more about why it seems that most of society fails to acknowledge art as a critical aspect in education and the construction and progression of a society. I feel that art is the very force that fabricates humanity. Everything begins in a design or at least a creative thought, does it not?

Love,

Anuli