SNC/FA Website Officially Launched

It’s finally here! After roughly 100 days since the initial meetings, countless hours and late nights and a few headaches the Sierra Nevada College Fine Arts (SNC/FA) website has been officially launched. A large handful of you may have already seen the site since our “unofficial” launch at the end of the semester, but we just gained the last seal of approval on the project and are now accessible via the main SNC website.

It was undoubtably my largest web design project to date and the response has been nothing but great things. There was a great little team working on the project, with Becca and Nick collecting all the content and me on the designing and coding end of things. Couldn’t have done it without the hours of support/hassling by Becca Jane so I would like to extend my thanks to her, the faculty and students within the fine arts department for working with us on getting the great content needed for a wonderful website, and everyone in the administration that gave their approval along the way for this to happen.

Still here? Go check out the site.

Photography Final — Spring ‘09

Above are the three photos I showed for my final in Photography this past semester, printed at around 13″x9″ on pearl photo paper — the blacks were beautiful. One big thing we talked about in critique that I am still myself up in the air about is whether three, or just these three, was the right amount. I’d say I am fairly skeptical of showing some the other photos from the shoot though.

 

The Light Bulbs.  The bulbs I had put together with the original intention of them functioning as sort of a background prop for a series of photos based on the idea of “photographing through someone”, but after working with them more and seeing the life they took on– heaped and glowing in the wet dirt– I had to forge a new path. The dark imagery and obstruction of the figure adds to mystery of the photos and puts it in line with other things I have been working on in the past semester and put the viewer in the situation of questioning what it is they are looking at. These in a sense of mystery, whereas some of my other work may be more in the sense of deceit.

Though the exact reaction to what the bulbs may be is varied, they’ve resonated deeply with me both in the process of photographing and even more so since then, looking back. For me as creator they functioned as an outlet for me to externalize the internal, but I still felt the need to mask those internal things with the mysterious as not to put my personal self on the forefront. Whether the aura of the bulbs is an extension of my core, a personification of passion, angst, emptiness, connectiveness, abandonment, lust or nothing more than an aesthetically pleasing image I may not actually be sure yet (though I do doubt that last one). Why is it that my own self is something I resist putting out in my artwork? Is it helping or hindering my practice? These are some of the things I hope to figure out in the second half of the year, but something tells me that these photos were a step in the right direction for me, maybe if only in some backend conceptual sense of things.

Sierra Nevada Review, Vol. 20

This past semester I worked with the Sierra Nevada Review staff at the college on their annual literary publication. I handled all of the technical aspects of putting the book together (layout, formatting, etc.) It wasn’t a huge project for myself but really helped them out a lot. During that time they called for submissions from students for cover artwork and I submitted this image I had created a while back of the Mountain Chickadee (or more commonly known as the “Cheeseburger Bird” to those familiar with it). They are all over the place here in Tahoe and their call, respectively, sounds like the word “cheeseburger.” Turns out that the staff loved my image and it was chosen for the cover. Issues went on sale this past week at the bookstore and it looks beautiful. Really exciting to see your own work in print like that. Below is a little blurb about the Review from the school website, I may post some photos of the book itself soon.

The Sierra Nevada Review is an annual literary magazine published in May featuring poetry and short fiction. Editors read manuscripts from September until March (manuscripts submitted outside of the reading period risk a long, dusty dormancy). Response time may vary between a month and several months. The editorial staff changes on a yearly basis with the exception of advisory editor, June Sylvester Saraceno.

Freelance– Rememberance (2009)

Over the past few months I have been working on a project with student filmmaker Joel Pincosy at the Berkeley Digital Film Institute that I got in contact with through Nick Howard who went to SNC with me freshman year before transferring to Berkley as well.

I did some layout and design work for his 13-minute film, Rememberance, including DVD menus, cover, disc, a showing postcard and press kit. Above is a little sampling of the work and below is the trailer for the film. Everything has been sent off to printers and I’m just waiting to hear back on how everything turned out, but Joel seems very pleased.

From the back of the DVD:
The closer Wilbur gets to the end of his life, the more of his life he lives each day. He has lost his wife almost a year ago, but his mind is with her, the comfort she gave, and the closeness, and passion he had for her. His daughter Susan on the other hand is finding it difficult to deal with Wilbur and her young son, who is precocious but difficult. She also struggles to communicate with Wilbur, who connects all current events to his past.  
Even as he remembers and relives his past, he cannot hold onto the present. Wilbur’s past is both alive and full of his regrets and pains, his happiness and love. However this connection with the past is making it more and more difficult for him hold onto the present.

Rememberance – Trailer from Joel Pincosy on Vimeo.

New blog layout

Wanted something a little cleaner looking, a little easier on the eyes as well. I’m not totally sold on the red top bar, maybe switching to blue? Also I’m adding to the sidebar other ways to keep in touch with what I’m up to.

Let me know what you think, I haven’t done any short-thought posts really.

Scott Oliver: Sculpturally Translated Means Things!

Tom and Victoria's Pieces

Oakland-based artist Scott Oliver had a show at the SNC Gallery for the past month and a closing reception Thursday night. For his show, Oliver enlisted the help of ten SNC students as “translators” in a project set to bridge the gap between language and object. Below is an excerpt fro the catalog explaining the process.

Ten individuals from neighboring communities were interviewed in their homes about an object of personal significance. Recordings of the interviews were paired with SNC art students who were then asked to recreate their prospective objects based only on the interview. The gallery became a temporary studio for the production of these recreations—a place where the students could gather, share materials, discuss the project with one another and assemble their recreations. They had exactly two weeks from the time they received the interviews in which to produce “finished pieces.”

"Circling The Drain"

I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of those students and my interview was with a woman named Christine from Reno, NV. She used to work at the mecca of used bookstores in LA — The Brand. During her time there, she become acquaintances with the author Robert Bloch (Psycho, later adapted by Alfred Hitchcock) who frequented the shop for writing research. The object she described in her was a letter to herself from Bloch written on Bates Motel stationary. Due to many small blips of the interview about Bloch’s feelings on death and the post office, and of course the large Psycho reference, I had decided to create a cross-section of a shower plastered with my own recreated letter on Bates Motel Stationary.

I was very pleased with the outcome of my piece and the choice of using off-white paper gave the tub a nice dingy look.

Listening Station

Jocelyn’s Viewing Apparatus

Kath and Nick’s Pieces

Bab’s Unicorn Man

Savannah’s Barbeque

Shot of the Gallery

Becca’s Lamp

“Circling The Drain”

Tom and Victoria’s Pieces

Student Gallery: “Quickie”

My piece in the "Quickie" Show. Black and white photographs overtop red fabric framed by a cabinet door. 54"x23"

 This past week the Student Gallery put on a 5-Day showing in the hallway outside the gallery to correspond with Scott Oliver’s closing reception. Due to Junior Art Portfolio Reviews being installed in the hallway today, the show couldn’t last more than a week. Quickie. We received submissions from both students and faculty for this show and had a very diversified showing of work. 

My piece in the “Quickie” Show. Black and white photographs overtop red fabric framed by a cabinet door. 54″x23″

Student Gallery: “Flexible”

During the last week of February, the Student Gallery Club put up its first showing of student art in the hallway gallery space, Prim Library. The show was open to any and all submissions, hence the title: Flexible. About a dozen different students were shown for two to three weeks before the show came down and everyone left for spring break. It seemed to have drawn good attention towards the art department from the rest of the school and thus far, people are very supportive of the newly formed club’s activity.

My submitted piece was a continuance of my “Free Art” project. The prints were grommeted and hung on four department-store style hooks. People were much more reluctant to take a print for themselves than they were at the Really Really Free Market display of the project. Slowly but surely however, they disappeared from the wall and had to be replaced with a new batch in the second week. Russell found two of them hung at Gary and Terra’s house is Reno, it was good to know that they got around. If anyone else picked one up feel free to give me a comment letting me know! I don’t really know where the rest of them ended up besides Sheri and Becca taking one… or two.

Want your own Free Art?

A follow up to my Free Art post a week or so ago…

This weekends trip down to Reno for the Really Really Free Market could arguable be called a success, but it was undoubtably a fun day. Lots of interesting people watching. Some people didn’t quite get it but that wasn’t unexpected. Also snuck some prints into the small cafe’s around the area and into the free Reno newspaper dispensers.

By the end of the day, all my prints were gone! But that doesn’t mean you can’t still get ahold of one yourself. If anyone reading (aka: the three of you that could just ask me tomorrow because we probably have a class together) want to have one for yourself, I’m going to make it a little more interesting and difficult than that.

How to get your own:

1. Call (702) 997-4437
2. Leave me a message with your Name, Mailing Address, and a Color that you like.
3. Wait an unforetold amount of time.
4. Get a Free Art print in the mail!

Its that simple! (Or complicated?) Also feel free to dial that number at anytime to let me know how much you love the blog, that you are my secret admirer, or if you just get lonely at night and would feel comforted by the fact that you can ramble on and on and someone will hear you… eventually.

Heres a picture of a print inside a newspaper dispenser:

Refusing to Short-Circuit

Small project for the start of New Genres. Slightly changed after getting the class’ critique. Feels too short now however, maybe it is something I will have to add more to.