The Cranes of Berlin

When you are at art college you spend a lot of time collecting random bits of paper. The art students are very eco friendly in that aspect. So when I went to Berlin with my college we were told to do sketchbook work and take photographs and document the trip. There are three reasons why I made cranes instead of collage: one, I did not have a glue stick with me. Two, I was too lazy to find a glue stick and stick them in and three, everyone else was doing collage.

My first crane was made out if a paper bag where my breakfast came in. It was square to start with other wise I would have made a boat. I was happy that I remember how to do them, but I guess that after you have doen it enough times I will never forget. I like the shape of it and as my recent project is all about freedom, you do not get anymore free than wings. So after that everything was made into cranes: the boarding pass, chewing gum wrapper, receipts, gallery leaflets, maps and even part of an art work, which you were aloud to take with you. I thought that is was a great and original idea, to document my berlin trip in cranes. I can now pick up any crane and give you a story to go with it.

Whenever people ask why I was chose cranes, I said that was because of all the building that was happening in Berlin and all the many cranes that were needed in the process.

The sensitive topic of childhood and adulthood

For our theory class we have to curate an exhibition and we can choose the theme. For some people it was difficult to think of a theme, but I knew straight away that I wanted to do something with children. Artist, who's subject is children have been some of my favourites and using children myself as a topic in my art has always been something I have wanted to do.

So I started off with an artist I had seen in the guardian magazine ages ago and I had kept the images but had forgotten her name. I managed to find her. She is called Frieke Janssens and the series was called smoking kids.

This girl looks a lot like my little cousin

The kids were given fake cigarettes and then the smoke was edited in later. The idea of a child smoking is so scary, firstly because it is an adult thing and secondly because smoking is bad for you and we have to protect children.

I then typed artist who use children as a subject and I found Jonathan Hobin, who is a canadian artist and shocked a lot of people with his photography series 'In the Playroom'. The first thing I found was an article on whether it was responsible of the parents to let their children be part of it.

The boys knew exactly that they were recreating 9/11

Having the children reenact famous disaster is radicle but only because the older generation believe that we should not exposed children to this and that children are to naive to know what they are doing. But Hobin proved that a lot of the children did know what they were doing. Anyway children play games where they kill each other all the time.

There was a link to Anna Skladmann's (again) photography series called Little Adults. 

The photographs are of the children of the new super rich. These are children who are like little adults because their parents give them everything, because when the parents were young they had nothing. They children are extremely powerful and could probably order your death, which is a scary idea. 

I wanted to add old really old portraits of children because they all look like little adults, because the idea of childhood did not exist. 

At the weekend I also thought of Diane Arbus, who famously photographed 'Child with Toy Hand Grenade.' I had seen this picture in Berlin a couple of years ago and it seems to fit my subject well.

3D, it's a family thing.

3D works for me because I like making things big. Sculptures attract a lot of attention. When they are outside they can be as big as you like and they are often permanent, like the statue of liberty or the angel of the north. You can walk round sculptures and touch them, if you are allowed to or you are rebel in an art gallery. For people who are not completely obsessed with art, sculpture and statues are easy for them to access and understand. The Yorkshire sculpture park is a good example of this. People go there with their family to see art, but their kids can just climb all over the sculptures and then they take nice pictures of their children for the family album. If they do not like the sculpture they move on. If they were in an art gallery with paintings or photography, they would be bored out of their mind. 3D is just more relatable to the mainstream because they live in a 3D world. If they cannot see the deep and meaningful point of the sculpture they can see it as a chair or a bed. Kids are especially good at this, which is why 3D is a family thing. 

Sewing, Santiago Calatrava and me

Santiago Calatrava is one hell of a crazy guy. His buildings are amazing. They are spectacular works of art, that take up vast amounts of space and dominate any skyline. They are big and bold, which is what I love about his work but what I like the most is that he gets his ideas from organic things like a bird or a torso and he turns it into architectural gem, using bold straight lines and unnatural repetition.

           

 

    

So I toke the same approach to my 3D piece, only I toke inspiration from my cat

Cat Yawning

Cat Stretching

A cat has something very pointy about it, so I found it an easy subject for 'Calatrava' inspired construction. I simplified imaged and played around with shapes and line. The final product of my project was this.

It was a pain in the ass to sew and because the cardboard was not strong enough so I could not get the string as tight as possible. Although you cannot see it in this picture if you at it from the side the lines of string makes this curve, which was meant to represent the arc of the cat's back. I am quite please with it and I feel that it is in the style of Calatrava.

3 Photographers of note

I love photography. I especially love photography of people, because it is always so unique. People move and change all the time and a photograph captures that moment perfectly.

Children are always a great subject because they are full of life and energy. They do not yet hide their emotions. They are an open book. That is why out of the 50 photographers that we could choose from I chose this photograph by Vivian Maier. She took pictures of various people from all walks of life. This particular photograph appealed to me because the way these two girls interact with one another. They are clearly the best of friends and are probably having a great time. The way Maier has composed this photograph is interesting. It is not a full body shot and neither is it a portrait, because we more that just their heads. The girls faces are central so it is the first thing we looked at, but by having more of the girls than just their heads, we can see their body language, this adds a lot to the photograph. Although facial expressions show our emotions, our body language shows more about how we interact with the people around us.

Photographs of people really up close I sometimes could like at for hours. Because they are so close up you can often see all the detail in the subject's face: their emotions, wrinkles around their eyes, the curve of their mouth and in the case of this photograph the freckles on their face. This photograph was taken by Sally Mann, who did a whole series of faces, but I chose this one because of the expression that the subject has. It is an expression of complete peace. The subject is calm, but it is still quite intense. The some of other pictures in the series are erotic, and I find that this one has it too, but at the same time it is innocent because of the freckles. The nose and the mouth are in focus but the rest is not. The nose covered in freckles is innocent but the half open mouth is very erotic, and having only these two features in focus dictates the mood of the photograph.

Another reason I love photography is because the subjects far weirder than when it is a painting. The internet is full of funny pictures but only some which are put in the right context or are taken by the right people can be called art. This photograph by Tony Ray Jones I personally found very amusing. But I guess that it captures a bit of history too. This couple is clearly enjoying a luxurious picnic with good wine and a book and the smell of cow poo/the great outdoors. This photograph tells us a story more than the other photos did. We clearly see here a couple, who probably been together for some time and decided to go for a picnic today, but it could not just be a normal picnic, they are a respectable couple and they will not sit on the ground in order to enjoy their lunch and the good weather, they brought a table and chairs to sit on. It looks a bit like a dining room has been set up in the middle of a field, I find that pretty hilarious. 

Why life drawing made Titanic even worse.

We have been having life drawing lessons every week for over a month. Which is why yesterday we had to draw one pose for over two hours. We were told by the teacher that even though we all love drawing with big, curvy line we were not aloud to do that anymore. until we got better at drawing. 

We had to use straight line to mark out the figure and then use hatching to create darker shapes. This method is not very me, I love splashing paint about and making a huge expressive mess when drawing, but I did what I was told and drew with straight line. At first I was still a bit too expressive, making the lines too thick and heavy, but I have improved. 

The other day I was flicking channels and I came across Titanic. Now I am not a big Titanic fan. I cry at the end because Leonardo DiCaprio dies and at the time he was quite a hottie, but it pisses me off when they spend 2 hours going in and out of the water like it is not that cold. So I got to the bit where Leo is drawing Kate 'like one of his french girls', in the first place Leo is not really drawing her and who ever is drawing her does not map her out like we are supposed to do in life drawing class. He or she, just starts at Kate's head and draws it perfectly all the way down, with shading and everything. That is just completely crazy! No one would ever do that. No one who has ever drawn a person would do that. 

So that is how life drawing has made Titanic even worse, because in the famous 'draw me like one of your french girls' scene they do not actually draw like a normal person. The whole thing is just so fake.

Photography - R 'n' B

We were given a letter and we had to photograph objects or actions that started with that letter. I got the letter R and later I got the letter B.

Running

Red Berries

Rowan Berries (I think, there was quite a debate on what they were)

Red Rabbit ears

Bars 

Bricks