– Thanks, to those who have left kind comments on my previous post about my thesis installation! All is well, and my thesis defense/final critique went well. I was given plenty to process by the crit, nothing overly bad (I know some folks that had nightmare crits). I wasn’t showered with sunshiny praise, or attacked — just constructive criticism and feedback, which is helpful. A few folks asked about the title, which is Seasons Such as These, taken from a famous monologue, and favorite of mine, in Shakespeare’s King Lear.
The thrust and motivation for the piece was driven by the original installation of the tower, with surveillance cameras mounted on top to grant me a view of the outside world from my studio. My early critiques were focused on the cameras and the implications of surveillance. These were very good critiques and had me thinking of the nature of the tower’s being, and its read as an artwork, wrapped up in the structure’s function. There was little to no attention paid to the form itself. I, being interested in form and structure, was a bit dissatisfied with this. The solution to reinvigorating the tower formally was removing the tower’s function. By toppling the tower I hoped to push an engagement of the tower as an object, and also raise some questions related to being, and purpose. A long time ago (my sophomore year of college) I was part of a formal debate surrounding a paper that a friend wrote, arguing that a wristwatch which no longer told the time was not watch. I disagreed (still do), but it was that conversation that first got me interested in philosophy.
– I finished my final day as a Teaching Assistant yesterday. This was the end of my official career at the School of the Art Institute. All that I have to do, from this point on, is clean out my studio. It’s been very a good education. That might be it for my formal education, which makes me a little melancholy.
–I have applied for a teaching position here in Chicago, and I have an interview for that next week, so I’ll update the blog on that as I have news.
–In the “news of the strange,” I discovered that I was mentioned in an article in the Dayton Daily News of Dayton, Ohio, as a Dayton-Chicago Connection. Kinda funny. Now, do I put that in my vita?
– I have a couple of friends in a drawing show in Philly at Jenny Jaskey Gallery. The Drawing Narrative opened last night. It was curated by Rob Matthews. Rubens Ghenov is one of the Church Studios artists, Rob and Rubens were in The Strange Place, and Jenny is a friend as well. Rubens is detonating. He just got into the grad painting and drawing program at the Rhode Island School of Design (ranked #1 in the latest US News grad rankings), and he had a pretty awesome video profile done for Studioscopic by David Kessler, a Philly-based artist and video producer. Studioscopic simply presents artists in their studios, talking about their work. Rubens gives a nice shout-out to the Church Studios. Thanks, bro’.
– Finally, I’m excited to be able to post a little bit of Karen dancing. Most friends know Karen dances, but very few have ever seen her do it. I think this is the first time that we have ever had any decently shot video of her doing what she does. Here she’s working with a small company here in Oak Park, performing the work of Ron deJesus:
