The Under Graduate Exhibition

Scott See “Cavern in Embers” Kallitype

I really love the richness of this image, I can see why it received the Photography award. The saturation of the blacks and subtle details in the highlights makes this a really great image. I love the large borders of the matt around the image, it really sets the image in the frame. Well done on this image and award.

Miranda Herring “Constructed Home” Woven and Constructed Textile

This wonderful piece won the Design Award. I love how this weaving is suspended in the air and not on a fixed pedestal. It creates an experience in a space rather than just a viewing of it. I enjoyed being able to see the work in the full round. I want to be able to touch it. I love the detailing in the process that can be seen. I am fully impressed and wish I could do this.

Chelsea Exl “Nest” Copper, Brass, Nickel

I just wanted to pick this up and try it on! Way to go Chelsea on the Fine Art Award it is well deserved! I have dabbled in some welding, and I have no idea if that was done for this but I am totally impressed. I love the delicate nature of the whole piece, the way it flows and rounds out make it feel complete and intentional with a very not intentional rustic quality to the piece! I love the different metals used to create a subtle difference in the colors throughout the piece. I’m very excited I was able to view this piece.

Sara Kramer “Portrait (Green)” Acrylic and Graphite on Polypropylene

This piece won the Amie Award (First Prize). I am so intrigued by this work because I work in the realm of realism. My mind cannot even fathom the idea behind this piece. It is a mixture of realism and fantasy all balled up into one. It reminds me of imagery associated with my favorite band The Used. I would love to be able to see this being created! Love the work.

Dick Blau Workshop

Unfortunately, I had to miss this workshop, due to familial obligations. I did get to have a brief conversation with Dick Blau about his work and my own through email. This was the correspondence.

I thanked him for his kind words and respectfully apologized for not being present at the workshop. I am intrigued by how he set his own path in his profession and passions. He is inspiring. I was described the other day by my mentor as a woman of many ideas. I think he is a man of many ideas. It give me hope and strength to pursue all of my crazy and not so crazy ideas. My passion is photographing and showing the world what you can't see in person, only the camera or scanner or projection can. That moment when you see something in person and then capturing in a photographic media and it transforms, that is what I am interested. In Contemporary Photo Art History class Min has been discussing the questions beginning to occur are repeatedly whether this is reality or not, whether this image is telling the truth or not. I enjoy capturing the reality that only photographic media can show. Camera reality. 

Dick Blau Artist Talk

WTHR 172
February 10, 2016
7:30PM to 9:30PM

It is amazing how a man with so little knowledge in the world of film and video has created a career and name for himself as a photographer and videographer. I like the aspects about his work that he considers playful. I myself feel for his concept of going with what he feels like doing. I do the same thing. There are definite trends I find in my work but for the most part I want to photograph things that only the camera can capture, the camera's view is much more interesting than mine.  I like how he knew nothing about video and decided to teach himself so he could create a future and career with that media.  I enjoyed getting to hear him talk more so than the work that was shown, he is a very interesting man and I feel for his work more now that he has expressed his experiences with his still and moving shots. The most interesting part of the talk is when he told us about how in his first photographic work he shot a woman with an accordion with its bellows open and 40 years later shot the same woman in the same pose.  He connects with his work and subjects in a unique and wonderful way.

Dick Blau Artist Talk Notes

Polka (Round One) (Polish Americans)

Book- Polka Happiness

Polka (Round Two 40 years later)(Polish Americans)

Book- Polka Heartland

Book- Polka Heartland continued (Mexican Americans)

First Video- Up On The Block ("Black Video" Evangelists)

Second Video- Tintinnabula (Fairy Tale- More Grimm Style)

Third Video- Jidyll (Jewish Video)

Book- Bright Balkan Morning (Music in Greek Macedonia)

Book Skyros Carnival (Goat Dance and Festival)

Fourth Video- Polish Easter (Holy Trinity Church Chicago, IL)

Book- Thicker Than Water (40 years of Dick Blau Life)

Fifth Video- ER (Made with App Pixstori)

Book- Elephant House (Elephants and their handlers)

Joseph Mougel

Still Moving

Patty and Rusty Rueff Galleries

Artist Talk

February 3, 2016 12pm-2pm

Joseph Mougel

Photography, Video Media, Performance

Received his MFA from the University of New Mexico in 2008

Very interesting techniques and playfulness, linking conceptual aspects of social and political views of the military, and his own experiences. He was a Marine combat videographer. That is how he became interested in photography and video media. While on reserve he began to play around with the ideas of the military in his work.  The imagery I related to most was he Blanc series of white painted individuals in uniform blending into the background.  I quote Mougel in saying “I had to paint everyone a light grey color to make their eyes pop out as white and not yellow… it is a play on how we called everyone green in the military.”  I enjoyed his whole videos where he and his surroundings rotated with the direction of the sun, as he slowly dug himself deeper into a foxhole.  The imagery involving these videos is also quite stunning itself as a stand still image.  He also started a project where he changes a scene to reveal a new one.  He performs an action like mowing an area of tall grass for a period of around 9 hours and photographs it before and after.  The likes how “The camera makes the performance of what happens invisible.” Overall this was an interesting artist talk and experience.

Mougel in active service

Mougel at Lamar Dodd School of Art. Athens, GA 2003

"Blanc 003"

Archival Pigment Print 24x30

2005

Training Videos- Hole

Still Moving

Other Artists Shown 

Cecelia Condit

Charles Gick

Kevin Cooley

Hans Gindlesberger

Stephen Hilyard

Walker Pickering

Min Kim Park