David's Collection

The following is a description of my final project and the works that influenced its creation

Resonate

When I first learned that there was a final project I was going to do a painted series of a single image, specifically the rock outcropping where my daughter crashed her first car (Luckily she was not injured). The series was going to be a single image represented over time. How a single place can mean different things or invoke different emotions depending on the conditions of the day.

However, as the course developed I decided to create a web site to present current work and to document my journey through the NHIA Certification process. I decided to change my project to be a continuation of this theme. The series is called "Visual Studies" but the name of the series is Resonate. I chose to do three pieces to represent my journey through the class.

I have been to the Currier Art Museum many times but our class trip opened a new window. It was like a treasure hunt, walking around the looking for specific concepts represented and attempting to capture the concept with a minimum set of lines. As a result of all of this I started looking deeper into each piece.

I enjoy listening to all types of music, but I don't like all music. Likewise I enjoy viewing all types of art, and likewise I don't enjoy all art. Some resonate and some don't. I have no idea why, nor do I want to know why. It is the not knowing that defines the human spirit. It is the not knowing that shapes my human experience.

I have taken advantage of my free admission to the Currier, and have gone a half dozen times this fall, I wanted to base my work on examples that were easily accessible. My final project was influence by the following works currently on display:

1. Voices – Gary Haven Smith
2. Landscape With Letters – Karl Zerbe
3. Self Portrait – James Aponovich
4. 11 PM (Air Series) – Jennifer Bartlett

VIST

The first piece in my series title "VIST" is most heavily influenced by "Voices" as I tried to incorporate different voices that I learned in class. Line, shape, block cut, and positive and negative space. I used different materials and techniques. The piece incorporates acrylic paint, acrylic modeling paste, leaves, paper and copper on canvas.

Influenced by:

• Title: Voices
• Artist: Gary Haven Smith (1948 - )
• Date: 1993
• Medium: Oil on Birch Plywood, Slate and Lead sealed with acrylic

On the Currier's Museum website, they have the following quote:

SUUD

The second piece in the series is titled "SUUD" and was most influenced by the work by Carl Zerbe.

Almost every week we had a set of vocabulary works to look up, terms used in describing and understanding art. This piece is titled "SUUD" and is a landscape of terms. I decided to represent the terms in a series of boxes of contrasting colors, using both positive and negative space to construct the words. I added a color wheel to the center of the piece. Although I chose a different style. The outer ring contains the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, and the inner rings are the tint (added white), tone (added gray) and shade (added black) colors. The inner circle is actually mounted on the picture and can be turned to show the complimentary, split-complimentary, triads and tetrad color relationships. The entire piece is dissect with white and black lines, because I find it is human nature to reduce the complexities of life into one of two choices: yes/no, true/false, warm/cool, objective/nonobjective, there seems to be the constant need to compare one thing against another. I used modeling paste to thicken and give body to the paint and tried to added a little sculpture and texture to the piece.

Influenced by:

• Title: Landscape with Letters
• Artist: Karl Zerbe (1903 - 1973)
• Date: 1953
• Medium: Acrylic Polymers and Ground Pigment on Canvas mounted on Masonite

ALIES

The third piece in the series is titled "ALIES" and was influenced by the last two in the list: James Aponovich and Jennifer Bartlett

The third piece in the series is a picture of the gardening workstation that I re-purposed in my mud room. It a place where I most often toss and sort my mail of write notes or reminders. The Aponovich pieces are just so real and detailed, its fun to just stare and slowly take in all the complexities. In the self portrait piece I loved the bulletin board with the pictures, sketches, ideas and in the Bartlett piece I enjoyed to personal notes, capturing a moment in time as the cat is walking by to glance at all the stuff.

The third piece is a single point perspective picture of the table, its painted white and I tried to used different tones of gray to give it a 3-D effect. On the bulletin board I attached the half gray-toned portraits of my journey-mates and a painted recreation of my ideal room. On the table is the first draft of a poem I am writing about my cat "Joey" who has gone missing. I have not written the final poem but I am going to change the title to "MIA" (Missing in Action).

Unlike the Aponovich and Barlett works, instead of painting the various elements, I chose to attach then right to the canvas, again, this is the "Voices" piece influence.

The two influences:

• Title: Self Portrait
• Artist: James Aponovich (1948 - )
• Date: 1987 - 1988
• Medium: Oil on Canvas

• Title: 11PM (Air Series)
• Artist: Jennifer Bartlett (1941 - )
• Date: 1991 - 1992
• Medium: Oil on Canvas

The following is a copy of the poem that is part of the "ALIES" work:

                 Joey

Joey went out on a Friday, by Saturday
     He hadn't returned, but by Sunday
     I knew he was in trouble.

Finally, by Monday, arriving home late
     After my Visual Studies class, I fully
     Expected him to run out from under a
     Bush and complain in his usual protest
     (Where the hell have you been.)

But nothing, silence.

In the weeks to come, I go out and call his
     Name. Check is favorite haunts. I left
     Food where only Joey would look. Every now
     And then I heard a single reply. Was it
     My imagination? Each morning I'd check the
     Bowl, finally the food looked disturbed, but I
     Discovered Jays will eat anything, even cat food!

Joey, the cat I loved to hate, always ripping the
     Carpet, tufts of hair on the chairs, or weaving
     In and out of my legs on the stairs.

He would follow Misty and I on our daily walks, my
     Neighbors would often say "You know there's
     A cat following you". Sometimes he would sneak up
     On Misty and pounce. It was always fun to watch
     Them play.

I still hope I'll see him again someday, but
     I know 5 minutes later, he'll do something
     To make me wish he'd go away.