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Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Maquette for a Wall Mural

Vision 9 - Maquette for Wall Mural 


I received several announcements on my e-mail recently for a competition to develop a relief sculpture or painting to be hung on a concrete wall in the new wing of the Centre de formation médicale du Nouveau Brunswick (at the Université de Moncton) and I decided to try developing a concept piece for it. I quickly discovered that I would need to acquire further skills in working with heavy materials on a large scale! While looking at this piece, try to imagine it about 15 feet wide instead of its miniature 24 inches! You can see my reflection in the Plexi as I snapped the photo.


Each panel is set apart from the next one by about ½ inch. I used plastic pieces for attaching mirrors to walls and small pieces of wood with wood screws to secure the layers. I learned about assembling them as I went. It took me longer than I expected to work this out, so I did not submit the design. However, it has been a learning experience and has led me to new ideas.


I am planning to use a similar arrangement on my next project, which will involve two trapezoidal wood panels and one rhombus-shaped plexiglass panel. Each panel will project a slightly different distance from the level of the wall. I will be carving and texturing each panel before adding paint in varying amounts.


The Plexiglass catches the light in the carved lines on its surface. As the light changes, so does the effect. The Dremel tool creates a burr, which is read as white dots in the light. Some of this burr detaches easily from the surface, while the rest remains fused by the heat generated with the rotation of the cutting tool. As the viewer moves position, the interaction between the Plexi and the plywood panel underneath also changes. This interaction is only possible when the panels are spaced apart. 

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Culture and the Critic's Role / Frye Festival

  
Northrup Frye (July 14, 1912 - January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. 
For an overview of his career, go to:

The Frye Festival is Canada's only bilingual international literary festival and the largest literary event in Atlantic Canada.

Last Friday evening my husband and I attended a reception for U of Toronto graduates followed by a panel discussion during the Frye Festival of the role of the literary critic in contemporary culture. The discussion was titled "Culture and the Critic: How the age of media affects the role of the critic today."

Participants were John Doyle, writer for the Globe and Mail, author Terry Fallis, CBC host, producer and author Nora Young, along with novelist and television journalist David Gilmour. The discussion was lively and entertaining as well as insightful.

The panel has recognized a shift in the way cultural criticism is delivered and received in the digital age. Critics may not be totally enthusiastic about a literary, musical or artistic production, but they attempt to express a reasoned opinion. They have plenty of feedback from their audiences via the internet from those who agree and those who disagree with them.

Some of the comments were as follows:

Should the critic be expected to act as a publicist? Generally, no.The critic's loyalty is to the readership of his/her publication. Will they benefit from or enjoy the offering under consideration? (John Doyle)

The danger in being a critic for too long is that one has an uncontested arena for his/her opinions and the critic can become lost in self-importance. (David Gilmour contributed these thoughts.)

Critics are often phrase-makers, where exaggeration sounds good in the text, but the comments may be hurtful to the author/ artist / creator.

The digital age has allowed for immediate dialog with a critic's readers. It is easier to stay in touch and write criticism where the audience is engaged in collaborative filtering. (I have paraphrased John Doyle's comments here.)

The critic's role is to curate, to inform and to influence, to teach us how to assess so that we may make informed choices. (Terry Fallis added this.)

The critic's role is to articulate what is good and what is important, rather than to negate and suppress.
Northrup Frye said this, although I have paraphrased it somewhat. David contributed this quotation.

John added that the digital age creates a broad band of criticism.

Nora Young described her reticence to read the reviews and the criticism of her recently published book The Virtual Self: How Our Lives are Altering the World Around Us. 

I bought a copy of Nora's book and she kindly autographed it for me. We had a conversation about distance education and particularly the AIB Low Residency MFA program. I have been reading her book and it is very interesting how people become caught up in tracking the details of their lives on-line and playing with the data. Nora explores the implications of all of this data being deposited in cyberspace. There are ways we can utilize it to better our lives, or we can overlook the ways that other people can exploit it. I haven't finished it yet, but it is well worth a careful read!