NEW YORK, NY!

Times Square

Crowds in Times Square - we don't usually see this many people at once in Moncton, N.B. Canada!

Ellsworth Kelly's 'Sculpture for a Large Wall', MoMA.

Ellsworth Kelly's 'Colors for a Large Wall', MoMA with yours truly.

Tomás Saraceno's 'Cloud City' Installation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

'Gibraltar' 1936. Calder's sculpture seems ready to move!

Inside the Lego Store at Rockefeller Center

Archived Sea Shells and Creatures at the American Museum of Natural History

Roy Lichtenstein's large painting 'Stepping Out' 1978.
 I used a poster of this work often in my art classes with second grade children.

'Morning Glories' by Suzuki Kiitsu (Japanese 1796-1858)
'Designing Nature' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Here a few photos and thoughts from my recent visit to New York City. My daughter and I had a whirlwind trip for four and a half days. We saw the exhibit of works by Picasso and Françoise Gilot at the Madison Ave Gagosian. Gilot seemed very influenced by Picasso's style, but her work appeared to be lyrical and positive where Picasso's seemed to be more brooding and anxious. 


At the MoMA, we also saw the extensive show of Cindy Sherman's photography. It was great to see the real thing after looking at so many of the portraits on the web or in print. I can relate to playing with 'dress-ups' and costumes as a child, but I have never pursued it beyond that. Sherman's "Film Stills" were much smaller than I imagined them. An image can be "epic" and influential regardless of its size. The life-size portraits are very impressive, however.

Also saw Taryn Simon's "A Living Man Declared Dead" and "Ecstatic Alphabets/ Heaps of Language." The readings I have been doing for Crit Theory II about archives are related to both exhibits. 


Simon's work showed the descendants of certain individuals whose families had undergone extreme upheaval and social change. Some family members were represented by blank rectangles because they were unavailable to have their photograph taken or they were no longer living. Each person was photographed in the same lighting and with the same background. An enormous tome formed the complete catalog. I was hoping for an abridged version, but there isn't one! 


The "EcstaticAlphabets" offered many iconic contemporary works involving patterns with words and letters. Many pieces were arranged in grids. The archival influence was very present.

Tomás Saraceno's "Cloud City" fascinates with its multiple reflections and transparent panels. It is disorienting to climb through it, but exciting at the same time. I didn't feel as if I was in the clouds or hovering in outer space, but I did feel like I was in a totally new environment. The view of the NY skyline from the rooftop garden is something to see as well.


We also went to see "The Lion King" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" on Broadway. A project like "The Lion King" would be the ultimate experience as a theater designer and puppet creator. I enjoyed making puppets, costumes and sets for our school productions while I was teaching art, but never envisioned anything as fantastic as the "Lion King!" The original recordings on LP of "Superstar" were part of my adolescence, with the music playing non-stop at my friend's house for months. Both shows were engaging and dramatic in different ways.


I was also able to connect with some of my cousins in nearby White Plains, NY. We hadn't seen each other in decades!


These are just a few of my immediate impressions from our trip. I will be digesting the rest for a while!

Walking through Central Park

Monument to John Lennon in Central Park near 'Strawberry Fields.'

Fern Porthole, Finishing Touches

New Fern Porthole 7  12 ½" x 15 ½"

In many ways, this project has been the most challenging of the digital image projects I have been working on. When I wanted to have it printed to the 12 ½" x 15½"size, I could see that the fern in the foreground was blurred. It had been copied from a file with lower resolution (ppi) than the ferns in the porthole. The edges of the porthole ferns were sharp and crisp, which can be interesting, but was too harsh in this case. After this, I have been careful to standardize all the files before I cut and paste from them!


With this image, I began to experiment with blurring some edges and outlining others. Then I lightened and brightened certain leaves to create more interest. Tracing around fern leaves with a computer mouse involves a fair amount of trial and error. One false move and you have to start over again! However, the mouse works better than the touch pad in terms of control. 


This project is the result of 13 stages of development! 

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. 

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:

http://www.frye.ca/content/eng/northrop-frye  

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!