Monday, October 1, 2007
Forming Light: Sculpture Installation by Sophia Dixon
Today I visited a sculpture installation by one of our very own CSU art students Sophia Dixon. This installation is up in the mini gallery in the visual arts building and can be seen October 1-5. There are 2 doors entering this gallery. Walk in one and you are immediately stuck and have nowhere to go , but enter in the other door and you can walk through this sort of maze of hanging fishing line that shimmers reflecting light being cast up from below. One student said "This makes me feel dizzy, I see a billion tiny lines and the blurry light reflecting on them like the gut of a luminescent, musically inclined jellyfish. Where does this insanely tidy spiderweb end? Why does it hurt my eyes?"-Mike. The reflections Mike is talking about here make me feel relaxed and almost put me in a dazed day dreaming state of mind. Now if the artist could just add soft sounding nature music to this piece I think it would make it all the better, but I was happy with it overall. Sophia Dixon, the artist, estimated the number of nails she used to be approximately 24,384, and the number of actual yards of fishing line used is 28,000 yards. Wow! she could have caught a lot of fish but I think she put it to better use.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Asian Masters of the Graphic Arts
This week I visited The Asian Masters of the Graphic Arts held at the Morgan Library. This is a selected showcase from past Colorado International Invitational poster Exhibitions. The posters will be shown September through December 2007 so there will be plenty of time to visit this one.This showcase features a chinese poster designer Fang Chen who flew out to CSU from Pennsylvania where he now teaches graphic design. I had a chance to speak with Fang and he told me "the most importang thing to think about when designing a poster is the message". Other artists you will find here are Han Jiaying, Shen Hao-Peng, Wang Zhi Min, Fang Xiao-Chin, and Wang Yuefei. Most of the posters you find will have messages about social issues, but there is one promotional poster designed by Fang Chen that stood out of the crowd for me. It is titled meditation and was designed by Fang to promote a meditation class. This my favorite pick of the bunch.
Fang Chen says "As an artist and educator, I am proud of having chosen poster design as my career because it represents one of the most difficult challenges and requirements for creativity"
"A good designer maximizes both communication and aesthetics in a limited circumstance when he or she designs a poster"
"For years I was thinking of creating a poster to demonstrate a lofty oriental aesthetic realm of solemn and quiet".
You may view posters and learn more on the Asian masters of the graphic arts at http://lib.colostate.edu/CIIPE2007
Fang Chen says "As an artist and educator, I am proud of having chosen poster design as my career because it represents one of the most difficult challenges and requirements for creativity"
"A good designer maximizes both communication and aesthetics in a limited circumstance when he or she designs a poster"
"For years I was thinking of creating a poster to demonstrate a lofty oriental aesthetic realm of solemn and quiet".
You may view posters and learn more on the Asian masters of the graphic arts at http://lib.colostate.edu/CIIPE2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Prints by Sarah Melendez
Greetings art fans,
I have just visited an exhibit of prints created by Sarah Melendez showing in the Mini Gallery on the CSU campus in the visual arts building. It will only be up September 17th through September 21st so I suggest you move fast. My first impression of her works was that she has a great understanding of color and line work. On the negative side of things I have to say I was not impressed with framing and mounting of her pieces. Sure the framing was clean but I was bored because every piece was framed the same way with a sheet of glass over white mattboard. She needs more variety to keep my attention and to give a bit of a surprise element to the viewers walking through. I would also have liked to see more variety in the scale of the prints. My top favorites in this exhibit were "From Nothingness" because of its use of warm and cool colors, negative and positive shapes, and continuos flowing movement and "Being Dormant" because of its great linear marks over a fading background. A cupple of prints I disliked were "Pig on Paros" and "Cow on Paros" because they were both very dark and I found it hard to understand the line work. Thanks for checking in with me Fort Collins and have an art filled week.
I have just visited an exhibit of prints created by Sarah Melendez showing in the Mini Gallery on the CSU campus in the visual arts building. It will only be up September 17th through September 21st so I suggest you move fast. My first impression of her works was that she has a great understanding of color and line work. On the negative side of things I have to say I was not impressed with framing and mounting of her pieces. Sure the framing was clean but I was bored because every piece was framed the same way with a sheet of glass over white mattboard. She needs more variety to keep my attention and to give a bit of a surprise element to the viewers walking through. I would also have liked to see more variety in the scale of the prints. My top favorites in this exhibit were "From Nothingness" because of its use of warm and cool colors, negative and positive shapes, and continuos flowing movement and "Being Dormant" because of its great linear marks over a fading background. A cupple of prints I disliked were "Pig on Paros" and "Cow on Paros" because they were both very dark and I found it hard to understand the line work. Thanks for checking in with me Fort Collins and have an art filled week.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
CSU Student Exhibition/15th CIIPE
Hello all,
I have just visited the CSU Student Exhibition located in the Visual Arts building on campus. This exhibition is a collection of posters covering a wide range of world issues. Problems such as terrorism, global
warming, darfur, and animal rights are addressed through image and type on these posters. I felt that I walked away from this exhibition having gained a sense of education and global awareness for these topics after studying each poster carefully. These posters will leave you with a new outlook and perspective on life having realized the growing problems humanity faces every day. I did enjoy the variety of pieces I found and the differences in color choice, type choice, and sense of imagery. I strongly urge people to stop in and take a close look at this poster exhibition because I think there is much to learn about global problems in our world today.
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