Productive Week Three!

How quickly the summer is passing... thankfully week three has been very productive! We finished our Team EVOL tee-shirts (to debut on Monday 7/5), completed our scrolling pastel drawings and our test stop-motion and rolling-rig videos of them. Check out our hard work:

...whistle while we work

A Visit From Abraham!!

Team EVOL Is...

making teamEvol gear (Side project!) And green screen testing this week--stay tuned!

Scrolling through Week Two

Our second week ended with some do-ing, finally! After looking at long scrolling shots in films like "The Stalker" by Andrei Tarkovsky and "Damnation" by Bela Tarr, we got down and dirty making our own scrolling drawings to film next week. We also checked out Felix Gonzalez Torres's work to discuss how we might make an installation that involves giving/gifting to viewers.

Our "gang" sign for Team EVOL:

We are really excited to create an installation involving the elevator at the Armory!

Earthquake Blackouts and Solidifying Ideas

Our ideas are shaking out! Today's highlight was the blackout after lunch, caused by an earthquake in Canada! We turned the natural disaster power glitch into fun, snapping cool pics in the pitch black hallway and brainstorming how we will materialize our themes for the "ideal world." After researching artists that also work with video, drawing and installation this week, we are honing in on how we will transform the elevator at the Armory with light and build a free-standing enclosure for projection.

(Contributing writer: Joyce)
(Contributing photographer: Christine)

Who We Studied Today!

This week we are focusing heavily on research since our project revolves around art history. Today we looked at a few artists including Vik Muniz who references historical paintings by recreating them out of food. Waaay too cool to not share.



A favorite quote of mine by mr. Muniz:

"You have said that you have tried many experiments, most of which have failed. Could you give an example or two of something that didn’t work and explain why and what you think learned from the failure?"

"VM: I learned to live with it with no hard feelings. Once I tried to produce a likeness of an unknown movie start with M&Ms, trying to copy the dot pattern we are used to seeing in billboards. Well, because of scale discrepancies and the unwillingness of such stubborn candy to stay in place, I did not get a picture and ended up in a mild depression cured only by the amount of M&Ms I was left to eat. Good thing M&Ms taste good and I wasn’t drawing with cod liver oil. Failure is a sort of background for things that miraculously mange to transcend their original meaning. When you look at a map, you see all the roads and cities, and then, the empty spaces that the mapmakers try to fill with silly icons and sea monsters so as not to look too boring. That’s how I visualize failure: as this interstitial space that keeps the rods from coming together running in the same direction. Everything that successfully conquers any identity is surrounded by this wasteland of semi-developed forms. The purpose of science, for instance, is to extend the reach of these cities and roads in a linear way. The artist, on the other hand, works more like a surveyor of these empty spaces. Art is somehow like brain-science; you only get to know something works by looking at things that have stopped working. I have failed so much that I now stand on failure itself. It has become my work place and where I harvest my best ideas."

Week One and It's Many Tasks:

Bonding, tackling world issues, democratic processes and collaboration- what a group! Below are some hints of what's to come. Our project is going to focus on some sort of contemporary issue that will be reflected and seen in relation to art history. The group right now is focusing on issues related to our relationship with government and authority and is working toward a consensus (hopefully by the end of the week!) Everyone seems on board and everything has been discussed from the fall of the Roman Empire in relation to America's political history,Ayn Rand, and the necessity of time, to light blue? Or royal blue group shirts? Go TeamEvol!

...and we're OFF!

After a crash course in the unique Blue Sky Project philosophy ("Orientation"), all the artists were extremely excited to meet the Youth Participants. Our first week together was packed with fun, including a field trip to the Dayton Art Institute and our first collaboration as a Blue Sky Family... making lunch together! I love my Youth already; we named ourselves "Team EVOL," out to save the world. Think: "evil"/love, evolution, Extra Virgin Olive oiL... ;) We will be creating our "Ideal World" together based on specific issues regarding authority & power. Think: drawing/painting, video projection and installation...

One of Team EVOL's favorite works from the Dayton Art Institute:

Hughie Lee Smith is an African American painter who was interested in the cultural displacement of minorities in post-World War 2 America. Team EVOL discussed how this subtext made this figure-in-landscape painting interesting. We thought this work simultaneously presented both utopic and dsytopic connotations.

My fabulous Dessert team's decandent creations:

...and the best part, EATING!

The Armory (where we will have our final exhibition August 5-7th):