Self-Portrait Piece 1

This is the first of three pieces of a self-portrait. Hours of work with ink (about 60) plus about 60 hours of planning. Pure joy! The second piece is due at the beginning of November and the third at the beginning of December.

Gary Simmons

I am reading a book by Gary Simmons that is no longer in print but it is really informative. It is called "The Technical Pen". It shows many different types of ink strokes and explains how they are typically used. For my first class project, I now need to decide which stroke s to use and where on the drawing. I love ink. It is amazingly versatile. some sample of Gary Simmons work is below.

Happy

I am glad that I decided to pursue another career even though I am 56. It feels really good to wake up every day and have something driving me to get going. I think it also makes me want to interfere inappropriately in my son's life because I have a fill rich one of my own now. By me pursuing my own goals, we both have great freedom. I am so happy that I have decided to do this.

Homework 1

I really had a lot of fun with homework 1 at my UVA class. We had two weeks to complete the assignment and I sopent around 40 hours. Here is some of the work.

On UVA Video

I (an many others from my class) are pictured in a short video covering the new Studio Art building at UVA, called Ruffin Hall.

http://uvatoday.org/blog/?p=259?19cf86f0

Imaginary i

i is a bautiful number and concept. Today, as I was doing i problems, I realized that all negative numbers could be viewed as "imaginary", or contrived, numbers. Numbers began with the need to count objects. So... how do we count "negative five". We can't; unless we "imagine" five objects that were there, or that will be there, to count. The concept is great.

Perfect Days

It is incredibly hot and humid outside but I am having perfect days. Yesterday, I did math from about 10 AM until 11 PM with very little breaks. It felt wonderful! The weeks before, day after day, I was bent over my drawing table working on a series of ink drawing for my class. I love the combination of the two ways of looking at the world -- one visual and one analytical -- yet the same world with the same patterns. Drawing and math are two different ways to see the world's patterns; and both are equally beautiful! What perfect days I am having right now!

Art 21: Cai Guo-qiang

My husband and I watched an episode of Art 21 that was fascinating. The artist Cai Guo-qiang produces paintings made by exploding gunpowder. He discussed the fact that although he has studied working with gunpowder, he still only so much actual control over what is produced and he loves it. He just lets go and let's the gunpowder produce the art. I love his work. As gunpowder is very ancient to the Chinese culture, I also think it interesting that he has chosen it for his medium.