An Update

It has been a week or two since I have posted and I am returning for an update. Things have been crazy this week and I have a lot of news.  I'm going to start from the beginning.  I had my Passages Gallery Show right after I posted last.  It went really well and the gallery was a lot nicer than I thought it would be.  The only bad thing was that the walls had a large cork board type thing where the pieces went.  It probably would have looked nicer if the walls were all white.  However, it was a nice experience and there was a good turn out.  I actually forgot to get a better picture of my piece, but I managed to get this piece from far away.  My piece is the second from the right.  I'll get a better picture after the show.

Secondly, I had a critique recently where my professor was a little concerned that I wouldn't have enough room for my book wall, so she suggested that if I can't get enough room in DAAPworks that I show the catalog cards.  So, I have been working on those a lot lately.  This is how much I have gotten done so far.  I am in the 4th section out of 7.  I am pleased with the progress of the catalog cards, but I have to put them on hold.

I met with the man that runs the galleries at UC to see if I would be able to use the wall of books and where he thinks it would look best.  The meeting went really well.  There gallery consists of exterior walls that go from floor to ceiling roughly 12-13 feet tall.  There are also free standing walls that are 10 feet tall.  I had always felt that my piece would look nice on the free standing wall.  However, the gallery owner believed that it would look nice on the exterior walls, and that I should make my wall of books larger.  Aesthetically, he said that he could see the piece going from floor to ceiling.  And guess what???  That's what I'm going to do!!!!  

I have 5 weeks to add 4-5 ft. more of books.  I panicked at first, but I am much calmer now.  I figured out how many I needed to make and I decided to cut a lot of the books into thirds so that I didn't have too make so many.  On Wednesday and Thursday I warped 68 books in total.  I also cut 9 books into 22 pieces.  So, I think I will only need to warp another 50 books and i should have enough.  It's going to be a lot of work, but I think that my piece will look so much better.  I am really excited about it.  

I have also made a website!!!  It is still in progress, but I have it published so you can check it out.  I need to add more images still, which requires getting nice images of my work.  But feel free to check it out.  Here is a link to the home page.  

artbynieman.weebly.com

I will talk to you soon with updates on the books!!!!

Rachel

Typing Some More

Okay!!!  So i have been busy this past week typing up cards and continuing to recall memories.   I have realized that this is a lot more time consuming than I expected.  There are times where it is difficult to recall certain memories, and others where I it is emotionally difficult to recall them.  In terms of typing them I can get on a good roll sometimes, but other times I start to recall some of the emotions and it takes me longer to get through it.  But, I am pleased with how they are turning out.  I had a critique a couple days ago and I got really good feedback on them.  Also, my professor suggested wearing out the older and more accessed ones and leaving some of them clean with crisp edges.  I'm also going to go to a stamp store to have one made so i can stamp on the cards when they were accessed (month, day, year).  My prof also suggested stamping information about whether the memory was good or not.  

I was pleased with the feedback.  I think I was expecting to get a little more negative feedback.  Though, i think that is just because I haven't truly had any feedback on these cards yet, and I was at a point where I needed and wanted it to move forward.  I think this idea is what scares me a little bit about graduating; I'm not going to have scheduled times for feedback.  And sometimes I feel like I need that reassurance or guidance in moving forward.  But, I guess that is apart of being an artist; I have to figure it out on my own.  

Okay, here are some images of my cards from yesterday.  This is how big the stack of cards is so far.  I am almost done with the first section, which is "My Grandma's House".  There are 6 other sections, and I think majority of the memories are in the first section.  But, I still have over half to go.

Here are some of the new catalogs I have done

So, I am happy with the progress so far.  Some of my fellow peers said that I should show the catalog cards instead of my book wall.  So, we will see.  I think it all depends on how much space we are allowed at the final show.

Rachel

Typing

Bonjour my followers!!!  It is nice to be back at it discussing my progression in my artwork.  To begin with I finished organizing all of my memories yesterday.  It was a lot of work as I needed to remember the years and which memories came first.  I counted today, and thus far I have a total of 329 memories that are recorded.  I was not expecting such a large number, but I am happy with it.  I think the bigger the bulk the better.  It will demonstrate my concept better.  

Today I started typing them out so that I could figure out the set up I liked best.  Here is an image of the typewriter I used. 

Here is an image of the inside of the typewriter.  I love things like this.  There is so much history in it as well as a grittiness to it.  I knew if I was going to catalog my memories there needed to be a much more vintage and historical nature to the words, instead of the perfection of the computer. 

  

I was able to get 18 cards typed once I figured out the right set up.  Here is one of the cards

I'm hoping to stamp below the words the dates that I have accessed these memories.  It will be like I'm mixing a catalog card with a check out card.

Here is another example.  I messed up on part of this one, but I was able to go back over it with the "=" sign on the typewriter.  Despite its lack of perfection, I find that showing the imperfections is better.  It demonstrates my human struggle to remember what once was. 

Okay, so here is something different that I have been working on that is exploring this cataloging aspect of exploring memories; or preserving what once was.  I thought it would be interesting to apply my interest in image transfers to the idea of cataloging memories.  It would be archaeological, as though these images were discovered and are now being preserved.  Almost like a museum.  I hope I am making sense.  I did this by covering a piece of wood with caulking so that it looked like sediment.  Then, I took an ink jet image and transferred it to the caulking with water.  It is extremely faded, but it has a distant memory facade to it. 

  This is the original image after I transferred it

Here is another one

And another one

And the original image

And another piece

I am really intrigued by these, especially the process of transferring the images.  But, before I make anymore I am going to get some feedback in a critique.  The catalog cards however are going to take some time, so I am going to hop right in there and keep typing!!!

I'll talk to you soon

Rachel

Hello Again

Okay!!!  So I have obviously been gone for awhile from the blog, but I am ready to get back at it.  I wanted to let you know what I have been doing over the past several weeks.  Basically, I have been continuing my research into the card cataloging.  Thus far I am up to 210 memories and counting.  I often find myself remembering something new after I think I am done.  After I was able to write down many of my memories I realized I needed to start making my own Duey Decimal System...or a "Rachel Decimal System".  This way I can figure out how I'm going to organize my memories into a value system.  I decided that I would have 7 different categories ranging from My Grandma's House, My Mom's House, Family Events, to School.  Then within each category there are sub category's.  For example, My Grandma's House has the sub categories of Kitchen, Living Room, Bedroom, Outside, and so on.  And each of these also has sub categories.  It took awhile to come up with this system so that each of my memories had a place in it.  But, I was finally able to make it, including a cooresponding number to each category.  

So, this past week I have been trying to organize my memories into the correct category with the correct decimal number.  Here are some of the categories with my memories listed.  I apologize for the bad quality of the first image.  

I haven't gotten to numbering these next two categories.

In addition to the catalog cards I have been getting ready for a show in the "Passages Gallery" in North College Hill.  This show is a group show that my fellow classmates and I are going to be in from April 14th to mid May.  There is limited space in this gallery so I decided to explore something that I have been curious about trying: painting on the books.  About a year ago I wanted to paint overlaid portraits on a large wall of books.  But, I lost interest and decided not to do it.  I have still been interested in doing it occasionally and I think doing it on a smaller scale would be a good way for me to see how it would look.  Since the space is small the piece is only 2' x 2'.  Here is the project after I put a couple layers on it.

 And here it is after a few more layers.  I was not completely happy with it.  I felt like it didn't stand out enough.  I got really frustrated and I had to take a whole day to not look at it because I couldn't figure out what to do to make the piece better.

After sitting for a day I decide to apply paint a lot more thickly, with heavier and larger brush strokes.  After just one layer I started to feel so much better about it.  I think in total I added 7+ layers of portraits. Here are two different views of the portrait.  I did add a little extra paint after this picture, but I am a lot happier than I was before.

Okay, It was nice to talk to you once again.  I will return to update you on my progress.

Rachel