New Blogger Feature: Undelete Blog

Yay! I was checking on the blogs I follow and noticed a small little change on my list of blogs. Instead of having one blog, I had three, two of which were ghosted out. Imagine my joy upon seeing a little link with the words "Undelete this blog"!

So I was able to recover those five or so posts that I accidentally deleted a month ago and merge them into my current set-up! Hooray!

Spring Break in New Mexico

Over spring break I had the opportunity to head over to New Mexico to visit family there, namely (big list) my mother, sister, three nieces, grandma, aunt, and Saúl. While there I got to go see a plethora of art galleries in Santa Fe. I also got to pound dirt into tires with a sledgehammer. And I saw the Mystery Machine at Trader Joe's.

I got chewed out for trying to take a picture outside of one gallery...oops. But another one had a rather amiable guy who let me take some pictures of the raku-fired pottery that they had there. Saúl and I went to Santa Fa two days to see galleries, and we only made it up one side of Canyon Rd. and wandered around the square for a while. So many galleries, packed into so little space, it was amazing how much variety of good art there was to see. Several people in the galleries were more than happy to talk about art, artists, technique, art as a business, etc., and I learned a lot as a result. It was great!

Some galleries I particularly liked: Chalk Farm Fallery | Pippin Meikle Fine Art | Art of Russia Gallery | Seven-O-Seven | Canyon Road Fine Art

One of the big reasons I wanted to go to New Mexico over the break was to visit my grandma. I hadn't seen her in years, and it was her birthday the Sunday after I arrived. I brought her one of my painting as a birthday present, pictured here. She appreciated it a lot.

As far as pounding dirt into tires, my mother is building an "earthship" addition to her home on a mountainside in the New Mexico countryside. Earthships are designed to be sustainable homes that operate off the grid and are built mainly from natural and recycled materials. The walls are made either from bottles and cans mixed with cement, or, as my mother is doing, from tires filled with rammed earth. The designs and ideas used in Earthships are well-researched...the guy who designed them (who graduated as an architect) has been working and improving on it all for years and years. I am rather intrigued by the whole thing, and impressed with how well it all seems to work. Of course, nothing's perfect, but that's true throughout this life.

Salt Lake Gallery Stroll

Friday afternoon a group of art students from Snow, myself included, headed up to Salt Lake with some of our professors to attend Salt Lake's monthly Gallery Stroll. We visited three or four galleries in the short three hours we had, including Hope Gallery and Phillips Gallery. I got to see art from tons of artists. Some of the art I really liked was by Scott Roach, Edward Bateman, and Tyson Monson. I'd risk copyright infringement by putting up images of their work, but I strongly encourage you to take a look at their sites and see their work.

I can, however, put up pictures from the ride home, wherein we started some crazy shenanigans for the sake of sluffing off boredom. Like stopping in the highway and making snow angels at random spots. Or visiting a tomb in a little town along the way. I'm still not sure why Scott, my oil painting teacher, isn't a stand-up comedian, at least as a side job...

I hate it when that happens...

So here I was trying to delete one of my two blogs...the one that I wasn't doing anything with. Well, I wasn't paying attention and I deleted the wrong blog! And of course they don't have an undelete feature for people like me...

...Oh well. Two months of my life gone. Okay, not really. Life goes on.

Blender

Lately I've been working in 3D modeling and rendering using Blender, making different things and experimenting with different ideas. You can see a couple things I've thrown together in a day's free time each, both of which could use some refinement but are already well on their way to being solid pieces of artwork.

A little over a week ago I submitted a proposal for a gallery show at the school's gallery to display several pieces made this way. Each week the gallery has a new student show in their AltSpace, and I wanted to get my own work into one of those shows. Although I had just missed out on the slots available this semester, I was accepted for the first show of the fall semester.In many ways that's better than having it as one of the last shows this semester because it'll give me all summer to work on pieces to put in the show, and in addition time to hone my skills on the medium.

At this point I'm really looking into digital artwork as a focus, and considering some career options that I'd previously ruled out. I have a strong sense that teaching art is where I belong. Yet as I examine the diverse fields that I could go into, and particularly the ones I think I'd enjoy most, I have to stop and consider what I'm going to be happiest doing. One of my purposes in life is to teach. But there are a variety of ways that that can apply in my life, and I am starting to consider some different options.

Being an Art Major

I want you to enjoy this week's artwork before you read too far into this. I'm on a soap box today.

It's really frustrating sometimes to be an art major, or even an art appreciator, when you're a Mormon. I recall during my previous year at Snow of a couple of other students talking to one of the professors about their figure drawing class, how they were troubled with having to see and draw nude figures. I don't blame them; I'm troubled about the exact same thing. In fact, I won't be taking that figure drawing class until I transfer to another university, most likely BYU, where the figures aren't nude.

At the end of that same year there was a student art show with works made by a large chunk of the art students (and even a couple non-art-majors). I had a sculpture in that show. I had a very disconcerting experience, however, when I saw a drawing of a classmate. I had heard her mention working as one of the models for the figure class, but it was still very much a shock to see a nude drawing of her.

The art world at large, at least in the United States, doesn't seem to find anything wrong with nudity. In fact, I've heard the oft-repeated claim that the human figure is beautiful and therefore should be shown so freely. I, on the other hand, find the prolific exposure of the human body to be offensive. I understand and appreciate the value of studying the human figure to learn how best to render it, but seeing so many finished products tells me that's not what's going on. Also telltale is the proportion of female to male nudes. As I was researching artists online, I found an inordinate amount of nude figures among the artwork I was browsing.With rare exceptions, they were all female. After an hour of searching for what I felt was good artwork I gave up, frustrated and feeling sick inside. It felt like I had browsed through an adult video store.

It's frustrating that I can't just change the world in one day. What I can do, though, is to be one who adds to the good name of art today. I can set an example of what art is at its best, maybe not in quality, but in value.

First Week of Classes

I am almost through my first week of classes, just back from Drawing II. This is my first drawing of the semester,and my second art assignment. We drew some driftwood pieces, focusing on line quality. Our tools were Sharpie markers, powdered graphite, and kneadable erasers.

This week classes have gotten out early in most cases, which has facilitated running around campus making sure everything is in order - making sure my scholarship really does cover the $190 student fees, for example.

On a side note, although I was not initially pleased that meal cards were mandatory for cooking apartment residents (like yours truly), I am glad to say that the facilities have improved noticeably since my last year at Snow. They have an all-you-can eat buffet laid out most evenings, which for a starving college student is a boon.

In my Institute class today, I also found out that one of my classmates is going to be baptized this Saturday. I always find good things going on, and it amazes me and reminds me that this world isn't all the pits.