#TBT: I Did It! I'm A Grad!

I can’t believe this happened two weeks ago—I graduated! My art school held convocation on May 26 in person. It was an exciting day with a couple of obstacles at first, but I made it. I did it! To recap, I started my BFA part-time through Cont Ed in 2003 and the Alberta University of the Arts was called ACAD, or Alberta College of Art + Design. I made mplans to graduate in 2009...2013...2016...2019...but life just got in the way and it was hard to give up well-paying jobs with benefits when one has bills and a mortgage today. I even took a five year break because I couldn't keep up with work and school.

Here are all the happy grads before the ceremony. The reason there are so many is that grads from 2020 and 2021 were invited back for their chance to walk the stage and fist bump the university president.

The ceremony opened with a Treaty 7 land acknowledgement, a blessing from a Treaty 7 elder and a Métis Region 3 elder along with some short speeches and introductions. For the non-locals, Calgary is situated on the traditional territories of many Blackfoot Confederacy nations. Two former grads received honourary art MFAs, which was nice to see. Her Worship, our Mayor, was the commencement speaker and she gave a great speech about the importance of creative industries, which was pretty heart-felt. Then there was the student speaker, who I didn’t know. One of the downsides of being a part-time student is that you never have time to be involved with school activities.

Then, it was time for a lot of clapping. A lot of clapping! 2020 and 2021 crossed the stage and when it was time for 2022 grads, Ceramics and Fibre were called first. It’s amazing how a moment you have been waiting for and daydreaming about comes and goes so quickly. It was akin to being married back in 2004–-afterwards it’s like, whew, all that work for one minute? But it was great! I walked across that stage, fist-bumped the president, then paused to get hugs from my teachers. They gave all the grads a little card and inside was-—a needle! Awwww! What a touching little gift.

The whole ceremony was touching for its inclusivity. Indigenous students received an eagle feather from the Treaty 7 elder and Métis students received a traditional, red woven sash from a Region 3 elder. It was so wonderful to see the celebration. Students were encouraged to wear traditional dress if they so chose, but only a few did that I saw. One grad wore a Korean outfit and a Romanian grad wore a traditional dress under her gown, which she doffed when receiving a special award at the end.

The ceremony went on for a total of two hours and we scattered to the wind as we were ushered out. My classmates and I hoped for a group photo, but that didn’t happen. There were just so many people and we scattered to the wind.

I cried and hugged my mom. “I did it!” I said and she was red-faced and crying. Dad felt he was too old to go to the grad and my brother had fears about catching COVID. So it was just Mom that showed up for me. I cried in the washroom afterwards, whether from sadness or relief or hunger or hormones I don’t know. It was just a lot in one day and all jets were running on fumes. Hungry. Thirsty. Tired. So many feels!

I returned my gown, kept my cap and we had some more snacks outside. The day was picture perfect—-just sun, no wind or grey clouds. A perfect day for graduation. We ducked back inside for the grad show and found my picture hanging on the wall. Mom said it was very nice (of course Mom would say that).

It was hard, seeing all those happy families hugging and celebrating their grad. Grads are a bigger deal now in the social media age than 1997. There was an acknowledgement and validation that yes-—your child can go to art school and it’s not an embarrassment anymore. That they can have a successful life and career in the visual arts. It had been so, so long since I had seen so many happy people hugging and loving that it was like I had forgotten what joy meant.

I cried all night. The day was overwhelming and even two weeks later--it doesn't feel real. I did it!

Somewhere around Week 12...

For my final Tuesday class project, I did a small installation with a photograph. I would love to do larger prints of the photograph. However, 9x12 was the largest size guaranteed by the photo lab for next day printing. Ah, art students! Some things never change no matter how old a student you are ;-D In reality, waiting for the light to be just right was tedious. There were many overcast, spring days where the right just wasn't right.

Time to Bloom is inspired by a genre of still life painting called vanitas which was popular in 17th century Netherlands. Usually they feature haphazard composition, signs of wealth and signs of mortality such as skulls. Mine is much more toned down and humble. For example, below is a vanitas (titled "Vanitias" by Pieter Boel and Jacob Jordaens):



My photo wasn't as cluttered. Some things I wanted to include I simply could not find around the house either, doh! I could see making more photos like this though. Our personal objects and homes say a lot about us, whether we realize it or not. Additionally, vanitas paintings are often coded--a skull may represent death and mortality, books could indicate knowledge and gold, of course, wealth. It took 169 photos to pick the perfect one, by the way, and I chose five for printing.



Here's a close-up of just the photo:

Twelve Weeks Goes By So Fast--That's A Wrap!

It's funny when you're finishing up school--excited for the future, anxious in the moment and relieved when it's over. How does 12 weeks go by so fast? I had so much time in January! I also swear semesters used to be 15 weeks.

My last Thursday class was tough. I was so exhausted—I stayed up too late and got up too early—and when my turn came around, I kind of flubbed the delivery. But, the semester is done like dinner. Time to put a fork in it ;-D. I just have one assignment to hand in and that’s it. I’ll be back next week to drop off my piece(s) for the grad show and then won’t be back again until convocation in May.

I expected the last few classes to be wrapped in some kind of sentimental, nostalgic montage of feelings and experience, but there were none. There was mostly a lot of thirst and hunger. I didn’t have lunch until 3pm on the last Wednesday and when Thursday’s class was over, I wolfed down a cheese bun and a buffalo chicken wrap. It takes a lot of calories to simply stay awake.

I’ll post pictures of my work in the coming days. Mostly I just want to rest and clean up around the house. Every horizontal surface has been fair game for the past three and a half months and it felt so rewarding to simply vacuum yesterday and not step over a giant pile of art supplies to get into my office!

Studios have to be cleared out by the 22nd and I grabbed everything in one trip last week. Already it feels so weird to not have any homework. I completed three writing assignments, eleven projects, learned a lot about papermaking, started a couple things over twice and generally worked a lot more than I normally would at my own pace. Two of the projects were kind of turds and one of those will go in the recycle bin, heh!

I still journalled my adventures and will get this blog all caught up in the coming days. Stay tuned!

Gearing up for Week 3--Ideas into Action

So, after filling out my studio proposals with project details, I sat down to work on sketches and ordered supplies. To keep things straight, each class has a distinct theme. The first project for each class has begun. I was so into my homework lsat Saturday that I forgot to eat!

FIBRE 327

Memory and place--four pictures depicting a place which no longer exists and a memory that may or may not have occurred there. This is always a great broad theme!

FIBRE 419

Renaissance-inspired art--I love Renaissance art and it doesn't get the attention it deserves in art college. It's easier to focus on modern artist, but now I have the skill level to re-explore and do some research on the period.

FIBRE 451

Homebody--I proposed a series of square-based works of domestic life during the pandemic where self-isolation means spending a lot more time at home--and with ourselves.

The fun thing about paper-based art is that I have all the materials at home, so the projects will be thrifty and eco-friendly. I am going to track all the waste created from my projects by saving anything that can't be recycled to examine at the end of April.

Gearing Up for Week 3--Books

Yesterday was fun. My friend and I went to the thrift store to look for frames for my FIBRE 327 homework. It was actually hard to choose—I wanted something beat-up and vintage, but not too beat-up and vintage. I bought six frames and one definitely came from a smoker’s house. I wiped them down with Purell and then attacked them with Windex. Eeek! Kinda gross.

We made a final sweep of the store and I found a brand new book called Making is Connecting by David Gauntlett. It looks like a good practical guide and scholarly resource about how creative people connect. The book was published in 2018 and I gotta say, it’s hard to find anything new about big or little c crafting. Score! I miss random finds while browsing.



My other books arrived today. Art/Work is a practical how-to guide to setting up a creative business. It’s required for FIBRE 451 and I can easily pass it on to someone else. I’m at the weird point where I know all this stuff, but one can always know more too!



I also bought Klutz's Lego Gear Bots book for FIBRE 419. A wise person once told me years ago that if you don’t understand something, get a children’s book on it because they are easy to understand and have lots of pictures. Klutz books are great for this because they come with all the supplies to try out without spending a lot of money. It would be fun to include moving parts in my work, Lego or otherwise!

Week 2--A brief recap

Week 2 was relatively easy, again—teachers had individual meetings with students to go over their project proposals. The proposals are worth 5% of our mark, so everyone starts class with an A+ if they submitted one. Naturally, being a professional student, my proposals were well-thought out and contained realistic goals.

All my projects this year are going to be paper-based in some form, whether straight-up paper art or dioramas. The great thing about the individual meetings is that artist names were dropped into the chat so everyone could take a look if they choose.

FIBRE 327

Josh Fraught, Morgan Rose Free, Law Calver, Neil Goss, Jennifer Ling Datchuk, DJ Smirnoff, Marjolein Dallinga Bloomfelt,

FIBRE 419

Anna Torma, Francis Alys, Ana Mendieta, Jana Sterbak, Marlene Creates, Leonora Carrington, Iris Van Herpen,

FIBRE 451

David Hoffos/Margo Henry, Sandra Sawatzky, Roni Horn, Liza Lou, George Platt Lynes, Ann Newdigate, Jean Lurcat, Archie Brennan, Aino Kanaijami, Dance Doyle, Cloudi Jongstra, Luanne Martineau

Back to school!

It's hard to believe, but this is my very last semester at ACAD. As you might remember, I have been at it a looooong time. There's a lot of barriers to being a mature student and fortunately some of those barriers came down in the last couple of years with flexible online working and learning.

The first week of classes is always so super easy, but this semester is going to be a little confusing because I have the same teacher for two classes and a lot of my classmates are the same across all three classes. My first assignments are a studio proposal for each class. If I pick a series of projects, it should be easy to keep them straight, LOL!

Here are the questions:

• Summarize the work you intend to produce this term. Include your topic(s) and the processes/techniques you intend to explore.
• PROJECT 1/2/3/4 - Describe this project including its concept, scale, budget, materials and tools required.
• How will the work you are proposing challenge you and move your creative practice forward?
• List at least two texts or books that relate to your topic (not including technical "how to" books.)

When in doubt, chart it out! I'll need this to keep me on track. Two of the three studio proposals have been sent in so far.

FINA450 - The Birds

LOL, this weekend's movie for Monday's class is a breeze--Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 movie The Birds. I watched it as a child but don't remember much. I may have gotten bored and switched the channel too. It is very loosely based on Daphne du Maurier's book which is more about the Cold War compared to the movie. The movie still makes a great case for the supernatural and eeriness created by something that isn't there. It's never overtly said (except by one panicked citizen) why the birds are there, but one can surmise it has to do with Melanie Daniels' arrival to Bodega Bay. Dun-dun-dun!

The movie is very slow paced and silent, which would have created a lot of tension. I wasn't feeling that tension, but I bet in a dark theatre full of people it would have. A modern version would have a blizzards of birds and brooding power meows. I'm surprised it hasn't been remade.

My birds were piqued by the opening scene, but unruffled otherwise btw.

FINA450 - Under the Skin

Watching movies for homework is usually fun, except when it’s not fun!

Our weekly reading selection came from The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fisher and focused on a book, Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, and a movie, Under the Skin, directed by Jonathan Glazer.

I downloaded Surfacing as an audiobook and haven’t finished listening to it yet, but I thought a movie would be a nice way to wrap up my weekend. Hehehe...well, not this movie! Under the Skin stars Scarlett Johannsson as an alien who roams Scotland, preying on men. There are a lot of interesting binaries in the movie such as pleasure/pain, known/unknown, civilization/wilderness, alien/human, physical/mental etc., in addition to the gender reverse of predator/prey. This would be a very different movie if it starred a male alien killer.

Visually, the film is very dark, mostly taking place at night. Audibly, there is very little dialogue and the Scottish accents are hard to decipher. There’s also a droning background track. The whole movie is designed to be unsettling and I get that. I’m usually okay with horror movies (and this one is rated R) and what not, but I didn’t like feeling unsettled and noped out of the movie after 39 minutes. It took me a few hours to feel right again afterwards!

Back to School!

I'm officially back to school, so I may become behind on entries and catching up on blogs. I'll do my best!

On Monday mornings I have a fourth year class full of students from different programs. There were four topics to choose from and I chose Seeing Beyond Known and Unknown. The title alone had a lot of appeal for me. The first few classes are online as ACAD hasn't sorted out rapid COVID testing. As Alberta's COVID numbers go in the toilet again, I don't mind doing the online thing again. After 20 years at this degree, the most important thing for me now is being able to walk across the stage in May.

One of our first projects is to assembled a portfolio of current work. The teacher also gave us a short video to watch. This might be the class where I say "Back in my day, Twin Peaks made today's weird TV shows possible..." :-D

Catching Up! ACAD310 Rehearsal

Just in time for #throwbackthursday, here's one of my projects from ACAD310. This was a Monday class, so in some ways it was good to get it out of the way for the rest of the week and other days it was like, this is too early on a Monday morning :-D

The theme of this assignment was rehearsal. As creative people, and really anyone, it takes many hours of training and rehearsal to perfect your craft, hobby or sport. A lot of that work is unpaid, invisible and often lost to mistakes. Would you believe that I have been working on a shawl pattern for years? Sometimes the idea you envision just won't be made or it's not the right time.

Here's the current in-progress picture on the knitting loom:

But, long before I started that, I made woven samples because I thought I would be weaving a shawl. I loved the yarn, James C. Brett Marble Chunky. You can see from the samples that different effects are reached by beating hard and beating gently. I mounted the samples to canvas to elevate them. Samples often just sit around, dusty and forgotten, but this way they can be viewed and appreciated.

  

I also tried incorporating weaving patterns in knitting, but the colour changes were unwieldy!

The shawl is half-finished and what was taken off the knitting loom makes a cozy lap blanket. Some day the picture in my head will match the output of my hands!

Catching Up! ENGL400

I can't believe last semester was months ago...but taking three classes while working full-time was a handful. It's also hard to delay life for eight months. Here are some notes from my English 400 class. It's the last liberal studies class that I will ever take at ACAD/AU Arts. The theme of the class was "Our You My Mother?". We read short stories and selections from a psychology book every week. Our main text was In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondatjee. I'm not a big Ondatjee fan--I like his poetry best--but I find his novels just plod on.

The final exam was really fun. The exam sounded simple--a seven sentence micro essay in MLA format on a surprise mystery question. Y'all want to know what the mystery question was?

No one knew either, even the instructor, until he brought out a child's game called Play With Your Food. A flick of the spinner and it landed on the Mixed Vegetables category. Another spin revealed the number 11. He thumbed through the cards.

The eleventh card in the stack was "It is a snow day. What do you want to do the most?"

I laughed! It was hilarious. Here I was prepared for all sorts of brainy, high-brown questions and chance had made a mockery of those plans :-D

I had some fun with it though. Every sentence started with a letter from SNOW DAY and I used every grammatical trick I knew to make every sentence count.

We also had fun clips to watch--thank goodness for education in the age of YouTube! As diarists and bloggers, we never know if anyone reading out there and this clip hits home.



Another cool thing about the class was the instructor used children's books to explain complex concepts and show how narrative can be reduced to simple steps. It may sound childish (heh!) but it actually isn't. One piece of free advice I give out frequently is grab a kid's book if you don't understand something. The text is clear, easy to read and there's plenty of pictures. In the Skin of a Lion refers to the epic tale of Gilgamesh and we looked at a children's version of that. Since I can't share the book, here's a video that clearly explains it.



I received an A+ in the class, by the way--the perfect way to end the semester!

In the Homestretch!

Ah student life! The end of a semester always seems so far away until all your final projects and exams are due ;-D

Here's what this week is looking like for me:

April 11th:

ACAD310 - finish homework and write artist statement
PPRL304 - photograph candy and work on presentation

April 12th:

ACAD310 - crit day
ENGL400 - download final exam outline and prep
PPRL304 - work on presentation

April 13-15th

ENGL400 - final exam prep
PPRL304 - keep working on presentation

April 16th

ENGL400 - write final exam
PPRL304 - email in presentation, lawyer guest speaker

April 19th

ACAD310 - crit day, submit final reading response

DONE!

ACAD310 - Spotlight on Jack Whitten

I'm always happy to share my art education with you, the reader. One of the advantages of taking so long with my degree is that there's no shortage of new ideas to learn about. The artistic canon has also grown and become more diverse over the years. There are many artists who were contemporaries of famous artists, but, for whatever reason, did not receive as much attention. American artist Jack Whitten (1939-2018) is spotlighted in this video below that we have to watch for next Monday's ACAD310 class.

PPRL304 - Guest Speaker Mandy Stobo

In yesterday's entrepreneurship class we had a guest artist, Mandy Stobo, who found her way into the art world via Bad Portraits on Twitter. Mandy moves, and never really stops moving! Nowadays she experiments with VR and augumented reality. Here's a couple videos about her!

ACAD310 - Timeless

I can't believe the first week of February is over. I'm taking two lecture classes and one studio class this semester at Alberta University of the Arts, formerly ACAD. Here's my first project, a non-functional clock called Timeless.

It's also hard to believe that I have been working from home for almost a year. The meaning of time has vastly changed, hence why the clock doesn't have any traditional markers of time passing. The orange and navy blue faces move. The clock measures 12x24", is wrapped in scrap fabric and cardstock and all the faces were actually cut by hand instead of a digital die cutter. You'll see something different depending on height and time of day with the foil faces.

My studio class is ACAD310, but what really makes it interesting is that broad topics unite a broad selection of disciplines. Students work in their chosen medium based around a suggestion. The topic for the first assignment revolved (heh) around time, cycles, and the future. I jumped at this and made a clock that lacks the traditional markers of time passing. I took a lot of in progress pictures and you'll be amazed that this was the final product. Stay tuned for those.

FIBRE 300 - Fosshape

My art college, AU Arts, has done a great job of keeping students connected while beingn apart. There are some things I miss about being in class with others like spontaneous ideas and peeking over shoulders and wandering hallways. I miss networking with my fellow students, but we're still getting plenty of time to chat in small groups. I learned about a thermoplastic called Fosshape during one of these chats. There's a bit of a learning curve ahead, but I was blown away by how cool it is. There's also another product made by the same company called Wonderflex. The best part is that I can buy it at a theatre shop in my end of town even though it's a bit pricey. I thought I would use it for the third project, but didn't. Who knows down the road though?

FIBRE 300 - Project 2 Ornamentation

I can't believe I have to go so far back to log this project. Sitting down was a luxury this semester and there's still some more projects to go. For project 2 we had to create an ornament of some sort. Some classmates made hair pieces, some made jewellery and others did ornamentation on fabric. With the art college closed, it was a challenge if you don't have a home studio set up. I didn't even have time to order the materials I wanted to use because the mail is so slow these days. I wanted to buy proper soutache braid, which is a thin flexible braid found on uniforms and such. I blogged about the technique for making soutache jewellery in my last post.

I opted for "fake soutache" with nylon cord. I wanted to use a nicer focal bead or piece of glass, but I was limited to what was in the craft stash and what I could buy at Michaels. It's a little embarrassing how much glue I used. I wanted to make a pin, but I ended up making a picture instead by mounting it on heavy duty black felt. The figure was made from layers of felt and built up.

This feels like a protoype for me. I would do it much differently a second time around. I would make the base from thick cardboard or hobby wood so that it would have enough structure to be used as a pin instead of being floppy. I would commission a bead artist to make me a beautiful custom bead too.

FIBRE 300--My Fake Soutache

I can't believe I have to go so far back to log this project. Sitting down was a luxury this semester. For project 2 we had to create an ornament of some sort. Some classmates made hair pieces, some made jewellery and others did ornamentation on fabric. With the art college closed, it was a challenge if you don't have a home studio set up. I didn't even have time to order the materials I wanted to use because the mail is so slow these days. I wanted to buy proper soutache braid, which is a thin flexible braid found on uniforms and such. Here's a quick video tutorial on soutach.



I could have mimicked the look with oven bake clay, but I couldn't risk it with pet birds. I opted for "fake soutache" with nylon cord. I wanted to use a nicer focal bead or piece of glass, but I was limited to what was in the craft stash and what I could buy at Michaels. It's a little embarrassing how much glue I used. I wanted to make a pin, but I ended up making a picture instead by mounting it on heavy duty black felt. The figure was made from layers of felt and built up.

This feels like a protoype for me. I would do it much differently a second time around. I would make the base from thick cardboard or hobby wood so that it would have enough structure to be used as a pin instead of being floppy. I would commission a bead artist to make me a beautiful custom bead too.

FIBRE 300 - Today's discount art lesson

Here are two videos we have to watch for this week's reading response in class.