Preparing for the PechaKucha

Description from pecha-kucha.org:

"PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace."

Each of you will need to create a PowerPoint presentation that is 20 slides long. You should set an automatic advance on the slides so that each one stays on the screen for exactly 20 seconds (do this by going to Slideshow -> Transitions -> Options -> Advance Slide -> Automatically after 20 seconds). In the end, your presentation will be exactly 6 minutes and 40 seconds long.

What should you include in your 20 slides?
1. A title slide that states your name, with an image or some other teaser that shows us what's to come.
2. Images of the work you made this semester, including images of work in progress, or images of projects you consider failures. Show and describe your process!
3. Images of other artwork that inspires you (contemporary art or images from art history). Put your work in a larger context!
4. Quotes, video clips, or images from other walks of life. Are you inspired by science, literature, archaeology, etc.? Tell us about it!

Slide Design
Make sure your images are large, but leave enough space to include captions that tell us a little about them. For example, finished works of art should include information about the work's title, media, and artist's name (if the work wasn't made by you).

Oral Presentation
Your oral presentation can take one of these forms, or be a combination of the two:

1. Your talk is written in short blurbs, and your dialogue is planned to directly relate to the slide that's showing at the time.
*Pro: Your presentation will seem very straightforward and easy to understand. We see A on the screen, and you are talking about A.
*Con: If you say to little about a given slide, there will be a lot of awkward silence as we wait for the slides to advance. If you say too much, you will have to cut yourself off when the next slide appears.

2. Your talk is written more like a monologue, and the slides are a background visual element that we can look at as we listen.
*Pro: Each slide does not necessarily have to be directly related to what you're saying at the time it is shown, so there will be no awkward silences or cut-off dialogue when the slides advance. The presentation will feel more natural.
*Con: Monologues are difficult to memorize. You may have to improvise a little more.

Rehearsal
This is a must! Make notes under each slide to be sure you stay on track. And rehearse, rehearse, rehearse to get the timing right.

See this link for great tips about designing your slides and rehearsing your presentation.
Watch a PechaKucha presentation here.

On Friday
Please email me your presentation by Friday at noon, and meet at Beam Classroom at 2:45pm. We will begin right at 3pm, so DON'T BE LATE!

Pictures of the exhibition

I just finished editing and uploading images of the exhibition to Flickr. Check them out at this link. Congratulations! It was a great show!

Pecha Kucha Night - Mark your calendars! Invite your friends!

If you don't have it on your calendar already, please mark down the date and time for our Pecha Kucha night:

Friday, December 9th
3:00 - 4:30pm
Beam Classroom, VAC

And it begins...

Marlo Pascual, "Untitled", 2011

I plan to drive to Portland a little early tomorrow so I can arrive by about 6pm. Please try to arrive as close to 6:30 as possible so that we can curate the show as a class. Bring all of your work with you so we can lay it on the ground in front of the wall and figure out where everything should go. Please coordinate rides by emailing the class list (vart390). Carpooling is strongly encouraged! If anyone needs me to reserve a Bowdoin car or van, please email me ASAP.

Also, please consider titles for your work, because I will be collecting that information from you as you install tomorrow. And don't forget to bring your own special tools or hardware if you require them.

Kate Doody - Visiting artist lecture on Monday, 11/28

Don't miss the last visiting artist lecture of the semester! Kate Doody is a talented young artist and an excellent public speaker. I know you are all extremely busy and overwhelmed by the amount of work that needs to be done for the exhibition, but this event should not be missed.

Kate will be visiting our class later that night to do studio visits and help you all troubleshoot for the exhibition. Let's show her some respect by showing up to her lecture. Unless you have a prior obligation, I expect to see you there. (In other words, PLEASE COME!)

Exhibition publicity materials, check!

The postcards have been ordered! We should receive them on Tuesday morning. And the posters will be sent to press on Monday, so if anyone notices any errors or would like to request any changes, please email me ASAP. Thanks again to Chelee for her hard work!

(Postcard Front) 

(Postcard Back)

(Poster)

Thinking ahead...

In preparation for a discussion at the beginning of class on Monday, please have a good look at this floor plan and at the pictures below, and think about the following questions:

- If your work is going to be site-specific (Nick, Sadie, Tariq... anyone else?), where were you thinking it would go?
- How much floor or wall space will you occupy?
- Should we intersperse the work, or allocate space for each of you individually?
- Should we purchase vinyl lettering so we can put the exhibition title and your names up on the wall? If we want that text to take up wall space, which wall would be best suited for it? The wall directly to the left of the front door (which is about 4 feet wide), or something larger?
- Where should wine and refreshments go?

Please let me know if you plan to work in class, in Portland, or elsewhere during class time on Monday. Kate Doody, who is giving a visiting artist lecture on Monday at 4:15, will be in class to do studio visits  with those of you who are interested.

Entrance

View of space from front door

View of front door from center of space

Back of large column

Back left corner (bathroom not shown on floor plan)

Back right corner (back door)

Should artists be entertainers?

An excerpt from a recent post on Alec Soth's blog, Little Brown Mushroom:

"I like to say that there are three levels of artmaking.

1) Entertainment: This, for me, is essential. If the work doesn’t pull me in, I’ll go elsewhere. And doing this and this alone is one hell of a challenge.

2) Education: After being entertained, maybe I can learn something too. While watchingThe Social Network, maybe I’ll learn something about Facebook or frat boys. But before this learning takes place, I want to be entertained.

3) Change: After being educated and entertained, once in a while a story changes your life. But as an artist, this isn’t something you can shoot for. Otherwise you’d just write self-help books and advice columns."

Jeff Badger visits Senior Seminar tomorrow, 11/7

Things I Have Cut In Half, 2007

Jeff Badger is a multimedia artist based in South Portland, Maine. He has exhibited his drawing, painting, sculpture and installation work nationally in solo and group exhibitions, and he records and performs original music in a variety of collaborative projects.

Jeff holds an B.S. in Studio Art and English from Skidmore College and an M.F.A. from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. He is on the faculty of Southern Maine Community College where he serves as Department Chair of Fine Arts.

Balls, ink on paper, 9.5" x 8", 2011

Art & Time this Spring

Would you like to learn how to shoot and edit video? make art that moves or changes over time? collaboratively construct a Rube Goldberg machine?

If you answered yes to any of the above, please keep the following in mind as you begin to look at the course offerings for Spring semester:

For the first time this Spring, Art & Time (VART 283) will be taught as a multimedia course. The class will explore the theme of time through various media - drawing, video art, photography, performance art, and kinetic sculpture.

Please see the attached poster for more information, and contact Alicia if you have any questions. And please, spread the word!

Karen Gelardi at Portland Museum of Art this Saturday

Date: Saturday, November 5th
Time: 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Price: Free with Museum admission
Location: Great Hall at the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

Portland-based contemporary artist Karen Gelardi will bring the art of Gather Up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection to life for families and children of all ages. Help us transform the Great Hall into a fun-filled art workshop. Experiment with a variety of art materials, to draw, cut, stitch, and tape things together. Everybody will create unique fabric patches to take home and also help the artist create a very large work of art! You’ll be inspired, as the artist is, by nature and the beauty of the Shakers’ simple design.

Success

Group Critique Scheduled for Wednesday, November 16th

Most of you admitted that you need to pick up the pace and start producing more work in the second half of the semester. In order to encourage that, I've decided to schedule a group critique at the 3/4 mark as a way of checking in. The critique will also give you a chance to talk about each others' work as a class. It's important that you not only encourage each other, but challenge each other to work harder and think more critically about what you've been making.

You should use these next three weeks to work hard and make 2 or more new *finished* pieces (the equivalent of approximately 30 hours of studio time). You should install those new works somewhere in the classroom before class on Wednesday, 11/14. Your presentation of the work is as important as the work itself, so please don't wait until right before class to consider it. If you'd like to reserve an area of the room in advance, please talk to me about that in class. If you plan to exhibit your work outside of the classroom between now and then, please inform the class about it so your peers can try to see it in person (email vart390), and prepare to show photographs of the installation at the critique.

Let's do this!!

Printmaker and Public Artist, Tomie Arai - Lecture today at 4:30!

Please join us and spread the word about an artist's talk by New York City printmaker and public artist, Tomie Arai, this Tuesday, November 1st in Beam classroom of the VAC. Tomie Arai will be visiting campus throughout the week for the Fall 2011 Marvin Bileck Printmaking Project.

Billie Mandle: Public lecture and class visit tomorrow!

Billie Mandle will be visiting our class tomorrow to do individual studio visits. Please try to go to her public lecture at 4:30pm in Beam so we can have a good discussion with her about her work.

Thursday, October 27th: Emmy Award Winner Richard Kahn Presents ‘An Arctic Wilderness Journey’

A lone caribou grazes on the Brooks Range in Northwestern Alaska. (Photo by Richard Kahn)    

Emmy award-winner and documentary filmmaker Richard Kahn offers “Travels by Canoe in Alaska’s Western Arctic,” a wilderness journey of words and photographs.

Schwartz Outdoor Leadership Center

Thursday, October 27th at 7:30 pm

Kahn has spent the last twelve summers paddling wilderness rivers in the Brooks Mountain Range and North Slope of Northwestern Alaska. He has traveled extensively in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, spending more than 300 days on the Colville River and its tributaries. Kahn’s photographs and journals record intense light, an ocean of unnamed mountains, crystal clear rivers, delicate wild flowers, and glimpses of the animals whose lives are woven into the fabric of the place.

His talk focuses on his time spent on these rivers, in an area with which few people are familiar. The inappropriately named National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) is 23.5 million acres of wilderness. It is home to the Western and Central Caribou herds, wolves, bears, wolverines and a rich assortment of raptors, songbirds and waterfowl. You might even be able to see some of these birds in your backyard right now during the fall migration. In 2012, the Bureau of Land Management will review the land management plans for the Reserve and Americans have an opportunity to take part in this important process.

An independent filmmaker, Kahn has had his work presented on WGBH-TV, Discovery Channel, CBS, and WBZ-TV in Boston, as well as Vermont Public Television. Kahn’s credits also include NOVA, Frontline, and Bill Moyers Journal. The filmmaker received an Emmy in 1983 for “7 North,” a documentary on nurses in a neurological unit and in 1973 for “A New Beginning,” about four teenage patients in a spinal cord injury unit. In 2009, Richard shot beautiful footage for Alaska Wilderness League’s short film “The Reserve”.

His visit is sponsored by Alaska Wilderness League. The event is free and open to the public. 

Mark Lakeman lectures at 4:15 today!

Recap: Recent visits from Carly Glovinski and Mark Lakeman

These past two weeks brought two visiting artists to class. Here are descriptions of their work and links to their websites.

Untitled (pool), by Carly Glovinski
acrylic and paper, 2011

Carly Glovinksi
"To labor over the mundane, drawing great attention to an unremarkable object calls into question what can be considered precious and worthy of investigation. I aim to evoke an entirely new response to the familiar, engaging the viewer in an active game of questioning perceptions and assumed hierarchies."

The Rebuilding Center, by Mark Lakeman
Portland, OR

Mark Lakeman

Mark Lakeman is the co-founder of the non-profit placemaking organization The City Repair Project, and principal of the community design firm Communitecture. Mr. Lakeman has taken on the role of creative urban place-maker and community design facilitator in his commitment to the emergence of a sustainable cultural landscape. He seeks to make every design project one which will further the development of a community vision, whether it involves urban design and placemaking, ecological building, encourages community interaction, or assists those who typically do not have access to design services. His leadership in the City Repair Project has benefited communities across the North American continent including cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, and Ottawa where City Repair Projects are underway. Stories of Mr. Lakeman’s projects have been told widely, including in such publications as Dwell, Architecture Magazine, New Village Journal, Yes magazine, and The Utne Reader. With City Repair, in 2003 Mark was awarded the National Lewis Mumford Award by the international organization Architects & Planners for Social Responsibility for his work with Dignity Village, one of the United States’ first self-developed, permanent communities by and for previously homeless people.

Blitz Crit Guests

Jeffrey Stockbridge, Alex Dacorte, Rob Lieber, Karen Gelardi and Lisa Bossi will be participating in our Blitz Crit tomorrow. Please see the blurbs below and visit their websites (by clicking on their names) to familiarize yourself with their work and experience.

Jeffrey Stockbridge

Jeffrey Stockbridge is a photographer who documents the complexities of urban blight. Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Stockbridge photographs the prevalence of drugs, prostitution, and abandoned homes in the city. The prevailing theme in Stockbridge’s work is his subjects will to survive a harsh urban landscape. His work has been exhibited at The National Portrait Gallery in London, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Art Museum. Stockbridge was recently awarded 3rd Prize in the 2010 Taylor-Wessing Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery in London. His work is represented by The Wapping Project, Bankside in London.

Alex Dacorte

Alex Dacorte, born in New Jersey, raised in Venezuela and living in Philadelphia, is an artist who describes his work as ‘visual mash-ups’. He recently completed his MFA at Yale University. Often incorporating found objects, Da Corte creates multimedia work that belies its material origins.

(read a feature about him in Interview Magazine here)

Rob Lieber

Robert Lieber has exhibited at the Portland Museum of Art, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Whitney Works Gallery and The LC Bates Museum. He received his BFA at The University of Southern Maine and his MFA at Mills College in Oakland CA. He was awarded the Jay DeFao Prize in 1999 and the Zorach Scholarship to Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1997. For the past 10 years he has been teaching art in the U Maine system and Maine College of Art.

Karen Gelardi

Karen Gelardi lives and works in South Portland, Maine. She studied painting at Rhode Island School of Design and has been influenced by the design and manufacturing processes of her family’s plastics factory in Biddeford, Maine, and Asian brush painting. She has exhibited widely throughout Maine and recently had her first show in New York City at Coleman Burke Gallery. Karen is a “Smocker” in Andrea Zittel’s internationally exhibited Smockshop, and a “panelist” in Zittel’s newest artist enterprise Panelshop. Depicting urban and suburban plants with a handmade, cut and sew approach, Karen Gelardi’s fabric, ink, and papier maché drawings, and oil paintings explore ideas about resiliency, adaptation, and a re-invented nature.

Lisa Bossi

Lisa Bossi, along with Andrea Alban Gosline are the co-creators of inspirational books, greeting cards, and guided journals. Written with heart by Andrea, and transformed with a lush palette by Lisa, their creative works draws on a love of family and nature's wonders. They are also the author and illustrator of January's Child: A Birthday Month Book (Scholastic, January 2007), Ten Little Wishes (Harper, Spring 2007), and Celebrating Motherhood (Conari Press, 2002). 

Midterm Reminders

We are officially half way through the semester, so I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you about a few things that will affect your grade in this class. I will give you your midterm grade along with a written evaluation next Wednesday, October 26th.

#1: Blog Posts

The syllabus asks you to post on your blog 1-3 times per week. Since this is week seven, you should have at least 5 posts by now (allowing for a slow start to the semester, and assuming those posts include in-depth descriptions of your thoughts, goals, and completed work). Please remember to include images of work that you've made so far (either in progress or completed), and images of work made by artists that inspire you. As I stated in class yesterday, I'd also like you to get in the habit of blogging about the meetings you have with your mentor. Those posts should be records of what your mentor has to say about your work, other artists they recommend you look at or books they suggest you read, and what you took away from the meeting. Which brings us to #2...

#2: Meetings with Your Mentor

I understand that some of you have had difficulty scheduling a meeting with your assigned mentor, but remember that it is your responsibility to contact that person and follow up with them. You are supposed to be meeting with them for approximately 20 minutes every other week. I will be emailing the VA faculty next week to see if that has been the case or not.

#3: Biweekly Goals

At this point you should have posted and completed (IE posted the results of) three rounds of Biweekly Goals. They should have been posted on September 12th, September 26th, and October 10th (I let this week slide so that you could prepare for tomorrow's Blitz Crit). The next round of goals should be posted next Monday, October 24th (and the subsequent post dates will be November 7th and 21st). I consider the Biweekly Goals to be the backbone of this class, giving the semester structure and providing me with a way of evaluating your progress and your use of time. Since there are no assignments from me, you should consider your goals the assignments. If you have neglected to post goals, you have neglected to complete an assignment (and, like any other class, you receive a zero for that assignment). SO, don't neglect this requirement!

Now is a good time to re-read the syllabus and give your progress in this class a personal evaluation. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Final Cut Pro Demo scheduled for Monday, October 17th

Want to learn how to edit video using Final Cut Pro? Come to Andrew Currier's demo!

When: Monday, October 17th, from 9:30-10:30am
Where: 216 Maine St. Digital Lab

"Four Propositions Concerning Art Blogging"

(this text has been copied and pasted from http://new-art.blogspot.com/)

My first proposition is: Blogging is about being stupid.
It is accepting that I do not know what I should know before starting to write. But wait! "Should know"? Let me rephrase that: blogging is accepting that there is no required knowledge to write. In part, it is accepting Beuys' affirmation that everyone is an artist. Everyone is an art-writer. Everyone is a potential member of the art milieu. And this everyone also means different aspects of me. Suddenly, the quickness of the form, it's simplicity, encourages me to move forward. To take risks. To dare write something I am not sure of. One could say this is the continuation of the beautiful tradition of Montaigne's Essays (which translates into Attempts). Yet here, the very way it is created and shared encourages the risk, encourages theattempting to see where the thoughts, the words, took me, take me, might take me. But that is just the first step. Because the consequences are quite far-going.

My second proposition is: Thanks to the internet, writing about art can become closer to making art.
The problem with writing is what is usually considered it's greatest advantage: it stays. Letters form words which form sentences which are a pest - they do not let go. So anything you write can and will be used against you, be it literally or metaphorically, by someone, or by yourself, reading what you wrote many years ago.
Writing, then, must become serious. You have to weigh your words. You become responsible. Meaning, what you write needs to pass the test of an imaginary future reading.
The internet may not seem different, because here things also stay (you can find all the internet publications from the past at archives.org). However, there is so much happening, and what you publish has so little apparent weight (you don't feel it, hold it in your hand, share it physically), that even the concept of a "virtual" world seems logical. And yet the beauty is that "virtual", here, is quite real. The letters still turn into meaning - and practically instantly, they turn into social meaning.
But maybe because of the lack of weight, as opposed to other circumstances, when writing the blog, I don't feel obliged to anything. My distance to what I write about can change. I can be a distant observer, and then suddenly move close, challenge the work, ask it questions, see where it takes my thinking. This limit of private/public allows me to think to myself, but in a way that creates a new type of space, a new type of relation. Am I still writing about the work, or am I writing myself into the work? After all, I have no obligation to be a critic. Because I define what the blog is, I do not need to correspond to any criteria - and so the writing can become more personal, more experiential - sharing the experience I am living. And, as my experience is often related to creating new works, the limit becomes blurred - the work I write "about" (or "from" or "out of") is working its way into the one I am (sometimes unconsciously) thinking about or preparing.

My third proposition is: The models of participation in art change because of the internet.
This new type of sharing has other consequences. As opposed to most art writing, it becomes difficult to define what exactly is my position in the (traditional) world of art. Am I reviewing, creating, alluding? It is up to the reader to define what role my text plays in his experience of the art/world.
But also on the scale of the art milieu, the situation becomes more fun.
Am I a big, important fish, or an insignificant lost fish? Reading the blog it is hard to say. And that is, because it really is hard to say. The art market tries to establish market rules - artists have values that either go up or down, and if the art businesspeople had it their way, art would really be an extension of the art market. But this model is greatly inadequate for art, and I am the proof. After a few years writing the blog, I had more and more people contact me. One of them was a curator at the Warsaw Centre for Contemporary Art. He wanted to link to me on the Centre's online (and sometimes offline) review called Obieg. Suddenly, people from the milieunow considered me as an insider. Several people asked me "How did you manage to convince them?". Apparently, they were not used to a model which goes beyond traditional, linear processes. Of course, these new models are far more complex, which can be quite exciting: I can participate in a review and be written about, my work can be the subject of my own analysis picked up by someone from another site, the blog could potentially be published in a paper edition, it becomes a sort of a one-man-show that keeps evolving. Galleries start considering the blog as a serious partner, they become interested in the person, other artists contact me, first as a publisher, then as a person, new unexpected projects come up... All this has been happening. And every time it does, it seems the definition of what I do shifts.

My fourth and last proposition is: Blogging about art can be an exercise in moving.
The great and crazy composer Cornelius Cardew once wrote: "Notation is a way of making people move. If you lack others, like aggression or persuasion. The notation should do it. This is the most rewarding aspect of work in a notation. Trouble is: just as you find your sounds are too alien, intended for a 'different culture', you make the same discovery about your beautiful notation: no one is willing to understand it. No one moves."
A similar thing happens with writing my art blog. This is one way of changing the conditions of living, or appreciating, art. When it works, you feel how it takes you elsewhere. "You" meaning me, but also you, the potential reader. And yet, every once in a while, you, no, I discover that the reading remains on a level I am not satisfied with. It becomes a reading ofanother text, and so, once again, I have written a different text to the one I was writing. This happens, of course, with every creation. However, the blog, the internet, has this wonderful capacity of allowing for the exercise to be constantly exercised. I go back, I rewrite, I answer myself. I enter dialogues. Exercise. Yes, that is what blogging is for me - an exercise in moving.

The above text first appeared (in a Russian translation) in the Korydor online magazine, as part of the Kyiv Offline project.

Showing at Space Gallery on 10/6: !Women Art Revolution

An entertaining and revelatory “secret history” of Feminist Art,!Women Art Revolution deftly illuminates this under-explored movement through conversations, observations, archival footage and works of visionary artists, historians, curators and critics. Starting from its roots in 1960s antiwar and civil rights protests, the film details major developments in women’s art through the 1970s and explores how the tenacity and courage of these pioneering artists resulted in what is now widely regarded as the most significant art movement of the late 20th century.

Thursday 10.06.2011, at Space Gallery in Portland

Doors at 7:00 PM, Starts at 7:30 PM, Ends at 9:30 PM, 

$7 / $5 for SPACE Members & Students with ID, All Ages

This coming Monday, 10/3: Prof. Carrie Scanga and Natalie Conn of Shoot Media Project

We will meet in the classroom on Monday for a 15 minute slide lecture by Prof. Carrie Scanga, followed by a visiting artist lecture by Natalie Conn, founder of Shoot Media Project. Carrie's lecture will start right at 6:30 because she has to leave at 6:45, so get there on time!

Natalie Conn studied painting and video at Cooper Union. She started a multi-media program called Shoot Media Project in July 2010 working with adults with developmental disabilities to create movies, photography series and animations. Shoot Media's biggest project is a collaborative television show called TV SHOW which encompasses a variety of projects from music videos to documentaries.

Blitz Crit Scheduled for October 19th

(Image from here)

Our first Blitz Crit will be held on October 19th, one week after we return from Fall Break. It will be a round-robin critique style, involving 20 minute studio visits with several guest artists and art historians, including Alex Dacorte from Philadelphia. You will need to have as much work on view in your studio as possible. Arm yourself with an artillery of questions to ask the critics in order to get the most out of this experience. It will be intense!

Our second and final Blitz Crit is scheduled for Monday, December 5th. Please mark both of these dates on your calendars.

Breakfast with Kyle Durrie on Thursday at 8am

Kyle Durrie has agreed to get up bright and early to have breakfast with our class at 8am on Thursday, September 29th. Meet at Moulton Union and sign in at the front desk. We will be in the North private dining room.

If you're curious about how she raised money for her moveable type project, here is a link to her Kickstarter campaign.

Visiting artist lecture and printmaking demonstration tomorrow!

In addition to a short artist talk, Kyle Durrie ('01) will lead a demonstration and hands-on activity in her homemade letterpress truck, which will be parked outside the VAC on Park Row. There will be refreshments and public printmaking going on. You can join the festivities, learn how prints are made, hear about how a Bowdoin alum is making her mark as an artist, and make a letterpress print to take home with you. Don't miss it!

September 28th at 4:30pm

Beam Classroom, VAC

MECA Crits on 10/18 or 10/20

Our class has been invited to participate in midterm critiques for senior sculpture majors at Maine College of Art in Portland. The MECA faculty would like Bowdoin seniors to come, listen, learn, and chime in. It would be a great opportunity for you to meet MECA students, see what kind of work they're making, tour the school's facilities, and practice participating in an intense critique session. The hope is that we can form a relationship with their class and invite them to come critique your work later this semester. Is anyone interested?

Their midterms will be held on the following days and times:
Tuesday, October 18th: 9am-12pm and 2pm-5pm
Thursday, October 20th: 2-5pm

Please check your calendars and let me know if you are willing or able to participate. It's an exciting opportunity, so I'm hoping at least a small group will be able to go.

Work by Ian Anderson, Associate Dean of Academic & Student Affairs at Maine College of Art

Meet at the Fort on Monday, 9/26

Tomorrow we will be doing studio visits at Fort Andross with Prof. Mark Wethli, Prof. John Bisbee, and artist Cassie Jones. Please meet on the loading dock by the Flea Market at 6:30pm sharp.

Curator’s Lecture: “Along the Yangzi River: Regional Culture of the Bronze Age from Hunan”

Elephant-shaped Zun Vessel, Late Shang Period, 12th-11th Century BCE, Human Provincial Museum

Jay Xu, Director of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, to Discuss Ancient Chinese Bronzes.

Dr. Jay Xu is a co-curator of the exhibition “Along the Yangzi River: Regional Culture of the Bronze Age from Hunan,” currently on view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. He will discuss ancient Chinese bronzes as the dominant medium for artistic expression during the Bronze Age (ca. 1500 BCE to 221 BCE) and interpret the regional characteristics of the exhibitedbronzes from Hunan. For more information on the exhibition, please visit the Museum’s website: http://www.bowdoin.edu/art-museum/. Xu is also one of the authors of the exhibition catalog, available in the Museum’s bookshop.

Thursday, September 22, 2011
4.30 pm
Kresge Auditorium, VAC

Tickets are not required.

Life Drawing - now every Sunday!

The Visual Arts department will be holding a life drawing session each Sunday for the remainder of the semester. All Bowdoin Students are welcome to attend. All you need is your trusty pencil and pad.

Every Sunday, 2-5 PM
VAC North Studio

Tell your friends!

21 Rooms: An Interactive Spectacle of Installation, Performance & Video Art

Friday, September 23 · 5:00pm - 9:00pm
The Nevada Motel

141 Long Sands Road
York, ME

Beginning Thursday, September 22, 21 featured artists will be afforded one of the motel’s 21 rooms for two nights to serve as a mini-residency or act as a studio.

On the second evening, two stories of rooms will be opened to the public and presented as mini-galleries. The show will transform the Nevada Motel into an interactive spectacle of installation, performance and video art. Participating artists will be coming from as close as Wells, Maine, and as far away as Dallas, Texas.

21 Rooms was guest-curated by Quinn Corey, a long-time creative presence in the emerging arts scene in Providence, RI, along with 3S co-founder, John Gayle.

The event is free and open to the public (donations generously accepted) and the Nevada Motel is located at 141 Long Beach Avenue in York, Maine. 21 Rooms is part of 3S’s ongoing Open Space series.

DJ Douglas Urbank, host of the Boston College WZBC radio program “The Pinwheels of Your Mind,” will spin experimental, improvisational, and otherwise unconventional music.

Event sponsor, Inn on the Blues and Guac-N-Roll, will generously provide food.

Following the show an after-party for both the participating artists and the public will be hosted at Inn on the Blues, featuring a cash bar and entertainment by acoustic duo, The Gentleman Outfit.

Participating Artists:

Sarah Baldwin - Wells, ME
Bill Cifuni - Lancaster, PA
Stephanie Cornell - Portsmouth, NH
Elizabeth Donsky - Brooklyn, NY
Katherine Doyle - Newcastle - NH
Tracy Walter Ferry - Cheshire, CT
Shawn Gilheeney - Providence, RI
Carly Glovinski - Dover, NH
Katie Hickman - Brooklyn, NY
Jessica Lauren Lipton - Portland, ME
Cynthia McLaughlin - Colrain, MA
Lori Miles - Indianapolis, IN
Bennett Morris - Portland ME
Tara Nelson - Jamaica Plain, MA
Andrew Neumann - Boston, MA
Marianne Newsom - Dallas TX
Abbey Ozanich - Chicago, IL
Dillon Paul - Brooklyn, NY
Julie Poitras Santos - Portland, ME
Sunny Sliger - Dallas, TX
Douglas Urbank - Boston, MA
Willa VanNostrand - Providence, RI
Jackie Weaver - Troy, NY
Lindsey Wolkowicz - Brooklyn, NY

Opening in the Fish Bowl this Friday: Island Found

"Engaging Insects: Artists and Scientists" opening at USM Art Gallery

“Natural Cross Dressing” by Nina Katchadourian

“Wing” by USM Professor of Biology Kenneth Weber

The USM Art Gallery’s first exhibition of the season will be “Engaging Insects: Artists and Scientists,” displaying the myriad ways in which artists and scientists work with insects. Curated by Associate Professor of Art Kim Grant and Art Gallery Director Carolyn Eyler, viewers will see that insects are not only visually fascinating, they also raise provocative questions about our relations to the world around us.

All of the following events associated with the exhibition are free and open to the public.

Exhibition: “Engaging Insects: Artists and Scientists,” featuring the work of artists and USM faculty and researchers.
USM Art Gallery, Gorham
Thursday, September 22 – Thursday, November 10
11 a.m.- 4 p.m., Tuesdays-Fridays; 1-5 p.m., Saturdays & Sundays
Opening Reception: 6-8 p.m., Thursday, September 22

Engaging Insects Roundtable Discussion:
4:15-5:45 p.m., Thursday, September 22 in the Art Gallery, Gorham.
The exhibit’s curators will be joined by several of the artists and scientists for a discussion prior to the opening reception.

Art Talk with Visiting Artist Nina Katchadourian:
1 p.m., Friday, September 23 in Burnham Lounge, Robie Andrews Hall, Gorham.
Katchadourian exhibits internationally and uses photography, video, installation, and graphic art in her unorthodox encounters with insects.

Film screening: “Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo”
4-5:30 p.m., Thursday, October 20, Room 10, Bailey Hall, Gorham