Doom post ahead

[secondlina]

Okay. So the grad exhibit went well. On opening night, lots of people came. I spent the day of opening night running from one end of campus to another because I had two exams and some loose ends to tie. I then went to Tanya's house (studio partner) to eat some homemade chicken. Afterwards, I dressed in 2 minutes in my pretty dress with pretty shoes. I didn't really have anything for makeup and hairdo and I figured nobody would care anyways. I spent most of the opening behind the welcome/catalogue selling table. Until Mariel came to relay me.

The exhibit catalogues (aka artbooklets) turned out to be nice little white books. They look amazing. I'm really happy of how they turned out, graphically. Unfortunatly, I ordered too many. We only sold about half. Student where able to grab a second copy for free in the leftovers though. Which is good, because then they don't have to worry about their one and only copy getting busted up during interviews for work.

Returning to opening night, my friend Fauve came to see me with her boyfriend. A lof of people I knew also showed up (friends from school, friends of friends, parents of friends, etc). My parents and little brother also came, and so did Link. While I was at the selling table, the profs gave away prizes. Earlier in the day, judges went around and decided that which of the works deserved prizes and honorable mentions. I ended winning second place, and I wasn't even there. Apparently, when they said my name there was a silence followed by "She's selling catalogues!" which surprised no one it seems (ah, good old workaholic reputation.) My little brother rushed to tell me, which pretty much put me into shock. Heck, I was at the table because I figured there's no way i'll win anything. Guess I was wrong. Tanya then rushed to also tell me and was disapointed of not being the first to tell me. Hee.

The rest of the evening went well. Unfortunatly, I only got away from the table when my friends and family left (around 8h30). Though I met a few friends I didn't see at the door while walking thru the building. I made Link visit the works. It was fun. After there was an after party at SAW gallery, I went for about an hour, didn't drink anything because of meds and then went to collaspse in a bed.

I spent the next part of the week almost always at school to open the exhibit, write essays or meet profs. My friend Tama came to visit the morning after opening night, so I gave her a tour. Lots of other people came during the rest of the week; it was a pretty steady flow of a person every 10-20 minutes or so.  My grandma and aunt also came to visit the following day; they came all the way from Québec city.

The main bad thing about this exhibit is that our visual arts building is a labyrinth. We didn't have any floor plans to give to people on opening night because we though just posting some on the walls would suffice. Well, I just learned people don't look at walls (I got bitched at by some guy that was telling me there was no plans on the walls because otherwise, he would have seen them because he is a warrior.). Which sucked, because a few people missed a few rooms with a lot of art. But generally, everything went mostly well.

My stuff was in a room on the third floor with 4 other people. It was great though; we really worked as a team when we fixed up the room and I think our art went together fairly well. I had seven pieces in the show, a total of 11 drawings. I also had some business cards, which are all gone. Whew.

The way my drawings work is that I have an opaque layer and then semi-transparent layers over top to create a drawing with several layers.



So first I had this piece, Mirror Dust, which is inspired from Snow White and Rose Red and talks about sisterhood:



This piece is smaller then the others but really popular. Mostly due to the etheral vision of the milky semi-transparent layer:



Then came the drawing of the stepmothers. It's a tryptic showing evil stepmoms from various fairytales and Wendy Darling, who is a sorta stepmom to Peter Pan. On one side, you have a statue and a crone, which represents a disguise stepmoms often use and the way they often end up. On the other side, there's grass and plants and the absent figure of the mother, represented by foliage as she is the absent giver of life. In the center you have the wicked stepmoms and over them the figure of Kali, goddess of vengance. The vengance represents the stepmom's motivator but also their own destruction, since by killing a child you destroy that part of you that is a parent.









Now I have apiece about the Sleepers, aka princess who sleep. I kinda played with the idea that if a spell would curse you to sleep, you'd just drop where you are. Yet princesses always look smashing and installed when princes show up. So in one panel you have a pile of sleepers  and in the other you have these strange giant children who put the sleepers into a dollhouse, aka placing them to await the prince. Over the layer of the giant children, a drawing reveals that they are themselves sleeping princesses (aka childhood is a sleeper period for teenagehood and the awakening of sexuality). The princess from the princess and the pea is there with them, wide awake. The only sleeper character never to sleep. On the panel with the pile of sleepers, there is also an awake princess that is staring at a peter pan figure, contemplating the dream and how the mind is awake in REM sleep.







After the sleepers, I have a drawing called Lost girls. It about all the caracters lost in the woods (aka red riding hood, snow white, goldylocks, the girl without hands, etc) You may all recall I did that drawing before. Well, honestly, I did that drawing 3 times. I was trying to find a way to draw the forest without drawing a giant background like I did in the first version because the background totally clogs the drawing. So in the end the caracters reveal themselves to turning into the forest, showing that being lost is both a physical place or a mind place. When you lift the forest layer, you discover the caracters, intact, and a sign that shows the way. You can only find the way once the forest goes away. The figures on top are inspired from Hansel and Gretel but evoke more, to me, the lovers. They are above the forest but still in it because they have been lost in it by their parents or their friends, not because they themselves chose to.





It's a pretty big drawing; look at me and my grandma next to it!



The next drawing was inspired by Rapunzel and other fairytales where characters have precious hair (or gold, of silver, etc). It mostly shows how the caracters hair trps them since the usually get abused by other characters for their wonderful gift. On the upper layer, you see the mean characters harvesting the hair.



After this, I also had my metamorphosis drawing, that i've already shown you guys. One panel is about humans turning to animals and the other about animals turning to humans. On the top layer of one of the panels, you see a guy meditating and a giant child embracing the transforming mass. This reprsents the tale of Tam Lin, where a girl embraces her boyfriend while the fairy queen turns him into various creatures to win him back. In fairy tales, humans turning to animals is a punishment or a trial. Animals turning to humans is often a failure (like the little mermaid, who originally died). It sortoff makes "humanity" into this idealized state. I believe "humanity" is more a state of mind, hence why the mind trumps all.







The final drawing is True Love First Kiss. It plays on the idea that kissing in fairy tales is unique (aka the conclusion) when in real life, it is not. We kiss a lot of people for different reasons (kiss of love, kiss our parents, sometimes kiss friends on the cheek to greet them), so on one layer, it's unique and on the other, the kissing princess turns into this strange hydra. The hydra idea rienforces the idea of the multiple kiss since when you cut off a hydra's head, 3 more grows. So if you break up with someone you loved passionatly, it cuts a head, but then you'll meet someone else.





WHEW. Done.

We also had a lot of other art in the building; I didn't get to take photos of it all, but I got my favorites.

First there is Kristin's prints; she would print delicate images on cut and pasted newspaper pages, forming these imaginary articles and overlaping layers of imagery to go with them. (Meg, you would have loved this)





Then there was Daphne, the super animal painter, who did portraits of famous animals from litterature and film (Equus, Narnia, etc). She shows animals who were tortured and shows them winning over the humans who tortured them.





There's Also Jesse, who did pictures of crowds...



Ariane who plays with crafts and beauty...







Sara, who takes abandonned objetcs and offers them a journey...



Jake, who cut loose a sphinx in our school (it was a box and a sounds installation, you could hear the creature all over school)





Kasia's cartoonest wonderland:





Vanessa, who made you see thru the eyes of a muslim woman...





Brittany's animal transformations and patchwork snakes...





Ashley's emotional abstractions....



Tanya's photographs and poetry...





Maddie's crocheted matress:



Julie's political paintings:



And i'm missing so much more: Some did videos, others did stop motion, more paintings, photos of incredible intricacy, drawings that show our veins and lungs as flowers, portraits of vibrant quality, bone drawings with some much texture that it makes the bones look broken, paintings of time, a human figure constructed from dead leaves, etc. It's so hard to list all the beautiful things in the exhibit this year, but to me, it was a big success.

And of course, let's not forget Becky's giant plush shark. (lifesize)

Yeah, never writting a post this long again. Bleh.

-Secondlina

Comments

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

Your art is beautiful. I love the way it looks like the characters are moving with the layers.

and giant shark ftw! I want one!

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

We all want a giant shark. What was fun is that she also made extra teeth, so you could have a plushy shark tooth necklace. A lot of people took some plushy tooth. :)

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

What variety though! I went to a college art display with a friend once (I think it was the University of Washington, over in Seattle), and most everything was paintings, drawings, photographs, all the flat arts. Not that anything is wrong with that, but I like seeing all sorts of art. Did no one sculpt anything?

Congrats on attaining the bachelor's degree in starving artist. And here's hoping all those missing business cards mean that soon you'll find people knocking at your door to employ you. ^_-

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Well, I do have two exhibits i'm preparing right now, so yay! :)

I like the variety too. Even though i'm a fan of the flat, you gotta admit things like mr.plush shark makes the exhibit really cool.

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

*looks in awe* Wow, I wish I could have seen this in person! There is a nice variety and some neat ideas here. The missing Spinx is a cool idea. I like all of the hidden meanings you put into your fairytale artwork. Very cool and beautiful.

And also congrats on your Bachelor's Degree. ^_^

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

A lot of people came up with really awesome concepts. It's the type of thing that really rocks in person.

[dqbunny.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!! *hugs* You showed me some of it before, but the other stuff is quite beautiful. You resemble your grandma a lot, especially in the face! I also liked the other artwork that you showed as well, especially the ones that utilized the newspaper.

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

I knew you'd like the newspaper stuff.

I think it's funny you say I ressemble my grandmother because i'm the spitting image of my mother while my grandma is actually my dad's mom. *laughs* but I guess the family attitude makes us similar.

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

Well, you both do seem to have a thing for red... ^_-

Family resemblance is weird, anyway. People used to always think my younger sister and I were twins, and yet I look almost identical to my older sister. (People never made that connection.) People see what they want to see.

[the-flowergirl.livejournal.com]

Wow. All of your stuff is wonderful. The gallery had such variety. It was nice to see.

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

It's much much better in person though.

[the-flowergirl.livejournal.com]

It always is, with art.

It's still very nice however.

[snapdragon76.livejournal.com]

Wow! Very surreal I must say! I like them!

and cograts for placing! I still have my third place ribbon form my Jr Hi art show.

[anna-nimmie-tee.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on graduation and your 2nd place award! What is also particularly wonderful about it is how it makes people interact with it. It really draws people in to look more closely.

Umm. You better watch dissing a librarian, esp. a parent. After years of giving her librarian parents grief, a girl ended up doing cataloguing and graphic design for an antiquarian book dealer/book arts press, whose main customers are academic libraries. ;-D