Portrait Heads: late second century A.D.

The Vatican Museum is full of really amazing work. This post will focus more on the popularity of creating busts. If the father figure of a family died, they would make a wax mold of his face and create a shrine around it. The wealthy Romans wanted to have these turned into marble to show their significance in society. The popularity of this probably lead to artists creating portraits of living people.
Some of these heads showed intense emotion that had not been seen in sculpture before. Not all of them were idealized also. Many were true to life.

Colosseum. A.D. 72-80

The Colosseum is the first art historical place that I came across in my book, A Basic History of Art. It was an immense amphitheater for gladiator games in Rome. It is probably the most known of all of Rome's buildings. When it was built, it was one of the largest buildings; more than 50,000 viewers could be in the building at a time. It was designed so that people could easily move in and out of the structure.
I have seen numerous images of the Colosseum. I mostly saw it for it's size and scale. Janson points out the use of the columns. A column typically is comprised of a capital (top most section:think of it like a hat), a shaft and a base. Each level of the Colosseum had columns with different capitals. On the ground floor, Doric (simple and typically a basic square), the second floor, Ionic (two curved objects similar to a scroll) and the top two floors were Corinthian (highly decorative and similar to plants growing).
Today, the Colosseum is littered with tourists, contemporary greek soldiers trying to gather money from photos, vendors selling mini Roman sculptures and new technologies like group tours with headphones with monitors where you can hear your guide without being right next to him/her and the lazy man's ride, the Segway tour.
Basically, I am interested in how these places will remain the same. We learn about these places in our art history books, but how will these places be able to maintain themselves? Is it through tourists? Sightseers fork over quite a lot of money to view them up close. This means that the tourist is now part of the history of the place.

Pumpkin Pie Gang Plastic Bag Holder

I needed a break from thinking about art critically. I wanted to make something that was pleasant and offered me a new direction. I don't know where sewing will end up in my work, but I wanted to experiment with the simple act of crafting.

I was inspired by the pie that Vanessa and I made and made a sewn piece about it.
It can be found on my etsy here: Pumpkin Pie Gang

Sewing with a pattern!

So, I haven't necessarily been good about creating a piece a day. I have made some really amazing cookies, learned the art of how to properly pour a latte with a heart design, modified some clothing and made some curtains for my studio.
I am most excited about my creation today. It took a loooong time. I knew ahead of time that this was going to be a difficult task, but I wanted to see if I could do it. I made a blouse from a 50 cent 70's pattern that I got at a local fabric store. I looked for the perfect fabric for a long time and found this really great design that has some white flowers printed on it.
I worked through the pattern. I would sit for a long time at points and just look at the pictures of how I was supposed to do things. They could seem incredibly confusing and then all of a sudden I would hold up my fabric and see what they were trying to describe. I did at one point sew the sleeve on backwards and had to take it out. That was frustrating. It is the kind of thing though that you have to make mistakes to get better. I will now double check that when sewing.
Overall, I am really happy with my new blouse. I have some more patterns that I may try working with or combining with others.
I look forward for an event to wear this to (perhaps teaching my own class one day...white might not be a good idea for a drawing class though...)

Pumpkin Pie!

Vanessa and I made this Pumpkin Pie. She had never made it from an actual pumpkin before so I showed her how. My mom taught me how to do it. You just cut up the pumpkin into chunks and boil it until the skins just fall off. After you mash it and it is really easy. A small pumpkin that I bought at New Seasons will make three pies! I am freezing the rest so that I can make some pies this winter. Yeah!
My mom's recipe:

Pie crust (homeade or storebought uncooked)
2 eggs
2 cups pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teas. salt
teas vanilla
teaspoon and a half of pumpkin pie spice
1 can evaporated milk
1 tbl. melted butter

Bake 425 for 15 min.
reduce to 350 for 45 min.
when knife is clean, the pie is done!

Let cool and serve with fresh whipping cream!

Mini Cinque

I made this little painting in honor of the tourist paintings that I saw throughout my travels. Local artists would paint tiny paintings for tourists to easily purchase. This is a 2"x2" acrylic painting similar to the ones that I saw. It is from Monterosso, Cinque-Terre. Most of the buildings are painted a pink or yellow color. This also shows the train tracks that run through the mountains.
I have posted this on my etsy:
Mini Cinque

Day 1. Vinci

This is a watercolor pencil drawing. The image is from Vinci, Italy. This is the town were Leonardo grew up. These are olive trees that are outside of the museum that houses some of his inventions. I am going to post this on my etsy as well.

starting plants

I have started the onions, peppers and eggplant.

"Cold Storage" at Worksound Gallery

For the month of February, my installation Cold Storage will be on display in the group show, White Noise at Worksound Gallery.
PORT even has a video of the opening on their blog. It ends by going into my iceberg; similar to my own video.

Artist Statement

Cold Storage

Mission Statement of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault:

“The purpose of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is to provide insurance against both incremental and catastrophic loss of crop diversity held in traditional seed banks around the world. The Seed Vault offers “fail-safe” protection for one of the most natural resources on earth.”

Currently, our world’s seeds are stored in a well locked tunnel on a quiet island of Norway. This vault is naturally cooled with freezing Arctic air and is surrounded by slowly melting icebergs. This construction is basically a safety deposit box for seed banks around the globe. For the “Cold Storage” installation each iceberg has been systematically created based on this vault.
Each of the icebergs are represented by a different continent. Each form is constructed with the countries from that particular region. The size of each country is based on the amount of seeds they donated to the vault. This changes the look and dominance of each country.
Two hundred and twenty countries store seeds at this vault and one wonders how these will be protected. If there is a global disaster will this single vault decide who has the most power? Could the country with the most seeds have supremacy? Of all the countries India would become the dominant authority; it holds over 45 million seeds at Svalbard. The second highest would be Mexico with 15 million. The smallest country is Equatorial Guinea with only 43 seeds.
A seed vault offers global insurance against disaster. Seeds are already disappearing and this vault should protect future generations. It seems like something from a science fiction novel, but this is our reality.