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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Category Archives: Art

Loading the Canon #15: Chihuly in the Desert

23 Thursday Jan 2014

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Loading the Canon #15 by Helena-Anne Hittel

Not Your Mom’s Garden Art!

Wait a second, I recognize that glasswork. Are we gonna do Chihuly AGAIN?

Yes. Yes we are.

A few weeks ago, I flew to Arizona with about 260 or so members of the Marching Knights for our performance at the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, where UCF became CHAMPIONS! Whatever time we didn’t spend either at rehearsals, in uniform, performing, or otherwise, we had a choice and three precious hours to spend. We could go to the Scottsdale Fashion Mall, the Musical Instrument Museum, or the Desert Botanical Garden. I had been reluctant to go to the gardens at first because of monetary reasons. I had a limited amount of per diem, after all. After a little more thought, though, this was an easy decision.

We have malls in Florida. Granted that Scottsdale was the size of three Millenias put together and I’d classify it as a good place to wander for a while, we’d be going there for lunch before we flew back to Orlando anyway. That was out. As for Option 2, I like instruments, and I like museums (DUH), but we were in the middle of Arizona. In the desert. The gardens were calling my name. There aren’t many cacti in Florida, I loved the climate out there (asthmatic lungs rejoice!), and really, how many other times would I be in Arizona? This was my second (last?) trip out there. While others complained and opted for the hotel or other venues (and I quote: “I don’t wanna go look at a cactus for three hours.”), I shelled out the $12 student admission fee and went in. It wasn’t until after I had done so that I realized that Dale Chihuly had installed art here, and that I’d be there to see it. So, I freaked out like a preteen girl at a Beiber concert throughout my time there. Armed with a dying iPhone that I’d forgotten to charge earlier, I took about 50 photos. Here is a sampling of said photos. I’m eternally thankful that Dale encourages photography. Put on some comfy shoes, Odysseans, we’re goin’ for a stroll.

Cacti

I waltzed right past this magnificent work of art on the way in and didn’t even notice it wasn’t a cactus.. This is merely one testament to Chihuly and his team’s amazing skill.

2013-12-31 13_29_11 2013-12-31 13_36_25 2013-12-31 13_55_55 2013-12-31 13_57_17 2013-12-31 13_58_16 2013-12-31 14_00_09 2013-12-31 14_29_02 2013-12-31 14_29_10

It all works so perfectly here. The colors of the glass, even the reeds that you can easily pick out from the actual plant life, look natural.

___________

Helena-Anne Hittel (Episode 35, essay) earned a B.A. in Art History at the University of Central Florida.

Gutter Space #19: The Art of Adaptation

18 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Art, Comic Books, Gutter Space

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Adaptations, cartooning, Franz Kafka, graphic novels, gutter space, leslie salas, Peter Kuper, Sequential art, The Metamorphosis

Gutter Space #19 by Leslie Salas

The Art of Adaptation:

Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis,

adapted by Peter Kuper

A topic which I was shocked to realize I hadn’t yet covered in Gutter Space is the art of adaptation of prose into works of sequential art. I’ve done a great deal of research on adaptations in general and their pedagogical benefits in various levels of schooling for improving visual literacy (or just plain literacy in general) and creating an excitement and love for reading—but what I’d like to focus on today is an artist’s reimagining of a classic novella. In this case, Peter Kuper’s take on Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.

The Metamorphosis

Part of my favorite aspects of reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis is the ambiguity involving Gregor’s condition. We know he is a bug—but what type, exactly? A dung beetle? A cockroach? What is it?

In Kuper’s adaptation, given it’s inherent visual element, he had to make a decision, and stick with it. Some of the magic of the mystery is lost, but in it’s place, we are granted a rich interpretation of Kafka’s haunting story.

Poor Gregor, stressed by work (and capitalism in general), wakes up late one day. He wakes up an discovers he has a problem.

Metamorphosis Page

He can’t roll out of bed. He can’t move very well. It’s hard to see. And suddenly he realizes—he’s turned into a bug.

But look! Rather than being stuck in Gregor’s head, we get much, much more. The period furniture, the wallpaper, the painting on the wall, Gregor’s suitcase of textiles on the dresser, the key in the door—it’s all there for us to see. Kuper’s art style is reminiscent of old woodcut etchings.

Although Gregor is clearly a very large bug, as established in the image above, Kuper nonetheless enjoys shifting the sizes of things based on perspective. When Gregor feels attacked, he becomes very small. His attacker, in the case of the example below, becomes magnified in size, all the more intimidating.

metamorphosis detail

The emanata by Gregor’s human-ish head—those little white lines—express Gregor’s surprise, and the emanata surrounding his body give the impression that he is shaking in fear. The negative space created by these lines is effective because of the rich darkness of the surroundings and the subjects of the panels—Gregor himself, and the boots coming to stomp him.

metamorphosis detail 2

Poor Gregor. Locked in his room.

We empathize with Gregor because he still embodies a recognizable form. Even though he is a bug, his posture and his facial expressions showcase what we understand as being sad or melancholy. Given the experience he’s been through, we sympathize. Have we all not been rejected at one point or another?

But there’s more to this. Look!—That’s Prague in the windowsill. Although it’s never expressly stated that The Metamorphosis takes place in Prague, there are enough references to the fog and the vague shapes of old buildings that many scholars have assumed the setting is in Kafka’s hometown. Looks like Kuper has done his homework, and made an artistic choice to yet again solidify what the original author simply alluded to.

Another interesting decision Kuper has made with his adaptation is his willingness to play with the presentation of text. In the sample below, the caption does not read in a standard prose format, but instead the sentences mosey around the borders of the panels, following Gregor about as he learns to utilize his new body.

metamorphosis page 2

Kuper’s interpretation of Kafka is an interesting one, and adds to the richness of our understanding of the original text. Check it out sometime, and let me know what you think.

___________

Leslie Salas (Photo by Ashley Inguanta)

Leslie Salas (episode 75) writes fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and comics. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida and attended the University of Denver Publishing Institute. In addition to being an Associate Course Director at Full Sail University, Leslie also serves as an assistant editor for The Florida Review, a graphic nonfiction editorial assistant for Sweet: A Literary Confection, and a regular contributing artist for SmokeLong Quarterly.

Loading the Canon #14: “Is There Really A Market For That?”

12 Thursday Dec 2013

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Loading the Canon #14 by Helena-Anne Hittel

“Is There Really A Market For That?”

UCF Commencement

Well, Drunken Odysseans, it’s almost here! I never thought I’d be saying this, but its tomorrow! 120 or so credit hours later, I’m finally going to experience it. That wonderful day of the semester degree-seekers cherish as much as a birthday or favorite holiday. Damn straight! It’s graduation season! Time for those of us walking to obsess over final grades, decide how we’ll decorate our mortarboards, check, double-check and triple-check out degree audits, fight for extra tickets for family members, and think about employment in our fields…or otherwise.

We have probably all heard this phrase at some point in time, especially after declaring our college majors. “Can you really get a job doing that?” Doctors, lawyers, engineers’ families rejoice. “Our little (insert name here) is gonna be so successful!” What would happen, though, if your little (name) declared an English major? Fine Arts? Music? Would you be as ecstatic and pledge your undying support of their decision to live happily ever after doing what they love, or would you inwardly cringe, hope they marry rich and wonder how the hell they’re going to pay the bills?

America today seems to spend all of their ripping on the Humanities majors. The ever- increasing want of STEM careers (STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine) has only made the Humanities look frivolous. Forbes published a list of The 10 Worst College Majors, stating the unemployment rates for undergrads and graduates alike. Lo and behold–all of these are humanities. English clocks in at #10, Fine Arts at #3, History at #9. You get the idea.

However, they’re not entirely useless majors. Forbes looks at just the numbers associated with these different fields, but they neglect to note the intellectual takeaway. Take, for example, a course of study in English. Whether you’ve studied literature or not, English is vital. Communication in English is critical. Study engineering or science, but there’s a fair amount of writing involved in most every discipline. Without language, there’s no transmission of ideas. Point: you can be an absolutely stellar STEM professional, but if you’re unable to effectively communicate research, what good will that degree really do you?

Another example (and one close to me), is art. Fine Art, art history, graphic art, all of the above and many more. Art, as I’ve explored in Loading the Canon #3, is not easy. There might not seem to be much of a market for the artist. Did that deter the young hopefuls with charcoal on their faces and wicked turpentine headaches? No way. As long as there is art, there will be artists. The same goes for Art History. No visible market, yet I spent 2 1/2 years in the same classroom taking notes and identifying artistic styles. This has made me an extremely organized person brain-wise (which is not so evident if you could see my closet). Artists make fantastic archivists because they know what goes into a work and what can break it down. Those of us fortunate enough to work in gallery settings are good at organizing tasks, cataloguing, communicating verbally, and thinking logistically.

So, when I declared an Art History major (I might fall into either History or Fine Arts here), I probably worried some people. I was lucky enough, at that time I declared, to have parents that understood me. We talked it through. Neither of them panicked or cringed or was secretly let down because Helena-Anne is really bad at math and has no fondness for the human body’s inner workings. I was given a pragmatic approach to my major. Instead of that awful phrase I’ve titled this work with, I got, “What would you like to do?” Thanks to the UCF Art Gallery, I know what I want to do. Even if I don’t end up in my field, so what? I’ve got skills that, thanks to my major and my gallery stint, will carry over and make me a marketable candidate for wherever I end up.

Besides, Calculus is overrated, anyway.

___________

Helena-Anne Hittel (Episode 35, essay) is an Art History Major at the University of Central Florida and Intern at the UCF Art Gallery.

Loading the Canon #13: I Was a Greek Goddess

14 Thursday Nov 2013

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Loading the Canon #13 by Helena-Anne Hittel

I Was a Greek Goddess

You’ve noticed it. It’s impossible to ignore. The magazines, the TV commercials-it’s everywhere. Skinny women and guys with rippling pectorals. We’re made to believe that this is what we should aspire to be. THIS is what you want.

Well, not way back when, it wasn’t.

Okay, so I may have lied to you a bit. The aggressively athletic male torso has been “the thing” since BC. The Egyptians were notorious for this in their art, which has been almost entirely consistent for millennia

pharoah

(excepting that crazy period when then-pharaoh Akhenaton moved everything to Tel-el-Amarna and introduced the principal of Ma’at, or truth, into the way he’s represented for posterity). The pharaoh, after all, was an all-powerful figure in Egypt. He was almost a god. The thought, then, was that he ought to be carved into stone or painted on walls as muscular and powerful. The women, by contrast, were made soft and curvy.

Egyptian Sculpture

Today’s Victoria’s Secret Angels would have sincerely worried them.

VS Wings

How was she ever going to survive childbirth?

The Greeks latched on to these ideas soon after. The athletic male developed in kouroi (free-standing nude male statues) from the Archaic period to Hellenistic. Fast-forward to Polykleitos in the High Classical period, and his über-famous Doryphoros (“spear-bearer”).

Doryphoros

Myron’s Diskobolos (“disc-thrower”),

Diskobolos

and Lysippos’ Apoxyomenos (“the scraper,”),

Apoxyomenos

all of those represented-even the gods-were idealized. Spear-bearer, in fact, was so loved, the Romans coped him and all of his friends into marble. They’re the only extant copies we have of this statuary, as most Greek originals were bronze (these were melted down for weapons later). We stumble upon our Spear-bearer later on in a palaestrum (a gymnasium, essentially. No more complicated words, I promise) in Pompeii. It’s like pictures of bodybuilders at Gold’s Gym. This was not only decoration, but an aspirational tool.

Women, however, are a bit more complicated.

The ancient female ideal, as mentioned earlier, was curvy. Large hips and rounded shapes meant that you could have all the babies you wanted and live to tell the tale. Evidence: the Aphrodite of Knidos.

Aphrodite of Knidos

There are no flattened abs or muscled legs, no dramatic cinches in the waist, and no “thigh gap” (talkin’ to you, “thinspiration” people). Here was a goddess personified and almost human, preparing for a bath.

Peter Paul Rubens’ women were another story. This was voluptuous on a whole other level. His Three Graces

Rubens_Peter_Paul-The_Three_Graces

and the portrait of his second wife, Hélène Fourment,

Helena Fourment in a fur wrap

are good examples of this. He did not idealize the women in his art because he saw no need to. This is where we get the term “Rubenesque.”

Then came the rise in popularity of the corset. This changes EVERYTHING for the female in art from 16th century Europe. Waists were cinched to within an inch of their lives, compressing bones and organs and making breathing difficult (medical diagrams of this fashion fad are scary).

The Harmful Effects of the Corset, illustration from 'La Vie Normale et la Sante' by Dr Jules Rengade (b.1841) c.1880 (colour litho)

Every woman of status wore a corset.

In the late 19th century, pen-and-ink illustrator Charles Dana Gibson created what came to be known as his “Gibson Girls,” combining the voluptuous woman with the fragile one. One’s curves, bust line and hips and the other’s slender lines and respectability bore the illustrations that created a standard image of the American girl.

Gibson_Girls_seaside

The point, then, is this. Fashions change. Ideals change. This is just an extremely cursory glance at beauty standards in the Western tradition, and already we see the male shape bulking up and the female shape slimming down as the years progress. There’s a huge constancy, one could argue, in the male ideal, but a fluctuation on the feminine side of things.

What was important to a man-that he appear powerful, athletic, capable and strong still seems to stick today. The child-supporting curves that made up what was important in a woman, however, did not. This is not your friendly, neighborhood art historian telling you that you are ugly because you don’t look like today’s superstickskinny tan girls and aggressively muscled men. This is merely an examination of how we must have gotten to these “ideals”. I’ve now put this word into quotations. Why? Because what one person considers art isn’t going to be the same as another’s preferences.!

ART IS SUBJECTIVE. It is human expression and a living timeline. “Here today, gone tomorrow” has never been a truer way to describe it.

___________

Helena-Anne Hittel (Episode 35, essay) is an Art History Major at the University of Central Florida and Intern at the UCF Art Gallery.

Loading the Canon #12: Ars Moriendi

31 Thursday Oct 2013

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Loading the Canon #12 by Helena-Anne Hittel

Ars Moriendi: The Art of Dying

Happy Halloween, Drunken Odysseans! Loading the Canon is taking a deathly turn today, as I examine all things… well, slightly morbid, actually.

Ars Moriendi

People have been making offerings to the dead since time began. They can be things as small as a few flowers to entire terra-cotta armies to protect you in the afterlife. Art historians love grave goods, because they say so much about a culture. Markers, tombs, statuary, pottery all seem to point towards an afterlife. The ancient Egyptians, for example, had some of the most lavishly given gifts buried with them (if you were of a certain station).

When given the words “ancient Egypt,” terms like “mummy”, “pharaoh”, “pyramid” and “sarcophagus” usually aren’t far behind (fun fact: sarcophagus translates to “flesh eater”). It’s true. The ancient Egyptians had, perhaps, one of the most recognizable burial cultures in the world. They were known for the preservation of bodies through mummification, gold funeral masks, colorful sarcophagi, and, of course, constructing giant pyramidal tombs to mark the graves of their pharaohs. The most recognizable (and intact!) of these is the Tomb of Tutankhamun, discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter and George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. This tomb, in particular, contained over 5,000 ritual and funerary objects, all of which are in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Tut mask

The Greeks were well-known for their temple complexes, statuary, and pottery. Certainly the pottery. Vessels were used as household items, trade goods, grave goods, urns and grave markers. The Dipylon Cemetery in Athens, for example, contains graves from as early as 1200 BC to the Hellenistic Period. Many of these graves were marked with various large-scale decorative pottery. Different shapes also noted who was buried beneath each one. A krater, which is a large vessel out of which wine is served, was commonly used at symposia and therefore associated with men. Thus, this would most likely mark a man’s grave. Vessels such as a lutrophoros (literally, “Carrier of Washing Water”) were used fro a bridal bath before weddings, and would mark the grave of an unmarried woman.

Krater

The ancient Etruscans, predating the Roman civilization, had a similar idea as to what to put into a tomb. This idea, however, was made completely robber-proof. The Egyptian tombs held such expensive gifts and were so ostentatious, they basically waved a flag and called out, “Come loot me!” The Etruscans remedied this situation by carving all the objects they thought their loved ones would need, in relief, in the walls of the tomb at Cerveteri. Rob me now, sucker! I dare ya.

Etruscan

Fast forward to the Late Middle Ages. It wasn’t a “Dark Age”, and it probably wasn’t a bad time to be alive. It was just a short time. Religion was one of the most important things back then, and your faith dictated where you would go and what would happen to you. In 1415, a Dominican friar sought to make passing a little bit easier for the masses with the Ars Moriendi (roughly translated from the Latin as “The Art of Dying”). This text was a book of prayers written for the dead and dying and was published in two versions, with the shorter, more condensed version easily accessible by many. These were printed in black and white, but there were also hand-colored “deluxe” versions, if you could spare the expense. These books contained mostly illustrations for the illiterate masses, and could be read to you in Latin by a cleric.

Nobody really wants to die. I definitely don’t, but it’s like taxes: you really can’t avoid it. (Well, you can avoid taxes. It’s just recommended that you don’t.) The ancients knew this, too, but like today, they made cultural offerings to those they mourned. That way, when you woke up in your afterlife, you knew you were loved and it would be business as usual.

___________

Helena-Anne Hittel (Episode 35, essay) is an Art History Major at the University of Central Florida and Intern at the UCF Art Gallery.

Loading the Canon #11: Return of Third Thursdays

24 Thursday Oct 2013

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Loading the Canon #11 by Helena-Anne Hittel

Return of Third Thursdays: By Design

Thursday’s offering at the Gallery at Avalon Island is both aesthetically pleasing and architecturally sound.

October 17th was the Downtown Arts District’s monthly gallery hop, Third Thursdays. If you didn’t attend this one, you’ve missed out. The Gallery at Avalon Island’s Patrick Greene curated a knockout show, composed of nine artists with various studios (all over Florida). The concept was one of pure design and composition. These artists focused on the line and structure in their artwork, how the materials interacted with each other, and the use of new and innovative materials and forms of art.

For instance, let’s look at the art of Henning Haupt. Mr. Haupt is a painter and professor of architecture at Florida Atlantic University. A few of his “Blind Drawings” were featured in this show. These might not look like thoughtful studies of line and plane at first. However, get a bit closer, and it’s easy to see. Haupt’s works, done in oil paint and crayon and drawn with his eyes closed, explore the division of space and the different ways in which it can be divided. His titles explain his intentions, too-there’s no room for confusion in “Verticals alternating Density and Width—Green, 2012.” Haupt’s works are both structured and free-form.

Another artist also explored division. Rachel Wronowski’s shadowboxes exhibit an almost stained glass-like quality, from the angular lines and compositions to the rich, bright colors. It’s like a Tiffany lamp in a little black box. Wronowski’s works pack all the color and plenty of backbone into small, visually-pleasing doses.

Art, though, comes in many forms, some even wearable. Case in point, Iris Ledesma’s structural and stylish jewelry. Her works feature leather and metal constructions. One leather piece in specific, a bib necklace, strives to work with the look of the female form. From her website: “This design family ventures to combine modern day stylings with a subtle flair of antiquity. The combination of hand worked, riveted leathers and concentric geometric design lends itself to an elegant accent line sure to accentuate the female lines.”

Art and design are one and the same. It’s nothing without composition. The materials it’s made of and the ways that they’re used are the basic components of the greatest works hanging in every museum. Those in The Gallery at Avalon Island are no different. From paintings done with a palette knife to the use of hibiscus and red wine as artistic mediums, art is rapidly evolving. It all starts with design

___________

Helena-Anne Hittel (Episode 35, essay) is an Art History Major at the University of Central Florida and Intern at the UCF Art Gallery.

Loading the Canon #10: Wrapping it Up

17 Thursday Oct 2013

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Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Helena-Anne Hittel, Loading the Canon

Loading the Canon #10 by Helena-Anne Hittel

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Wrapping it Up

When you wrap things in fabric, they sometimes look more interesting. The essential shape of the object is more visible. Look at things this way. If you were to wrap a rock face in fabric, you’d see so much more. You could see the sharp points and the sheer drops and the overall shape of a coastline so much clearer under 1,000,000 square feet of grey fabric. Christo and Jeanne-Claude realized this, so, in 1968-69, they wrapped the coast of Little Bay, Australia.

Environmental artist couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude have collaborated on various projects since 1961, until Jeanne-Claude’s death in 2009. The team is perhaps most well-known for their wrapping of islands in Biscayne Bay, Florida, the Reichstag building in Germany, and Running Fence in California. This, however, is merely a small sampling of their projects.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-76, Photo: Wolfgang Volz © 1976 Christo

In 1983, Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped 11 islands in Biscayne Bay in hot pink fabric and called it Surrounded Islands. Though small in size, wrapping one is a daring undertaking on its own, let alone 11. With the help of 430 workers, the project was realized and on display for two weeks. I loved these images when I saw them. If you were to eliminate the fabric, the islands are a bit dark, even with a small spit of sand to outline it. Christo and Jeanne-Claude have essentially taken a bright pink highlighter and outlined these islands, showing everyone in the Miami area what these islands actually look like.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida, 1980-83, Photo: Wolfgang Volz © 1983 Christo

In 1995, 12 years after their Surrounded Islands, the duo wrapped the Reichstag Building in Germany. This required over 1,076,390 square feet of fabric and took the work of 90 professional climbers and 120 installation workers. Even though the entire structure was essentially encased in fabric, the project still allowed for the building’s original use. This not only gave the viewing audience something new to look at, and left a little room for the imagination. After all, when all you can see is draped in fabric, there could be anything underneath.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95, Photo: Wolfgang Volz © 1995 Christo

Running Fence happened before both of the aforementioned projects in 1976. Spanning 24 1⁄2 miles across California, the project took 2,152,780 square feet of nylon fabric and 42 months to realize. That said, this project remained for two weeks, and upon dismantling, all materials were given to the ranchers whose lands were used. Both rural and urban lands were used. This fence not only gave you the topography of California, it also seemed to serve as social commentary, visually and almost figuratively restricting the cities by way of the roadways it traversed (even though the roadways still allowed use). In this project, Christo brought together two different communities while also maintaining this separation.

Even after Jeanne-Claude’s death, Christo is still at work on Over the River, a project originally conceived in 1992. His latest endeavor is to suspend translucent, silvery fabric about 25 feet over 8 specific sections of the Arkansas River in Colorado. Visitors can see this project from cars, busses, and boats on the river itself. He’s not exactly wrapping the river here, but by covering it, he will create the same effect.

Over the River (Project for Arkansas River, State of Colorado) Drawing 2010 , 13 7/8 x 15 1/4″ (35.2 x 38.7 cm) , Pencil, pastel, charcoal and wax crayon , Photo: André Grossmann © 2010 Christo

If you were to wrap yourself in a blanket, you’d still see your shape underneath. What inspired Henry Moore in the air raid shelters of Britain inspired the environmental arts created by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, on a monumental scale.

___________

Helena-Anne Hittel (Episode 35, essay) is an Art History Major at the University of Central Florida and Intern at the UCF Art Gallery.

Loading the Canon#7: A Blast from the Past at Avalon Island

26 Thursday Sep 2013

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Loading the Canon#7 by Helena-Anne Hittel

A Blast from the Past at Avalon Island

I recently attended Third Thursdays, an art walk and gallery hop taking place every third Thursday of the month in Downtown Orlando. This is a great opportunity for local artists to showcase their works. I met the curator of one such gallery in this event, The Gallery at Avalon Island, and I had the opportunity to look around at their current show, featuring works from past UCF MFA shows.

One of the first works I noticed had actually hung in UCF’s BFA Show last semester. The works were done by a student named Alesha Hassard. I had liked these paintings a lot the first time I saw them, because they reminded me of my childhood and the Beanie Babies I collected (and yes, I had quite a few). Seeing them again reminded me how much I liked them. I loved the way Alesha used them in her works, but moreover, I loved her crisp, modeled style of painting. The lines she used were sharp and the shapes defined, but they looked as rounded and soft as they would in actuality. The realism was amazing. I even got to meet the artist herself.

A lot of the other works I didn’t know as well. As an art historian, one of the things I live for is the feeling of seeing something new and surprising. A set of prints, for instance, combined pithy titles and creative imagery-for instance, a piece titled “Broken Spirits” featured a broken bottle of alcohol with a ghost drifting out of it. I’m sure the joke isn’t lost on any of you here at The Drunken Odyssey. Another featured origami butterflies–hundreds of them!–pinned into shadowboxes and a large wooden kimono shaped form. The patience this had to have taken is almost inhuman to me.

There were many works I liked, and given the money and the opportunity, I would have bought a few pieces (the money and the opportunity go hand-in-hand here). It wasn’t just the art, though. I had never been to the Gallery at Avalon Island before, and the environment brought everything to life for me. It was a very personable place to be.

___________

Helena-Anne Hittel (Episode 35, essay) is an Art History Major at the University of Central Florida and Intern at the UCF Art Gallery.

Loading the Canon #6: Jamali

19 Thursday Sep 2013

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Loading the Canon #6 by Helena Anne-Hittel

Jamali

He’s brilliant, with an MFA from the University of Florida in painting and sculpture, an MA in Advanced Economics, and Faculties of Science in Chemistry and physics. He’s a visionary, contributing to the art world with his mystical expressionism. Best of all, he lives in your backyard–if you live in or near Winter Park, Florida, that is.

Jamali, or Faiz Aqdas Hussain Khanjamali Yousafzai, was born in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1944. He graduated from the University of Peshawar with a Bachelor’s in physics, then moved to the United states where he studied painting. He received a Bachelor’s in Sculpture and a Master’s in Fine Arts in painting from the University of Florida. His sales amount to over $35 million, and he has created over 60,000 works in his collection Art and Peace. Jamali has had 100 solo exhibits, published 8 catalogs and 600 pages of work, and his art is in over 3500 private collections, including the UCF Art Gallery. And, if that wasn’t enough, he’s got facilities in New York, Denmark, and (of course) Central Florida.

Mystical expressionism, according to Jamali’s website, is a blend of ancient artistic tradition and contemporary consciousness. His gestural techniques call back to Jackson Pollock’s action painting. Looking at his oil works, you can see where it fits in. The layers of his paint are thick and uneven, but that’s part of what makes his work interesting.

Jamali has amassed quite a collection of figural oils, pastels and sculptures, mostly human faces. There’s a bit of a familiarity about them, in color and in appearance. They look a bit, to me, like an echo of Willem de Kooning’s Woman, but with crisper lines and a more defined shape. His works look like something you’ve seen before, but there’s something about them that you don’t recognize. What is that face in the canvas? Is it you? Jamali? Or simply a face? Some of them look as though they’re looking over at something. Or that they know something you don’t know. They probably won’t look at you as you pass…but you never know.

Now that you’re sufficiently freaked out, you’re probably wondering why a man with so many degrees in science decided to follow a career in the arts. His spiritual background is a rich one, comprising of bits of Hinduism, Shamanism, Sufism and Buddhism, which he strove to express in art over thirty years ago. Ever since then, he’s used both his scientific and spiritual sides in his art. Not only has this made his works more interesting-his work on cork, for instance, a substance which at once absorbs and resists the pigment placed on it-his works are made using a spiritual approach. Painting is his meditation. He uses the outdoors to inspire and even interact with his works. So, a little dirt got into his painting, or a few leaves. Even better! Jamali lets his surroundings help him create his art.

Jamali’s works are at once undeniably original and strangely familiar.

___________

Helena-Anne Hittel (Episode 35, essay) is an Art History Major at the University of Central Florida and Intern at the UCF Art Gallery.

Loading the Canon #5: Sensing the Artist

12 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Art, Loading the Canon

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Dalí, Helena-Anne Hittel, Loading the Canon, Magritte, Van Gogh

Loading the Canon #5 by Helena-Anne Hittel

Sensing the Artist

I’m an art historian. I study art. I am expected to know what the work is called, what it is made of, who made it, when they made it, and (depending on the professor) maybe even the dimensions of said work. In short, if it still exists, there’s a good chance that I may have studied it. I haven’t seen everything, and I never will, but every class, I’m confronted over and over by the same feeling: this art on the screen in the lecture hall actually exists.

I’m currently taking a class about Greek Art and Architecture. We recently looked at a tomb known as the Treasury of Atreus near the ancient Bronze Age site of Mycenae. This tholos, or circular, tomb was built some time between 1300 and 1250 BC, is (according to my notes) 43 feet high, 48 feet in diameter, and made of stone blocks. The resulting monument was then covered in dirt. It amazes me how these ancient Mycenaeans were able to construct this. In Bronze Age Greece. Without the use of cranes and backhoes and all of our modern construction machinery. There wasn’t even any mortar used in the construction of this building, and yet, it has stood the test of time (see also: the Pyramids of Giza).

Sometimes, as the spectator, we tend to take art for granted. It hangs on the wall in a gallery, and it’s nice to go in and look at it for a while, but we forget that the name on the label next to the artwork belongs to an artist. In the cases of well-known artists such as Van Gogh, Dalí, and Magritte to name a few, their works are reproduced and used so often and in so many places that Starry Night fails to impress. The Persistence of Memory no longer gives you goosebumps, and Ceci n’est pas une pipe just isn’t as pithy anymore.

Allow me to remind you: the image on your calendar, coffee mug, tee shirt, or whatever is more than just that. The copy of Starry Night that you see is a copy of an original painted by a man named Vincent Van Gogh in 1889. Meaning, this man was alive to create this image. He drew breath (however briefly, poor Vincent) in front of this canvas. He mixed his paint this way and applied it that way to get this effect, and though it wasn’t popular during his lifetime, look at all the attention it’s getting now. It’s aesthetically pleasing, yes, but the real one is in the Museum of Modern Art. You could reach out and touch it (God help you if you do), and know that paint that you touched was put there by Van Gogh himself.

Woah.

Whenever you look at a work of art, remember this: the artist was, or is, alive. A living, breathing human being painted/sculpted/designed this work. It’s not just the image on a calendar or a mousepad. The Treasury of Atreus is not just a round building made of stones. The White House did not spring up out of the ground to be the home of the most powerful person in the nation. Someone had to put it there first.

___________

Helena-Anne Hittel (Episode 35, essay) is an Art History Major at the University of Central Florida and Intern at the UCF Art Gallery.

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