Photo story ~ jennifer modica

It's Already Tuesday

Hi All,

This week has all the benefits and shortcomings of a holiday week.  On the one hand, most people around me talk about how wonderful it is that it's already Tuesday, but I really make an attempt to live my life minute to minute, second to second, so being surrounded by people that think it's wonderful that time is passing FASTER frustrates me.  I want time to be slower.  I want to live Monday again.  I want it to be Tuesday forever.

With that in mind, I spent the day cutting mat board.  I started a new shape and did a lot of copper etching, but nothing final, so no photos tonight.

Well, ok here is one of me working because someone once told me that when teaching online classes, students want to know what you loo like:

I cannot wait to see your photo assignments and read your final papers!

Monika

Altered Drawing Using Jennifer's Items and Drawing

By Nabieha Miqbel

More News From Nowhere

Hi all,

I hope all of you are having a great memorial day, full of family and bbq and really nice nectar.

I have finally recovered from my trip to New York City on Saturday and am ready to report.

Let's start with the most important part of the trip...the coffee.  Now, I don't want to offend anyone, but Starbucks is not my preferred cup of joe, so when I'm in a big city, I'm looking for the PERFECT cup of coffee, because once I find that, my day is pretty much set.  So, I headed to Cafe Grumpy in Chelsea (the main gallery district of NYC) and got a cappuccino.  This was so good, I could almost convince myself it never happened, except that I have this photo:

Being a total snooty coffee snob (and proud of it), I would say this rivaled the cappuccino's I drank daily while living in Rome a couple years ago.  One of the keys to a good cappuccino for me is that the transition between the steamy milk and espresso should be seamless on your tongue, not jarring and this went down like, well like nothing else.  That's the other key to a good cappuccino:  there are no words, there may be sounds, but that would be a bit embarrassing.  

Cafe Grumpy also didn't disappoint in the art category.  The walls were lined with these really curious portraits that were made of thread.  It was the perfect atmosphere.  Here is a photo of those portraits:

Sufficiently caffeinated, I headed over to the galleries.  Now a lot happened to be closed due to the holiday today, but I did see these amazing colorful digital prints:

I am normally not a sucker for landscape painting, but these huge landscapes did it for me.  I think it was because the artist found this beautiful balance between revealing and concealing.  These weren't about the landscape as much as they were about painting the landscape.  I loved them.  I also loved how the artist negotiated the composition.  Some of his compositions were open, and appeared to extend into the viewers space and other compositions would have this large horizontal line at the bottom that really blocked the viewer out of the space.  It was wonderful.

And I also ventured into the Marlborough gallery, where I saw this exhibit of contemporary Cuban art, which was wonderful.  I loved these huge, rough drawings on canvas.  They were really emotional in a way.  The artist used these certain, broad marks on the canvas.  It was exactly the kind of drawing I love:

This exhibit also had several interactive sculptures, where the viewers could crank something or touch a part and make the piece move:

And then there was some really nice Greek food, Koreatown, Brooklyn, Soho, and a whole lot of walking with an evening and following day of much deserved rest.

I will edit this post eventually with the names of the artists, but for now, you get the idea....

I hope your final projects are coming along splendidly!

Monika

Color color color!

Hi All,

I lied and here I am posting in the morning...GOOD MORNING!

I just found this color experiment that I has to share.

When I teach color, the mantra I repeat over and over again is: Color is relative to the color surrounding it.  So, if you are not happy with a color in your piece of art, think about changing the colors around it.

You MUST go to this link:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/24/the-blue-and-the-green/

Now off to NYC!

Have a great day.

Monika

Update

Hi All,

Well, my search for the perfect pizza slice might just be over because I just went out for pizza in Rosendale and it was great, but I still have many many adventures that await me in New York City tomorrow.  I leave at 9 am for NYC and will not be back in Rosendale until 11 pm.  Although this time in Rosendale has been really important in getting work done, I must admit that I am looking forward to getting away for a day.

By no, you should be aware that I uploaded the final assignment to SAKAI, as well as the exhibit review that you have to do.  Please let me know if you have any questions on these assignments.

Here are some photos of what I have been working on:

Today I woke up and was (quite frankly) a bit tired of the printmaking grind, so I spent the morning drawing birds in my sketchbook.  I am not sure why I really wanted to draw birds, but I had a really great time doing it.  Here is one example of a drawing I made:

I also worked on my etching, which is the project I proposed to complete during my residency.  I proposed to do these etchings based on the Slavic tale of the Baba Jaga, who is this witch that appears in a lot of Slavic folklore.  She is super scary and lives in a house that moves around on chicken legs.  Here is my etching of her house.  I still have to making it darker, but I really like where it is going:

And, of course, I am continuing my abstract work, which is something it seems I cannot live without these days:

This isn't the best photo, but I cannot put this print on a wall yet to photograph it because it is wet.

I hope all of you are doing well.  I will probably not blog tomorrow because of my trip, but I will tell you all about it when I get back.

Also, check out what Jess did with Nabieha's drawing.  She took a 2D object and transformed it into a 3D object.  That's pretty impressive!

Monika

Altered Drawing

Jessica