Monday, December 3, 2012

Words, Words, Words

Hello everyone, So I have had a moment to breath this weekend from grad school, and took that up with making X-mas gifts for the family. I finally passed my reclassification meeting, so I am now "officially" a graduate student at the U of O. I thought I'd share some words, ones in which I wrote for this specific meeting. This statement outlines where I was, where I am now, and where I want to be: In my first year at the graduate program at the University of Oregon, my skill set, practice, material selection, and research focused on the realm of soft sculpture, addressing themes of loss, memory, and displacement. I explored sewing various 2D and 3D objects such as, a to scale upright piano as a memento mori to a home I had previously lived, that was on its way to decimation, a suitcase full of fabric band-aids as a metaphor to my displacement and transitional state, carrying band-aids as a signifier for healing and repairing my various wounds of heartbreak and longing, and a large quantity of college ruled loose leaf paper in which I sewed in my own poetic fragments, utilizing repetition in its infinite form and allusion of reality. I discovered my relationship with fabric, using it as evidence of a past, a process of remembering and repetition, a material of portability and cultural memory. I explore personal narrative connected with heartbreak, loss, and displacement. I mine personal memories to create work with a widespread understanding, such as dislocation of home and the relocation that prevails, the ending of a short term or long term romantic relationship, the death of a family member or someone close to you. I use short, poetic fragments of text to direct the narrative, to draw upon a moment in the story, similar to the climax in a song where the music becomes concentrated in a powerful and all encompassing force. I read and research text that resonates with my own past from sources such as poetry, graphic novels, and nonfiction, and with these influences formulate my own fragmented language. I incorporate the text in a multitude of ways, such as painting the text in the installation space, sewing words onto fabric sculptures, using string pinned to the wall to form words, and speaking them in a performance. I'm exploring various ways in which I can transform the same text from one medium to another such as an installation I created for the Laverne Krauss gallery, where I reconstructed a comic I drew into an installation space. I set up the space with three dimensional objects coming out of the wall, such as a paper telephone and suitcase, and drawings on the wall of suitcases and domestic furniture, to create a fictitious reality, insinuating that the remains of the comic were still intact. I constructed a telephone cord out of fabric that performed as a messenger, moving the viewer from each segment of the text, similar to the gutters or white margins in the standard format of comics. Although this allowed for an immersive, sensory experience, I wanted to transition into a format that provided more emotional heft.. With this intent, I drew and printed a moving narratological image, thinking similarly in to the structure of a cinematic reel, stage theatrics, and forms of puppetry. The piece allowed me to verbalize the text to an audience, and as I turned the dowels, the image moving from frame to frame in a 4X2 inch window, I discovered, an intimacy and vulnerability between viewer and performer. The performance made references to story telling, one of the earliest forms of communication and a way we culturally channel events in words, images, and sounds. This one on one interaction set the viewer up for ultimate heartbreak.This piece stands as a mock-up for further investigation. Questions and ideas I am continuing in examining are methodologies in structuring a narrative, a further investigation in earlier forms of animation in providing an intimate environment that will lend itself to moments of vulnerability and heartbreak, creating a language that will discern to the masses, fragmentation, abstraction, and distortion in imagery within the makeup and process of remembering, collaging imagery of the real and imagined. How can I further investigate and convey the point or shift at which we move from spectator to subject of a story, and what can be discovered between fragmenting a narrative and filling in the gaps? And there you have it. Thought I should give some dialogue as to where I am headed with my work. I will be posting photos within the next week or so of the work I completed this fall. Thanks for reading. Sam

Monday, November 12, 2012

Hey Everyone, I received the SnippetFact sewing award! Check it out! sewing facts"> Thanks SnippetFact!

Friday, October 5, 2012

and more

Installation

This is a recent installation I did in the Laverne Krauss Gallery at University of Oregon for the second year grad show titled "There are currently no animals in this exhibit", with this work I experimented with drawing on the wall, going back and forth between 2D and 3D, fiction and nonfiction. This installation was based off of a comic I wrote over the summer, sort of wanted to create a comic you could walk in and out of. The telephone cord running through out the piece correlates to the gutters or the white borders in between panels on comics, connecting the text and imagery. The imagery reads, "A powder blue telephone, took hold of me, to a deserted past (on the cake, LOVE PUNS), I had forgotten long ago."

Suitcase

Here are some photos of a suitcase I made last term filled with fabric band-aids. It took a while to get some worthy photo's to post for this one, now that I'm back in school, I'm on a professional role! This girl aint stoppin any time soon!

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Felting

Today, I learned how to felt using sheep's wool on a drum, tomorrow I will be doing needle felting, with more photos.

Monday, July 16, 2012

And lastly for this sunny Monday...

"We drifted, and dripped, into summers left hip."

Comics (3)

"The peaks past, in morning dew. Fishing hooks, catching band-aids, from our troubled wounds."

More Comics part deuce

And another comic: "With these arms, I will swim, through the thicket, of labor, and loss."

MORE COMICS

Hey all here are some more comics for you to enjoy. I am posting this one separately because it is one comic just on two different pieces of paper. "You cant hold water, Somethings are just too massive for any control. Lying on the warm concrete, the mosquitos come for lunch, glasses of lake water, and blood sandwiches. Bruises in the sun, catching the bluebellies, in the sweat of summer." Happy summer everyone!

Sunday, July 1, 2012

My first comic strip!

Thursday, June 28, 2012

A new project I'm working on this summer, taking a break from fabric and getting into drawing again. The text reads as follows: Crusade for Crust by Samco Comics and musings in relation and praise to all things concerning the channeling and unearthing of crust: the shell, the skin, the scab, in order to reveal veracity and empathy magnanimously.

Friday, June 1, 2012

and more photos

Washburn Exhibit

Hey all, It's been a pretty long time since I've posted some new work. Here is an installation I did this week. I named the title "Meteor, Make Me Young." Lyrics to a Hop Along song that had really resonated with me upon hearing it. I usually use my own text/words in titles but this one fit too perfectly for the meaning behind the work. The materials consist of: Astro-turf, contact paper, spray paint, fabric, thread, fishing poles, glow sticks,bedsheets, light bulbs, and glow in the dark silkscreening ink. I am beginning to experiment with new materials in my work (but don't worry, fabric is still my one and only love). This installation was the first step into a new realm of working and I'm looking forward to the summer to experiment for next year's body of work. Happy summer everyone, I'm sweating my pits off already!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Paper





I'm continuing with the loose leaf paper, eventually will move onto yellow (once I figure out dyeing), and other sorts of paper. These are some shots of an installation I did in the LaVerne Krause gallery at the University of Oregon. All machine sewn.