Art Education and Artist's Statement

I studied art. I make art. I teach art. This semester, I enrolled in the newly founded art education program at the Kansas City Art Institute, in order to bring those interrelated disciplines together - in my life and in my mind.

So far, I am loving my first course - the theories, the history, the looking into myself and reflecting on what art and teaching art mean to me. Despite my enjoyment of being back in the classroom as a student, I have a lot less free time nowadays. Maybe that will help me become more organized, so I can keep track of everything I have going on?

We were recently assigned to bring our artist's statements to class. I revamped mine a bit before turning it in, and I would like to share it here:

                                                                                                                          Swoop and Stream, 2012. Digital photography.

“When we consider the movement of form in space over a certain time, we are entering the realm of geometry and mathematics in the same way as when we construct a machine.”

                                                                                                                                 -  Marcel Duchamp, concerning “Nude Descending a Staircase”

Time. Motion. Repetition. Addition.

I repeat. I make by employing repetitive processes, such as knotting, tearing, piling, picking, purging. Repetitive bodily gestures, actions and movements send me on an intimate tour of myself and my surroundings. These motions transport me beyond the confines of my own body. Or, rather, they redefine or extend its boundaries. I become fused with the materials within, on and around me.

Where does self end and other begin? What is mine to manipulate? I consciously explore the connection between bodily repetition and creation, motion and ecstasy/disengagement. I am fascinated by the genesis of intelligence. Abiding by specific rules can result in an entity that is more than the result of its instructions*.

My art acts as metaphor, not simply (simple) geometry. Through non-rational, or inexact, repetition (spiral not circular) people may rail against the discontinuous, nonsensical nature of existence.

***

People rarely see or have seen without some sort of additive implement (in other words, tool). Even the use of a pencil reshapes the human body, its desires, functions and ways of interacting with the self and other. Human interaction with machines, then, also re-purposes human boundaries – it alters the ways in which humans experience.

Sight remains impoverished without lights to see by. Tools light the night skies. Now machines have taken on new mutations. They can learn from humans and one another, act autonomously, read emotions, give the semblance of humanity and intelligence, and are otherwise self-evolving.

If a gaze could be based upon the simulation, mediation, connectivity and artifice these new machines exercise, then it would belong to a cyborg.

According to Donna J. Haraway, a cyborg is “a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality/lived experience as well as a creature of fiction.” (Haraway, Donna J. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. Print.) Humans possess a bionic gaze, which is a way of knowing the world through electronic, mechanical, digital and other enhancements.

Because of the technology we have invented and to which we have access, the bionic gaze is entirely plausible and definitely employed. So, we are hybrids of man and machine. We are synthetic communications systems; our bodies have become virtually re-crafted. We have been entranced by the exchange of intelligence.

Enhancement, though, does not mean we are privy to the right information – just different sets of information.

*Sometimes, it just makes a mess.

My goal is to set up an art/art education website. A personal website is LONG overdue. I will definitely report back when it is in working order and fit to be seen.

Alison :)

Experiments in Light & Motion

 

When I showed my brother these photographs, he asked me if I had ever looked at light drawings (or camera paintings). I had not, but now I have. This type of experimentation is quite old, although I discovered it independently through play and thought. As much as I wish I had originated this way of working, I did not.

 

That does not negate the experiment nor falsify its results. When I started working this way, I was thinking about the camera - how it allows light in over time and how the motion of the camera can distort light. Light can be smeared or dragged or pushed or pulled along with the the camera as it moves through space and time.

 

The camera was attached to my hand. It became an extension of my body, like any other hand tool. While working this way, I thought of the camera as a pencil or a paintbrush, and even as a hammer or a saw.

 

The light was the lead or the paint, the nail or the board. This is not a new analogy, but I came to it on my own through an interest in tool use, repetitive motion and mark making.

 

I slid my camera from side to side, I pushed it and pulled it, I wove it in and out of space, and I traced invisible patterns in the air. I even whirled like a dervish, and felt just as inspired.

 

I couldn't or I wouldn't sleep, as I considered new riffs - how a little more time and little less light might change the results of an unvaried movement; how a slight variation in my repetitious path might affect an unaltered exposure to light and time.

Each result led to the next set of parameters, a new Eureka!

 

I found scratches and smoke and squiggles and lines, even atmosphere and emotion or a digital reality.

 

Light filtered by by space and time, impressions made by hand with the assistance of a sighted machine. A pseudo-science made sincere through rules and regulations, computations and escalations.

 

If this, then that - not nearly as predictable as anticipated.

 

 I am excited to make marks using the camera as my drawing tool, an extended emotive roving eye taking in light and pacing through time. I may at some point reverse roles and draw with light onto the still canvas of the camera lens. 

 

As long as my body in motion is part of the process, I am willing to attempt the reverse - use light as a pen and time as a penetrable plane.  

What types of creative experimentation have you engaged in lately? Have you modified or developed a recipe? Have you written a story in a nontraditional format? What have you done to allow the epiphanies to flow and let the mind take you where it wants?

Alison :)

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

You thought I was gonna say Rawhide, right? Nope, not tonight. Instead, I have been thinking a lot about toilet paper rolls. Lately, I have seen a wide range of toilet paper roll arts and crafts floating all over the Internet, which inspired me to share how I use them. Toilet paper rolls are great for art-making. They are nearly free, a fun shape, sturdy yet pliant, and practically unavoidable. I enjoy transforming packaging (especially paper waste) into art, so toilet paper rolls have made for an exciting material exploration. Here is an example of some work I made in grad school: 

Accretion, Alison L. Miller, Size varies, 2004.

However, my most favorite use of toilet paper rolls took no artistic skill or time to make. I made bracelet holders from toilet paper rolls. I kept thinking about how one of my bracelet drawers was difficult to navigate. The bracelets were inaccessible, and I often forgot I had a certain piece because it was covered with a jumble of other bracelets. I decided I needed a long tubular bracelet holder like the ones used in jewelry department displays. At some point during my thought process, I realized toilet paper rolls might be just the thing - and easy to come by, too! Toilet paper rolls aren’t pretty, but they sure make the perfect bracelet holders!

The project was creative only in the way people have those little sparks of ingenuity that make daily tasks a little easier: “Oh, if I do x, blank will work so much better,” “I can’t reach the bag of nuts I dropped between my desk and the wall. Maybe I can use a ruler to extend the length of my arm,” etc. I have those little moments all the time at work, where I employ an object as a tool it was never meant to be.

I know I could cover the toilet paper rolls with lovely paper or fabric, but, for now, I am perfectly fine with the utilitarian quality of the paperboard. I will let my bracelets bring the bling. What objects have you converted into unexpectedly useful tools?

Alison :)