Spinal Tap

Spinal Tap, at the Harry Wood Gallery, was an incredible exhibit. There were so many unique pieces. I absolutely fell in love with the paper tree. The amazing intracacies and details of each piece amazed me. The piece with the hand coming out of the book was also one of my favorites, not only because of the details, but the messages it sends. Books can grab you and suck you in, and being a reader, I connected with this piece. The brain piece was also really cool.

So I also went to the ABBA show in the Harry Wood Gallery. One of the reasons I really wanted to see this show is because I love books. I was very interested in seeing how the different artists approached this medium. I loved the variety of things I saw there. I think it is absolutely amazing the things artists can do with this medium. I loved all of the creative things that people came up with. One of my favorite pieces was the book with the exposed spine and the skeletal hand. I loved the fact that the artist created an actual spine to expose. I thought it was extremely clever.

ABBA's Spinal Tap Exhibit

Got a chance to check out the new ABBA Spinal Tap exhibit over at the Harry Wood gallery this week. There were loads of interesting and unique pieces all interconnected with one common item, a book. Or in some of the rare few the importance held within simple text (writting) (i.e. the hanging mobile with quotes.)

Anyways, since there are too many to list I'm sticking to one particular piece that has held my interest and that is one by artist Taryn Wiens. Her piece Home as an object to be treasured, Purposefully Disregarded, Missed and Recreated is both interesting and mesmerizing. At first I thought how clever, a shadow box of sorts to hold not only your book but also such random objects that can only keep a viewer guessing on their significance.

Either way, whatever the viewer can see or take away from this piece I'm sure it will remain memorable.

-Tina O.

This week I went to the Harry Wood Gallery again to see the "Spinal Tap" exhibit. Some pieces were a part of a silent auction, where I got to see one of my teacher's ink print. Some of my favorite pieces there were artists books, or paper cutouts that resembled books. These really show the skill and thought that it takes to make something like this.. It's incredible how far someone can push a creative thought! Another piece that stood out to me consisted of butcher paper taped to the wall, with colorful lines of paint run across it. Next to the paper was a pair of roller skates and a video showing the artist skating over the paper. I just thought that this was great. Creating a pattern by something we do in our lives is simple, and yet a beautiful idea.

Northlight: Photography in The Expanded Field

The current exhibition in the ASU Northlight gallery is a great collection of pieces that push the boundaries of photography. Curated by Josh White (an ASU photography grad student), the exhibit features some sculptural pieces that incorporate photography into the medium used to create the work. Rather than have every piece physically use photography, some artists chose to represent the preservation of a single moment, much like a photograph does, which in turn creates a correlation between it and the idea of photography.

One of the reasons I loved this show was the various alternative processes used in several of the pieces. There was one specific piece that used cyanotypes that was very well made, and since I've been experiencing with this process, I can appreciate how hard the artist must have worked.

Everyone should go check out the show before they take it down!!!

Spinal Tap

I went to the Harry Wood Gallery to see the Spinal Tap exhibition because I was interested in seeing more artwork made from already existing books, and I noticed that Hally had a piece in the exhibit too that I thought was really cool. Books are very special and meaningful to me and I really enjoyed seeing other artists re-invent books to showcase a certain story or feeling they have towards them.

Spinal Tap

This week, I went to the Spinal Tap exhibition, which was held at the Harry Wood Gallery.

This exhibition was sort of important for me because I recently joined the ABBA club and I did a collaborative piece with a friend of mine and was able to submit it into this exhibit. This is my first public piece and I was a bit nervous. I would like to say that I wish I had more time on my piece since there were a few problems I had with it and would have like to fix it. Overall, the process of making it, submitting it, and seeing it displayed in public has taught me some important lessons. It's been quite the learning experience for me.

Anyway, I found the exhibit to be really interesting. It contained many different styled works, all playing with the idea of books as a sculptural form. There were a few works that caught my eye. One being "Feed the Meter" by Jacob A. Meders. I found it to be visually appealing and the concept was comical to me. I love the choice of books he used as part of the piece, like Giant Book of Dirty Jokes, Honor Among Thieves, and Original Sin. I feel that there is a common link between all of them and the fact that there is a meter glued on top and that it is titled "Feed the Meter" suggests that there is an unspoken message behind the piece.

Another piece I enjoyed was "Fortune Cookies" by Roison Rubio. The humor really appealed to me. Each fortune cookie box had the words "For control freaks," "For pessimists," "For the blind" and so on printed on the front. In front of each box were a couple of fortune cookies with the fortunes rolled out so people could read them. The messages would in some way correspond with what a control freak, or a pessimist, or etc would feel or say. For example, for the control freak box, there was a fortune that said, "I can't control what goes on outside, but I can control what goes on inside." I especially liked the one for the blind. The fortunes were in braille.