Put up or Shut UP

more to come...


--Katie

Chromophobia

The required reading for my Notes on Color class includes a portion of a book (depicted above) by British artist David Batchelor. He attempts to explore what he calls "chromophobia" in contemporary art and architecture and I found certain things he had to say very interesting.

Batchelor's work with color evolved from a sculpture series exploring the contrast between the front and the back of a piece. In contrasting the shiny, polished, colored front side with the dirty, boring, ugly back side of a sculpture his work evolved into experimenting with color specifically...



So that's pretty awesome, but what else? In Chromophobia he writes that his color sculptures were more or less inspired by the realization that there is a conspicuous lack of color in contemporary art. I agree, there is.

Examples: Richard Sera ONLY published photographs of his sculptures in black and white. Richard Meier constructed whiter than white buildings. I guess we don't really know why, but Richard Sera's publicist suggested it was because color would add unnecessary contrast to his sculptures (which were usually in industrial metals, reds and metallic greys).

Batchelor points out the "otherness" of color in the Western mindset. But it's also much more than that. Color is many things. It is something temporary, cosmetic, inessential (to form), subordinate (to form), fluid, inconsistent, deceitful, feminine. Of all the things that color is, more importantly, it is NOT masculine, it is not rigorous, and it is not philosophical. Which is something I think contemporary art strives to be.

Once again, I am overwhelmed with thematic overlap. In this case, women's studies with Notes on Color. I hadn't thought about color in this way before and I must say it's a little bit weird.

Consequently, I will never look at the Wizard of Oz the same again.


--Katie

For F**k sake!

So, I made it through the hardest quarter of my LIFE and it feels good. I just got back from Scotland with my rugby team and let me tell you, it was amazing.







So that's a three-picture re-cap of the trip. Stone architecture, Rugby, and going out. It was the culmination of winter-quarter season but because we are so damn good, we have earned a spot in nationals yet again.


On the art front, nothing too exciting is going on, though I do have some news to report on.

1. I pulled of some decorations for a Bar Mitzvah (Designer status)
2. I designed a business card for my cousin Josh's catering company (with help from Sam)(Graphic designer status)
3. I am currently enrolled in an art class with Jim Welling,



The class is on color, so this should be interesting. I really had no idea what a complex subject it was until I sat through lecture. It's not a studio class, but it should definitely inspire me to work on some stuff and maybe after some new insight I can get over my anxiety of painting in green.

Still to come, finishing that damn pointillism piece and framing the fruit pictures above my stove. Also, I haven't abandoned the robot t-shirts but I need to come up with a better method of getting those done.

I promise I'll start writing more soon, I already have a lot more free time and plus my classes are extremely thought provoking and I'll probably use this blog as a colorful soap-box, so prepare yourselves for that.

yes I'm talking to the 5 of you who read this.

--Katie

Blog Fail

I haven't been able to do any new art lately. I've been trying to get the Robot T-shirt thing off the ground but I just haven't had time. I'm taking classes that have pretty much monopolized my time.

Lizelle recently showed me some quotes from her old online journals, and It's been brought to my attention by the gf that I am the biggest blog failer ever. It's true, this seems to be the first thing to fall by the way side once I get really busy and stressed out. But I should make more of an effort to post things that may not be directly related to my art, but maybe have to do with what's going on with me so that people don't think I'm dead.

So that's that. For now I'll leave you all with this





--Katie "Huggles" Seibert

Long Time

I know, I know, it's been forever since I've updated, but it's been a pretty busy past couple of months really.

Though, I spent most of that time working on my Facebook page which I'm sure more people look at. Nevertheless, as I sit here watching Inglourious Bastards wondering to myself "can you really sharpen a knife with a leather belt?" I have decided to update my blog.

I realize this is why my blogs suck so much, but you know I'm not quite ready to give up just yet, especially since this blog isn't for my personal life (thank god). I feel as though long bouts between posts can be forgiven as long as they correspond to long bouts between artworks.

Recently, I was in the GlobeMed art show. I submitted two pieces for that. Not sure who won the vote, I assume given the time that has elapsed it wasn't me, but that's okay. I was really only in it for the exposure.

I have another pair of shoes finished. Spiderman theme, for my friend Tia for Christmas.



They're also on Art Robot, along with most of my other stuff. Specifically the robot drawings which I will try to make into t-shirts at some point in my life. Though, seeing as how I am very busy with other things such as school and rugby and work, who knows when this will go down. However, the plan is on the horizon.

Also on the horizon are skateboard decks by me. Yay! This is interesting because unlinke the shoes, these pieces will be destroyed much faster being on skateboards and all. I'm still pretty excited about them.

Anyways, I should get back to the movie.

Happy Holidays, y'all

Latest Piece Sold

Naked Pictures......(of the truth)

Sometimes endeavors are met with overwhelming disappointment. Kind of like Kanye West during any sort of award show, and by any sort of awards show I mean, always in general. But I digress. Sometimes we tell lies, myself included. You know, you set goals and have plans in mind and then they just don't pan out like you wanted them to. (This is an apology by the way).

Moving on.

Okay I didn't really MEAN to lie, the piece just didn't quite get FINISHED as I had planned. However, I have made substantial progress so I guess that is worth something. I've decided to get over my embarrassment for not having met my goal and post SOMETHING.

So here is the "before" picture. I put "before" in quotes because to get to that point took me just under 2 years...so you know, it's all relative.



So that's that. Each panel is 11x15 inches. so that x 8 is a collective 44x30 inch POINTILLISM piece that is still untitled. It's cost me almost 50 dollars in pens alone...so far....

anyways, after my 5 day power-hour I put in about 40 hours of work on it, and now it looks like this...





the majority of the progress made is in the far right panels and the tiger. Here is an attempt at a close-up of the main section I was working on.



I haven't yet decided if I'm satisfied with the progress I made or if I'm disappointed. I think it might just be a combination of all sorts of different emotions. I mean, I've been working on this since my sophomore year of college, that is like a RELATIONSHIP. And it's finally coming to an end...

I still need a title.
I still need somewhere to show it.
I still need to write about it.
I still need to finish it.

All of these will happen soon.

Project Projection

I have an interesting 5 days ahead of me. Let me tell you why...

I have decided to take advantage of the long weekend in a big way. I took the next two days off work, giving me 5 days of freedom, and by freedom I mean unpaid labor.

You guys all know about the gigantic pointillism piece I've been working on for the past ~2 1/2 years? Yeah well, that's a long time to be working on a piece and I'd like to finish it. I have pledged to work 8 hours a day for the next 5 days on it.

Essentially my plan is to treat it like any other work day, take a 30 minute lunch break, but other than that, it's work work work. Hopefully the binge will pay off in a finished piece. I will also be photographing the entire piece after each day of work to show my progression.

wish me luck.

or don't. whatever.

This makes me really cool

I took some scraps of really dense cardboard and made a Jacob's Ladder that happens to be robot themed. enjoy.

Bots

So I FINALLY finished a piece. Well I suppose technically this is 4 separate pieces but they all go togehter. It is a commission I am doing for someone in New York. They asked for something "happy" so this is what I cam up with.

This has really got to be one of the most awesome pieces I've done recently. Obviously, continuing with the drippy lines technique. I hate to say it's "drip painting" because, thanks to art critics in the late 40's early 50's it's technically not drip painting. But it does involve dripping paint. So I'll just leave it at that.



The dripping is more controlled in this piece but I had a little more fun with it and incorporated some robot cartoons I've been developing over the past couple months. As well as the collection of stamps I found at the library.



The text around the borders is made up of sections from the Java Script Bible which I found laying just outside a dumpster on the corner of Landfair and Gayley. All in all I'd say it's a pretty good sample of what I've been doing recently, incorporating some primary colors, collage, simplistic childlike drawings, and some found object art for good measure.



I must say, the few days I spent on this project were totally worth it. It's really nice to break away from a more serious style of painting and do something whimsical and fun. And use the word whimsical.



I'm also glad that my robots have finally made it into a more serious endeavor instead of existing primarily in my sketchbook and on college ruled notebook paper. But I'm also sure that everyone who has seen my robot drawings is sufficiently annoyed that I keep doing stuff with them. Sorry guys. But not really.





These are some closeups of more interesting parts of the piece. I really only have one more thing to say about this recent work: I think it's awesome that stuff like this can be done by hand and still look good. Digital art programs can suck it.