The Nothing: Day 1

I would first like to say that this has been an incredible opportunity to be apart of a collaboration with you all at the Berkeley Art Museum.

These are a collection of my thoughts, ideas, and progress working on the piece for the Berkeley Art Museum:

Day 1:

I didn't know what to expect of the Berkeley Art Museum. I had never been there before and frankly I didn't expect it to surpass my expectation. Wow... what an amazing building and center. The architecture of that building is simple and tasteful. When hearing that they were going to change locations made me sad... but oh well life happens. Anyway, The Possible is the current exhibition at the museum. It is an experimental exhibition that encourages multiple mediums to come together and create in a collaborative manner. Walking through the exhibition, I felt very inspired and motivated for the piece that we were going to install in The Something.

As we made our way through the levels of the building we reached The Something. At first I wasn't sure if the pieces that were created in the space were still in progress or finished. What had been installed in the space was a clear box that held many glittery and "funky" items, a large projection of typical mac book wallpaper, and a huge tarp that looked like a circus tent. I was very pleased with the pieces, but noticing all the extra material lying around I knew that the piece was not complete. There we met with Zina, one of the main artists in this collaborative project, where she introduced us to the materials we could use, the space itself, and the meaning behind this addition to The Possible. She also talked a bit on her experience with collaboration in all aspects. She told us that one of the members of her collaborative group threw this big white tarp over almost all materials that they had been working with. In collaborative groups it can sometimes get a bit challenging and some firm choice and direction might be called for. Zina was expressing how with so many extravagant thoughts and ideas it sometimes gets overwhelming and it might lead to thinking about the minimal.

Side note:
At that moment I knew I wanted to incorporate the tarp in some way. Even the tarp being the piece itself. To be honest, at that point I was a bit burnt on the idea of this "funky" instillation because I thought it was turning into a more extravagant idea then I thought... So at that moment I took a step back and brainstorm on a minimal, yet powerful and slightly funky, piece.

When Zina was finished laying out the rules, we were free to have at it! Immediately we started dressing up in masks, sparkley material, and cloth. Towards the end we had gathered all of the materials that we thought would be necessary to make a successful and funky piece.

At this point, I was very excited to get going on our awesome collaboration and be apart of this "funky" instillation at the Berkeley Art Museum.

Stratego: The Big Bang

Collaboration: the action of working with someone to produce or create something.

For class we were asked to bring in a found object, off the streets of San Francisco, to bring into class to do an on the spot collaborative piece. Between everyone in the class, there were some very interesting materials. Some of these materials were sticks, flowers, a McDonalds french fry cup, a book, newspaper, a plastic bag, some cigarette butts, and the board game Stratego. We laid out out findings and started going for it. As we started working with our found objects it was clear that the Stratego game would be the "canvas" of our piece. Almost instantly we started to assemble the pieces from the game. We cut out faces from the newspaper and started to paste them onto the board game pieces. It started to feel like a community. Using goofy cut out words and diverse people from the newspaper, our community started to grow.  Alongside this "community" a sculpture was being assembled out of the sticks and flowers that was brought it. It was nature and community hand in hand and looked great. But we were a bit torn on what exactly we wanted our concept to be. We knew it could be bigger and better. Somehow we decided that we were going to destroy this community with the "distractive" found objects. That was the McDonalds cup and cigarette butts. We took the plastic bag, filled it with all fifty of the butts, the McDonalds cup, and water to make the "bomb". This is when our project turned more into a performance. Out in the quad on campus, we laid down a tarp and on top of that went a white cloth, white paper, and our community. After reassembling our community three times from the wind knocking it down, we were finally ready to set off our bomb. From the amphitheater (about two and a half stories tall) the count down began. Three, two, one.... splat! A bullseye! The nasty concoction destroyed our community and pieces flew everywhere. It was quite the sight. What was left of the community was this white cloth that now held beautiful dirty markings, the smell of wet cigarette butts, and collaged pieces of newspaper. A white flag of surrender? We let the flag blow in the wind to dry. Finally, all that was left of the piece was this white hanging flag.

I thought that this collaboration was a huge success. I think that it is very challenging to work with many people on a project in such a short amount of time with very minimal materials. We worked very well together and pulled together something that was interesting and fun. I felt like EVERYONE was solid about participating. I think it is interesting how we built this complex community, only to destroy it with even more complexity, but then finish with a piece that is so minimal and elegant. I congratulate everyone in the class for this collaboration. Cheers!

Mothers From Another Mother

~What is a mother? I mean what does it really mean to be a mother? Is it to give birth to something? Maybe to take care of someone else's something can make you a mother. Did all the whimpering crocodilians think of Steve Erwin as there mother? I think so. Maybe to bear a relation like that of a mother, as in being the origin, source, or protector. If that's so, then we are all the Mother in this amazing collaboration. The Creators, the Originators, the Protectors, the SOURCE. We are the artistic life line flowing through the random material given to us by the world around us. Without us the material is just dead, lifeless, and dirt. Stepped on and ignored was the material until an artist, a creator, a mother, comes by and puts life into it. Its not hard to put life into something. All it takes is a positive touch, maybe even a negative touch. Depending on how you want your child to come out, your touch will be crucial to your work of art. Move forward with it, take your art to experimental level, have fun, and be happy. What you put into your child is what you get out.

 ~Here is 54 different kinds of ways your child can come out: Great, marvelous, positive, satisfactory, valuable, wonderful, happy, satisfied, superb, nice, pleasing, rad, prime, gnarly, gratifying, agreeable, disagreeable, expected, inferior, insignificant, OK, ordinary, poor, unacceptable, unhelpful, unimportant, unnoteworthy, unsatisfactory, worthless, minor, detestable, evil, fake, forged, immoral, inadequate, incompetent, inconsequential, mean, misbehaving, noxious, intoxicated, rotten, sinful, tainted, unpleasant, unreal, unreliable, unskilled, unsuitable, unvirtuous, vicious, vile, wicked.

~Here are those words in french: Grande, merveilleux, positif, satisfaisant, précieux, merveilleux, heureux, satisfait, superbe, gentil, agréable, rad, premier, noueux, gratifiant, agréable, désagréable, prévu, inférieur, insignifiant, OK, ordinaire, pauvre, inacceptable, inutile, sans importance, unnoteworthy, insatisfaisante, sans valeur, mineur, détestable, mal, faux, faux, immoral, inadéquat, incompétent, sans conséquence, moyenne, mauvaise conduite, nuisible, ivre, pourri, pécheur, contaminé, désagréable, irréel, fiable, non qualifié, ne convient pas, non-vertueux, vicieux, vil, méchant.

~Here they are in Arabic: عظيم، رائع، إيجابية ومرضية، قيمة، رائع، سعيدة، راضية، رائعة، جميلة، والسرور، راد، رئيس الوزراء، نرلي، مما يثلج الصدر، مقبولة، طيفين، يتوقع، أقل شأنا، تافهة، OK، العاديين والفقراء وغير مقبول وغير مفيد، غير مهم، unnoteworthy، غير مرضية، لا قيمة لها، قاصر، مقيت، والشر، وهمية، مزورة وغير أخلاقي، غير كافية، غير كفء، غير منطقي، يعني، الفاسقة، الضارة، مخمورا، الفاسد، خاطئين، الملوث، غير سارة، غير واقعي، لا يمكن الاعتماد عليها، غير المهرة، وغير مناسب، unvirtuous، مفرغة، حقير، الأشرار.

~Here they are in spanish: Genial, maravilloso, positivo, satisfactorio, valioso, maravilloso, feliz, satisfecho, magnífico, bonito, agradable, rad, prima, gnarly, gratificante, agradable, desagradable, que se espera, inferior, insignificante, OK, ordinario, pobre, inaceptable, inútil, sin importancia, unnoteworthy, insatisfactoria, sin valor, menor de edad, detestable, mal, falso, falso, inmoral, inadecuado, incompetente, intrascendente, medio, mal comportamiento, nocivos, intoxicado, podrido, pecaminoso, manchado, desagradable, irreal, poco fiable, no calificada, inadecuado, no virtuoso, vicioso, vil, malvado.

 

What you think while creating your work is how it turns out. All that we are is a product of what we have thought. Pick and choose the words you like and think about them throughout your creative process. Watch how your child mirrors the thoughts you create.

 
   

Final Installation- Thanks everyone for your hard work and input!

The Zine, The Something, The Unusual

Probably the most important part of preparation already passed in the museum on Wednesday. Has to tell that it was very hard, long and hot day, aaargh

The book was ready by Wednesday and despite the fact that Asa said how much she ruined the book, it still looked perfectly. Work on the second book The Zine proceeded a little hard. It turned out so that there were no new works which could be added in the book. Well, except John's works and mine. Honestly, because of that I didn’t quite saw the point of this book, so I periodically went upstairs, where everything was in full swing over the installation or sometimes it was only 2-3 people who quietly and calmly discussed what can be removed and what needs to be corrected. Unexpectedly for myself I was able to help create something with this wall. Actually, I really liked it already when I saw it for the second time. Though I have not yet seen the end result. Anyway, but I came mostly not for the help in installation. I felt guilty that I was leaving John to work on the book. Therefore I wanted to ask people who didn't happen to get into the first book, whether they want to be in the second. There were enough people who wanted to participate, but we had to deal with a significant problem… We wanted to print on the same day and no one could send works "here right now". In general, works in the book didn't increased, as far as I 

know. The second problem was to come up with the cover. For the first book the idea came to me really quickly, in a minute, even at the moment when we began to think and reflect on the theme of the book in the classroom. But here it was a completely different situation. Maybe I was stressful or maybe absence of a certain idea for the book affected my imagination. And even when like a good idea came to my mind, it turned out that it was really difficult to implement it right there. We became friends with unfamiliar version of Photoshop quickly, but working without my true friend Wacom was entirely unrealistic (oh, I'm too used to it) Having tried to make something in a digital form and having understood that it turns out nothing, I drew on paper hoping to scan. Scanner, of course, Error 404: Was Not Found. In the end me and John were so exhausted and both agreed on opinion that let it be as it is now. And though I am not happy with my work, but it's better than nothing. 

Now, when almost everything ended and only little things needs to be done, I feel plenty of inspiration and energy. And the inspiration to do something that I would normally never do earlier  in my life and did not think that I will someday. But thanks to this class and projects, I gradually opened in myself something new and I feel like doing something completely unusual for me. Yay!

 p.s. By the way, I found interesting song "Turn This Mother Out" by Scott Brown. Maybe someone will like it, haha

Scenes from Day 2 of the installation project at BAM

Opening Reception!!!