PSY507 - Psychology & The Visual Arts

Last night I had a great session with my class at Utica College. The course is NOT a studio art course - we mostly look at lots of art and discuss the various techniques used to create various effects like illusion of depth or Gestalt groupings. But last night was "studio art night". We started with some color mixing exercises and then spent the majority of the night creating collages. Here are a couple that were created by students (I will post more, but many of the images were slightly blurring for some reason). I was proud of the group for what the created. Enjoy!

National Collage Society Annual Juried Exhibit

You can now view this year's Annual Juried Exhibit of the National Collage Society at http://www.nationalcollage.com/2010.html.
In fact, this year the society has "gone green", so that there is no physical exhibit of this show at any gallery. Not sure if I really like that idea (I think there should be a gallery exhibit as well). The thumbnail images are a bit deceiving as they show only a small section of each respective image. It's best to open the first image and then hit "next" to go through the show. Enjoy!

Robert Mars

Robert Mars is currently featured on the NOTpaper blog site. For those of you not familiar with his work, it's really worth the time to check it out. See: robertmars.com/artwork/index.php

Emergent surprises

A couple weeks ago, I showed students in my Psychology & Visual Arts class the process of adhering elements in collages which I learned from Jonathan Talbot. I brought in a bunch of scraps that had been laying around in my studio just to show them the process. I wasn't expecting to put together anything usable or necessarily aesthetically-pleasing in such a spontaneous demonstration (btw, Jonathan is VERY good at that!). Since then, I have been using that piece to try some techniques with paint and other scraps. Last night when I looked at this "throw-away" piece, it struck some note with me, so I decided to see what it looked like in a mat and frame. Lo and behold, I actually kind of liked it. It doesn't really represent my normal "voice", and I don't think it'll show-up in any exhibit, but I found it intriguing. So I went to bed last night encouraged, for whatever reason; and I think I "needed" something like this to happen to help me through this hairy leg of my creative journey (see recent "contamination" post). Enjoy!

Not sure

I'm not sure what I think of this piece; but I was trying to do a more painterly piece. The somewhat minimalist aspect of it I think was inspired by my watching recently the documentary about Ray Johnson ("How to Draw a Bunny") Enjoy!

Frank Viola

Here's the GREAT piece I got at the CHAIRity auction done by my artist friend Frank Viola!

Strange, "contaminated" place

I have been blessed this year with artistic successes (chronicled on this blog site). The culmination of a good year was my solo exhibit at the Mohawk Valley Center for the Arts. After the whirlwind summer and trip to Europe; followed by hanging my show and trying to get the school year off to a good start, I now find myself ready to "get back to the table" where I enjoy creating my collages. But I find that in some way(s) my recent successes have "contaminated" my process, in a way. I am certainly not complaining; but I am recognizing that I find myself feeling like I need to put together a "good/great" piece every time I sit down to create. That is, I feel much more self-conscious about trying to do something really impressive; as opposed to "simply" creating pieces that express myself artistically. It doesn't really feel like an artistic "block", but rather it feels like too much self-monitoring. And yet, I don't want to abandon all monitoring so that I'm throwing together crap. Today after grading statistics exams, I've decided to do some cleaning of my messy studio and getting reacquainted with my various specimens of collage materials. I am thinking of trying some new styles, but at the same time do not want to compromise my "voice". All of this is good in that it continues the on-going contemplative state of being a creator, methinks. But it has been a week or two of self-uneasiness in a way. I am looking forward to what the road(s) ahead have in store. If you've had similar experiences, I'd love to hear from you about it. Hope you enjoy!