Samantha Grandy Blog 2

 This lecture was very interesting and long just because she was really into what she was talking about and had passion for her art as well. The presentation was by a speaker namer Harmony Hammond, where at this lecture she talked about the feminist movement and gay rights. The first art piece that she showed us was not a painting but rags of cloth hung to a cloth grid, which i thought was a little funny because she is talking about the feminist movement and having her work with different kinds of fabric was just ironic to me. A lot of her piece were made out of the trash, things that she found that she did not have to pay for. The found materials brings meaning to her art work because of where it comes from. Hammond also does a lot of paintings. She loves building on layers to her pieces. She thinks it is really boring if there is only one layer. Hammond loves creating different types of textures to her art. She described the painting as lumpy and bumpy like our body's. How everybody's body is different just like her paintings. She also thought is more interesting to have a painting sit on the floor then the wall. One of paintings is controversial, having an inappropriate phrase in the painting that you do not really notice right off the bat. She also make flat sculpture on the floor which was made out of rags found from the dumpster, also describing them as floor paintings. The different patterns in the piece came from the different patterns in the rags. She said the pieces were 5 1/2 in diameter. The floor paintings were made in a circle, having no ends points/hard to break. Also it could be a meditation circle, all depends on how you look at it. Another piece that she made was a very big canvas were she hung buckets on. The buckets were found from the trash somewhere, like usual with holes in them, just worn out buckets that she hung. and then throw red paint on the back of the canvas so it could bleed through the front. She even had a painting where there was a bullet through a horse skull that she put onto a painting. It was very violent which is a social state that we are in. There were so many art pieces that she should us and could talk about. Overall she was a great speaker and it was interesting to see how she interpreted life in general. 

Harmony Hammond Lecture

Hammond was an excellent speaker and knew exactly how to get her thoughts and ideas across to the audience. I was especially interested in her work that contributed to the feminist movement and her work on gay rights. The burden of representation, that Hammond described was something that spoke volumes. Her involvement in trying to express women's views and the oppression of women through her art was extremely moving and apparent in her work. To me, this was shown most specificall in the artwork using fabric and textile materials. Being that fabric and the textile industry have been steriotypically a woman's field of work only added to the inrony of her work. In dealing with gay rights, there was a particluar thing she mentioned that was astondingly accurate: she inserted the queer conciousness where it was unwanted (the piece responding to the hate crime). This is something that struck me. Being gay is just that- a sort of forcing, if you will, of this unwanted identity and culture on the unwanting majority. Unfotunately women are still at a disadvantage in mainstream society and gays are even more so. I couldn't have agreed with her more on her ideas and representation of women and gays (more specifically lesbains). {since I can probably go on forever talking about oppression and unequal rights I will stop here :) } Excelent lecture.

Blog 2 Phillip Craig

The presentation by Harmony Hammond went on a little longer than I would have liked, but her work and her views on feminine and gay rights was quite interesting. The pieces that caught my attention the most were the garments made of torn clothes dipped in paint. There’s sort of an irony when sewing clothes together, often seen as a woman’s job in a sexist way, is used to represent the feminist movement. I also liked the paintings using the Dorlands wax medium. Making a painted surface look as if it were woven can’t be an easy task, and makes for an attention-grabbing look and texture.

BLOG 2 SCOTT WARE

During this next lecture we attended, i was able to hear from a female artist primarily concentrating on feminist subjects. She told us that one of her main goals was to make "meaning" to something (perhaps to the world) through the use of everyday, often found materials. Coming from a harsh background and fitting into the starving artist crowd very well, she would find much of her mediums in the trash or things that people just weren't using, anything such as scrap fabrics from clothing boutiques. Her later works were woven rubs with an emphasis of circular motion, her thoughts on this circular pattern was that there was no edges, no broken seems to end the cycle. This representation of circular motion referenced life in many ways and helped aid her in meditation and her martial arts studies. It was interesting to see how personable and how much meaning goes into each of her artworks. Also to see the evolution of her work...going to traditional oil on sketched canvas's hung on the wall to be displayed to her more recent layered flattened sculptures as she called it or simply rugs, displayed on the floor to be looked at, and not necessarily stepped on. The evolution of ones owe personal style is perhaps one of the greatest achievement's an artist can get, this notion is perhaps the one thing i left the lecture thinking about. ----Scott Ware

BLOG 1 SCOTT Ware

Attending this first lecture and listening and looking at the slides we were show, my first thoughts were that this art did NOT employ the traditional way of creating and presenting art. Today many artist try and break through this barrier or convention for the processes of creating art, which in my opinion is a great thing to do. Art is constantly changing and Krutz's artwork is a great example of this movement forward. Perhaps many will follow his style, perhaps many will not. The main thing i got out of attending this lecture was to try new things and don't let preconceive notions inhibit your talents and abstract thoughts. Overall, it was very insightful and well put together. Good Show!. ---Scott Ware

Blog2 swoody

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the lecture by Harmony Hammond in person. After researching her and viewing her art online, however, I am truly disappointed that I could not hear her speak. Although her paintings, sculptures, and other works were not particularly appealing to me, the stories behind them are fascinating.
One particular article I read about some of her sculptures talked about their connections with Greek mythology and fairy tales. It also mentioned her use of human hair in several creations. Some of them seemed slightly creepy (a bag made of hair?), but the sculptures that I was able to view online were interesting (in a good way).
The paintings that I saw online seemed a bit boring to me. I personally prefer to look at representational art, but I can appreciate the work that went into layering the paint in a specific way. I'm sure that I would feel differently about the paintings if I were able to see them in person and experience the myriad textures.
I also read about her past experiences with the feminist movement and living as a homosexual. I'm sure that these experiences have greatly influenced her art. I would have liked to hear her speak about any specific instances in her life that she found particularly influential.

The artist's lecture was a little out there but interesting nonetheless. Some of her pieces, such as the projections, were positively creepy and I found them somewhat uncomfortable to watch. I feel that she was more into her own work than anyone else present, which is nice to see. However, Kratz's explanations of her work seemed scatterbrained and more for her own benefit than ours.  

I found two of Kratz's pieces, the Touch of Gray Remix and the Korean Poster Campaign, pretty interesting. The way she made the connection between a song and the fans that were actually there listening decades ago was awesome. Also I can just picture this woman running around the streets of Seoul posting her art work with the help of some underground art movement. Hilarious