Rikki Reich

Rikki Reich, a noteworthy photographer, came to our class and spoke about her life as an artist and some of the stories behind a few personal works. She passed around a few photographs dating back to when she first started to show us just a few things that she found interesting. Reich expressed that she was very fond of hard angles and lines and so within her earlier portraits there were traces of this effect. It was the last few photographs of the afternoon that lured in our focus and brought us to where Rikki Reich stood today with her works in progress. Her documented photographs of September 11, 2001 were extremely striking and amazing to look at. There were several pictures of the Twin Towers engulfed in smoke and they were blown up to a large size to show an immense amount of detail. Each photograph showed its signs of progress, as it was marked with ink and developed differently each time. It was astonishing to hear and see Reich’s “footsteps” in her pictures from that day. Most of us could explain where we were and what we did on that day as well, however Reich is one of the few who can actually show this terrible time to us within her own reality.

John Gregory Brown's visit

John Gregory Brown came to speak with our class on Wednesday, March 31st and I must say that he is quite the funny man. I have been here for almost four years and had yet to meet the so- called "JGB" and I am glad that I finally did. His presentation was a reflection on emotions and how we go about expressing them. We took a look at how certain artists express their emotions through poetry and song and then we analyzed the words within them. The words and phrases of some of these were so intense that it was impossible to hold back a sad sigh in reaction. So, after about a few of these we begin to get the point. Something once cherished can produce both love and pain. We see that these two concepts counteract each other in a way.

"JGB" also introduced us to his hometown, New Orleans and expressed to us how this place brought both happy times and sorrow. The sudden hit of hurricane Katrina destroyed his home and his childhood where he grew up, and while grieving, he decided to make art with the ruins of his home. Prof. Brown showed photos of what was left of his home and he referred to them as "beautiful". Odd to think of a disaster being beautiful, but the images that the pictures captured was indeed truly beautiful. I think that finding something's counteracting "part" is a beautiful process in itself.. Anyway, aren't there usually more sides than one?

Claire Hoch's Visit

Claire Hoch visited Sweet Briar on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 and introduced herself as a new and inventive artist who tends to work on many small projects at a time. She is currently spending her freshly graduated phase just across the way at the VCCA to figure out exactly where she wants to go next with her work. Claire introduced many art projects that I had not heard of before and therefore I was a little hesitant about them at first. However, there were a few that were somewhat ground-breaking and successful. I particularly enjoyed the dining services that she and some friends prepared out of a trailer. I definitely think that something like this should be repeated again. A lot of her other ideas just seem to randomly come about, and I know that not all things have to string together, but it was a little tricky to understand where all of her ideas sparked from.

I certainly think that her artistic senses must be going all day long. I believe that she can take the smallest things and turn them into much larger developments, which is pretty significant. For example, her most recent “project” is about rocks and pebbles. This process insists that she be aware of the rocks that her shoes collect throughout the day and where they come from. I definitely do not take the time to notice what soil and stones I step on.. maybe others do.. this I am not sure..

Claire, in my opinion, seems to be going in multiple directions at once. This is probably the most beneficial way because an artist should do everything to get out there in as many different ways as possible.

Love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ-4ikcohCs

Seasons of Love

By Stevie Wonder

five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear

five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

how do you measure? measure a year

in daylights,

in sunsets,

in midnights,in cups of coffee,

in inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife

in five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

how do you measure a year in a life?

how about, love?

x2 more

measure in love...

x2 more

(Stevie)

five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes,

five hundred twenty five thousand journeys to plan,

five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes,

how do you measure a life of a woman or a man?

in truths that she learned,

or in times that he cried,

in bridges he burned,

or the way that she died,

its time now, to sing out though,

the story never ends,

let's, celebrate remember a year in a life, of friends,

remember the love...

(oh you gotta remember the love)

)remember the love...

(oh yeah,yeah,yeah,yeah,yeah,yeah,yeah,yeah,yeah)

remember the love...

('member, sing out, give out, measure your life!

measure in love, measure in love, measure in love, measure in love, measure in love, Ohhhhhhhh)

seasons of love...

x3 more

In Diapers - Report Cards

In Spoke Wheels - In Speeding Tickets

In Contracts - Dollars

In Funerals - In Births

Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand

Six Hundred Minutes

How Do You Figure

A Last Year On Earth?

How Do You Figure

A Last Year On Earth?

(Seasons Of Love...)

How Do You Figure

A Last Year On Earth?

Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand

Six Hundred Minutes

How Do You Figure

A Last Year On Earth?

Seasons of....LOVE....

I chose Edouard Manet's painting of "Dead Toreador and The Bullfight" because it stuck out with its single subject of a man lying defeated on the ground, and because it brings me to think about why ONLY the subject of a dead man was painted. I can easily understand that Manet is showing the idea of a death, but why are there little details of how the death came or happened? Don't get me wrong, because I know it is obvious how the Toreador died, but why is that not being shown in the painting as well? ... Manet had no intentions of showing the fighter at the scene nor did he want to include any other subjects in this. I guess it keeps things simple, yet mysterious...

After staring a little longer, the man appears to be placed in a rather comfortable position and his location of "eternal rest" seems to have little significance to the dead man itself. However, the contrast of shadows to the darker figure is still somewhat appealing to the eye of the viewer. Also, there is some depth shown here, since the figure is placed on a diagonal, which can make things slightly more interesting...though not too much. I am still not sure why I like this painting or choose to read into it so much. I guess I can say that I appreciate Manet's idea of presenting a consequence [death] without explaining/ painting how or why it happened. One can look at this painting and say: "Alright, bulls are not always our friends!"

Photo Conversation with Berger ..in my opinion:

Joelle Wallach's Visit

Joelle Wallach visited Sweet Briar College on Wednesday, January 27^th and spoke with us about Women Composers dating back from the 800’s to the 20^th Century. She was surely a feisty woman with a deep passion for music and for the women she was talking about. She did not have any problems answering the few questions that we could come up with. I was very amazed at how quickly Joelle could identify and separate all of the music within a matter of seconds. Clearly, she studies what she loves and I am sure that she makes this impression on all of her audiences.

There weren’t too many of us who were familiar with the powerful list of composers she introduced to us, so it was definitely a lot to absorb. In fact, I believe that there are only a few people in the classroom who are accustomed to the knowledge of writing music in general. For the most part I think we can identify different genres of music, especially in today’s music, but Joelle helped us recognize subtle differences in each of the different composers. Her helpful hints let us identify the era that the music was created or written in and allowed us to group some of the women together. A great deal of information was presented to us in one short hour, and I could feel Joelle wanting to tell us more and was dying for us to dig deeper and to be curious about these infamous women.