Save big money at MENARDS!

You know, I’ve never been to Menards, and it might be an OK place. You can get a bathroom vanity and matching mirror for only $179 at Menard’s. Menards could be a source for some really great products… Your dollar goes farther at Menards, apparently… I think it’s one big joke. I don’t think there is a place called Menards… Or… Well… You know what I mean.

Menards. Dedicated to service and quality.

Unique decor products for your home by Menards.

Want to be a Menards supplier? Click here!

How can I apply for a postion at Menards? :D

Hehehe. :)

~Saraaaa

There! I did it!

Check out FISH BOWLS and TILE PORTRAITS there to the right to see more arts…

Somehow, blogging is just not fun right now, though, so I’ve GOT TO GO.

~Sara

OH MY GOSH.

I am SO going to add some new pics soon! I have so many good pictures of the “fish bowls” I am making and I need to put them up! Look at this new interface! I can’t wait to add something new!

In the meantime, check out most of my stuff at mine MySpace page, http://www.myspace.com/radicalsalmon. Yeah! Radical Salmon! It’s significant! I’ll give a DOLLAR to the first person who can guess why!

Love,

Sara

Hey! How about that…

How about that uh… crappy new Kansas City Art Institute sign? Remember that one? The big frosty glass one that lit up with rainbow lights and stainless steel. And that one letter A that was just SLIGHTLY off-set. Just off-set enough to look bad, but not off-set enough to look intentional? Yeah! That sign sucked! They did it to that other one up by Baty House, too! Lame! I hope they didn’t pay a lot of money for those crappy signs. And all those little frosty glass kiosks with the maps are just kind of leaning back, just enough to look like they might fall over, but not far back enough to look intentional. Those suck too! Great job, ART Institute! Way to show off that craftsmanship!

Although. Seriously. All kidding aside. Those signs were not impressing me. That A really got on my nerves. It just didn’t look intentional. And the map signs look like they were not installed correctly and are leaning unintentionally.

I’m serious.

~Sara

Eric Conveys an Emotion

Oh man! Remember Eric and all his crazy emotions that he feels and conveys through photographs on his internet website, EmotionEric.com?

If you don’t remember, check it out.

If you do remember, go back to the site and reminisce.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go look now!

~Sara <3

PhilintheCircle

Check it out, if you have not! My manager at work, Ryan, showed me this a while back…

www.philinthecircle.com

S’about art and process n’stuff. I guess.

-Sara

Ugh. The GENRE.

Oh, Paul Greenhalgh. Why do you do it? Don’t you have any friends? Or pets? I will buy you a kitten to occupy your time so you can stop writing these crazy articles.

ANYWAY.

I guess, if I had to get right down to it, these articles are informative, thought-provoking, and interesting, but OH MY GOD they are a death-sentence to read. I just… don’t want to read it. Because it is not fun or engaging in ANYWAY. It is engaging if you are a stuffy art-snob type and want to think about how awesome you are while you read this and want to understand it real bad. I mean. Not to push anyone’s buttons or anything, but if I heard someone raving about Paul Greenhalgh’s writing style I would not want to talk to them or be their friend. I would assume they were too pretentious and stuffy and un-fun for ME.

Regardless. I read the article. I understood it. I learned things. I was stimulated intellectually. But reading it was painful.

“The way we make things is fantastically revealing of the human condition.”

I believe I said this in so many words in my last article response post.

“It would be a mistake, however, to see the genre simply as a set of techniques and materials for the production of artefacts; it has roles that have little to do with the workbench. It functions in the marketplace, mediating and stabilizing commodity values; it is the main vehicle for the creating of hierarchies between types of produce; it gives identity to ethnic and class-based groups. In this way it straddles the economic, political and social worlds.” 

I wasn’t quite sure what the hell he was indicating as far as what a “genre” was, so this paragraph really helped clear that up.

“Throughout history, guilds, unions and societies have protected the interests of the genre, academies have consolidated its methods, the marketplace has monitored its distribution, the stock exchange has fixed its price, scholars have maintained its status and museums have preserved its heritage.”

Like, whoooaaahhh!! A similar reaction that I had to the last paragraph quoted. “Genre” isn’t something I’ve really thought of defining. This helps.

“But a genre can also lose its position within the cultural hierarchy. Many of them were originated to produce objects that were vehicles of communication or prosaically utilitarian. When technology or economy renders these roles redundant, such objects survive for other, usually symbolic or cultural reasons, and these might simply not be good enough.”

Lost arts! That’s cool, huh! It’s a lost art, but I still do it ’cause I like to and it’s cool. And so on. Ergh. Forgive my informality. Paul’s stuffiness is making me gag.

And… Anway… forget all of the other paragraphs I highlighted. I don’t think it will help anyone if I transcribed them again. Let me just buzz through…

Genres change and get all mixed up, culturally and through time. By definition, they kind of have to, because genres are living, growing things that never really go away, but just adapt because of changes in exposure, technology and general interest. I liked the statement, too, about how craftspeople engage in one genre while designers must address many. This helps me to understand “craft” a little better.

Then he gets into this “positivist” versus “ironic” bibble babble. This whole section is rather like the Art and Fear article we read last time, where everyone is aware of this sort of thing, but it’s so ingrained it is totally looked over and taken for granted and no one writes five full-page articles on it. SO HA. Okay, so Paul says positivists are concerned with aesthetic expression and ironic artists “question the role and purpose of things.” Okay. Define those terms you want to use and forget about it. We really don’t need 25 more paragraphs of explanation and examples, really. I know, I know. It did not hurt me to read any of them and I did nothing but learn and grow out my little brain cells, but sometimes learning infuriates me, especially when I’m just relearning something I already knew in a few different words.

One last quote, though. One I really liked:

“This fusion of the universal and the personal is the central function of the genre in late Modern culture and a key to the persistence of craft.”

THERE.

-Sara

Artist statements that I read!

… For ProPrac!

Darcy Badiali:

“My first experience with clay was at Fresno Community College in 1989. Although I loved the experience immediately and continued to take Art courses I didn’t start making pottery seriously until I went to the Kansas City Art Institute in 1995. After 2 1/2 years I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. And was also fortunate enough to spend a year and a half as studio assistant to one of the best teacher/potters of our time, Ken Ferguson, he taught me a great deal about art and life as well. In 1998 I came to ASU. The open space and desert landscape have been good for my work. The relaxed and private atmosphere of the graduate ceramic studios afforded me a great deal of freedom to explore different avenues and possibilities. My work now consists predominately of wheel-thrown, stoneware pots. Though the forms have their origin in function, the scale lends itself to sculptural issues of space. My ideas have seemed limited and awkward until I started to use nature as a reference. The shapes can be reminiscent of plants, stones, coral, etc… The surfaces range from elephant skin, to craters on the moon. The evolution of nature in the work gives something to measure against. I have one criteria; could this, be found in the natural world? “

Tom Huck:

“My work deals with personal observations about the experiences of living in a small town in Southeast Missouri. The often strange and humorous offurrences, places, and people in these towns offer a never ending source of inspiration for my prints. I call this work “rural satire.” I feel a strong connection to the artists of the Northern Renaissance and their approach to art from the standpoint of master craftsmen. My work has been influenced by an array of artists, among them Albrecht Durer (woodcuts), Warrington Colescott (etchings), nearly all of the German Expressionists, and the late great Frank Zappa. My chosen media is printmaking, specifically the woodcut. The combination of dark humor with the inherently expressive medium of the woodcut heightens the complexity of my images. At times I also deal with a more broad-based social commentary in my prints (i.e. politics, pop culture, violence). When this approach is used, it comes from a need to escape the usual hillbilly rants and antics that I depict”

Scott Wade:

Click Here!

Some excerpts:

“It tickles me. I enjoy it.”

“I’ve had people question my sanity, you know, why in the world would you spend so much time to create this just for the rain to come and wash it off? It’s just like creating sandcastles down at the beach, or carving a pumpkin. It’s beautiful, it’s fun, there’s no reason not to enjoy it.” 

“Because of the pressures of my job, this has become something I can do very quickly.” 

“I don’t do this to try to create immortal works of art. We are not going to be around forever, and nothing we do is going to last forever, as much as we’d like it to. We need to let go of that, I think, and just enjoy what’s here.” 

Zeke’s sister showed him this guy, and then he showed him to me. Hooray! Scott Wade is awesome! I could not find a written artist statement, but the things he says in the interview cover it all and he is so pure and excited about it.

OKAY!

-Sara.

I skipped the ProPrac lecture to go to the Zoo!!

Haha!! I did. Thursday October 4, there was a professional practice lecture and I DIDN’T GO because I wanted to go to the zoo. So I DID. And it was GREAT. I went with Zeke and Ryan and we had fun. Look! I took lots of pictures!

Here’s the pink highway. Apparently it’s made out of corn, because Iowa has so much corn. Pink corn.

They had lots of big, pretty snakes!

They also had some rare solid brass lizards! Those things are pretty rare in nature, but once you capture one, you’ll have it pretty much forever, because they are pretty slow-moving. Me and Zeke both got to pet one!

These are Colorado River toads! Apparently some scandalous people get the toads real pissed off until they secrete their poison, then then dry it out and snort it up their nose and go on whacky trips! That’s just what I’ve heard. I think it sounds scandalous. For toads AND brains.

Here’s a spotted rattlesnake…

… and a really cool black and white viper! He was ALERT.

This is a FOSSA. It is like a cat/weasel/dog creature and I paralyzed it with my camera flash. Little Known Fact: This is Alberto Veronica’s favorite animal.

These were some sleepy gators. I thought it was funny and sad that they all had their eyes closed. I don’t know why sad, though. I close MY eyes when I sleep.

This was a good sign on the “Little Blue Penguin” exhibit. The penguins were only about a foot tall, and they were all outside, with a little pool to swim around in. This crazy lady in a wheelchair rolled up and asked the girl who was feeding them if they were sick and if they preferred the “arctic cold.” The zookeeper told her they were not sick and that they did not prefer the “arctic cold.”

Everywhere we go. Land squids. (Or Octopi.)

This is a beautiful coral…

… AND THESE ARE SOME SEXY SHRIMP. Yes. Sexy Shrimp. Look at ‘em. Shakin’ their asses.

This is a mantis shrimp. The little yellow guy with his buggy eyes buggin’ out at me. He likes to punch people in their buttcracks. He also likes to punch holes in rocks, clams, snails and crabs. ‘Cause it’s fun. Not ’cause he has to.

Here are some more beautiful corals…

This one’s called “upside-down jellyfish.” I guess because that’s what it looks like. (Actually, I guess that’s what it IS. OOPS.)

This is called a fuckin’ huge clam, because it’s fuckin’ huge. Seriously. It was like two feet across.

Here are some more beautiful corals and a couple of little cardinal fish. Awww! So CUTE.

These are called “Leafy Sea-dragons!” They are like sea-horses, but WAY fancier.

This is a big grouper. He will get much bigger. His main diet as an adult will include smaller fish, crabs, and divers!

That’s a monkey.

These are tapirs! They look kind of like pigs/hippos/horses/rhinoceroses.

THIS is a big, floppy soft-shelled turtle! It’s so floppy-looking! I don’t like the word floppy. :( But I like this floppy turtle!

This is some kind of lemur. I liked his eyes. He looks like a smart guy.

These are pygmy hippos! Exactly as mean and dumb and pointless as regular-sized hippos, but a fraction of the size! Awww!

Here are some beautiful macaws. Their bright colors make me HAPPY.

This is an ARAPAIMA! As I’m told, the arapaima is the largest freshwater fish in the world (by length)! The zoo had about 6-8 of them in a giant pool with around a dozen HUGE pacu and a couple of monster red-tailed catfish. It was amazing. The arapaima were all around six or eight feet long.

Me and Zeke saw trees like this when we were in Costa Rica! This tree, however, was WAY more awesome, because it was actually made out of CONCRETE. AMAZAZING! (This picture actually looks like it could have come directly from Costa Rica. So. Good job, Omaha Zoo!)

These lions were sleepy!

So cute and sleepy!

This bear was so funny! He was SO bad at climbing his tree! Which is good, because the tree’s branches came REALLY close to the edge of his enclosure.

If you’re gonna be a bear, though…

… be a GRIZZLY BEAR!

Tigers. The tigers were cool. The had several. They had a little lady tiger who only had THREE LEGS, but, she had cubs, so it was OK. They also had a HUGE male Siberian tiger. Seriously. I cannot communicate how large this animal was. Its head was probably three or four times the size of my head. It probably stood about 4 feet tall, if not taller. It was probably 15 feet long, if you stretched its tail out. Massive.

This is not the massive tiger, but it was much more photogenic!

And THEN there was this creepy orangutan and her creepy orangutan baby. I like looking at the apes but they always make me sad/weirded out.

So. Anyway. The zoo was awesome. Not as awesome as the Shedd Aquarium, which I need to go back to now that I have a digital camera. But, it was totally worth skipping a professional practice lecture for, although I heard from Ruby that it was a pretty good/valuable lecture.

-SARA.

Tom Huck + Evil Prints.

Evil Prints? EVIL PRINCE. I seriously think this guy is a devil-worshipper. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I first encountered Tom Huck’s woodblock prints at the Daum Museum in Sedalia, where I worked and went to school for several years. The Daum’s collection of Tom Huck prints were very dark, both literally and metaphorically. The people and situations depicted were weird and ugly and some were uncomfortable to look at. Plus, each was accompanied with a little tag that told the story of the print. They were all amazing and ridiculous and I really enjoyed reading the story while looking at the print. It was like an illustrated storybook.

I have just encountered Tom Huck’s website, Evil Prints and while it doesn’t make looking at his artwork any less enjoyable, it makes me afraid of him personally. This guy is totally a weirdo and I don’t ever want to meet him in a dark alley. Or locked room. Or something. I’M SURE HE’S JUST FINE. But yeah, I guess I’m just struck by the whole lifestyle that the page reeks of. All red and black with skulls and zombies and wieners and stuff. Zombie wieners. SERIOUSLY! It’s kinda weird!

But. The website is nicely built. Easy to navigate. He has a shop and links and gallery pages and there’s lots of swearing and penises. YOU CANNOT LOSE. Plus it’s, like, totally evil! Oh my gawwwwwd! Teehee!! Uhmmm… Yeah. You’ll just have to check it out. I was kind of shocked and surprised, but now that I think about it, I shouldn’t have been.

Check it out.

~Sara…