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Crossposted on my piano blog. Scroll down for video and photo!
There are several things I'm shocked and awed by at the moment:
-How little time I've had for blogging over the past few months
-How quickly this year has gone
-How quickly this semester has gone
-How soon it will be 2011
and finally,
-That I *just* finished my final project of the year.
Several weeks ago, I entered the last stage of my first semester back at school. While this semester has been dominated by music, I've also been taking an art class--and as it turned out, our last assignment for this class was a project of our own creation.
The opportunity got me thinking. I've been a pianist and artist for most of my life, and these two passions are huge parts of my identity. But in all these years, I've never blended the two worlds. In fact, I've struggled quite a bit to find a balance between those sides of myself, if only because they're both so involved and emotionally consuming. And I know that, although I've chosen to pursue music as my primary focus, I will always be an artist...and if I want to continue to be fulfilled and content, I'll need to find ways to continuously incorporate art into my life, and reconcile my competing interests.
All that said, I decided to take this assignment as an opportunity to finally prioritize art and music at the same time, and share the contrasts between my major emotional outlets. So without further ado, I present to you: "Mirror", a tribute to Rachmaninoff, piano, art, and passion.
I'll take a higher quality photo later on, but for now, here's a still shot of the finished portrait:
In addition to music courses, I'm also taking an art class this semester. Over Labor Day weekend our assignment was to implement "line" in five public spaces. After mulling it over for a bit, I thought I'd try creating spider web/dreamcatcher designs with yarn or ribbon...but after messing around unsuccessfully for two days, I realized the complexity of that idea was too much for such a short-term project. So, I simplified, and went for linear wraparounds that created colorful frames wherever I put them. Here are the results!
Kara Walker Presentation
My studio table has been taken over by my sewing machine. I'd be hard pressed to find my brushes and easel and canvases under the mess; most of the area is covered with fabric scraps, random spools of thread, pins, and miscellaneous bags filled with sewing goodies. I've mostly been custom tailoring shirts (both for my husband and myself), but I've also made curtains, bench covers, and a variety of alterations.
The most recent project was inspired by a gift of two oversized men's t-shirts. They were standard in every way, and much too large, so I immediately started the reconstruction. In fact, I got so swept up that I forgot to take a "before" picture of the blue shirt, but on the left below you can see what the original size and shape looked like:
I wasn't about to stop there, though. We're on our last vacation period before the fall semester starts, so we picked up a used Nintendo GameCube and have been playing Mario Party and Mario Kart like the happy geeks we are. And since I have a special fondness for Yoshi, I decided to take the brightly colored shirt to the next level:
I've never stenciled anything before, and I'm extremely happy with the result. It was fairly painstaking to complete...the tip of my right pointer finger is still numb from pressing against the exacto knife for hours, and my neck has a decent crick in it, but it was so worth it.
Meanwhile, my husband has been using an old AOL messenger/laptop bag for school. In April we celebrated our 4 year anniversary, so I got him a collection of Doctor Who mini pins, one for each of the 11 doctors. He'd been wanting to put the pins on his bag, but wasn't happy with the big embroidered AOL logo--so we worked together to create a sturdy cover, and then I splattered "stars" and painted the new Doctor Who logo on the front. By the time we were done, I was pretty jealous:
But it's ok--I have my Yoshi to keep me happy. : P
I have a wonderful new student who has a passion for cartooning and graphic art. Last week we sat for an inspirational hour while she drew this little bird, then we scanned it so she could play around with her first digital painting. I for one really love how it turned out!
