Friday, February 27, 2009

Ceramics exhibition 03-12-09


Woah, looking just a couple of entires back in this blog I see that the last thing I
blogged about was the exhibition that I had an entire year ago. WOW, that’s a long time
for no blog, I blame pedroramirezart.blogspot.com and thebutterflypeople.blogspot.com for
taking all my blogging away from myspace cause I blog on those two rather frequently.
Well its another year, another blog, and another exhibition! That’s right, this is my senior
exhibition, I will be in it with other artists, but hopefully will shine brightly as my work is
like no other. Looking back on the other blog I see a lot of bowls and containers, but I
have moved into a more sculptural direction with sculpted figures on pots, but there will
also be some kick-ass (as I so eloquently put it before) pottery as well.
Its on Thursday, March 12th at my college in the CG building which is on the South East
corner of 140th and Amsterdam avenue in uptown Manhattan. Show your support for Pete
and be there at 5pm, the opening lasts until 7pm and refreshments and snacks will be
served, this is a FREE event so you have no excuse not to come (unless you are busy at
the time of course). That said, hope to see you there, I will post pics after the event has
taken place.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Saturino Herran inspired Tehuana

Saturnino Herran was born in Aguas Calientes, Mexico and attended the San Carlos Academy. He died when he was only 31 years old. Herran rebelled against his academic training and ambraced a more modern style with an emphasis on the senses. Some famous paintings include El Rebozo (the shawl), and El Ofrenda (The Offering, 1913) which are shown below. I used his painting Tehuana (1914) as an inspiration for the latest piece. The image of the Tehuana became a nationalist symbol because the people from the isthmus of Tehuantepec had a matriarchic society. I pay homage to Herran by placing a small reproduction of his painting El Ofrenda which depicts marigolds which are partially abstracted, being taken to pay homage to the dead (for day of the dead). This is a very folk/popular activity being depicted, it depicts everyday life but with an event specific to local culture. Atop of this I put a photo of my late mother and I, after all, I am the artist, shouldn’t the piece have a part of me as well.





Monday, February 23, 2009

Update Feb 2008

Here are some of the latest
The vase with the five figures I made today and am very proud of though it has a long way to go before completion including needing hands and feet carved/sculpted on as well as being painted a dark near-black color.


The guys below are some of that earthy look that I really enjoy, yet the first one below is a new way of doing it that reminds me of Chinese landscape ink drawings or aerial maps and I make more like this. The last pic shows my shelf at city college, the bottle shaped piece with birds is new and done with stencils.

Elia's

Elia's father is ill so I whipped up this little clay lady to give her
sometimes when you feel powerless all you wanna do is give people little clay things

Monday, February 16, 2009

Indigenous woman from Egas painting

Back when I had my blog on myspace I wrote about a class I was taking on Modern Mexican Art. That class was being taught by Dr. Anna Indych-Lopez who specializes in arts of Latin America. I am taking another one of her classes, it is the modern art of Latin America which spans from 1900-1945, the class focuses mostly on paintings, however it is possible sometimes for me to draw inspiration from pictures and images than from actual sculptures.

I have created a miniature polymer clay figure depicting one of the indigenous figures in one of Camilo Egas’ paintings entitled Fiesta Indigena (1922). Camilio Egas was a painter from Ecuador who was formally trained in the academy there under Paul Bar and Luigi Casadio (a sculptor from Italy). Casadio actually used real Indians in his drawing class which was quite radical at the time. In Ecuador, Egas is the father of indigenismo painting, he is both a modernismo and an indigenismo painter. Indiginismo is when the Indian is used as a symbol of national identity. Egas established an art center called the Egas Art Center, and brought what he learned in Europe home and tried to form many organizations and programs. His figures of Indians tended to be very elongated, long, thin, and exaggerated, yet all the while remaining classical. Egas was not painting his images for an international audience as some other countries of Latin America was doing in the 1920’s but for Ecuadorians themselves. Egas was trying to elevate the Indian as subject matter by referencing the classical past as some way to legitimize what he was doing and so the paintings are reminiscent of Greek Amphora paintings. Just as he ennobled the Indians, I am currently ennobling my art by referencing the (not-so-) distant past. Below are three of Egas’ paintings, the first of which I used the figure engaged with the viewer as my source of inspiration. Click any of the images to see them in a more manageable size.



So, I began working on this by creating the belt that goes around her waist, because the figure was already made, I knew that she needed to look indigenous and that would really be based on her “costume” than features. I used water based acrylic paints atop the clay. Next I made the flowers that were to be hung on the pole the women were holding in the painting. Polymer clay is sometimes seen as a craft material or child’s toy, and flowers are a very popular item to create with it, flowers are insanely easy to make as you see below, for the ruffled flowers, a zig-zag line was drawn in clay and V-shaped petals cut out and arranged around a center. The other flowers were even more easy, they are simply circles cut out with a stray which are then also arranged around each other in your selected color. The clothes on the figure were painted clay, not colored clay, painted clay is more tactile while colored polymer clay is not, the flowers add contrast to that tactile quality because they are colored clay. After painting on the eyes and lips and refining other features, creating a pole that would stand on its own, and attaching the flowers, I was done. I love the result and cant wait to begin the next piece which will be based on the Mexican artist Saturnino Herran.




Below is a side-by-side comparison image

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Street Fairs -n- stuff

Notice:
the street fairs are on their way!
As early as April there are some new dates coming, stay tuned!
I am currently working on some Latin American women basedon a famous painting. A lot of the pieces coming up will be Latin American inspired from Mexico to Argentina.