Kiki Smith

i also collect and read fashion magazines such as Vogue, Tatler and Harper's Bazaar; because they always have great designs ideas and talk about new an innovative artists and designers.
whilst i was reading Octobers issue of Bazaar i came across this article/interview about a women artist called Kiki Smith (her name is soo cool!) and looking at the photo of her i was instantly interested as she had some cool tribal tattoos and jewellery, im attracted to weird (the good weird).

this was the article, and her pose is just so iconic i love it.

it was a long read but i was hooked i read it about 3 times to make sure i missed nothing!

yes! that is a deer giving birth to a women! i thought the same as you just did then! plus its awesome so its fine.

as i carried on reading i learnt how she is an amazing, world famous artist and her sculptures were inspiring and interesting to say the least. she is a feminist artist which i think is great, she come across as a strong minded independent women which is inspiring. the writer described her world as being "unconventionally wonderful" which is just fab! i needed to find an artist who was quirky, a sculpture, slightly mad and amazing and she ticks all the boxes.

Smiths work composes of sculptures, drawings and tapestry; her work is both 2 and 3 dimensional, in fabric, glass, was, bronze, ceramics and paper. she paints sketches and sculpts, she does everything an artist should and does it brilliantly. she is based in New York (lucky women!) and travels the world creating many exhibitions of her work. she has a twin sister who is also an artist in New York. her work is influenced by her life experiences, for example she unfortunately lost a sister, mother and farther, which inspired her to concentrate her art work on rebirth and resurrection, as well as this Catholicism also is a great influence. there is a lot of nature in her work especially birds and wolfs, she believes birds are not bound by gravity an this fascinates her as well as me. (everything she says is soo deep!)

 she was a weird child who made shrines to the Virgin Mary and carried out ceremonies for dead animals and dressed them in beads an other adornments. she also suffers from attention deficit disorder so she thinks weird (like me). when she was younger she contemplated many careers from baking to medical technician. she realized she doesn't like cooking and she was more interested in the person wounds than their well being. reminds me of when i wanted to pursue a career in medicine an realized it wasn't for me.
my favorite Kiki Smith quotes from this article is,

"Feminism in my mind is part of a historical liberation movement like civil rights and gay liberation"
she goes on to say ...
"social battles are much more complex than military battles. they don't stop. i think if you ask most people they would say they support equal opportunities. but my work is not didactic. i dot want my work pinned down by one ideology. were you can go with art an what you can explore is infinite. the universe is larger than your idea.

everything she just said i love an agree with, her way of thinking is similar to mine and i think she is the perfect artist to inspire my work as she already has.

Paul Gaugian

iv chosen this artist because as iv previously stated i fell in love with one of his paintings, and i had an instant connection with his work. now that im researching him his story is really interesting and unlike anyother iv heard. his name gauguin means "walnut-grower", which is what his family did but his grandfather changed tradition and became a journalist, this gave his son the chance to become an artist.
born 7th June 1848 he later grew up to be a leading French Post - Impressionist artist who wastn really appreciated until after he dies (shame hes awesome!). he was later acknowledged for his experimantal colour use and his differant yet distinctive approach to impressionism. his work became really influencial to the French avant - garde an other modern artists, such as the likes of Picasso and Matisse.
he only became popular after his death (thank God we don't have to die these days to be appreciated as artsit although it does help); most of his paintings were collected by a Russian called Sergi Shchukin, ( i know cool name cant say it though).
he didnt just paint but did so many other aspects of art. He was an important figure in the symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer, (all the stuff i love). his paintings are very primative sometimes but i love that historical apect of art, because i specially appreciate African art.

i love th use of symbols in his work an this is why he is an influence in my work.

The man himself sporting an interesting mostache

strike a pose!

his lifes story is one thats interesting and of adventure. he was born in Paris, France but then lived in Lima, Peru, this would later influence his art. he returned to France joined the army then navey got married had five kids went to Denmark, then that whole plan went down hill and then he decided to become a full time painter. his life became really hard becasue he got depression and like his friend Van Gogh tried to commit suicide several times, despite this they spent nine weeks painting in Arles. he then sailed to French Polynesia to escape  European civilization and "everything that is artificial and conventional". he wrote a book called "Noa Noa" (which im goin to read) describing his experience in Tahiti, were he would live for the rest of his life and created his most amazing art work aswell as stand trial for defending the natives and die before his prison sentence. he had an awful life buh sumhow made him create beutiful art which is sad buh i still love his work. i found out some other nasty things about him but we shall go there, an only judge him for his art not his past time affairs.

my favorite painting of his an my second favorite of all time
i especially love the symbols in the background.

i like this one ...

i like this too ...

and i like this tooooo ...

FMP Week 3

Tuesday i printed some pics off of my Cinema building and of the Berlin building so i can draw them.
then i had some symbols photocopied onto A3 so i can transfer them onto boards i was going to stretch paper on. i stretched paper on 6 A3 boards double sided and 2 A2 boards double sided ready to take home on an work on. i finished my first 2 pages; i rubbed the paper off my image maker fabric and it turned out really well i realised by adding fixative spray at the end it finishes them off and i added ink and outlined them,

Wednesday i  worked from home and i planned what was going to go onto my boards and then i transferred them using carbon paper to save time or by free hand. i wasn't to impressed with how they were transferred so i did them again and changed some symbols from what they were like in my book.

Thursday i went into to college to get my symbols photo copied again and i went home and worked on my boards and painted all of the symbols ready to add ink. im still trying to work out what colours im wanting to use and how to set them out. i like expanding my ideas from my sketchbook and creating bigger pieces, because the sketchbook it just and experiment and it sometimes doesn't always work but when you expand you can learn from your mistakes and improve it. making a bigger piece always gives you a chance to change things up weather its the colour of the inks or just the way you draw the symbols.

the eye of god is my favorite!

iv been working on my blog and filling in my timetable, over the weekend ready to go bag on tuesday and find some background history research on the old cinema. Blackburn town library has a local history section, and the town hall may help me with getting inside of the building to take pictures, its worth the ask.

i know that the key to success hard work and organizations!!

FMP Week 2

Went to college on Monday to with a friend and i planned the pages in my book and took some photos of my building i want to restore, ie the old cinema.

iv been having trouble finding inspiration to work in my book but then the ideas came flooding and i managed to plan and actually create the first page. which i was hoping to be big, bold and shocking. my first page is dedicated to the Fob watches in the National British Museum and the alchemy wheels which im using as inspiration as well as symbols to help me restore an old building.

we hired a camera from college and head out to take pictures of the old cinema. it was quite a nice bright day but just really windy. there were not many people in town so i didn't have to wait for people to get out of the way. i focused mainly on the doorway of the building and thew windows so basically the top of it.if you hadn't noticed in one of the photos there is a street cleaner, at first i found it annoying but then i liked the comparison of the old and modern. the lovely man in the vehicle did as if i wanted him to move but i declined the offer, he wasn't in the way of anything important and i think it added something to the photo. if i had just taken pictures of the building you wouldn't think its in a modern place but the cleaner helped set a time to it.

i stuck in 2 alchemy wheels and drew 2 using carbon paper. then i repeatedly wrote the incantations written on the wheels to fill in all the white. im going to ink and outline.

Tuesday i worked from home i was determined to start in my book we didn't have much time and i decided to draw thew symbols in my book either free hand or carbon paper.

just a couple of my symbol pages from my sketchbook have not been completed im just trying to experiment with ideas to expand.

Wednesday I came an worked in my book, i added brush o inks to my symbol pages and i stretched paper on boards to take home and do some big pieces. then i planned some drafts on my blog and transferred some images onto fabric using image maker technique. i spread PVA glue on photographs of my fob watches from London and a alchemist wheel and i stuck it to some canvas and they need to dry for at least 24 hours an then i will rub the paper of after i wet it.

Thursday i created another mini sculpture using bangles covered in suede which i use to make dream catchers but instead of using thread to make a web i decided to use a glue gun to see what effect it gave. i was just experimenting with materials. i placed the small  rings on a piece of canvas and added glue an drew a web design inside the rings an waited for it to dry and peeled them off. at first i used a string glue and realised it did not peel off as well as another one it was just trial and error. i managed to glue all the rings together and create a sphere shape like my dream catcher one. it didn't work as well and was really messy but it was an experiment.

i then worked on my blog looking for artists and a friend had just recently been to Berlin and she said she found a nice building that i would like so she emailed some photographs. and when i researched for its name it was the Berlin protestant cathedral.

i love this building because of the domes, its weird how its a cathedral but looks soo much like a mosque from far.