Cristina Ferrigno: Fine Art and Photography

I'm affectionately known as "Pinhole"

2011-11-23T08:48:00.009-05:00

Apparently I'm affectionately known as "Pinhole" behind the Pro Photo counter at B&H (where I now work in the photo bags area) It was pretty funny, a customer asked me if I knew if we had Pinhole apertures for sale. I didn't know, being new I really have no idea all of the products we have. I figured I'd ask one of the seasoned veterans behind the Pro Photo counter. There is a little area with all the plastic Holgas, Lubitels and Polaroids so I figured I'd ask over there. They didn't know, so I was sent a bit further down the counter where I was asked by the Pro Photo Guy: "Is it an SLR?" Me: "Uhhh... no." Pro Photo Guy: "A point n' shoot?" Me: "No, it's just a box with a hole" Pro Photo Guy: "Oh! I know what you're talking about! We have those!" Alas, we do not sell the apertures separately. My brother came in and purchased a memory card from the same fellow behind the counter and apparently I am now affectionately known as "Pinhole."

Anywho, this started me thinking about my pinholes again. I mentioned to a co-worked that I did a Sleep/Pinhole project and she immediately said "I totally wanna try that now!" So I think this is an apropos time to post some past pinhole work.

Before I do that I should probably explain exactly what a Pinhole is for those non-photogs. A pinhole basically starts with a box or container of some kind with a lid. Many have started with an empty Quaker Oats tube-like container. I prefer mine to be more box-like but it's all personal preference.

So, got the box- right? Now you paint it all black in the inside, tape up the corners and seams with black masking tape to eliminate light leaks. Now on the lid or on the side (in the middle) you're going to cut a little opening, not too big, like half an inch to an inch diameter and put some tin foil or other maleable metal over the opening. You will tape that too so it stays. and now you prick a small hole with a needle or thumb tack in that metal directly in the center of your foil. make sure the hole isn't big, and it must be a clean puncture. put some tape over your new hole, that's the shutter. You've made a camera! Tada!

Photo credit to A. Hanft

In the darkroom, load it up with photo paper on the back wall of your box (double stick tape the back so it's stationary) and close up. Take it out on a sunny day and peel the tape off your aperture. Be sure to keep the camera perfectly still, rest it on a ledge or solid structure and expose for a minute or so (the bigger your camera the longer the exposure, a matchbox pinhole will take a lot less than a pinhole the size of a moving box) also if you're paper is realllly far away from the aperture it's going to take a longer time to expose properly. Once you expose your paper (only one shot!) take it to your darkroom and develop normally (Devo-Stop-Fix-Water Wash) there you go it should have worked. If you've got a totally black image there was too much light, it could be over exposed or you could have a light leak. It you have a white paper it was under exposed, not enough time with the aperture open. You should have some sort of image though, the perspective will be weird (because the aperture's so small) and it will be a negative. For a positive image contact print it in the darkroom, or scan it in and invert in Photoshop.

How it works:

Thanks Wikipedia!

The light is projected on the back of your box where the photo sensitive paper catches it.

OK lesson over! Now to the pics!

The negative came out of the camera, then I developed it in the darkroom and then scanned it into Photoshop.

The image would also be reversed in addition to the Blacks and Whites being inverted, e.g. the head of the bed on the left, but I fixed it in Photoshop. I also adjusted the levels and spotted the dust out in PS. This is "Pinhole #5" in the Pinhole/Sleep Series

Spanish Miscellany

2011-09-20T15:43:00.006-04:00

Hey there, here are some more photos of Barcelona.

These two above were shot at Placa del Rei in the Gothic Quarter

Outside of a Metro Station near Parc Güell

A Tapas Bar

Near MNAC and the Magic Fountain

Barcelona Cathedral (La Seu)

Parc Güell Barcelona

2011-09-16T10:37:00.006-04:00

These images are from Parc Güell in Barcelona, where I got an invisible cactus spine in my toe. The scenery, however, was beautiful and the Gaudi part was amazing.

Barcelona at Night

2011-09-14T10:23:00.008-04:00

Some night photography from Barcelona

The Magic Fountain of Montjuic

The view from our Hostel roof

Placa del Rei

placa se la universitat

The Gothic Quarter

Barcelona Photos & Exciting New Prospects

2011-09-11T18:33:00.007-04:00

Now announcing the launch of David and I's new "company" I use the term loosely since it's just the two of us and we started it last night around midnight. It's called Bklyn Tech Guy. We'll do computer reapirs, virus removal, tech support and tutoring, as well as computer, network and program set up. I'll do the art aspects, digital photo editing, photoshop, film scanning and graphic design.

Also, we're back from Barcelona, and I've gone through the massive amount of photos I shot.

This is us at Casa Mila

More to come... I can only do 5 per post so I've got a bunch more to upload

Summer Exhibition

2011-07-21T19:17:00.006-04:00

So the Black & White opening went really well! I'm glad everything came together so well and the show looks great! If you haven't seen it yet, please go, BWAC is open on Saturdays and Sundays 1 - 6 PM and the exhibition runs until August 21st. As I've said my panel is # 112 upstairs on the left hand wall. All of my photos on display were taken in Italy in the spring of 2008.

Here are some shots of the opening and my panel.

Black & White

2011-07-03T12:57:00.005-04:00

Hey there, hope everyone is having an awesome 4th of July weekend! I've just dropped off my stuff at BWAC for the summer show titled "Black & White." I'm really excited about this one since I've never shown these photographs before but you may have seen some of them because they are in my various Facebook albums. All of the images I chose were taken in Italy, Tuscany to be more specific. These are all digital photographs that I printed and framed and I think they look great. The opening of "Black & White" is on July 16th so I hope to see you there. Here's a preview of the work in the show. I'm upstairs on panel 112 (again) hopefully it'll prove lucky and I'll sell some more pieces.

"Chariot" Lucca, Italy 2008

"The Boboli Gardens" Florence, Italy 2008

"Medici Villa" Tuscany, Italy 2008

"Ah, Florence" Florence, Italy 2008

"Wedding Day" Tuscany, Italy 2008

"Wooden" Impruneta, Italy 2008

Old School

2011-06-23T19:11:00.008-04:00

Kickin' the summer off old school. This piece was originally a sort of performance piece with me clicking the slide projector in time with the music. It was made for my senior HS photo final and was chosen to be shown at the LaGuardia HS Art Awards. I finally scanned in all the slides and re-created the show in iMovie. Here's the result. The music is The Beach Boys "All Summer Long"

More Photos From My iPod

2011-06-13T19:26:00.005-04:00

Some more images taken with my iPod. Again all of them shot in New York, most of the in Brooklyn save the last which was taken near B&H off 9th Ave and 33rd street or 34th street.

I'm excited for BWAC's summer show "Black and White" so I might print some of these up for that exhibition.

Backyard Images

2011-06-04T10:18:00.004-04:00

All of these images shot in my backyard in Bklyn, NY.

This one reminds me of a Japanese Woodblock print

David wearing my much beloved pink tinted sunglasses I just lost

This one is a Diptych of the same image.

More to come!

More Instagram & Hipstamatic Images

2011-06-04T00:21:00.002-04:00

More Images! All in New York so far.

Instagram & Hipstamatic

2011-06-04T00:11:00.006-04:00

Just messing around with the various photo apps on my Ipod. I Might make small prints of these. All of these images were shot in Chelsea, more specifically 20th street between 8th and 9th.

BWAC Convergence

2011-05-23T14:49:00.004-04:00

Hey, Sorry it's been so long, I've been busy with interning and real life (and Reel Life) but I'm back with some fresh work.

This year's first BWAC show is Convergence, up until June 12th. I didn't follow the theme this time'round but I did put up some cute little cyanotypes. I loved the blue color against the raw wood of the frames I chose. The objects I chose were mostly little cocktail stirrer/garnish things that I've been collecting for years. Some of the other objects I used were little metal knights, a wooden "C" from when I was a kid, and a broken shell. I actually sold the one with the knights! Here are some pics.

Also I'm super psyched to announce that I'm going to Barcelona in August with my BF, be prepared for a slew of new photography (and maybe some sketches) after I get back!

Blue Flamingo

Tree Monkey

Mermaid

Dragon

The whole panel (#112)

San Francisco

2011-01-30T15:36:00.006-05:00

So I'm back from my mini-break in San Francisco, which was incredible. It was probably the best weekend I've ever had. The first full day we were there we drove up to Wine Country-- Napa Valley and we went to two wineries. the first an ultra-modern and chic winery, Artesa, which was actually built into he side of a hill. they had a terrace with breath taking views and excellent wine. The second winery was modeled on a medieval castle/Italian Villa, Castello di Amorosa was so much fun to explore. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the torture chamber they had because we didn't have time to take the tour. We couldn't have had better weather, mid sixties for the end of January was pretty amazing especially since NY was getting inundated with yet more snow. On the way back we took the very circuitous but gorgeous Route 1 and it took about 3 hours longer than expected, but I got some amazing photos.

That night we went to the Edwardian Ball & Faire, a kind of elegant steampunk tribute to author/illustrator Edward Gorey. Everyone was decked out in turn of the century regalia with a futuristic punky twist. It was incredible, I really wish I had brought my camera.

The next day we just drove around the city and explored different neighborhoods. Driving down Lombard street was a little scary and we had a blast. Here are some of my favorite images I shot during the trip.

New electronics and fun art stuff

2011-01-17T14:25:00.005-05:00

Hey so I got some mega cool xmas gifts. A new digital SLR and a nifty scanner. Now I can make new things and takes images of them!! Today I've been playing with my new toys, here's some older work that I've scanned.

Also later this week I'll be going on a mini break to San Fransisco and I plan on taking a on of pics with my new camera, so watch out for new material!

I also plan on scanning a bunch of my negatives (as soon as I find them) an uploading some more of my photo work to this blog.

"Venice" Mezzotint using aquatint process. Done in my semester abroad in Florence

Pencil sketch done at the Musee d'Orsay

Model sketch. Red conte crayon

Scene from the Canterbury Tales. Pen on paper

Halloweeeen

2010-11-18T14:09:00.002-05:00

Hello, here are this year's pumpkins:

Alfred Hitchcock and Dexter Morgan!

and me as Indiana Jones working in the store Halloween night

New Layout!

2010-10-02T13:54:00.006-04:00

Hey, I see you've noticed the new layout for my blog. I think it looks pretty spiffy if I do say so myself!

Also, check out this review of my work at BWAC's Lineage show on this blog THE ARTPOINT. It also reviews Scott's work.

Here's a poster I designed for my Bond party back in August, it was hand drawn and cleaned up and colored in photoshop. If anyone wants a print of it let me know, I have a few 11x 17ish prints and I'll let them go at the low low price of $7 each. I also have a version without the party info on it.

BWAC's "Lineage" Opening

2010-09-26T01:15:00.004-04:00

Thanks to all who came out to the Lineage opening this afternoon! It was a lot of fun. For those who didn't make it today, the show will be up until October 31st but only on Saturdays and Sundays. Here are some images from the show.

me in front of my work

Scott and I in front of his work

Scott and I in front of my work

me in front of my work

Quick note about Lineage

2010-09-09T10:49:00.007-04:00

Hey all, sorry for the long absence. I totally flaked out and missed the "Red Hooked" show, mostly because it was too expensive to print the photographs and I didn't have time to comparison shop. However, I am definitely doing the "Lineage" show at BWAC along with my friend Scott, whose blog http://scotty106.blogspot.com/ looks eerily similar to mine.

For "Lineage" I'm exhibiting my Preservation of Heritage series, and am now rooting through some of my mother's family photos. Here are some gems I found, ones that I might use in future work.

Tank

"Russell paid us a surprise visit"

Yes, that's a flamethrower.

"Judy watching T.V."

Yes, that's my Pop Pop smoking a cigarette and shaking hands with Darth Vader

BWAC success and Euro Adventure

2010-06-11T14:31:00.014-04:00

The BWAC show nailed comes to a close this weekend. I had a lot of and I think it was a huge success. I didn't sell any work but my one piece in the auction was bid on, so I'm happy. I'm really looking forward to to the summer and fall shows, "Red Hooked" and "Lineage" respectively. For "Red Hooked" I think I'm going to print out a couple of didital images I've taken in Red Hook and frame them. And for the "Lineage" I will definitely exhibit my Family series.

Here are a couple of images I'm thinking of printing for "Red Hooked"

I just got back from an awesome Euro adventure but I haven't developed any film yet or sorted through the various digital images I took. I did sketch a bit too and I'll scan some of the sketches in the near future. I went to a ton of museums while I was there, in Brussels I went to the Musées Royaux des Beaux, which includes the Historical Art Museum, The Modern Art Museum and The Magritte Museum. The Magritte Museum was amazing but I really liked the Historical Art Museum which housed an amazing collection from Northern Renaissance painters like Steen, Bosch, Hals, Rubens and many more. The Modern Art Museum was severly disappointing, it was in the basement and was laid out strangely. The colloection wasn't all that impressive except for the works by Ensor.

In Paris I went back to the Musee d'Orsay. A lot of the museum is under construction and some key pieces are not on display. However it made up for it with the insanly awesome exhibit "Crime and Punishment." the exhibit had paintings depicting various crimes (ie. the Death of Marat), an actual guillitine, paintings by prisoners in jail, drawings and plans of the Panopticon jail preposed by Breton. Crime scene photographs, death masks of criminals, penny dreadfuls and posters and newspapers including woodcuts of horrible headlines. It was morbid and awesome, extremely powerful and kind of gross all at once. I definitely reccomment paying the extra euro or two to go see it if you're in Paris.

Amsterdam had the most museums I wanted to go to, The Van Gogh Museum, the Rembrandt House and Museum and the Rijksmuseum. All were amazing I mean the Rijksmuseum had a ton of Rembrandts including the Night Watch, Vermeer, Hals and other Dutch masters. The Van Gogh museum was great, as expected but the Rembranthouse was a lot of fun. It was pretty cool to see his studio and his bed and everything, they also have galleries. They had a great show on early Dutch photography and they had a room with a selection of Rembrant's prints.

Bruges was really beautiful and ridiculously picturesque. I feel like nobody actually lives in Bruges except fairies and unicorns. Bruges had the Groeninge Museum, interesting colloction of local medieval artists and even Belgian modern artists. The Memling Museum in the Hospital of Saint John completely blew me away. The paintinfs and various artefacts from its days as a hospital were fascinating, the Memling museum was amazing, and they had on loan from the Groeninge Museum one of Bosh's famous altarpieces. all of this in a church-like setting, for kids they had medieval coloring books set up on drawing horses with colored pencils. The were scenes from the bible and scenes from the hospital, it was kind of great coloring in Nuns taking care of maimed people. In the upstairs there was this very powerful exhibition by an artist in residence on the "foundlings" since St. Johns was also a foundling hospital.

All in all the museums in Belguim, Amsterdam and Paris were a ton of fun, I prpbably spent 70 euros in postcards and another 40 in Museum entrance fees but it was well worth it!

New Work! Continuing on the Labors

2010-05-04T00:36:00.008-04:00

I'm finally finished with The Labors of Hercules Series! YAY!!! Now here comes the important part YOU ALL have to come join me for the "Nailed" opening at BWAC this Saturday (May 8th) at 1pm. 499 Van Brunt Street (right near Fairway by the Water Taxi in Redhook Bklyn)

You'll get to see the Labors Series, some black and white photographs as well as some other works on wood that were hand picked by the BWAC curators. I was initially only supposed to get one panel but they liked my work so much they asked me to bring in a variety of other work and now I definitely have 3 panels and possibly one more.

I'm really excited, and I worked my butt of the past couple of weeks preparing for it, so without delay here's a preview of the new works that'll be up in BWAC's "Nailed" show:

This is titled "The Return of Persephone: The Advent of Spring" This is not a Labor of Hercules but is in the same vein as the Labors series as well as the "Fall of Icarus," being that this too is a Greco-Roman myth. Oil an Shellac on Wood, 4x4.

"The Girdle of Hippolyta" The ninth Labor. Gesso and Oil on Wood, 4x6.

"The Nemean Lion II" The first Labor. Oil and Shellac on Wood, 8x10.

"The Cattle of Geryon" The tenth Labor. Oil and Shellac on Panel, 5x5

The whole wall, 2nd floor on the right hand side.

Finishing up the Labors Series for BWAC

2010-04-09T02:22:00.005-04:00

I have off work tomorrow, and I’ve promised myself to work on a couple of things. As some may know, my dad and I are in the process of building an art studio space in the basement (where the darkroom used to be) so I can finally have a place to work. It’s almost done, I still need to transfer a lot of stuff from my room and give the new space a quick clean but I’m going to try to accomplish this in the morning.

There is another reason I’m anxious to start working again. I’ve joined BWAC (finally) and am going to be featured in their show in May. I’ve decided I’d like to display my Hercules series, which as of yet is still incomplete. So I have to get my arse in gear to finish off the series. I have an idea or two for the remaining 2 paintings. I’d also like to make a Nemian Lion II because I am no longer in possession of the first one. So that brings up the total to 3 paintings I have to finish before the second week of May. I think I can do it; I tend to work better under a deadline anyway.

I also plan on making a book for a special lady I know who gave me an awesome gift the other day. I think it’s going to be classic cinema themed basic sketchbook/notebook. The cool idea I had was that it would have random interwoven images of such classy folks as Lauren Bacall, Bela Lugosi and Gregory Peck. I’m not exactly sure how I’ll go about making this, but I’ll figure it out. Is it too much to put in a few Cinema quotes as well? Is that lame and dorky?

So looks like I’ll be a busy lady. My family’s also plans on taking a vacation in Barcelona for two weeks in the middle/end of May. I’m super psyched about that. I’m second guessing purchasing a scanner and might opt for giving my self a camera for my birthday. I can’t do much with a new scanner in Barcelona and all my film cameras are either busted or too archaic to use for tourist-ing. So hopefully I’ll have lots of new work to show everyone in the next month or so, painting, photo and book stuff!

Here are some random images, figure drawings and sketches from MICA years past and of course my Lauren Bacall woodblock print from LaG.

A review of "Red" a new play on Broadway about Rothko

2010-03-12T15:39:00.003-05:00

Last night I saw "Red," a brand new play on Broadway. Alfred Molina plays a middle-aged Rothko, at the point where Pop Art is starting to "stomp" abstract expressionism. Rothko is commissioned to paint a series of murals for the swanky Four Seasons restaurant, and he hires a young assistant, played by Eddie Redmayne.

At first his assistant is eager, and naive about art and the art world, despite going to art school and being a painter himself. He really has no deeper knowledge about art, than perhaps the casual viewer, but he does have a passion for it, and he looks for truth, meaning and soul in the art he encounters. When Rothko asks, “Who is your favorite artist?” he replies, fervently “Jackson Pollock!” Everyone in the audience gave a knowing laugh, (it appears that us art dorks are in very good company) as Rothko rolls his eyes, “Wait, ask me again!” and Rothko does, “Picasso!” was expressed with equal exuberance, tempered with a little hesitancy. This is the sort of exchange that I think really hit home for me, going to an art school, talking with professors and other students about art, artists and various movements. Had the eager assistant said Rembrandt, Rothko might have been impressed but to choose his contemporary, even a rival of sorts with such gusto and in a way such ignorance at that point did not put him in Rothko’s good graces.

Alfred Molina as Mark Rothko

Rothko talks about the way he and his fellow Abstract Expressionists “stomped” Cubism to death, his usage of colors, lighting and the way he wants his paintings to pulsate. The Title “Red” of course comes from Rothko’s intensive use of various hues and shades of red, there are discussions about the meaning of “Red” and the connotations associated with it. Blood, passion, heat, life… Rothko says that his greatest fear is that if “the ‘Red’ were to be overcome by the ‘Black.’” The “Black” signifying death, the unknown, the absence of red, “Black” is the opposite of “Red”

One of the most visceral moments is when his assistant (who I believe remains unnamed) helps him prime a canvas. In the center of the stage (set to look like Rothko’s studio) there is an easel of sorts, just a panel and attached is some sort of pulley system, so they attach the blank canvas to hooks on the back and pull it up so it stands upright a foot or so above the floor. On the floor, they first put a drop cloth down, clean side up, it almost looks like some sort of ritual, as they do all these steps in unison, the assistant gets the buckets of paints and brushes. One bucket on the left and one on the right, they each take a brush and the music swells. They each start on either side, Rothko on the upper left, the assistant on the lower bottom. The first brushstroke on the canvas is magical and somehow painful, it’s sloppy and dripping, but you become more and more involved and excited as more of the canvas becomes covered. They duck and dive around each other in a sort of strange un-choreographed dance, that presumably they have done many times before. The audience sees the white canvas becoming saturated by this intense “Red” right before their eyes. When finished, both actors are covered completely in splotches of red paint, their heads and hands; faces and arms are totally red, even visible from my nosebleed seat. As they take the canvas off the hooks and move it to lean against the wall, you can see the gory remains of their paint on the white wall/easel and on the floor and drop cloth. It brought to mind the hanging beef in a butcher store, hung on a hook, like the one painted by Rembrandt.

This play really was fantastic for any art enthusiast, it was great to hear Rothko rant about Pop Art, Warhol and the soup cans and Liechtenstein and those “comic books.” Do you really think that Warhol will be hung in museums a hundred years from now?” – “Well he’s hung in galleries now next to Rothko,” one of my favorite discussions is when they are talking about the blatant commercialism of Pop Art and Rothko’s own latent commercial leanings (with the murals,) and how “at least Warhol’s in on the joke!”

Bottom line, this play made me think, it made me view Rothko I a new way (as I came into it being rather indifferent to his work,) it made me think about color, light atmosphere and the life of a painting. It spoke about being an artist and being and aspiring artist, the rapid changing of tastes and the art world itself. It was brilliantly written, and surprisingly fast paced for a play where just two guys talk about things I really care about for an hour and a half. Alfred Molina was great as the intense and often cynical Rothko. Eddie Redmayne as the assistant was so very similar to people I’ve known in real life it was incredible. The only problem is that it kind of does fall into that stereotypical “volatile” artist, grappling with his own obsoleteness in the face of the new generation and the “eager, naïve” art student grows and learns about art in the process of watching the death of the old form. But hey, it was fun, and entertaining but it was also much more than that. It made me think. More so than other plays, that when you come out you think about the characters, the writer, costumes, the acting, the sets, etc. etc. This play made me think about these larger concepts of art and meaning, issues impacting my own life and with relevance to the world we live in and the art world some of us aspire to live in.

Here's a link to learn more about "Red"
http://www.telecharge.com/behindTheCurtain.aspx

On the threshold and old Florence art

2009-12-02T23:25:00.019-05:00

I feel like I'm on the threshold of something good. which is good - because I feel like I've been kind of in stasis for the past couple of months. I think December will bring good things, I've been stressing a lot lately about a great many things but this past week went from really, really low to a medium high in a relative short amount of time. Sometimes I think that things must happen for a reason, so I have a good feeling now about the future. I feel like now would be the time for a fresh start, I feel optimistic for a change, still not totally there yet in what I want to accomplish but at I'm on the right track.

I've been feeling the art itch again, but it's hard because I really have nowhere to work. I miss my studio in the Bank building sooo much! I made a handmade sketchbook for a present for one of my friends, so I think I'll make a few more if I can find a place that sells book-board and find a recipe for wheat paste. books don't really take all that much space to make, it's the painting and mixed media stuff that feels like a daunting task at the moment. And I would like to be sketching or drawing but I feel so uninspired at home to start on something. Ugh.

So for lack of any new work to post I'll post some of my stuff from my semester abroad in Florence. This was the Spring semester of 2008.

The first image is a painting I did in Piazza della Signoria of Cellini's Perseus in the Loggia dei Lanzi. I sat there for a couple of hours in the cold and dark with my paints, being harassed by Italian men but I think it was pretty worth it.

The second painting was done from the view up at Piazzale Michelangelo on the other side of the Arno. This was done in a few hours as well from about 1pm to about sunset at maybe 7. This was a whole other experience since Piazzale Michelangelo was pretty crowded on that lovely afternoon with tons of performers and tourists. I remember there was this awful music from this Native American troupe, it was like listening to Yani ALL DAY. That coupled with the Japanese tourists the would want pictures with me was pretty frustrating and hard to concentrate. Any way, this painting is unique in that I first primed the canvas with gold spray paint and then went on top of that with oils.

This mask was handmade by me, using what I believe to be the traditional Italian mask-making process. There was a lovely mask store that I always would pass and one day I stopped in and started talking to the owner. He invited me to come to one of the workshops that he taught but unfortunately a lot of were after I would have had to leave, so he invited me to come anytime I wanted and he would show me one on one how the process was done. It's kind of a paper mache process with molds and glue. It was a lot of fun and a total cultural Italian moment for me. In return I gave him one of my etching I did depicting the opera Madame Butterfly and he gave me one of his prints. I painted the masks in oil and gold and black spray paint, not the traditional water based paints because I wanted a full range of color.

While I was in Florence, I took printmaking. I had not had the chance to take it at MICA and I had taken some classes in high school and again at the Art Students League, but I can't get enough of it, so I found myself in a position to take it abroad. In this piece I was trying to depict my love for both New York and Florence. They are such different cities but I wanted to show how much both inspire me artistically.

This etching was kind of an experiment. I was trying out the photo transfer process on a spare plate and I liked the graphic and textural quality of the overlapping images. I played around with layering, removing and adding parts of images, using cheese cloth to texture the resin and dripping the resin to get different effects. I then went on top of the finished print and used a reddish, greenish ink and watercolor.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, cheers!

Halloween Sketches

2009-10-27T16:40:00.006-04:00

So I've been feeling particularly Halloween-y as of late. I've been watching a lot of the old monster and horror movies while working at the video store and I've also started reading H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man. I've decided to dress up this year as a Drive-in roller waitress from American Graffiti, mostly as an excuse to wear those rockin' skates that Jonathan Trundle gave me. I was going to be Cesare, the somnambulist that strangles people from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but I thought it might be a bit obscure.

Anyway, here are some recent sketchbook drawings, all done in pencil. And of course my pumpkin paintings, done in acryllic, Vincent Price and Frankenstein's monster. Creepy bugs, monsters and bodies are basically what's been on my mind the past couple of weeks. Happy Halloween!!

Lumenhouse/Studio job

2009-10-08T23:27:00.013-04:00

For those of you whose ears I have't talked off about this, I've been working at an art studio a couple of days a week. The artist I work for is Aurora Robson (her website is in the "people I like" list) and she mainly does large scale sculptures and installations made entirely of re-used plactic bottles, it's our job as her crewbies to help clean, cut rivet, melt or paint the various parts of these bottles together. We try to use every single part of these bottles- the screw top, the cap, the tube, the base and even scraps of plastic get used in a variety of ways to make many differnt forms. The plastic becomes entirely transformed and "trash" is the last thing you think of when you look at the final product.

So today at the studio we helped Aurora get the sculptures ready to be packed to be taken to the gallery at Salve Regina University in Rhode Island. For the past couple of weeks we've been preparing her show entitled "Landmines," I brought my camera so I could document part of the packing process. It was a really exciting and hectic day but it was a lot of fun. We wrapped and packed everything in a UHaul truck and it just barely fit. I can't wait to see pictures of how it looks set up in the gallery with the right lighting and the sculptures installed and lit up.

so here are some images

The Orb named "Fat Skeeter" who is maybe about 6 feet wide

One of the two "Landmines" which are floor peices

"Scrapple Strands" which will be layed on top of the landmines and the orb as a decorative and textural element.

The infamous "Cap Blanket" which is made entirely of white, black, gray, silver, clear and red bottle caps, strung together both horizontally and vertically. Its supposed to look like a vortex-y outer space nebula thing, it looks really cool in person.

The "Cap Blanket" close up

Oh, and P.S.

Aurora has a 6 page article in October's issue of "Art in America" so check it out! she talks about her work and her process as well as this new show that'll be in RI. I keep checking Barnes & Noble but it's not in yet, it'll most likely be out tomorrow or monday. So, yeah cool beans!

The Preservation

2009-09-21T15:16:00.006-04:00

Hellooo, sorry about the long lapse between posts but this time I actually have been fairly busy. Recently I've been working at the video store around the corner, doing this freelance animation thing which I'm super glad is over because I've never done animation before and I felt incredibly out of my depth, and I started working for Aurora Robson again (the artist I interned for last summer.) So yeah, I've been a busy bee.

This post will be highlighting my final for my book class, it's titled "The Preservation" and I really tried to combine elements from the Family Series of my Thesis with what I learned in book class. It's a Coptic bound book and I used a variety of methods and materials to get it to look and feel right. In this book I was really interested in texture both physically and aesthetically, some of the pages have collaged or layered elements to them next to flat printed images. I wasn't as concerned with the placement of images on the page, I wanted it to seem somewhat random.

The printed images often look 3D, as I xeroxed leaves, flowers, photographs and other objects directly onto the page. I also played a lot with my printer, printing on top of already printed things, feeding different types of paper and making photograms with the xerox machine in it, sometimes altering the size and scale of what I was xeroxing. Another element that tied it very strongly to my Thesis is that I actually took digital photographs of quite a few of my little Family collages, these photographs were often purposely blurry, and extremely close up, to only see part of the collage, I used these images as pages in the book.

The book deals with memory, family and personal history. It also simultaneously explores the history of photography and image making. One part I particularly like is that I took and old family photo, scanned it, played around in photoshop and inverted the black and white, I then printed it out on regular computer paper and oiled it to make it transparent. I took that "negative" and made a Cyanotype with it. I then took a digital picture of that Cyanotype and printed it out on a piece of paper to use as a page in this book. It's the process that I'm very interested in, of course I want the end product to look interesting but in the process I've used one of the oldest forms of image making in conjunction with some of the newest forms of image making. I also find it interesting that Bookmaking itself, along with Printmaking, have such a rich and old history, that many do not even think about day to day.

I do realize that in using actual flowers and putting the oiled images in the book, it will eventually look, smell and feel different over time, things will get browned and washed out but in I actually really like it. It's called The Preservation because I feel like I'm preserving the past, preserving history and like photography itself preserving moments in time. I had a ton of fun assembling this book and I feel that it is really what I was trying to get at with my Thesis, a sort of conclusion that sums everything up succinctly.

Capturing My Sole

2009-08-08T18:48:00.006-04:00

I'm sorry I haven't updated in like forever. And the sad thing is, I can't even say I've been really busy with real life. I really haven't been doing much this past month to be honest, I can say I've been extremely lazy and remiss in my blogging duties. And for this I apologize and I will try to update more frequently.

Ok, so this book, titled Capturing My Sole, was my midterm project. I thought it would be cheeky to take pictures of all the shoes/footwear that I own (or rather, that I had in my possession with me at school) and make an album book of them. I took all the pictures myself and I decided that I wanted to show both the instep and the outside of the foot, so when the viewer turns the page you see the other side of the foot. I did pay attention to which images I thought would look good next to others. I even made it fit (sorta) in a shoe box I had, with the tissue paper and everything. I put the colophon on the inside of the lid of the box and I bound the book with a shoelace in a bow from my red Doc Martins. I really like the fact the the cover looks really elegant and somewhat serious, with the font and that title but the first page when you open it is an image of my Batman socks. I just had fun with this project, despite the fact that it was extremely expensive to print and some of the pages got smudged, all in all I think it was one of my most successful books.

Literary Hodgepodge

2009-07-03T15:30:00.006-04:00

This book was for the Coptic binding assignment. I think that this type of binding is my favorite, it is very neat and the stitches look great on the spine. I like choosing colors for my thread, I always think about which color would go best with the color palette of my book, for Literary Hodgepodge I chose a sort of gunmetal grey color to compliment the black and white of the cover, and as its a neutral, it wouldn't interfere too much with the multicolored pages.

I also had fun with my fonts. I know there are people who are font people, who can look at a random flyer or advertisement and say "oh, they used a rounded helvetica," I'm not one of them. The only thing I've really learned in art school about various fonts is that Comic Sans is the worst font ever. Personally I don't really have too much against it, besides it being a bit juvenile and overused. Anyway, for the various fonts in the books I used different downloaded fonts from free font websites. I think it works, I wanted unique fonts that didn't stand out too much. I also used my own handwriting and actual pages scanned from books.

The idea of the book was to make pages for some of my favorite books or types of literature, I only ended up with nine double spreads, (five one page sections) I printed these pages on my home printer on bristol paper. Which was very aggravating as I had to get the page orientation exactly right (because of the double-sided printing) but in the long run sooooo much cheaper than going to the print lab. I think the quality of the images is probably just as good.

I used many different methods in designing the pages, I scanned various pages in books and sketches I had already done as well as photographs I had taken. I also googled images from the internet of Winnie the Pooh and Boris Karloff etc. and designed quite a few entirely in photoshop, I would then print them out and in some cases I would collage on top with paint or pen, wintergreen oil transfers, images printed or drawn on tracing paper. The cover was also done entirely in photoshop, based off of an assignment in freshman year which I re-did and improved upon.

The sections are Spread 1: Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, Spread 2: Pablo Neruda 1, Spread 3: Pablo Neruda 2, Spread 4: Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Coney Island of the Mind 1, Spread 5: Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Coney Island of the Mind 2, Spread 6: William Carlos Williams' The Great Figure 5, Spread 7: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Spread 8: Various children's books, Spread 9: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

The last page is a single page dedicated to Where the Wild Things Are and The Little Prince.

As for the images in conjunction with the text, I tried to choose images that really represented what the text was about, like for the Coney Island of the Mind spreads, I chose images from Coney Island that I took during the summer that I felt really went well with the content of the poems. I chose the poems simple because they were my favorite Ferlinghetti poems and I believe it was just pure luck that I had images that I really liked that went perfectly with them. I draw a lot of things in my sketchbooks in response to works I've read, like the Neruda pages, I find his poems so visually stimulating that I want to depict them. And in the cases of The Raven and The Great Figure 5, I wanted to copy works by masters responding to the same text (Manet and Demuth. And as for the children's books and The Hobbit, I used images found in the books themselves, the original illustrations that we all know. I just had fun trying out different processes and exploring my own connection to the literary works that I love. I think all in all it is one of my most successful books that I've made, there would have been a few things I would change if I could (like adding a nicer table of contents, a title page and a colophon) but I am very proud of this particular book.

Blank books & Stuff to Buy book

2009-06-29T03:02:00.011-04:00

Here are some more books I made. In class we always made a demo book step by step so that we knew what to do for homework on our own. These books were usually blank, so Laurie would call them “gifts” as opposed to “art” or “artists’ books” because there was no content. These books I will use as sketchbooks or notebooks.

The above pictures are of the demo books from the following assignments: Album binding (green), Coptic binding (purple with multicolored paper) and Case binding (Italian paper and blue book cloth). The long purple one is Stab bound with brown butcher’s paper, the sketches are from when I went to Dr. Sketchy’s a live model drawing session at a bar in Baltimore. For some we painted our own paper for the covers.

One assignment I found fun was the Stab binding project. This type of binding is a traditional Japanese binding and is typically made with very long, thin Japanese paper in the inside for flexibility. The paper is cut very long and then folded over and bound on the open side. I thought about the idea of the long, thin paper and what kind of project would lend itself to this type of binding. Finally I decided that I could bind all of my old shopping receipts in a book which I aptly titled “Stuff to Buy” the front and back cover is simply the back of various cardboard food products that were in the apartment. I wrote out my usual shopping list in red colored pencil and bound it with red thread. I wanted to keep the color palette black, white, brown and red. I find it kind of diaristic and somewhat autobiographical in that you can probably tell a lot about my personality through the products I buy (mostly food and art supplies) If you took the time to read you would notice patterns, like the fact that I eat a ton of Mac n’ cheese along with various blueberry products. I don’t eat meat, I prefer to buy more expensive fresh mozzarella and I spend a lot more money on art supplies than clothing. Along with the fact that I’m a pack rat and I have actually saved all of these receipts in the first place!

So I'll be a busy bee this week, which is really good because I spent the last two weeks basically in my room because it was rainy and I was super lazy. My brother just graduated H.S. (congrats Alex!!) and we're planning a duel graduation celebration/family get-together. Also one of my favorite gals, Jasmine, is in from California and there's going to be an amazing Glam Rock themed welcome back party in her honor. I'm throwing a dinner party for some of my guy friends where there will be lots of win, Scene It and Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. And then, hopefully I'll be working on some freelance stuff and working for Aurora again, which is super-awesome (and lucrative!)

That's all for now, I've taken more images, which will be up soon, so hold tight for more book art stuff!

Pamphlet Books!

2009-06-22T19:34:00.003-04:00

So I finally got around to documenting my work from Laurie Snyder’s Photographic Book class. I’m going to do posts for each book so I can show multiple views and talk about each one individually unless they are related, in which case I’ll group them. These images of the books are not scans -- so they’re not perfect and there’s a lot of glare in some.

So these books were from one of our earlier assignments. It’s just a simple pamphlet fold, the first kind of book we learned to make, and they have 16 pages including the front and back covers. On our first day we had to make a book about out feelings about Barack Obama’s inauguration, which was the same day. The Obama book is about 5 ½ x 4 ¼ inches and is a collage using newspaper images, pencil, ballpoint pen and marker.

For homework we had to make a book with the same binding, the subject of the book being up to us. I decided to make a book about the different meals I like and foods and drinks that I enjoy and I bound the book with dental floss. The book itself is about 5 ¼ x 4 inches printed on the laser printer in the print lab. It came out all right I took pictures and used older images that I had taken before of different yummy foods and made a book. I didn’t like how the color print came out, the color is way off and it looks kind of gross so I decided to do a line sketch version of it, which is kind of unfinished. I’m not sure I really like how either of them turned out that muchbut I like the photographs I did for the food book, it's really too bad the color and print quality isn't better… Never the less, they're making me hungry just looking at them!

The Labors of Hercules

2009-06-17T00:56:00.012-04:00

These images are from my series “The Labors of Hercules” which was also a part of my Senior Thesis. This series basically took similar ideas from the “Family/preservation of Heritage series” (tradition, cultural values, etc.) and made them more focused on cultural identity as opposed to personal identity. The pieces depict the individual labors in a very simple way, the slaying of the creatures or the action of the labor is not shown directly but I wanted the observer to understand as much of the myth as possible without the paintings being overly explicit or literal. The order of the images is actually backwards because the Lion is supposed to be first and Cerberus is last.

Cerberus- Spray paint and acrylic on panel.
The Cretan Bull- Gesso and pencil on wood.
The Stymphalian Birds- Oil, tin foil and shellac on wood.
The Golden Hind- Spray paint, pencil, acrylic and shellac on wood.
The Nemean Lion- Oil and shellac on wood.

On a different note, I'm trying to figure out why my default language/type on this blog is Hindi...
व्त्फ़? = WTF?

Some Older Work (First of the Family Series)

2009-06-05T23:00:00.005-04:00

These pieces were done during the Spring of my sophomore year at MICA. This idea of the Family / Preservation of Heritage Series was germinated in my Collage & Assemblage class for the assignment of "Ageing and Distressing" in which we had to take new materials and make them look old or worn.

Work

2009-06-03T02:30:00.002-04:00

More Work

2009-06-03T01:57:00.005-04:00

Here is some more work my Senior Thesis, (from September '08 through right before I graduated.) These pieces are from a body of work titled "The Preservation of Heritage," I'll give you the abbreviated artist's statement:

These pieces reflect my interest in Family and Heritage themes. I have been using old family photos and photographs that I’ve taken myself that I feel represent some aspect of my family life or my experiences growing up and using them in small pieces usually on wood, canvas or panel. I use my family’s snapshots because I find interest in forgotten people and events; this holds an element of mystery for me. I feel like I am reclaiming part of my heritage by re-appropriating these images in my art. I use a myriad of materials, spray paint, oil paint sand, shellac, matte medium, acrylic and whatever else I can find.

I really enjoyed working on this series and will probably continue using more stuff found in the basement. I've also been meaning to root through some of my mother's old photographs since most of photographs I've used so far have been from my dad's side.

I'm going to try to get some decent images of some of the photo work I've done this year as well as images of the books I've made. Hopefully they'll be up for your viewing pleasure before long.

First post

2009-06-01T20:32:00.001-04:00

I've just graduated college at MICA and I've finally got my BFA...now what? Well, first thing's first-- Get a site to display work. So check that off on my list! Now I've just got to find a job, get a business card, and a driver's license. So here's an image that I'm thinking of using for the postcard, tell me what you think. I'll try to update and add more pics over this week. Ciao for now! ~C