Artist Response: Ryan McGinness

Ryan McGinness

Ryan McGinness, Worlds within Worlds

2003, mirror maze installation, mixed media

Ryan Mcginness is a well renowned painter and artist.  McGinness lives in New York City and his studio is located in Chinatown New York.  This lecture was extremely crowed compared to the last lecture I went to.  McGinness began by proving to the audience that he was from Virginia Beach and very proud of that, showing us his drivers license to prove it.  McGinness explained to us that his first interest with art and design began at a very young age. 

I liked that McGinness explained how he created his paintings.  McGinness starts off sketching, and then makes his sketches into solid forms.  Then he brings the forms into the computer and finally creates screen prints from the computer images in which he uses to paint.  He seems to follow this pattern for most of his work especially for his work he did for the VMFA where he created paintings based on the permanent works of the museum.   One specific piece that Ryan McGinness showed us that I found most interesting was “Worlds within Worlds.”  McGinness created a maze of mirrors generating decals of sketches and drawings he made displayed on the mirrors.  The mirrors then reflected the drawings onto each other continuing and repeating the images forever. 

In regards to my questions about McGinness and if he gets lost in his art work I don’t believe he does because he works with only so many objects (subjects) on each painting.  McGinness also chooses exactly where he will place each design on his paintings.  McGinness mentioned during his lecture that the paintings aren’t planned at all then he continued to say that he has tried to plan paintings in the past however it has never successfully worked out or felt right. 

Quote

“Color is a secondary color- everything has to work in black and white first.”

Three words: graphic, design, bright

Idea 9: Surroundings

 Surroundings

–noun

1. something that surrounds.

2. surroundings, environing things, circumstances, conditions, etc.; environment: He was too sick to be aware of his surroundings.

3. the act of encircling or enclosing.

–adjective

4. enclosing or encircling.

5. being the environment or adjacent area.

Relation to my work:

Surroundings are the area around a given physical point or place.  Surroundings can also be objects and physical items that are in relation or are near someone or something.   In my project I am photographing women in their spaces and the objects that surround and define them in some way.  People and their surroundings is a large part of my project since I am photographing women in their spaces.  Often when I photograph the women I have things that represent their personalities or something that identifies them within the space. 

Quotes

Articles

http://www.innovationmanagement.se/2011/01/24/people-and-spaces/

Artist Questions: Ryan McGinness

Ryan McGinness

You use a mix of different mediums when creating your work such as paintings, sculptures and you take into consideration the environment that you display your work in.  How do you decide which medium to use when creating a specific piece?

Your paintings are very bright and have many layers to them making them appear to be graphical inspired.  Do you ever get lost in all the layers when creating your work?

Artist Post 9- Ellen Gallagher

Ellen Gallagher

Ellen Gallagher was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1965.  Gallagher studied at the Oberlin College and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston Massachusetts.  Gallagher creates her art through painting, drawing, collages, and films.  Finding inspiration and motivation in advertisements and popular magazines Gallagher is attracted to the language of these objects creating narratives in her work stimulated by the characters of the advertisements.  Narrative based stories inspired from found materials have enthused Gallagher.  Gallagher has received many awards such as the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship and the American Academy Award.  Gallagher has had her work exhibited in a vast variety of museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, St. Louis Art Museum, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in San Francisco.    

Gallagher has a very interesting process to creating her work.  First she creates the scale in which she is going to work on, and then plasticine is used to create claymation.  Next Gallagher builds a grid of pages from magazines relating each object to the next and finally she glues the sheets to the canvas.  Gallagher starts from one corner of the canvas working her way across and down.  Gallagher stated in relation to her process that, “There’s a kind of improvisation that happens. You’ll do about nine wigs a day, or nine prosthetics a day. And they relate to each other over time. You can see shifts which is also why I like to show more than one painting together, because they mark quite a long time period in making.”

I am attracted to Gallagher’s work and how she uses a vast range and mix of materials when creating her work.  Also I am engrossed by her style, Gallagher often used vintage magazines when creating her work which is appealing to me because of my love for everything vintage. 

Quotes

“The work comes out of my desire to create an expansive, fluid realm that is both the concrete historical fragments it is made up of and the new form it describes.”

--Ellen Gallagher

“I really get excited by this idea that a printed material can be so widely distributed.”—Ellen Gallagher

Ellen Gallagher, "Feminine Hygiene"

2005, Courtesy Two Palms Press.

Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine

Ellen Gallagher, "from Preserve series"

Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine

Ellen Gallagher, "Pomp- Bang"

2003 (detail)

Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine

Ellen Gallagher, "Millie Christine" from "Deluxe"

2004-2005 13 x 10 inches

Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine

Ellen Gallagher, "Mr. Terrific from "Deluxe"

2004-2005 13 x 10 inches

Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine

Interview: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/gallagher/clip1.html

Website: Ellen Gallagher does not have a website.

Gallery: Gagosian Gallery, Jan 22- Feb 26, 2011, West 24^th St. NY, NY

Works Cited

Ellen Gallagher. Art21.  26 March 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/gallagher/clip1.html>.

Ellen Gallagher.  Gagosian Gallery.  26 March 2011. <http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2011-01-22_ellen-gallagher/>. 

Artist Lecture- Kiyomi Iwata Response

Kiyomi Iwata

"Essentially what I do at the studio is play."

3 words: Texture, wires, reflections

         Kiyomi Iwata is an internationally recognized artist.  I really enjoyed Iwata’s lecture, which was very small and intimate.  It was the first artist lecture that I have attended that is not a photo/film lecture in the past two years.  I found it completely fascinating to hear an artist who uses a different medium. 

         Iwata showed us the vessels that she makes and how they inspire her to try new things when making them.  For instance, one specific piece Iwata showed us she said she hung the piece on the wall in her studio to examine it and after she did she noticed shadows that reflected off her piece on to the wall.  Kiyomi Iwata stated that she “ liked how the shadows on the wall were intertwined and shared the same weight as her sculpture did.  I really enjoyed how she examines and will continue works even after she thinks it is complete.  My favorite quote from Iwata during the lecture was, “sometimes an accident happens and you like it so it happens.”   Meaning that when something you think is a bad accident occurs when creating something and then you notice that it changes or helps your piece in an unexpected way that you embrace it.   

            Another thing that I found interesting during Iwata’s lecture was that she uses all the stages of production of her materials.  Traditionally, Iwata uses mostly silk from its first stage of production to the very final stage where she uses the ends and scraps of the rejected silk ends. 

            Kiyomi Iwata didn’t answer my questions.  However, one question someone asked after the lecture that I found interesting was that Iwata works in a large range of scales and what curves her decision on what piece should be what size.  Iwata said that she works very intimately with all her work.  Iwata stated,  “It’s good to work small, digest the piece, figure out the projects flaws and then move on to larger pieces.” Overall, I really enjoyed Kiyomi Iwata’s lecture.

Artist Lecture- Laurel Nakadate Response

Laurel nakadate

1.) You often seem to use yourself, as a model in both your video and still images, is there significance to this?

2.) Women and sexuality appear to play a repeating role in your work, what is your interest in relationships between people and sexuality?

3 words : failures, travel and amusing

“Documentary is a conversation with the real world”—Laurel Nakadate

Even though Nakadate, 35, has been investigating the theme of sex and power for a decade, she doesn't claim to have come up with a conclusion. "I think artists are always trying to mine material that they don't necessarily have the answers for,"

I really enjoyed Laurel Nakadate’s lecture.  I found it interesting how she showed us work from when she was eighteen years old to illustrate to us how you learn from experience and improve your work and concepts over time.  I also appreciated how she discussed trial, error, and her failures with us and how to accept them in a good way.  The idea that she has made several films, went with the flow of things and found locations the day of shooting was surprising to hear but reassuring to know that things will all work out if you have hope and believe in what your working on.  I felt a bit remorseful when Nakadate was discussing the research and dedication she put in to all her older work because technology was not as readily available as it is now.   Such as in her piece, “Oops”, 2000 when she had to watch MTV for a week to learn the dance moves from Britney Spears music video.  Art changes overtime with technology and sometimes I forget that so it was appealing to hear it again from another artist.  

Idea 8: Yoyeurism

Voyeurism

   Dictionary

-An obsessive observer of sordid or sensational subjects.

-       practice of spying on people

Yoyeurism is a way of watching and observing people.  One technique to observing others is watching them without them being aware of it.  The voyeur can observe their subject from a distance or using hidden cameras or two-way mirrors.  Yoyeurism plays an important role in my work because I am observing women in their spaces, I wait until they are in their own moment to take a photograph of them in their space. 

Quotes

“Of the two forms that voyeurism takes in our time -- watching other people have sex and seeing other people's homes -- the latter is by far the more interesting and, in so many instances, the more deeply personal.”

''London, happily, is becoming full of great men's houses, bought for the nation and preserved entire with the chairs they sat on and the cups they drank from, their umbrellas and their chests of drawers. . . . We know them from their houses.”---- Virginia Woolf

Article :

 Brubach, Holly.  New York Times Magazine.  7 October 2007.  23 March 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/ehost/detail?hid=11&sid=e09824fe-fd53-48a2-96eb-70aeefe0bccb%40sessionmgr14&vid=5&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVybCxjb29raWUsdWlkJnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=27925444>.

This article is about how there are two different types of voyeurism in our time, watching people have sex and observing people in general and their personal spaces.  This article mentions and bases this information off of Dr. Johnson’s Doorknob: And Other Significant Parts of Great Men’s Houses. Which is a collection of photographs by Liz Workman who documented famous and prestigious men’s houses.  

Questions: Kiyomi Iwata

Kiyomi Iwata

Kiyomi Iwata, Gray Orchid Fold 3, 1995 15 x 20 x 13 in.

Aluminum mesh, variegated metal leaf and embroidery

Questions

You have said that your work is influenced by your traditional upbringing in Japan.  You have also said that you explore the boundaries of East and West in your work how does this relate to these vessels that hold mysteries?

What is one of the biggest challenges that you have when working with such delicate materials such as silk?

Submission 2

Here is my submission to the Anderson gallery today.

11 x 14" Swimsuit Ad, 2010 digital print

11 x 14" Tights Ad, 2010 digital print

11 x 14" Alcohol Ad, 2010 digital print

proof of submission (my receipt)

Artist Questions: Laurel Nakadate

Laurel Nakadate Questions

1.) You often seem to use yourself, as a model in both your video and still images, is there significance to this?

2.) Women and sexuality appear to play a repeating role in your work, what is your interest in relationships between people and sexuality? 
 

Artist Post 8- Yinka Shonibare

Yinka Shonibare

Yinka Shonibare MBE was born in 1962 London and grew up in Lagos, Nigeria.  Shonibare’s art explores race and colonialism he uses a wide array of media including painting, sculpture, photography, film and performance when creating his work. Art history, colonialism, and social classes interest Yinka Shonibare MBE and are repetitive topics that that are represented in his art.  Shonibare studied at Byam Shaw School of Art and earned a Master of Arts from Goldsmith College, London University in 1991.   Shonibare has received a fellowship at Goldsmith College-2003, Barclays Young Artists Award, Serpentine Gallery in London –1992 and has been awarded the MBE (Order of the British Empire) in 2005. 

In many of Shonibare’s work he uses textiles and African fabrics, however he buys the fabrics from a market in London where they are infact not authentic African fabrics.  Shonibare stated, "They prove to have a crossbred cultural background quite of their own. And it’s the fallacy of that signification that I like. It’s the way I view culture — it’s an artificial construct."  Shonibare then has these fabrics made into opulent Victorian dresses to be placed on mannequins, astronaut costumes, and he even stretches the fabrics to make canvases.  

I am interested in Yinka Shonibare MBE’s artwork and how he works in layers.  Working in layers and creating images within images is something that I have been interested in.  Some of the photographs I have been taking recently for my project look like composites even though they are not, however that attracts me.  

Quotes:

(in reference to forcing notions on an audience)  “You have the opportunity to rethink these things, but you don’t necessarily have to. There are people who believe that the war in Iraq is absolutely right, as there are people who believe that it is absolutely wrong. There are two sides, and I think that’s what an artist has to recognize: positions are always relative.” -----Yinka Shonibare MBE

“To be an artist, you have to be a good liar. There’s no question about that. If you’re not, you can’t be a good artist. Basically, you have to know how to fabricate, how to weave tales, how to tell lies, because you’re taking your audience to a nonexistent space and telling them that it does exist. But you have to be utopian in your approach. You have to create visions that don’t actually exist yet in the world—or that may actually someday exist as a result of life following art. It’s natural for people to want to be sectarian or divisive. Different cultures want to group together, they want to stick to their own culture, but what I do is create a kind of mongrel. In reality most people’s cultures have evolved out of this mongrelization, but people don’t acknowledge that.”----Yinka Shonibare MBE

Interview: http://www.theroot.com/views/bomb-root-yinka-shonibare-interview

http://bombsite.com/issues/93/articles/2777

Website: http://www.yinkashonibarembe.com/present.html

Gallery: Miami Art Museum, showed Yinka Shonibare’s “A Flying Machine for Every Man, Woman and Child.” October 31- January 18, 2009

Yinka Shonibare, Diary of A Victorian Dandy, 3.00 Hours

C-type Print; ed. of 5 48 x 72 in. 1998

Yinka Shonibare, Untitled, C-Print,

Reproduction Baroque frame, Ed 2 of 5, 48 x 36 in 1997

Yinka Shonibare, Leisure Lady with Pugs,

Life size mannequin, fibreglass dogs, dutch wax print cotton,

figure 160 x 80 x 80 cm, dogs 40 x 60 x 20 cm each

Yinka Shonibare, The Victorian Philanthropist's Parlour

Reproduction furniture, fire screen, carpet, props, Dutch wax printed cotton

approximately 260 x 488 x 530 cm 

Yinka Shonibare, Spacewalk, 

Commissioned by the Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia,

Screen Printed Cotton fabric, fiberglass, plywood, vinyl, plastic, steel

Works Cited

http://www.artknowledgenews.com/Yinka_Shonibare.html

Yinka Shonibare.  Biography. 19 March 2011. <http://www.yinkashonibarembe.com/photography.html>.

Downey, Anthony. Yinka Shonibare. Bombsite.  19 March 2011. 2005.<http://bombsite.com/issues/93/articles/2777>.

Yinka Shonibare.  19 March 2011. 14 March 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinka_Shonibare>. 

Artist Post 7- Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton is a painter and collage artist who was born in London, England in 1922.  Hamilton studied painting at St Martin’s School of Art and eventually enrolled into the Royal Academy Schools.  After serving in the war Hamilton continued his studies at the Slade School of Art, University College, London England. Hamilton first began exhibiting at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and became part of the Independent Group at the ICA.  Hamilton lives and works in Oxfordshire.

James Joyce and Marcel Duchamp became major influences on Hamilton’s thinking and drawings.  Hamilton participated in the Independent Group discussing popular culture, media, and art.  Other exhibits at the Institute of Contemporary Arts inspired Hamilton and he became interested in contemporary writers such as Umberto Eco and Roland Barthes.  These contemporary writers wrote about concerns with lifestyles, power, sexuality and consumerism.  Hamilton inspired by these writings created the collage, Just What Is it that Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?  In this collage the domestic interior scene contains a semi-nude couple that were cut out from a mass circulated magazine and modern comfortable living situation.  Hamilton with this piece is playing with the affluence and consumerism. 

Hamilton’s work interests me because on his use of collage.  Using current magazines from when he made the collages and layering the images to create domestic spaces is interesting to me.  Hamilton was fascinated with mass produced images and he created artwork that could easily be massed produced which I find interesting. 

Quotes:

"Pop Art is: popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business" – Richard Hamilton

“We called it pop art and Elvis Presley would be a manifestation of pop art, and advertising would be a manifestation of pop art, and so all these things were not seen to be susceptible to treatment. These ideas were not seen susceptible to treatment in the world of fine art, and all the people that I associated with were really hard-edged painters. That was the fashion at the time and Lawrence Alloway, who is always attributed to be the man who invented the name pop art, was curating the exhibitions of just that kind of art.” –Richard Hamilton

Gallery:  Gagosian Gallery, 2009, Toaster Deluxe

Website: Richard Hamilton does not have a personal website.

Interview: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/hamilton_transcript.shtml

Richard Hamilton: A Masterclass from the father of Pop Art.  13 march 2011. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/feb/14/richard-hamilton-interview-serpentine-cooke>.

 S.C. Maharaj Richard Hamilton.  MoMA.  2009.  13 March 2011. <http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=2481>. 

Richard Hamilton, Just What Is it that Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?

Collage, size ?

Richard Hamilton, 8" x 12" color laser print, 1993

Richard Hamilton, Interior, 1964, 

19 5/16 x 25 1/8" Print

Richard Hamilton, My Marilyn, 1965 Screenprint

20 1/4" x 24 15/16"

Idea 6: Perspective

Perspective

–noun

1. a technique of depicting volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface. Compare aerial perspective, linear perspective.

2. a picture employing this technique, especially one in which it is prominent: an architect's perspective of a house.

3. a visible scene, especially one extending to a distance; vista: a perspective on the main axis of an estate.

4. the state of existing in space before the eye: The elevations look all right, but the building's composition is a failure in perspective.

5. the state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship: You have to live here a few years to see local conditions in perspective.

6. the faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship: Your data is admirably detailed but it lacks perspective.

7. a mental view or prospect: the dismal perspective of terminally ill patients.

 Perspective is a way of viewing a particular object or scene. With linear perspective objects appear differently and as they become further away they appear smaller because their visual angle changes.  In my project recently I have changed the way I have been viewing the way I am looking at the women in their spaces as well as the way I am looking at the women with the dollhouse as a playful element.  By changing perspectives I feel that I am making my project have a more unique angle and making it more personable.  

Quotes

“The process begins with a pre-visualization of the subject and how it relates within the realm of its environment. Once this is achieved, the next step is to commence the process of finding a perspective that defines you. There are different ways to express the relation of the subject but the important thing is that it is meaningful to you.”

“Firstly, to express perspective effectively there is a need to arrange the subjects in terms of spatial qualities. To do this, one needs to emphasize cues in the landscape that signify depth.”

McNeal, Kevin.  Perspective In Photography. PSA Journal. October 2008. <http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?hid=108&sid=ba39c727-d224-4ef1-b68a-f95944ce9303%40sessionmgr114&vid=3>.

This article is about the importance of perspectives and how it can define a photographer’s style. Perspective in photography is defined as a style of shooting and the view (angle) in which one photographs from.  The author of this article discusses the creative side of photographers and the importance of their style.  

Perspective. Wikipedia. 5 February 2011.  9 March 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_(visual)>. 

Artist Post 6- Janine Antoni

Janine Antoni is a contemporary artist who was born in Freeport, Bahamas in 1964.  Antoni studied at Sarah Lawerence College in New York, and earned her Masters of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design.  Antoni has had her work shown in a vast variety of museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Irish Museum of modern Art, and many more. 

Antoni’s work consists of sculptures, performances, and installations and often uses her body to perform everyday activities to create her artwork.   For example, in 1992 Antoni created the piece “Loving Care.”  For this piece, Antoni used her hair as a paintbrush to resemble mopping; traditionally a woman’s chore and loving care hair dye to paint paper on the gallery floor.   Antoni explored femininity and power through this project as she does with many of her projects.    Another piece where Antoni used her body to create a sculpture was “Gnaw.”  “Gnaw” consisted of a three-part installation of 600 lbs of chocolate, 600 lbs of lard, and lipstick tubes and chocolate box packaging.  Antoni used her mouth to literally gnawed at the chocolate and lard blocks; melt down the lard and chocolate that she spit out to recast into heart-shaped packaging for chocolate candy and lipstick.  “Then I made this display, trying to imitate a department store to put all my products in. I was sort of interested in how you were overcome with desire for the chocolate, you were kind of disgusted by the lard, and then I would turn around and take that very material that was disgusting to you and make it into lipstick which we use to make ourselves attractive” according to Antoni.

One thing that inspires me about Janine Antoni is how she tries and tries again when it comes to her work, if she does not get the right reaction from her audience she tries to display it in another way.  Antoni stated in reference to her “Loving Care” piece, “The first time I did Loving Care, it was not a performance; I did it as a relic and I showed it that way. It didn’t work! I realized that it wasn’t like Gnaw where the history was on the surface of the object and a viewer could re-create how it was made by looking at it. While making Loving Care, I realized that the power was in watching me mop the floor. The audience is the wild card. I am collaborating with them and I’m never sure how they will respond.”  I recently took photos for my project and knew once I saw them that they weren’t quite what I wanted them to be.  Therefore I re-shot looking from a different perspective and am very pleased with the direction my project is moving in now. 

Gallery: Most recent gallery exhibition was 2006, “Lore and Other Convergences,” at Live Art Development Agency initiative, in London.

Website: Janine Antoni does not have a website.

Interview: http://bombsite.com/issues/66/articles/2191

Art21.  Janine Antoni.  5 March 2011.  <http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/antoni/>.

MoMA. The Collection: Janine Antoni. 6 March 2011. <http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A8292&page_number=1&template_id=1&sort_order=1>.

Myers, Katherine.  Press Release: Antoni works Day and Night in Performance at Mass MoCA.  26 September 2000.  6 March 2011. <http://www.massmoca.org/press_releases/09_2000/9_26_00.html>.

Janine Antoni, Loving Care. Performance (unknown size), 1992

Janine Antoni, Gnaw, Installation of chocolate and lard, 1992

Janine Antoni, Gnaw, Installation of chocolate and lard, 1992

Janine Antoni, Moor, 2001 handmade rope 280 ft.

Janine Antoni, Coddle, 1998, Cibachrome print and hand carved frame,

 21 1/2 x 16 inches

Artist Lecture- Kathy Rose

Questions

I noticed that you put yourself in most of your video performances,  do you always perform in your videos or do you make film and video projections with just other dancers?

I see that you make videos, animations, installations, performing art, and photographs which medium do you find that you enjoy the most or find the most interesting?

Response

Guest lecturer Kathy Rose is a video filmmaker, performance artist, and creator of animated films.  I found Rose’s techniques she employs and utilizes in creating her animations and films fascinating, surreal and moving.  Kathy Rose spent most of her lecture showing us excerpts from videos she has made over the years.  I was surprised that Rose did not talk specifically about her individual projects or her process for making them. However, during the lecture it was asked what order Kathy Rose created her work, whether she made her animations first or created her dance and motions first.  Rose responded that each piece is unique and has different demands, and it is most important to have a distinct opening and closing for any projects development.

Rose seemed to answer one of my questions during her lecture.  Rose mentioned that the figures in her animation videos are a mixture of her students; people who volunteer to help her and herself.  Rose declared that she is interested in puppetry and that in many of her videos she creates puppet like figures of her subject. Just as a puppeteer manipulates the strings of the puppets Rose directs the actions of the characters in her films.  In many of Kathy Rose’s films she portrays her characters as very stiff yet flimsy giving them an eerily puppet like quality. Although Kathy Rose did not answer my second question during her lecture, one can assume that she enjoys mixing multiple mediums to obtain the effect that she projects in her work. 

Kathy Rose at the conclusion of her lecture expressed how costume design was a key component and crucial to her performances.  Rose commented on how remarkable it is to create sculpture on oneself and disguise one’s face. I found this to be intriguing because I also feel that costumes plays a major impact transforming characters creating illusion and an enduring impression.  Overall, I found Kathy Rose’s lecture to be very enlightening and compelling.   

Idea 5: Rituals

Rituals

–noun

1. an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite.

2. a system or collection of religious or other rites.

3. observance of set forms in public worship.

4. a book of rites  or ceremonies.

5. a book containing the offices to be used by priests in administering the sacraments and for visitation of the sick, burial of the dead, etc.

6. a prescribed or established rite,  ceremony, proceeding, or service: the ritual of the dead.

7. prescribed, established, or ceremonial acts or features collectively, as in religious services.

8. any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner.

9. a prescribed code of behavior regulating social conduct, as that exemplified by the raising of one's hat or the shaking of hands in greeting.

10. Psychiatry . a specific act, as hand-washing, performed repetitively to a pathological degree, occurring as a common symptom of obsessive-compulsive neurosis.

–adjective

11. of the nature of or practiced as a rite  or ritual: a ritual dance.

12. of or pertaining to rites  or ritual: ritual laws.

Rituals are most commonly performed for their symbolic value.  Most rituals are based off of traditions within and family or culture.  Rituals may be and are often performed on specific occasions.   Most commonly referred to rituals are associated with religion, spiritual, or social.   I am most interested in the ritual of space and performances. 

This semester I am photographing women in the environment that reflects them in some way.  I am taking pictures of women with a dollhouse in the background representing the ritual that these women used to be engaged and would role-play with the characters in the dollhouse.  

Articles

http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/ehost/detail?hid=111&sid=736d5adf-432d-484b-92d4-7a690187ea9f%40sessionmgr113&vid=18&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVybCxjb29raWUsdWlkJnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=57194714

Quotes

“Manipulation of the dolls within selective, gendered architectural spaces allowed the dollhouse owners to visualize the ideal Dutch home and "perform" their appropriate role within it as productive, disciplined, and orderly wives, mothers, and domestic managers.”

--- Michelle Moseley-Christian

“The use of toys in the seventeenth-century Netherlands as didactic tools to enforce moral and social order for children is well established, and has been linked to textual sources such as emblem books and household manuals (Durantini 1983: 178-99). Other examples of toys in didactic and ritual contexts throughout medieval and early modern Europe, and the location of these objects within an adult, female domestic sphere, suggest that these dollhouses, modeled after toys on a lavish scale, may have fulfilled a similar admonitory function. It is the location of these role-playing objects within an adult, female domestic sphere that suggests the instructive function of toys was adapted to a wider audience, including women.”—Michelle Moseley- Christian

“There are hardly any limits to the kind of actions that may be incorporated into a ritual. The rites of past and present societies have typically involved special gestures and words, recitation of fixed texts, performance of special music, songs or dances, processions, manipulation of certain objects, use of special dresses, consumption of special food, drink, or drugs, and much more.”—wikipedia rituals

Annotated bib

Moseley-Christian, Michelle.  Seventeenth- Century Pronk Poppenhuisen: Domestic Space and the Ritual Function of Dutch Dollhouses for Women.  Home Cultures; Nov. 2010

http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/ehost/detail?hid=111&sid=736d5adf-432d-484b-92d4-7a690187ea9f%40sessionmgr113&vid=18&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVybCxjb29raWUsdWlkJnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=57194714

This article is a study that investigates the nature of surviving dollhouses of the Seventeenth- Century Pronk Poppenhuisen that are agreed to be the ideal domestic identity for Dutch mothers and wives from the Netherlands.  The dollhouses that this article specifically studies were owned and collected by rich women collectors. 

Rituals.  Wikipedia.  1 March 2011.  2 March 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual>. 

Artist Questions: Kathy Rose

Kathy Rose questions

I noticed that you put yourself in most of your video performances,  do you always perform in your videos or do you make film and video projections with just other dancers?

I see that you make videos, animations, installations, performing art, and photographs which medium do you find that you enjoy the most or find the most interesting?