Clare Finin & Michael Ho - Current Research in Graduate School

Clare Finin - MFA Candidate in Metals

There is a lot of emphasis put on the studio side of things in an MFA program.
Life in the MFA program has a lot of responsibilities and can be very stressful and busy. There are meetings, homework, teaching, emailing, etc. She doesn't have time to hang out with her friends or have time for leisure. However, this is her passion and she wants to be doing this.
Clare likes to research the relationship between objects and emotions from the past. When we hold a certain item, we are able to once again feel old emotions. This helps shift the object's meaning to something much more personal.
Clare loves to research, critique, create, and read. All of these things help her think of new ideas and push herself further in her work.

Michael Ho - MA Candidate in Art Education

He began to be passionate about art in his later years of high school. He got a scholarship to a summer art school, and after that he knew he wanted to pursue art. After going to community college and not doing so well, he decided to get a Bachelors of Fine Arts in painting in Houston.
Michael began teaching elementary art and he became interested in education. As an educator, he learned more about himself as an artist.
However, Michael wanted to learn more and so he decided to go to graduate school. He wanted to be able to be an artist, a teacher, and a researcher. He needed to credentials in order to move up in the art world and have more opportunities.
Michael does what is known as art-based research. He became interested in why people needed to call themselves an artist/teacher/researcher - was it necessary?
If he was doing what everyone else was doing, why did he not feel like he was accomplishing all of this?
His research dealt with identity and so he used psychology to help him understand it better. For example, he referred to Erickson who discusses different ages and the related psychosocial crisis.
Still, he wondered why people needed to be hung up on the word "artist". He decided it was more important to have actions than to become obsessed with whether or not he was an actual artist.
"We should be concerned with the action rather than the title."

Emmy Lingscheit - Printmaking

The imagery in a print isn't a reproduction of another work, it's a work of art itself.
Matrix : a positive that makes the impression on the paper out of ink
Printmaking has been around a long time, and keeps evolving over time. It's played a large role as a technology in recording history.
Printmakers made first-person accounts of what they were studying. Before photography, this helped people all over see things they otherwise wouldn't have.
Printmaking creates a sort of community, because there are many steps and skills necessary to the process. It's important you have others to help you and work with.
We use things that have been made by the process of printmaking everyday, such as money.
There are many different kinds of printmaking such as:
-woodcut
-lithography
-screenprint
-letterpress

Andy Warhol used printmaking in many of his works, and used it as a symbol of mass-production in society.

Jennifer O'Connor - Art Education

Jennifer O'Connor worked at a non-profit community arts center in the southwest side of Chicago.
It was located in a working class neighborhood with a diverse population. The classes included visual art, dance, music, and theater. They put on plays, musicals, and films, and held auctions and local charity events.
Jennifer was interested in having classes that were based on genuine art education. They were designed by teaching artists and used quality materials. The arts center began to expand, and served more than 15,000 students annually.
The gallery at the arts center contained works by local artists, contemporary artists, outsider artists, and even student artists. There were many student exhibits with art from area schools.
The job helped Jennifer meet many different artists and have new experiences.
Some of the best parts of working at a non-profit community arts center were creating classes, working and meeting with artists, and working with parents and students in the community.
However, some of the lows of the job were finances, working with schools who didn't want programming, and working in an environment where visual art was not valued.
Non-profit work has many challenges. There is always a need for new ideas and new people, and it can be difficult and draining. However, it is very rewarding and an amazing experience.

Crafts (Ceramics & Metals) - Billy Thide

Metal & Jewelry
There are many ways to create jewelry:
-beading
-sewing
-setting
-using enamel
-casting
By majoring in Metal & Jewelry design, there are many professions you can take such as:
-professor of art
-fashion and accessory designer
-craft artist
-jewelry designer

Art Fair
Art fairs are places for artists to sell their work to the public
Sales can be good or bad, and it often depends on how well you can work with people

Ceramics
We watched a video on different ceramic artists
They each had different styles and techniques in creating their work
It seems like ceramics takes a lot of patience, skill, and creativity

Kendall McCaugherty - Photography

-Kendall Mccaugherty was a photography major at the University of Illinois
-She now works as a photographer's assistant at Hedrick Blessing Photographers, which is an architectural photography firm in Chicago
-A lot of us won't be able to travel to see and experience buildings firsthand, and that's why photography and film are so important to architecture
-Hedrick Blessing was one of the first to do architectural photography
-The business started during the Great Depression, but was able to survive because of its popular photos of the Chicago World's Fair
-The photos focus on the importance of the relationship between light and dark
-People are used in many of the photos, because buildings were made for human interaction
-They use the figures to mimic the shapes in the buildings

Where would architecture be without photography? How would you experience other parts of the world?

Stephen Cartwright - Sculpture

Figure

-Sculpture used to mark something significant such as an important date or religious figure 

-As time went on, sculpture became more intimate and personal

-The outside world begins to influence the art, and it starts to take on different styles

-In the 70s, Eleanor Antin brought a new meaning to "carving sculptures" by taking photos of herself losing weight over a period of time

-Mark Quinn made a frozen sculpture of his face from his own blood

Space

"Sculpture is what you bump into while looking at paintings."

-Space gives objects presence in the 3-dimensional word

-Makes the piece interactive with the viewer

-Changing people's experience of the world

Geometry

-Using shapes and minimalism

-Janine Antoni wanted to get away from minimalism, and used a block of chocolate which she chewed into shape (exploring body images and women)

-Carl Andre made floor pieces for people to walk on, because this is unusual for a museum

Everyday objects

-Why do we ignore them in everyday art, but suddenly pay attention to them in the art world?

-We shift the context of objects

-Duchamp's "Fountain" which was a urinal

"There's an intimacy and a repulsion that you can create with sculpture, that you maybe can't do with illustration."

Rachele Riley - Graphic Design

Rachele Riley is a designer and artist who uses many mediums including print, drawing, and video

You see graphic design everywhere, everyday
Signs, magazines, books, logos

When you're a graphic designer, you decide what you love, and create a niche around that
You have to be able to project ideas in recognizable ways
Expression using symbols & colours
Graphic design isn't neutral - it uses opinions

"You're making art with someone in mind, but you are someone."

Graphic design creates community and is relatable
Design is a noun and a verb
Collecting and generating data are both parts of being a graphic designer

Ben Grosser - New Media

"New media has yet to become old."

New media includes:

-video 

-code

-web

-hardware

-interaction

-storytelling

-performance

Being a new media major involves learning to understand and shape new technological forms.

You must be inventive and full of new ideas. 

"Technology can control what you do.. and where you do it and how you do it."

New media can be used to question and communicate concepts and subjects. 

adapt 

manipulate

analyze

understand

Dr. Deana McDonagh - Industrial Design

Dr. McDonagh is an industrial designer who realized there was a need for women in the field.

She uses Kickstarter to help get backing for new inventions and products:

Snooz

-white noise machine

-helps to make sleep easier

-not digital, uses a real fan

Industrial design is related to graphic design, but it also requires the knowledge of engineering, psychology, etc.

It works to help make normally complicated things easily understandable and empathetic with the public.

-graphics & 3-D models

-understand your market, and why your product is better than others out there

-think about user needs

-emotions + economics

"technology itself isn't selling - it's the narrative"

Kristin Romberg - Art History

Professor Romberg specializes in contemporary and modern art and has been teaching art history for 3 years at the University of Illinois.

In art history, you can bring all different kinds of disciplines together in order to examine objects and works of art. You can use knowledge from literature, science, linguistics, etc. to connect your observations to the meanings behind art. 

Research is a large part of being an art historian. Professor Romberg spent time at the The Getty Center in Los Angeles studying and doing research for this reason. It contains a museum with high quality works of art, but that is only 1/3 of what goes on at the center. There are also two separate institutes, the conservation institute and the research institute. 

During this time the research revolved around object, value, and canon.

canon - general law or principle that is used to judge something

The presentation of art can help put it into context, so that you can experience it in a more understandable way. Different types of art can also be judged in various ways. If the piece is able to tell a story, we find it more relatable and open to discussion. These stories can help to explain the way the artist viewed the world. Art history works towards crafting a narrative for the art. 

"Never have human beings in any other system felt closer to a common death, and thus never have they seen that on their work depends not only well being for all, but also for each" - Malevich, 1921

What art can we identify with, and what makes the art most effective?