BIG BODY TRACINGS AND GARGANTUAN GIGGLES

Monday evening, August 25.

I am currently standing in the midst of 20 GIANT body tracings and 20 giggling college students. Their first class is tonight and they are working in pairs, tracing one another and cutting out the tracings. In a minute I will tell them to pose the figures. We are going big here, and thinking about movement and composition and fore, middle and background, but they don't know any of that. You see, these are not art students, but medical students. They are studying to become nurses, or lab technicians or physician assistants. This class, Introduction to Art Media is a stretch for them.

During the semester I will introduce these students to different kinds of art media. Tonight we have started with the basics: drawing tools. Here are two of the cutouts made by one pair of students.

Rethinking ideas

I have been working and reworking this idea for Half the Sky. I am still not satisfied with my designs. The idea is to create an iconic, recognizable design that speaks "half the sky" but is still a design that I can vary. I posted several sketches recently on this blog and on my Facebook page Pippengerart and asked for comments. Most were positive but one of my artist friends, MB, noted that I should keep exploring. I agree. Presented here - for the second time - are the colored pencil sketches I posted:


             

Yesterday I started working on a new design that could be the answer. It is still in the sketching stages. This is part of the task of new work, trying out different ideas and sketching and reworking till it feels right. Let me know what you think. Comments help!

YOUR THOUGHTS NEEDED!

In a previous post I talked about a new series called "Half the Sky" and my attempts to give visual voice to the proverb that "women hold up half the sky". At the time I noted that my first sketches were not yet ready for prime time viewing. Well, today I am posting four colored pencil sketches for you to check out. AND, I would like you to weigh in with your thoughts, about the sketches and the proverb. What does "Half the Sky" suggest to you?

     

     

I am SO looking forward to your comments. 

Keeping up....

Updating the calendar, checking deadlines, choosing show entries, negotiating exhibits, tracking expenses, promoting work....whew! When do I actually get to make art? That is the true struggle of the artist. All we really want to do is make things - always more ideas than time - but we also need to attend to the business end of our creative lives. The care and feeding of the art career is multi-faceted and it is really easy to ignore the part where we don't get to draw, paint, cut, paste or sculpt.

In a sense, creating is the reward for tending to the business side. And tending to the business hopefully allows us to show our work, sell our work, buy supplies, pay some bills, and actually feel like a grown-up in the art biz. It's definitely a circular world: one task feeds the other!

Business is my to-do list today, and the reward for those jobs well done is studio time. Hurray!

Half the Sky and why work in a series?

Happy Monday morning! It's hard to believe July is nearly gone. I certainly don't feel I have completed all my summer projects and plans. The time just whizzes by; I will never have enough time to bring all my ideas to life!

Half the Sky, my newest small series is not ready for viewing yet, but soon. I would be interested to hear others' interpretations of what "Half the Sky" means to them. I find the term really evocative, and discovered it because of a  book I read by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl  WuDunn: Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. (http://www.halftheskymovement.org/). The book is fascinating and has made me think about how much women worldwide do to support the world. We really do hold up half the sky!

Choosing a theme and working in series is a great way to explore a topic while also stretching my creativity muscles (and ligaments and tendons and brain cells and those little carpal tunnels...). It's always good to set some parameters on the work one makes; it actually forces an artist to be more creative. One's art can get pretty messy when you can choose from virtually everything!

Keeping that in mind, today I will work in my studio on my tapestry series. More on that later!

http://www.pippengerart.com/
http://www.pinterest.com/marshapip/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pippengerart/

Why do I make art? What is Half the Sky?

Why does a person become an artist? It's a logical question since most artists don't earn enough from art sales to support themselves. Many of us work other jobs to pay our basic bills. Some of us teach, some of us work retail, some of us are nurses, or computer techs, or tree trimmers. We all struggle with time management and sometimes it feels as if the making of the art is always at the bottom of the to-do list.

So why bother? I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I have to make art. It's almost like breathing. If I am not working on an art series I carry around this nagging feeling of anxiety, as if something is undone, incomplete, unfinished. When I don't have very much time - as in several hours to be in the studio - I work on small pieces, usually in colored pencil - so I can accomplish something. I turn these small pieces into thematic series so they have a unified identity. I matt and frame them so that I can also do very small shows of very small work.

I am starting a new small series now, titled, "Half the Sky". The title is from a Chinese proverb which notes that "women hold up half the sky". I have been working on this idea for several months, trying to get the imagery just right. I will post some images when they are ready for an audience. 

My first post falls on Bastille Day!

How appropriate that my first post on my new PipART blog should be on Bastille Day, given how many of my most admired artists come from France - Delacroix, Gericault, Monet, David and others - so many talented artists, way too many to name them all. When I look at the work of the artists who came before me I am humbled by their skill, encouraged by their example, and honored to be a small part of that history of artists contributing good to the world.

Most of you who read this already know me. You know I work mainly in collage, that I also love colored pencil, that I am passionate about creating art and knowing its history. You know that I feel strongly about the importance of art education. You may also know that I do my best to support and strengthen the cultural wealth of this amazing city, Dayton, Ohio. However, you may discover some new things about Marsha, the artist. I sure hope so!

I promise to keep my posts short and readable, and, hopefully, interesting. I plan to pop in every Monday to plant my thoughts on things art. In the meantime, you can check my website: www.pippengerart.com or go to Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marsha.pippenger. 

I have my personal FB and two pages you may want to check: Pippengerart: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pippengerart 

or Pip's Awesome Cards: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pips-Awesome-Cards.

I will also have work on Pinterest soon. 

Well, that's it. Happy Bastille Day! And, if you are inspired, feed the artist with your comments..