Amanda Denbeck EMDA Blog

[amandadenbeck-blog]

I’m fresh-meat (4-months) in the local roller derby team and a little over a week ago I got my first bum-jurie. Naughty said she was going to bring a donut for me and everyone thought she was bringing me an actual donut, not the kind you sit on to protect your bum from unrelenting pain. Inspired by my situation, I designed this motivational sticker! I’ll be talking to local printers soon to get a quote :P 

[denbeckemda]

Here are some updates for my BFA Project 10 Years, 9 Months, 3 Weeks, and 5 Days

[denbeckemda]

SO much progress has been made on my BFA Exhibition! I had a slight hiccup with the canvas--Art Supply Warehouse wanted to charge an extra $200 for shipping, so I found someone from OSF who was willing to help me create 3 custom-made frames as well as stretch the canvas. The canvas is actually drop-cloth--the stuff you usually don’t care about and drop paint all over. I really enjoy the texture and so I did’t prime the canvas. This piece was supposed to be covered in black acrylic diamonds, but I thought it would be stronger if the diamonds were on the “diamonds are forever” piece.

For now, the first canvas has been completed (minus any touchups that will be needed later) and I will be working on the second one off and on tomorrow as well as the rest of the week. I do need to continue working on the laser cutter projects, so I will be spending some time this week doing as well. The panels are coming along--Angie is in the process of writing the material and will be proofed later this week. Next week the panels will be completed and on the 28th of April they will be printed on matte paper.

Supplies I need now:

Long ruler

Huge cutting boards

a roll of double sided poofy tape (different thicknesses)

[denbeckemda]

Project Proposal

I propose that I work on my BFA Exhibition art pieces and panels for the first half of Spring term. The second half of this term, I propose that I work on 3 different projects, each with separate proposals. 

Here is a quick timeline for this term:

Week 2 (Monday April 6--Sunday April 12)> 

BFA Exhibition Tasks: Lasercut more triangles for “Shattered” piece, print out images of Sierra Leone Civil War and wedding-related images. Also create and lasercut box for interactive piece. Print out BFA Opening Exhibit cards. Work on design of panels and inputting information; measure panels. Create digital designs for poem piece and diamonds are forever piece.

Week 3 (Monday April 13--Sunday April 19)> 

BFA Exhibition Tasks: Put together poem piece and diamonds are forever piece; continue with panel designs & edits---proof panels and get ready for print.

Week 4 (Monday April 20--Sunday April 26) > 

BFA Exhibition Tasks: Continue working on art pieces. Print out panels. Get ready for installing exhibit at Hannon Library

Week 5 (Monday April 27--Friday May 1) > BFA Exhibition Tasks: Install exhibit and get ready for opening. 

Week 6 (Monday May 5--Sunday May 10) > 1st Project Proposal 

Week 7 (Monday May 11--Sunday May 17) > 1st Project due, 2nd Project proposal

Week 8 (Monday May 18--Sunday May 24) > 2nd project due, 3rd project proposal due

Week 9 (Monday May 25--Sunday May 31) > 3rd project due; start on project documentation

Week 10 (Monday June 1) > Project Documentation Due

[sodmc]

The Southern Oregon Digital Media Center and Rogue Valley Community Television are thrilled to be working with the Rogue Valley Messenger, the Rogue Valley Community Press, KSKQ Radio, the United Nations Alliance Club of SOU and other community partners to help organize the 11th annual Independent Media Week in Southern Oregon.

With many events hosted on campus at Southern Oregon University, look forward to an action-packed week of workshops, screenings and presentations celebrating the importance of independent and community-based media.

Among the highlights, Austin Powell (Managing Editor of the Daily Dot) and Deb Van Poolen (artist and activist) will address the topic of Local Roots, Global Reach in their keynote presentations on Thursday, April 30, 2015 at 7pm. They will speak in the Rogue River Room at SOU’s Stevenson Union.

Indy Media Week is also held in conjunction with the Emerging Media Convention, a two-day workshop series and showcase of creative work by students and for students at SOU.

Keep up with Indy Media Week activities on Facebook and Twitter, check out the full agenda of Indy Media Week events below, and look forward to promoting a vibrant and healthy media ecosystem in the Rogue Valley and beyond.

_________

Independent Media Week  - Schedule of Events

Sunday, April 26

Breakfast at KSKQ: 9 am – 11 am, 330 East Hersey St., Ashland Oregon. Start off your Independent Media Week in style with breakfast at KSKQ. The KSKQ breakfast/open house is a wonderful opportunity to meet the programmers and staff, see the station, and enjoy a delicious waffle.  Enjoy a light breakfast and coffee served right at the station by the talented KSKQ radio producers.

Media Circus: 12 pm – 4 pm, Ashland Plaza. Find out all about our Independent Media Week activities at the Media Circus. Performers and clowns will entertain while participating groups table about their actions and upcoming events.

Wednesday, April 29 Hannon Library at SOU - Meese Meeting Room (305)

RVTV Film Shorts
: 8-9am. Alex from the UN Club will be showing short films from the RVTV and community media library for the first hour.

Breakfast and Introduction: 9 am - 10 am. Introduction, muffins and coffee sponsored by the UN Club.

Workshop & Film: Successful independent media use in action campaigns: 10-12am. Health Care for All Oregon and Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice will host a discussion about their campaign and the use of independent media in getting the message out.  Learn how grassroots media helped organize HCAO’s recent Salem rally. View The Health Care Movie, an independent documentary produced in the Northwest that provides the real story of how the health care systems in Canada and the United States evolved to be so completely different.

Film: Programming the Nation?: Noon-2:30pm. Media eye is presenting Programming the Nation?, a 2011 feature-length social documentary written, produced and directed by Jeff Warrick. The film revisits the alleged history, research, implementation, and potential effects of subliminal programming in American mass-media, including interviews with Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman, Dennis Kucinich, Eldon Taylor, Wilson Bryan Key, and other authors and experts in the field of advertising, psychology, music, film, politics, and military weaponry.  After the movie we will be joined via Skype for a discussion with Jeff Warrick.

Workshop: Self Broadcasting Techniques: 2:30-3:30pm. Wendi Ingwerson from Blackstone will provide tutorials and information about how best to self-broadcast using various devices, programs, and techniques.

Film & Discussion: You Don’t Like The Truth: Four Days Inside Guantanamo: 3:30-5pm. Adrian Sobczyk from the UN Club will show You Don’t Like The Truth: Four Days Inside Guantanamo, an award winning 2010 documentary. The film focuses on the recorded interrogations of Canadian child soldier Omar Khadr, by Canadian intelligence personnel that took place over four days from February 13–16, 2003. It presents these with observations by his lawyers and former cell mates from the Bagram Theater Internment Facility and Guantanamo Bay detention camps.

Discussion: Independent Media as a tool for social justice
: 5-6pm. Following the movie, there will be a discussion about the use of independent media in social justice causes. The panel will include, keynote speaker Deb Van Poolen, Precious Yamaguchi (Southern Oregon University) and Alan Journet (Southern Oregon Climate Action Now).

Panel: The Future of Independent Media: 6-8pm. Panel on the future of media, how traditional media is evolving in the digital age and how our community can be better media producers. Panel guests include Bert Edling (Ashland Daily Tidings), Josh Gross (Rogue Valley Messenger), Jason Houk (Rogue Valley Community Press), Wendy King (Vibes) and Keith Mansuer (Oregon Cannabis Connection).

Film: To Light a Candle: 8-10 pm. The UN Club will present To Light a Candle, a film highlighting the persecution of Bahá’ís in Iran and focusing on the stories of those individuals associated with the shutdown of the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education.

[sodmc]

Get real-world journalism experience today: former KOBI news director Julie Akins starts mentoring media internships and coaching The Siskiyou online student newspaper at Southern Oregon University this fall. Sign up now to get course credit, get published and serve the larger student community with your writing, photography and multimedia skills.

[denbeckemda]

Art 345 | First Exercise: Create 3 Silhouettes in Illustrator

Silhouette 1: Flower teaspoon

Silhouette 2: Teacup

Silhouette: Teapot

[denbeckemda]

OH MY GOD--so I’ve been stressing a lot lately about how I am going to pay for all the materials I needed for my BFA. Well, I remembered that I am a part of a program called Dream$avers/College Dreams. ALL of my materials are going to be covered by them, which came up to cost about a grand. Its ridiculous how much this is going to cost but totally grateful and lucky to be a part of this program. 

Anyways, once the request is completely processed and they order the materials I will be getting started on my pieces!!! :D

[denbeckemda]

Project Update

So, I have an exhibition space (not sure if I have shared this already, but I’ll say it again :P)! The exhibition will be in the Hannon Library and it will be open by First Friday of May, so it will be May 1. Now things are getting real and its a bit hectic since that is the same weekend as my other project: EMCON (Emerging Media Convention). 10 Years, 9 Months, 3 Weeks, and 5 Days will be showing the whole month of May and will be participating as an Art Exhibit in SOAR. 

In order to accomplish all the things that need to get done I have created a Trello board for the project. Trello is an online project management--so I am able to create tasks, sub-tasks, create deadlines on those tasks, etc. Trello is also being used for EMCon. 

Heres a quick screenshot of what it looks like right now. I’m sure we’ll be addiing stuff as we go along, but at least its a start to organizing and creating a timeline!

Last night Angie and I stayed up past 1pm at the Hannon Library looking at the exhibit space, working on creating tasks on Trello, and coming up with some content. 

Here are some (blurry) images of the gallery space 

[denbeckemda]

Just finished some poster mock-ups for an upcoming event by the Ashland and Medford AAUW Chapter (American Association of University Women). Their event is focusing on bringing awareness about sexual assault as well as try to reduce the number of college women who DON't report a sexual assault. 

The title of the event hasn't been decided yet, so for the mock-up I found "Break the Silence." 

[denbeckemda]

I want to talk a little about this piece of my exhibition. I am unsure of the title, but that can come at a later time so for now it will be called "Untitled." This piece will be made out of laser cut acrylic. The idea of this is to curve several pieces of flat acrylic, various in size with a heat gun--the curve will not be drastic, but enough to be at least .5" or 1" from the wall. Each piece will have images covering it (more like pasted on there with modge podge). The image content will be images from Sierra Leone and images related to the marketing of diamonds. 

How will I get the material?

I will be speaking with David Bithell to see what is the best possible avenue of getting several sheets of black acrylic. I will be using the xArts Lab laser cutter and potentially querying the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to use their laser cutter--since it has a larger bed and can do bigger pieces.

As for the images, I am slowly gathering the images that would be used for this piece, but I am getting them from a variety of sources (mainly news sources and government sites). Angie is verifying that they are images from Sierra Leone and images of the Sierra Leone Civil War.

Inspiration?

The inspiration of the piece came about a couple weekends ago when I was working on my BFA Thesis. I was flipping through the Typography Annual from Communication Arts when I happened upon the piece titled, "Dreams of Freedom," which is a media sculpture that is at National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia PA. 

[denbeckemda]

What you see above is mock-ups of a banner I've been working on for the Oregon Fringe Festival. This project has been a bumpy ride, but it seems that we are in the right direction as far as communication goes! I am thrilled to be working on the marketing for the second year in a row. The next step is for them to choose a style and layout they like, then we will look into applying the same style to the rest of the marketing materials--such as FB/Twitter headers, posters, handbills, buttons, etc. 

Well, I have been busy lately!! I have had meetings with the Southern Oregon Historical Society for an upcoming exhibit they want me to design, which is going to be about women in agriculture in Southern Oregon. I am also working with the AAUW (American Association of University Women) Ashland Chapter to come up with marketing materials for their Sexual Violence Awareness Forum (posters, e-blasts, brochures, handbills). I am also slowly working on getting the programming put together for the Emerging Media Convention (EMCon), which was a Capstone project I started last year. EMCon is an event that is a platform for students to engage in topics concerning digital mediums as well as showcase their own work! The Artist Alley is something that will be continued this year and its geared towards students showing their work to the community. Another project I am working on is the Rogue Valley 2015 Indy Media Week Posters and brochures! I got involved with this project through Charles Douglas from the Digital Media Center at SOU. I am working with the Indy Media Week folks to gain momentum and exposure for EMCon. 

Some other projects include my BFA Exhibition, which I have GREAT news!!!!!!!!! I have been accepted to having the upstairs gallery of the Hannon Library! I will be having my reception either Friday, May 9th or Friday, May 15th.

As far as the exhibition is concerned, I have made some good headway on how I plan to approach each part of the project. Most of the stuff I need for the project cost a lot of money, which I won't have until the end of March. But I can get some of the cheaper stuff like the rhinestones, etc. Another thing that I need to do is talk with the Hannon Library Gallery manager, Dylan, to see what is possible as far as the folding panels are concerned (can I apply vinyl to it?). This will be a major topic of conversations since it will change how I approach the educational panel part of my exhibition. 

Anyways, I'll try to continue to post things here, but as you can probably tell I am busy as anyone could possibly be! 

Amanda out!

[denbeckemda]

Resources for BFA Exhibit

Canvas = wanted something at least 60" tall/wide

http://www.utrechtart.com/Utrecht-Artists--Stretched-Cotton-Canvas--Extra-Deep-1-5in-Profile-MP-07506-001-i1007696.utrecht

http://www.artsupplywarehouse.com/prodDetail.php?id=36665

60 x 60!!!!

http://www.rexart.com/fredrix-pro-series-stretched-canvas-xdeep.html

OR 

40"x40" 

http://www.artsupplywarehouse.com/prodDetail.php?id=36627&ret=cart

Rhinestones

Had someone from the Costume shop give me a few good leads--haven't tracked them all down yet. 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F9N0RNS?psc=1

http://www.amazon.com/Beading-Station-1000-Piece-Brilliant-Rhinestones/dp/B008ETZ5MM/ref=pd_sim_sbs_ac_6?ie=UTF8&refRID=1PJKTXSV1V4WBJSDKP07

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HWI6RD2?psc=1

[denbeckemda]

PLOT Twist! Instead of working on a product design, I am now going to work on the pre-production aspects of my BFA Exhibition. The images above are mock-ups of the proposed exhibit layout--I have captioned each image to describe what materials and how I plan to accomplish each piece. The exhibition space these mock-ups are following is for the Southern Oregon University's Thorndike Gallery space, located in the Art Building, near the Schneider Museum of Art. Here's the draft of my artist statement to give an idea of what the exhibition will be about. "In response to Southern Oregon University’s campus theme of revolution, 10 Years, 9 Months, 3 Weeks, and 5 Days is an introduction to the topic of modern day atrocities in an educational environment. The exhibition is not only a critical analysis of commercialism of diamonds but it is also a discussion about genocide, specifically in relation to the Sierra Leone Civil War. As a graphic designer my main goal is to communicate effectively through typography and design.

Last spring I was approached by Angela West with her idea of having an art exhibition about the Sierra Leone Civil War. I was inspired by the topic and we have been collaborating on the development of the concepts and ideas for over a year. Angela is a SOU history major, pursuing a PhD in Holocaust and Genocide Studies with a background in German and African History. Angela is specifically providing accurate historical information that is of fair representation of the atrocities that occurred.

During this process, I have become more informed of the fallacies and stereotypes of Africa. In addition to Western culture’s contribution to the civil war through the commercialization of diamonds. Western culture perpetuates the idea that marriage and commitment is intrinsic to the symbolism of diamonds. Yet, there is an irony behind this symbol of love because more often than not, diamonds are attached to the exploitation of people, forced labor, warfare, and corruption."

Image 1: The main wall nearest the fireplace will have the title of the exhibit, with the participants following. The first piece is utilizing the famous expression, "Diamonds are forever," which was first introduced in 1947 by a copywriter Frances Gerety for DeBeers, a leading company in diamond exploration, mining, retail, manufacturing, and trading. The slogan was meant to associate diamonds with the ideas of love and commitment--and it did just that. Diamonds have a heavy symbolic history and were first used for engagement rings in the Middle Ages. The popularity of diamonds increased with DeBeers' marketing efforts. The slogan paved the way for diamonds to be held in a certain prestige and meaning of love, devotion, commitment, and fidelity. 

The typographic piece is utilizing the famous slogan in a repetitive fashion. As to echo the decades of generations that have bought into the idea that diamonds are a crucial part of declaring love and commitment to his or her partner. The piece is going to be made out of low-tac, removable, self-adhesive vinyl. The black to white gradient is an important stylistic choice--since the hope is to have the slogan appear to 'fade' into the wall. 

Image 2: The middle section will have three 24” x 36” framed advertisements that play on marketing techniques used by DeBeers. 

[denbeckemda]

Here's a project I did in 2013. I want to do something like this and or try to revamp this.

[denbeckemda]

Beautiful packaging design can make a big impact on the sales in modern world. Modern packaging is the technology of enclosing or protecting products for

Thought to share this since this is where I'll be taking my final project

[denbeckemda]

So far these are the concepts I have. I haven't finished my third one yet, but I am sure to finish it soon! The first idea was morphed from this edge to a pit-like thing that has thorny branches. In the first image I wanted to play around with golden and midnight blue hues--based off of one of the desert images I found last week. The second image is a bit out of the ordinary since I chose to make the rocks purple... I LIKE IT :D Although, I think that the second image could use some extra work...