September 13th, 2017
Today we started out by visiting three places that don’t allow photographs, which makes these kind of posts very difficult, since I usually refer to photographs to help clarify my thought, but here goes. First, we visited the Judd House, which was one of my favorite places we’ve visited so far due to the fact that it was both a studio and a home. I think that a person’s home speaks volumes about their personality and also their work, art in the case of an artist such as Donald Judd. Another factor of this place I mentioned to the tour guide was that the home reminded me of Judd’s writings; it was as though I could see the voice in his writings echoed in the space. Not only is the home beautiful and functional, but it is also very nostalgic. It hearkens back to an era that was the golden age for artists in America. It was then when an artist could afford to own a whole building in SoHo, which would never be possible now. I love the fact that artists created their own community and could be so successful, but thinking about that era also makes me sad because it hasn’t happened in an era that I was alive for and could be involved in, especially not in New York City. The SoHo of that era will probably never come again, for certain not in New York City with the property values so high, but it might happen in another place and I hope that I will be able to be involved. We then went and saw two Walter de Maria pieces, neither of which was very much up my alley, but that I could still appreciate as art pieces. I enjoyed the pieces, but since I have a math learning disability, I cannot really appreciate the measurements and numbers involved in the pieces as much as other people because I can’t really understand them. However, the pieces were very interesting and I still appreciate them and I really enjoy the concept of working with natural materials (as I mentioned in my first post). The Earth Room in particular had a relaxing quality to it that I hope to convey with some of my pieces. The next place we visited was a gallery exhibition of Jason Karolak, my professor at Drew who teaches Senior Studio (one of his works is pictured above). The discussion we had with him was very informative, not just about what we should do after college, but also about practice. After Jason mentioned how he derives most of his work off of scribbles and doodles that he does, I began exploring with my own doodles from classes and such and discovered that they were very similar to Greek graffiti. This inspired me to try and fit it into my Senior Studio work, and Jason has been helping me with how to refine it. I am also usually overwhelmed by the presence of bright colors in artwork, but Jason’s deft hand with color is evident in these pieces, with the black backgrounds really helping to make the colors more accessible.