Artist Lecture #2 : Matt Hutton on 11/15/12

The artist of this lecture was Matt Hutton and he designs and makes furniture. I never knew you could be so creative when designing a piece of furniture but it was truly amazing. His life story and his journey through being an artist, was very inspiring. Even though I didn't relate to his actual work and designs, I could relate to his philosophy when making art and his way of getting there. 

He is now a teacher at May College of Art, and has taught there for 11 years. Most of his work is inspired by Tommy Simpon. Matt attended the Harrington School of Art. Then attended San Diego State graduate School. 

He loved building with a furniture form but never knew that was what he was going to end up doing. He explained how he likes to play around with the idea of function and performance. Not only did he create his furniture to function but he also created it so it could perform and work on its own. He wanted to change how people can interact with an object. 

He talked a lot about his journey in Japan. He spent a good amount of time there and felt that is where he learned the most. HE learned great furniture technique. He explained how people in Japan put so much care into the process. 

He used a lot of things as inspiration that he saw around him. For example he grew up at a farm. So he used a falling bard and fence as a use of inspiration is his work. It was REALLY amazing. 

Overall his work was so creative and nothing i have even seen before. He created his own studio where he could create all of his work. And I really liked how he showed pictures of the furniture in a house. It looked amazing. 

Lecture #1 : Artist Talk on 11/14/12

I went to the Artist talk in the Museum where three students talked about the work in the Museum.

The first student was Jennifer:
She talked about a sculpture called The Wall by Sumner Winebaum. 
She talked about how this sculpture was about the human body.She also talked about connecting the form to your own personal connection. Most Artists find it  important to use the body for an intent or purpose. Jennifer talked about how this sculpture was defining mass and gravity. There is no wall there but the sculpture acts as if there is one there. It shows a sense of imagination because it can not be reality. She also explained how the sculptures form itself had a concentration of mass. The shoulder area and other parts of the body showed a lot of tension.

As I was listening to Jennifer talk about this sculpture, I kept trying to relate it to photography and how defining mass and gravity is used. Many photographers use a sense of imagination in their work, and take out reality.



Next, was Hillary Schrutz. She also talked about a Sumner Winebaum sculpture. But she started off by talking about the history of Winebaums work and how he usually sculpts in bronze.

I couldn't find a picture of this work, but it was another sculpture that revolved around tension in the human form. The figure showed a twisting movement. She also explained that from different angles, the viewer can see a different form and emotion. The sculpture showed a sense of strength.

I really related to this exibit because I have been really interested in the figure and human form. My latest project on form was when I emulated John Coplan. I tried abstracting the body. I really related to a lot of what they were saying about the human form and how we relate to this.


Next was Kara. She focused on Lary Rivers. The picture she talked about was of Larrys mother in law nude. The mother law was in a very provocative pose. It was very disturbing.



I can't find the image online but here is another piece of his work on his mother in law.

Most critics said Rivers worked always looked "half done". And as I was looking at his image in the Museum, it looked more like a sketch than anything.


His work is a lot of scribble lines without a lot of detail. His handwriting as an artist is "scribbles over edges"

He also has some controversy on some of his work. One being "legs".


The reason "Legs" is so controversial is because they are seen as women legs and the way they are positioned in the middle of a town. I think the size of the legs play a big part in why it is so controversial.


Overall I really liked listening to these students talk about the work that was in the museum. Even though it wasn't photography, I felt myself really relating to the work and comparing how I have photographed the figure to what these artists have done with the figure.

more collaborative

Final Project idea

So I have been thinking so much about my final project and where I want to go next with my work. I am stuck once again.... So since this is my class as a photography student, I thought back to all of my projects I have done over the years. And the first one that stuck out to me was my final in darkroom a couple of years ago. I was trying to portray innocence or show a sense of childhood. My major is elementary education... I absolutely adore children. When I own my own studio (Hopefully), I would like to focus on portraits of young children and families.

So with all that being said I chose to photograph children. As I began photographing many children, I started to see the wide range of diversity from age, size, skin color, hair type, eye color, braces, glasses, acne, and overall facial expression. Through my pictures I want to show diversity, but I also want to show an overall innocence and the stages through childhood. My images are really close up because I want it to be personal. I want the audience to see the child's features and facial expression.

I have photographed over 30 children so far... and I will narrow them down to which ones I like the best....but I want to print a lot of them... I think I am going to do either salt prints or digital. I haven't decided yet.