Artist Lecture 2 Jamie Lynn Shafer

Jamie is an artist who is oriented in Book Art. She graduated from Edinburg University of Pennsylvania with a B. F. A. in Fine Arts/Ceramics and a Certification in art education. She spent a thirteen years of her life teaching elementary school at the Pennsylvania Public School System, until switching into an Art background in 2006 after taking her first Book Arts class.  She then went back to school in 2012 and took her first book arts class. This is where she figured out that this was her thing, in 2014 she moved to Reno, and started to work with the Black Rock Press. It is now the end of her fellowship. She has done many graphic design work for posters, some of her projects that she showed was her new works Code Red and 17927 and past works Mix and Match Families and 1 in 3 which dealt on domestic abuse.

The book code Red was to have people become aware of school shootings and how it affects the families and the children of the schools. It is set up with not type and is an accordion book, the viewer can look inside and see figurines holding guns and aiming at someone. This book was something she was very close to since her partner worked an as a teacher.  The second book, 17927 was a book about a small town named Centralia Pennsylvania that had the towns dump catch fire that still burns today, the population went from 1000 to 10. The book is set up as a tunnel book, so the viewer can read all about the incident and visually see the details of the fire in the middle. Mix and match families dealt with the family unit, and deals with the different types of families from heterosexual, homosexual, inter-generational, and interracial. The viewer can flip though it and change to different people, it shows how people and families all look different. The last piece was 1 in 3 it dealt with domestic violence that people experience, it has testimonies from the victims and pictures of the people that were abused. It is a flag structure type of book, so readers can see the victims and focus more on the crimes. Every book sold the proceeds go to a local shelter. 

Artist Lecture 1 Mahsan Ghazianzad

I went to lecture by the artist Mahsan Ghazianzad, she was a candidate for Master of Fine Arts at the University of Nevada. Her Thesis Exhibition was titled Ocean in A Drop, it was of her paintings that I would have classified as Modern. The artist is originally from Tehran, Iran she moved to the U.S. five years ago. She had always been an artist at a young age doing drawing she drew flowers with bleeding hands when she was 6 after she saw political drawings on the side of buildings, her parents embraced her artworks. Since Iran has a very strict culture, she wanted to stand out under her Hijab, when she was an in grade school, she would wear a different color barrette and show her hair, her teachers would not be happy. When she Came to the U.S. She enjoyed painting, she decided to practice ungiven freedom in an area where she could stay away from a constant monitoring government. In her paintings, she wanted to rebel against the repression of Women and faith. Her Influences were German Expressionism, such as artists, Kollwitz, Munch, Kirchner and Schile. In her many paintings there is an aspect of flying Airplanes Which symbolized Freedom and moving freely with the aspect of more concern on journey then destination. Her other influences were Abstract Expressionism, Cubism, and Symbolism. The symbols she also included was discovery, loss, and being forgotten. The other artists that were influences to her Motherwell, Rothko, Beuys, and Pollock. Mahsan wants the viewer to feel what she feels in a way there is a strong Psychological and Emotional aspect her work in the way she conveys certain ideas into them.

Gallery 2 Ai WeiWei Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads

While at the Crocker art Museum I was also fortunate to look at their Permanent collection of works Ai WeiWei’s Circle of Animals/ Zodiac Heads was on display out side on the patio, it consisted of 12 oversized Chinese Zodiac heads all made of Bronze that were 134 X 66X 77 in. It was meant to reinterpret the fame 18^th century fountain clock of the Yuanming Yaun (Old Summer’s Palace) outside of Beijing. The story is that in 1860 it was ransacked by France and British troops and the heads of people there were chopped off, this was what he was trying to achieve with just the Zodiac Heads. Also the fact of repatriation and showing the exploitation of what constitutes Chinese art and Identity. It came alongside with some historical information about the emperor’s fountain.

            I thought it was very interesting to see all the sculptures including mine which is The Rooster. The only Thing that bothered mean was the fact that some of the animals didn’t look right, Like the monkey looked more like a dog and some were hard to distinguish like if the boar was really a boar. I think that the details of the dragon were very intricate and well done, and of the rooster.

            Over all I think the work was interesting in behind the meaning and the way the heads looked like they were on stakes showed a strong political meaning to what had happened to the people in 1860 and to the Chinese people.