Today was the day that all of the Art Foundation students were required to come in and clean up the Bowe Street deck facility, the home of VCU's AFO program.
I was late, I had the worst job of all the bad jobs - scrubbing the sinks. There is a reason why artists do not scrub their designated art sinks, and that reason is a dried conglomerate of paint, glue, paper mache, old paper towels, and objects of questionable origin. Artists. We cray.
But my time scrubbing and spit-shining those sinks was strangely zen. It was like my parting gift to a place that has dominated my artistic and social evolution for the past school year, from the very tumultuous fall months of 2011 to a refreshing spring semester in 2012.
So I'd like to pay a tribute to Bowe and the Art Foundation Program and, as my time as Sophomore comes to a close, recognize just how much I've experienced.
Bowe, I've had so many memories with you, from cutting open fingers with X-acto blades to making sketchy cross-cuts in the woodshop while the technicians weren't looking, from getting 2nd degree hot glue gun burns to carrying around 4'x6' wooden panels, from netflixing Star Trek: Voyager and Battlestar Galactica on long nights to making quick runs to the late-night Starbucks that was right around the corner.
You made me learn the joys of working barefoot and getting charcoal all over my feet. You grilled me silly in the Crit Room and taught me how to pull off the last-minute masterpiece. And yes, you showed me that you could LARP for candy in a parking deck and it would be totally normal.
Lets not forget that a round trip from Cabaniss Hall to Bowe back to Cabaniss is about 1.7 miles plus 30 minutes of a bus ride, and I made multiple trips to you a day. Thanks for making me walk so much. With that and my workout routine, I've lost 30 lbs!
So despite all the hard times and B.S. of Art Foundation, I will still look back and remember you fondly.
These are a few of the things I made in AFO:
One of my first Space Research projects, it is an orb composed of found objects. I wanted to explore the creation of a perfect sphere out of imperfect objects. I ended up exploring the negative spaces created by my armature instead.
For this Space project, we had to create an edible piece that corresponded with a color of the rainbow. My partner, Erin, and I got green. So we decided to raid Shafer of its green apples and carve skulls out of them and make it like a grotesque island paradise. Our actual "edible" portion came from skulls filled with caramel dipping sauce and bits of apple we had carved out, as well as a Fresca-and-lime-sherbet-punch. I heard the Indiana Jones theme in my head the entire time.
This is it - the infamous Floyd the Velociraptor that took up 80+ hours of my life. He is at a 1:1.5 size ratio and made entirely out of cardboard. I listened to quite a bit of Pink Floyd when constructing the armature, hence his namesake. Those bits around him are the long grass. Cue the scene from The Lost World!
Don't go into the long grass.
This here is my Surface Research final. It was a massive piece, a 4'x6' wooden panel made (foolishly) with 1/2" plywood and 2x4's. Naturally, it weighed about as much as me and I needed alot of assistance carrying it. It is of a deity involved in the menstrual cycle. Acrylic paint.
Going backwards in time, this was my first project in Surface Research: a composition made with 10,000 or more pen strokes. In this, I learned that I LOVE dip pens!
NOW we get into the fun stuff, the stuff I live for, the figure drawing! Drawing was possibly my favorite class, and drawing from the live model was barrels of fun. This is a large line drawing done in about an hour's worth of time with vine charcoal
In this drawing I used the "smoking" technique wherein you create a uniform midtone on your paper by rubbing vine charcoal all over, then going back with the vine charcoal to draw and using a kneaded eraser to pick out the highlights. This is probably my favorite technique because of the potential to play with muscle forms, and this is a good example of me doing that.
Charcoal study of a skeleton, which I am particularly fond of.
Art Foundation was a hell of a ride, but now its time for me to buckle down. Getting accepted into Communication Arts is the biggest thrill of my life so far, but I'll be damned if its not going to challenge the hell out of me. I'm ready to take it on - and I'm ready to become the artist I know I am.
So bring it on, next year! And Richmond, lovely Richmond, we'll be parting soon, but I'm coming back to you. In the meantime I'm going to miss the Thai restaurants, the hilarious gangsta Crown Victorias, the serenity of Belle Isle, the gorgeous walks around town that I revel in during my free time, and all the neckbeards I could possibly ever want.
Okay, the part about the neckbeards is a lie. But everything else is near and dear to my heart. Richmond, in a few months, I'm moving to you and my life will begin.
Peace out!
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