Class Presentations- 02/23/2011

Last week's class presentations were centered on the topic of Art and Healing, what it is and its history. Our speaker Holly Feen and Grace Serra both presented their own presentations based on their own specialties. Holly Feen is a licensed Art Therapist and she conveyed to us what the job duties and what she experienced on the field. An Art Therapist (as the name implies) is a person who uses the Arts (whatever form it may be-dance, photography, sketches, painting, etc.) to help a troubled person take the first steps to emotional recovery. Feen described the job as extremely rewarding as well as demanding, one must try to get the patient to push all matters aside and focus on the movements of one’s fingers as he/she creates art.

Grace Serra's presentation revolved around the same topic as Feen's but she gave us first hand examples of how Art has positively affected the patients in hospitals worldwide. Grace Serra has worked at Children's Hospital since the beginning of its art program (she helped set up the Art department there a few years ago) and she saw how the white and polished milky colored corridors only increased patient's agitation about their impending visits to the hospital. Since then, with her help, the hospital has completely changed for the better. I have been down there numerous times and can tell that it doesn't even feel like a hospital (until you see the doctors, of course) the atmosphere is lively and the vivid colors on the walls makes you feel like you are walking around an enormous playpen with children roaming around guided by chaperones. It is just wonderful!

Now I know that Art and Healing is a must when it comes to proper recuperation, and I'm a biology student!

Class Activity- 02/16/2011

This week's class activity was hosted by Carol Cook Reid who is the creator of Pathway Patterns, an activity that aims to bring people together using art mediums. Pathway Patterns is composed of hundreds-thousands of 4"x4" hand painted wooden squares that have specific shapes, the aim is to combine these squares in a way to continue a path to the next square. Each student worked on his/her own colored squares at first and then had to branch his/her work to the person sitting next to them. Through this activity each person had to converse with his/her neighbor so that they can make the pathways work properly. At first everyone was quiet working on his/her own work and then later on the class was in an uproar with amiable conversation. What an ice-breaker! I can tell the class had so much fun. Here is a few pictures I snapped on my phone of our combined artworks:


The patterns in red and turquoise are mine and the colored patterns blending in to the red are my neighbor's:

Children's Hospital Project

My meeting with Grace Serra-Art Advisor at DMC Children's Hospital went great! She explained to me what my project will consist of and gave me much to think upon. My job will be to create artworks for the fourth floor treatment room under the theme 'Gardens', the fifth floor treatment room under the theme 'Sky' and also to add several touch-ups to the sixth floor treatment room under the theme 'Celestial'. 


In the coming week my job will be to create a few sketches for these rooms and submit them in for evaluation at the hospital. I will acquire the help of my sister whose art capabilities exceed mine, she has even agreed to make time to help me out for the duration of this project. 


If our work is accepted by the committee, my next step will be to visit Utrecht and develop a budget for all my art supply needs; paints, brushes, sponges, etc.. 


Once my sketches are ready for submission I will post them along with my budget plan.


Sorry for the bad quality photos, but you get the idea. These rooms need some serious work!
-Click on the image to zoom in-

Class Lecture 02-09-2011

This post is coming a bit late; but better late than never.

In this week's lecture Mame introduced us to some social artists and their accompanying work. She showed us a picture of a man dressed up in a Superman costume on a cart rolling around a busy metropolis street claiming his actions as art  and a woman named Mierle Laderman Ukeles who created "The Social Mirror" which was basically a dump truck encased in mirror sheets and her idea was that when this dump truck passes you by, you would see yourself reflected off the dump truck (interpret this as you see fit, lol...).

The debate for this lecture was what we thought about these artists, if we even thought them to be artists. Personally I'm not sure if I would call the man on the cart an artist but Ukeles is not only an artist in my eyes but a one -n-a-million! What makes her so special? Ukeles makes art that involves the day to day people no one takes a second glance at, for example a waste management worker or a janitor. She make it one of her artworks to go around the city and shake hands with all the waste management staff. She also spent time scrubbing the ground outside an art gallery as another one of her works. Her art is not the physical sort but the emotional kind that stays in one's mind.  

I have not heard of an artist like her before. She does not only create art but she makes herself the art piece! That's amazing.

Polka Dots Vs Under the Sea?

Here is a couple of ideas I've been having for possible treatment room themes.


-Polka Dot Room- an array of these off-beat colorful dots will spruce up any room :)

-Under the Sea- Who doesn't enjoy the sea and all its mysterious creatures?

Getting Started!

Today is my first meeting with Grace Serra, Children's Hospital Art Advisor. I'm so excited to finally get started. Since the first day we went to visit the hospital and Grace, I have been sketching and developing ideas that might be used for the dreaded treatment rooms. I will soon be posting some pics of what I've done so far on looseleaf paper ....please dont laugh at my horrible drawing skills :)

Class Text #1

This is the name of the text we are assigned to read in our class. The text is written by Suzi Gablik in the mid-eighties so her opinions are based during that time. It's helpful to keep that information in mind while reading about what she has to say. Two weeks ago our class started to read this text and we had a brief discussion about what Gablik's introduction stated. We had some arguments as to what Gablik meant when she stated whether artists in modern times made Art for Art's sake or for capitalistic reasons. Some of my classmates believed artists chose more to make art for their commissioners or to get paid, while other classmates believed that artists still made art that spoke to them and not what they were expected to make to satisfy others' tastes. I unfortunately believe that artists would love to make art for its sake but life gets in the way; everyone needs to make a living and in order for an artist to make a proper living he/she needs to make art that will get them paid.