A Different View

At the Red Mountain TMCC art exhibit, Leslie Holt reveals to the world a different view of familiar sights in her "Unholy Ghost" series. Relating her art work back to growing up with a mentally ill family member, she brings a unique view point to bed sheets. Her work is done in oil and is very, at first, a bit eerie. Looking at the images of distorted childhood icons, it feels as if the viewer is in a scary dream where everything is different yet still the same. I believe that she was trying to represent how her mentally ill family member might have viewed the world, with familiar images that boggle the mind. From the Cookie Monster to The Smurfs, many childhood images are distorted in her work. Leslie's images of the childhood figures are a view point from under the bed of a child's sheets. All of the work was wonderful and the colors used caught the eye and drew the viewer in. My favorite work was the image of Big Bird. It was so interesting to know what the figure was and recognize it but at the same time be confused and distracted by the work.

Lines and Light!

The first picture was created in ART 160 to show lines using construction paper and tissue paper... ISN'T IT PRETTY :D

The second picture was also created in ART 160 using a special light sensitive paper and objects I placed on the paper... It looks like stuff you'd see in an X-ray of a dogs stomach!

Obomicon.Me

Vote For SQUIRREL!

The art work that I chose were the poker chips located on S. Virginia Street and E. Commercial Row. The chips are very symbolic of Reno in that gambling is a very large part of our society. They are done in a mosaic fashion and do not look like normal poker chips in that they are very artistic with images of butterflies and such. These chips are realistic in that they have the shape of a poker chip but are abstract in their size and how artistic they appear.

Circles Down Towm

While I was walking down town the thing that caught my eye were round and circular things. From letters to garbage cans I let me camera snap away! I got little circles, big circles, circles, circles, circles! I started at 4th Street (The Silver Legacy parking garage), made my way to S.Virginia Street and walked straight down S. Virginia to Pine Street and then turned around to make my way back down the other side. All in all I probably walked about 45 minutes and discovered that a more comfortable pair of shoes may have been a better option than what I chose. But I had a good time, saw some interesting sights, and some REALLY interesting people.

Different Worlds

Caitlin Carrington

ART 160

October 2, 2010

They Are Different

In their depictions of the Treaty Signing at Medicine Creek Lodge, both John Taylor and Howling Wolf recreate the scene in very different ways. While John Taylor created a more representational art work and tried to capture a more realistic quality, Howling Wolf created an abstract art work that captured the basic essence of what was happening. Both artists display groups of people coming together to sign the treaty, but each has a very unique way recreating the treaty signing. John Taylor's work is influenced by Western culture and he does not display any women attending the signing. This type of ethnocentric device, or imposing a certain cultures ideals, is shown through the lack of women in the art; in the 1860's, when this work was created, women were, if at all, seen as second class citizens and would not have been seen as an important part of the treaty signing showing Taylor's decision to leave them out. Also, Taylor's work also draws the viewers attention into the center of the work as an artist would be taught to do in Western Culture. He does not show anything beyond the grove where the signing is happening and all of the Native Americans in his work seem to look very similar with no real identifying marks. In Howling Wolf's work, however, nearly the entire landscape is displayed, showing tipis, the grove, and a creek or brook that flows near by. Each individual tribe is identified with specific colors and markings and there are women in Wolf's work; many women in fact. This shows that Native Americans saw their women as equal and that they had just as much right to be in an art work as a man. Wolf's work also differs from Taylor's work in that Taylor obviously had formal training in how to create art and was bound by those rules displaying much detail. This shows that he sought to create a work that was more appealing to his peers and culture rather than displaying the whole truth. Wolf work on the other hand seems to not have any formal training, is very simplistic, and captured the event as specifically as he could recall it. These two artists came from two very different culture backgrounds and it is very clearly shown through their work.

A Mothers Love

The marble sculpture Pietà by Michelangelo portrays Jesus lying in the lap of his mother, Mary, after the Crucifixion. Jesus is very thin and frail in the arms of his mourning mother. The sculpture is a beautiful work and is full of emotion that shows both a mothers love for her child and the sacrifices people must sometimes make for their loved ones. While Mary does appear to be mourning for the loss of her son, she also seems, to me, to have an expression of pride in that her son sacrificially offered himself to cleanse the sins of the world. Michelangelo seemed to be depicting both their sacrifices, a mother who lost her son and mourns for his death, and a son who lost his life to save the lost souls of the world.

A video showing how Michelangelo created his sculpture with some insight on his life 

Information on the sculpture 

A beautiful image of the sculpture 

Chester Arnold: Abslutly Stunning

Absolutely Stunning

    When I went to the Nevada Museum of Art to view the works of Chester Arnold I was expecting a moderately interesting collection simply because I did not find myself very interested in his works from what I had seen in class. I am happy to say that I was in awe of what I saw. The pictures that I had seen in books and on the Internet did the works no justice at all! His use of color, texture, and humanities destruction of the planet are outstandingly bold and vivid! Although I did not agree with all of what I felt he was trying to present, I became smitten by his art. So smitten in fact that I found it impossible to only choose one work to write about when three had fervently caught my eye.

    The first of these three is Two Ravens, an eerie work in which two ravens sit and fly around a burnt down forest with only two trees still standing. This in particularly caught my attention because ravens are seen as signs of death, are known to be bad omens, and are used throughout history as symbols for both. I found it amusing when I read the description and it stated that the ravens seemed to be playing around the dead landscape. What an image, death playing amidst death and destruction. The work also caught my eye because in the sky were giant rolling clouds that ranged from a very light pink to a very deep, almost dark pink in front of a baby blue sky. It was destruction under heaven.
    My second selection is Grubstake because it reminded me so much of the Nevada landscape. I have traveled all over Nevada and seen places that look like life could not survive, but trash could. Driving along and seeing empty beer bottles, black trash bags tossed from the back of a vehicle, bits of paper, and even old pipes. Grubstake, has the same imagery. A landscape littered with trash and old rubbish, a dump truck dumping garbage in the distance, animal bones scattered about, and my personal favorite a broken bridge. The broken bridge symbolizes the break between man and nature. The bridge is placed over a littered river, which would be very difficult, if not impossible, to cross without the bridge. I think that Arnold was trying to say that man has burnt his bridge with nature and that it will be a long while before we can return.
    Finally, my third choice was Histories which just absolutely took my breath away! In the foreground are the rounds of a chopped down tree and in these rounds you can see the rings of the tree, showing it's age. Deforestation is a huge problem in our world today and Arnold caught that in this work with his use of color and texture. He is saying that we are cutting down our history and destroying our past through the demolition of forests and nature. The colors in this piece were what got me, using colors that you would typically see in nature, he made the tree rounds explode with vibrancy as they sat in front of a deep green background with scattered twigs, branches, and smaller rounds.
    Chester Arnold is a brilliant artist and it does not surprise me that he became an art instructor at the College of Marin in California. With backgrounds from both the United States and Germany, he has dedicated his life to art and I for one am thankful for that. I did not think that I would enjoy the exhibit as much as I did and I would definitely recommend for others to see his work. It makes you think, it's enjoyable, and it is absolutely stunning!

You can check out Chester Arnolds studio!

Where Chester Arnold works! 

Chester Arnolds home page!