Photography

I had the opportunity to teach over at Mike Mountain Horse Elementary here in Lethbridge the other day. Two of my classmates and I got to teach portraiture through scratch art, and I must say it produced some very interesting results! Some of the students struggled with getting proportions right, and were just about to give up. We gave them a few pointers, and I chimed in with 'if you want your drawing to look so good that it looks like a photo, why not just take a photo?', to which one girl replied, 'because photography isn't creative'. That was a reaction that I wasn't quite ready for. I wish I had more time to talk to the student, but they had to leave.

While I don't consider myself a photographer by 'trade' if you will, I do use cameras often. Not only do I document my own work, but also events, and many pieces from my art practice are the result of photography. I've had people tell me I should have been a Photography major, and its gone as far as a parent of a friend coming up to me and saying, 'you're the guy that takes the nice photo's, right'? I didn't even know who this person was at first. More and more I find myself being labeled as a photographer, even though I just consider it to be a tool, just like a pencil or a hammer. It's something to get the job done, and sometimes more than that, if the tool fits the job. You make it as creative as you want it to be.

Where are we now (part 2)

Finished, I just need to properly document the piece now. These will do for now.

Last step before spray process:

Where are we now (part 1)

I'm thrilled that the campus has a woodshop that students can use. This makes life a lot easier. The last few nights, I have been working away on the next piece (at home). I will keep posting pictures on here as I progress. Sorry for the mediocre pictures, I am not yet good at aiming my laptop camera (hopefully you won't see anything that you're not supposed to in the pictures).

                       Prep work; stitching together paper to match the length of the acrylic (48'')

                         Blowtorch for flame polishing the acrylic edges (scared? You should be)!

          Lettering process

 Transfer to acrylic complete

 All prepped for painting

More to come soon!

The Student Art Show

First show of 2012! Or I guess the last show of 2011, if you follow the chinese calender :)

Show is still up at the Penny building until February 3rd! Big thanks to all who helped put the show together. Great way to kick off the new year.

Fate

Photograph

26 x 14''

2011

Swans

Since day one on campus, something had been bugging me. Every time I passed by a certain field, there were these two strange pipes coming out of the ground that caught my eye, mainly because I thought they were swans at first. I thought to myself, wow, why would there be swans in the middle of this field? I laughed at the ridiculous idea.

Soon enough, I found myself gathering supplies to make it happen. After the over night make over, I was snapping shots of them the next day when something strange started to happen; the sky started turning grey,  really quickly. I looked up and noticed smoke billowing off in the distance, and it kept coming closer, and it kept getting darker. After I finished I went home and found out the Blood Reserve just outside Lethbridge was on fire. This was the same day where the wind was so strong that the roofs of houses were coming apart, tree's were tearing in half, and debris filled the street, never settling down. Turns out my location was one location away from the next to be evacuated in the Lethbridge area, as the fire kept spreading thanks to the wind.

What a strange day to shoot.

Prior:

 After the midnight makeover:

The past few months

I'm going to start things off with a recap of the tail end of 2011.

2011 was my first year in Lethbridge attending the Education program, and I was studioless. This is actually the farthest south I've been in Alberta, and the farthest East I've been in Canada. What a strange adventure it's been. To my delight, some of the classes in the Education program have allowed me to create work, though tailored to new ideas. Production of such work has brought to my attention the slow but definite increase of text integration into my work.

So, a new beginning or a continuation of my art? We'll see where it takes me, and what I take along.

First text piece (summer 2011):

First piece for an Education Language class (autobiographical poem):