Even though I am a ceramics concentration, this semester most of my focus was on the one studio class I took; Fibers. The piece I am showing is my final project for that class, and having no experience in Fiber art, I found that this project represents my progression on ideas and learned skills throughout the course. In the surface design class I started out exploring ways to incorporate my drawings into the projects. I found that using the silk screen and thickened dye techniques I was able to express my figure drawings more effectively. In the piece shown you can see this in the figures on the bottom. Not only did I develop my technique in this class, but also concepts.

In this final project the assignment was to create a design based off of a literary piece. I decided to illustrate a folktale called “The Rainbow Crow”. In the story a crow with beautiful feathers and a beautiful singing voice sacrifices himself to save all the animals, who are frozen in the snow. When he goes up to heaven God gives him fire and as the crow is bring back the fire to the animals the fire burns his feathers, turning them black, and the smoke fills his lungs, causing him to lose his beautiful singing voice, and instead he caws. In my illustration I tried to express this simple story in an awkward, dark way. Not only is the concept of this piece about a brave crow sacrificing his feathers and voice to safe humanity, but it is also about the nature and the emotion that can be conveyed through the bloody body parts that seem to stick out in random places. Also it is about transforming a light, happy child’s story, into a gruesome, disturbing piece of fiber art.

This semester I was able to TA for Ceramics 1, and I had a lot of great moments and learning experiences doing that. In the class I helped students, gave critiques, and learned a lot about running a class room. My best critique moment took place in this classroom when we went around to all the students and gave them feedback a long with questions on how they are going to develop their work. Being able to do this really helped me talk about the work of others and also speaking in front of a large crowed. I hope to take those experiences and use them for talking about my own work. Now that I am in the BFA program my focus for this semester has been preparing and developing my ideas and how to talk about my work. So in the end I find that my classmates in both ceramics 1 and Fibers; surface design have helped me and influenced those thoughts and ideas for my future critiques.

This semester the most inspiring artist I discovered was Renie Breskin Adams, who is a fiber artist. In her work she uses embroidery to express illustrative work that expresses controversial issues. I found her on a website that was suggested in our fibers class. I was able to use Adams work to create my own version of what she did, but with my own gestural animal people. I really liked how she expressed issues of today in a funny way; I find that what drew me to her work was this aspect because in my own work I try to express emotions that are private and personal.

Shows that I have seen this semester includes, all shows that where displayed in the Dowd Gallery, Down to a Science, and also I attended the First Friday of October in Binghamton.

When it comes to my perspective on the arts, I find that I have changed my ideas about that greatly. Especially after joining the BFA program I find that I have a new idea on what I want to do with my future and how important my learning experience here will be for that. I find that more than ever I want to make the best of my stay here at Cortland and think before I didn’t take advantage of my options here. Also this semester has opened up new possibilities for me in the future and for next semester.

Next semester I hope to develop my ideas in ceramics for thesis. My goals are to know exactly where I’m going with my techniques and concepts. Also I will be participating in the BFA critiques, so I also hope to do well and learn as much as I can from them.