Cut-Paper Lantern

For Mrs.Kiik's art class I had to create a lantern based on a season, incorparating the cut-paper technique or using exacto-knives to extract shapes out of paper making a design or image. I chose winter, in the class there was an abundance of tree inspired lanterns, and with my need to stick out I decided to dye mine blue.

 

Empty Bowls

Thousands of children across America suffer from hunger insecurity; they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. In Mrs. Kiik’s art class we decided to do something about it. We are holding the 4^th annual Empty Bowls Dinner. Empty Bowls is a program/ fundraiser where the dedicated students of Mrs.Kiik’s art class sculpt and glaze unique bowls, then we hold a dinner, the bowls are sold to raise money for the children suffering from hunger insecurity. Mrs.Kiik with the help of her students have raised thousands of dollars for the cause. I have made about 5-6 bowls and I'm really looking foward to the Empty Bowls Dinner. For more information  http://www.creativeartsclass.blogspot.com/

 

Artist Rsearch Jackson Pollock

 

 

Jackson Pollock's name is associated with the introduction of the complete abstract styles of painting which avoids any points of emphasis or identifiable parts within the whole canvas and therefore abandons the traditional idea of composition in terms of relations among parts. The design of his painting had no relation to the shape or size of the canvas in the finished work the canvas was sometimes docked or trimmed to suit the image. All these characteristics were important for the new American painting which matured in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I personally chose Pollock because I feel he really inspired so many great abstract artists and I wanted to get to know his inspirations. In many aspects Pollock was unconventional, Pollock’s father, Le Roy McCoy, acquired the surname “Pollock” when his neighbors, the Pollocks, adopted him after his own parents had passed away within a year of each other. He grew up in a time where you went to war then came home and settled down. In 1941, Pollock was declared unfit for military service, and he had never graduated high school. In his Los Angeles high school and Pollock was considered a troublemaker. He wore long hair, unconventional clothing, and was expelled several times for clashing with authorities. In a letter to his older brother, Charles, Pollock wrote, “This so called happy part of one’s life youth to me is a bit of damnable hell.” Friends and family described the young Pollock as childish, troubled, insecure, restive, and driven. In the beginning of his career he was confused and lost, before becoming a painter, Pollock was primarily interested in sculpture. In 1930, Pollock decided to drop his birth name. He studied in 1929 at the Art Students' League, New York, under the Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton. During the 1930s, Pollock occasionally stole food and gasoline because of his dire financial situation. He worked in the manner of the Regionalists, being influenced also by the Mexican muralist painters Jose Clemente Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros and by certain aspects of Surrealism. , “Paul.”When he began his career while living on Long Island, Pollock converted his barn into a studio. Since the barn had no electric lights, Pollock worked strictly by sunlight. The first of Pollock’s paintings to be acquired by a museum was The She-Wolf, bought by MoMA for $650 on May 2, 1944. Pollock said of the painting: “She-Wolf came into existence because I had to paint it. Any attempt on my part to say something about it, to attempt explanation on the inexplicable, could only destroy it.” One of my favorite of Pollock's is Simmering Substance (1946) which is now hanging in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. According to his wife, Lee Krasner, Pollock began titling his later works with numbers because “numbers are neutral. They force people to look at the picture for what it is — pure painting.” Pollock’s problems with alcohol began one summer when he was conducting topographic surveys of the Grand Canyon. He was 15 years old. On July 21, 1937, Pollock was arrested for drunkenness and breach of the peace. Plagued by alcoholism, Pollock’s life ended at the age of 44 when he crashed his car into a tree just one mile away from his home. He had been drinking that night, and it would prove to be his last. Jackson Pollock was a legend and some consider him the best artist of the 20^th Century. He inspired many great artists When Pollock used to drink at New York City’s Cedar Tavern, young artists would frequently try to touch him for good luck.

 

Simmering Substance (1946)

 

                  The She-Wolf