Process 10/22-29

>>Click on each box for notebook sketches<<




I am working on a pyramid box. It has dimensions specific to my own Olmec cosmological interpretation. I am making a 20 sided polygonal box which opens out from the top and the sides fall away into a star shape. Inside the box will be a small sand painting. I am not sure whether I want to use the idea of labrynth, or a tree design I developed.

the ideas centered around this piece are Olmec concepts of world-making, world-centering, and world-renewing. These concepts of cosmovision specific to this culture seem to appear in the eastern part of the world, like Tibet, as well and even though they did not develop even near each other with even possible contact, there exists similar ideas expressed visually, through religion and through the structure of daily life.

the pyramid box has 20 sides,each triangle piece having angle side measurements of 18 degrees. 20 (hands and feet-> Human element) and 18 (multiple of 3 ->all important #, and 180>>360, etc.) the other importance of 20 and 18 is through the Olmec Long Count Calendar (c. 31 bce), It combines the solar 365 day calendar with the sacred 260 day calendar, it is broken up into 18 months of 20 days. 18x20=360->circumference of a circle. Circles are important because they represent a constant, a pattern of existance and development which keeps going, as in a cycle. Cycles are important because they embody the 3 concepts of olmec cosmology and they also seem to embody similar ideas within Buddhist culture.

"Made from sand, paint or even sculpted yak butter, mandalas are visual prayers, celestial renderings of Buddhist symbology. The painstaking process of making a mandala—literally grain by grain—is met at completion with a lesson on the impermanence of life. After it has been properly blessed, the mandala is traditionally swept up and deposited in the nearest body of flowing water.
The sand traditionally used in mandalas is made from crushed limestone, which provides a particle that is fine enough for exquisite detail. a blueprint for this rendering of the schematic diagram of the Buddhist cosmos.A mandala is essentially a diagram for the Buddhist hierarchy. rendered through abstract symbol, occupies the central position. surrounded by four celestial gates, which mark the cardinal directions. Various aspects of spiritual and human existence ring the celestial palace, ranked from the sacred to the profane." --

http://www.artsmia.org/art-of-asia/buddhism/the-story.cfm

cleaning up ideas

I have been working out a plan for what I want this project to look like. I have decided to make a 20 sided polygonal box, It will contain a sand painting, I will be looking toward the east for mandala styles as well as the Aztec for their aerial directional compositions. I also want to make a plaster wall sculpture of line patterns which are a hybridization of Mesoamerican shapes and Japanese line compositions/ and writing(or calligraphy). so I guess what I want to create is a like a gallery installation.

Exhibition: Mexico

I went to the Mexico exhibit way back when, I'm just now writing about it. first, I was coming from Beat Research, and we were there to listen to the Cumbia music that they were playing. I guess Cumbia music is a mixture of Mexican and Mexican/ American Latino dance music. It was definitely cool, you could hear it all the way from public safety! there was a woman/ Mexican woman, she was lovely, and she was lost. I was in Tower about to make my way through the maze over to South Hall. So I took her with me. it was funny, she kept saying how she never would have been able to find it otherwise.

So the exhibit was all of this poster art/ paintings and public art that people just create in Mexico, I thought it was awesome because there were so many different ways, or subjects in which people were expressing themselves they seemed to be responding to their environments, and there were some pretty famous characters displayed. It was interesting because the copy write laws there are slim to none, so drawing these characters in a public forum wasn't a problem.

I loved the WWII aspect to the art. It was like the movie posters and propagannda posters from the 40's that are so wonderfully vintage. But then you would see these raw-ish type paintings that were almost like graffiti art, in fact they are graffiti art. I thought the whole exhibit was great, great vibe, atmosphere, food and drink (which was free) and color.

thoughts on phase 2...

I'm not quite sure what I want to do with my next project. I am thinking that I might like to maybe make a treasure box. something like the pyramids in Mesoamerica, have 2 stelae to go with it.




This isn't exctly "non-western" because meso-America is in the west, but I feel like the cultures of the Aztec and Incas are so far removed from the norms of our culture, it could maybe be considered non-western. I have been learning about mesoamerica in my art history class and I was really interested in the long count calendar. it is a combination of the 365 day and the 260 day calendars. The way that it is written about is on stelae that date back to about 31 BCE. I definately want to try to make some plaster stelae using the shapes the Olmecs (early Aztec) used to create numbers as well as some new designs of my own which would be influenced by the shapes similar to the Aztec/ Olmecs. I could use stones in mosaic ways in the plaster, stones like the ones found in that area like obsidean and turquoise, and jade, and reds (maybe turquoise and jade-like stones-since they are expensive)

I could also make a box and create a sand mandala inside it. one that reflects the ways of the aztecs/ olmecs.using iconography and patterns and cosmology of their civilization.

I have also been thinking about creating a sculpture, wood,a chiseled piece, hmmm. I think i have too many thoughts.

1. I want to work with the olmec long count calendar
2. I want to evolve the shapes I use to express myself in an Olmec/ Aztec way
3. I want to make a sand mandala as well as some kind of construct to house it.

maybe i should just stick with this.

Mandalas:: the Kalachakra Mandala




Kālachakra (Sanskrit: कालचक्र; IAST: Kālacakra; Tibetan: དུས་ཀྱི་འཁོར་ལོ།; Wylie: dus-kyi 'khor-lo) is a bahuvrihi term used in Tantric Buddhism that means "time-wheel" or "time-cycles". It refers both to a Tantric deity (Tib. yidam) of Vajrayana Buddhism and to the philosophies and meditation practices contained within the Kalachakra Tantra and its many commentaries.

I could make one, it would have to be smaller than the ones the monks made. and I could destroy it or burry it. Burying it sounds more like a tradition of the Olmecs. they had most of their sculptures attached to the buildings underneath the ground facing the underworld. also the idea of having the mandala residing within a structure like the pyramid is very Aztec/ Olmec because they beleived that caves were sacred, caves reflect a portal to and from realms of the underworld and where dieties come from. there are 5 dimentions to the Aztec/ Olmecs, NSEW (all represented by the opening of the cave (or pyramid box) and the human figure or the mandala that resides within (5th direction).

Process Critique thoughts and plans

I think I need to stop.
I think I need to assess what it is that I was not enjoying about paint. It's probably the thought of premeditated color placement. I drew it all out and then started painting. My group was right, I think I made it like a chore for myself. thats NOT the point at all. I do think however that painting in 2 of my classes is not a good idea. I didn't major in painting for a reason.

So, what we all talked about was, what do i want to do that I might have more fun with. I agree with definitely trying my hand with paint again later, but for the moment, I have an urge to create patterns. Now i know that i could be walking that fine line of "too much control could kill the piece", but I am proposing to bring the patterns into 3 dimensional space. not just seem as though they move into 3D with angle ing, but to actually start moving it out, gradually.

I am thinking that I would like to do a large/medium sized painting that reflects in a general way, static or data. It represents a civilized world of intellect and academia. Then I would like to hammer in nails in a grid-like fashion and start to create patterns using yarn, different colored yarn woven around the nails creating the shapes. I am kind of excited by this piece, because I love that I am interacting more with the piece, that way it will be more like an extension of myself. which is why I do art in the first place.

I still love the size that Cecily Brown uses in her paintings, and it has been a source of inspiration, so I am not totally deviating from the assignment.