blogs.meca.edu

We had a quiet and lovely Earth Day here at MECA. MECA’s Green Group organized ordering our soup from Local Sprouts Cooperative Catering, and we all enjoyed fresh soup made from local and organic vegetables. We got to use those corn spoons, too. Information was available about Local Sprouts, as well as the farms that the ingredients came from. Hanifa Washinton was here to share information about the organization and other earth friendly groups. A guilt free meal, enjoyed by all.

I’ve been a busy bee graduating, and while slaving away in the studio last week I heard a ruckus outside. I peeked out the studio window and saw a sort of human rights parade, calling attention to violations in Tibet, Darfur and more. I got a quick shot out the window. It was an extraordinarily touching event.

Several of us wound up back at David Wolfe’s Printing Press Studio to finish up our Process Books.  The last time I was there students from Cranbrook were visiting.

David taught us a few great book-binding methods. I have many different books to finish. It is nice to have a few options.

Here is a nice tight spine, which will be hidden once the cover is applied.

On the other hand this is a decorative binding which can stay visable on the outside.

I made two dummy books to test out these techniques. I will attempt the final books in the GD studio.

Sometimes it is nice to have something else going on outside of the studio to refresh one’s thoughts.

One of my jobs is teaching 5th Grade art at the Cathedral School. “Fun” has to be a component to every art project or the students will revolt.

Last week Erika Hoffman (MECA Furniture Design senior) and I taught the class about heraldry. They liked the idea of personal crests and wanted to make their own. Erika and I acquired some cheap wood and went to the woodshop.

Bandsaw-magic makes for some good looking shields.

Preparing them to be painted.

Nice! Teaching the students about learning from a longer process, we had them sketch their initial ideas and redraw them several times before they got to paint the wooden crest.

Messy messy messy primary colors. I love it. After this I felt rejuvenated (physically exhausted but mentally fresh) and returned to my studio to work on my thesis project.

1. Katie Diamond ‘07 wants her MTV, or rather they want her - for their blog.

2. Carroll Berg BFA ‘07/MFA ‘09 tries to make people ‘Think Again’.

3. Students and alums (and Portland in general) participate in Ebune, including Stefanie Loeb ‘08 and Meghan Yates ‘05.

4. Professors Marian Baker (Ceramics) and Gail Spaien (Painting) and alum Kirsten Reynolds MFA ‘04 gain momentum in an exhibition and as grant recipients/finalists.

Classes ended for me today. It’s odd knowing that this is it. These four years flew by.

Of course that doesn’t mean we’re done. Seniors still have about a week or so to prepare for the Thesis show.

Charles ran us through what needs to happen in the coming days. We’re working independently now. Process Books are due next week.

In Publication Design we spent the last class looking at the monographs we’ve all worked so hard on. Some were only mocked up and would be bound next week. Some had been printed at Lulu.com.

It was a fun and relaxed class. The perfect way to conclude my time here I thought.

One of the projects I’m working on is an Artist’s Monograph, for Mark Jamra’s Publication Design class. I chose to make this book about Kori Handwerker’s recent painting work. Essentially everything produced here at MECA within the last two years.

One of the biggest problems I faced was the scale of Kori’s paintings. Some reach from the floor to the ceiling

.

I found it very difficult taking photographs for use in print. Luckily the school has some pretty fantastic lighting equipment for us to use.

We set up in a hall. Covering the overhead lights (because we couldn’t figure out how to turn them off!) we set up two lights at 45° from the images. We even had those cool umbrellas to bounce the light. We took the photographs digitally in RAW format. RAW is very helpful if you don’t know what you’re doing like me (or if you are an expert trying to tweak something). It lets you adjust the exposure among other things long after the photo is taken.

Here are eight spreads from the book I needed these for.

And here is the mock-up version (at about one half the true size). I will be printing this on some really nice inkjet paper soon.

This weekend, the 2008 Senior Index show opened. Every year, the graduating class has three shows: The BFA Index, the BFA Thesis, and the MFA Thesis. The BFA Index is a student-curated show held at MECA’s Institute of Contemporary Art featuring one work from every graduating senior. It is a beautiful show, and the student curators did a fabulous job with a big project. The opening was a success, and the ICA was packed with members of the MECA community and beyond. Below, Aaron Staples works on his giant Sketchbook installation.

It’s a great show and I’m looking forward now to our thesis show, the Tractatus, which will take up three floors of the Porteous Building, and feature each student’s significant body of work. At that time, the BFA Index will be replaced by the MFA show in the ICA. The heat is on as we all squirm under the pressure of graduation, with great expectations and good spirits despite it all.

Finally, here is a picture of some of the Illustration Majors at the opening, sporting their “MECA Dart Team” T-shirts with mascot “The Sharkicorn,” an adorable but threatening unicorn/shark hybrid.

More from the 2008 Senior Thesis opening and Exhibition:
YouTube - A selection of videos from the show
Flickr - Images from the opening
www.meca.edu/ica - Installation images and event dates

The other day I hauled up boxes of paper products to the office— or at least, what I thought were paper products. They weren’t. In fact, they were corn products! The boxes contained new disposable flatware including 100% compostable bowls, plates, cups, forks, and spoons. MECA has a lot of events and goes through quite a bit of disposable flatware, so this is an exciting step towards a greener MECA. I can’t express how impressed I am with the green group’s efforts to change the school’s habits for the better. And Earth Day is on the way, so gear up for an extra dose of conservation.

This week, a group of student volunteers met with Erin Hutton to discuss the temporary student café. Students from different grade levels and departments joined us in talking about student wants and needs for the new space, including thoughts on colors, atmosphere, and lighting. Several layouts were discussed, and the meeting ended with a good feeling.

The Merit Awards Ceremony was first on deck this week, with a sizeable number of students in attendance. It was a fun reception with food, music, and of course, scholarships. Here’s a picture of the winners. The level of quality among the work in the show was higher than ever.

In other news, Khenmo Drolma was in town. She was a MECA sculpture professor from 1983-1996, and went by the name Regina Kelly. She has gone on to be the first fully ordained Buddhist nun in the Drikung Kagyu tradition. On Friday morning, she ran a workshop of Tibetan prayer flag construction, which was a touching meeting of students focusing all their actions on praying for good will. We constructed flags with cloth and markers and twine, wrote prayers of compassion on each flag (and learned to write a little in another language) and then prayed over them with incense. The flags are designed so that when the wind blows through them, the prayers are carried with the wind all around the world. Every action, from cutting, to writing, to lighting incense, was to be done while praying for good will, to infuse the entire product with those sentiments.

Later, she hosted a dinner and gave a lecture titled “The Power of the Altruistic Artist.” The event was a smash success, with over 100 people in attendance, more than three times the number expected. A fantastic event.

Last month the library exhibited the books created in the Doug Scott workshop from back in February. I took one last quick peek before they took it down. Here are some snapshots of a few of the exhibited pieces in case you missed it.