POTLUCK with Bread and Puppet

We are fortunate to be able to host members of the legendary Bread and Puppet Theater troupe at MICA on Friday, February 11th, during a tour stop in Baltimore. 

After a workshop with students, we invite anyone who is interested in meeting the company and fellow students and community members to a:

POTLUCK

Station Building, 

Room S-104

Friday, February 11

6:30-7:30 pm

Please bring a dish to share and a plate! 

Questions? Please email: Valeska at vpopuloh@mica.edu

For more opportunities to see Bread and Puppet while they are in Baltimore:

* Bread and Puppet will be conducting a cantastoria workshop at the Visionary Art Museum on Saturday, February 11th at 1pm.

* They will be performing their Decapitalization Circus on Sunday, February 13th at the Creative Alliance. 

* Bread and Puppet will be offering The Institute for Subversive Paper Maché, a community-based workshop on some of their approaches to performance and political action, on Monday, February 14th at 6pm at 2640/St.John's Church, located at 2640 St. Paul Street. For more information, please visit: www.redemmas.org/events/ 

colin alexander

hey guys! here's something i made for elements class.

This is Jackie Cadiente. I use natural resources for my work with a monochromatic palette.

First Draught

This is Lisa. My major is still Undecided. (I don't know what I want but I do know what I don't want.)

art~

Untitled
Fall 2010
Theresa Borusso

FELT

A felted saddle found in the frozen Pazyryk tombs in Siberia in 1949. The saddle might be as old as 2500 years.

A traditional Kazakh felt yurt, source: Wikipedia commons.

Turkish shepherd in traditional felt kepenek. source: Textile Museum

Traditional Valenki, or Russian felted boots. source: Wikipedia commons.

Felt is a non-woven cloth that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing woollen fibres. Felt is one of the oldest known processes for creating 'cloth', and myths and legends abound about its origins which may date back 3500 years. The durable, insulating properties of felt have led to its application to a wide range of uses over the centuries, from home construction to musical instruments to felt-tip pens! Artists have also made use of the metaphoric and material meanings of felt in their work.

We will be experimenting with two approaches to making felt. One is true - or wet felting, where the natural wool fibre is agitated by friction and lubricated by moisture (using soap and water) in order to compress and lock together the fibers.

We will also be exploring needle felting, which is a process of matting, tangling and compressing the wool fibers without the use of water. Special barbed felting needles that are used in industrial felting machines are used as a sculpting tool. Fine details can be achieved using this technique, but the result has different applications than wet felting, since the felt is often not as durable or strong as the wet process.

For a fascinating look at one traditional felt rug process, watch this film by Peace Industries.

One artist from the 20th century who merits particular mention here is Joseph Beuys, a vastly influential artist who work in performance, political action, pedagogy, and provocative use of materials, left a significant mark.

Beuys' I like America and America Likes Me (1970)

Felt Suit

For more information about Joseph Beuys and these works, click here. 

art! (Lola Borovyk)

Hey guys, this is Lola.

I work in a variety of mediums, so it has been a challenge trying to figure out my major. However, I've been using wax and things like oatmeal, rice, coffee grounds, tea, etcetera in a lot of projects for my Elements class, and have recently been trying my hand at video and sound.

Here's my most recent one (from last week!)

Space / Distortion from Lola Borovyk on Vimeo.

it's meant to be projected onto a large piece of plastic material, but I have yet to document that part!

Aden Weisel

Untitled life drawing

Permanent marker on corrugated cardboard

2010

Intro + Art (Jackson Lynch)

Hey there. Im not really sure what I'm going to major in. It might turn into GFA or Illustration. Heres a drawing I did. It looks small in the picture but its actually like 26 x 35.

HEYHEE CHOI

hi, this is Heyhee~

it snowed a lot today, my class got canceled :)) haha

- I used gum wrappers & chocolate wrappers& gloves& beads for those pieces.

I make clothings with candy wrappers.

(so,, if any of you has them on your desk or floor.., don't throw them away!!, give them to me haha

THANKS *^______^*)

hi this is angela lee. this is something i did last semester in intro to GFA. it's giant macbook with ipod pillows.

Intro and Artwork (Austen Weitzel)

Hey everyone. I like to think of myself as a sculptor, but i kind of do a little bit of everything. This is a little guy I made that I really like. Enjoy

Helllo, karen shea here

"Olivia" mixed media, 9/2010

Posting to the blog

Hello All,

As I mentioned in class, please take a moment this week to post an example of your work to the blog (so we get to know each other as artists a bit).

Here are the basics for uploading:
1. Sign into the gmail account with our class username and password
2. Go to thestationspin.blogspot.com
3. Click on "New Post" on the top right corner of the page
4. You will get to a window that looks very much like email, with a section for a title and the body of the text. Once you have written what you want to write, click on the small photo/picture icon.
5. Browse for the image that you wish to upload. Like this one:

These are Valais Blacknose Sheep from Switzerland

Please keep in mind that the images should be jpg's or png's. Tiff formats are not accepted by the blog software.  Also, ideally - keep the size around 300 x 400 pixels at a screen resolution (72 dpi). Yo may have to resize some of your images to this - but that is good practice for the coming years at art school, for sure! 

If you have any questions about how to upload, please feel free to email me. With best wishes for a good week!

Valeska

Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef is a project by the Institute For Figuring in Los Angeles. The Crochet Reef resides at the intersection of mathematics, marine biology, handicraft and community art practice, and also responds to the environmental crisis of global warming and the escalating problem of oceanic plastic trash. It is currently being exhibited at the Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.  Our department chair, Susie Brandt, will be speaking on a panel about the project "Contemporary Perspectives on Fiber and the Coral Reef Project"  on Monday, February 7 at 6:30pm at the Australian Embassy in Washington, DC. If you are interested in this event and want more information, let me know. 

If anyone is curious about the ecological aspects of this work, please come on April 4 at 11 am to this classroom *(s206) . An oceanographers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who studies coral reefs and atolls and who helped to sponsor this exhibition will be visiting Jessica Braiterman's Collage and Sculptural Surfaces class!  

Intro to Fibers- Allina Liu

Hi everyone, this is my study of Mongolian girl I did in 2009 in the XingJiang Province in China.
-Allina Liu

Intro. and Art (Megan Liggett)

Hey everyone! This is Megan Liggett... Um, nothing much to say really. I'm a painter mostly, but I'm open really to being any major at the moment. But here's some of my art from my high school portfolio-

(PS- Sorry for it being so big. But if you wish to see some other paintings/ drawings/ etc., here be my dA account- http://0angelicwings0.deviantart.com/ )

In the Beginning

Cotton

In the first day of the class, we will begin with looking at FIBERS! Before we get to weaving, knitting, felting, sewing and embroidery... let's take a look at where these processes start!

In other words, to make cloth and to embed information into that cloth (through dyeing, printing, embroidery, other kinds of manipulation), we need raw materials. And all over the world, people utilize a broad array of materials for making cloth.

We will be focusing on PROTEIN fibers today (animals or things that grow out of animals, like sheep hair/wool and silk). Below are some images of protein fibers, as well as CELLULOSTIC fibers (things that grow out of the ground). Enjoy!

Angora Rabbit

Cashmere Goats

Merino Sheep

Shetland Sheep

Silk Moths and Cocoons

Silk Cocoon

Separating Silk Filament from the Cocoons

Alpaca

Flax (used to make linen)

Paper Mulberry (used to make bark or 'tapa' cloth)

Welcome to Introduction to Fiber!

A Bolivian man with his Alpaca (herd in background). Source: Wikipedia Commons

Hello Friends of Fiber,

In our first class, we start with the base line of fiber (pun intended!) by learning about the carding and preparing of wool fiber for spinning. The practice of spinning fibers into yarn or some type of filament for use in making textiles has an immense and broad history, with varying traditions having developed around the world over the millenia! We are just scratching the surface.

examples of various wools and their staple lengths. source: Wikipedia Commons

A great place for some technical information online can be found at The Joy of Handspinning.

Another good source of history and information is: Spinning on the Drop Spindle

Ancient Roman carved bone spindle whorls, 1-2 cent. A.D. source: http://www.ancientresource.com/lots/roman/spindle-whorls.html

source: Wikipedia Commons

Woman in traditional Alsatian costume, 1870s. Photography, albumen print, source:http://www.bassenge.com/

If you are interested in acquiring your own drop spindle, you can order a spindle online, but you may wish to consider the alternative: making your own!

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Time Passing