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Discussion
9 Years Ago
so here's the deelio:
I want to invoke some artwork that a person looks at and says "wow, I've never seen ANYTHING like that before!"
my criteria:
I want to work with something that is so painfully common you can find it anywhere. I want the building supply to be small. Growing up if you gave me an additive building supply like lego or zaks or knex I could build amazing things from them simply because I could additively connect them together. I want to rekindle that desire but with something that is seen as more "adult" - I want the piece to be taken seriously, and not to be seen as an arts and crafts thing. I also want to make really big things combined together from really small things.
there is a guy that makes little cm big blocks and combines them together to create 3d pixel art - so that market is already taken care of - I want to do something like that, but with smaller thinner shapes, so I can combine them all together - either through heat fusion or gluing or even nailing or pinning them all together. I have done something like this with collage on paper - cutting up a field of moss to create a womans face which I called "kate moss" - but I want to work in 3d - create fantastical twisting organic shapes out of millions of little things.
so what are your suggestions? If you were to be wowed by something of the like - what substances would it consist of? I can pretty much build anything out of anything - I just want to know some good building supplies. So far I have the beach not too far away - I could work with pebbles and rocks - and the forests near me - so I could work with branches.. but those seem a bit common.. I want the wow factor! I don't want people to look at it and roll their eyes, or it to be such a common thing that people are simply uninterested..
lemme know! I will show the kate moss pic I did in highschool just for fun:
---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com
Reply Order
9 Years Ago
i think almost everything as been done, from using poop to a cow vivisection. you as the artist have to come up with it, because if you share the ideas here, chances are someone will take them and say - hey look its that copy cat shawn, taking the idea of this more original guy over there... who was simply faster. the best ideas are the silent ones. which is why i announce what i made, after i made it.
i would need to see examples of what your talking about though.
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
9 Years Ago
here is one such example:
http://catnipsum.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/1cat-junk-sculpture.jpg
and here is the pixel example:
http://31.media.tumblr.com/38af631b58333f88cd3def0cdcb1599f/tumblr_ml4g84yneo1s8p6vlo8_1280.jpg
it may be a lose lose - as you said - pretty much everything has been done - the end difference is, how creatively is it applied I suppose..
---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com
9 Years Ago
too bad aol doesnt' give those cd's any more. you could have made something from that. maybe something from old recycled materials. like a human being made of tin cans or bleach bottles or something.
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
9 Years Ago
I think that's been done tbh.. also recycled art very easily looks cheesy.. I dunno I'll keep thinking on it.. got some ideas.. some of them don't sit too well with me though from a moral standpoint..
---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com
9 Years Ago
that is a part of being creative. you have to think outside the box
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
9 Years Ago
the problem is - is the result TOO outside the box for the mainstream public? Like that urinal that was tried to be passed off as art..
---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com
9 Years Ago
There's a difference between out of the box and generally unappealing.
The thing that makes an artist an artist is discovering their creative niche and building on it. Key word "discovering". You gotta figure this one out for yourself. :)
9 Years Ago
just make it and worry about it later. just start messing around with stuff and see if it becomes something. i think that's how much of it is made anyway.
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
9 Years Ago
yup - I am still researching..
also.. hideous (imo):
http://lisasellspontevedra.com/images/sized/images/uploads/blog/371/elephant_recycled_plastic__large.jpg
---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com
9 Years Ago
Hey Shawn what! Recycled art looks cheesy. You can either think for yourself or not. Being creative doesn't start with asking what I should do, just do it. Old wasp nest would make a cool something. Good luck
9 Years Ago
well tbh - being creative involves doing whatever you want - even bouncing ideas off others - some ideas have been pitched in here already - so clearly this doesn't HURT - and I will most likely do whatever I discover myself in the end - and who knows - maybe these ideas will help other people.
there are many ways of "discovering for oneself" - and sometimes that involves listening to what others have to say on the matter. Either way, you are doing research - no matter HOW you look at it. I might take a suggestion here, and combine it with something elsewhere, making it still unique, but also something that might not have originally popped into my head. Contrary to public opinion our thoughts are not unique - they are an accumulation of all the experiences we have had in life. So "thinking for yourself" is kinda like a bit of a lie, as the only way you can think is if life has already given you an accumulation of experiences and other peoples thoughts to choose from.
---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com
9 Years Ago
If it CAN be done, then it HAS been done already by somebody, somewhere, whether we know it or not.
What I personally have NOT seen yet are large-scale Jesus sculptures made of old Coke bottle caps, ... large-scale aliens made of frozen green snot (a museum curator's nightmare), ... installations featuring live humans with terminal diseases (call it DEAD ART WALKING), ...
You said that you wanted something "adult" that people could take "seriously". I am not sure that a PROPER progressive artist today should aim for these things, since TRUE modern, innovative art seems to require childish, silly attributes, preferably really gross.
... something with a high body count, maybe. ... lots of gratuitous gore. ... involves some sort of life/death competition. ... does not require long spans of attention. ...
["Okay, he was NO help at all"]
9 Years Ago
if you think too hard, it won't happen. creativity comes when you aren't thinking of anything at all.or you look at enough stuff and it comes to you. just mess with stuff and see what happens. focus on a self portrait made of old pizza boxes. or some other odd thing.
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
9 Years Ago
knitting needles and crochet hooks......
Of course, they are both straight, so it would probably have to be something geometric.
9 Years Ago
I think I have a pretty good idea of what I want to try. I will post pics when I am done :)
keep those suggestions coming though - who knows what other creativity they will trigger, either for me or for others! :)
---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com
9 Years Ago
I think I am going to go for a chimera approach - that's as far as I will go in explaining my intent.
---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com
9 Years Ago
I think Chuck Close has said it best:
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case.”
― Chuck Close
Just start with something you like and see where it will take you.
9 Years Ago
Off hand I can think of a few.. string art.. nails a hammer and string.. nail in boards in patterns and the wound the string. then there is bean art.. putting the beans in patterns and different colors gluing them on the board in a mosaic.. then there is macaroni art where you use macaroni to make jewelry and or glue it in mosaics.. and then there is Popsicle sticks gluing them together and then there are shells putting them together with pipe cleaners or there is colored sand making sand paintings.. or you can take up making pottery.. all kinds of self hardening clays now no firing.. those are all up for making bizarre pieces and then there is something I have been toying with.. asking random people in different places ,busy places to let me photograph the bottoms of their shoes to see what patterns can be made from the things they have stepped in.. and my personal favorite.. just saw on the internet a few years ago..a guy paints with his own blood.. awesome work..There are so many radical ideas I could list them forever.. they are as common as bean and string art to complex as building a huge radical architectural building from pallets.. the ideas are endless and cheap and easy to obtain.. or go back to legos.. there is a tremendous demand for abstract art from those.. or toothpicks or match sticks or pennies or geez...gazillion ideas for cheap and unusual things..and if you want to really make a statement.. and do something that less than one percent of the world knows how to do is flintknapping or stone tool making..these things are more than utilitarian. they can be art and were with burials in aborigine graves..I have seen some awesome creations from primitive projective points,colorful and skilled and beautiful or make sculpture from old bones ,skulls and feathers or go to taxidermist and ask for the old sculls or hides or bones and make things like that.. its free and they don't use the real things anymore for taxidermy ..I would go to paleoplanet.com .. they have awesome primitive skills and art and might give you some ideas of doing things primitive. primitive sells believe me.. anyway just a few things I thought of off the top of my head. I know I single spaced here forgive the transgressions but im old .. I just forgot.. I was into giving info and forgetting someone had to read it.. I will try to do better again..sorry .
9 Years Ago
An idea doesn't exist in a vacuum - it's part of an integrated network of other ideas. For the artist to create is one thing, but to communicate the idea in an appealing way is the challenge, this doesn't mean it has to be difficult.
Honestly these days ideas are a dime a dozen, everywhere there is a niche for a new one, and everywhere someone is filling it.
If the goal is to shock, it's been done. If the goal is repulsion, it's been done. If the goal is to make the audience cringe, it's been done.
That leaves the traditional pursuit of aesthetics - and there's a bazillion inspirations to draw on.*
*Heh. Draw on. Geddit?
9 Years Ago
I want to use my skill with my hands and my extreme attention to detail and complexity to create something beautiful - I don't want the reaction to be negative.. I want it to be stunned.. I have had that reaction already with my lightboxes of my work, and it's a nice feeling - of someone seeing your stuff and having no idea how it is created - this isn't generally other artists I am trying to get the attention of after all, but regular people who have most likely never seen this sort of thing before. That is the exciting part - sure someone else might be doing what you are doing - but they may be halfway across the world - where noone in your region even knows they exist!
9 Years Ago
Well,as an 80 year old that has had a rather successful and happy life, creating, and selling "Art" made from stuff nobody wants, I suppose this thread is right up my alley.
There is nothing more satisfying than being outside alone scavenging,..discovering matter that has been discarded and dismissed .as elements for your work
This is especially appealing right after a hectic show,.
As with all visual art ...a discerning Eye is necessary.
,
Throughout these many decades, I found that:, even though you may have a particular look/theme to your "art" ....you never start off with one work in mind and go after the matter for that particular piece....This is why I've never accept commissioned work
Serendipity must rule
9 Years Ago
@Mark so true.. so many ideas..
@Shawn.. I hear you.. I understand exactly where you are coming from. you want to create the uncreated to blaze the uncharted territory and to shock and awe.. well it is getting harder to find something that hasn't been done or at least the way you can do it...but that will take a bit of conjuring on your part to figure out.. I wish you luck .. I really do ..and like Mark said if you thought of it someone else has already done it.. so darn hard to figure out something.. just really hard.. because if you get an idea and google it . more than likely its been done or being done.. that is why I liked the idea of the painting in your own blood.. never heard of that and the paintings are fabulous. good luck to you with your quest and please keep us posted on whatever you come up with.. this is exciting.. like space exploration..new frontiers.. new ideas.. a desire is all it takes.. here is hoping for you .good luck to you ..
9 Years Ago
with art, you never know the reaction, it maybe super bad or super good. it depends what your looking for. like that guy that clipped the mountain top, all he wanted was controversy, that was his art. if you think too complex, the project will never get off the ground.
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
9 Years Ago
I'm like you in that respect I like eclectic art using different materials to make a whole or could be the same "found" materials of different shapes, sizes and textures. I have seen weathered wood pieces collected in the woods by the artist and made into an awesome abstract horse and other subjects.
I'm sure you have seen oyster shells with cement-like material used as "glue" covering objects like chandeliers and big candle sticks, very ruff but neat. I sure when you begin, along the way you will discover the look you are after.
9 Years Ago
its one of the threads here on the first page. where a guy took the tippy top of a mountain and called it art.
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
9 Years Ago
Lady Ga Ga already did something similar Mike....
Lady Gaga wore a dress made of raw beef, which was commonly referred to by the media as the meat dress. ;-((
Maybe a mosaic created from finger prints ???????
Wouldn't be any dispute whose art it was then.
9 Years Ago
You could dry leaves and or flower petals and thin slices of fruit to collage. It would take months of pressing the stuff thin enough for creating the art.
I always wanted to take all my crappy paintings that I don't like, rip or cut into pieces and recreate something from the pile of junk art cut up like for example varnishing in a collage type fashion onto the wall or canvas but my mind can't picture it looking good. It would take a lot of patience that I don't have.
9 Years Ago
Marty, the meat dress was first created by Canadian artist Jana Sterbak and exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada in 1991.
Lisa, another artist been making and selling her pressed flower, vegetable and fruit college at shows here for years.
9 Years Ago
There are any number of combinations of shapes that can tessellate space (fill 3 dimensions without gaps). Simple examples are a square or a regular tetrahedron (4 sided regular figure built with 4 equilateral triangles. I think that the non-cube variations would be different. Note that the shapes don't have to be all the same. (Think of the way the surface of a soccer ball is filled with two different shapes, for example.) Figuring out a neat way to make the shapes change incrementally in size would be very cool. See the work of M. C. Escher for examples. Anyway, the variation would be to build the sculpture using the tessellation concept, but build them with "real" materials that have appeal of their own. Ceramics, Metals, exotic woods, and so on. So that rather than painting space in cubic pixels, you paint it in more interesting shapes, to build the image/sculpture you envision. If you had access to a Numerical Control Milling Machine (these can be rented in some cities) you could machine your building blocks uniformly from the desired materials, and then build your shapes.
Alternatively, you could cast the building blocks shapes clay, and then glaze them and fire them to make the colors you want.
Don't think that this suggestion is specific, and means only what I have actually said. It's an example of taking something familiar that you HAVE seen (M. C. Escher's drawings) and extending the concept to a different medium where you have not see it applied.
Thinking outside the box:
Thing of something you know.
What kind of box limits it, in what ways?
Figure out how to break the box's limitations in ways that appeal to your imagination.
This is hard. Art done in colors the human eye can't see? There are lots of boxes that constrain us, without our conscious awareness. Becoming aware requires some thought. Monumental art make the box bigger, for example. Multimedia art mixes unexpected materials or techniques together in harmonious ways. etc.
9 Years Ago
http://mashable.com/2015/03/26/dildo-iron-throne/?utm_cid=mash-prod-email-velocity-alert&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=velocity&utm_emailalert=viral
you have to see what she and her team does with odd things.
i'm not going to post the image here though.
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
9 Years Ago
often the things that do the best, the items that get the ooh and ahh factor - are giant toys. that balloon animal guy. the guy that made that giant rubber ducky, and there are loads of others. people like that sort of thing. it's easy art.
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
9 Years Ago
Shawn, thought of you this morning, one of my art feeds had a craigslist ad from a woman who was selling deer and (I think it was) bison skulls. Bone is a beautiful raw material, and you can break it down and shape it with some pretty basic tools.
9 Years Ago
Bones, beadwork -- this artist goes way beyond...inspiration + + +
I had the extreme good fortune of seeing many of these pieces in person this year.
singing over the bones_dam'oiselle siren Burst Calgary international glass couture show 2013
and
carmenhathaway.com