Online Collaboration project

My collaboration project was based on the Flat Stanley project. My partner in this project was Bridget Dickey, a fashion design student at Columbia College in Chicago, IL. The goal of the project was to incorporate the geographical location of both of us through one art piece. We decided to work in textiles, since that's Bridget's preferred medium, and it's an area that I'm fairly familiar with.
We each designed and created one side of the "Flat Stanley" doll keeping our geographical locations in mind. My side was to represent the suburban or rural geography and Bridget's was to represent the urban or metropolitan geography.
My side was designed with a tradtionally crafted quilt in mind. I used small pieces of quilter's calico fabrics to create a small quilt in the shape of Flat Stanley.

Bridget designed her side with a mind for high fashion. She decided to incorporate this idea of remnants, what is not used in a garment from the pattern, trying to create a sculptural textile from those pieces. She then decided to work on the piece on a dress form and then scale it down to the flatstanley.

The ultimate goal is to put the two of them together to create a single doll that represents both the urban and the rural parts of this lovely state we live in.

my web portfolio!

my website is up!!

www.ashleybrennanmoore.info

yay!

stop animation..

I've had several ideas for a stop animation video.. but it seems that they've all been done and overdone before...

I would do a kind of flip book with my own personal drawings, but that might take 3 years and I still wouldn't be satisfied with the work... I'm too much of a perfectionist for that.

I wanted to make my wooden drawing model dance, but 8 million people have already done that, and I'd like to at least attempt for some originality..

My brother skateboards, so I thought I could use that in some fashion, but my photography skills are probably not that great...

So I think I've landed on some kind of feet dancing video... Pictures from the floor level of feet dancing.. I could speed it up to make it funny or slow it down to make it awkward.... Will post when I have something final.

check check check

oh so much stuff to do!!

creativity class stuff:

-etsy.com posting: done
-flickr posting: done
-blog: done
-pixelgirl submission: done
-website portfolio: started, almost done
-collaboration project: started
-stop animation video: not yet started... need to come up with ideas!

senior show in two weeks! soooo much to do....

Flat Stanley

In my 5th grade class, we had a Flat Stanley. We sent Flat Stanley all over the place and learned about all kinds of places. The point of Flat Stanley was to encourage literacy and learning in kids. It also encourages learning about other geographical locations.

For my distance project, I'm going to collaborate with a fashion designer in Chicago and make a kind of Flat Stanley... but out of fabric. It will combine the traditional fabrics of the rural midwest with the high fashion fabrics of big cities. One half of the doll will represent the rural and the other side will represent the urban.

I will think of it as a grown up Flat Stanley.

Distance Art Project

The assignment is to connect with someone that lives at least 200 miles away and collaborate on an art piece with that person.

My partner in this assignment will be Bridget Dickey, a cousin of a friend that goes to school at Columbia in Chicago for fashion design.  Our project is to create an item (haven't nailed it down just yet... doll, bag, apparel piece, etc...) made of fabric textiles.  The intent of the piece will be to show the difference in geographic space through fabric.  Her focus is high fashion, which is typically associated with large cities, like Chicago.  My part of the work will incorporate more traditional, crafty fabrics, typically associated with more rural areas, like central Illinois.

Once we have decided on the final piece, we will each work in our respective cities on our parts of the piece, then we will get together and attach them together, creating one cohesive work.

Busy busy busy..

Too busy to blog!
Working on paintings, need to come up with a concept involving a straight razor...

Working on nailing down a concept for a collaborative art piece... likely involving textiles... should be fun!

hammer time

I've created a painting with a hammer as the focus.  There are also some other tools.. a staple gun, a screwdriver, a level.

So when I presented this painting for a critique in my painting class, the assessment overall was that I was now tackling "male aggression" or "male violence".  Why is a tool box male?  It was my own tool box that I used for the painting, so why would it automatically be male oriented?  My works involving knives, cleavers and scissors (even though they were set in a sewing room scene) were never intended to be accounts of specifically female aggression.  Is it because they were staged in the kitchen?  I know men that cook.  The sewing room?  I know men that sew.  

I never intentionally place a gender on paintings, and ironically, this hammer series ends in a way that might assume female aggression, so it seems a little silly that because it's a painting of a toolbox,  that it has to belong to a man.

Girls know how to use hammers too.

"Human flesh tastes like pork"

http://pixelaris.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/victoria_reynolds_flight_of_the_reindeer_2003.jpg

http://www.richardhellergallery.com/dynamic/images/detail/Victoria_Reynolds_Down_the_Primrose_Path_2003_272_42.jpg


I think Victoria Reynolds is fabulous.

These paintings, along with reading the book, "Interview with a Cannibal" have inspired a new concept and idea for me.

I'd like to explore the idea that humans are meat. Armin Meiwes ate his lover, Bernd Brandes, with green pepper sauce, brussel sprouts and a glass of red wine. So, aren't we all just a combination of cuts of meat, just like cows and pigs?

I'm going to explore the way that different cuts of meat mirror different parts of the human body, in hopes of diminishing the separation that most people strive to build between themselves and our four legged friends.

The Day There Was No News.

This video is very intriguing. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arbernaut/2476955162/

I think that the human fascination with tragedy is remarkable.  People, myself included, have an odd pull to the horrific human tragedies that happen everyday.  The news is completely polluted with dead children and school shootings.. and that's because it's what people want to see.  It's horrifying.

The past week was really telling.  The Olympic luger that lost his life... while the story is heartbreaking, is it not completely appalling that people wanted to watch the video?  Isn't it disgusting that thousands of people posted it on YouTube?  A man died.  And people wanted to watch.  

I understand the human fascination with morbidity and mortality.. I have it myself and my paintings tend to drift in that direction, but at what point are we becoming completely de-sensitized?

I hope for a day without news, at least the news that we've become accustomed to.

uncomfortable.

1.	causing discomfort or distress; painful; irritating.

2.	in a state of discomfort; uneasy; conscious of stress or strain. Synonyms: 2. awkward, nervous, discomfited, strained. This is the goal.

Intro blog...

This is my very first blog...

Not much to report.

Will start posting thoughts on a series of hammer paintings soon....