Many of the students are starting to crystallize their visions and start actually creating.
The ones that had the most challenge at the outset are starting to shed old skins and become raw and vulnerable and open -- that is precisely when you find your truth. It is often so hard to accept that the real answer to this process comes from love -- always. Find what you love and follow it. Love it more. Love loving it. Consider why you love it. Explore your love - how broad a territory does your love span? How deep is it? How long can it last? Where does it lead you? Will it lead you to more love? Are you equipped to follow it? Do you need a hammer to go there? A Dremel? A jigsaw? Some scaffolding? Following and exploring your love is an interesting journey that will challenge you but reward you along the way. Like marriage. Like being a parent. Study this incredible thing you are capable of - love. Study it through debris! What a radical notion! This unloved object deserves to be the recipient of love. It has been without love for so long. Your love it yours to shed upon any object or activity you chose. Your piece of debris has been waiting for someone patient, caring, and thoughtful to recognize its potential to practice being a loving human being with it and raise its lowly status. The students are beginning to understand the way this incredibly challenging but rewarding type of artistic practice works. But still, a great deal of work must be done and sufficient lighting would really, really, really help....
I started the day by asking the students to create a schedule for themselves to help them visualize how they need to structure their time in order to finish. A day by day plan. This helped many of them recognize that they need to get cracking and that they might need to simplify their ideas. Some didn't realize exactly how little time they have for this. Simplicity is something I think we all appreciate in life and often the most beautiful sublime and conceptually complex pieces of art are quite simple.
Here is what today looked like:
I showed them the simple technique of using a Preval to spray whatever color of paint (non-toxic water based kind) onto their debris so that they can alter the colors. That process takes quite a bit of patience and an extremely light touch, but I think the concept of using color is exciting to many.
To add to the light today, an extremely generous member of the Staunton community - Paul Borzelleca, the owner of Modernboy Woodshop on Middlebrook Ave. has kindly loaned the class a bunch of tools! Without a pre-existing sculpture studio at MBC, I have been struggling to help the students achieve their ideas. 1 jigsaw simply hasn't been enough to go around. We now have a second Dremel, a cordless drill, some cube taps, clamps galore, and extra extension cord, an orbital palm sander, some rasps and more to use for this class. What a gift! Plus Professor Ryan, Professor Jim Sconyers and I got to visit the incredible shop that Paul Borzelleca built today. It is truly an inspiring place. Regardless, on the behalf of all the students enrolled, I think a big fat thank you to Paul Borzelleca is in order... Students feel free to thank him yourselves on his Tumblr page.... (link above).
And a quick reminder students, WASTE LAND is screening tonight at 7pm in 105 Deming. If you can't be there -- just watch it on Netflix tonight and be sure to post 1 paragraph with your thoughts on it before class tomorrow.
Onward & Upward!
Waste Land was not what I was entirely expecting for this film. Yes it was a film about trash and the creation of art by using the garbage. Yet going into watching this movie I expected it to be a documentary on the artist and his work. This film touched on that and the lives of the people that were the recycling separators of Jardim Gramacho. It showed not just them in the job they have but how their lives are with the job and lifestyle. And I think that Vik Muniz showed this well in not only the photos he had taken but the art he created, of these people, captured them on a deeper level. It was a bit emotionally attaching.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't sure how I was going to feel about Waste Land in it's beginning stages, but I ended up falling in love with his movie. The stories of these people, all putting on a brave face, working in a harsh environment with no benefits but the camaraderie of their fellow pickers actually moved me to tears at a couple points. These people are, in a lot of ways, just like the items they rescue from the landfill: unloved, dirty, sometimes broken. But their worth is so much greater than just that, and I believe Vik Muniz shows them this through the photographs and subsequently the pieces that they create with him. Their faces and words when the big picture is revealed to them were unbelievably moving. For some of them, this is the first time they've ever seen themselves as something beautiful and worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteNot only does the money from the pieces help them, but it helps raise awareness about the vast amounts of excess we as humans toss aside. For a lot of us, we put things in the trash and forget about them; for the pickers, this trash and the items mixed in with it is their livelihood. No one deserves to live in such a state, picking through other's trash to pay the rent, so with the exhibition, I'm positive that some people began to think about how much we simply throw away.
It kind of surprised me that so much trash could reside in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. With seeing all the waste I could not stop thinking that there has to be a better way to take care of the non-reusable waste other than putting it in landfills. My mother has become very involved with the inefficiently incinerated biosolids used on the farms in my home town, so I wonder if they were efficiently incinerated, could this be the new way to deal with non-recyclable waste.
ReplyDeleteThe film "Wasteland" was suprisingly moving, I found. The pickers who work on the landfils, gathering recyclable materials which people have thrown out, lead difficult lives and work dangerous jobs. One thing that really struck a chord with me was when one of the women pointedly looked as if to the audience, speaking about how little attention and care people put into the disposal of their household waste further then when they put it out for the garbage trucks, and asked, "Where does that garbage go?" The artist who set out to work with these pickers in Rio--Vik Muniz--had a goal in mind to "change the lives of a group of people with the materials they use everyday." This was brought about through the work that the pickers put forth in order to create those magnificent works with Vik's direction and vision, and was heightened exponentially by the reaction of Taio when his portrait sold in London for £28,000. An extraordinary change occurred for these people through the process of turning unwanted materials into works of art. This was a highly emotional and inspiring film; enjoyed and appreciated greatly.
ReplyDeleteI was not excited about this movie at first and then I started seeing vik's process.I like that he made the people realize that they do have a place in society and what they do is important.These people were not looked at as people that were really making a difference and Vik turned such a negative outlook into a positive one instead.I also was impressed with how he created his work and how large scale it is. The fact that the people helped create the art made it so much more important then him creating it on his own.
ReplyDelete"Nineteen is not twenty and ninety-nine is not one hundred." People these days seem to have a misguided perception that what little they can do can't make a difference, but everything is important and everything matters. Art has the capacity to break down barriers and transform the mindset of humanity. The pickers involved in the wasteland project were opened to a new world and given hope to strive for better lives and to think of themselves as individuals that matter. They became the ONE. They made the difference.
ReplyDeleteIt is incredible how the film “Waste Land” targets at various issues of our world today, not only garbage and recycling but much deeper issues of humanity. In the film, garbage functions as a way of art but it also develops into where exactly the garbage originates and also the people who's lives depend on picking up trash. There are a lot social issues related to classicism mention in the film and you can actually see it as it develops, how somebody’s trash develops into a piece of art and sold for profit. It’s amazing to think of this process in abstract terms because someone’s trash becomes merchandise for another person because the artist transforms trash into art, something consider worthless for a person becomes a trophy for another person. But the most important and remarkable part of the film is to actually listen to the stories of these people from Brazil and see how art can impact their lives, how a simple human action of caring can become a chain of hope in the community. It is incredible to see how art can change people’s attitudes, how their voices can be heard because not only they made art but they are the piece of art, fill with stories of sorrow and courage.
ReplyDeleteI was really moved by this film. I like how Vik made the people feel like they belong, and that their lives are not just meaningless. The pickers (some of them) give you impression with how proud they are to pickers that with every piece of waste they pick up they are helping the world, and that is one of the biggest gestures you can do. Seeing all of the waste that is dumped there for them to pick through makes you think of just how wasteful we are, and how we never really seems to wonder where it all goes when we decide we are done with it. It saddens me to see so much waste, and so much filth polluting the earth. I really like how they incorporated the waste in the portrait of the woman, it was very creative.
ReplyDeleteWasteland was a wonderful film. I think maybe I felt like Vik at first. He said he wasn't expecting to become so involved with the people in the project, and I wasn't expecting to become so involved with the film. But with every smile or tear I saw I got sucked in a little more. Another thing Vik mentioned was that, from far away, you can't see the human factor, but it's there. And it means a lot. I think the garbage itself was less important in this film than the pickers themselves. Most of them seemed happy where they were at first, but was that because they were truly happy or because they didn't know anything better? I'm glad that Vik was able to expose them to a new way of thinking about themselves and where they can go with their lives. Most of them left the Jardim and were glad to do so.
ReplyDeleteAs for the waste aspect of this film. Every time I feel like being a little lazy and maybe neglecting to throw that one plastic cup into the proper bin, I'll remember that 99 is not 100 and carry it with me until I find a place to put it.
This movie was very inspiring. I love the idea of transforming something so negative into something beautiful. It is amazing how art can take an object that is so dirty and common, simply change its purpose and its idea, and with it change the lives of those who see this object everyday. It is just amazing. This was a great movie. It made me think differently about art, in the same way that reading The Re-enchantment of Art did. I really like this idea of art for a social cause.
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