Transformation: Day Five

Sunday was the final day of my class The Architecture of Memory at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. I've recorded my daily journey in my blog over the past four days and today I bring it full circle. Because I've done daily entries, there isn't much need to rehash the process or the pieces I've already shared. I've decided for this final post I will share the transformation of a particular piece. I had a vision for something I wanted to create, at least I had a snippet of an idea: I knew I wanted to use little brown bottles in the niche. That was all. I selected the wood substrate with just the right niche and started by adding some texture. Then I painted the whole thing orange, but it wasn't right. I added red. Not right. Turquoise got involved, but it was too chipper. Even the initial word, Begin, wasn't right. There came a point when I added limestone clay compound over the whole thing and changed the word from Begin to Justify (Pat said I was very courageous to cover it up and start all over). I repainted it (several times), sanded in between. Driving home on Saturday afternoon, I knew I needed to add black. When I arrived at the studio on Sunday morning, I told Pat my intention to add black -- my wise instructor suggested I use graphite. Ahhhhh, yes, perfect. So here in photos is my journey with the piece Justify. For the final photo, I've inserted the bottles, but it isn't really finished. The bottles will be wrapped and bundled with faded and stained cloth, old wire, and perhaps a found object or two . . . I'll post a photo when my piece has been completed.



















The outside corridor became our makeshift gallery.


Our final couple of hours together were spent in a critique. We each had to chose two of our favorite pieces of work to be critiqued. To set the tone, Pat read a quote from Lillian Hellmen's Pentimento.



I chose to display the large piece of work I did for Howard (perhaps named Howard's Piece):


And then I chose my Shadow Birds for my second piece. Two people critiqued each piece and when it came time for Steph to critique Shadow Birds, she recalled an anonymous rhyme, A Gathering of Crows, which coincided perfectly with my seven little dots along the left side of the painting.


One crow for sorrow,
Two crows for joy,
Three crows for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five crows for silver,
Six crows for gold,
Seven crows for a secret never to be told.

We asked someone who was watching our critique session to snap a photo of everyone all together. Here we are, a little weary, but quite happy.


Time to turn out the lights and go home.