Knot/Knotting Practice in Craft and Space

Knot/knotting Practice in Craft and Space is a three part research-creation project that used a study of knotting techniques to locate craft in an expanded field of spatial practice. The first part consisted of practical, studio based exercises in which I worked with various natural and synthetic fibres to learn common knotting techniques. The second part was an art historical study that combined craft and architecture history with critical theory related to the social production of space. The third part was an exhibition of drawing and knotted objects titled Opening Closures. This document unifies the lines inquiry that define my project. The first chapter presents the art historical justification for knotting to be understood as a spatial practice. Nineteenth-century German architect and theorist Gottfried Semper’s idea that architectural form is derived from four basic material practices allies craft and architecture in my project and is the point of departure from which I make my argument. In the second chapter, to consider the methodological concerns of research-creation as a form of knowledge production and dissemination, I adopt the format of an instruction manual to conduct an analysis of knot types and to provide instructions for the production of several common knots. In the third chapter, I address the formal and conceptual underpinnings of each artwork presented in my exhibition. I conclude with a proposal for an expanded field of spatial practice by adapting art critic and theorist Rosalind Krauss’s well-known framework for assessing sculpture in 1960s.

40 20th Century Spanish Sculptresses

This article presents a compilation of female artists who carried out their sculptural work during the twentieth century. With a brief presentation of each of them I want to implement visibility and the importance of incorporating their works to the collective imagery in order to be added to Spanish contemporary arts history. Some of them have public monuments of great popular recognition but their names have not been mentioned yet. Some others have “minor” works but they were relevant teachers to other artists. A few of them have extensive monographs about their life and their works. While others have almost gone unnoticed, but the proof of their professional career’s existence seems fundamental to us and they must be incorporated to history either through text books, university research works, ideally achieving a supported research project, to provide them the visibility their works and their vital trajectories deserve.

La gárgola en la cultura visual actual

La gárgola ha poblado desde antiguo las cornisas de los edificios religiosos y civiles, sirviendo de evacuación para el agua y para diferentes misiones según las distintas interpretaciones. Su gran componente simbólico hace de ella un reclamo muy interesante para el mundo audiovisual actual. De entre las manifestaciones encontradas, estudiaremos la visión de la gárgola en estos medios y valoraremos su adecuación o no a la visión medieval. Mediante la aparición de la gárgola medieval en el mundo actual en forma de personajes y ornamentos, y gracias a la aplicación de imágenes actuales a las nuevas gárgolas, podemos realizar un recorrido visual y simbólico alrededor de las distintas visiones que la cultura actual realiza de ellas. Pero no podemos quedarnos ahí, es necesario relacionar estas nuevas visiones y significaciones con las originales, para establecer si se ha hecho un uso correcto de la imagen, o se ha roto la estructura del símbolo primigenio.

Tifones y gigantes en el mundo macedonio: el rey como símbolo del orden cósmico

Este artículo analiza la existencia de un posible ritual en la antigua Macedonia que fuese similar al Akîtu babilonio. Pensamos que la victoria de Zeus sobre sus enemigos en la gigantomaquia y tifonomaquia fue celebrada por los reyes macedonios para fortalecer su posición en el poder. Aunque no hay evidencias directas de ello, tenemos una serie de diferentes fuentes en las cuales los macedonios están relacionados directa o indirectamente con Tifón y los gigantes. Además, la estratégica importancia del monte Olimpo para los macedonios nos hace pensar que la victoria de Zeus sobre las fuerzas del mal fue conmemorada de alguna forma por ellos.

Εl voto de un soldado a Silvano – Zeus "Dalbenus"?

Estudiamos una pieza inédita de una colección privada de Barcelona. Es una escultura votiva, ofrecida por un soldado. Representa al dios Silvano, si bien el nombre de este dios no aparece citado en la inscripción griega de la base, donde se indica que el voto va dirigido a Zeus Dalbenus. Este epíteto Dalbenos / Dalbenus es un hápax. Ofrecemos una lectura del texto e intentamos dar una respuesta a las “incongruencias” entre imagen y texto inscrito.

El color en los códices prehispánicos del México Central: identificación material, cualidad plástica y valor estético

Este artículo investiga algunos de los valores plásticos y estéticos que presidieron la selección y la preparación de las materias colorantes empleadas para iluminar los códices creados por los nahuas del México Central durante el Posclásico Tardío. Estos códices son interesantes porque análisis arqueométricos y exámenes codicológicos recientes han permitido conocer la materialidad de su capa pictórica, así como las características formales y el comportamiento de los colores en estas obras. Uno de los aportes trascendentales de estos estudios ha sido averiguar que la paleta cromática que sirvió para pintar los códices del México Central era principalmente de origen orgánico, lo que contrasta con la naturaleza de los pigmentos detectados en restos de pintura mural y en esculturas creadas por los nahuas que son sobre todo minerales. El objetivo de este artículo es reflexionar sobre las razones de esas diferencias y demostrar que el uso de los colorantes orgánicos en los códices respondía a un fin plástico específico que concordaba con el canon estético imperante en la sociedad náhuatl.

Lies and Camouflage

Collaborative installation of painting and sculpture with Denise de Cordova. Both artists use a female subject as a recurring metaphor – as cipher, ghost, or nom de plume, and both employ intricately decorated surfaces to allude to ambiguities inherent in using material to speak of ideas.

Relating Innovative 2D Ideas into 3D Garments in Terms of Structure, Using ‘Sculptural Form Giving’ as an Intermediate Step in Creation.

This research focuses on finding a fashion design methodology to reliably translate innovative two-dimensional ideas on paper, via a structural design sculpture, into an intermediate model. The author, both as a fashion designer and a researcher, has witnessed the issues which arise, regarding the loss of some of the initial ideas and distortion during the two-dimensional creative sketch to three-dimensional garment transfer process. Therefore, this research is concerned with fashion designers engaged in transferring a two-dimensional sketch through the method ‘sculptural form giving’. This research method applies the ideal model of conceptual sculpture, in the fashion design process, akin to those used in the disciplines of architecture. These parallel design disciplines share similar processes for realizing design ideas. Moreover, this research investigates and formalizes the processes that utilize the measurable space between the garment and the body, to help transfer garment variation and scale. In summation, this research proposition focuses on helping fashion designers to produce a creative method that helps the designer transfer their imaginative concept through intermediate modeling.

Competências de assertividade na relação íntima

A presente investigação pretende analisar a eficácia de um programa breve de promoção de competências de assertividade na relação conjugal. Fez-se uma revisão da literatura de conceitos ligados à conjugalidade sendo os mais pertinentes para este estudo a satisfação conjugal, a comunicação e a intimidade. Focou-se também o psicodrama moreniano e outras abordagens utilizadas no trabalho de educação e enriquecimento do casal. Na elaboração do programa, optou-se por uma abordagem eclética, conciliando o modelo cognitivo-comportamental com uma técnica do Psicodrama Moreniano. O estudo foi realizado com uma amostra (conveniência) composta por 2 casais heterossexuais que vivem em coabitação. A metodologia utilizada foi maioritariamente qualitativa e para a recolha de informação usou-se a entrevista semi-estruturada IRI - Intimate Relationship Interview (Lima, Soares, Vieira & Collins, 2005) e a técnica da escultura. Os resultados obtidos demonstraram que os casais têm uma perceção bastante satisfatória na maioria das áreas da intimidade conjugal; a comunicação aparenta ser a área que requer mais intervenção por parte dos casais. Os instrumentos de recolha de informação mostraram-se eficazes e complementares. O programa evidenciou resultados satisfatórios atendendo aos ganhos dos casais, contudo serviu mais para o levantamento das áreas de dificuldades na relação do que para a aquisição de competências assertivas.

Ecosistemas circuitos de consumo de obras pìctóricas y escultóricas en Guayaquil y su extensión Samborondón, de octubre de 2012 a septiembre de 2013

Esta investigación, pretende hacer visibles los circuitos de arte pictórico y escultórico de la ciudad de Guayaquil, estudiando durante el periodo de octubre de 2012 a septiembre de 2013, la conformación de su sistema, la identificación de sus actores, sus visiones del arte, las interdependencias que los vinculan y la influencia del entorno, bajo una perspectiva de ecosistema. Este estudio no pretende ser un inventario de artistas, ni galerías, sino una primera exploración de la compleja temática del consumo del arte.

Catálogo de la Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes y Música en el año de 1899

33 p.

Monumento al Salvador del Mundo

13 p.

Da imagem poética ao diálogo interartístico

Na poesia de Luiza Neto Jorge existe uma verdadeira poética do olhar, uma espécie de poder de encantação que permite o estabelecimento de nexos de continuidade com as artes visuais. Partindo desta premissa de base surrealista, pretende-se relacionar a poesia de Luiza Neto Jorge com a pintura, o cinema, a música, o teatro, a arquitetura e a escultura Nos ensaios poéticos do século XX, na criação do poema como matéria verbal, o papel da imagem passa a ser o de apresentar e não mais o de representar. Com base na definição de André Breton, a imagem contraria o conceito harmonioso de beleza tradicional, acasalando realidades contraditórias e adquirindo um caráter delirante, fantástico e até diabólico.

Art and the Body Image: about Self and Stereotypes

Today's man is socially absorbed by problematic body issues and everything that this means and involves. Literature, publicity, science, technology and medicine compound these issues in a form of this theme that has never been seen before. In the artistic framework, body image is constantly suffering modifications. Body image in sculpture unfolds itself, assuming different messages and different forms. The body is a synonym of subject, an infinite metaphorical history of our looks, desires, that leads one to interrogate his/her image and social and sexual relations. These are understood as a manifestation of individual desires freed from a moral and social imposition. It attempts a return to profound human nature before we are turned into a cloning industry. In thisstudy it isimportant for usto understand in which form doessculpture reflect body image as a sociocultural and psychological phenomenon within the coordinates of our time. To understand how they represent and what artists represent in sculpture as a multiple and complex structure of human sexuality. Today, the sculptural body, expanding its representation, no longer as a reproduction of the corporal characteristics, presents the body in what it possesses of most intimate, unique, human and real, that moves, reacts, feels, suffers and pulsates, a mirror of us all.

Rural Decay Almanac

Rural Decay Almanac is an exhibition comprised of sculptural objects and video/sound documentation. The following is an explanation of inspiration and personal history, a proposed schematic/manual for the objects in the gallery, and other contemporary artists I frame myself within. The front half of The Art Gallery at the University of Maryland as well as the atrium space directly outside the gallery hosts the work: four large scale Site-Responsive sculptural objects, and one video/sound loop projection. The library of materials comes from a farm site in Ijamsville, MD which has been re-purposed into the structures. As a sister work, the process of dismantling documentation is shown alongside the objects in a sound/video installation. The gallery space is transformed into a meticulously controlled environment via hard objects, sound, light, and video.