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Mr. Johnson's Art Class: 2019-2020

Hmmm, there is something familiar about this artwork?

4/21/2020

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Rooster sculpture by artist Katherina Fritsch.
I recently came across an artist who creates sculptures of a creature dear to my heart.  The chicken!  Yes, I am the proud owner of chickens, and I have made some of my own chicken art, so whenever I see other artists create chicken artworks I get a little bit excited. German sculptor Katherina Fritsch creates over-sized chickens/roosters and paints  them in solid, unexpected colors.  The rooster pictured above is overlooking London's Trafalger Square, surveying the crowd in majestic manner. One of the secrets of art is to present something ordinary in an unexpected way, and Fritsch does just that!  
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As I looked at Fritsch's artwork, it made me reflect on how I too must be on the cutting edge of art... well, maybe?  On my teachers desk at school I have a green concrete duck that sits next to my lotion dispenser.  When students say their hands are dried out from working with clay I say, "Go get some lotion.  It's next to the Green Duck on my desk!"  So Fritsch isn't the only one painting fowl creatures in solid colors. 

So am I on the cutting edge?  I kind of doubt it.  But there is something fun about transforming the ordinary by doing something simple like changing the color, size, or putting it in an unexpected location.

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Things you've made in class...

4/15/2020

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PictureSmall hanging "pinch-pots" with spider plants.
      Sometimes we make things in class that seem more like "craft" than Art.  Regardless of whether you feel you are being "crafty" or "artsy", it's a pretty good feeling to see things that you have made on display.  It's an especially good feeling when you give something you made to a friend or family member and they put it on display because they appreciate it. 

      An artwork shouldn't only seem valuable because it is in a museum, or it sold for lots of money.  The value of art comes from the feeling you get while making it, and the appreciation you have for it when it is later on display.  How's that for a hippie dippie interpretation of Art!

PictureUgly Face Jug with twisted willow branches.
Ugly Face Vessel Reunion?
      I know a great many of my students have made "Ugly Face Vessels" while in my 3D class.  My wife has one that I made on a shelf that she filled with the branches of a twisted willow tree (yes, not just a Harry Potter made up tree).  If you are reading this, I challenge you to send me pictures of your Ugly Face Vessels so we can see how you have chosen to present yours... or just to see how "Ugly" it really is.  I'll devote a future blog date to pictures of the "Ugly Faces" of my students!

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58 Miles of Alone Time.

4/14/2020

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PictureSocially distancing myself from my shadow. 6 feet?
       Most of you know that I'm a legitimate bicycle geek.  I joke with my friends by saying my favorite person to ride with is myself.   While I do enjoy solitary rides, it is still nice to have the option to call up a friend to go riding with.  Unfortunately I don't have that option right now. 

       This picture on the left was one I took last Saturday morning while on a long country "gravel" ride.  I put fat some fatter tires on my bike to make the roads vibration a little more comfortably, and head off into the country to ride roads "less traveled".  

       Sometimes I get up pretty early, while it's still dark, and set off down the road with my bike lights on while it's still peaceful and quiet out.  Yeah, it's hard to get up early, but there is also a sense of adventure to it.  Another perk is that you get to see the sunrise.

        On this particular day I my route was 65 miles long.  My longest of the year.  Buy what was most impressive to me was that I didn't have a single car pass me (in either direction) for the first 58 miles!  Apparently people were taking the "Stay Home" rules quite seriously that morning.  But no complaints here.  It just made the morning that much more peaceful. 

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Carving It Up.

4/9/2020

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PictureThe finished product.
I typically tell my students to not make sculptures or paintings of mushrooms because it gets a little cliche', so I'm guilty of breaking one of my own rules today.  I'd seen some stump carvings here and there that are kind of fun and artsy (crafty too), so I decided my non-producing apple tree that was slowly dying would make a good candidate to attempt my first chainsaw carving.

The Start: I initially thought I would carve 2 or 3 mushrooms into each of the large trunks.  This changed due to my inexperience, and due to all the knots that were below the trunk sections.  I just didn't think it would be visually pleasing.

The Form: I usually start with a plan, but then give myself latitude to deviate from the plan.  I'm no mushroom or morel expert, so I just wanted it to resemble something organic that wouldn't be confused for some other phallic form. 

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Cutting down my sad apple tree.
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"Roughing" out the form.
What I learned:  I've used chainsaws for standard tree cutting, but sculpting a form was a little scary.  I'm pretty sure there are sculpture specific saws, but mine worked just fine for my purposes.   I can't say I love my finished mushroom form.  I think I overworked it and sawed off a little too much.  If I do one again I'll spend less time worrying about it looking real, and do something that I just think feels right to me visually.  The carving process took about an hour.   With today experience, I definitively think I could speed up the overall process. 

Last Reflection: "My Little Mushroom" kind of makes me sad.  What once was a beautiful apple producing tree was reduced to a little mushroom yard sculpture. 

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Planning my Mushroom.

4/8/2020

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The remote learning of 2020 has begun, so one of my goals was to document what I'm doing so that my students can have a little insight into the life of a teacher/artist.  Somethings will seem meaningful, and some perhaps a little meaningless.  This is where I'm at for the moment, and we'll see where this goes.
PictureA little planning for my mushroom "chainsaw" carving.
I've had this idea for a while that I wanted to carve some mushrooms into some tree stumps in my yard.  I had seen some of these stump carvings before at different random locations, and they seemed rather creative and organically interesting.  The problem is, I don't know how they made these carvings.  

Step 1: Get on YouTube and type in stump carving.  I found out that most of these mushrooms weren't so much carved by hand, but chainsawed by hand.  Well I have a chainsaw, so I suppose I can give it a go.

Step 2: Figure out what kind of mushrooms I want to carve and how detailed I can make them.  As a beginner I'd like to keep it simple.  But the morel style mushrooms with all the texture look pretty cool, so we'll see if I decide to take on that challenge. On a side note, by wife is a little concerned that my carvings might look a little phallic, so I'll have to make sure whatever I carve doesn't take on a form a might later regret.

Step 3: Start chainsawing my tree.  My tree (pictured below) has 3 main trunk sections.  So do I make 3 of these things or just just chop them all off and make something shorter?  Like with many art projects, well see how things go and then modify the plans as the sculpture progress.

TO BE CONTINUED:

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My current tree.
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A picture I found online of a morel mushroom carving.
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    Author

    RFHS Art Teacher.  Father of two boys.  Husband of one wife.  Pottery snob.  Rider of of bicycles.  

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