Barbara Smith + Blog

I was definitely going to sit down tonight and blog about something that has been on my mind a lot lately: place. I was even going to work in some Lucy Lippard too! But, there has been a change of plans. After I finished with stage 3 of my grade-o-thon this evening, I did a search for Bettina Speckner (to discuss her latest work) but found this blog called New Jewellery. I am not sure why there hasn’t been a post since February, but what a great collection of contemporary work!

I found this artist’s work: Masumi Kataoka

And their predecessors:

This is from Morning Glory Antiques, who has a nice collection here.

And a favorite “Hair Album” (thumbnail works, just not sure why it won’t show up…)

This quote from an 1855 edition of Godey’s Lady’s Book sums up the sentimental Victorian regard for hair used in jewelry.

“Hair is at once the most delicate and lasting of our materials, and survives us, like love. It is so light, so gentle, so escaping from the idea of death, that with a lock of hair belonging to a child or friend, we may almost look up to heaven and compare notes with the angelic nature—may almost say, “I have a piece thee here, not unworthy of thy being now.”

Last night I finally got the chance to tackle making platinum and palladium prints for my book project. I chose the process because I liked the overal image texture from the emulsion application, but all in all I’ve only ever made one palladium print in my life. After not having been in a darkroom for at least a year, I was stumbling around like a drunk idiot for about 2 hours, at which point I finally got into the groove.

We, meaning Margaret and I, printed from about 830 until 2 in the morning and I am pretty sure I only managed to get one useable print. About half way through this, I finally remembered what Cheryl had told me about printing with platinum: Do a set of palladium prints first, and THEN do platinum and palladium. The print times and solution amounts are the same for both processes, so what I should have done was figured out my exposures and the spreading of the solution with the cheap stuff first. Instead, I blew through a 10 ml bottle of platinum solution last night, which runs $57. Initially, I had some problems with spreading the mixture onto the paper and ended up making a few prints that had large-ish white spots in them. Of course I also have one negative that is going to be a pain to print, so that one didn’t turn out at all.

I finally got the hang of coating the paper though, since apparently I was pushing some of the chemical off the edge of the paper vs. pushing it around the paper. Today, I will go get my prints off of the drying rack, just to see what they really looked like. Margaret was doing palladium prints, and half way through I really started doubting my choice of using platinum, since all of her prints turned out really well and mine…well….

So, this morning I will be purchasing some replacement chemicals. I think after last night, I’m going to go with a larger bottle of solution #3: 25 ml for $142.50.

The Fine Arts Senior Exhibition at Purdue University is up. I have to say, I am pleasantly suprised at both how fast the show went up (all done in 1 day!) and how strong some of the work is. This is my first time being involved in this particular show, and other than some last minute nail biters, it was great!

Just wanted to post some images:

A view of the large gallery, with Joel Baughn’s sculptural metal forms

Carlene Takaki’s chain series

One of Jess Bowen’s ceramic pieces

Some encaustic work…can’t remember her name….

David Witte’s installation

Well, no idle hands here. Its been incredibly busy with school lately (teaching not taking), with this week in particular kicking my ass. Purdue Art Jewelry and Metals Assocation (PAJAMA), in which I am some sort of advisorish non-officer, is having the annual spring sale. Despite the crappy weather, and the death of Kurt Vonnegut, we managed to make our average $1500 on the first day.

I worked a 14 hour work day on Wednesday, which included a good 7 hours at the sale table and then teaching. I’m pretty sure I barely know my own name right now.

The club’s goal is the creation of one of a kind, handmade jewelry created by students and faculty (and also the education of the shoppers). One sale each semester, with 20% of the funds raised going to the club to bring in guest speakers and hold workshops. (I am hoping for Kiff Slemmons in the fall….)

At any rate, there aren’t any idle hands here, Paul.

I can’t say that my sales have been great though, despite the fact that I was really pleased with my items. For example, my oh-so-funny, hardly-anyone-gets-it “thought bubble earrings” with a variety of punctuation marks. HA! Yes….the linguist gets it.

And for my weekend encore, the installation of the Fine Arts Senior Exhibition “Please Remain Standing While the Bus is in Motion.”

I had an interesting hair related experience today, so, since I’m on the topic….

I think that I have mentioned before that for most of my life I had really long hair. I’ve cut it shorter several times through the years, but even then my definition of shorter was pretty long. The first time I remember cutting my hair was in 6th grade, when the boy I liked (who sat behind me in homeroom) kept pointing out to me that my hair kept ending up on his desk during class. So, I went home and had my mom cut some off. I think in high school I cut it off so I could fit more of it under my catcher’s mask. After that, my hair stayed relatively long for years. Honestly, I always thought I’d have long hair. I had pipe dreams of being old and having Jessica Tandy hair…

Anyway, moving along to when I was 23 and had come out of the other side of an extremely traumatic, life changing, temporary regret causing personal episode of horrible choices that I will not blog about, I decided to chop off my hair. I mean really cut it. I mean about 14 inches worth gone. My hairdresser (who I still go to) was more reluctant to cut it off than I was. In retrospect, I have to say that it was the best (symbolic) act of my life, as far as my hair goes that is. Since then, I’ve generally kept my hair short. Recently, out of a need for my hair for art projects, I decided last summer to start growing it out. So, that is what I did….

Two weeks ago, I had had it with my hair. Ugly. I was generally mad at my reflection, mad at my hair, mad, mad, mad….So, I made an appointment.

Today I had 5 or so inches of hair cut off, so its back to short again. It was fun seeing the drastic change. Not to mention that my hairdresser helped me bag up my hair and then proceeded to give me an entire bag of other hair from today (very exciting indeed). So, I was feeling free etc. etc., but then this evening I took a look in the mirror and I realized something. When I saw my reflection I actually recognized myself, or part of myself, I hadn’t recognized with longer hair. I felt more “me.” I was back to being myself after that initial, drastic cut, which is why I think I had been so frustrated and angry at my longer hair and my reflection these past few months. It was making part of me absolutely miserable; almost as if I was regressing.

I don’t really have a point, but I find it really interesting. Although, I’m not really sure I can convey in words what the moment of realization felt like when I looked into the mirror….