Category: Digital Arts

RUDE BROOD 2012 Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition at the White Box | Portland

Posted on by Sabina Poole

 

I believe in science the same way most Christians believe in God:  with faith, rather than understanding.  I trust logic and order that science offers as explanation for my reality without real comprehension.  Humanity inherently sees scientific and technological innovation as both threatening and liberating.  Will it turn on us one day?  Will it eventually offer us paradise?

— Olivia Storm, BFA 2012, member of the Rude Brood, Portland, Oregon

In their inaugural video to announce the opening of their June 2012 White Box exhibit, The Rude Brood showed us an anonymous hand crudely slapping coffee grounds into an auto-coffee maker:  “Thwap!”  Steam wafts off the appliance, the mystery hand pushes the start button, and black fluid flows into the carafe.  We see a counter top littered with java grounds, and a lone coffee mug.   The hand reappears to pour hot coffee into the white mug.  The mug is turned to reveal a horned skull.  As if this image is not quizical enough, the skull seems to be frozen, mouth open in jest or gesture.  This is the Rude Brood’s coat-of-arms:  the skull human remains are decoratively surrounded by acanthus, a crown tops the shield-like image, and a fist holds tightly to two decidely non-digital tools, paintbrush and x-acto knife.   The words “Rare Breed” grace the emblem in a ribbon-swirl. Undoubtedly, the students of the Rude Brood knew their audience would be captivated by this crest, and, indeed as you stare, the skull sticks out its tongue and blows.  The caption bluntly reads, “Brewed Rude.”

And, so is your first experience with the Rude Brood, the 12 digital arts students who completed their Bachelor of Fine Arts in the Portland Digital Arts Program at the White Stag, spring 2012.  For spring term 2012, the Rude Brood percolated under the guidance of Colin Ives, UO Professor of Digital Art.  Previously, the group had been instructed by Craig Hickman (fall term, 2011) and John Park (winter 2012).   Coming together in Portland for the final three terms that would culminate in receiving their Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees, the Rude Brood’s ideas bubbled and brewed finding increased expression and clarity with each review and project.  You may preview images of the final review on the University of Oregon:  School of Architecture and Allied Arts Facebook page.

In her artist statement (reproduced in part in the quote above), Olivia Storm offers a glimpse into the curious, skeptical, and questioning nature of the Brood.  Proudly owning up to their penchant to be disruptive, the Rude Brood was particularly bent on exposing and investigating the world they were about to wholeheartedly, and post-graduation, venture into. The Rude Brood designated the maxim of Choose Your Weapon to represent their oeurve.   Their “weapons” perhaps sybolically represented in their Rude Brood crest (a paint brush and an x-acto knife)—came across as the weapons of their process:  not necessarily violent but containing the potential to be disturbing; not specifically aggressive but capable of creating works ranging from frightening to uncomfortable.  The Brood shows a vulnerability, an aggression and a demand to be heard, here and now, balanced with the pride and confidence of well-educated youth. Their work brazenly explores themes of suffering, nostalgia, commitment, and the human capability for communication.  With that intention, the students presented a wide range of work varing from explorations of the horror film genre to a complete on-film exploration of self-help advice and “how to be successful.”  And that’s just the beginning.

Just look at Michael Cooper’s contraption.   Almost hinting at an “Eckardesque” appreciation and fabricated out of black leather, reflecting mirrors, and cold welded metal, a cell phone sits in the middle filming what is going on in front while the mirrors depict what transpires behind.  One reviewer during the final review session, was overheard commenting that this object suggests an interesting “fetish-like” quality.  The harness of this piece fits onto one’s shoulders and subjects the wearer to confront all angles of visual sensory perception.  Cooper projects an experimental aesthetic with a nod to Da Vinci-like body accoutrements and an embrace of modern technology.  Is this to evoke an idea of suffocating cerebral overload or a comment on our brave new world of constant smartphoning, where being “out of touch” simply has ceased to exist?

Rude Brooder, Grahame Bywater audiciously proposes an almost mocking sneer at expected social etiquette, privacy and confidentially.  He audio broadcasts his personal secrets from inside the cavern of a whiskey barrel for all to hear (if you are so inclined to want to lean in and publicly show your interest).  Should we be embarrassed to be curious?  Why do we want to hear his intimate musings?  Or is this one more step in the curating of our selves to others?  Bywater doesn’t seem to care—he puts it out there, but sinks his secrets well within the barrel.  His audience has to show their interest thus exhibiting care, empathy, compassion, and, for a few moments, granting him our full attention.

So eager and experimental was another, Tyler Centanni migrated off to uncover a “real world ” experience devoting himself to three months of door-to-door sales in a corner of suburbia.  He opted for a shirt and tie, hair slicked back, attempted a “dressed-up” assemblage.  His experiment culminated in marriage to his girlfriend during the final review officiated by another Rude Brood student.   Reviewers and bystanders were left to question the seriousness of this ultimate evocative gesture and wonder if he thumbed his nose at button-downed tradition or truly was about to enter the world of marital bliss.  Can a legal union be so spontaneous at the risk of seeming callous?  Was it up to us to question their understanding of the sanctity of marriage, or the seriousness of being connected to another person? This was Centanni’s version of success, but one he read in a book and so seems doomed to failure.  Perhaps it was all a comment on our own personal paths to happiness and achievement.

That’s just a peek at the savior-faire of this unique group.   The work will make you think and wonder at your own ability to communicate, to feel compassion, and to recognize your propensity to pay attention.  Overall, it will compel you to question how you interact with others and if you are paying enough attention.   The Rude Brood provides a journey for you to wander through their experiments of human social, visual, and auditory interactions.  How much you glean from this is left completely up to you: how much of your personal ethos and circumstance are reflected back in Cooper’s mirrors, is your business.  The Rude Brood has done an exceptional job drawing the viewer into their frame of reference, into their cultural tapestries, and into exposing their fears, apprehensions, and insecurities.

Make sure you step close, but not that close to Christine Thomas’ wall;  please pause to see Leah Chan’s cultural exploration and see a struggle to work through tradition and mesh with modernity;  stop in front of Amanda Riebe’s probing questioning of image and internet; and the mixology of electrode brain science put forth by Keith Stedman.

But that’s not all, Olivia Storm will show you form inspired by cinema and you will wonder at function, man, nature or robot-inspired;  Keith Chaloux will astound you with his new take on old art history and let you tread on his creation as it winds through the White Box; Brett Ciccarello’s short film of science fiction and robotic creatures will charm and amuse and you will feel empathy for a completely digital, non-living thing;  McKenzie Sampson will confront you with a floor to ceiling mural-like depiction of androgynous characters, with significantly noticeable time-telling pieces.

Trevin Swick will rock your world using three large balloons and plenty of conceptual issues;  and Katya Vitovskaya will, let’s just say it, shock and horrify but soften it all with lovely water colors.  Her world of movie violence and grievious injury absorbing into the paper but shown to us on video as if to say, here there is no wiping up the gore.  We can’t even touch it.

If you are in Portland, take a moment to walk around the exhibit at the White Box and see the Rude Brood’s work.  The exhibit is up until July 21, 2012.  You will experience a fascinating glimpse into both the Rude Brood’s self-conscious personalities and their natural, impulsive inclinations.  This exhibit is a bit rude in places, outspoken, questioning, arrogant, and more than a trifle rebellious in justifiable ways that seek to draw the Rude Brood audience to new conclusions and socially relevant realizations within a contemporary culture that has come to rely on digital methods.  These emotions and inclinations seethe and brew in the Rude Brood and fuel their creative process.

We wish them well. . . .let’s hope they continue to question and experiment with the incredible talent they possesses.  If you want to walk down memory lane with The Rude Brood, we have blogged about them before.  Look at their work from winter 2012. And see a gallery of images from their work with Craig Hickman.

Portland Product Design Students Intern with Anthropologie

Posted on by Sabina Poole

My internship at Anthropologie relates to product design in a different way than what I have been taught in class. By experimenting with everyday materials, I’ve gotten to learn techniques for making things in a more craft-based way.  Creating these displays has also helped me visualize how product can be displayed in an artistic way and learn about an aesthetic that has already been branded as the Anthropologie lifestyle.  I feel like learning the final phase before it goes to the consumer has been very beneficial in my way of thinking about design related to the retail world. –Tori Russo, BFA from the Product Design Program in Portland, Spring ‘12

 

Tori Russo and Liesel Sylwester at Anthropologie in the Pearl District, Portland, site of their 2011-2012 internship.

Internships at the University of Oregon in Portland School of Architecture and Allied Arts are coordinated by Sara Huston, instructor for the Product Design program in Portland.  Students find their own internship position and work on negotiating the terms before bringing their application to Huston for review, refinement and approval.   In Portland, there is great potential for internship opportunities related to the fields of architecture, art, and product design.   The collaboration between students and prospective employers is viewed as an experience that can lay the foundations for successful careers and can give Portland’s creative businesses access to the University of Oregon’s  student population.

In her quote beginning this article, Product Design program BFA student Tori Russo alludes to internships bringing life experience, creative hands-on exposure, and knowledge to students.  The University recognizes that internship placements are powerful ways for a student to begin to select a career path, to gain valuable credentials, to work in a specific field alongside experts, and to develop individual capability within an environment of cooperation. It is another step in assisting our students forward on a path to “make good” within the very community in which they live and study.  The internship experience also forges connections and networks for the student that can benefit them long after they receive their degree.

This last academic year, 2011-2012, Tori Russo and Liesel Sylwester, both in the Product Design Program (Portland) joined forces and approached retail store, Anthropologie for an internship. The store is part of a chain of retail ventures owned by parent company, Urban Outfitters.  Anthropologie specializes in women’s apparel and accessories, home furnishings, replicated found objects, and gift and decorative items.  Geared to appeal to the sophisticated 30-40 year-old woman, Anthropologie offers unique, one-of-a-kind pieces and markets its wares to appeal to a lifestyle rather than simply product.  Russo and Sylwester applied to work at the Pearl District-based store (a short walk from the UO at the White Stag where both students are in their final year towards a BFA from the Product Design program).

Russo and Sylwester work on a housewares display.

Russo and Sylwester already loved the store and were intrigued by the Anthropologie aesthetic.  They went straight to the store’s Visual Display Coordinator, Nicole Faivre, with their internship proposal. Faivre who enthusiastically lauds the internship program comments, “From the interns joining us, Anthropologie gains additional sets of skilled hands to prep and install the displays within our store.  The interns also strengthen
our creative energy within the store, which allows us to provide the customer with a complete sensory experience, right down to the details.”

The day I visited the Anthropologie to talk with Russo and Sylwester they were working on a project to create (by hand) canvas cacti.  Fabricated from bright green fabric stuffed with poly-fill, the faux-desert flora was propped up next to vignettes of hanging pants, shirts and accessories.  The entire store swirled in a painted-desert-like landscape. Even housewares were displayed in this created rugged scene.  On a table topped with gravel (complete with lit candles), colorful place settings popped within the vibrancy of light-saturated greens, oranges, and reds, textures and smells enveloping the shopper.  The interns mostly work in a small production line creating all the pieces for each installation, or display, and then assist with the installation when the display concept is completed.  From this internship, Russo and Sylwester have worked with a variety of materials including rope, fabrics, masking tape, wood, wire, and even coffee stirrers to create unique displays.  Faivre told me that “Tori and Liesel have had their hands in a wide variety of displays, using many different materials and processes.  They have worked on projects that involve painting, dying, sewing, drilling, hot gluing, taping, assembling, deassembling, and much more.  They also assist in the day-to-day store upkeep.”

Russo comments that the hands-on experience, such as crafting the cacti, “gave [her] real-world experience in creating things using materials [she] wouldn’t necessarily use to create something.  It allowed us to see the end of the production line and learn about the strategies of product placement and how to make product look better in a surrounding.”

Russo also says the intern experience at Anthropologie has “helped [her] to think about how a product would live in someone’s home environment” and brings an understanding about how “the merchandising is so important and goes hand-in-hand with experiencing installation.”  She notes that she is “able to relate that to the presentation of [her] own projects” in the Product Design program.

Anthropologie merchandises its wares with a kind of all-embracing vitality one might wish one’s own life could imitate.  Anthropologie illustrates their stores as having “beautiful, ever-changing vignettes and surprises hiding in every corner….spoons and skirts and sofas…..award-winning window and product displays….passionate and devoted customers…. plants, parties and personal shoppers.”  The store attributes their success and visual presentation to their “people.” People who they portray as “the most creative, inspiring, dedicated people you’ll ever meet.”  The UO interns are no exception to this and have benefitted Anthropologie by, as Faivre says, “utilizing their hands-on crafting skills though assisting in the preparation and assembling of materials used in store displays” and helping to create the invigorating inspired experience that has come to define Anthropologie.  The creative vision of Anthropologie, suggested by the home office but interpreted by each store’s own unique adaptation of that vision, gives shoppers an experience of submersion into a world where you feel connected to the creativity, the environment, the uniqueness, even if you only buy a coffee mug.  As Russo explains the process flow, “the interns get direction from the Visual Display Coordinator who works directly with the Visual Merchandiser in order to come up with the designs.”  She continues, “The VDC and the VM work together to make sketches and come up with a plan of execution and it is this plan that the interns ultimately work with to create.”  Russo describes the process as being “just like [she does] in studio—they have a bunch of images that they use as inspiration.”   Complimenting the work of the interns, Faivre asserted that Anthropologie is always seeking qualified individuals who can bring hands-on crafting and creative skills and a strong sense of design principles to the Anthropologie creative aesthetic.

In addition to the hands-on experience these students describe receiving from internships, there is an added component: the chance to do something of real interest and to connect to a creative outlet that delivers to a student a sense of personal satisfaction. UO AAA students as interns are given opportunity to interact with professional networks they truly value.  And, that is where the pure enjoyment of having the freedom to pick one’s own internship opportunity arises.

Preparing materials for display, Russo and Sylwester in Anthropologie's back room of supplies, tools, and creative working.

Liesel Sylwester might have said it best when she commented,

“I love making beautiful things.  Interning at Anthropologie is just play for me.  It is so rewarding to create something improbable and fantastic out of the most basic materials and to see it all put together at the end.  It reminds me of when I was little and made crazy stuff out of whatever was around.  It helps me unwind during a busy week.  Anthropologie is one of the few things I will gladly get up at 5am for.”

Michael Salter and Visual Function | Ready-to-Think on a Tee Shirt

Posted on by Sabina Poole

“What I Devoted Everything To”:  Michael Salter Style

A Profile on Michael Salter and the Visual Function Apparel Collection

[Images included herein represent a selection of designs from the Visual Function collection]

Self Bubble, M Salter, Visual Function

For those of you who create, who inspire us with images, objects, words, designs, thoughts, and feelings, we, as your audience, wonder what it is that triggers your sensations.   Through what valves of perception flow your attentions and intentions?

As a life’s dedication, the artist produces unique works of creativity capable of provoking intense responses—this alone seems a daunting task.   In a university setting, only professional artists with active professional exhibition records and the promise of upward trajectory of that research practice are considered for faculty appointments.  The artist-as-faculty-member has brilliantly managed to fit within the academic system offering to students an opportunity to discover and develop skills with hand, mind, eye. Indeed, the artist as professor | instructor has successfully merged an ingenious ability for visual creativity and academic intellectualism.  What happens to the artist|professor’s creative output on a personal level when this mixology exists?  What continues to fuel and fire the individual’s ideas and participation in the contemporary,marketable art world?  How does an artist continue to produce and relate on both professional and personal levels to a dynamic career?  Is this a dichotomous choice or can producing art for commercial sale contribute to and enhance a professional teaching situation?  We have asked Professor Michael Salter of the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts‘ Department of Art (Professor Salter recently launched his own line of screened teeshirts with Visual Function) to enlighten us…..

The idea for this exploration of creative impetus came from a random post on Facebook, of all things.   Michael Salter, himself a savvy social media habitué, had posted about a conversation between himself and a student. The student had come upon the professor while he was drawing and asked “Is that your hobby?”   Once posted, this comment elicited a large outpouring from Professor Salter’s FB following.  That, in itself, is not surprising.  But the professor’s reported response was revealing:  “Actually [it] is more of a way of life in many respects, it is my research.”  Salter’s gentle and understanding approach motivates the realization that professor-artists rigorously take part in a pursuit of artistic endeavor outside of the university.  This is, in fact, what amplifies their expanding connections to creativity, progression, and innovation.  What Salter posted next speaks volumes about this paramount connection to practice and profession:  “…it was so strange for a student to have no idea at all that my research, practice and career have entirely informed my teaching and that I teach what I do, not my hobby……it has never been a hobby…. it’s been what I devoted everything to.”

A portion of what a google search reveals....

Suffice to say, I was moved enough to google “Michael Salter”.  Initial searches revealed his university affliation, then his website (definitely a recommended experience) and, after a bit of surfing around, this curious new venture:  graphics on teeshirts with Visual Function.  What caught my attention were the icons:  familiar yet strange in a can’t-look-away-provocative-type impulse. I located a few former students of Professor Salter’s and decided to delve into this further.  Lindsay AuCoin, former student and currently an art instructor at both UO and OSU, commented, “At a glance, you might think [Professor Salter’s] icons are nothing more than logos for products you’ve never heard of….these images are a familiar kind of unfamiliar…[riding] the line of the expected and unexpected.  As a viewer you are left to either piece it together to make sense for yourself, or just let it be the confusing thing that it is. Either way, it gets you thinking and [that] is the strength of his work.”

Forked Tongue

Another former student of Salter’s, Andrew Pomeroy notes, “Salter’s iconography has always occurred to me as a clever exploit of our brand-obsessive nature, as appropriations of the massive lexicon of symbols that make brand statements so tenacious.”  Pomeroy continues, “What separates his work from the rest is that it uses this visual language to compose ideas rather than to simply stamp a name on a piece of clothing, with a level of visual wit that keeps it potent, while unassuming and accessible.”

Corporate Policy

Consequently, I went “shopping” and opened the Visual Function website.  The comments I was hearing so compelled me to want to see these designs….what Professor Salter, himself describes as “torment[ing], enlighten[ing], antagoniz[ing]” and able to tickle the cognitive spirit.  Navigating through Visual Function proved a novel experience. I was greeted with silhouette-styled screens that enveloped me in everything from the charming, (who could not love Bunny Buddies?), to the macabre (Bunny Grinder), to the questionable (Atomic Baby Deer, could that be Bambi with bubbles?  babies?  or burps?), to the idiomatic (fiscally oozing Money Grabber, or the surreally blended Fox and Bunny, or Cloudy Relationship— ever been in love and been told your head is in the clouds?).  Blunt, thought-provoking, somewhat gritty, sometimes saccharin cute and strong enough to contain volumes of connotation and innuendo in one noire-et-blanche silkscreen, I asked Professor Salter to elaborate.

Demo Bunny

It is streetwear for the thinking person, his website boldy declares.  Professor Salter continued, “I have always been a fan of the research university model.  I believe in practicing researchers delivering their work into the world at large make for effective teachers…..I bring every facet of my professional experience to the classroom.”

Bunny Buddies

Obviously, this outlet of creativity, teeshirt emblazoned with iconography, allows Professor Salter to express and communicate in a way he says lets him “teach [his] people how to communicate clearly and honestly with the visual language, as long as I am doing it myself the loop is complete.”  While the designs are clearly thought-provoking (some generating even a little psychological discomfort) and priced to sell in the marketplace of a tee shirt-wearing public, Professor Salter explains that he has been “producing images and objects and delivering them into the world in a variety of ways for many years, money has rarely been the motivation…. Without being didactic, I want my work to engage people to question what their world looks like and why.  Much of the iconography I’ve drawn that exists on the apparel I am selling is simply supposed to amuse, instigate, or otherwise make people think a little bit more…..” surely, above all, purposeful and ready-to-wear.

Cloudy Relationship

When asked to comment on how his art work and his marketable tee-shirt entrepreneurial endeavor contribute to his academic work, Professor Salter says “My work has always existed in a gray area between art and design.  This new tee shirt collection of my images is another exercise of that idea.  The images have been drawn, painted, animaged, extruded dimensionally, screen printed, laser cut, and projected, it only makes sense that the work is realized in yet another medium, in this case, apparel.  The whole project is still a little too new to really reflect on what I’ve learned from it, but you can bet it will in some way end up back in the classroom, affecting my other work and motivating new work.  I just believe its all connected.”

Super Lucky

Fascinated by this connection, I asked Professor Salter how this translates to his students on the university level.  He splendidly emoted on this subject testifying to the importance the students hold:  “I think it is our job to make [the students] brilliant, honest, original creative thinkers who can communicate visually. [The University] is about a broader view of the world, about being a contributor to culture and critically looking at the world we live in.”

Lindsay AuCoin sums up Professor Salter’s work ethic, “his work comes from so much observation, examination, deconstructing, reworking, and manipulating parts of our culture.  He has pulled it all apart and reassembled new forms from it.  Putting these images on tee shirts is like coming full circle, in a way, but given the breadth of investigation that has occurred, it all seems to fit so nicely back into the box from where it came….any artist would be motivated by that.”

Sad

Perhaps Professor Salter has realized an ideal combination between the dynamic relationships of thinking, creating, and working such that each aspect feeds into and elevates the other.  It seems a lifestyle, and a conscious choice: whether or not the gamble leads to economic success.   Such an impassioned and committed devotion to one’s art and practice can only contribute to a confluence that benefits all–  students, professor, the community who buys from the creative global marketplace infusing the economy and fueling ventures like Professor Salter’s Visual Function.

The artist|professor’s courage to integrate the academic, the inspired, and the personal creative expression is what contributes to and leads forward our university environment to be one of excellence and innovation, and provides a key element in the arts ecology of the international and regional contemporary art scene.   Indeed, that is just one of the aspects we gratefully owe to professors and instructors in the art and design fields:   they have the bold vision to be progressive, influential, experimental and to see their creative triggers through to a visual expression.  Professor Salter was not content to stop with the expected.  Artists and the Artist-As-Professor challenge us and urge us to engage time and time again making use of mediums we continually are drawn to.

Professor Salter’s tee shirt collection, screened images on a simple wardrobe staple, is also making thinkable messages thoughtfully executed attainable, something we can pull out from the drawer, pull on over our head, and proudly relish the ideas emblazoned across our chests, front and center, for something around $20.   And THAT’s something to provoke thought.

Wash-and-wear-and-ready-to-think adds a whole new dimension to this cotton blended billboard of Americana.  One might venture to say Professor Salter has mastered the art of personal enjoyment and fulfillment of his craft and practice as well as translating his observations, expertise, and approach to his students influencing and inspiring their education and outlook and creating thinkers.  After all, students can benefit from an instructor who is a partner with them in forging  the path of artistic development, thereby providing a model of progression and painting the variants of possibility that creative expression can afford in the real world.   Wash-and-wear infused with a hearty dose of  ready-to-think adds a whole provocative dimension to this icon of fashion.

Plus sometimes a tee shirt does say it better.

post sabina samiee | uo pdx communications
images courtesy of the artist, michael salter

thank you to michael salter, lindsay aucoin and andrew pomeroy

Visual Function, http://saltertshirts.spreadshirt.com/