Thursday, February 23, 2012

Chris Irick- Visiting Artist Lecture #2

Today’s visiting artist was Chris Irick. Irick as a child moved around quite a lot, which gave her different views on cultures that she found very interesting at a young age. Her family landed in Texas where she was able to go to a larger high school and take her very first jewelry class. She was hooked instantly. From high school she went to receive her BFA in metalsmithing at Texas Tech University. There is had encouraging professors that allowed her to experiment with different techniques and assist them in the studio. Irick had made the decision to teach so she got her MFA in metals from Dartmouth. She currently lives in New York and is Professor of Metal Arts and the head of the jewelry program at Pratt MWP.

I felt that the lecture was boring in the way she talked and presented her work, but what kept me awake was how beautiful her pieces were. The presentation was well organized almost to a fault. Occasionally she would say something funny to make the crowd laugh which helped. She was definitely a complete opposite from Mel Chin’s lecture earlier this month. Her work that she did was very inspiring because she took her love for old industrial and Victorian items and incorporated it into her own work. One of my favorite pieces was one she did from grad school titled Submerge. It was a necklace inspired from an old timey submarine that was supposed to be used as a way to bomb enemy ships, but never made it to production. She liked the idea of making these small industrial wearable items because adornment is very important in our society. It means a lot to wear something and carry it around with you. Irick presented her work in very nicely taken photographs that gave it a professional and clean feel. Even though her presentation was just straight fact and details spoken in a very monotone voice, which made me sleepy at times, she still kept my attention with the wonderfully sculpted jewelry.

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