Visiting Artist Elizabeth Condon

Visiting Artist Elizabeth Condon came to speak on Oct. 11th at 7pm in Callicott Auditorium. She was born in LA and now lives and works from both Tampa, Florida and NY. I was not able to attend the lecture. I viewed the recording of it. I am sorry I missed seeing her work on the big screen, but I'm not sorry about the actual lecture. She spoke what felt like a really long time. Just showing each work and describing it. She has so much work it felt like an overload of information. I was not bored visually but a little by what she talked about.

Although what interested me most was her work early on in the lecture. She kept using the word kitsch to describe the series of dolls. They were not just regular dolls. They had an eerie look to them. She briefly mentioned. That she painted the dolls to describe her childhood. To get to know the dolls better by painting. She said that when she was young she did not speak until the age of 4. Until she spoke she just played with dolls all the time. I would have liked it if she had gone into more detail about her not speaking. I'm not sure if it was something bad that happened to her causing her to not speak, if it was medical, or if it was by choice. I felt like that work was the most beautiful and strongest of everything I saw of hers.

Her other work was inspired from her travels around the US and Asia. She has a technique where she pours her paints on to the canvas and then works from those shapes letting the shapes build her landscape. I thought that was a interesting way to paint. It allows her to be creative and troubleshoot her next most not allowing herself to always be in control. Condon's most recent painting she is working on are influenced by the 60s and 70s from when she was growing up. She is looking at architecture that is still around from when she was young and also night clubs.


Here is the only image of her dolls that I could find on the internet. It isn't from what she showed in the lecture but still has that dark and eerie vibe that I liked from the ones she did show.

     

Edits

Ok here's my most recent edits! I think I am getting very close to the look and feel I originally wanted. The difference between the two is one's edited with just falling while the other is falling with some rebuild. I need help deciding which works best. Then I can tighten and wrap this film up! Maybe? Hopefully! I also decided to only have sound during the fall to just hear the breaking noise. I took out all other sounds of me walking or building. I wonder if that is ok to do? I am still not even sure if I will have sound for the actual BFA screening. I would like for the breaking noise to be heard when people view it but I do not want ugly earphones in my installation. So I guess I will have to see what I can get away with.

fall 10:15-vimeo hd encode from Angelique Gonzalez on Vimeo.

fall 10:15d-vimeo hd encode from Angelique Gonzalez on Vimeo.

Final Shoot

I believe I wrapped up the shooting part of my movie this last Saturday. I fell a bunch more and got bruises on top of my bruises, and I also shot some coverage of putting the chair back together to give me some more variety. The first edit is made toward what senior studio suggested last week. I like it but I feel like I need to definitely cut it up a bit more. Maybe I should not always show me fully walking in every time. Cut it to the fall quicker? This edit was also to show the two filming days mixed to see if it still blended nice. I only had a tiny bit of color correcting to do to match them.
fall 10:08-vimeo hd encode from Angelique Gonzalez on Vimeo.
This second edit is more of what cinema class suggested.
fall 10:08b-vimeo hd encode from Angelique Gonzalez on Vimeo.
I feel like this one is more interesting to watch because there is a lot of variety. I think the strongest part (and how I originally thought about editing this piece) is towards the end with the cuts of the fall over and over. They are closer together and happen quickly. It hurts me to watch and in a way I think that is how I would like my audience to feel. I need to try and figure out a way to effectively execute that and show my determination to keep going at the same time. I really do not want my viewers to get bored. I would like it if they would actually hangout and watch it for a little while. The editing part is fun because there are so many different ways I could go about this.

Test Shoot

This weekend was the test shoot- I think it went pretty well. Falling in the chair over and over wasn't that bad but I was very sore the next day and had a lot of bruises on the back of my legs. Hopefully I will get some good feedback from the class so I can focus on what I need to get right when shooting again this coming Saturday. I made some really rough edits of the footage to show. I realized when editing that it takes me a long time to build the chair back up. So I need to figure out the best way to show that without it getting boring or speeding it up and making it look comical. I want it to go faster but still show an emphasis of the struggle of putting it back together.

Sequence 1-vimeo hd encode from Angelique Gonzalez on Vimeo.

fall-vimeo hd encode from Angelique Gonzalez on Vimeo.

Pre-test test shoot

This weekend I went in to get some test shots with the lighting set up and the falling process in the chair to see if it will work. I also planned out a few different outfits to get some stills of to see if they will look right on film.

Image of lighting

...and the chair











Here are some shots of the outfits I have in mind. I think that it will be stronger if there is a variety of changes to show time passing so that the process doesn't read as one day. Varying from dressed up to very casual. Things I would wear from day to day.

Footage:

This first video is the building of the chair as it was the very first time we put it back together, but the more we did it the better we were able to figure out how to keep it stable. 3 toothpicks are better than one!


building from Angelique Gonzalez on Vimeo.

The next two videos are of me falling. In the first one the chair started to break before I even fell down and because of the angle it still looked pretty believable. Which got me thinking that this could be a way to execute the shots. If I can get the chair to start falling and I fall just after I may be able to land without hurting myself or the chair but it could be tricky.

fall 1 from Angelique Gonzalez on Vimeo.

The problem in this film is that I hesitate when I sit down. Pretty much every time I sat down I did that. So, I am glad that I figured this out before the real test shoot coming up next weekend. I think I am going to try to tape some padding under my clothes. Most of my outfits are not fitted so I am pretty sure that I can conceal it so it doesn't show of film. Maybe with a little extra padding on my body I will be more confident when sitting down on the chair. It needs to look as normal and natural as possible!

fall 2 from Angelique Gonzalez on Vimeo.

At the end of the shoot there was an unexpected student that came into the studio, Jonah, we asked him to sit on the chair that was already set up. He did and it was good because the chair didn't break right away. He knew there was something wrong with it but for a brief moment I think he thought he was safe. The chair did break and he said it hurt but that he was ok. Sorry Jonah! I did discover what I was already thinking which is that he landed on the back of the chair with his back. Once again I need padding!

unexpected from Angelique Gonzalez on Vimeo.

Artist Lecture- Matthew Robbins

Matthew Robbins a former MCA student came to do a lecture on Thursday 9/20 in Callicott at 6:30pm. Matthew Robbins is a blogger and editor for Martha Stewart Weddings as well as the Huffingtonpost.com and StyleList.com. He give lectures around the world and has been on the Martha Stewart Show and the Today Show. He is known for his extravagant event planning and party arrangements.

I thought it was great to see a former student doing commercial art work and getting paid well to do so. He is still able to tap into his conceptual and artistic side but he is doing it with flowers and party favors. I was very impressed by the images of his work from former parties and weddings. During the lecture he spoke of inspiration. I found it interesting that he would take something as simple as a piece of candy or a vintage tin and use that object as his inspiration and color palette to decorate a whole room.

He was a great speaker because he is used to doing so for large crowds, media and the wealthy, but he did not go into a lot of detail about his process of getting to where he is now. He talked about his time at MCA as a painter, then he transferred to San Fransisco. While he was in school he worked in a flower shop and he also said something about doing events for a company when the big boss was away, who later found out that Matthew was behind the wonderful arrangements. After that he moved to NY and started his own business where Martha Stewart ask for him to be on her show based on a flower arrangement she saw in a magazine.

I guess that is it, it takes a lot of work and ambition. I just wanted more. I realize he worked his way up. He probably had a few connections from his places of business while he worked in college and he was just good at it.  

Here are some images of his work and a link to his website.
     

Test shots in lighting studio

Over the weekend I went to the lighting studio to plan on where I would like to set up and get some shots of the chair documenting the way it breaks at this point. I am still trying to figure out a way to make the chair fall apart a little bit better so that it isn't a surprise at what direction it goes each time. I'm getting a little worried about making it happen. Ideally I want the cushion to fall straight down so that I am not falling on to the back or legs of the chair. I do not want anything to snap on the chair to the point where I can not use it anymore or snap anything on me for that matter.

The chair is in 3 pieces: the ladder back, cushion, and front legs. My helper and boyfriend, Randall, and I rigged the chair up with toothpicks because that is what we had conveniently at the house. After trying that out in the lighting studio we realized that it was working but something a little thicker would be better. So, we went by the home depot and got the smallest dowel rod and stained it to match the chair.


Here is some footage of what we did. This was all shot on my iPhone with a tripod.

 

I did not mess with lighting just yet because I am still trying to figure out the construction of the chair. I have to admit that I was a little scared to test out the chair myself due to either hurting me or breaking the chair too much before I even start shooting the project.

Here is a picture of the dowels stained.