Jasper Johns and Rauschenberg Box

I was more interested in the love relationship that the two artists had, regardless if they are gay or straight. They were very close and secretive about their love affair and were in a world all to themselves. Johns has said, "Our world was very limited, I think we were very dependent on one another". They probably kept their relationship a secret to protect them from others opinions which would have most likely been negative or perhaps violent. The inside of my box is a somewhat barren and simple landscape that depicts the two artists own world that is separate from society and others. The outside of the box is a labyrinth that leads onto the lid where you enter the small environment. My idea for the maze came from a poem by Hart Crane who Rauschenberg admired and related to who influenced his art. A quote from the poem is "a labryinth submersed where each sees only his dim past reversed". This could allude to Rauschenbergs old feelings towards his relationship with Johns and how it is hard to reach back and remember past experiences or relationships.

Hope Chest

I want my box to show Rauschenberg and Johns' secretive relationship and how they interacted with society. The outside of the box will act as a "cage" through the images of tall buildings, trees, or silhouttes people making bars along the outside. On the inside will be a dreamy landscape or image such as a mountain or ocean scene. I will use found objects such as perhaps an old key, sea glass, or other "calm" objects. The box itself will be in an organic shape and it has to have a big opening so that people can interact with the items inside. I want it to have a lid so that the viewers will be suprised at the difference between the "cold" exterior and the more soothing interior. Along with the readings I was also influenced by the Bjork song "hyperballad" about a couple that hide at the top of a mountain to feel safe. I think that Rauschenberg and Johns felt pressured to not share their relationship and that they perceived themselves as outsideres, whether their peers would have accepted them or not.

Lance Winn on January 28, 2007

Lance thinks and comes up with ideas easier when he is actively working in his studio. He thinks of art as generative; in hopes of finding something new he works with the same material or a same idea over and over. He is influenced by Jasper Johns who has broken up his canvas to think of other things besides what is the content and subject. For example his famous painting of the American flag is what he started out with but he found things that he wanted to change within his painting because he was not distracted by the pattern. Lance also seems to be influenced by media images and words to begin his works of art.

Lance describes his own artwork as illusions which have a quick breakdown into what they really are. One of his pieces that compiles his interests into one is called "Just A Thought". It is based off of a photograph of a woman who jumped off the Empire State Building in the 1950's. There are many panels with the image of the woman in silkscreen on plexiglass. The plexiglass has been warped to form the raised letters within the image that spell "just a thought". The images are hard to make out at first due to the use of bright colors and the words did not stand out until he showed us a diagonal view of his piece.

He uses the basic colors of red, yellow, and blue to create many different colors by overlapping the short strokes. In his piece "Atomic Clock" the layers of color are revealed with the ticking of the minute, hour, and second hands to create an image of an atomic bomb. He also began to experiment with dipping a brush into ink to outline a word until it creates a form. Using this technique he has created other images of abstract nature scenes with trees and words intertwined.

Lance's vivid imagination, humor, and societal views has influenced his art throughout the years.

Melissa Dean

Melissa creates installations and other artworks based on her relationship and interpretation of consumerism in the United States. She seems to be especially fascinated by how certain objects are advertised as being just right for every different person and that we must have it, although they are mass produced. She uses Target and Ikea catalogs to find images to use in her artwork. She sometimes traces the outline of the images and will create stencils to cut out and make distinct shapes to be overlapped or create installations. She has also had people circle every object they would like to buy if they could in a catalog and then compiled the outlines to create an abstract form. The more things the person circled the more distinct their shape would be. The shapes would be formed from crazy frenetic lines overlapping each other. In her stenciled images Melissa often used busy wallpaper prints to give the sense that the consumer products were overwhelming and "too much". Her guilt in being a consumer and buying too much stuff shows in her work through her artistic choices such as the use of the same colored wallpaper on the shape of many different objects. Melissa describes herself as neurotic when creating her artwork and is fascinated by how focused people are when they go shopping and how much physical objects mean to people.

"Extended and Prosthetic Bodies"

I liked Matthew Barney's "Blind Perineum" because I think that the meaning behind his work is something that we are dealing with more than ever as our technology is growing. He shows how strong that his body can be when he scales the walls with all the climbing technology he is wearing. Though it empowers him it also has harmed him when an ice pick penetrates him. Though technology has made our lives better in some ways there is usually some disturbing side to how it has added to our lives and made us "less human". It is possible now to put tiny defibulators inside peoples chests to fix their heartrates when having a heart attack, but when the deceased passes away it has been known to make the body jump and twitch which upsets family and friends who witness it. Using technology can threaten us bodily and emotionally especially when we become to proud of what we accomplished and too trusting of its abilities.