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Sketch Book Entries Assignment

The Sketchbook is the documentation of your Creative Processes & on-going research.  Think of it as a place to store all class and critique notes, assignment ideas, concept drawings, notes from lectures and/or videos, on-going research, bibliographic sources, etcetera.

Why?
a. Research is an expectation of all students.  
b. All sketchbooks are evidence of an investment in exploration and continued learning. 
c. Sketchbooks are a key tool in idea generation.  
d. They are a way to think in two dimensions and store ideas for future use as well as a way to work through ideas before investing large amounts of time in a finished work. 
e. Sketchbooks, in their various forms; book form, electronic files, BLOG, etc., are mandatory for all studio art courses.

Sketch books will illustrate the following:
  • The fundamental principles and elements of design
  • Research of historical precedent and contemporary approaches concerning visual representation
  • Class, lecture, and video notes, etc.
  • Concept thumbnail sketches towards further refinement in three-dimensions
  • Weekly concepts covered including: material engagement, application and process towards the constructed work
  • Sketchbooks are a way to collect your research
Get use to taking 
thorough bibliographical source material with the following information:

ARTIST / DESIGNER
TITLE / PRODUCT  (titles always in italics!)
YEAR
MEDIA 
DIMENSIONS
Collection (if available)

Please note where you gleaned the example from. 
This is your bibliographical source info (i.e. URL)

Make a number of notes on your discovered and researched visual example.
  1. Why does this particular work stand out to you?
  2. How does the work relate to the assignment at hand?

You should be collecting 3 per week.  
By the end of the term you will have, at minimum, 45 research entries. 

 Here’s #1/45 …


Martin Puryear b. 1940  American
Bower, 1980
Sitka spruce, pine, and copper tacks
64 1/4 × 94 5/8 × 26 in. (163.3 × 240.2 × 66.0 cm)
Collection Smithsonian American Art Museum

The Museum of Modern Art (NYC) had a major exhibition of the sculpture of the acclaimed American artist Martin Puryear (b. 1941). The retrospective featured approximately forty-five sculptures, following the development of Puryear’s artistic career over the last thirty years, from his first solo museum show in 1977 to the present day. Puryear began his career in the 1970s alongside other members of the Post-Minimalist generation. Working primarily in wood, he has maintained an unwavering commitment to manual skill and traditional building methods. His sculptures are rich with psychological and intellectual references, examining issues of identity, culture, and history. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication illustrating all works in the exhibition, with additional reference illustrations of the artist’s works and other comparative material.  

  1. Martin Puryear’s Bower (1980) really caught my eye.  It is extremely well crafted and suggests some sort of natural form, although abstracted.  Each “rib” has been constructed with the same width of wood, however, the way Puryear has assembled the sculpture shows variety, movement, is suggestive of a membrane, and/or a protective exoskeleton, and even warmth because of the natural wood color.  It reminds me of some sort of nautilus shell or even a lovely place to be inside to feel comfort.


2. Puryear’s work relates extremely well to the current assignment as it constructed of natural materials, and constructed so that you see the inside with all of it’s supports and spine, and thus, can imagine how a membrane would look covering this object.  It seems as if it has been made mathematically and is extremely symmetrical. Puryear’s craft is exquisite and this calls for our attention of it. Everything has been carefully planned out.  This might suggest how he may believe the universe and nature itself has also been “designed” in perfect symmetrical harmony. 

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