S+ART

Storing Digital Files

    In my last post, I wrote about a potential problem related to film processing and only getting the images back on a disk (the negatives were inconveniently discarded by the lab).  Some of you may wonder, "What's the big deal?"  Well, for starters, the negatives are mine and I want them.  Second, disks don't last forever.
 
    I've written several posts on what archival means and how it applies to the actual, physical artwork, but I haven't talked about storing digital files.  Now, how many of you have had hard drives fail?  How many of you had hard drives fail and lost files that were not backed up?  How many didn't learn their lesson the first time?  (My hand is still raised...). 
 
    Lucky for me, the majority of the files that I lost when my hard drives died were scans of negatives, which I can totally just scan, again.  In this case, the only thing I've really lost is time.  If those had been the only copies of digital photographs, then they most likely would be gone forever.  Even if I had stored those files on a disk, after about five years, they'll likely be gone, too. 
 
    How should these fleeting images be stored?  The Library of Congress offers these tips for archiving digital files:
•  Make at least two copies of your selected photos—more copies are better.
•  One copy can stay on your computer or laptop; put other copies on separate media such as DVDs, CDs, portable hard drives, thumb drives or Internet storage.
•  Check your photos at least once a year to make sure you can read them.
•  Create new media copies every five years or when necessary to avoid data loss.
 
By the way, here is possibly the oldest known photographic negative, dating back 178 years. 
 
To summarize, back up your files.  And, then, back up the back ups.  Or, you know, just shoot film and make sure you get your negatives back.
 
-Angela

A Close Knit Circle

    On Friday, February 15, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Ann Richards’ Knitting Circle at The Smithsonian Associates. This, however, is no ordinary knitting circle; this is the type of knitting circle that opens with a joke about mini horses wearing knit sweaters. Richards has “a scrapbook of bizarre knitting oddities” to share with her class to keep an inviting, humorous atmosphere.

    Richards told me that there are four knitting-related things she focuses on in her classes: to help each other work on projects, field trips and special events, offering 20 minute discussions on different knitting techniques, and finally working on a social justice project. I was lucky enough to catch the knitting circle in the middle of their social justice project which is knitting caps for children with cancer because the children’s hospital is in need of caps. Previous social justice projects were blankets for those children along with helmet liners for troops in Afghanistan.

Finished caps for children with cancer to be donated to the Childrens Hospital

   Everyone shares stories about their personal lives, children, grandchildren, restaurant suggestions, etc. while knitting which keeps up the social environment.
Liz Welsh (left) conversing with the knitting circle including the instructor Ann Richards (right)

    Richards’ believes in this process, “I want to associate friends and social experience with the learning experience” and is “trying to teach appreciation” to keep audiences interest in knitting.  Also, this class has such an appeal that it has kept two people, Katherine McCorry and Amy Newton, coming back for 10 years.
     Katherine McCorry (left) and Amy Newton (right)

    Richards says that the key is “to go beyond just teaching people to knit, so that when they leave, they want to come back and try again and want to do more” which ties in with the notion of teaching appreciation as the most important tool.

--Dylan Planeta

Katsushika Hokusai's Six Immortals of Poetry

 

   

                                                        Hokusai's Six Immortals of Poetry displayed in the Freer Gallery

 

    Six Immortals of Poetry was created by Katsushika Hokusai during the Edo Period in Japan (1603-1867), an artistically rich time that began when Tokugawa Ieyasu became Shogun. The artist, Katsushika Hokusai, was born in this period on Oct. 31 1760. Hokusai is a master of the Japanese woodblock print. He started his career as an engraver apprentice at the age of 14 and at the age of 18, he apprenticed with Katsukawa Shunsho, where he learned the fine art of wood block printing. Once Shunsho died, Hokusai began to experiment with different forms of art making that were popular in Europe. He also began to work with brush paints instead of wood block prints. Later in his life, he was appointed the court of Shogun Iyenari where he learned different brushstrokes. In 1839, a year before his death, a fire destroyed Hokusai’s studio which held many of his life works. He died in May the following year.

      Four out of six hanging color and ink on paper scrolls are being displayed in the Freer Gallery in the Arts of Japan exhibit. The Six Immortals of Poetry series by Hokusai depict prestigious Japanese waka poets; Sojo Henjo, Otomo no Kuronushi, Ono no Komachi and Ariwara no Narihiria. Hokusai’s realistic artwork at the time along with the different artistic techniques, woodblock and ink on paper, showcase the artist’s wide range of talent and ability to capture and person or a landscape as if it was happening in real time.

--- Dylan Planeta

Happy Presidents Day!

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze (1816–1868)

"Rise early, that by habit it may become familiar, agreeable, healthy, and profitable. It may, for a while, be irksome to do this, but that will wear off; and the practice will produce a rich harvest forever thereafter; whether in public or private walks of life." – George Washington

 

An Interview with the Instructor: Jamie Combs

    Q: How long have you been involved with art?
A: Since I was little, just like so many people. It’s been kind of a loopy path; I didn’t know anybody who was involved with art and I didn’t know how to make that work. My parents were worried about me when they found out I was really serious about a career in art and suggested that I make it more of a hobby and find something else to do to support myself. I was confused and didn’t know what to do so I tried to do that, but then I was in college and I saw the art department students and I thought, that’s what I want. I realized that I could probably live on minimum wage if I had to. I decided to just go for it and go to art school and I never looked back.
    Q: What influenced you to pursue a career in art?
A: Initially, Disney. When I was little I liked to copy from cartoons and I was really fascinated by animation--that was the start of it. It’s funny because when you’re little, you’re not aware of corporations or anything insidious about Disney and it’s pretty fantastic. On the Disney channel they would play behind-the-scenes documentaries so you got to see what the artists were doing. I would see these videos of artists making Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse and the process they used to draw the characters was just magical to me. I thought if you can take a marker, make a few strokes and make a character come to life, that’s what I wanted to do. As I got older, I always loved book illustration; I became interested in Van Gogh and other painters who had a very expressive way of making marks.
    Q: What made you want to work for The Smithsonian Associates?
A:  When I knew I was going to move to D.C from Indiana, I was thinking where do I want to work because I need to just find a job to support myself and the Smithsonian was the first thing that I thought because it encompasses everything that I like and it’s such a wonderful organization. So I thought even if I had to sell tickets at the planetarium I don’t care I just want to get in there and be a part of it. When I did get a job in the retail stores I found out that they had classes thorough The Smithsonian Associates program and I thought, well wonderful, I need to get involved in that. I checked the website and wasn’t exactly sure how to begin so I contacted one of the faculty and asked her how she got involved. She was kind enough to tell me how she got her job here and who to contact and put me in touch with her. I expressed my interest in teaching at TSA an there happened to be an instructor opening in the winter and we had a conversation and that was it.
    Q: Have you had any prior teaching experience?
A:  Oh yeah, I got my graduate degree in Indiana at Indiana University in Bloomington and after that I started doing adjunct teaching in Indianapolis at the Herron School of Art and Design. I was teaching studio courses in drawing, 2-D design and color and I did that for 4 years. Along the way I picked up drawing classes at a couple other universities and so I had a lot of teaching positions from that and my TA positions at IU. I love teaching, so it was definitely something that I wanted to get back into but moving to D.C was more about making a big shift in my life because adjunct teaching is a wonderful experience but it was kind of a dead-end as far as advancement is concerned. When I moved out here I really missed teaching so it was really wonderful to get back into it.
    Q: How have you been enjoying the teaching experience at TSA?
A: It’s amazing, because I enjoy talking about art all the time so it was a natural fit for me to begin teaching again.  I also learn a lot from interacting with students, and seeing what you guys [the students] do energizes my practice.
    Q: What do you feel is the best way to get students interested in art?
A:  I think everybody is creative in a way and I think most people start off drawing as children. There’s always that spark of being affected by a drawing that really looks like something and there’s that illusion that really captivates people. I think in general people are kind of interested in art but might not feel like they can necessarily do it themselves, they may really want to, but something is holding them back. I think that the most important thing for someone who is on the fence to know is that it is totally possible to learn to make art and there are tricks. Not technique tricks but things that once you know how to look at things in a different way it makes the experience totally different. It’s absolutely possible to learn.
    Q: What teaching methods do you implement to create a learning environment?
A:  Enthusiasm is really important. Enthusiasm for the subject and sympathy for what it feels like to learn something that you don’t really know how to do. So I guess empathy is a big teaching strategy. I think it’s really important to reinforce the notion of process over product because taking the focus off the product really frees you up to just learn and it really does not matter where you are in your journey, you still need to do that. Also I think it’s very important for people to get over who they think that they “should” be artistically and figure out who they are themselves and what kind of marks they make. You want to be able to make volume and feel like you can make a realistic illusion of something but apart from that, it doesn’t have to look like Leonardo or Van Gogh or Rembrandt because finding out who you are as an individual artist and what your art is going to look like is really exciting.
    Q: Do you plan on pursuing teaching other courses through TSA? If so, which ones?
A:  I would love to; as they come available I would love to teach painting or a color theory class. We’ll see what happens; I understand from Marybeth that things will come up as they are available, but anything in 2-Dimensional media is what I like to do.
    Q: How would you encourage future students to take this course?
A: It feels good to make things with your hands and if you’re not in art already, if you’re in some other kind of field, then it’s interesting to make the connection between what it takes to make a drawing and what it takes to do whatever you do in your area of expertise. I think that in almost any field there are parallels with art-making, we just use different materials and different subjects. In whatever you do, there is always a process of inquiry and exploration. When you’re making art and connect with the way you already think and then you expand your thinking using this new-found experience, the result is incredible.

Fifty Silver Wishes (left) and Everything You Can Think of is True (right)  by Jamie Combs

 

--Dylan Planeta

Film Processing at Big-Box Stores

    Recently, a friend passed along information about a possible new trend among some large retailers and their photo centers: film sent out for developing instead of in-store processing, is returned to customers in the form of low-quality scans on a disk without the negatives, which are discarded.  While some who may casually shoot a disposable camera here and there or a random roll of film they found in a drawer may not care about the negatives, I, and many of my friends, would be very upset to not have them returned.  Not only are the negatives the foundation of shooting film and a required part of the traditional printing process, they are the "original file" and no low quality scan can ever replace that little square of information. 

            While I develop my own black and white film, I generally rely on several local photo centers for developing rolls of 35mm C-41. Target, near where I work, had a great photo lab that would process my film in-house for $1/roll without prints.  This ended last summer when a corporate decision was made to remove the Kodak processing machines from the stores and offer a print-only photo center for those with digital files.  They may still offer a send-out service, but I was so annoyed that I didn't care to find out, and many CVS stores still offer in-house processing.   

    Back to the trashed-negatives issue, I was told that Wal-Mart photo centers were no longer returning negatives to save on postage costs and providing customers with images on a disk instead.  This new "service" appears to be store or region-specific, as an Internet search yields conflicting reports of the practice.  I contacted a corporate office to find out more and was told I would need to contact specific stores for more information (grr). After reaching out to the photo centers in three local Wal-Mart stores, I realized that it's just not worth all the effort.  Two of the stores I contacted send the film out for processing; when I was transferred to the photo center for more information, I was left on hold for more than five minutes, so I just hung up.  The third store I contacted in Fairfax, Virginia, develops film in-house and does return negatives to customers.   

    My suggestion for anyone with C-41 film is to verify with the photo center at the individual store, whether it is Wal-Mart, Target, or any other large retailer to find out whether or not the send-out processing service returns negatives and, if there is any question, to simply find an in-house processing lab, instead.  Better yet, use one of the many film processing labs that have been in business for a long time (film's not dead, y'all).

 -Angela

Beginning Drawing Jan.27 - A Sneak Peek

By Dylan Planeta 

    The Smithsonian Associates Studio Arts program began its 8-session weekend Beginning Drawing course on January 27th. This course is designed to introduce drawing concepts to those who have little to no art experience in a friendly environment provided by the instructor, Jamie Combs.  After sitting in this course for two sessions with no artistic experience, I can say with confidence that I have been able to produce more art than just stick figures, this goes for the rest of the class as well. We all came into this class with either beginner level or no prior experience and, with the help of the instructor and her patience she has been able to keep an environment productive to learning the essential skills to draw with confidence. Combs began the class with a drawing technique known as “blind contour”. This exercise was to get the students accustomed to drawing the outlines of their object without looking at the paper as a way to have the hands and eyes work in one, solid movement. Combs walks around commenting on each student’s progress, giving helpful advice as they are drawing so they can improve throughout the exercise. She also encourages students to practice on their own time in their sketchbooks to further develop skills, especially drawing things of the individual student’s interest.

Students putting the days lesson into practice

The classroom in an open-question environment as Combs wants everyone fully grasping concepts so “it doesn’t matter if I have said it five or six times, chances are someone else is wondering the same thing you are and I do not mind repeating myself” offering plenty of reassurance that this environment is meant to promote the artistic experience.

Combs helping a student measure angles using a sighting stick
Within the second session, students began learning about volume, shading, and tone to add the “illusion” of 3-D drawing. Utilizing the contour lesson along with this new information, we were able to produce 3-D images of the objects of our choosing. We also became aware of how the of pressure of the pencil affects the volume in our drawings. We learned the importance of shadow and light have on making an object project the illusion of 3-D and the different levels of volume needed to capture the essence of the shadow. Again, Combs went around the room offering praise and pointers to make sure that we were understanding how to capture the illusion.
After each class, I notice my fellow students thanking Combs for the wonderful lesson commending her or how helpful she was in their pursuit of learning how to draw not only correctly, but to enjoy the experience as well.

Combs complementing students work in their sketchbooks

Wheat Field with Crows (1890) by Vincent Van Gogh

 

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day" -Vincent Van Gogh

Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco) Laocoön

Laocoön by Domenikos Theotokopoulos  (El Greco)

Credit: Samuel H. Kress Collection

Painting: Oil on Canvas

By Dylan Planeta

    Domenikos Theotokopoulos was born in 1541 on Crete.  Later in life, Spaniards found it hard to pronounce Domenikos’ name and from then on gave him the nickname El Greco. In El Greco’s early life he began to receive training in icon painting at the Cretan school which was the leading institution of post-Byzantine art at the time.

    Later on in his life, around 1566, El Greco decided to stay in Venice where he began to invent different styles of painting. To further develop this talent, El Greco moved to Rome in 1570. There, El Greco invented a new technique while sitting in a dark room which, he believed, was able to help him be more productive in thought than in a light room. He felt that darkness was less disruptive to his “inner light”. El Greco was very critical of other established painters such as Michelangelo stating that “he was a good man, but he did not know how to paint”. In 1577 El Greco made his way to Madrid eventually settling in Toledo where he created the majority of his works. It was in Toledo where El Greco signed a contract with the church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo for a group of paintings to decorate it. By the end of 1579 he made 9 paintings for the church.

    Before his death, El Greco painted Laocoön in between 1610-1614. Laocoön is a painting that shows the Roman and Greek story of the deaths of Laocoön, a Trojan priest, and his two sons. The story is told that Laocoön and his sons were killed by sea serpents as punishment for Laocoön trying to warn his fellow Trojans about the Trojan horse plot. The painting depicts Laocoön struggling for his last breath of life against the sea serpents. El Greco, according to artble.com, puts this scene in front of Toledo which art historian, Marek Rostworowski, believes was a tribute to the victims of the Castillian War of the Communities in 1520.