Quarter 2: Emma Hohenstein

​Most often I find desire to create art when I am alone by myself. The situation I am relating upon is one late afternoon when I was alone in the art room at school and watching the reflection of a late autumn sunset on the buildings across the corner. The shapes of the orange and browns were beautiful. I took an old side panel from a restaurant that was sitting around the room and sketched out the shapes of the buildings. It was a strange three foot by five foot board but my comfort level is always much greater when the things I am working on are large. I never considered myself a painter and, to be fair, I still don't. But this was my first honest painting. It was a little uncomfortable and certainly more impressionist than realist. However, I'm proud that I was able to direct myself in such a big endeavor. 

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After completing my painting I felt a little blank because I had sort of exhausted my visual powers. As a simple project I took out linoleum blocks in order to abstractly replenish my ability to view things artistically. It was not something I expected to require quite as much work as it did. It was a long, methodical process and I have a scar or two left over from the harsh tools. I wasn't too satisfied with my final product, even after a few variations of it and that dissatisfaction was what lead me into my next project.

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Previously I had worked on wood block cuts so I wandered around the engineering room looking for something large to cut onto. The closest I found to a block of wood was an old, particle board table with lots of left over holes from the legs. Excitedly, I carved a large figure in repose into the wood. I found out as I carved and accidentally perforated the board that the table was hollow and full of honeycomb cardboard. I punctured the back behind the figure so often that in the end I began to peel off the board completely. With this project I feel like it completely had a life of it's own and the more I worked on it the more it asked of me. But the more I did the more complete it also began to feel. I still don't think that it is as finished as it should be. I really appreciate the emotion that is so expressive in it, the way the color and the shapes work with the holes and carved areas. I would really like to attach small LEDs behind the body and have light that comes through the holes and around the edges. 

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