Indigo.
As our first project, Indigo dying set the sights for where this class was to go, we followed it in to new worlds of shared experience. As we placed our hand in to the dark waters we could only imagine what was going on under the surface. The millions of tiny living organisms reacted with the objects we gently placed inside, and when they were withdrawn a magical experience took place, as the air touched the surface the colors slowly shifted from a pale green to that of indigo. It took me back to the 80′s when hyper-color t-shirts were popular, they reacted the wearers body heat to create psychedelic patterns. The indigo experience was much more enticing know that it was a natural chemical change that is centuries old, rather than some dudes sweaty back.
Beekeeping.
We followed our second project with the preparation of bees wax candles for a communal dinner. The low light led to an intimate experience with talks from Mark Thompson and J. Morgan Puett. Both talked on the influence of bees in their lives and that of their art work. One of the most interesting moments was when Morgan’s brother skyped in from his bee farm in Hawaii. He filled us with knowledge of the actual workings of harvesting not only honey, but queen bees, and his struggle with the disappointing reality of colony collapse syndrome, that is destroying massive amounts of the bee population.
Letterpress.
This project was by far the most hands on. We started our day with a tour of M&H type foundry, they showed us the process of of making lead type that they ship around the world. The machines were quite fascinating, and they turned one on to show us how they worked. They ran by a printed paper ribbon similar to the ones in player pianos, and would print a line of type in seconds. What was more amazing were the ages of the machines some were around 100 years and still pumping. After we had a demo at Kala Art Institute in Berkley by fellow CCA graduate student Nicholas Hurd on the letterpress they have functioning there. We all took our own rolls as typesetters and printers as we produced a class broadside. The learning experience we shared in these demos made this a favorite project all around the class.
Ceramics.
For this project we toured heath ceramics facilities in Sausalito, and learned about their use of turning utilitarian objects into highly valued craft pieces. This brought up many different conflicts in our own minds about the purpose of craft as a work of art verses its functional value. We also took a class trip to visit Pop Up Shop, a show put on by many of our fellow CCA classmates, where they transformed a vacant mall store space in the Alameda Towne Center into a new venue for exhibiting art. The work was quite interesting, placing each artists interests inside of a space usually reserved for consumption. The show brought on many on lookers that are normally absent from viewing contemporary art, and allowed it inline their everyday tasks.
