Cabrillo Art Lectures

Times are still hard, and while I may not be able to afford fun workshops like those at the Cabrillo College, I can still take advantage of their free art lectures held during the week.
On Wednesday July 21, 2010 they had a few of the workshop instructors give lectures on their work. I was having a bit of an issue motivation or self discipline which ever you like to call it and hearing this artists talk about their work was inspiring and got the creative juices flowing again.

Donovan Widmer is an intriguingly smart conceptual artist who uses metalworking and mixed medias to create his unique pieces. He is drawn to the idea of security and fear and implied ideals that are embedded in society. Marriage/engagement was a prevelent theme as well as the use of the condom as a symbol for security or protection. His concepts are simple yet deep and his craftsmanship very detailed. Widmer's humor is refreshing his chain mail condom was hilariously captivating. He is definitely a skilled artists and it was great to hear him speak about his concepts and see the skilled crafted results to his thought process.

Being a BFA photography student (soon to be graduate in December) I very much enjoyed the witty summary of married art couple Nancy Spencer and Eric Renner, who use the pinhole camera and other archaetic methods to create their work. They are involved with Pinhole Resource , an organization dedicated to the use of pinhole cameras. I enjoyed Renner's sense of humor in his individual work. Camera possibilities were endless in his mind. He fondly commented how he is known as "the pepper guy"; the man who in fact did use a red bell pepper as a pine hole camera. His concepts are simple but smart. Such as using a plaster mold of his head and using a pinhole camera of the mold to recapture how he sees the world. His approach to understanding the world was seeing it through this tiny hole in any object that doesn't lie. It captures what it sees.
The reason Spencer created her work was, in her own words, " to add feeling", that a boring photo didn't do the subject justice. She created these beautifully haunting images, such as a nude porcelain angelically posed woman on a cross, and while the first image was complete and aesthetically pleasing she pushed it. Constantly manipulating the image through a variety of processes. She let the image live its own course. Their bodies of work whether personal pinhole or assemblages, mainly focuses on archetypes, stereotypes, racism, as well as studies of self and relationships (including their own). While workshops may be a bit expensive and while you may be too far to make the trek to hear another lecture from them they do have a book you can purchase (or maybe check out at your local library) and as one of my favorite alternative processes artist Brian Taylor says "you too can do this".