Dorothea Tanning, American, b. 1910, d. 2012

Artist Dorothea Tanning from her intense five‐year adventure in soft sculpture, from the series Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202, Xmas, Rainy day Canapé and a couple more. Dorothea Tanning died at her home in New York City on January 31, 2012 – 101 years old. Wauw! Via Women Artists. source link here. 

Fabric, wool, synthetic fur, cardboard, and Ping-Pong balls, 133 7/8 x 122 1/8 x 185 in.

Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Tweed, upholstered wood sofa, wool, Ping-Pong balls, and cardboard, 32 1/4 x 68 1/2 x 43 1/4 in.

Philadelphia Museum of Art. Anonymous gift.

For Tanning the five year period of making work that culminated in Hotel de Pivot was a time as an outsider. She was working with materials that she “wasn’t supposed to” as an established painter, and she was working on pieces that were not “marketable” at all. But she was establishing a world with wools and tweeds, and a formal language that had not been previously worked out by anyone on a canvas. Thus, the three dimensional world of Hotel du Pivot becomes more than an image; it’s a pinnacle point in Tanning’s artistic development.

Tanning used two mediums to produce the elements in Hotel De Pivot: she embraced the thick wool and tweed that was locally manufactured in the French countryside; and she gathered found objects that resided within her immediate surrounds. The tweed and wool act as a base or canvas for the work and describe the formal qualities. The found lace, ceramic, and sewing pins reinforce her poetic titles and narrative. One can read the fabric as the structure of the poem and the found objects as the filigree.

Tanning’s marriage to Max Ernst meant that she was his help mate. Her time to work was after Ernst’s needs were satisfied. So this five year burst of fabric manipulation is intriguing in relation to her life time of work. Before this period she painted, and after this she devoted herself to writing. Tanning the polymath, and her journey as a polymath, is an exciting image, and the aforementioned structure of the fabric work establishes the sculptural work as a bridge to her final career as a poet. The framework of Tanning’s painting always involved a three dimensional space, so her need to actually build that condition to resolve the stories in her imagination is obvious. Imagining Tanning somewhere in a studio wrestling with Tweed and Wool to build the images in her head is truly inspiring.

—Annie Coggan

kindesthetic.com

Table Tragique (Tragic Table) from Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202, 1970-73

Wood, fabric, and wool, 43 3/8 x 48 1/8 x 33 1/2 in.
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Emma, 1970

Fabric, wool, and lace, 11 11/16 x 25 3/8 x 21 5/8 in. (body: 11 1/4 x 22 x 12 1/2 in.)

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, acquired through the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation—Commerce Bank, Trustee, 2006.27

Grace Shipman, Reading Responses to Spell of the Sensuous

Philosophy on the Way to Ecology, Chapter 2, Section I

What interested me most in the chapter was phenomology, or structures of consciousness from first person point of view. The quote, “Galileo had already asserted that only properties of matter that are directly amenable to mathematical measurement (such as size, shape, and weight) are real; the other more subjective qualities such as sound, taste, and color are merely illusory impressions” (page 32) 

These words led me to think about subjectivity and how people label their perceptions.  Intersubjectivity is also related to social life, so I turned to social media to examine how people use hashtags as a way to keep order. The words I chose were home, spicy, woman, red, sour, tree and gray.  The range of information shown in the hashtags was very wide. 

It seems that there is a lot of interpretations as to what qualifies under one subjective terms.  I also feel that social media has the ability to tear down walls of subjectivity when it builds integrated databases of images tied together by one word. 

The above set of social media images is labeled "tree". 

Johanna Falzone, Student Work, Downtown Peephole Project, St. Augustine, Florida, Spring 2013

Downtown Peephole project with Bon Ami Confections, St. Augusine, Florida.

Rachel DeCuba, Student Work, Downtown Peephole Project, St. Augustine, Florida, Spring 2013

I chose to work with The Floridian, a restaurant, for the Downtown Peephole project.  I created a house out of wood. The Floridian's atmosphere is southern comfort for a new generation. I wanted the sculpture to appear familiar and inviting to the viewer. I placed fabric inside of the house that is reminiscent of vintage wall paper, and resembles many of the vintage dishes that are used by the restaurant. The final element of the house was the small oranges made out of clay. In my work I use oranges as a symbol for Florida -  a Florida that existed before my time as well as the Florida I remember growing up. The orange also appears in the logo for The Floridian. -Rachel DeCuba

The Floridian Restaurant, St. Augustine, Florida

Student Work, Small Scale Sculpture

Catalina Arboldeda
Soap, ink, paint and pins.
Approx. 5" diameter.
Mounted on the wall.
Limited materials:
Soap
Pins
Yellow Paint
Blue Paint

Marlena Lomonaco
Paper, glue and ink.
Approx. 6" x 4" x 2.5"
Limited Materials:
Paper
White Paint
Pink Paint