It's All About the Rocks

My obsession with Okenite continues…



The gentleman in the above video mentions that the puffs can tolerate a little bit of petting. Good news, as I assumed it was so fragile that breathing on it was risky.

This Saturday at the Dallas Market Hall, the International Gem & Jewelry Show will be occurring. From their list of dealers, it appears that a heavy amount of bead vendors will be present.The majority of my current designs do not feature beads; therefore, I should be able to navigate through the show fairly quickly.

As I literally have buckets of uncut rocks to be slabbed or formed, I am having difficulty justifying the need for more stones. The issue lies in expertise; I know how to cut cabochons but faceted gems are not in my skill set.

The Pleasant Oaks Gem and Mineral Society was nice enough to send me a free admission ticket, so I really don’t have an excuse not to go. I’m certain my wallet won’t thank me though.

Trip to Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Earlier this month, my husband an I went to Washington, DC. I had timed the trip during the cherry blossom festival and the trees did not disappoint. We visited several museums, but my personal favorites were the Renwick and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. I spent an almost absurd amount of time in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals. It’s a shame that the website doesn’t have more images of the permanent collection- I believe it is still under construction.

I found several gems in the collection to be more interesting than the infamous Hope Diamond. The Napoleon Diamond Necklace has several old mine-cut diamonds in an elegant design. I was especially interested in the construction of the piece which did not look to be as well-built as more modern works. I was expecting cleaner looking settings, but thinking back, it was likely due to the rough and irregular shapes of the diamonds. More information on the piece can be found here.

The Napoléon Diamond Necklace. Photograph by Chip Clark, Smithsonian

The number of cases containing minerals and cut gems from every corner of the planet is a bit overwhelming. I was amazed and shocked at not only the multitude of specimens in cut and natural forms, but also the number of minerals I had never heard nor seen before (though I am admittedly no expert). Stibnite and okenite had to be included in my notebook for future research. Both are either soft or fragile, which explains why neither are mentioned in my jewelry references. Somehow, Smithsonite, had also escaped my notice.

My current obsession is Okenite, though. More information on its properties can be found on webmineral.com

Photo Copyright © John Betts - Fine Minerals

I am aware that one false move, and the delightful fuzzy crystals will break off and shed worse than my cat. I suspect my attraction to the mineral is due to my love of hamsters and tribbles.

I haven’t reached a solution to the display/wearablity problem but I’m letting the issue stew a bit before experimentation.

Trip to Washington DC- The Renwick

Earlier this month my husband and I had the opportunity to museum hop in Washington, DC. One of the highlights of the trip was the Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection exhibit at the Renwick Museum. What an outstanding show! Not only were the pieces well crafted, but the displays were well thought out. Hand cut plexiglass supported collar/bib necklaces and half round metal tubes prevented straight/collapsed alignment of pendants on chains. Enough room was left in the display cabinets to allow viewers, like me, to peek around at the backs. Looking at pictures online or in books is always inspiring, but rarely are the backs of the pieces photographed. As my interest is technical in nature, it was nice to be able to see how the items were constructed. On a couple of brooches, I noticed double pin closures or multiple tie tacks.

The pieces are not for everyday, and would take a special kind of person with an outgoing personality to pull off wearing them. Most are not practical and some, I believe, were both designed and collected for their sculptural qualities rather than wear-ablity. Mrs. Drutt also collected design sketches of several of the works; a real treat to see a little bit of the creative process.

The piece above is by Gerd Rothmann, With 81 Fingerprints- a necklace made of gold discs.

I went ahead paid the $$ for the exhibit book, which is not a light tome by any means. By the end of the day, I felt like I had been dragging around a half grown kid. If I truly enjoy a show, I will purchase the book. I’ve never understood why people take pictures in museums (photography was prohibited in this show- to boost book sales I imagine). The glass creates such a terrible reflection and getting the details is very difficult. I’ll leave it to the professionals! Bonus: the book has a fuzzy touchable orange cover. Yes, I am a sucker for good design.

If in the area, I highly recommend viewing the exhibit which ends July 6, 2008.

Surviving the CAA Conference Day 1 cont.

After lunch, I headed to the 12:30-2pm session. I really wanted to go listen to the Artists' Residencies/Worldwide Opportunities talk by Elizabeth Conner. As I intend to be a TA next Spring, I felt that I should attend Contemporary Perspectives on Art Teaching and Learning. This session, unlike the one I attended that morning, had speakers with interesting presentations. For me the most memorable was Arts Based Research and Visual Culture Inquiry: Critical Connections by Stephen Carpenter from Texas A&M University. Although A&M focuses on engineering, he is doing an amazing job of engaging students with intriguing projects. Examples of his students’ work include professional fashion photos with models wearing nooses as accessories (particularly charged imagery considering the Jasper, Texas events) and avatars built by students in Second Life. You can visit his blog discussing the later project here.

I made it through an entire session and even had notes. Yeah! Feeling better about the conference I headed towards my next panel but was stopped in the main hall by my former co-workers from the Nasher, Jed and Stephen, later joined by Marin. After some catch-up they headed to the panel on the sculptor, Donald Judd, while I attended the session on Japonisme/Occidentalism. I especially liked The Construction of Continuity: Edmond de Goncourt’s Japonisme by Pamela Warner from the University of Rhode Island.

Edmond and Jules Goncourt in a box at the theatre lithograph by Paul Gavarni 1853

But once again, halfway through the third speaker, I left. Unlike earlier in the day, the speaker had an interesting topic but there was another panel I wanted to attend. By this time I was also becoming more comfortable with session hopping.

Next was Gestures of Resistance: Craft, Performance, and the Politics of Slowness. I’m not much into quilts, but Doing Time: Women, Hand-Spinning, and Quiltmaking in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1800-1880 by Patricia Keller, McNeil Center from the University of Pennsylvania was surprisingly informative.

The above Lancaster quilt can be found at Rocky Mountain Quilts.

I had told the Nasher staff earlier that I was trying to stay away from sculpture talks in order to explore other areas I knew nothing about; thus forcing me to broaden my knowledge. With some exceptions, I adhered to this plan during the conference.

During the last portion of Gestures of Resistance, I sat next to UNT professor Annette Lawrence. I asked her if she would be attending the UNT reunion later that evening, but she had a prior engament. She does amazing work. Please check out her online gallery here.

At the conclusion of the session, I went back to the student lounge to eat my dinner (I had brought enough for both lunch and dinner as I knew it would be a long day). Running into Zulma again, we compared notes on the days’ events.

I got directions from hotel staff and walked to the University of North Texas’ Dallas Campus on Houston Street. I was glad I attended as I had the opportunity to visit with a former sculpture classmate, Buster Graybill, now studying at UT Austin. He explained a piece with intertubes to me, but I had a hard time visualizing it until I saw the piece on Flickr .

I also got spoke with Ray Daniels, whom I took Drawing I from years ago. He still works for The Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont as their Curator of Exhibitions.

While chatting with staffers from the UNT Alumni Association, I met Darryl Baird, an instructor of photography at Michigan University’s Flint branch. I found this piece of work particularly haunting:Please check out more of his work here.

I got caught up in a discussion with Darryl and didn’t make time to visit with Vincent Falsetta before he left.

Overall, Day 1 was good- though tiring- as I didn’t get home until around 10pm.

Surviving My First CAA Conference Day 1

Last year when I told my friend Marin that I was applying for graduate school, she suggested that I attend the College Arts Association’s annual conference February 20-23, 2008. As the event was being held in Dallas this time, I felt I didn’t really have an excuse not to go. This was my first year attending and I didn’t know what to expect. In preparation for the conference, I designed and had business cards professionally printed. I also put up a website, http://www.ooleyart.com/, in record time so that anyone who bothered visited the site printed on my new cards would actually see something.

With great anticipation and a stack of cards burning a hole in my pocket, I took the light rail to the Adam’s Mark hotel in downtown Dallas. After picking up my badge and event programs, I made my way to my first session. Several sessions were presented concurrently and as a person could not be everywhere at once; attendees had to choose what seemed most interesting.

I’m not going to embarrass the speakers with identification, but as I sat listing to some of the most boring presentations I have ever had to endure, I began to seriously wonder what I had gotten myself into. All of the research papers presented during the four day conference were about the visual arts-allow me to emphasis the word visual again- yet the slide/ PowerPoint presentations in that particular session didn’t contain many pictures, just solid blocks of text. The presenters literally read their research papers to the audience. When the third out of five speakers began to drone on, I came to the realization that instead of feeling enlightened on the subject matter, I was beginning to loath it. Yes, these people, respected scholars in their field, were making me hate a topic that up until 1.5 hours ago, I had held a great deal of interest.

I possess a certain sense of courtesy that encouraged me to stay out of politeness. “After all,” I thought, “if I were on stage, how would I feel if folks left in the middle of my presentation?” But a little voice in my head was telling me that I was an adult and was allowed to leave any time I wished. I had paid no small amount to be there and didn’t feel that being read to (in the manner of a phonebook) was a good “value”. I’m from the Midwest- it’s important to get good value. The little voice won and I ducked out. As I quietly closed the door behind me, I was reminded of a line from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The main villain had just suffered the after effects of drinking from the wrong chalice, to which the Knight stated in a deadpan voice, “He chose…poorly.”

When I checked in earlier that morning, I was informed that a student area had been set up on the 37th floor of the hotel. I went to investigate and to eat the lunch I had brought. Several years ago, I worked for the Nasher Sculpture Center downtown and knew that eating establishments within walking distance of the hotel were few and not particularly exciting. So far, I hadn’t really met anyone at the conference to talk to and sat eating my pita sandwich alone.

A pretty dark haired woman breezed through the door and scanned the room. “You look friendly.” “I am.” I replied. “Actually, I’m too friendly! Please come and share my table.”

Her name was Zulma, a video artist from Virginia. She had attended the conference in order to interview for teaching positions. I was later to learn that conducting job interviews was a major function of the conference. It certainly explained all the uncomfortable looking young people in skirts and suits. She lamented that she had not met many friendly people that morning. I suggested that research types were perhaps a more reserved group of people than artists. I’m aware that was a very generalized statement, but to outgoing people like Zulma and me, reservation is borderline incomprehensible; it seemed like a reasonable explanation at the time.

She showed me her portfolio of pictures within a binder. The format made me aware of the challenges with which video and installation artists must contend. How exactly does one present quickly, easily and in mobile form something as complicated as an event or sensory experience? My own work is static- a simple photo will do, and a description of materials completes the story. Checking out Zulma’s website gave me a much better feel for her work

I gave her one of my cards before departing to the next afternoon session...