1.
Where I grew up you had to make your living doing a craft or trade. There are no big companies no fast food and no chain of any sort to work at. Most of the locals are artists. As an artists I would say I have good material understanding, and that comes from being raised by farmers, carpenters, fisherman and artists. The art of the island and unique craft and trade culture that the island runs off of converted me to my art. I don’t remember never not being a artists, wether that was helping my mom spin wool from the sheep, drawing or painting the panels of the chicken coop with very strange things.
As much as I love making fine art I sure do love being good at a craft as well (if you can separate them). Like making ceramic cups and jewelry to sell, and commission work wherever that finds me. Although I don’t put that on my website or in a gallery I love it just the same.

questions 2 and 3 to be continued....

4.)   Forest Sincoff Gard

What attracted me to Forests work was that it’s all about play. He dives into thinking about how children we are taught to play then as adults it is frowned upon. I think the transition between kids play and adult play is fascinating. He starts off his artist statement with this quote-

​“At some point as we get older, we are made to feel guilty for playing. We are told that it is unproductive, a waste of time, even sinful. The play that remains is, like league sports, mostly very organized, rigid, and competitive. We strive to always be productive, and if an activity doesn’t teach us a skill, make us money, or get on the boss’s good side, then we feel we should not be doing it. Sometimes the sheer demands of daily living seem to rob us of the ability to play.”
         -Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute of Play
 (if interested look him up hes awesome)

Most of my work up to this point as been basically stagnant objects on a wall or in a room. That work has not developed enough questions. They are what they are. I have done some performance work both on this campus and at other gallery spaces. I have not felt like I have done a successful performance piece. Now I am thinking maybe I have been missing a piece, and that might be having the viewer take part. In most pieces I have no idea why I do it I just have to. For example, one time I layed out hundreds of little pieces of wet clay on the floor then danced and hula hooped with wet paint on top of them for 2 hours. I felt the need to play. But it is hard to pull of play in a gallery setting and I think he does it very well. With my next pieces for CACCA I want achieve play not just for me but for the viewers as well. The way Forest can organize a space for play is beautiful even down to the colors he picks. The way that people interact and see his clay objects is different than how we normally interact with them, and I want to achieve a similar goal.

His play is obviously unique to him like riding a clay skateboard, which is something I would never do. On the farm we used to smash gone by sunflowers on the grated table until they exploded. Something along those lines.