Well, I wouldn't call it "art." Right now it's just "stuff." CCA is a shit ton of work. Hardest job I've ever had. The fire hose of work never ends.
So far, in the past two months I've:
- made one chopstick sculpture (see above)
- created one rectilinear model made first out of clay, then remade in florist's foam which was then gesso'ed, sanded, spackled, sanded, gesso'ed, sanded, painted, sanded, spackled, sanded and repainted
- created a wooden sculpture made from three pieces of scrap wood that were planed, sanded, glued together, cut into a pyramid, sanded, then recut in two places and assembled into a sculpture, sanded, stained, sanded, restained
- made a base for the wooden sculpture which was cut, sanded, routed, wood puttied, sanded and covered in four coats of stain
- painted three color charts, one a color wheel, one a grey value scale and one a chart of 150 tiny squares of color (that took a few weeks to get through - a real pleasure)
- cut a mandala out of a map of colorado with an xacto knife, cutting out tiny chicken, cow and semi truck silhouettes along with the mcdonald's logo
- painted a ginormous color wheel to go behind said mandala which was also 'laminated' with packing tape before cutting, for durability, and reinforced with wire on the back for stability
- drew 40 thumbnails across two large sheets of bristol paper which were then painted, taking only about 300 hours and four tubes of acrylic paint
- written two brief papers on visits to local museums
- printed nine final color photo prints which took a total of about 400 hours and maybe 150 sheets of Fuji paper
- printed 10 final black & white prints which surprisingly took only about 200 hours and maybe only 100 sheets of Illford paper
- developed four rolls of black & white film, which includes rolling the film onto the reels in total darkness, working with fantastic chemicals and drying the film
- had nine rolls of color film processed
- cut all that film into negative strips for contact sheets
- printed umpteen contact sheets
- made countless test strips - both color and black & white
- aced two quizzes & got a solid B on another
- eaten four large bags of trader joe's trail mix, 117 power bars, way too many Burrito Shop tacos and drank dozens of Naked Green juices
- drank 812 cups of fully caffeinated coffee, which should concern every last one of you walking this planet with me
If nothing else, it turns out that I have a gift for rolling film onto reels in complete darkness. Takes me all of two minutes with perfect rolling every time and even my cuts, trimming the film at both ends, are perfectly straight. That part I love. Pouring the chemicals & agitating the canister for 20 minutes? Not so much.
While it's extremely challenging and very enjoyable for the most part, the quantity over quality issue is concerning, but it is only my first year. Maybe this is the norm, to simply expose you to as much of the basics as possible before taking advanced classes.
The thing is, though, a sleep-deprived, brain-mushed student at a traditional college probably won't lose a finger on a table saw. It could still happen, but seems unlikely. At CCA, this seems very likely, especially when I hear my classmates talking about staying up until 5am to finish projects. Granted, they're probably not working on homework all those hours, but that's part of college life and should be expected.
At any rate, somehow I'm getting it all done and staying caught up. That surprises me almost every day. That, and my ability to study art history while driving to school and eat a sandwich with one hand while moving a print through developer, stop and fixer with the other.
Onward...
