Kennedy Dickerson: Negatives, Slides and Prints. OH MY!

Week Four was a slow and a short one at that.

Monday, I was given the task to go through a slew of folders to document the negatives and prints that were enclosed.

It is always kind of mindblowing to not only be looking at, but holding some original prints, negatives and slides that have been taken by past photographers as well as seeing what CBS has been involved in over the years.

Tuesday, Justina and I were invited to join John Filo, one of the few CBS photographers, in his studio on the 20th floor.

The studio is incredibly small and very cold, as pictured above. It is mostly used for headshots of employees, or other businesses that ask John to take their photograph for websites or credentials.

This is Weijia Jiang. She is a local reporter for WCBS in New York City, just joining the program in June! As part of the CBS team, Weijia needed a new headshot.

John is very kind and understanding when it comes to the subjects wants and needs. From my perspective, he makes them feel at ease and comfortable in their own skin. It is very interesting to see his process and how, especially with women, John focuses on the different angles that make the woman look good.

He starts with positioning the subjects straight on and continues to turn them right and left to find their "side". Surprisingly, not all women know which side is their best. Weijia, for example, was excited to discover that her right side is the better of the two!

After taking a number of photographs, John showed Weijia the multiple selections. His process consists of going through all of the photos first. After looking at them as a whole, Weijia picks her favorites and dwindles the choices until it comes down to the winner. 

This was the final product!

Towards the end of the day, Michael, Justina and I were given the task to rip up and destroy old slides and prints of movies such as Roxeanne, Turner and Hooch, Indiana Jones, even Gone with the Wind. Why were all of these gems destined to be destroyed, might you ask? Because the copyright for their use had expired and were no longer able to be used legally. Needless to say, the three of us were both appalled and excited because we were given the permission to keep the prints we liked the most. Without displaying them on the internet, of course.

Another week down, two more to go.

End of Summer Wrap-Up

Hello!

I thought I would go ahead and spend a little time reflecting on the experience of the UArts Summer Fellows Program, since things have come to a close.

I had the honor and pleasure of working with Andrei, who is a captivating personality and very generous with his time and experience. He made it his priority in this experience to make sure that we had constant dialogue and that he was sharing any and all knowledge he could think to help me with in my transition out of college. Andrei's Studio Manager, Cynthia was also a pleasure to work with. Although our meetings were seldom, she was happy to answer my questions and tell me stories about her life while we worked. Time spent in the studio was always light hearted and pleasant; I never left the studio without a smile on my face.

On top of working with some really great folks, I got to work in Asbury Park! How lucky was that? I got to see all sorts of neat little places in town on daily adventures with Andrei, allowing me to get a feel for the town. I love getting to know new places, and I got just enough time out there to feel like I know it (sorta!).

So now I'm moving onto my next adventure, working for a photographer based in West Chester who I also met through another UArts connection. I value my time spent in Andrei's studio for the many lessons I learned, and the pleasant times we shared!

I also quickly wanted to mention how grateful I am to have been a part of this program. It was a really awesome opportunity, to have been matched with someone working in my field who went to our amazing institution in the past. Thanks to everyone who made it a reality!

Thanks for reading!

Elyse Leyenberger

NFL Super Bowl Talent Photo-Shoot

Made a little Photo studio on the 6th floor lobby in CBS's Big Rock Building

Jim Nants, Lead NFL play-by-play Announcer 

National Foot Ball of the NFL

James Brown, Dan Marino, Bill Cowher, Boomer Esison, and Shannon Sharpe

Last Monday the photo-department at CBS took over the 6th floor which is the finance floor. We put up a back ground and lights so that we could photography James Brown, Dan Marino, Bill Cowher, Boomer Esison, and Shannon Sharpe. Later in the day we shot Jim Nants, who is the nicest man. It was a fun day filled with CBS co-works stoping in to get pictures taking with the trophy. 

College SPORTS! ha

John is getting every view he can ...

We were able to watch the show as they were shooting

" Get your hands out of my pocket"  So funny and very friendly

In the back where all the Magic Happens

The other day we went to the CBS Broad Case Building, to go with John and Paula to shoot the CBS College Sports! As John went around taking photography's we sat behind watching the show be filmed. 

An Untold Story

As I reflect on my summer in the fellowship program many memories come to my mind: walking around Philly with Megan looking for children bedsheets, building the Broad St. window display, prepping Philamoca for the gallery show, and many more fond memories. But there is one story I debated whether to blog about or not because I found the experience shocking. Looking back, it was a valuable work experience about professionalism and how artists carry themselves, but at the time I was a bit disturbed.
I believe it was May 28th, the week after we set up the Broad St. window. I met up with Veronica and Jessie Clarke of CHER at her apartment and then we drove to Olde City to meet a possible artist to collaborate with. He was a gallery owner and painter.When we got to the small gallery we were welcomed by the artist who started to stare inappropriately at us once he let us in. He led us into his studio in the back. There were hundreds of paintings everywhere, many torn or bent up. Veronica found pieces she thought were interesting through the piles and asked about his process and inspiration. He would give short answers about the colors and gave no explanation about his artistic choices which is a big factor for Veronica. She then told him she was willing to show his work in a future collaborative gallery but he was completely uninterested in sharing space with other artists. With that he showed us the door and we left.
In the car on the ride back I was listening to Veronica and Jessie talking about the meeting. They both felt that his inappropriateness of how he stared at us was a major turn off. Also seeing his paintings not being properly stored and maintained gave a sense that he really didn't take his work seriously. Finally being able to talk about your art is very important especially to potential clients and collaborators and he avoided all of Veronica's questions directed towards his art. I later asked Jessie and Veronica if I should just pretend this meeting never happened and they said absolutely not. It's good to learn from all experiences, good and bad. I now know that communication, appearance, and presentation is very crucial in the art world.

Andrei had encouraged me to use his studio equipment during one of the days that I spent at his studio. It was really neat learning a new lighting system and a different studio. While he trucked along with post-processing of some jobs, I fiddled around with his gear and made a few photographs. I figured I'd share the outcome!

This photo features some of my favorite artifacts that I've collected. The pendant in the front actually has a little pressed moth and some flowers in it! So neat! Anyhow, it's tricky lighting small things, and especially small reflective things! Lots of little movements and adding and subtracting light selectively allowed me to get a nice look for the photograph.

This one was really cool to make. Andrei had this huge sheet of black glass that he challenged me to use, and at first I was stuck with it. After rummaging around for some diffusion material I managed to make a neat little backlit shot of some pearls! Problem-solving is cool, you guys!

So there's a selection of the photos I made, hope you enjoyed!

Storyboarding

Last week Megan and I met up with CHER to brainstorm about their upcoming kickstarter video. By posting videos and artwork on kickstarter.com artists can get the funds they need to pursue their projects. The goal of CHER's video is to get themselves out there and explain what they do. In a nutshell, CHER is a non-profit group whose goal is to expose art to Philadelphia's vacant spaces. Now try taking that idea and turning it into a 10 minute video. A lot of ideas were bounced around: Do we have a narrator or have the statement just written? Are we going for serious or comical? Should we switch paragraph four and fiveof the script? I found this process very thought provoking and as the ideas became more solidified I started to create a storyboard to map out the scenes. With our storyboards the director will be able to organize the production aspects much easier. Unfortunately filming won't start until I'm well in the semester but I am happy to know that our contributions will be beneficial.

CHERlaborating

After the great success of Laughing in the Face of… CHER’s next endeavor will be to create a kickstarter video that will promote their work and bring in funding for their next project. In the video they will use photos and video taken from the exhibition to show the work that they can produce. CHER’s main objective is to find empty spaces and give them a new life with the presence of art. Thus their name: Champions of Empty Rooms. They see this more a community service than an artistic opportunity. Any funding that they receive will go towards obtaining spaces and supplies; on top of that they do not take commission from other individual’s sold art pieces.

But before we can even begin filming we needed a solid plan as to what the video would consist of. Thus we had a storyboarding day! Jessie was up in Syracuse checking out a possible place to exhibit. So using the wonders of Google chat we were able to have a conference meeting in Veronica’s living room, graced by the presence of her two cats, Sir Francis Bacon, and Bartholomew.

 

The meeting concluded with plans for two videos. One will be the actual kick-starter video that will be about 10 min long. It will involve stop motion, similar to Lauren McCarty’s, and will clearly state the purpose and intent of CHER and their fund raising. The second video will be a film noir spoof that will consist of Veronica and Jessie in black and white, over seriously saying things to the camera about CHER. This video will be more around two minutes and will be used as a commercial for CHER rather than a fundraiser. Veronica decided that it would be even funnier if we had dancers in the background dancing overdramatically, so I offered up some of my dancer friends from Uarts. I can’t wait to see the final result because I really love it when different majors get to collaborate on things, especially in a school that has so many different artistic majors. 

Out with the Old

On my way to CBS!

All the Photography's we had to destroy :(

Another hard day at the office... Paula, our supervisor gave us the fun task of going through old folders. In the folders were old black and white photography's - negatives - and color slides of movies that CBS has shown on their network  in the early years.  

WE HAD TO RIP THEM APART! 

The first two folders I was still questioning if she was serious but she was .... Lucky for me, I was able to save / keep some prints and negatives.

Some of the Movies: E.T - Wizard of OZ - A League of Their Own -  Indiana Jones - JAWS - etc.

It's funny that to promote movies the network would just sent out a bunch of prints in the mail and now its all done by Email and digitally ....

Hands and Armatures!

This past week Anthony and I completed making the last molds for the Mother Theresa Sculpture, which were the hand and forearm sections. To make the molds we used a different type of silicone, hence the silver appearance in the pictures below. He also taught me how to make a clay shim wall, rather than a metal one like we previously had made with the other molds.


These are the hands before the silicone was applied. The darker clay is the original clay from the sculpture and the lighter clay is the clay shim wall we created in order to make two pieces for the mold.

The pictures below are the hands when we started applying the silicone to them. You apply the silicone in layers, waiting for each one to set before applying the next. 

 

This upcoming week we should be finishing up the molds for the hands and then painting wax in them in order for them to be ready for the foundry.

Anthony also started teaching me about armatures and basic points of anatomy. Here is a picture of a basic armature that would be for an 11" figure, which is the base on which clay is applied in order to make a sculpture.

More String to Come !

So to make things more efficient, we tried thinking of ways to get the string to be packed in tight on the wood. We were thinking the little sandwich ties but when we went on our shopping adventure we found some awesome pipe cleaners that did the job!! I cut each pipe cleaner about an inch and wrapped it down each set of strings into different lengths.  Now we can fit at least 3 spools worth of string on this puppy!

I seriously love how this picture looks so much !!! I'm a sucker for shine and glitter :)

Michele got a little pic of me ready to fall asleep after a long day of stringing! haha 

We are still working on the installation and we will be setting up August 25th in Greenwich CT !!!!! I am super excited to see how this will turn out and I will of course post some more pictures!! Make sure to save the date ! The opening is September 6th! Check out michelekishita.com for more information :) 

Lots of String !

So this is another section of the Installation that I have been stringing away at ! We have rolled up a couple yards worth of string onto card board and knotting each string to the wood. It's been a tedious job but we ended up really liking the way the cardboard looks and it almost made some sort of a bouquet ! This is not what the installation will look like but we had fun playing and seeing different things we could make ! We had to roll everything up because the string keeps getting into annoying knots. We think we solved the problem in the best way with this cardboard! We shall see what happens once we get to the gallery!

Thinking Ahead

Aside from all the studio work I have been doing for Michele, she has opened my eyes to observing nature and shapes around me.  I always favored portraits but now after being around Michele's work I am starting to fall in love with landscapes. Michele uses such abstract shapes and gorgeous colors to create abstract cloud and river like scenes.  Lately I am looking further into what is around me and maybe in the future I will use some of these delicate lines in my portraits ! Michele has taken me to different levels of thinking and I'm excited to put it to use this fall !!!

Flinn Gallery

Above is a picture of the Flinn Gallery in Greenwich CT!!!! We went to go check out the space and see where we will be installing the installation ! We took some measurements and we were able to see how long we have to measure each and every piece of string. It is a really lovely space located on the second floor of their huge library! It was all very exciting and everyone there was really nice! I even got to check out the current show there now before they set up for Water, Water Everywhere!

 That weekend Michele still kept me busy rolling string and measuring arms and arms lengths of string! While working on the installation Michele has been starting a set of new FANTASTIC paintings. Underneath is just the start of it.  I love all of Michele's techniques when it comes to drips, palette, and layering. She is truly amazing and so talented! I have been so lucky to work with her.  Not only have I been helping Michele but she has been helping me! Anything from writing an artist statement, learning new techniques, and how to get myself out there in the art world !