Senior Spotlight: Mike Cannata

I construct modular components that incorporate environment in my sculptural work.  Figurative elements come out of blob-like forms that suggest body movement and emotion, and coil-built elements represent thought patterns.

      

I question the human connection to nature comparatively to the relationship with a mechanized daily life. I ask what sensations and thought patterns come from the self and what is imposed by society.

This work is about moments of movement and stillness, and how sensations and emotions pertain to experience.  I am somewhat of an obsessive thinker. Movement has always given me a sense of reprieve from this busyness.   Adrenaline inducing activities like skateboarding slows time; focuses, tells mind and body that what is happening is important, and reminds one that they are alive… I crave this perspective of sensory awareness. 

        

In the activity of dance, movements can be understood as the body speaking subconsciously. A spoken word seems to melt away the experience of an in improvisational contact dance with another.

Moments of stillness in meditation may be the opposite of adrenaline inducing, however they supply similar awareness of sensations and emotions of body and mind.  My art explores what is to be a hyperactive individual both mentally and physically, how observations of body sessions benefits myself and could benefit people with similar qualities.

Senior Spotlight: Caleb Scott

Make-believe was the most defining part of my childhood. There is a freedom the children experience when they get to envision their own fictional world. It is a freedom adults find much harder to find in a world where individuals have such little control over the greater details of life. I carry the stories and ideas created by my brother and I into my artwork as a source of inspiration. My work over the last two years has been building up to a show in which I attempt to capture some of the magic of my childhood fantasy world.

The centerpiece of this show was intended to be a large 3D game board table. Play is a very important concept in my art. It's only fitting to have actual games as part of my show. I wanted playing this game to be a very tactile experience. Therefore, all the pieces would be made of different metals, including bronze, aluminum, and iron. The table itself would have had visual and tactile textures including carved mountains and a machine tiled playing board.

  

The foundry is where I was developing the miniature figures that would act as game pieces. While my painting practice established the landscape and the wildlife, the beings that lived in this world were all three dimensional. I am sad to say that I only finished three of the figures before having to return home due to Covid-19. The following are examples of the finished and unfinished works along with some of their lore for explanation:

The guild warriors of Versh wield a modified fishing spear as their primary weapon. A Ta”rhee, a long rope with a weight at the end, is often used as an off-hand weapon to lasso enemies and pull them towards the warrior’s spear. This allows warriors to attack without compromising their footing in the muddy grounds of The Fens. The medicinal herb culture, developed in Versh, also gave rise to stimulant concoctions in the guild giving the warriors an advantage in strenuous mud combat.

Many dumrii (the largest and most brutish of the three species of humanoids) make their living as protectors for smaller farm settlements that can not afford the guild's services. Despite being viewed as a less intelligent species of delm, their larger stature and greater physical prowess makes them preferable guardians. They can fight longer than delmarie and are less concerned about spending hours trudging through mud. As with most of their species, they wield improvised weapons like large branch clubs or sharpened sticks.

 

            With the rise of elemental magic in the far west, The Fens is the first region to have access to mage craft. Many mages have traveled from the academy and found work both with the guild and as freelance beast hunters in the Fens. Others merely settle in Fen villages and contribute both as farmers and protectors. Most mages that choose to stay in the fens specialize in the elements of earth and water.

Senior Spotlight: Jack Bancroft

I work in a multitude of materials, finding interest in them for a project until they are alien again. I do not like working with physical materials which I know well, I feel it may be wrong, as though I am taking the easy route.

Wax + String Studies

My sculptural work has been focusing on the understanding of self, and the mind.  The reasons for the things that I do and think that lead to the negative resolutions in my actual life.  Working through real life problems tends to just be the mode in which I work, as creating brings out the deepest fears, pain, and trauma that I will not allow myself to feel during regular waking life. Aspects of my work are trying to understand mental illness without accepting that it is the core of my problems, which tends to create dangerous metaphysical barriers.

Forged Steel Rings

            I have a love hate relationship with art, I think I always have.  To create is to suffer often times, but the reality on the other side is lighter, softer, and more real.  When life stops feeling real, when I stop feeling real, when I want nothing to do with art at all, I know that I have a real reason to continue making.  I have continued creating for years because I need that form, I need that deeply seated pain to have some sort of outlet.  In the worst and best ways possible, I need to be able to agonize through every emotion that I bottle up, every moment I suppress until I can find a better place to deal with it.

  

   

CAST IRON HEARTS for HEART HEALTH DAY 2019

            My art making process may appear to be neurotic, and detrimental, but I find few forms of creation to mean so much.  Without the immensity of the emotions that hold me down, the work cannot find a proper meaning or reality. Without the emotions dousing the entire work, from physical beginning to end, the piece does not feel grounded in any truthful reality.

            Aside from physical sculptural works, I also work with video and sound as mediums.  On many projects I will try to include some digital media aspect with them.

Senior Spotlight: Luci Busch

My art practice has become a focus in coping, moving on from the past, healing, and reconciling.  I’ve lived with these haunting memories for far too long and I can’t continue living like this anymore.  My work has been a way to work through these emotions and find some sort of peace within myself.  I use a variety of materials to portray my ideas including iron, glass, wax, found materials, and latex.  The materials are influential in the meaning of the work somehow and there’s an intention about my choice of materials. 

With and Without was a project with several renditions before finally coming to the last version.  This work was targeting how I’ve allowed the walls I’ve built up are more harmful than helpful and that if I don’t make a change then I will continue to be in pain.

    

    

Not The Same, But That’s Okay was meant to be a way to show healing.  One of the things I’ve come to realize is that healing is not always a pretty process, and sometimes it doesn’t feel like much but it’s better than you were before. 

 

 

The creation of What You Almost Took From Me was when I realized that my work is in a timeline of some sorts, and that while I might be making it all out of order they influence each other and the projects are in a timeline of healing.  This work is one of the earliest in the timeline, because it’s the coming out of the relationship and having to deal with the wreckage. Sometimes there isn’t much left, but better to have walked away with some of yourself. 

What You Almost Took From Me

Relief was the first project that got me thinking about relationships, trauma, and the healing process.  Relief was a way for me to metaphorically shed the touch of others, the memories that I wish I could be rid of.  If I could, I would do almost anything to be rid of their touch and this was a way of working through that desire.  I was making the decision to remove their claim on me, taking myself back and reclaiming what was mine.  

 

During my Junior year, I was learning to work with sculpture on a bigger scale and experimenting with materials that I hadn’t previously worked with.  Cape of Shame was my final project, a collection of plastic bags that were hand knitted into a 15 foot long and 2 foot diameter shield, worn by our King Alfred statue.  Intended to point out the environmental effect of plastic and how most of it isn’t ever recycled.

Your Hand was an enlarged Jenga game for people to draw on the blocks and leave their mark behind.  My hope was that it would encourage people to interact with each other.

 

Possibly the most complicated iron work that I’ve ever cast, my witches cap mushroom was mostly just fun and because I wanted to make a large mushroom.  Not much behind the meaning, it was just supposed to push my skills as a new foundry student.

Senior Spotlight: Sara Scholl

http://foundrytree.com/scholl/

My art practice is a means for me to work through the negative aspects in my life. With this work I was thinking about how I treat myself and the things I often think about myself. I am interested in how people treat each other, themselves, and the world around them. I tend to focus on the negative side of that within my work, and have to make a conscious effort to remember the more fun and positive aspects of life.

   

I like to work with a variety of materials and like to utilize things like knit objects, paper, glass, wax and metal. I enjoy learning new processes to add to my making abilities, such as paper making, book binding, and crocheting. I hope to never stop learning new and different artistic practices. 

"Imitation of a Bridge, Imitation of my Father"

 

I cast vertebra in glass and aluminum and suspended them from the ceiling while video of a stream play on opposing walls.

"The Mysterious Disappearance of Antarctica"

      

For this work during my Junior Year I cast iron Antarctica's through ice and made a video discussing how the majority of the mass of the continent is disappearing. I cast 3 Antarctica's, each a little smaller then the previous.

 "I Will Be Okay"
In my senior year I created hundreds of tiles that each read either "I'm insane" "I'm scared" or "I'm broken". I cast the tiles in iron, aluminum, resin, 3 different colors of wax, paper, and plaster and amassed over 700 of them. The phrases were in reference to things I often think about myself and how many times I think these things.

       

The most recent project I have worked on is one about my grandmother who passed away recently. I created versions of her house out of different materials such as yarn, wax, and metal. Her house is now a cream color but when I was a kid it was bright green. This is still a work in progress project, but as of right now i displayed halves of the wax, knitted, and metal houses with a green light shining out.