Ordinary Expectations

Once while attending college, I was driving along Capital Blvd. in Raleigh, NC when I passed this tower-like object with highly reflective panels. It was the beautifully reflective panels that caught my attention, appearing silver then bursting into rainbow radiance. I wondered at it, but figured it was some kind of radio or phone tower. I later found out that it was Art.

Oddly enough that tower-like structure became the topic of an ethics class in which we discussed art and how it sometimes defies expectations, especially when an artist is commissioned to produce a work and the product doesn’t match the idea a patron may have thought they were asking for. Art is like that.

Art is more than a simple expression of ideas; it takes on life and character. It grabs attention, provokes thought, and elicits emotion: sometimes for its subject matter, sometimes for the elements used. This hit me most profoundly as I was visiting the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. I had gone to view the exhibit of a local artist, but as I was leaving that exhibit another drew me in.

The exhibit was part of the UNCG Falk Visiting Artists program, and this one featured the work of Judy Pfaff, an internationally renowned pioneer of installation art. It was the massive structure along one wall that first reeled me into the room. Slowly walking along allowing my eyes to drift across its textured surface, taking in the various materials and how they came together to give the structure the form of a coral reef struck a chord within me.

As I cast my eyes around the room at the other works displayed I could see a theme, but it was the smaller constructions upon the walls that really got me thinking. I thought back to that tower-like structure and that discussion once upon a time. Artists challenge expectations.

Visually deconstructing each of Pfaff’s works, I could pick out items that I had seen before being utilized in a way that defied my common understanding of them: some of the items were discarded remains of packaging material, while others were items that typically served a purpose as fishing tools or lighting covers. Defying the common expectation of these individual objects to blend them, creating something greater than the sum of its parts is an amazing form of artistic expression.

-Veronica Monique Ibarra

http://weatherspoon.uncg.edu/exhibitions/show/?title=judy-pfaff-falk-visiting-artist

Shaped by Time, Tempered by Fire

Singed. Burned. Branded. These words are typically associated with harsh experiences that leave a permanent mark if they do not destroy that which is touched by an instrument hot enough to do so. It is astonishing to see these words appear in the description of art work that seems to embody soft, delicate touches in muted shades of brown. Paired with the cool, softness of blue watercolor and the gilding effect of silver leaf it is easy to feel lulled into contemplation about the subject of the art.

North Carolina artist Stacy Lynn Waddell’s The Evidence of Things Unseen featured at the Weatherspoon Art Museum is reportedly a part of an ongoing investigation for the artist regarding the conflict of African American heritage and personal identity, and how individuals come to think of themselves through the generations. Images of ships and women that seem to emerge from them are used to convey this to a large degree in many of the featured works. However, the striking medium used in these expressive investigational pieces adds a sense of lasting effect.

At a glance they appear soft, elegant works of dripping brown watercolor, but leaning in you can begin to see how the heat has marked the paper. The darker browns, almost black from the burning and branding are scars upon the paper. That this harsh method leaves its mark in beauty seems at odds with logical understanding, but add to communicate the emerging self that the artist also depicts in the images. Even the tools and material are a part of the artist’s investigation.

-Veronica Monique Ibarra

http://weatherspoon.uncg.edu/exhibitions/show/?title=stacy-lynn-waddell-the-evidence-of-things-unseen