Rachel Knight; Assignment #1

Memory Maps by Sue O’Donnell is a rather captivating exhibit which strikes me as being slightly nontraditional and full of meaningful memories, sparking many different emotions. The interesting use of digital photography with many words and phrases throughout the art creates a timeline like exhibit that flows extremely well. The modern look of the room the exhibit is set up in definitely fits with her artwork and due to the impeccable placement of each work, the entire exhibit flows from one piece to the next fluidly. While each piece complements the next, they all could also stand alone very strongly. A story full of memory and growing up can be quickly noticed when admiring the show. A theme to this exhibit is words, which exist in the majority of pieces making a great presence. Some of the pieces are framed in bold black frames, while others do not have any frames at all. Wisely decided, this simple factor does quite a bit for the exhibit as a whole. The variety of pieces and dimensions shown in the room are definitely admirable due to their creativity and quality. The only criticism I have for the exhibit is that I would have loved to see more art, especially to fill the pillars in the center of the room completely.

The piece entitled Memory Game definitely tells a story through pictures and text. The square ultra chrome prints on wooden blocks form a clean structured rectangle that stands out of the wall slightly. The squares go photo, text, photo, text and so on. On the table below the piece, small cubes are scattered about with no particular order. Like the piece on the wall, these cubes contain photos of a little girl and text that depicts stories. Unlike the black and white prints hanging on the wall, the ones printed on the cubes lean more towards a sepia tone. They also contain text in the form of phrases, rather than the stories that hang. Extremely clean cut, the two parts of this piece most certainly complement each other. While they appear different, they contain the same meaning and tell the same sort of story.

Fitting the exhibit perfectly, Memory Game is a very important piece, obviously representing memories. This piece in particular focus’ on growing up, containing pictures of a little girl in many different settings, making me feel as though I was flipping through a family photo album. The text all contain different stories, which almost seem like they could be from a journal, also reminding me of silly things I did as a child and other important growing up memories. The idea of commemorating memories and events into art is something I admire and enjoy. It also reminds me of how important it is to take a trip back on memory lane. When I look at this specific piece I can tell right away what it is about and see how personal it is to the artist. It also helps me understand the rest of the exhibit and appreciate it more. To me, memories, family, and growing up mean a whole lot to Sue O’Donnell, so much that she has created a great exhibit out of it, reminding me to also cherish these simple things, called memories.

Joey Nebiker : Assignment 1

I was intrigued by the installation based on the idea of behind the work. The concepts behind the artist’s works were centered on memory. While art is usually personal, it seemed that the use of memories allowed an even more personal bond between the artist and her work. The room was set up in a very orderly fashion. The white walls made the room visually and aesthetically calming and very relaxed. Her work was clearly cohesive but by no means similar from one piece to the next. Also the pieces that were visually linked seemed to be spatially separated allowing for a more random and disjointed approach to the experience. While most of the work was in frames, some were in jars or even on blocks. Overall the exhibit was very well put together. Clearly a great deal of effort was put into the flow of the room, as well as the pieces themselves. I really enjoyed the creativity behind the idea of the artist’s self portraits.

There was one piece I found to be most interesting called Story Told. The artist described the piece as an accordion artist book with shelf. Visually the piece is made up of an accordion style picture frame with clear glass on both sides. There were 12 separate black frames linked together by hinges. Each individual frame was unique inside but filled with the same items found in all the others for the most part. In each frame there were words and sentence fragments stacked on top of each other. The words were printed on transparencies and cut out in rough, jagged shapes. Surrounding the words were box-like shapes drawn in black ink. Some of the boxes were bigger than others, some overlapped each other, and some were drawn darker than others. There were also random and erratic lines drawn in-between the boxes in some places that were similar in shape to a tornado. In each new frame these same elements were used, just different boxes and lines, as well as different words and sentence fragments.

My thoughts on this artist’s intentions with this work are not exactly clear. I like the work because it’s complex and not very easy to figure out. I would assume that each cluster of words is a story from the artist’s memory. Each story is separated by an individual frame but linked to another story in the accordion frame. This might represent the idea that stories from memory are often different and separate but linked together somehow. The idea that the stories aren’t simple to read, but overlapped and difficult is another interesting aspect of this piece. I think the artist was intending to show that memories are disjointed and stories overlap. When you tell a story from memory it’s never the same twice. I feel that the artist was trying to show the complexity and randomness of memory. It’s not just something you can call on and read word for word each time. This piece seemed to show memory as I see it, which allowed me to relate to the work in a more personal sense.

Tiffany Blashock Assignment #1

The exhibition was very neat and well organized. The room was very spacious and not crowded. There was lighting above every piece of art to see everything well. The Story Told piece with the transparent film had lights behind it to see all of the details well, which made it pop out. She also seemed to have certain pieces that relate to each other or look alike together in different parts of the room. Most of the pieces had frames. The ones that did not have frames protruded from the wall. She even had little cubes with pictures and words on them on all sides.

The piece I have chosen is called the Memory Game. The piece is squares that protrude from the wall. They are made with ultra-chrome prints and wooden blocks. Some of the squares have black and white photos on them, while others are all white with black text. She has them set up like a rectangle with each square about a few inches apart from each other. The other half of the piece are small cubes. There a quite a bit of them spread all over a table right below the other squares hanging on the wall. Some sides of the cubes are pure black and some are all white with small black text. The rest of the sides look more like sepia photos and not black and white like the hanging squares.

The meaning behind this piece is mainly about memory. Sue O'Donnell used photographs of her own childhood and wrote memories on different squares and cubes. She wanted to transfer her memories into maps and constructions so they can be more deeply plotted. I chose this piece because it was very interesting how she had all her childhood pictures on the pieces. She even had little pieces of her memories written on some of the squares and cubes. Some of them were cute and funny. I also chose this piece because I am a family person and I loved my childhood. This piece just made me smile when I first looked at it and read the text. Her childhood memories are shared and will never be forgotten by her and others.

Kolleen Keister; assignment #1.

When I walked into Sue O'Donnel's exhibition, all of the artwork was organized very nicely around the room. Each piece of artwork was either framed, hanging in line with one another, or sitting on something so that you could work with the artwork. All of the artworks related to each other in some way and complemented each other so that you could follow each piece as you walked around the room. The artworks seemed to be her narrating her life using many words, sayings, comments, and quotes. The organization, meaning, and colors used in the artworks all bring it together and make it work.

My favorite one of Sue O'Donnel's memory maps is the Secrets Jar. The colors used are black and white only, which makes me like it more. There are some sayings written on the map that are circled. Coming out of each circle are lines that are connected to other circles that either have words in them already or are blurred out so they are unable to be read. The pieces in the jar are the cutouts of the missing ones on the map. The way that the map is lied out is like that of a "web".

When I thought about my interpretation of this particular piece, I thought she went back and tried to remember everything about her childhood. She started with one memory, and attached to that memory are others that relate to that one. Each one leads to another representing the constant thinking of her mind as she grew up. Organizing her thoughts and memories in this way probably helped her to remember things that happened in her life. By opening her mind up with one memory, she could remember something off of that memory, and so on. The removal of some pieces of her map, along with the blurred out words, led me to believe these are things that she did not remember, or does not want to remember from her life. The way of putting those pieces in the jar could be her sense of bottling those memories up and forgetting them. Maybe not forgetting them, but not thinking about them. The map is organized, yet sporadic. The thoughts in the bubbles are anything from happy, to sad, or mad things that she remembers from her childhood, all of which meant something to her. I personally love to remember everything. I like to write down everything and keep pictures of everything throughout my life. This made me very attracted to her artwork, not only this piece, but the whole exhibit. I really enjoyed looking at all of it! ")

Sarah Monaco- Assigment #1

A.
The exhibition was in a medium sized room that was painted entirely white. Spotlights illuminated each piece of artwork that was on display in a warming tone. Each artwork led you to another one, which was either extremely close in resemblance or just cohesive in the sense of its meaning. The artist displayed her pieces in the following ways: frames, photography, stackable picture/word cubes, short stories, and picture frames. There were so many different elements of the exhibition coming at you all at once. Although there was a lot of visual attention directing your eyes, all of the displays were connected allowing it to be sentimental while simultaneously remaining to be visually pleasing. What I really liked about the exhibition is the fact that mostly all of the artwork was in black and white. Color was splattered here and there, but mostly black and white was seen which gave a more deep and powerful image. I honestly do not think that anything should be change about the exhibition except maybe I would have liked to see more artwork on display to interpret!
B.
The artwork was made up of perfect small squares arranged in a way to make a larger rectangular display. The entire design was purely black, gray, and white containing numerous organic blobs either filled with scribbled writing or what looked like writing that was erased away by white. The white blobs look as if it they were carved out of the black print and the writing was blurred to a point of illiteracy. The shapes were all a little bit different and unique but were all generally following the same format. Most of the blurbs were gathered around a central point and flowed outwards. Glancing from far away you cannot quite distinguish what is going on, but moving close up to the piece you notice an entire different perspective. The blurbs seem to be arranged in a random way connected by lines.
C.
My interpretation is that the artist wrote down her thoughts and displayed them in a messy, chaotic way. I feel like the artwork is displaying how our minds think. All of the blurbs are the many thoughts going through her head all connecting back to one another in an obvious or subtle way. The piece of artwork is like a novel of her life but broken up into speech bubbles. Each blob has a sentence on it expressing her thoughts and opinions. The small blurbs are nostalgically retelling her past of the happy, sad, mad, and guilty times she has had. The artwork, like a stream of consciousness, is unedited, spontaneous, and is what came to her mind at that certain moment in time. The entire piece is like a huge brainstorm of her childhood, retelling her thoughts. The blurred out writing I feel like are memories that she has either forgotten, chosen to block out, or might be future thoughts that she has left room for in her mind to fill up. It just shows us how at every moment of our lives we are thinking, our minds are constantly running and everything we think is important. I really enjoyed viewing this piece because it just reminded me of my childhood and the many memories I have.

Rachael Graham: Assignment #1

As I walked into the Sue O'Donnell's Exhibit, before the actual presentation, all of the pieces as a whole or individually appealed to me because of the eclectic variety of style used. Each piece seemed so crafty and unique, except for the two large grid pieces with many little stories and secrets put together. The difference between each piece was so refreshing due to the fact that I have never been to an Exhibit involving more canvas and paint. Before I was able to see all of the pieces, the presentation began. I was then shocked and saddened to learn that the basis and starting inspiration for her to begin exploring the type of artwork that she does, was the death of her husband. At this point, I began to see a connection. The unique pieces in O'Donnell's exhibit reminded me of all the feelings and emotions you could possibly have as a human being. One of her pieces was an altered representation of the period table of the elements, while one piece was a very scattered, yet beautiful web of memories and secrets, just written on in tiny connected bubbles. Still, it did seem that each piece was connected by the enormous amount of self she obviously let go to permeate her work. O'Donnell did mention that including her most dear emotions, thoughts, dreams, etc. in her work became therapy. After looking at each of her pieces in the gallery, it really did seem as if I knew her and could relate to her without even shaking hands. This was most obvious in her piece, "Memory Game," where there were an abundance of tiny picture blocks with sayings relating to her life, underneath a tiled piece with pictures from her childhood and excerpts of moments in her life, whether happy, utterly depressing or embarrassing.

One of my favorite pieces was the "Periodic Table of the Elements." The piece was comprised of precise, geometric shapes, squares to be specific. The setup looked exactly as a scientific Period table would look. The colors used in O'Donnell's periodic table are much more vibrant than colors used in a science textbook and certainly much more vibrant than the overall color scheme of the exhibit, such as bright yellow, dark teal, light pink, sunny orange, an indigo purple, light blue and black. Displayed below the table was a legend to the table, matching the colors to a group of Sue O'Donnell elements: Orange=Familial, Yellow=Spiritual, White=Unidentified, Black=Secrets, Indigo=Influential, Green=Relationships, Pink=Transitional and Blue=Emotional. Each "element" had a certain word which fit among each category, such as Love (Lv), which was also represented by a tiny white number in a little black square in the upper-left hand corner as well as a two letter, capital and lowercase, abbreviation.

As I was thinking about Sue O'Donnell's piece, "Periodic Table of the Elements," I realized that it seemed to be an oddball among the other pieces in her exhibit. The use of a variety bright colors, the very clean and crisp style, one style of lettering, seemed to set it apart visually, and also made me realize that it may have been a piece representing a certain point of recovery after her husband's death. During O'Donnell's lecture, listening to her describe the development of her art after her husband's death, it seemed to me that she tried many different, crafty, experimental ways somehow present her feelings in a visual sense. For the most part, each piece in the exhibit is so obviously very personal, and seemed to be put together in such a fragile, painstaking way, so as to express every detail she could: the toy blocks representing tiny moments of life, each cut out of a secret in the jar, the rest of the tiny, handwritten memory cut outs of her life spread into a map. Everything was right there for you to see and relate to. "Periodic Table of the Elements" seemed to me, to be a point in which she felt she needed to step back, and organize all of the emotion and priorities moving around her head, like writing a list in order to release the stress of food shopping, or something of the sort. "Periodic Table of the Elements" is a straightforward representation of everything that she cared about; a reminder of the important things in life that she has, all in kind of organized form, where she can view and look at it without everything rambling through her head. The piece is not too elaborately designed, or displayed in any special way - it is a human, down to earth, organization and reminder of the "elements" of herself - the point in which she needed to step back and view the important things in life in a certain, organized fashion.

Assignment #1

Blog Assignment #1
Shelby Spressart
9/10/09
The art gallery in the Haas Center was a very nice unique gallery done by Sue O’Donnell. I think that the work all went together nicely and flowed through the room well from piece to piece. Most of the pieces are black and white with words in them, where you have to look closely at the piece and study it. Some consist of color, which are mostly photographs. Everything flows and has a similar theme. She is not all over the place with her art, but more consistent in her ideas. Most of the art is framed and others are set on something rather than placed on the wall, which lets the observer move around and get close to it.

The image I chose is a circular piece in a square frame. It is black and gold in its colors. It is almost shaped as a pie piece if you look closely at it, because she divided it up into sections, while at the same time, she has gold lines coming out from the center.

I think this piece is similar to her periodic table of elements piece because she has similar words which are divided up. The circular one though is less straightforward and makes you think what she is trying to say. I think she is trying to express the different words she wrote in sections and break them down into meaning while at the same time she has craziness with the lines. So maybe all the meanings intersect at some point or they really cannot be broken down.