Breast cancer timeline until now:
Went for a routine mammogram on July 22. It came back abnormal so was scheduled for a biposy on a lump in my left breast and a questionable lymph node. The tests came back positive for breast cancer. We met with the breast surgeon at crystal run middletown as well as the oncologist. The next few weeks were full of tests as well as a second opinion meeting at Sloan Kettering. We liked the order of things at Sloan Kettering (surgery, chemo, radiation) so on August 20 I had a lumpectomy as well as axillary lymph node removal. The pathology came back on that and they removed a 1.3 cm invasive ductal lump and 41 lymph nodes - 24 cancerous, 2 of those microscopic. This pretty much puts me in stage 3. I am estrogen and progesterone negative and I do not have the cancer gene. Still waiting on the HER2 test. I had a mediport ("power port") put in last week under my collarbone and that is where all my injections will be administered. Also had my first colonoscopy and endoscopy - had some polyps removed and I have a small ulcer. Also got my first flu shot. Whew. I will go ahead with the blog but will backtrack a bit to add some things that I am thankful for.
And you can really backtrack to 2010 where I had to create a blog while at SUNY New Paltz and you can see some of my ceramic works.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Project 1 - 3: artist statements
My images and videos would not load
so will put them on cd for Patti and try to do it once I'm home.
inspirations project 1:
artist statements:
Karen Smyth
take 1
ceramic objects in box
2010
project #1 / hand built
I created multiple small hand-built objects that are made to give away. Red Rose Tea and the small china figure that comes in every box inspired me. The passer by can choose to engage in the situation or not to. This discovery is the learning, finding out, and realizing. Discoveries are often beyond our control, but decisions are not. Decisions define who we are and the lives we lead. (discovery-deliberation-decision-doing). I would love to be a fly on the wall to see the person who does choose an object, and to see the decision-making and questions that come up. To continue with the piece, I would explore the specific space and the people that would pass through that space, and how the process of the participation is part of the project. For the context of the class, I put my box in a common space to us – in the ceramics building. I hope everyone in the class picks an object that they like and that it evokes a story or memory of the ceramics class.
Karen Smyth
golden bowl, edition of 6
ceramics, soup package
2010
project #2 / cast objects
I chose the design problem when casting Annie Chung soup bowls. I was thinking about the back to the basics of the bowl as an aesthetically pleasing object that can be reused. By choosing to cast a microwave soup bowl, I am taking the notion of fast food packaging – from Styrofoam to plastic to biodegradable plastic to something that can be reused. I was thinking about the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Willie Wonka’s golden ticket that were a series of golden tickets that could be found in select chocolate bars. People wanted to buy the chocolate bars in hopes of winning the grand prize. I set up one of the bowls, with the soup packging in a fabricated grocery store and it would be a real prize, like the finder of the golden ticket, to purchase a microwave soup and go home to find that your throwaway container was a real ceramic bowl to keep using.
Karen Smyth
my genealogical background part 2
ceramic pieces, wood, written work, video
2010
project #3 / wheel thrown
The inspiration for this project came through a series of conversations about my heritage as a Canadian and if I had ever done any art about that. I had not, so decided to take on the challenge. That led me to think about what a Canadian identity is and the conclusion that I came to is that a Canadian heritage is subtle and behind the scenes. The wheel thrown piece is a series of discs cut to fit a rectangle shape and on the back of two pieces is the Maple leaf stenciled on the bottom. The maple leaf, the maple tree and the look of the tree rings symbolize my heritage – and the branching out to the United States. The video of my American born daughter Pearl is the start of a series of videos exploring how I pass on my heritage through my children. The video is of Pearl trying to solve a problem. The red album was a high school project done on my genealogical background and the writings on the wall are the continuation of that project and the conclusion was missing in the high school version and the teacher said that “a conclusion would have tied it up nicely”.
so will put them on cd for Patti and try to do it once I'm home.inspirations project 1:
artist statements:
Karen Smyth
take 1
ceramic objects in box
2010
project #1 / hand built
I created multiple small hand-built objects that are made to give away. Red Rose Tea and the small china figure that comes in every box inspired me. The passer by can choose to engage in the situation or not to. This discovery is the learning, finding out, and realizing. Discoveries are often beyond our control, but decisions are not. Decisions define who we are and the lives we lead. (discovery-deliberation-decision-doing). I would love to be a fly on the wall to see the person who does choose an object, and to see the decision-making and questions that come up. To continue with the piece, I would explore the specific space and the people that would pass through that space, and how the process of the participation is part of the project. For the context of the class, I put my box in a common space to us – in the ceramics building. I hope everyone in the class picks an object that they like and that it evokes a story or memory of the ceramics class.
Karen Smyth
golden bowl, edition of 6
ceramics, soup package
2010
project #2 / cast objects
I chose the design problem when casting Annie Chung soup bowls. I was thinking about the back to the basics of the bowl as an aesthetically pleasing object that can be reused. By choosing to cast a microwave soup bowl, I am taking the notion of fast food packaging – from Styrofoam to plastic to biodegradable plastic to something that can be reused. I was thinking about the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Willie Wonka’s golden ticket that were a series of golden tickets that could be found in select chocolate bars. People wanted to buy the chocolate bars in hopes of winning the grand prize. I set up one of the bowls, with the soup packging in a fabricated grocery store and it would be a real prize, like the finder of the golden ticket, to purchase a microwave soup and go home to find that your throwaway container was a real ceramic bowl to keep using.
Karen Smyth
my genealogical background part 2
ceramic pieces, wood, written work, video
2010
project #3 / wheel thrown
The inspiration for this project came through a series of conversations about my heritage as a Canadian and if I had ever done any art about that. I had not, so decided to take on the challenge. That led me to think about what a Canadian identity is and the conclusion that I came to is that a Canadian heritage is subtle and behind the scenes. The wheel thrown piece is a series of discs cut to fit a rectangle shape and on the back of two pieces is the Maple leaf stenciled on the bottom. The maple leaf, the maple tree and the look of the tree rings symbolize my heritage – and the branching out to the United States. The video of my American born daughter Pearl is the start of a series of videos exploring how I pass on my heritage through my children. The video is of Pearl trying to solve a problem. The red album was a high school project done on my genealogical background and the writings on the wall are the continuation of that project and the conclusion was missing in the high school version and the teacher said that “a conclusion would have tied it up nicely”.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Nicolas Bourriaud and Rirkrit Tiravanija
I wanted to tie Bourriaud's article to the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija since a picture of his exhibition - Untitled, 1996 (One Revolution per Minute) was featured on Beaurriaud's book Relational Aesthetics so wanted to make some connections.
Rirkrit Tiravanija is an artist born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of Thai origin - raised in Thailand, Ethipoia, and Canada. He lives between Berlin, New York and Thailand.
He became known in the 1990's for installations in which he cooks food for gallery goers making the social interaction his material.
"It is not what you see that is important but what takes place between people".
His work offers an opportunity or possibility for interaction and participation.
The Land (initiated in 1998) is a collaborative project on a former rice field in Thailand which is open for artists to use as a site.
Much of Rirkrit's work is to create instructions ("recipes") that other people interpret or carry out.
A project by Phillipe Parreno and Rirkrit Tiravanija. A similar piece is on now at Bard College - CCS Bard Hessel Museum at an exhibition called At home/not at home - works from the collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg.
"A group of 5 puppets in the likenesses of Philippe Parreno, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Pierre Hughye, Liam Gillick, and Hans Ulrich Obrist. This is part of an ongoing project in that the artists plan to use these characters for further scenarios in the future."
When asked about the art world rhetoric around his work (the social as the new modernism, relational aesthetics), he conveyed that the role as an artist was to explore and expose the territory, not to be the one to map it out. Critical discourse may be leading the artist but Rirkrit seems to avoid becoming a product of that.
I also found a link to a program at a Canadian University (OCAD - Ontario College of Art and Design) that connects what Bourriaud is stating and artists like Tiravanija are doing.
The Nomadic Residents residency program offers invited visiting artists and scholars an opportunity to explore, in a collegial and collaborative environment, issues of temporality, travel, location, belonging, identity and home.
Rirkrit Tiravanija is an artist born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of Thai origin - raised in Thailand, Ethipoia, and Canada. He lives between Berlin, New York and Thailand.
He became known in the 1990's for installations in which he cooks food for gallery goers making the social interaction his material.
"It is not what you see that is important but what takes place between people".
His work offers an opportunity or possibility for interaction and participation.
The Land (initiated in 1998) is a collaborative project on a former rice field in Thailand which is open for artists to use as a site.
Much of Rirkrit's work is to create instructions ("recipes") that other people interpret or carry out.
A project by Phillipe Parreno and Rirkrit Tiravanija. A similar piece is on now at Bard College - CCS Bard Hessel Museum at an exhibition called At home/not at home - works from the collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg."A group of 5 puppets in the likenesses of Philippe Parreno, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Pierre Hughye, Liam Gillick, and Hans Ulrich Obrist. This is part of an ongoing project in that the artists plan to use these characters for further scenarios in the future."
When asked about the art world rhetoric around his work (the social as the new modernism, relational aesthetics), he conveyed that the role as an artist was to explore and expose the territory, not to be the one to map it out. Critical discourse may be leading the artist but Rirkrit seems to avoid becoming a product of that.
I also found a link to a program at a Canadian University (OCAD - Ontario College of Art and Design) that connects what Bourriaud is stating and artists like Tiravanija are doing.
The Nomadic Residents residency program offers invited visiting artists and scholars an opportunity to explore, in a collegial and collaborative environment, issues of temporality, travel, location, belonging, identity and home.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Margins and Altermodern
The title of the 2009 exhibition - The Margins: A Theory of Resistance in Contemporary Ceramics wants to recognize ceramics as an expanded field and to dissolve the margins of an art (craft?) steeped in tradition. The introduction points to clay as a component that runs through the works, but the materials are chosen to best realize an intention and the interest of the works lies in broader discourse.
The following three essays create a discourse on the margins laying some groundwork and I highlighted a few references that were of interest to me. The first is the vessel in contrast to ceramics as a broader category of art. I am also interested in the mapping or framework of art. In the Big Bang article, the Dean of ceramic studies at SAIC, said that her intent as teacher was to investigate two things - technical traditions and the process towards expertise, as well as to develop questions that take students down a personal path to develop a voice. She describes clay as a material with specific characteristics, histories and associations so it seems like ceramics has three forces - the technical, the history, and the concept.
Just a jotting down of interesting ceramic tie ins: prehistoric female effigy figures in clay thrown into the fire by the thousands to explode (performative gesture on the female?), WW1 pilots dropping practice ceramic bombs filled with talc or plaster, George Ohr, the Group of Seven (Canadian), La Loie Fuller.
Altermodern was an exhibition curated by french art critic Nicolas Bourriaud at the The Tate Triennial 2009 at Tate Britain. It was also presented at the time a collective discussion around the premise that postmodernism is coming to an end, and we are experiencing the emergence of a global altermodernity. It seems like Bourriaud has coined the next art movement from modernism (rejecting the past but in a Greenbergian timeline) to postmodernism (reaction against modernism but in a constant loop) to now (in a spiderweb mapping).
I like the eight continents of modernism (see website).
The following three essays create a discourse on the margins laying some groundwork and I highlighted a few references that were of interest to me. The first is the vessel in contrast to ceramics as a broader category of art. I am also interested in the mapping or framework of art. In the Big Bang article, the Dean of ceramic studies at SAIC, said that her intent as teacher was to investigate two things - technical traditions and the process towards expertise, as well as to develop questions that take students down a personal path to develop a voice. She describes clay as a material with specific characteristics, histories and associations so it seems like ceramics has three forces - the technical, the history, and the concept.
Just a jotting down of interesting ceramic tie ins: prehistoric female effigy figures in clay thrown into the fire by the thousands to explode (performative gesture on the female?), WW1 pilots dropping practice ceramic bombs filled with talc or plaster, George Ohr, the Group of Seven (Canadian), La Loie Fuller.
Altermodern was an exhibition curated by french art critic Nicolas Bourriaud at the The Tate Triennial 2009 at Tate Britain. It was also presented at the time a collective discussion around the premise that postmodernism is coming to an end, and we are experiencing the emergence of a global altermodernity. It seems like Bourriaud has coined the next art movement from modernism (rejecting the past but in a Greenbergian timeline) to postmodernism (reaction against modernism but in a constant loop) to now (in a spiderweb mapping).
I like the eight continents of modernism (see website).
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
bouncing ball
Hi there,
Someone in class was interested in a bouncing ball - I think? Anyways, it's another short animated clip.
Someone in class was interested in a bouncing ball - I think? Anyways, it's another short animated clip.
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