Artist Study : Lesley Dill

September 17th, 2009 | Posted in Journal | 2 Comments »

Describe the artist’s work, includ­ing gen­der, nation­al­ity, pri­mary media, era, and pri­mary subject/content of the artist’s oeu­vre. Write at least three para­graphs about this artist.

Les­ley Dill is a Mod­ern Renais­sance Lady, and a per­fect choice for me. An Amer­i­can, born in Bronxville, NY and raised in Maine, she’s a visual artist, using print­mak­ing tech­niques like etch­ing, lith­o­g­ra­phy, and silk screen to por­tray her poetic side using typog­ra­phy tech­niques on fab­rics and paper. She’s also got a per­for­mance side, hav­ing been raised in a musi­cal fam­ily (woo!), and has col­lab­o­rated with com­posers to write a num­ber of musi­cal per­for­mances and even an opera ded­i­cated to the work of one of her muses, Emily Dickenson.

Much of her work reflects the work of Dick­en­son.  There are those who dis­like her pieces, claim­ing that her use of text is man­gled and con­fus­ing. It’s been said that the dif­fer­ence between an artist and a graphic designer is text. A graphic designer uses text to con­vey a mes­sage that is straight­for­ward, meant to be under­stood upon read­ing. Les­ley uses text as art, more con­cerned with the shapes and place­ment of the let­ters to con­vey her mes­sage in a strictly visual way, not nec­es­sar­ily meant to be read. A few words may pop out to grab your atten­tion, but the way I look at it, her words are meant to be seen, not read. If they were meant to be read, she’d be a designer, not an artist.

Her con­cen­tra­tion on the form of the body is impor­tant, as well. In many pieces she uses the image of words on a dress, or that the dress or suit is made of words. She’s also a metal sculp­tor (some­thing else I love to play with), and her “Word Queens” exhibit is a col­lec­tion of metal and wire words and let­ters shaped to form women in gowns. She also has sev­eral prints where the body itself is the can­vas, using a mix­ture of her own pho­tog­ra­phy and print­mak­ing, with words and quotes that almost look etched into the person’s flesh. She believes that peo­ple are made entirely of lan­guage, the words that live inside us and the words we wear for all to see. Every­thing she does reflects this idea in some way.

See Also:

This per­son dis­likes her work. Yet, to each their own.

Arthur Roger Gallery

Her Emily Dick­in­son Opera — Warn­ing, super super mod­ern & artsy!

Another Per­for­mance “I Heard a Voice.”

What intrigues you about this artist?

She’s got a strong sense of ele­gance and beauty in words that instantly drew me to her. Using print­mak­ing tech­niques on fab­ric has been one of the ideas that has intrigued me through­out this course, and see­ing two of my favorite things, typog­ra­phy on cos­tumes, sparked my inter­est imme­di­ately. Find­ing out she’s also a metal sculp­tor and pho­tog­ra­pher, and espe­cially her heavy involve­ment in the per­form­ing arts, were all added bonuses. I think I’ve offi­cially added her to my list of favorite modern-day artists.

If this artist was alive today, what would their work be like?

She is alive today, and her work is a visual, and musi­cal, rep­re­sen­ta­tion of lan­guage. She gave a lec­ture on her work in Jan­u­ary of this year (09) that is avail­able on YouTube in sev­eral parts.  Part 2 is 7 min­utes of her opera. It’s very mod­ern and artsy. Almost more than even I could stand! I love her art, though. Some even has an almost Tim-Burton-ish qual­ity, char­ac­ters she’s built from words instead of clay. Very inter­est­ing ideas, for me.

“I think the soul is rav­en­ous, and is always on the move, and look­ing for things to feed it. And it’s this hunger, and this nour­ish­ment, that makes the deci­sions in our life.” — Les­ley Dill

If you could ask this artist one ques­tion, what would it be?

I don’t know what I would ask her. Watch­ing her lec­ture gave me a con­nec­tion to her, because she’s done so much that I’ve dreamt of doing. You* weren’t kid­ding when you said you saw a strong con­nec­tion between her work and mine. I would just like to get to know her and learn from her, I think.

*Ques­tions sup­plied by Benjy in Print­mak­ing. I think I’ll use this from time to time and do more artist studies.

Birds on the Wires on Vimeo

September 15th, 2009 | Posted in Journal | No Comments »

Birds on the Wires on Vimeo on Vimeo

via Birds on the Wires on Vimeo.

This is amaz­ing– There really isn’t much to say, you just have to watch & lis­ten! B-E-A-utiful.

Todd Agnew & Building 429 @ Rio!!

August 24th, 2009 | Posted in Journal | No Comments »

2 Big-Name Chris­t­ian singers are com­ing to our lit­tle cor­ner of the uni­verse, specif­i­cally to Fel­low­ship of Faith in Rio Grande, 10/10/09!
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Steve’s Show @ FOF.

August 24th, 2009 | Posted in Journal | No Comments »

Fel­low­ship of Faith’s Cof­fee House hap­pens the sec­ond Fri­day of every month. They have dif­fer­ent per­form­ers of all walks of life come in to enter­tain. August it was my very own Stephen, with a lit­tle help from his friends.
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Upcoming Christian Music Events

September 19th, 2008 | Posted in Events, Journal | 1 Comment »

I love music and i love God, and noth­ing brings that together bet­ter than a good ol’ Chris­t­ian rock con­cert. For those of you who haven’t dis­cov­ered Chris­t­ian rock, its just like reg­u­lar rock music except with pos­i­tive, uplift­ing lyrics in place of the hope­less and angry mes­sages of maintstream rock. If you lis­ten to the radio at all, you’ve surely heard the music of pop­u­lar acts like P.O.D, Fly­leaf, Switch­foot, Skil­let, Red, Thou­sand Foot Krutch, and oth­ers who’ve brought their mes­sages of faith into the main­stream. There are some great con­certs in the area dur­ing the next month, such as:

Cre­ation Fes­ti­val: The Tour — Fea­tur­ing Kut­less, Thou­sand Foot Krutch, Pil­lar, Fire­flight, Worth Dying For, Run Kid Run, KJ-52, and more. Oct 10, 6 pm at the Charel­ston Munici­ple Audi­to­rium, tick­ets $20. OR Oct 30, 7pm at the Grove City Nazerene church (4770 Hoover Rd, Grove City, OH). Tick­ets for that show are $23 in advance, $28 at the door. These are some of the biggest names in Chris­t­ian Rock and you’ll be in for an experience.

Fire­flight will also be at the Maranatha Fel­low­ship church in St. Albans (2910 Kanawha Ter­race) on Sept. 18. Tick­ets are just $5. Call 304–722-6271 for more info.

Fam­ily Force 5 is play­ing the New­port Music Hall in Colum­bus (1722 N. High Street, between Short North and OSU cam­pus) on Oct. 19. Tick­ets just $13. FF5 brings a style like no other with their unique blend of metal, rap, dance, and ener­getic stage presence.

Pneu­mafest 2008 — Decyfer Down, 33 Miles, Instereo, and oth­ers. Sept. 26 and 27 at West Williamson Soft­ball Park, on Park­way Drive in Williamson, WV. Tick­ets $7, both nigths $12. Have per­son­ally seen both Decyfer Down and 33 Miles, they’re more local-oriented acts, but both put on good shows.

By the way, my church, Fel­low­ship of Faith, is hav­ing it’s Grand Open­ing cel­e­bra­tion at our new wor­ship cen­ter on Sun­day, Sept. 28. Located at the junc­tion of SR 325 and 554 right out­side of Rio Grande, OH (just 2 miles from URG), they offer a con­tem­po­rary wor­ship expe­ri­ence geared towards peo­ple who just don’t get much from tra­di­tional churches. We have an amaz­ing, mod­ern audi­to­rium with a live band every morn­ing, cof­fee and break­fast bar, kid and youth ser­vices, and spe­cial events all the time such as our yearly RYTHM­fest con­cert (bring­ing in mega-bands like Fly­leaf, Dis­ci­ple, Kut­less, Red, Day of Fire, and more). Sun­day ser­vices are at 9 and 10:30 a.m. If you’re look­ing for an excit­ing and uplift­ing wor­ship expe­ri­ence that doesnt make you feel like an out­sider, this is the place!

–Dustin B.