Month: October 2024

Title of Event: Samek Museum

Date and time of event: October 10 1pm

Location of Event: ELC

Type of Event: Walkthrough

I did a self guided walkthrough of the Samek Museum and checked out their Slow Looking exhibit. I like the way specific artwork was grouped together throughout the museum. I especially liked the little historic note cards and documents.

Title of Event: Classics Club Event Luck with Kim Breyfogle

Date and time of event: 12pm on Tuesday October 8th

Location of Event: ELC Arches Lounge

Type of Event: Presentation/Discussion

1.) Provide a brief detail-oriented technical description or summary of the event you attended. (This section should remain journalistic and should not be reflective of your opinion.)

• The event I attended was a casual lunch and discussion with graduate student Kim Breyfogle, who is currently working towards getting her masters and PhD in archaeology. She is working in a nautical archaeological conservation program and told us about her love for the natural sciences, art, and history. She also discussed her experience in her educational background as well as how she got into the field she is in now. 

2.) Use the section below to write a well-structured paragraph focusing on your personal critical insight / response to the event. How did you interpret or react to what was presented to you?

• I found it very interesting and intriguing that she combined both the fields of chemistry, along with other natural science, as well as history and art history. Although her work was more artifact based, I still believe it has connections to the overall art world, especially since she is working with large 3D forms. She also has to worry about how her work affects the museum or exhibit she is working with. I thought it was very interesting that she and her team had to be concerned about audience appeal because it wasn’t something that I had previously considered when looking at different restoration projects. 

3.) What information, ideas, images, etc. most impressed you and why?

• Ms Breyfogle did not have a solid or thought out plan of what she wanted to do in her field, all she knew was she wanted to pursue a career in artifact conservation but she ended up working in several very esteemed archaeological programs. Also her physical work on different projects was fascinating. She showed different conservation techniques on a WWII aircraft, as well as a gunner ship from London, and a cannon from the Alamo. It was really fascinating to see her work progress and the experiments she used in repairing and restoring such objects. 

4.) Overall, how would you rate this event (10 being the most worthwhile)?

(10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1 )

• 10

5.) Justify your rating in the question above:

• I gained a lot of experience and confidence in my ability to plan out my future in art conservation and was validated in my approach to how I want to go about my graduate studies. It also helps reassure me that I could take many different approaches and still end up where I want to be. 

Title of Event: Samek Art Museum Visit

Date & Time of Event: October 10th, 12 pm

Location of Event: Samek Museum, on campus location (ELC, 3rd Floor)

Type of event: Self guided Tour/casual visit

I went to the on campus Samek Museum to check out their Slow Looking exhibit. I really enjoyed it as well as the museum guide they provide. It makes the exhibit like a little scavenger hunt to find each painting, which I found both really fun and an interesting inversion of stereotypical museum setups.

Gracyn Finn

Holmes Hall- October 9, 2024, 5:00PM

Maggie Cardelús

I went to an artist’s talk by Maggie Cardelús where she talked about the work she does like needlepoint, leatherwork, and paper folding in varying scales. Early on in her presentation, she spoke about how the titles of her photos are always changing and how she has no end goal for art, and that she continues to change and develop her art. My favorite pieces that she showed us were the pieces that were made of paper that were cut and reformed, and you could barely even tell what the original photo was of. I loved the picture of her son looking at the birds and then she cut out little bird outlines, it was so simple but such a great meaning behind it. I enjoyed when she was talking about when she collected the needlepoint work and how each one had its own unique characteristics. I love how all of her art is so different with its processes, it would be so amazing to go to one of her shows because of how diverse her pieces are.

Title of Event: Maggie Cardelús Artist Lecture

Date & Time of Event: October 9, 2024 at 5pm

Location of Event: Holmes Hall Auditorium 

Type of event: Artist lecture

For my second ArtXpose I went to see artist Maggie Cardelús talk about all of her artwork. The talk was very intriguing and mentioned her many different stages as an artist she went through. She talked a lot about how her children play a large role in her artwork and how she has traveled to many different places to find inspiration for her projects. I found this talk very interesting and knowledgable about sculpting.

Title of Event: Maggie Cardelús Artist Lecture
Date & Time of Event: Wednesday October 9th 5 pm
Location of Event: Holmes Hall Hislop Family Auditorium  116 
Type of event: Artist lecture with Q&A and reception

Maggie Cardelús’s work is very impressive in her range of capabilities and commitment to it. She has incredibly detailed yet experimental work, my favorite works of hers that she showed were the carbon paper landscapes.

Title of Event: Slow Looking
Date & Time of Event: Wednesday October 9th 2pm
Location of Event: Samek Art Gallery
Type of event: Exhibition

I really liked the concept for this exhibit. It is meant to replicate the way in which the art was set up in the small apartment of the owner of the art. He grouped together specific pieces with each other. This adds a layer to the experience and understanding of the art pieces and is kind of like its own form of art. I really enjoyed the variety of the types of materials used in the art. My favorite piece was the drawing to the left of me. This was an interesting visual showing architecture and detailed drawing.

Title of Event: Slow Looking
Date & Time of Event: Friday October 4rd 1pm
Location of Event: Samek Art Gallery
Type of event: Exhibition

I really enjoyed the Slow Looking exhibit at the gallery. I found two art pieces really interesting, which are pictured above. I thought the drawing of the city was really impressive because it was so detailed and at such a small scale. The technique used no color, but you could tell the dimensions and shadows of the scene perfectly. I also found the drawing of the face really interesting because I think that it is a good example on how to show the shape and dimensions of a face, which is useful for our bust project. The exhibit had a very good message of using this alum’s collection to allow people to practice “slow-looking” in a world in which we consume so much media so quickly. I also liked that the exhibit was supposed to mimic the alum’s home and how he displayed his collection.

Title of Event: Slow-Looking Exhibition
Date & Time of Event: Friday, September 27th, 1:15 pm
Location of Event: Samek Art Gallery
Type of event: Exhibition

I really enjoyed visiting the new art exhibition at the Samek! The artwork displayed was donated by a Bucknell alumnus and centers around deep observation and careful looking – something that is very rare in today’s social media culture. I enjoyed the gallery wall-style curation in which multiple works of art took up a smaller space. It created a very interesting phenomenon where you never saw the same thing twice while looking. One of the pieces that didn’t initially catch my attention but after a glance or two really stuck out is the third picture I posted. The work itself is quite small but the deep maroon velvet mat helps bring attention to the piece without overpowering it.

Title of Event: Carlos Barberena – Artist-in-Residence
Date & Time of Event: Wednesday, October 2nd at 3pm
Location of Event: Hislop Family Auditorium
Type of event: Artist lecture and reception

This was such a powerful talk! I really enjoyed learning about the ways that Barberena used his art to connect with and advocate for his communities. The raw and vulnerable themes discussed in the presentation were quite moving – the two pictures I posted were specifically interesting to me. The first is a print of a 15-year-old boy killed by police during a peaceful protest and the second image is his mother holding the poster. I look forward to learning more from this artist through his residency at Bucknell!

Title of Event: Carlos Barberana: Artist’s Talk

Date and time of event: October 2, 2024 at 3 pm

Location of event: Holmes Hall Hislop Family Auditorium  116 

Type of event: Artist lecture with Q&A

1.) Provide a brief detail-oriented technical description or summary of the event you attended.

Carlos Barberana, who is from Chicago and born in Nicaragua, was invited to Bucknell through the Ekard Artist-in-Residence program and gave a lecture about his art. He is a self taught printmaker, and he draws on his history from Nicaragua to create art advocating for social, political, and environmental justice. He spoke of his experiences growing up and throughout his career. 

2.) Use the section below to write a well-structured paragraph focusing on your personal critical insight / response to the event. How did you interpret or react to what was presented to you?

Barberana’s work is really impressive. The phrases he chooses to use in the print are very impactful to me alongside the backstory of each individual. Every subject he chose to depict had an impactful backstory that portrays a crucial perspective in the fight for social justice. I really appreciated the cultural context that Barberana provided for each of his works, as they make the pieces much more impactful and poetic. Many of the events he described were distressing to hear about yet important to share. Barberana’s pieces can serve to memorialize a tragedy and preserve the consequence of the brutality and violence that caused the victim’s death.

3.) What information, ideas, images, etc. most impressed you and why?

What impressed me a lot in his works were the patterns he would use for the backgrounds and clothing of the portraits, which seemed to be designed to depict the subject’s culture and background.  I really appreciated his comment on the ephemeralness of his publicly displayed prints, and how he expects it to be taken down but he connects that reality to the experience of migrant workers. It shows me his thoroughness and intention in his creation process. I admire how unifying his overall work is, how he takes his own experiences and troubles from growing up, and relates them to the experiences of other marginalized groups, then he decisively supports and advocates for those groups as well. It feels very selfless of him to see and empathize with other people’s struggles throughout the world, his goal to fight oppression throughout the world is impressive and ambitious.

4.) Overall, how would you rate this event (10 being the most worthwhile)?

I would rate this event an 8.5 out of 10. 

5.) Justify your rating in the question above:

Barberana shared a lot of cultural background and struggles I was not aware of, and also tied it to many I was already familiar with. I think it is really important to not ignore these struggles. By showing his artwork in chronological order I could also see the evolution of his works and the impact it had. His talk seemed very impactful to the audience, as there were multiple questions from students at the end. Although his talk was long, his stories and inspiration for his art was never dull. The food afterwards also allowed the audience to interact with each other and discuss how they felt about the lecture, which I find to be an important part of the experience.