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: 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.
When I was about 14, I prepared a performance piece for a mid-season piano recital, Solfeggietto by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. This was a casual recital, no crazy intricate performances that showcased the best of our abilities, but rather an update to what we’ve been practicing. During practice, I recall being satisfied with the speed and volume of my piece, and prepared to perform on stage with it. Except once I arrived at the music center, my piano teacher guiltily informed my mom and I that, of the small group of players who had said they could attend, I was the only one who was actually able to show up. But he was determined to make the performance happen, so he ushered in the random woman who was in the waiting room, and I performed the song, which was maybe 2 minutes long, to three people. The setup was strange, I was facing them rather than being set at an angle, playing on an electric weighted keyboard. But I had practiced, recorded myself, and played at various speeds, so everything should’ve been fine. But it wasn’t, because I fumbled the performance enough for it to be obvious to my very small audience, and I probably threw any attempt at dynamics out the window. The entire event was probably done within 10 minutes, but I was embarrassed and disappointed with myself. It is a constant reminder of how a perfect practice will not always be replicated on stage. I was probably nervous from the strange performance I was having, but I still don’t enjoy participating in artistic performances.
Adjectives: perfect, fine
Verbs: perform, practice, fumbled, replicate,
Emotions: embarrassed, disappointed, nervous
Central Terms: piano, Bach, speed, only one