Been Too Long...

Much has happened in the past three weeks: the Phillies made it to the Series, but choked under the pressure of those damn Yankees! I produced a commercial (with classmates from '05) for entry in the Doritos "Crash the Superbowl" contest. Besides school, these two "on going" events took up the remaining time I had, hence no blog writing. I'll do better..

This week we returned to looking at newsprint, but in a whole new light. After re-learning the "anatomy" of the newspaper, we explored the work of artist Nancy Chunn and the media art sensation she created in the mid-90's with her work entitled "Frontpages". Ms. Chunn created imagery (using stencils and colored pastels) of political commentary on the front pages of The New York Times for an entire year. View this video of a recent tour she gave of her exhibition.

I experimented with the technique of drawing directly on newspaper at the beginning of the school year. I created a Chunn-esque collage of playful images and semi-biting commentary on the front page news stories featured of the September 12, 2009 Times. [Picture to be provided soon.]

The students and I explored the possibilities of applying Chunn's concepts and techniques to a more local rag--The Hun School's own: The Mall. Limited to Sharpie markers and high school newspaper content, the media arts students' work ranged from quick and cursive graffiti to more planned and detailed sketches. Two paths to choose were taken by each student: 1. create an image/design that represents the specific article or 2. change it up (photos/text) to create a whole new meaning.

The spirit of Nancy Chunn's "Frontpages" exhibition lives on! Check out the students' work: