technology sprinting, so many keeping stride! i see them from a distance as i slowly cut and paste at my worktable. i text from my manual typewriter and tweet in the garden; i use email, often at pace with the post; i like scanners and digital snapshots and Photoshop because the computer can be scissors with command z superpowers and it can be superglue too. all that and so much more as images come full circle, back to the worktable as printouts ready to meet virtually every sort of tactile material.
these are just tools. hi-tech/lo-tech, what really counts is what comes from our deepest creative sources. i ask my students to think and explore as they undertake the assignments that i myself would want to do, regardless their chosen implement or media. start with ideas and questions...then probe even more.
my professional and personal worlds are wholly interwoven, fine artist sensibilities mixed with the illustrator's drive to translate. i spend my days working and playing, taking only those commissions that i find appealing and only make objects/images that i wish to make. you can see some of those things at melissaferreira.com along with other glimpses into who i am and what i do.
In this course, we examine gender -- not your biologically assigned equipment, but those social constructs that shape and define what is male, what is female and what is that less absolute space between and beyond. Weekly assignments often begin by reviewing the traditional role of women and men in American culture but through a contemporary lens, examining the astoundingly colorful range of gender and sex identities that cannot be limited to simply pink and blue. We'll turn stereotypes inside out, flip popular icons upside down, and rework familiar images from hallowed museums. We'll search for fresh depictions of abstract concepts like conception, contraception, relationships, power, etc. This course offers equal opportunity for XX's, XY's and those outside the binary. This course fulfills the Illustration Concepts Elective requirement for Illustration majors.
An all encompassing visual autobiography won't happen in five weeks but Wintersession does give us the exceptional opportunity to embrace the spirit of memoir, here brought to life as illustrations. Your personal stories undoubtedly touch on universal themes : childhood, coming of age, cultural identity, navigating the unfamiliar, overcoming obstacles, among countless others. We'll use journals to recollect the past and examine the present as part of the creative process - transforming raw material into reworked sketches that ultimately become polished illustrations with you at their center.
