A rough cut of the

Josh Azzarella / Tiffany Calvert artist talk:

Azzarella / Calvert Lecture

I look forward to editing; I want to drop in still shots of the work over the audio.

In the meantime, link to their websites:

Josh Azzarella

Tiffany Calvert

Last week, Josh Azzarella, Tiffany Calvert and Ronna Lebo came to Starkville.

As visiting artists, they delivered artist talks, met with students, had dinner with MSU Art Department faculty, and hosted a gallery talk and reception.

They were tremendously generous with their time;

it was great having them here.

I did not have a chance to document Tiffany and Josh in the classroom,

but I did capture Ronna as she led a Design class

on shape and building abstract compositions:

At the reception, Brittany became very attached to her clicker,

as she constituted one-woman crowd control:

It was especially great to see students engage the work:

Many thanks to these artists for their commitment to art

in the studio and in the teaching community!

Selected works from the exhibition catalog:

A few of the works by the other artists in the show.
Belinda Blum, Julie Evanoff, Gabbe Grodin, and Carin Rodenborn:

On our second to last day, we visited Reykjavik.

Reykjavik!

(I can now spell it without looking it up.)

Icelandic Baby:

Icelandic Beagle:

 

Possible signs you are in Iceland in July:

Earmuffs.

Possible new look for me:

The Cathedral, Hallgrímskirkja:

The United States gifted this statue of Leif Ericksson to Iceland.

He faces the ocean to the west.

The inscription reads:

LEIFR
EIRICSSON
SON OF ICELAND
DISCOVERER OF
VINLAND
THE
UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA TO
THE PEOPLE
OF ICELAND
ON THE ONE
THOUSANDTH
ANNIVERSARY
OF THE ALTHING
A.D. 1930

 Far from the Cathedral,

Graffiti Central:

 

 

 

Here, some unhappy Icelanders:



 It is a protest.
What are they protesting?

I thought this woman might know,
but I saw Viking heritage in her features
and was afraid to approach her.



This guy made me uneasy, too.

This guy had to know what was going on:



He might be famous in Iceland,
but he was not yet famous to me
so I asked him what it was all about.

He said that Parliament had just given itself a raise with taxpayer money.
The protesters thought it only fair that Parliament also increase
state expenditures for the elderly and handicapped.

Yes, indeed.

A few more looks I'd like to try:

Olafur Eliasson.

In the US, we pronounce his name:

Olafur eh-LIE-asson

but, it is in fact:

Olafur EHliasson

We found his show, after much stumbling about (it was windy).

First, we went to the Museum of Art. We did not have enough time left in the day to justify the entry fee, but the museum bathroom was really cool:

Eventually, I left the museum bathroom.

The Eliasson show was small
and had several elements.

The vernacular architecture,
the sense of archive,
of portrait and of place,
of landscape and portrait as one
made sense after living in Iceland for the month.

There had been simultaneously a sense of solitude and community
in the people that we met.

The mobile and the mirrors echoed this feeling.

The mobile was a ship with many oars:

And the mirrors were both transparent and reflective.
I saw myself and looked through myself at the same time,
An individual and her surroundings made equal.

 A good way to end this post.