Lauren Cross' Art Blog was selected as one of the 100 great blogs for art students and enthusiats!

Hello All,

I'm excited to report that my blog was selected by onlinecollege.org as one of the "100 Great Blogs for Art Students and Enthusiats!" Check it out!
http://www.onlinecollege.org/2010/01/20/100-great-blogs-for-art-students-enthusiasts/

This is great news! Thanks to everyone who has been tuning in!

Best,

Lauren

The Intersexions show de-installed :(

I know this is alittle after the fact, but I just wanted to show some pics of the Intersexions show I was recently apart of at Stonehill College. The show just de-installed this past weekend, but it was such a great show. There was an amazing turn out, and I was so thrilled to be in the presence of such great artists. They also did a great job on the catalog, which was very professional.

I was also encouraged that my work had such a great response in the show, and I was moved by the number of viewers that could identify with the works. Perhaps not from the context of the work     but the work itself spoke to them in some way.

There was an amazing artist panel on November 20th, where I joined with four other artists in the show( Steve Locke, Caleb Cole, James Montford, and Michele L'Heureux) to talk about our work.

The panel was very energized, and brought forth so many strong questions. There were times where I could literally feel the tension in the room. I think race and identity is unmistakably one of the most difficult things to talk about in such a large setting, because so many people have such different views and feelings about it. Obviously, from one's perspective that has a history of pain due to racism the feelings are much more emotional. I thought it was powerful to get the three perspectives of race from myself, Steve Locke, and James Montford, as we all had different individual experiences that crossed generationally but also gender and geographical origins. I was also taken by Caleb and Michele's talk as well, because the way that they discussed their work truly opens a door into the process and what the artist feels the viewer will see into the work. It was an amazing opportunity to meet all of them, some I've only known about but never met in- person.

The overall response from the exhibit was phenomenal.  It was curated by the Exhibitions and Colletions class at Stonehill College, and I have to admit that they did an exceptional job with putting together the show as did Candice Smith Corby(Gallery Director and Arts Coordinator for Stonehill) and Carole Calo, who were the instructors for the class. The show was very smart and a quite unusual topic for a student-curated show but I was glad that they chose to be somewhat controversial when most tend to stay safe. There were several notable members of the Boston arts community who saw the show and felt strongly that the show should be a traveling exhibition. I personally would love to have the opportunity to show with these artists again, as their work in relation to my own opens up so many questions about the context of race, identity, and gender in our society.

Skin Quilt Project Teaser!!

Hey everyone,

Good things happening all over, thesis writing and mega work! Check out the link below for the teaser for The Skin Quilt Project!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcwRmx0eyW0

New Mentor, New Ideas

A couple of weeks ago I spoke with my mentor Renee Cox about where I could see my work going, as well as what I wanted to communicate through my work. It was a great meeting because she suggested some great alternatives for me that I was already considering. Printing on fabric. A previous mentor, Ceci Mendez had suggested a similar thing almost a year ago and it's definitely been in my mind to do. I think I've procrastinated the idea for a number of reasons: 1) I was afraid it would be costly 2) I didn't want to waste money and it went all wrong. But I think one thing I 'm learning is its good to explore things new avenues in your work because you never know where it will lead you. Another reflection I thought of from my meeting with Renee was scale. I think it's something I've been wanting to play with for a long time. I personally love work that has scale to it so why haven't I been blowing up my work? Well, I definitely didn't want to be blowing up work for no reason at all, but I really can understand and comprehend the reasons why. Scale helps the work to somehow speak louder in a way that small intimate images just don't. I've always felt that way looking at art,  know it's my time to pick up the pace.

Another discovery. Display. Not that this is a foreign thing for me as well, but I find that the better the presentation the better the art. As I've begun the process of working on the brown paper bags, the hardest thing for me to conceive was presentation. I was explaining to Renee my personal connection to the African American quilting tradition and all of sudden it seemed like a major light bulb came on. Why not either quilt the bags?(Only if they were dramatic enough in scale) or take images of the drawings on the bags, print them on fabric, and quilt them? Sounds like a good idea to me! The irony is that since I started The Skin Quilt Project I've been doing more stitching and sewing of fabrics. We'll see how that goes but it's definitely a way to re-look at the issues I've been working in, and tie it all together. Stay tuned for more fun in this process!

September 25th at South Shore Art Center!!!

Hey all, I'm excited to report that on September 25th, 6-8 p.m. I will be attending the opening reception at the South Shore Art Center for their Color Matters show( September 18–November 1) that was juried by Associate Curator of the ICA Boston, Jen Mergel.

Yours truly was one of the artists selected to present a piece( Shades of me, left) in the show, which was a tremendous honor. This will be one of the first juried exhibitions I've been a part of so I feel like this is the start of something new. It's hard to get plugged into the Boston scene so I feel very blessed and know it's only the grace of God!

On another note, The Skin Quilt Project is going great! I had my first trip to Houston a few weekends ago and it was a remarkable experience. It's truly a blessing to be able to meet and talk to so many people to hear their own experiences and see how we're really all connected. I've been editing and capturing footage ever since I got home and it's been amazing to look back after the interviews and see what was said. When you're filming your only able to really hear some things because you're also focusing on the vision of everything. I've also been able to recruit some outstanding scholars and quilters for the project as well so I feel very humbled to be able to speak with them all. Keep a look out on The Skin Quilt Project site as I'll be posting some footage their as well as commentary about the participants etc.

In other things, I'm looking doing a bit of quilting myself or at least looking at the quilting technique as a theme for my MFA thesis. I'll show the progress!!!

Researching Black Super Models

I read in the Times yesterday and found that Naomi Sims, a black supermodel,(Not to be confused with Naomi Campbell!) notably recognized for breaking the chains off of the American modeling circuit recently died from cancer. I think there is something very profound about her story, as before her most of the black models were lighter-skinned. One very disturbing part of her journey as a model is that she was rejected often early in her career because she was "darker-skinned" and that her "look" would be rejected by readers. I find this interesting, because it seems the ideas of beauty for black women have been originated by the European idea of beauty. I started to research the stories of major black super models such as Naomi Campbell, who graced the cover of the Vogue Paris due to an advertiser refusing to advertise if she wasn't chosen.

Now looking at some of the newer generation of models it is interesting to see that how certain shades of black women become prominent at different points in our history. To my knowledge Naomi Sims came on during the "Black is beautiful" movement, and now looking at some of the current models such as Chanel Iman and Selita Ebanks are fairly lighter. There is a very caramel look happening now that seems to act as a happy medium between light and dark. Again, fashion and trends are changing all the time, where old ideas are recycled and reused in different ways.It seems that ideas on black beauty are too.

New Projects, New Projects, New Projects!!!!!

So this is going to be a mega busy semester with many things to see and do. First, I would like to introduce everyone to a new online site that I've launched called, CVAAD Projects (www.cvaad.com) that features contemporary visual art and artists of the African Diaspora. I would blame AIB for pushing so much research in the program, that it actually made me like it! But it's something I'm really passionate about as I really would like to see a greater presence of black artists in galleries, magazines, anthologies etc. The word really needs to get out there. So CVAAD Projects will act as a catalyst and producer for that type of movement. Also, I've finally given in to the "film bug," those of you who know me know that I've done short films in the past, but many of you may perhaps be unfamiliar. After all of the abuse I've experienced at AIB,lol, I was encouraged to have more video and a more tangible look at the issue of colorism. It's taken me awhile to get this all together but I've launched a documentary project that I'm working on, called The Skin Quilt Project. This documentary is largely about the presence of colorism within the African American community, but also the paradox of the things we do to connect to our cultural heritage. It's going to be a challenge to tie these two concepts together, but I'm really passionate about it. Obviously quilting in the African American community has a dialogue of it's own, but one of the things I was facinated about was it's relevance in African American art. So I'm using quilting as a way to enter into this discussion about colorism. They are two opposite outlooks on African American culture, quilting being the pride and joy, and colorism being the shame and guilt. But I'm interested in meeting with quilters of African descent to discuss the complexity of these two emotions: 1) the joy of quilting as a sense of cultural pride 2) the disappointment of ones cultural view on skin complexion. How can pride and insecurity exist in the same framework? This is what The Skin Quilt Project aims to explore. This will be a controversial move, but I feel it's necessary to really get the point across. I'm so excited that I've already begun to recruit interviewees for the project. Check out the website/blog for the project at: www.skinquiltproject.com.