Erin Hulburt
Arts Scholar
Pentathalon Semester 1
Visual Art: Art Project
I stepped back from doing schoolwork to pull out my sketchbook and experiment with a brush-tipped ink pen. This type of pen is sensitive and requires you to think about the movement and position of your hand as you draw. At the same time, however, once you understand how it works the ink practically flows out of the pen and you can effortlessly create brushstrokes on the page.
The actual piece was quite relaxing to make, despite its appearance. It is based off of the description of a monster in a podcast I had heard recently. I wanted to focus on positive and negative space, and how to create shadows and textures with only two values. Thinking about objects in this very 'flat' manor helped me highlight the core concepts that I needed to illustrate in order to get the idea of the drawing across to the viewer, which is an essential skill for almost all artists.
Film: COLZA
For Pentathlon Two, I watched the animated short film Colza, a part of the Gobelins 2020 graduation film festival. It is set in a mountainous ocean-side farming town that grows and harvests mustard flowers. The residents of the village are all varying species of lizards, who life a rather pastoral life.
Plot Summary: (or watch the film above!)
A big motif in the film is music: music is a main aspect of social life in the village, and the technology of this world is also sound based. Instead of having a loud exhaust pipe and bellowing smoke, the vehicles emit music, usually though some type of trumpet or other brass instrument. The main character, Clarence, farms mustard flowers by hand with the help of his single person aircraft to get around the fields and hills. Other villagers used to fly these aircrafts too, but with the introduction of tractors, which harvest automatically and at a much higher pace, they had abandoned their aircrafts in favor of the much more efficient machines. Clarence ends up losing his aircraft, as the mechanics need the parts to create even more tractors. Distressed, he asks his friend Anton, a songwriter, to create a distraction so he can take the plane and fly away. Anton orchestrates an entire concert, free for the villagers to watch in the main plaza. During the fanfare, Clarence sneaks into the workshop to retrieve his plane, and after some difficulties, the film ends on Clarence flying his plane off over the ocean into the night.
I think the world building in this film is wonderful; it is amazing to see how much information you can fit in 5 minutes just by visuals and character dialogue. It reminds me of a word of advice I always keep in mind when writing, “show, don’t tell”. Artists should always focus on letting the viewers make conclusions for themselves, rather than bombarding them with information and explanations. There is a bit of irony in that statement when I apply it to my own major—in architecture you must assume the viewer knows nothing and write down every bit of information, otherwise the building will not be built correctly, or the client will find something they do not like after plans have been finalized, or worst of all, the building could fail.
Presentation
Eddie Lenihan is a modern-day storyteller from Ireland. He creates and uploads a podcast called Tell Me A Story with Eddie Lenihan, where he talks about Irish folklore and common stories and their variations. Some of his earlier episodes talk about the origins of Halloween, which I would highly recommend since the 31st is coming up quickly.
For this Pentathlon, I specifically looked at Episode 6: The Art of Collecting, where Eddie takes a step back and talks about his experiences talking to people for a living. He comments on the dying art of true storytelling, of its importance, and of the variety of reactions he receives from people in regard to his work. One thing he notes which stuck out to me is how people react to the stories of those who have since passed, specifically their family. Generally, he only takes audio recordings of his conversations with people, especially older people, since they tend to be uncomfortable while on camera. When he encounters family of someone he has recorded, he generally asks if they would like a copy of the conversation. Some people take this offer very eagerly, as a lot of times the voice tends to be the first thing to be forgotten to time. However, other people have the complete opposite reaction, instead treating the recording and nearly any mention of the deceased person themself as taboo.
This episode highlights the overlap between art and history, and how we remember people and events. It is highly relevant to my current plan for my Capstone project—a memorial to those lost to Covid-19. Eddie’s work is more than just an archive of information; he really talks to people and learns about who they are as a person. There are countless stories attached to every historical fact or benchmark, and being able to collect these stories is an art in itself. For my Capstone, I want to focus in on the phrase, “more than just a number”; every single person in the ever-climbing death count had a story, personality, and connections. It would not be right for their only lasting memory to be part of a number in a future history book.
Visual Art: Art Project
For Pentathlon Five, I did another art project because time is no longer real. I specifically wanted to gain some experience and practice with this project, so I chose a “warm up” exercise that focuses on basic skills. Something that is very common among environmental and conceptual artists are compositional thumbnail sketches; professionals will likely draw upwards of fifty of these before starting a finalized design. The main rule with this exercise is that they must not include color as they are purely meant for deciding on the composition of the final piece.
For my sketches, I chose to use only five different tonal values, and I tried to not spend too much time on one drawing as they are not meant to be final products. For some, I started to include small details like texture to help show how the light would affect this particular environment. I wanted to be able to convey the basic idea of a conceptual space with as little detail as possible.
Literature: Chill with a Quill Arthouse
For the final pentathlon, I attended a writing Arthouse event. We were given a few sample poems as inspiration and then told to do a free write of whatever came to mind for about ten minutes. Writing is a bit of a new art form for me, though in the spirit of trying out new ways to express yourself, I decided to try it out. The attached picture is the proof that I attended the event.
Insomnia:
The street is empty most nights. Occasionally a group will pass after the sun has long set, reeking of alcohol and sweat as they dance under the streetlights like tomorrow never mattered in the first place. After them will be the stragglers and all-nighters, crawling home alone from the library in silence as they try to estimate how much sleep they can get if they skip their first class. Sometimes it’s both.
There’s a room in the dorm across the street whose light goes out at twelve AM sharp every night. Above them is a room who’s only ever lit by slow pulsing light of twenty feet of LED lights that gently fades from blue to green to pink like a beacon in the dark. On the other side of the dorm is a room whose light never goes out—I always wonder if they’re up right now too. Maybe they don’t want to sleep either. Can they see me? Sitting on the sill in the dark, lit only by the light cast from my phone? Or maybe there’s just no one there. Maybe it’s empty.
I do hope they go to bed soon.
There’s the neighbor next door who always seems to be up no matter what time I come home; we chat idly by the bathroom sink as we brush our teeth and comb our hair. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to her while the sun is still up. There’s the night shift worker at the convenience store who knows my favorite snacks by heart now, there’s the heartbroken boy I’ve only ever seen roaming the halls at some ungodly hour of night, there’s the guy I didn’t even know who lived here camped out on the couch. Do you ever notice how the people you meet at night are different than the people you meet in the day? What is it about the study lounge at one AM that makes you talk about life and relationship advice with your fellow stranger? What is it about the kitchen at two AM that makes you talk about your frustrations while you both watch a bag of popcorn spin round and round in the microwave? What do you call that feeling you get at three AM when you meet eyes with some poor, sleep deprived kid and all you can think is “Dude, why the hell are you still up”?