Tim Silver is a multidisciplinary artist from Australia who works with sculpture, photography, and installation pieces in order to explore the nature of time both conceptually and materially and how time interfaces with decay particularly in the human body. He has had his works exhibited in dozens of exhibitions starting in 2008, such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Adelaide Art Faller of South Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, and more. His sculptures are often made from unstable and unpredictable materials, such as water color pigment, ash, and sawdust which allow the works to continually transform through decay or a change in patina which acts as visual reminder of the impermanence of life. He also photographs states of decay and change as a way of examining the inevitability of death. I think his sculptures of broken busts to be very interesting in how they capture a sense of decay and silent destruction in an interesting visual, but not quite traditional way. I like how these busts are created to be destroyed, often just because of how they were made which is an interesting aspect to his process. I like his ideas of an almost silent decay and that imagery or way of making art that is built to be partially destroyed due its process of being made could be something interesting to explore. 

I covered the entire structure in foam clay, unfortunately at the moment not a single image will upload. 

IThe first talk that I watched was with Andras Bality, who was a painter influenced by post-impressionists and how a figure might move within a landscape. I was interested in how he started outdoors and did smaller paintings and then if he liked these the paintings were moved to the studio and finished or made into a larger painting. I also was interested in how he he has been able to crop the landscape and edit what he paints when he is doing his small paintings and drawings outdoors which was interesting. My main takeaway was how he was able to refine what he painted in that some drawings would become pantings and then some of those would become larger paintings. I was surprised in the way he was able to edit landscapes while he was viewing them as he was still and observational painter so it's interesting to be able to remove elements from the painting even though its observational. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y31gz7K5BMk&list=PL84pGEk0cvDmBm9yQQ-P0TPsuONbSRi1X&index=21

I also watched the talk with Amy Black, who was a tattoo artist who has also founded a nonprofit for people to cover up mastectomy scars with tattoos, which I found to be very interesting. I was interested in how she was influence by a lot of master painters and sculptors during art schools and had studied a lot of anatomy. Her charity, the Pink Ink Fund, gives out small grants to people who have had mastectomies and can help give nipple or decorative tattoos to those with financial need and to educate the public as well. Her final piece of advice really stuck with me of just keep your head down and work and to just not give up. 
​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saMm2wK0bZM&list=PL84pGEk0cvDmBm9yQQ-P0TPsuONbSRi1X&index=22

I started to create a full body piece, planned it out digitally and then used wire to create its cage base for the structure (though the pictures are not uploading properly)

This was my first time making a comic, so the process was figured out as I went along. I started out doing some basic thumbnail sketches to create a sequence then worked on character design for the two characters, before revising the thumbnails to make the sequence as I was not writing a script and just making a silent comic. I then drew over the panels of the thumbnails for each page before creating new boxes and inking the comic. Then I added worked on coloring, sticking to a set pallet to maintain consistency and simplicity before cell shading the comic and then added some additional gradient shading. 

Jess Riva Cooper is a contemporary artist based in Toronto, who brings together color, drawing, and clay to create sculptures and installations. She received a MFA in Ceramic Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design and exhibits her pieces in various galleries in both North America and Europe. She currently teaches at Sheridan College in the Bachelor of Craft and Design Program in Oakville. She studies myths of the Dybbuk in Yiddish folklore and likes to reinterpret these stories through the female lens as well as how the environment takes over abandoned cities, so she depicts how both of these situations have an entity consume its host. Her sculptures have sprout plants and colors coming out of the form and creeping over the structures. I find her work to be really interesting, especially in the way that she combines painting and sculpture to create a beautiful form with haunting elements. I personally and very interested in this art, as I and working with a similar idea of being consumed by something inside one's self and use similar motifs of nature consuming one.

This Lunchtime Lecture was given by Lilly May, a former MLWGS student who is currently an illustrator and attended the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and works under the name Grendel Menz online. Lilly majored in illustration and minored in environmental sustainability and now works as a freelance illustrator whose work primarily features romance, found family, and horror elements and has made several small comics and is an artist working on a sequential short story for the Shades of Fear Anthology. I was interested in the work schedule of a freelance illustrator as everything depended on the client setting deadlines as well as the process as a whole of creating these comics, which started with visual development to brainstorm, then script writing, then thumbnails and color keys, inking, coloring, and mentioned the importance of keeping a routine. This was something that really interested me as I have started experimenting with comics lately and enjoyed listening to someone with more experience speak about the subject. I was also interested in how Lilly talked about managing commissions and work, giving advice to create a separate email for commissions in order to separate it from one that one uses to sign up for things as well as to be cautious of scams. Overall I thought this was a really interesting lecture to be able to hear from a former MLWGS student, especially one who does comic illustrations now that I've started to experiment with those. 

I spent my first two work days planning mainly, trying to create a pattern at first, taking measurements, and then cutting the first piece. The next few days (3-5) were spent creating additional pattern pieces, constantly re-adjusting and re-pinning the pieces. There was a lot of trial and error during these steps and I didn't make as much progress during the school work days, so while I was able to get the shape together, I ended up having to do the glueing at home. After I glued the pieces together at home, I also cut into the piece (after mapping it would with pen) and then added the foam clay pieces. It was tedious but I liked the look of the foam clay flowers a lot. Then during the final workday in class I did the base gray coat for the outside and painted the inside of the helmet. This meant I ended up finishing the detailing for at home completely. 

I interviewed Michael-Birch Pierce, a textile artist working in Richmond. I learned a lot from this conversation, but I was particularly interested in their processes, such in how they limited their color pallet with the beading and thought of the beads as if they were creating a surface, like sculpting. I also learned how they got into the fine arts, at first they worked in the fashion industry before they became more interesting how how a surface of a garment looked and eventually started to do fine art instead, with pieces focused on beading and embroidery. I think that the most surprising thing I learned from them was about how the most difficult part of their process was selling their work, as they found the actual process of creating or planning a work was easy for them, but selling work was much more difficult and they gave some advice for this part of the process, which I thought was interesting. I really enjoying being able to interview them, and was interested in how they came across their identity as  nonbinary through their artwork, which I found exciting as I had a similar experience. It was also very interesting to talk to someone who was very excited about their work and was able to talk a lot about their thinking during their process. 
Link to the interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkYQOhCtQFE&list=PL84pGEk0cvDmBm9yQQ-P0TPsuONbSRi1X&index=4