ZwackArt

2011-01-03T12:51:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends,
I hope you are enjoying a very good start to this new year! I am really excited to introduce my bran new blog and website— all rolled into one. Please follow me over to the completely redesigned ZwackArt site (now hosted by WordPress). It allows me to have a great format where you can browse around and see portfolios of different projects organized by category as well as catch up on the very latest.
Thanks for your interest. I look forward to hearing from you,
Annemarie Zwack

Making a Hearth and an Entry Mosaic

2010-09-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have been making and collecting tiles. And my Dad has been a collector of tiles too. Now, as the downstairs of our barn studio, rounds the corner into the final stretch of getting winterized, seems to be the time we have been saving our tiles for. Pulling out the boxes of ceramic treasure I quickly became mesmerized in laying them out in wild geometric jazz rhythms. Rusty, my husband, measured out the spaces so that they matched the hearth and a designated entry space where visitors can kick off wet boots and shoes.
I'll keep you posted as I set and grout them and show you how it turns out.

Finished Work at Elmira Alternatives High School

2010-08-21T17:57:00.000-07:00

Just getting back into updating here and I wanted to post images of the finished paintings done by students at Elmira Alternatives High School who were working on the Freedom Writers project with their teacher Christine Welch. (There's one more of Ricardo's work that I need to reload. Stay tuned 'cus it's really good.)

Story Telling Mosaic in Binghamton, NY

2010-07-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

Ms. Culligan's second graders finished up the year with some very cool artistic achievements under their belts. As you may remember they were working with story teller Regi Carpenter on creating a story of their own and telling it in a dynamic way. The story they made up was about how the skunk got it's stripe. They developed a cast of animal and insect characters and a plot that unfolds in and near a neighborhood grocery store. Students also made visual representations of the story with clay tiles. They glazed the tiles and their art teacher, Athena Negros, fired them, had the outdoor wall prepared, and purchased all the necessary supplies for installation of a outdoor mosaic. On June 2nd the whole school and many parents gathered to enjoy the story of "How the Skunk Got it's Stripe" in the school auditorium. Students used small props of their own making and choreographed movements as well as words to tell the story. Afterward there was a party! That week and the next Ms. Negros, Ms. Culligan, and Jill Browne, the Challenge Enrichment Specialist, who had been instrumental in the entire project, and I set the tiles and grouted them on a brick wall next to one entrance to the school. It came out beautifully! Ms. Browne plans to have a booklet installed just inside the school that contains the story the students made so that anyone can reference it. There is also the intention that this will be an ongoing project and that mosaics will continue to make their way around the beautiful building that is Ben Franklin Elementary School.

Watershed Wall

2010-06-12T05:59:00.000-07:00

I am so happy to show you the Watershed Wall completed
Many months of planning and many hours of work by many, many people went into making this dream a reality. Finally on June 4th, the Friday afternoon of Ithaca Festival, just as planned, we had a ribbon cutting ceremony and the work was unveiled.
Here is Jennifer Engle, one of my all time favorite Ithacans, with "the ribbon".
Jennifer is a member of the Fine Arts Booster Group and Ithaca Public Education Initiative that helped sponsor this project.

Here is mayor Carolyn Peterson cutting the ribbon.

There was a really nice crowd gathered to see the work and celebrate.

Some people could identify marks they made or elements they helped with.

Here are some of the district art teachers who were instrumental in planning the project and helping their students make the tiles. Ten different schools were involved in making tiles, and 2 other schools worked on supporting research about the creaks and the lake!

Here's how I was feeling after the ceremony:

Haiku Books: Literacy is Beautiful at Van Etten Elementary School

2010-06-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

Congratulations Van Etten third graders!
From paper making with recycled paper scraps, to learning book making techniques, to learning about Haiku with poet Alice Mishka and writing their own poetry, students at Van Etten Elementary school have acquired all the skills to make beautiful hand made books. And that's just what they did last week! Four classes of third graders glued their haiku poems, that they had typed out on a variety of colored papers, in a font of their choice, onto the watercolor paintings that they had made to accompany their words. I guided them in folding an accordion style book and they then attached the hand made paper book covers that they had made a couple months back. There will be a celebration of their work next week at school where parents and community members will be invited to see the results of this year long project that has tied together a school wide recycling effort with the creativity of visual art and the descriptive beauty of words.
Many thanks to art teacher, Deb Youngling, who helped coordinate this cross disciplinary learning, all of the third grade classroom teachers, principal, Missy Jewell, who has been extremely supportive of using the arts to express core curriculum, and to Art House and the Corning Elmira Community Foundation for their financial support.

Freedom Writers of Elmira

2010-05-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

This week and last I have been working with Ms. Welch's English class at the Alternative High School in Elmira, NY. They have been studying the Freedom Writer's Diary this year, learning about the Holocaust and writing poetry about it and about their own lives. Ms. Welch asked me to come in and help the students develop a visual element for this project. I suggested the idea of painting in acrylic on canvas. There may be an opportunity for students to read their poetry and the canvases could create a backdrop; a wall of imagery behind the speaker that relates to what they are talking about. The
work will also be separate and portable. There may be opportunities for showing their work in a gallery-type setting, or for bringing it to other schools to share their accomplishments.
Students already had the poem they wanted to work with chosen when I arrived and I led a drawing workshop where they sketched their ideas to scale. The next time, I helped as students transferred their sketches onto canvas in paint. Yesterday, I set the goal of covering the canvas in paint. Tomorrow, our last day together, I plan to help them with details and finishing up. Ms. Welch and Ms. Lake, who assists in the class, are leading by their example and both making paintings based on poetry they have written.
I have been so impresses by the students' work! I have really enjoyed this experience and would love to work with Ms. Welch and her students again. Thank you, Elmira Alternatives School!

2010-05-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the Community Built Association Conference in New Orleans, LA on Sunday night and am feeling SO inspired. About 13 years ago I attended my first CBA conference and this time I stepped up to volunteer for the board and was elected by the membership. CBA is just about to receive their not-for-profit status from the IRS and it feels like a pivotal time in our history. There were several hands-on activities that conference attendees could participate in. Most of them were at The Lower 9th Ward Village, a community center that was founded after huricane Katrina. There was a mosaic project (led by Laurel True), a mural project (led by Dave Lowenstein!) and a marimba making workshop (led by Bond Anderson). Mack McLendon, the founder of the Lower 9th Ward Village, wanted us to paint a mural with the theme "Where's your neighbor?" We made a map depicting all the places that displaced residents of New Orleans had gone after Katrina. (That's me working on it above.) Using multi-colored telephone wires connecting back to New Orleans we indicated people who had left and weren't returning, people who had left and wanted to return but hadn't been able to, people that had returned but couldn't move back into their homes, and people who are back in their homes.
McLendon emphasized that the message is larger than the community of New Orleans. He talked about how any natural disaster can separate people from their families and their communities. He talked about how loosing everything in the storm had made him realize what is really important in life. "It's about people."I couldn't agree more. And that is why I think working with communities is so important.
Just an update on the community made mosaic in Ithaca (sponsored in part by the Ithaca Public Education Initiative and the Fine Arts Booster Group): It is being installed the last week in May by the metal frame fabricators and the City of Ithaca, and will be ready by Ithaca Festival! YEA!!

2010-05-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

Volunteers have been coming out to help set the tiles and grout the panels and we have 11 of the 16 panels complete! We chose two colors of grout: one to unify the land and one for the water ways. Simon Wheeler of the Ithaca Journal came by last week and took some great pictures. And the weekend before a videographer for the Ithaca City School District came by and filmed many of the people who have been instrumental in making this project come together. Here's a link to the ICSD web page with that video.
Here's an image of what the black grout looks like that connects the "river rocks". Notice the masking tape on the tiles in the foreground? We masked off every single tile to make the grout clean up process easier! It really helped. These tiles are so textured, the taping was essential.

Assembly

2010-04-23T04:59:00.000-07:00

Here's one of the panels from the Ithaca public art mosaic that will be installed on the wall of the parking garage behind Mate Factor on the Commons, the alley now called "art alley" because of the collection of art that is building there. These are tiles made by students at Beverly J. Martin elementary, above the river of rocks, and by Cayuga Heights elementary students below the river. The river of rocks represents one of the water-ways leading into Cayuga Lake. It's really exciting to see the work of so many people coming together!
As we set the tiles on masonry boards and grout them, using the art room at Belle Sherman elementary as our studio, we would like to get even more hands involved and really open it up to the whole community to participate in making this piece of public art.

So here's the scoop: we are going to be asking for volunteer help this Saturday from 9-5, and Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, & Wednesday from 1-5. Since we are working in a school they have rules about who is allowed to be there and when. Adults are always welcome. High school and middle school students can help out Sat. from 9- noon, and any weekday.
Belle Sherman is at 501 Mitchell St. in Ithaca, not far from Cornell. You may want to bring rubber gloves like the kind you might wear while cleaning. But we will have disposable latex ones on hand too. Snacks will be provided! Please tell a friend! Let's really get the community out so that everyone who wants to can say "I helped make that mural!"

Next Step: Staining

2010-04-05T14:31:00.000-07:00

Back in Ithaca, the public art mosaic is moving right along. As tiles from all the different schools are fired, we have been staining them. Sometimes I go out to a school and stain their tiles on site. Other times older students have been staining the tiles they made and helping out to stain tiles made by the elementary school kids. All of the tiles are labeled on the back so that they can be re-assembled, the way they were made, after being bisque fired. Each group of tiles comes with a map that corresponds to the various labeling systems that the different art teachers came up with. It's fun to see how each person develops a unique system, and each system works. We are using mason stains in a limited palette of earth tones. We have a very dark brown which is almost black, a chocolaty brown, and a rusty red. We are sponging the stain on each tile, completely covering the top surface and all the side edges. Then, using a clean damp sponge, stain is removed from the raised designs and allowed to remain in all the crevices. This technique enhances the three dimensionality of the tiles and really brings the designs to life.
Below are some pictures of the process. Here's Martha Frommelt, president of the Fine Arts Booster Group, writing on the back of a tile with an underglaze pencil. Here are students at Ithaca High school applying the stains. And here is what some of the tiles looked like once they have been bisqued and stained, but not yet re-fired to the cone 6 we will eventually achieve.

The FUN Don't Stop

2010-03-26T15:54:00.000-07:00

Ben Franklin Elementary School, Binghamton, NY—We are working together to make a Story Mosaic Mural on the outside of their school. The Fabulous and Famous Regi Carpenter of Ithaca, NY has been story telling and giving the students pointers on how to tell their own story. Together, Ms. Culligan's 2nd grade class, has made up a story of how the skunk got it's white stripe. In the art room we have drawn the different characters in the story (a lady bug, a beetle, a cock roach, a skunk, a mosquito, and a frog) and are making them into clay tiles.

t

Busy, Busy, Busy!

2010-03-26T13:59:00.000-07:00

Dear readers, there's so much to tell you!
I've been working with the students at Ithaca High School on the public art mosaic that will be installed in the "arts alley" just off the Commons in Ithaca. Students made stamps and textured cylinders to press into the raw slab so as to make their unique impression in the clay.
We also used a wide variety of found materials as tools to make our marks. Two different periods of art class collaborated on the same slab of clay. As you may remember from earlier, each slab is a portion of a panel that depicts the land masses and water in the Ithaca region.
Finally 2 young women shared the job of cutting the slab into tiles to be high fired there at IHS.

2010-03-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

I just talked to Liz Leidenfrost,of Leidenfrost Winery, today and we are on for the month of April. She gave me all the details and it sounds like the opening will be really fun!! "All the wine you and your friends can drink—free!" Now, I know that would never be the reason you would go to an opening, but it doesn't hurt... It's a beautiful location, overlooking Senaca Lake, and well worth the drive. Mark your calendar for April 2nd, 6-9pm. She said I can have a band play! and I have a few musicians in mind. I will keep you posted on that front. Here is a sample of the work I will be showing.

2010-02-25T10:52:00.000-08:00

Working in my studio today as the snow is falling I thought I'd show you some pictures of the space. I have been here one year now. I have had one show here so far: a birthday art opening last September. I showed the 10 quilted landscapes that I was photographing yesterday. (Unfortunately iphoto quit while I was importing them and I had said delete originals off the camera. I manage to find the files on my computer but they seem to be corrupted and I'm afraid I have to re-shoot them.) I was going to tell you how good it feels to be doing
that last step of the art making process myself. Before, I used to have my work professionally photographed because there really is a lot of technical know-how involved. Especially when actual film was involved. But now, with digital, the learning curve is less expensive. (It doesn't matter if I get the lighting wrong 8 times as long as I can get it right once, I can erase the rest.) It is still pretty exciting to think that I can photograph my work in my own studio and transfer the images to my computer and publish them on the web shortly after. A funny thing about this series is that they are inspired by photographs that I took of beautiful landscapes in the Finger Lakes. I had to laugh as I stood in front of my framed, quilted, landscapes lining up the shot and saw how the information that first came through the lens of the camera had been transformed by my hand into an object which I was now photographing.

My studio is on the upper level. When I come in in the morning my slippers are waiting for me.
The walls are treated with an earthen plaster which I

later painted with a clay paint that I made. The plaster is made of clay, sand and straw and was a wonderful sculpting material. I added relief spirals to the surface of the walls, and even sculpted a face that overlooks the stairs. All along the east side are pine hanging doors that I use as gallery space and a place to tack my works in progress. They slide back to reveal the storage space where the angle of the ceiling makes it impossible to walk. I am so grateful to work here! It really nourishes my creativity.

Public Art Mosaic Process in Ithaca

2010-02-22T09:15:00.000-08:00

Mosaic Planning
This weekend 3 Ithaca art teachers, the Fine Arts Booster Group president and I got together and transferred the design (an areal view of the inlet of Cayuga Lake) onto drywall. The drywall will be passed out to all the art teachers at all the schools in the district. They will all have "different pieces of the puzzle". Using their drywall forms they will create .5" slabs in the exact shape they are given. Their students will push stamps and various tools for making impressions into the wet clay. The teachers will then divide these textured slabs into tiles of a certain range in size and bisque fire them when they are dry. (The drywall is meant to help in the drying process.)
Here are some pictures of us with the paper template taped down to the drywall slabs (which have been cut to the size of the panels that will support the final work +8% to allow for the shrinkage of the clay when fired) cutting along the lines with utility knives. There will be a total of 20 panels and we could fit 5 panels at a time on our tables, so we did it in 4 batches. Gary & Sarah (from the Alternatives Community School and Belle Sherman respectively) decided to work on the cutting of the drywall outside, while Jocelyn Lutter Carver, whose room we were using at the high school, and I finished up transferring the design.
It took about 2 hours to complete the process, and then we sat down for a snack and to discuss the stain sample that I had done. We agreed that we like seeing the variety rather than settling on one technique or surface that we would want to see all over.
This will be an almost 60' long piece (by 4.5' tall) and we want to keep it interesting.