tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87783487736105364762024-02-20T14:52:30.618-08:00Jason Lee StarinArtistJason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-68639020030093733352022-05-10T13:32:00.000-07:002022-05-10T13:32:09.684-07:00Jason Lee Starin - Interview with Emerging Artist Collective - May 2022<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">1) Could you introduce yourself? Where did you study art? When did you first see yourself as an artist?</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-05bff063-7fff-5070-3fc3-4509712d4285"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I first saw myself as an artist around the age of ten. My family and I had just moved that summer of 1986 to another part of the state of Michigan. Starting over, without any new friends yet, I began drawing to keep myself company during school, creating cartoon characters of my own design. I wanted to be a cartoonist at the time, a common entry point for many young visual artists. When I started Middle school one year later, I began taking my first ceramic classes, bringing my characters into three-dimensional figurations. I took drawing and ceramic classes all through High School and right into Undergrad. I majored in Ceramics with a BFA in 1999 from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI. Later, in 2011 I earned my MFA from the Oregon College of Art and Craft + Pacific Northwest College of Art with a major in Applied Craft and Design, a joint program, at the time, between the two art schools in Portland, OR. After Graduate school I became an Artist in Residence at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia from 2015 - 2019. My name is Jason Lee Starin and I currently live in Grand Rapids, MI.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2) What is geomythology? Who coined the term? How did you acquire interest in geomythology, and what relevance does it have to your work?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dorothy B. Vitaliano coined the term geomythology in 1968 as a geologist at Indiana University and later expanded on this term in her book </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Legends of the Earth</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, published in 1973. It is “the study of oral and written traditions created by pre-scientific cultures to account for, often in poetic or mythological imagery, geological events and phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, tsunamis, land formation, fossils, and natural features of the landscape.” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Geomythology has helped to explain some of the more bizarre landforms our earth has created. It is human nature to want to apply a meaning to a phenomenal landscape or peculiar land formations.The myths and stories passed down from generation to generation of the surrounding landscape can provide real information about the natural occurrences people called home. Often these stories are intertwined with spiritual meanings and lessons of survival. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a ceramic sculptor, a large aspect of my practice is derived from working hands-on with a medium directly from the earth. When I have mixed all the different substances of a clay body recipe together in the clay mixer to the proper consistency, or have opened up a fresh block of commercial clay, I am offered a new opportunity to re-interpret that raw material into any shape I’d like with little limitation. Clay’s potential in form is its most intriguing quality to me and one I like to utilize as much as possible in my work.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I love myths and fantasy. Much like a studio based practice, working alone, fantasy allows me to escape. Sometimes I need that. Done to excess though, escapism can be detrimental. Soon I am avoiding social responsibilities. Spending too much time in escapist fantasy, alone in my studio sheltered from real and imagined anxieties, are privileges that are worth acknowledging. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Geomytholgy, like ceramics, helps to apply explanation to the myriad forms the earth can take, whether shaped through eons of geologic time or in the hand and force petrified in a kiln in a matter of hours. My entry point into geomythology started with my interest in creation myths, how the land and its various inhabitants, both mythological and real, were first formed and the meanings applied to those creations. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3) Why do some of your art objects have tunnel-like cavities in them? Is the concept of a cave or a tunnel important to your work?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By process alone, all ceramics, including pottery and sculpture, must be a container. Clay has certain rules if you desire for your forms to be metamorphosed into ceramic through the kiln firing process. All ceramic work has to be hollow. Meaning ceramic objects are made of walls and hollow cavities; they are not solid. No clay object can be any thicker than an inch or so, or it will blow up during the firing process, generally speaking. Each enclosed piece also needs an air hole passing through the inside and outside of the object so the interior pressure can escape during the extremely hot temperatures made by the kiln needed to transform clay into ceramics. When working with wet clay I always have to consider the process of the kiln and the hard fragile ceramic object that will come out of it after the wares cool enough to be safely handled again. The practice of ceramics can get a little confusing as I am constantly in consideration of the clay form I am working on in a future state of being. Furthermore, ceramic artists must consider the interior of their works just as much as they are concerned with the look of the outside. The interior must be made technically well, so the piece does not crack during the firing. Furthermore, before the clay becomes too dry to be able to be worked, the exterior aesthetic must be considered simultaneously. Ceramic artists often have to think about two or more things at once while in the process of making with wet clay. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, all ceramics are hollow in form, which for me, has a lot of formal, conceptual and relational potential. Given that clay is an earth material, cave and tunnel like forms are natural references that I like to incorporate into my work that fit with the process needs of kiln fired ceramics. I often find the interior of something more interesting than its exterior. Openings in my sculptures allow for the viewer to enter the work, figuratively and literally. Caves and tunnels are contemplative spaces that invite the viewer to peer into, and in some cases with my larger works, imagine themselves being in.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4) What do some of your art objects (such as your "Mounds" and "False Prophets" series) that resemble tombstones or monuments symbolize? What relevance do they have with our contemporary world?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the time I was making both of these works, I was studying a lot of Nordic mythology, preparing for a trip to research the geomythology of Iceland for the following summer. I was reading the Sagas as well as learning more about the extreme volcanic and glacial geology of the country, looking up the many spectacular land formations that Iceland has to offer that I wanted to visit and be inspired by.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How big I can make a ceramic sculpture is dependent on the size of the kiln I have access to at the time. Both </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mounds</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">False</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prophets, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2016, were my first attempts at making ceramic sculpture larger than 24 inches tall. The individual pieces in each set of works range from 36 to 45 inches in height. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mounds</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> consist of three enclosed individual pieces reminiscent of piles of earthen material sitting in proximity to one another directly on the gallery floor. A pair of relatively similar forms, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">False Prophets</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> differentiate themselves by having long slender holes indicative of Nordic-like rune characters slit into the faces of the pile-like forms, albeit these characters have no inherent literal meaning, as I made up their designs. I made both sets of works at the same time, one iteration’s contemplations feeding the other</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> while I was adding coil layer upon coil layer over the period of a few weeks, building up each sculpture a few inches taller each day to the maximum height that the kiln could accommodate. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The form of the mound has a lot of geometric strength. Given enough interior space, I could hypothetically make a ceramic sculpture as large as any kiln could provide. I wanted to stay true to the natural qualities of malleable clay and chose to add lumps and bumps protruding in and out of the mound form, challenging the structural integrity of typically symmetrical mounds. The finished simple forms take up space in the most unassuming manner. Each mound is reminiscent of clumps of earth piled together, but are ironic in that they are one form, not a singular amassed pile, although the coil-building process would not suggest the finished forms' final pronunciation. Furthermore, knowing that the works are made of ceramic makes them seem fragile, although the viewer cannot verify that fact by touch. The surface of iron oxide is a dark metallic matte, drawing in the viewer. They seem to suck in the air around them. They are voids to be stepped around cautiously. I consider</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Mounds</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to be non-objects. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In making </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mounds, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wanted to push this unease a little more. I wanted to draw in the viewer with something familiar but ultimately leave them feeling confused or let down. The runic-like symbols cut out of the faces of the two </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">False Prophets </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are made-up; they have no meaning. They have no place in any written history. They suggest meaning and urge inquiry but ultimately have nothing to offer. The symbols are cut into the walls of the works, exposing the hollowness of their interiors; their presence is empty. I think of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">False Prophets</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as one might see through the arrogance of the self-proclaimed. Yet due to their petrification, a form of passive resilience or merely a lazy lack of self acknowledgment, and for some unfathomably archaic justification, are still considered worthy of acknowledgement. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">False Prophets</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> comment on the patriarchy prevalent in many of our past and current political and social systems. From an existential point of view, this work may also suggest that every idea is just made up and therefore has no real meaning at all. The fact that two </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">False Prophets</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> have been made, one seemingly important enough to have made another, is this work’s only inherent conceptual accreditation. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">5) What is your series titled, "Goblin - Heads," about? Do they represent the other that has been demonized, ostracized, and pushed to extinction by us humans (also known as homo sapiens) over the many millennia of our existence? Who is the real demon here?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Much like soft clay, the mythical character of the goblin has no idealized form. Both things are malleable and have been manipulated into many various forms fitting many cultures. Their potentials lend purpose. For instance, clay formed into pottery can help to preserve food. Clay also helps us to ascertain the unexplainable. Through the making of sculpture, humans have been able to comprehend life's more metaphysical questions. Goblins in Germanic cultures have been created as figures embodying misfortune, whether they be natural, mechanical, technical or social. In my art work, I have adopted the goblin character as a way to personify my lack of self-awareness, my ignorance of my privilege, and my irresponsible behavior in my relationships with others. The </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Goblin - Heads, 2014 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">series, was the first acknowledgement of the emotional labor and social responsibility I was afraid to admit to myself that needed to be done. Acknowledging and accepting my trauma and privilege has been a necessary challenge in my life. The </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Goblin - Heads </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">series is very personal to me and the start of a major exploration in my life and art practice. These works</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">represent my first uncomfortable step out of denial and into self-accountability. As with a lot of my work, this series came out of the need to understand a feeling from deep within. Words and explanations always seem to come much later. I am still on this journey. Although I still reference some of the thoughts I initially attributed to the goblin character in some of my current art works, its personification and meaning has morphed from a place of shame to one of acceptance and positive growth.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">6) What is your series of works called "Objectified Moment," about? What do they depict? (They look like the physical representation of the act of distorting an object or a being spatially and materially.)</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Considering the technical need for ceramics to be hollow at the same time as trying to execute an intended form out of soft clay can be a hindrance to creativity, expression and spontaneity, the qualities inherent in malleable clay that I am drawn to when I'm working with it. For the works in the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Objectified Moment, 2009-2010 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">series, I intentionally wanted to eliminate that technical hindrance and chose to work with the clay solidly. There was a freedom of expression that allowed for more physical and bodily movement while in the making act, allowing the material to capture the gestures of the hand with more spontaneity. The large mass of the solid clay added a resistance to the shaping of the forms. This enabled me to work more intuitively, allowing each claw, scrape, poke and drag of my fingers to be recorded more distinctly in the medium than if I was trying to make the form hollow with flimsy soft wet clay walls. After the making act was over and the finished piece's exterior had hardened up enough to form a firm shell, I could then cut the solid work in half, scoop out the excess clay in the middle, and then re-attach the form back together, creating the necessary hollow cavity within. Separating the technical requirements of ceramic from my creative intention, I was able to capture and then depict the making moment of the material itself. In a way, the works in this series can be thought of as Process Art.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">7) How is science fiction a source of materials and inspiration for your works?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Science fiction allows me to consider possibilities. Doubt is an important part of my creative process, and sci-fi helps me to constantly question the status-quo. Oftentimes, sci-fi narratives take place in different geographies and landscapes. Such imagery helps me to consider possible different formal qualities in my works. Furthermore, I am drawn to sci-fi that deals with social and cultural issues. Authors such as Octavia E. Butler, N.K. Jemisin, and Knedi Okorafor, have inspired me to be more vulnerable in my work as well as more empathetic to my audiences. Much sci-fi goes beyond the rugged protagonist stereotype and deals with the circumstances of hierarchy, opposition and the consequential nuances of struggle and survival within those paradigms. These types of themes I find more applicable to our current political, social, and cultural conditions..</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">8) How do you perceive the discipline and field of craft in opposition to other artistic disciplines? What are the merits of craft and what are the weaknesses in craft today? How do advances in digital technology and the virtual world diminish our connectedness to and appreciation for craft and its focus on materials and physical processes? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don't believe craft is in opposition to other artistic disciplines. I believe craft is the genesis of all the arts as well as the sciences. As evidenced in our history museums, the multitudes of ceramics housed in their numerous rooms of ancient cultures, craft is our humanity. Craft comes from a need to solve a social need. Our manipulation of earth's materials, like clay, metal, sand, fiber and wood, lend solutions toward our innate drive to survive and prosper, whether that be in the making of food storage jars which have aided in staving off inevitable starvation or wood and metal weapons to kill for substance and resources. Refined material explorations have led to alchemy and then in turn have led to the hard sciences. Craft also lent itself to lore keeping through the form of visual storytelling inscribed, for instance, on pottery from many past civilizations around the globe. Many craft objects were imbued with dual uses, that of function as well as a passing down of cultural heritage, as only the potential of craft materials can do so, so succinctly.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It seems that art has forgotten its material history. Industrial and conceptual motives removed materials from our hands and then our minds. Progress in technology has exponentially increased the virtualization of things. So although we have less need for and understanding of material, our craft upbringing, anthropologically speaking, taught us how to continue adapting to our current needs. Craft Thinking is our way of thinking through problems, it continues to aid in addressing our social needs. It is a strategy hardwired into each of us for sustained survival. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After my graduate school studies in Applied Craft and Design, I was adamant about how we as a species were literally losing touch with our notion of selves, with the world, with each other due to craft practices disappearing in our schools as well as in our communities and within our families. After some time after grad school though, I considered that humans are adapting all the time, we are always moving forward. Our technologies push for new adaptations. It's natural. Indeed, I think a major paradigm shift is rapidly happening currently in our collective psychologies, but we created virtual technologies intentionally just as we created the first ceramic jars. Craft has shifted from a need / material physical relationship to an need / immaterial virtual relationship. Craft Making has allowed us to become better Craft Thinkers. I still wonder though, what will be left behind once the sun’s solar flares fry our virtual databases, shutting down the power grid and eliminating all existence on this planet? Pottery. Pottery will continue to tell our tale. I'm not sure what tale will be deciphered from the ceramic remnants of our existence, but that's for them to figure out… </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9) Could you tell us more about your blog? What does your blog document? What are the hidden gems of your blog, where you posted from 2010 to 2020?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My blog is a diary of sorts, a place of saved quasi-intellectual ponderings, ramblings and questions. Writing helps me get things off my chest and out of my head. Like my art, I think it's the artist's responsibility to share their ideas. Even if it doesn't elicit a response, the vulnerable process of exposing my ideas, written or made, is part of my creative process. An artwork is not complete until it is made public. Ideas don't live if they are not shared. I had to learn that visual artists actually spend a lot of time writing. Writing for applications, writing for school, writing for awareness as well as self-reflection. Visual artists are some of the few creatives who are asked to write statements about their work, which is a weird thing to ask of a non-verbal communicator. Thankfully, I like writing, although I do not consider myself a writer. I would definitely need an editor if any of my writing went any more public than my little Blogger account tucked away quietly in that particular corner of the internet.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">10) What are your goals and dreams for the future? Do you have the audacity to hope that your art can change the world for the better?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To have audacity, to be able to take risks in life, is a privilege. Making art is a privilege. Emotionally, as well as financially, I can’t afford to take any risks at this point in my life.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had dreams. I had goals. I was pursuing dreams, and goals were being achieved. Persistent work was paying off. I was getting residencies, grants, and better teaching positions. I had a ceramic art studio. I lived in a major city. I had a network of peers. Then, Covid hit and was utilized as a catalyst to speed up the shutting down of the Craft and Materials Studies Department at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia where I had worked and taught for over five years. When I was laid off, I effectively lost everything else. I’ve been struggling with identity loss since. I’ve been asking what my self worth is. Who am I now if I can no longer do what used to define my reality, my dreams and goals? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Due to these circumstances, I have been giving a fair amount of thought to the conception of ‘the world’ the past couple years. ‘The world’ has gone through a lot, in the past as well as in the present. I don't think it can be changed with art, especially the visual art that I make. Sure, it helps me to make it, and it may even help someone else when they look at it, but an individual is not ‘the world’. Teaching art, due to its more direct communication, to a group of twenty to thirty people was as close to changing ‘the world’ as I ever got. Even then, I may have only reached one or two students per class.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I used to believe so much that my art had the same meaning to others as it did for me to make it. That belief got me pretty far in life. I had a passion that fueled my drive in my art life which took me across the country twice for art education, opportunities and jobs. I learned a lot and met a number of similar people. I'm grateful for all those experiences and shared memories. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although I don't have many material attachments myself, people have shared with me that they truly appreciate the art work of mine that they own. It feels nice to hear that, but one person is not the world, I don't think.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over two years have passed since getting laid off from my last academic position / career. I'm still looking for another teaching job. I’m processing a lot, trying to move forward, waiting to forget the past. The act of carrying on is all I can afford to risk right now. There is no urgency to prove myself though, not like what used to drive me. I still make art, on my kitchen table, in this one bedroom apartment, in this small midwestern city. I still apply for exhibitions, residencies and grants. I’m learning that much of being an artist, living an artist’s life, is continuing on, continuing further. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-455233938414547362020-05-20T08:16:00.002-07:002020-05-20T08:16:24.465-07:00Future of Craft 5-20-2020<div class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Future of Craft</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Jason L. Starin</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">5-20-2020</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Science fiction, a genre I often pull from for my artistic inspiration, readily utilizes the shift in time as a transparent device. The futures it describes are extended versions of our present social and political circumstances in the forms of narrative premonition. It is also said that if our depression is rooted in our past, than our anxiety stems from our concerns for the future. Writing this presently, I am in week nine of quarantine. Time as been put on pause for the inhabitants of Earth due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Without much distraction, I have had nothing but the static present moment to consider my life and art practice.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Speculation concerning the future of the craft field has always felt ominous to me, even before the pandemic. I am a maker, not a historian. Nor am I a writer. Regardless, I do become impassioned when discussing craft. Unfortunately relatable, my interest tends to focus on crafts constant anxiety concerning its identity as a field within the contemporary arts. Assessing my personal life experiences associated with the field of craft over the past decade, I will take this opportunity to share my thoughts on its future as best as I can surmise from a current perspective.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The problem with trying to predict the future of craft is its current lack of criteria of which to make an assessment by. It lacks structure, or more appropriately, a fixed position to be agreed with or argued against. It does not hold onto an identity. I believe it used to, our art history museums are filled with examples of craft, for example the specialized tools which have helped build our humanity, but craft has lost its self-awareness over the past few centuries. Craft today finds itself trying to fit in with everything else, forgetting that it created the sub-genres of art and design, as well as science and religion. It has forgotten its accomplishments and its self-worth.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Craft’s origin value is being further erased by the current rise in virtual technologies. Much like the industrial revolution, digital and virtual technologies threaten to further extinguish our material consciousness, as they have become more readily accessible from individual home studios and garages. Arrogantly touting the virtues of technology above all other notions of human progress, academic institutions have begun to rapidly develop new media labs, displacing previous established craft studios and values. Craft, if still valued within the institution, has passively accepted the monikers of an ancient or analog technology, an insult to the hard fought labors of humanity.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Making room for virtual facilities, and consequently curriculums, universities have been rashly eliminating craft programs and departments nationwide. Over the past decade, a number of craft organizations and institutions that I personally owe a great deal of gratitude for having been part of, have been shut down, decidedly by financially focused entities.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the past few years, and seemingly over night, the Museum of Contemporary Craft, of which I was an intern for during grad school, disappeared. Shortly after, The Oregon College of Art and Craft, one half of my alma matter, followed the same demise. Apparently, there was just no more money left to support these nationally recognized and foundational craft institutions. I watched my mentors, professors, and peers lose their jobs instantaneously. Their financial stability as well as their professional and artistic identities lost. They lost a notion of themselves as educators, those who care about continuing the values of craft thinking.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Presently, I have lost my five year standing job as the ceramic technician in the Craft and Material Studies program at University of the Arts, the best job I have been able to procure in my profession and chosen artistic medium since my graduate education. Furthermore, there has been rumors of shutting down the C+MS program for many years now, and presumably, the pandemic, due to finical reasons, is speeding up the process. We have been told by higher administration that the craft program does not have enough student enrollment to cover the costs of its facilities. It was also said that our undergraduate programs were not contemporary enough, a subjective parameter when craft is compared to the perspectives of either art or design. Many full-time positions have been cut, leaving only the department heads who have been teaching for thirty or more years to run the individual departments of craft themselves, teaching most of the classes, save a few intro courses which are picked up by one or two from the roaming hoards of adjunct instructors. This does not facilitate younger faculty into moving beyond adjunct status into more grounding positions which could usher in more contemporary dialogs with new craft students.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Universities forget that craft skills were not only the first human technologies, but are also what helped build and fortify academic institutions, many, more than one hundred years ago. The arbiters of sustaining human ingenuity and thought, universities and colleges are systematically decimating the foundations of humanity.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Eliminating craft thinking and material knowledge from the educational system is not only destroying the craft fields notion of self-worth, but worse, our human identity. Not to make with our hands is in its very nature, inhuman. Without craft programs, who will teach the values of crafts to the people who would inform its future? Without the support of our academic institutions, the keepers and protectors of history, the craft field is hard pressed to stay self-aware.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Craft has gone through a major shift in our culture. As a means to invention, craft had purpose. Craft’s pursuit of survival, helped humans create advances in civilization, for better and for worse. Through craft we developed simple tools which lead to machines as well as belief systems that lead to science, religion, and law. Those developments created categories of understanding less broad and better utilized than craft. Anthropologically speaking, as relics from the past are discovered in amorphous bogs, these shifting circumstances have left craft in a bit of a cultural quagmire.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The resilience of craft lies within its ambiguity. It is a defining aspect of human nature to be perplexed, to be more intrigued with the question more so than the answer. With answers curiosity ends. Questions, on the other hand, continuously spur material investigation and critical inquiry.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Humans like categories, they help us to accept new ideas by connecting them to similar old ones. But categorical thinking can also create impenetrable barriers to new ideas, especially as we get older. The container has become too full; doors close. The craft field is trying to predict its future in the context of a bleak present. Schools, programs and institutions for our young scholars and makers are being eliminated. Crafts says it wants ingenuity but seems to only to reward those who brand their works as elite commodities or overly technical formalism, or worse, by allowing it’s artisans to be exploited for the sake of exposure.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My past relationships with academic institutions associated with the craft field have been erased. My present craft identity in relation to establishing an academic career has been eliminated. I no longer have a record of my past, and disappointingly, I have nothing in my present to help me project a possible future within the craft field.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If there is any future for the field it will be at the risk of self trauma. For my creative practice, that means surpassing self-doubt through continued material experimentation, creating new forms within the process regulated by ceramics. I must be vigilant to not let technical and process based obsessiveness take over conceptual and social awareness. Craft runs dangerously close to perfectionism and escapism, a head space that is often definitive, leading to anxiety. Escapism is like trying to guess the future, an experiment in existential crisis. My practice must stay in an amorphous state, adaptable like clay, set between the realities of both hard and soft, internal and external, solid and hollow; between fantasy and reality.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It’s healthy to think about one’s death. Maybe that is where humanity sits now, anxiously considering where it’s been and trying desperately to reconcile how it lost touch with craft. If there is hope for craft, it will be found in the deep recess’ of our basic need to make and understand our place in the world. It will continue in workshops and in homes, passed down from family member to neighbor, although void of the academic rigor that our educational institutions once valued. Craft traditions will continue to be observed and it’s acts imitated as long as people can still get there hands in the dirt. As for my part within the field, I will keep making and thinking through craft. Making has always been part of my past as well as my present. And, as the most reliable part of my identity, making will carry me into the future. Like a spaceship built for one.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></div>
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Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-55198697902705871652018-12-12T09:51:00.003-08:002018-12-12T13:20:44.357-08:00Surround Silence<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Why do
humans create fantastic explanations for how earth forms came to be? Is myth-making
a first step in understanding our place in the universe? With interests in </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">pop-fantasy,
sci-fi, occultism, and Geomythology<sup>1</sup>, Resident artist Jason Lee
Starin’s exhibition, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Surround Silence</i>,
combines ideas found in contemporary and ancient legends to provoke feelings of
the existential and sublime as well as question our internal and external
perceptions of the natural world. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Awarded
an Independence Foundation Fellowship Grant to pursue his interest in
geomythology<sup>1</sup>, Starin was a resident artist at the NES Foundation in
Skagaströnd, Iceland, during the summer of 2018. Nestled on the west coast of
one of Iceland’s upper northwest fjords, Skagaströnd is an isolated village
with a population of four hundred and fifty people. Buffered between the saga-steeped
plateau Spákonufell, or “Prophetess Mountain”,</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Skagaströnd is located where black-sand seas
merge with an infinite grey skyline. Awestruck by the vast, unique, strangeness
of Iceland’s limitless rolling lava fields, primordial moss, boulder-covered
tundra, caves cast from melting glacial flows, and towering basalt columns,
this rural town and its geomyths inspired Starin to reflect on the origins of creation
and are echoed in his <span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">monolithic
and cavernous </span>sculptures. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Studying
Iceland’s early settler stories of morality, faith, madness and survival in
relation to landforms broadened Starin’s appreciation for a landscape’s origin
and meaning, giving him a nuanced understanding of identity as it relates to
surroundings. <span style="background: white; color: black;">Sustaining a belief
that humans will always continue to have a need to explore what is possible by
relinquishing certainty in exchange for vulnerability, Starin asks the viewer
to indulge in mystery, to allow oneself to be enveloped by the unknown and to
confront their fears of the amorphous and inexplicable.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">1. </span>Geomythology (also called “legends of the
earth, “myths of observation,” “natural knowledge,” and “physico-mythology”) is
the study of etiological oral traditions created by pre-scientific cultures to
explain—in poetic metaphor and mythological imagery—geological phenomena such
as volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, fossils, and other natural features of the
landscape. - GEOMYTHOLOGY © Adrienne Mayor in Encyclopedia of Geology, ed
Richard Selley, Robin Cocks, and Ian Palmer. Elsevier, Fall 2004.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footer"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
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Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-51917850624281584202018-12-12T09:50:00.004-08:002018-12-12T09:50:50.403-08:00Starin, Jason - Bio DEC. 2018<br /><div class="MsoNormal">
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">Jason Lee Starin</span></b><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;"> received his MFA in Applied
Craft and Design from Pacific Northwest College of Art and Oregon College of
Art and Craft in 2011, and his BFA in Ceramics from Grand Valley State
University in 1999. In 1998, he studied abroad at Kingston University, in the
United Kingdom. Starin has shown in numerous group exhibitions throughout the
US, notably at </span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Katherine
E. Nash Gallery, MN., </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Woodmere Art Museum, PA., </span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Gravity Gallery, MA., American
Museum of Ceramic Art, CA., The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, NC.,
GCA Gallery, NYC., Arizona State University Art Museum, Ceramics Research
Center, AZ. and San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, TX. </span><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2017, Starin received an
Independence Foundation Fellowship Grant to research his interest in
Geomythology during a two-month stay at the NES Artist Residency in Skagaströnd,
Iceland. Currently residing in Philadelphia, PA., Starin is an educator and
full time Resident Artist at The Clay Studio.</span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-12939303482507735342018-12-12T09:47:00.000-08:002018-12-12T09:47:51.167-08:00Letter of Application<div class="WordSection1">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Dear University
of ________ Ceramics Visiting Assistant Professor Review Committee,</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 14.15pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 40.95pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>First and foremost, thank you for
considering my application for the Ceramics Visiting Assistant Professor
position. I feel it is a timely next step for my artistic and professional
practices. I am very excited to have this opportunity to introduce myself to you
and your ceramic department, faculty and staff, of which I have the utmost
respect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 14.15pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 40.95pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In 2011, I received my <span style="letter-spacing: -.25pt;">MFA </span>in Applied Craft and Design from the Pacific<span style="letter-spacing: -1.5pt;"> </span>Northwest College of Art and the Oregon
College of Art and Craft, a joint program between the two schools. As part of
the initiating class, I quickly learned how broad and spiraling the discussion between
art, craft and design could become. At times overwhelming, the experience
encouraged me to develop my own rhetoric, a confluence between all three
notions of ideas and perspectives concerning objects. Previous descriptions of
objects dissolved within the contemporary context of the virtual. At first,
language and associations surrounding form and space were rendered into two
categories, those of the physical and those of the virtual. I needed to make
this distinction in order to move forward with my understanding what an object
could become. By my second year of grad school, I began to formulate some
similarities between physical and virtual things, by acknowledging that our
senses are a constant in interpreting either relational experience. We perceive
the virtual bodily just as we do with the physical. My solo thesis exhibition
consisted of a singular moment, placing and asking the viewer to situate
themselves within one room consisting of virtual, digital and physical notions
of the same object simultaneously. Multiple monochromatic columns, produced in
wood as well as digitally in a projected animation reaching corner to corner
and top to ceiling of one wall of the room, visually merged together between
wall sized mirrors placed opposite to each other and adjacent to the projection
wall, created a nauseated infinity through reflection and shadow. By allowing
my research to transcend previous descriptions of objects, I have been able to
break through past ideological concepts and relationships to making, material,
form and space.<span style="letter-spacing: -.2pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 14.15pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 40.95pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; letter-spacing: -.2pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s been a few years
since my MFA and I have had time to let the brain fever that was my thesis
settle down a bit, thankfully. In a way, I have taken a more assured step back
into something more familiar, more grounding, although with greater insight and
openness to the medium of ceramics. I began my love affair with clay when I was
ten years old, nearly thirty years ago. I received my BFA in Ceramics from
Grand Valley State University in 1999. Clay, the philosophers stone if you
will, lends its amorphous nature to thinking ambiguously between the
disciplines of art, craft and design quite well. As it has for twenty thousand
years, it still continues to confound, excite and solve our human need for the
utilitarian as well as the psychological. It’s still around and it still temps
our curiosities. It’s the one thing that continues to drive my art practice and
has become the foundation to conceptual investigations in art regardless of the
other mediums I work with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 14.15pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 40.95pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; letter-spacing: -.2pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the Fall of 2015,
after my first year of relocating to Philadelphia from Portland, Oregon, I
became a Resident Artist at The Clay Studio as well as the Ceramic Shop Supervisor
for the Craft & Materials Study program at the University of the Arts. I
have held both positions for three years now. In tandem, they have provided me
with a culture and community enabling me to take greater artistic risks in my
studio, to gain more assured confidence and expand my work formally as well as
conceptually. I feel connected to my work and its meaning more than I ever have
and I believe it’s starting to take on a unique voice of its own. Due to my
position as the Shop Supervisor at UArts, I have a stronger connection to the
entirety of the ceramic process. From tearing apart an electric wheel in order
to find the malfunctioning electrical component, to updating the end of fiscal
year inventory, I know how to run a ceramic shop and my work is better for it.
Maintaining a fully functioning ceramic studio has made me a more responsible
ceramic artist. The more I know about the facility and how it works, the more I
know about the process of my passion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 14.15pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 40.95pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; letter-spacing: -.2pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Both positions have
also provided me opportunities to teach, something I have longed to gain more
experience in. At The Clay Studio, I have taught adult classes in advanced
Hand-building and Surface Design since 2015. This past spring semester, James
Makins, head of the ceramics program at UArts, asked me to teach the Kiln Technologies
class to our junior undergraduate students. Due to firing schedules, I found
the time structure of the class to be challenging, but overall the experience was
very rewarding. Having completed the class, I now have full confidence that
next year’s seniors will be fully proficient in firing their own bisque and
glaze oxidation and reduction kilns. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 14.15pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 40.95pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; letter-spacing: -.2pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This summer I will be
traveling to Iceland for a two-month research-based trip which includes an
artist residency at the Nes Foundation in Skagaströnd. Generous funding from
the Independence Grant Foundation, based here in Philadelphia, will provide for
the entirety of the project. During July and August, I will continue my interest
in Geomythology. A term coined by </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">geologist Dorothy B. Vitaliano in
her book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Legends of the Earth – Their
Geologic Origins</i> written in 1968, geomythology looks to creation myths for
possible answers to confounding land formations. It is an interdisciplinary
study between real and imagined spaces, between material and cultural
substances. My nerdy interest in pop culture fantasy narratives such as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Game of Thrones</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dungeons and Dragons</i>, lead me to research the origins of Earth’s creation.
A concept that, in a grand way, expands on my interest in the origin of a
meaningful object. According to Nordic legend, our world, as well as a myriad
of mythical creatures, was created from the destruction of the first being, the
frost giant Ymir. Iceland, made of glacial and volcanic activity, is the
epicenter for Nordic mythology. My research there will be a confluence between
my interest in aesthetic land formation and the stories people ascribe to the
indescribable; the median between science and mystery. I will be visiting
sights first hand to document the rare landscapes of Iceland and their
associative creation myths. I also have made arrangements to visit with the
University of Iceland’s head of Earth Sciences department in order to learn
more about the reactions and formations volcanic fire and glacial ice make
together. Two natural opposites not unlike those transformative qualities of
clay into ceramic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 14.15pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 40.95pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Over
the past few years I have been following the accomplishments of the ceramics department
at the University of _________ and have become increasingly curious. By far, the
level of graduate work shown at NCECA Pittsburgh was one of the most intriguing
exhibitions I saw during the conference. I perceive a strong focus on material
knowledge combined with rigorous conceptual investigation in line with deep
personal exploration and understanding, qualities I strive to achieve in my own
work. My graduate education in Design Thinking through the hand I credit to my
relentless search for meaningful form in my current body of work. What is
important to create? A consideration I can find no better to explore within our
contemporary notion of things and existence as we stand on the precipice of
alternate lives and worlds. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether those
realities are coexisting or colliding, we are living in transformative and
exciting times. With my application for the Ceramics </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Visiting
Assistant Professor position, I am looking to join a community of thinkers and
makers who are open to these ideas. I’m looking to challenge and expand my
knowledge through conversation, critique and shared information. I believe a
ceramics studio is a classroom for all who share it, including the students,
staff and fellow faculty. With an appreciation and respect for tradition, I want
to continue pushing ceramics forwards into the future. I see that happening at _________ and I see myself contributing positively to that culture. Based on my broad
approach to creative making and thinking, I believe I am a highly viable
candidate for this position. An appointment as the Visiting Assistant Professor
would be a great leap forward in my artistic and educational practice and would
help to solidify my profession within the larger ceramic community. I would be
truly honored to have the experience and would greatly welcome an opportunity
to continue this conversation personally. I wish you the best in your search.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 14.15pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 40.95pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 14.15pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 40.95pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Sincerely,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 14.15pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 40.95pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Jason Lee
Starin<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
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Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-65982639347768228932018-11-16T07:49:00.005-08:002018-11-16T07:51:23.790-08:00Object Pity<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">No one owns the object except human history,
which is definitively the craft object. Craft, the progenitor to all innovation,
before art and design, before science and alchemy, is human culture. The contemporary
argument between the hierarchy of craft and art is and will continue to be one
that urges interpretation and invention. It is an argument that defines our humanity.
It is an unsolvable question and no one side has the right to claim any assumed
dominance over the other. The argument should be utilized, especially in academia,
as a means to excel our perception of form in our growing technological world,
from our transitioning material to the immaterial based psychologies. It is
unfortunate that the opposing sides of this trifecta of form perception are still
so insecure as to not see this larger issue of human existence. Craft people,
stop playing the narcissist victim. Art people stop playing the narcissist tyrant.
Design people, keep ripping them both off, but please stay focused on helping
others. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-2980616305597804232018-03-23T06:32:00.001-07:002018-03-23T06:41:15.250-07:002017 Independence Foundation Grant Proposal<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<u><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Making
Myth – The Search for Ymir in the Land of Fire and Ice<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">2017 Independence Foundation Grant
Proposal<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">From Ymir’s flesh the earth was created,<br />
And from his blood<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>the sea,<br />
Mountains from bone,<br />
Trees from hair,<br />
And from his skull the sky.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And from his eyebrows the blithe gods made<br />
</span></i><a href="http://norse-mythology.org/cosmology/the-nine-worlds/midgard/"><i><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;">Midgard</span></i></a><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">, home of the sons of men<br />
And from his brains<br />
They sculpted the grim clouds.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: "times";">The Poetic Edda. Grímnismál,
stanzas 40-41</span><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">I am applying for the 2017
Independence Foundation grant in order to continue my research in mythology as
it relates to geologic land formation. Geomythology, an interest within the
Earth Sciences, associates phenomenal physical landforms with the cultural
creation myths specific to that particular landscape. It seeks to add
explanation to the natural environment through anthropological narrative that
scientific reasoning cannot do on its own. It accepts that there may be
scientific evidence hidden within these myths. Although based in fantasy more than
anthropologic myth, my first encounter with this phenomenon was in 2014 when
traveling through the high deserts of Utah in Goblin Valley State Park. A gorge
filled with thousands of hoodoos, oversized sandstone mushroom-like lumps and
mounds, each having their particular protuberances and appendages, the park can
attribute its surreal landforms to natural erosion, although it is described as
a valley filled with hordes of goblins and gnomes. This peculiarity began my
interest in myth as it relates to landform. I began to consider the importance
of applying fantasy to new and strange phenomena and how that idealization may
relate to the process of comprehending new information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Geomythology supports my two main
artistic influences; my formal interest in material and process as well as my
deep love and intrigue for fantasy and science fiction narratives. The study of
geomythology parallels my studio practice in that it simultaneously keeps my
hands in the muck of reality while my mind is preoccupied with escapist
endeavors. My practice has grown symbiotically, where my material knowledge has
begun a confluence with material myth, creating mysteriously abstract as well
as creature-like figurative forms. As an artist, I find the cosmos creation
myth of the Norse giant Ymir (pronounced “EE-meer”) particularly interesting,
both from sculptural and narrative perspectives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">With the death of the hermaphroditic giant,
the first forms were created. The skies and the seas, the mountains and the rocks
were formed from their dismembered body. I am always looking for the big picture,
the origin of things and the truth to materials. As clay is fired in a kiln to
become vitrified ceramic, I am a maker of rocks, as did Ymir’s bones become
mountains. As a ceramist creates with the opposing elements of earth, water and
fire to create ceramic forms, Iceland was created between the might of volcanic
and glacial upheavals coexisting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The Ymir myth is also the story of the
creation of humans as well as other mythological races such as dwarves and
trolls. These beings have inhabited popular culture for sometime and many
people have been drawn to their appeal. As part of my research, I’d like to
unpack why such Norse creatures have become relevant in todays mainstream
media, such as the novel and television series’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Game of Thrones</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lord
of the Rings</i>. I am looking to unearth why we are continually drawn to this
mythology. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Moving beyond the veil of fantasy
towards specific explanations, geology and mythology provide more sound
scientific and anthropologic evidence for how things came to be and why they
continue to intrigue us today. They give credence to the form of things. They
serve as foundations for hands-on exploration and research. I am proposing to
visit and explore the geomythological landscapes of Iceland, the Land of Fire
and Ice for a period of six to eight weeks during the summer months of 2018. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Intent<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #231f20;">The Independence Foundation Grant will provide
me with a unique developmental opportunity that will allow me to travel to
Iceland inspiring my artistic practice in both formal and conceptual ways by
visiting sight specific locations that have geomythological intrigue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Continuing my research on location, I will
visit and explore in person sights that I have read about by </span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: ¿ÕıXˇ; mso-themecolor: text1;">geologist
Dorothy B. Vitaliano who, in her book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Legends
of the Earth – Their Geologic Origins</i> written in 1968, coined the term geomythology.
Iceland, being the epicenter for Nordic myth, is a land formed of volcanoes and
glaciers. The formations these two elemental opposites have created are truly
remarkable. Sights I intend to visit include Asbygi, said to be formed by the
hoof print of the All Father Odin’s eight-legged horse Sleipnir, Lakagigar or the
Laki lava flow craters, an environment so surreal it surpasses most science
fiction landscapes, Mount Hekla, a volcano said to be the gate way to hell
itself, as well as Katla, a sub-glacier volcano that when erupts melts the
glacier Hofdabrekkujokull above it flooding the farm lands below. It is said
that an evil witch threw herself over a cliff creating the first disastrous deluge.
I can only imagine how it must feel to set foot on such potent ground.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: ¿ÕıXˇ; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will document my first hand accounts of
these mesmerizing landscapes by making drawings and photographing them while on
location. Pen, pencil and ink-wash drawings and sketches will be done infield
capturing the dynamic forms created from volcanic and glacial convergences. These
studies will be the beginnings of a new body of work that will incorporate the
forms I witnessed as well as the folklore I stood amongst. While on location I
will also take rock samples of the particular sights for future study in my art
studio.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: ¿ÕıXˇ; mso-themecolor: text1;">I would
like to spend my travels by working with geology departments and artist
organizations alike. I have contacted the department heads of three
universities who have classes in geomythology, informing them of my interest in
Iceland and have asked if I could volunteer my assistance on one of their
Iceland field work trips or if they could connect me to a group of geologist
who will be there during the summer of 2018. Dr. Jeff H. Tepper from University
of Puget Sound and Dr. Lee Kump from Penn State have both replied with
interest. I have also contacted Dr. Magnus Tumi Guomundsson head of faculty in
the Earth Sciences department of the University of Iceland expressing my
interest with the same endeavor. My intention of joining a field work team as a
volunteer will give me more of a scientific hands-on experience than I as
tourist could have on my own. Volunteering as a rock-hound will give me
insights to geologic materials that will influence my formal approach to
ceramics and hopefully shape the varied forms clay can take when exposed to
different processes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: ¿ÕıXˇ; mso-themecolor: text1;">I would
also like to spend some time reflecting on my fieldwork experience as an
artist-in-residence at the NES Foundation in </span><span style="background: #F6F6F6; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Skagaströnd, a
small fishing village in the Northern region of Iceland. While there, I plan to
extrapolate from the drawings and pictures I documented on location notions of
the landscape and environment I found interesting and conjure forms akin to the
myths those landscapes embody. While using the NES residency as a home base for
a month, I would like to take day trips across the region, continuing my
explorations of the land as well as visiting natural history museums and other
culturally significant institutions of and relating to Nordic mythology.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: ¿ÕıXˇ; mso-themecolor: text1;">Upon my arrival home, the Independence
Foundation Grant will also support the creation of new ceramic sculptures and
drawings that have been directly inspired from my travels and infield studies
gleaned from Iceland. I will create a new body of work for the purpose of
having a solo exhibition in late 2019 hosted by The Clay Studio, of which I am
currently a full time artist-in-residence. Funding for this new body of work
will go towards materials, kiln firings as well as studio rent costs at The
Clay Studio.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: ¿ÕıXˇ; mso-themecolor: text1;">This opportunity will be one of
artistic growth and academic intrigue, one that will move my practice from the
ethereal studio mind of fantasy toward a more concrete understanding of things.
I will gain a hands-on experience of how the landscape we inhabit came to be
and the importance those phenomena have on our human identities. This
experience will connect me to a rational in my work that I would not be able to
comprehend otherwise. Geomythology merges natural physical form with cultural
heritage as reiterated through story telling in the hopes of creating a better
sense of ourselves as we continue to exist on this earth. With Ymir’s death our
world was created. With this opportunity I’m looking for truths that are
currently beyond my comprehension yet have sustained our existence for centuries,
if not millennia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: ¿ÕıXˇ; mso-themecolor: text1;">Summary<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: ¿ÕıXˇ; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: ¿ÕıXˇ; mso-themecolor: text1;">The 2017 Independence Foundation Grant
would fund a six to eight week research opportunity specific to the
geomythological landscapes of Iceland in the summer of 2018. I am seeking to
voluntarily join a geological fieldwork trip in order to gain hands-on geologic
knowledge of what makes Iceland’s landscapes so unique. The second part of my
travels will be a month long artist-in-residency at the NES Foundation, where I
will begin to distill my fieldwork studies through drawings and personal
journaling incorporating the Norse myths inherent to the land formations of
Iceland. Upon my return, I will use my documentation of these landscapes to merge
the formal and mythical encounters I had into a new body of work that I will
display in a solo exhibition at The Clay Studio in late 2019.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Artist Statement<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
With consideration
to the mysteries surrounding the mythological, the alchemical and the occult,
as well as referencing fantasy and science fiction narratives and speculations,
my artwork is based in a formal practice of accepting the unknown, the
incomprehensible as well as the absurd. In todays insatiable quest for
information at instantaneous touch, I prefer not to know the answers. I choose instead
to stay bewildered and approach making experimentally, daring myself to make
something ignorant. Within that mentality, I believe it is important to
continue the human need to explore what is possible, to relinquish certainty in
exchange for vulnerability. Rendering form as an amorphous solid, my work is a
record of my physical presence with material. <span style="background: white; color: black;">When swishing and smearing, poking and clawing, I am making
the decision to stay mentally connected to this physical realm, however
ambiguous that may feel at times. Hands-on interpretation helps me to consider
the total state of things as they exist in the world today, as they will always
be in a state of change, adaptation and evolution. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Bio<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">JASON LEE STARIN received his MFA from Pacific Northwest
College of Art and Oregon College of Art and Craft in Applied Craft and Design
in 2011, and his BFA in Ceramics from Grand Valley State University in
1999.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Referencing fantasy and sci-fi
narratives, Starin's ceramic-based art practice values the importance of making
tangible objects as they are construed between internal and external
realities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Originally from Michigan, he
currently resides in Philadelphia, PA where he is the </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Ceramic Shop Supervisor
for The University of the Arts as well as a Resident Artist at The Clay Studio.</span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br />Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-80357957153461769282016-05-19T09:39:00.000-07:002016-05-24T13:48:34.931-07:00Conjure Materials / Materialize Goblins<div class="MsoNormal">
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My main influence for my art practice goes back to Richard
Sennett’s The Craftsman, in particular the chapter Material Consciousness.
Sennett states that we are interested in and become engaged with material when
we see it change. When it is in the moment of change.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sennett states material change happens in three distinct
ways.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“…Metamorphosis, presence, and anthropomorphosis.
Metamorphosis can be as direct as a change in procedure, as when potters switch
from molding clay on a fixed platter to building it up on a rotating wheel;
potters who do both will be conscious of the difference in technique. Presence
can be registered simply by leaving a maker’s mark, such as a brickmaker’s
stamp. Anthropomorphosis occurs when we impute human qualities to a raw
material; supposedly primitive cultures imagine that spirits dwell in a tree,
and so in a spear cut from its wood; sophisticates personalize materials when
using words like modest or sympathetic to describe finishing details on a
cabinet. “<o:p></o:p></div>
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Beyond the French scientific philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s
definition of the material world being categorized as either soft or hard in
Earth and the Reveries of Will, I believe the very notion of material is also
going through a change as our virtual technologies continue to develop.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Virtual technologies rely on our memories of soft or hard
physical materials in order for us to comprehend our increasingly virtualized
experiences, but go well beyond those initial interactions based on touch. During
moments of interaction within these immersive virtual worlds we are thinking
differently due to the virtual qualities of these virtual materials. Due to
which, as Nicholas G. Carr states in The Shallows: How the Internet Is Changing
the Way We Think, Read and Remember, there is a shift in our thinking because
our world is different than the one we previously only knew. Our world is no
longer strictly physical.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We coexist between both worlds now, almost seemingly and at
a moment’s thought. I’m on my bus commute and I am running a campaign on a MMORPG
at the same time. My back and shoulders are aching as I am creating massive and
immersive 3D cityscapes. Virtual technologies allow our minds and our bodies to
separate in very extreme ways, by simulating physical knowledge to the point of
near indifference.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In my art practice, this concerns me. I am curious to know
what is being lost in this transition from a purely physically constructed mind
to that of virtually produced one. What do people think of traditional building
materials today? Do people have the same knowledge of physical materials as
they used to? To what extent do they know how the world used to work? My
biggest concern is what type of people are we turning into due to this shift in
the qualities of material and material knowledge.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the past if we did not understand how something worked or
more specifically if we could not comprehend how something wasn’t working, we
created myths and mythological creatures to explain the incongruities. We
conjured mythological creatures as manifestations of our own ignorance. They
were scapegoats, things to point at and blame for our misinformed minds.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Are we creatures of destruction now? If we are growing more
reliable on a virtualized reasoning of things and processes, are we the goblins
of our once handcrafted world? By allowing for more virtualized experiences to
be part of our lives, are we consequently also allowing for the deconstruction
of our physical material knowledge?<o:p></o:p></div>
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In my ceramic-based art practice, I am attempting to show
this loss of material knowledge as well as suggest that we are changing. My
work attempts to capture a moment of my struggle to comprehend a change in
material consciousness. They are often violent or somber moments of frustration
and acquiescence. Some works have haunting and ominous presences. Some are mere
wardens or barriers, structures suggesting that we have reached a limit in our
physical comprehension. What gives me hope in my practice is the process, the
labor behind the end product. The act of making keeps me engaged; it is a
rebellious act against purely virtual reasoning and thinking. It allows for
mistakes and irregularities to be part of the piece, which I value as being
more human. I'm not striving for perfection, but instead, an honest record of
my interaction with clay and glaze and charcoal and paper.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-2609945888457789362016-02-04T07:34:00.000-08:002016-02-04T07:34:07.430-08:00Letter of Love and Safety<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="mso-cellspacing: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 0in 0in; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 100%px;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dear D______,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That's all good news to hear.
I'm glad you are teaching, I think you need to. Congrats on setting a
wedding date! I'm happy for the both of you. Planning can be a lot of work,
take your time with it, it's your day, do what you guys want to do. Send me
an e-vite, I'll see if I can swing it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Things are well, again. I went
back home to Michigan for the winter break and it was good to be with
family and familiar surroundings. It put my mind at ease, I felt
comfortable, safe and loved, which, I must say I have needed for some time.
Coming back to West Philly after the holiday hiatus has helped me to accept
the city for what it is. Although I find it very depressing and filled with
destruction, paranoia and anger, I no longer have expectations that it will
change, furthermore I no longer question why it doesn't change or who to
blame for it's appearances and failures. It just is what it is. A dump. I
hope to move to a better neighborhood in July when my lease is up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This past year and a half I've
been in shock, taking in new information, a new culture, new architectural
stories, trying to understand a different people, I forgot who I was,
attempting acceptance. That, and this divorce, well it's been a very hard
year and a half. That, by the way, has been long, emotional and
arduous, yet has been progressing as compassionately and congruent as
possible between us. We have not seen each other since the day it happened,
A______ lives and has started a new life back in her hometown in Michigan.
Of all of it, I miss my friend the most. In a few more months it will all
be over. Again, the new year has proven to feel more settled. I feel calmer
and more myself again. Weird and moody. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The new job at The University of
the Arts is going better the second semester. It too, feels more familiar
as I have found my place here. The professors and students both fear and
respect me! Har! Just kidding, every one is very nice and they have all
remarked on my attention given to organization and cleanliness, which in
the field of ceramics means safety. That's the crux of my position, that
and ordering and selling supplies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Clay Studio is going well
too, now that I'm an official resident. Before that I was just subletting
and some folks were throwing some shade my way. They have left now and with
this new batch of residents the playing field has been leveled. I feel very
comfortable there and very supported. Hence larger goblins. At the school,
I have access to 50 inch tall kilns, so they may grow to a very large size
soon! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The past six months of my life
have been turbulent. On the surface, I've been awarded many things that I
have wanted for a very long time, a decent job in my field, a respected
residency, but I have considered at what cost? I have been separated from
things I had previously took for granted, by both my own choice and by
being victim to stranger's intentions - when I was mugged at gun point a
few months ago a block from my apartment. Love and safety, things I thought
were just standards in life, things that every one had or deserved in life
are now gone, in the very least their definitions have changed in my mind.
I'm not sure how to think of those things anymore and I feel like I lost
some part of what I knew of humanity, of myself and my understanding of
people. It has been an odd moment in my life, like I said, only in the past
few weeks have I started to feel like those things are coming back in a
familiar way again, in hopeful and reliable ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It makes for some ugly twisted
thoughts. I am very grateful to have my job and studio, without them I'm
not sure I would be here or where I would be. It's odd to me that the city
that I attribute to so giving me so much pain is also the same city that
has provided so much support. Philadelphia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thanks for asking how I'm doing.
It was good to write this out in a letter form. Art isn't enough some
times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You still at the same address?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Best,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Jason<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-57969079335008587532015-03-26T13:29:00.002-07:002015-03-26T13:29:36.982-07:00Ceramics in a Post-Internet State of Mind<div class="p1">
Now what? WTF am I even supposed to do with this stuff these days; does any thing actually matter any more? Sure, probably more so than ever! Get it? Things? Matter? Anyways...</div>
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<span class="s1">I’ve been asking myself for a long time why I constantly feel compelled to make with my hands in clay in today’s internet based everything life. It seems so ironic, messy and stupid to me. It’s frustrating and exciting at the same time. Every time I open up a bag of fresh clay or scrape some out of the pug mill I become excited for the possibilities that the malleable material suggests. Now I know that may be due to some prolonged exposure to clay and the ceramic process. It’s ingrained in my psyche, its who I am, its how I think through new situations and about the world. Sure, but todays world, as it is vastly distinct from my late 1970’s through 1990’s upbringing, is increasingly immaterial. I lived it; I watched it happen, I’m Generation X, Generation Crossover. As an object maker, that is huge, and probably true for most people born in the same time frame or earlier, to comprehend that change in some way that makes sense to them; it may take some more time. Solid things are now virtually, and therefore mentally, being replaced by digital versions of themselves, coded copies, archived, ready for up and downloading upon your command. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The state of the object is just at the beginning of its transformation according to Bruce Sterling in his book Shaping Things. From tangible Artifacts to three-dimensional printed Spimes and bio-nano-tech Biots, Sterling intelligently speculates our object oriented future, asking us gear up and adapt to rapid change.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">So why make with clay still I ask? </span></div>
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<span class="s1"> Robert Smithson thought about geologic and immaterial things intensely and his awareness of comprehending two seemingly different states of consciousness still hold true today. Heres a quote from, “Fragments of an Interview with P.A. Norvell, April, 1969”.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“To be located between those two points puts you in a position of elsewhere, so there’s no focus. This outer edge and this center constantly subvert each other, cancel each other out. There is a suspension of destination. I think that conceptual art which depends completely on written data is only half the story; it only deals with the mind and it has to deal with the material too... There is no escape from matter. There is no escape from the physical nor is there any escape from the mind. The two are in a constant collision course. You might say that my work is like an artistic disaster. It is a quiet catastrophe of mind and matter.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Smithson, of course is writing about the budding conceptual art movement in the late 1960’s and early 70’s, the height of immaterial thinking as art, as a thing, presiding ideas over objects, and by that I mean data and information having importance and meaning over formal concerns. (I wonder what Smithson would have thought about three-dimensional printed Spime objects?) He suggests that there is no escape. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Messy and stupid is who we are and clay personifies that exceptionally, as it has for a long time now. As my ceramic practice is part of my make up, I suggest it is also part of humanities, it’s who we are as a species. A material relationship created over numerous civilizations and a few thousand years will be hard to just right-click delete. And yet, I feel a disingenuous life creeping up in our near future, hygienically so, possibly puritanical. In denial of our upbringing, our species strives for further advancements in technologically supported purification. As a maker, some one who identifies by the work of their hands, the duality between a genetically imbued tactile comprehension of the world and one that is more and more removed from touch, continues to confound. That may just be the state of things these days, but unlike Smithson’s description between immaterial and the material knowledge, the line that divided the two is becoming more and more blurred through a hyper-reality of what is consider possible today.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It is easy to take a reactionary stance to all this, consider the Sloppy Craft label that was being thrown around a few years back. What reeks of humanity more than drippy lumpy fucked up-ness? Probably all consuming discussions about identity. If I had a completely malleable virtual avatar of myself who’s aspects I controlled most every day of my life online, so too would I have the same expectations IRL. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The idea of a post-internet culture/ society, what have you, is refreshing to me. The concept is in its infancy, possibly premature for the masses, but it gives me hope that we have not thrown everything, and by that I mean what we used to consider everything, down the drain just yet. My hope is that a post-internet mind is aware that there may be limits to our understanding of the tangible word, not everything can be converted, that may still we need some stuff around. We need things to make for the act of making. That is why art makes the most sense to me, of all things to make. Ikea makes fine dishes and I quite like them, as an artist with a ceramic based practice, I know I could make something equally functional, but why would I? We just don’t live in that world anymore. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">That being said, the things that post-internet artists are making or are having made I find utterly lacking in interest. The work feels blasé, like they did all their art history reading, research is automated, then shrugged and gave up; creating for irony over any other human impulse. Regardless of the thing produced, regardless of the form that is presented, the concept is still the same, nullifying individuality completely. I suppose that’s what the internet did, it has rendered all its users ubiquitous, copy and past, hash tagging, reproducers. That sucks if that is where we lead humanity, I don’t want any part of that, and yet here I am dealing with it as I write this. My hope is that all this is a fad, we accept that yes, we outsourced our passions, but the desire to make is still within us and it is necessary to do so, let us mature as a species. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">From a ceramicists point of view, I propose that this sticky situation of “to make or not to make”, can be better understood if we take the time to examine the material qualities of the substance itself. A formal approach I admit, but I think that’s my point of this rage essay. To be clear, I am discussing the material qualities of clay and not ceramic. As one comes before the other, as soft clay is being interpreted, we may be able to shed light on the continuing desire and impulse of haptic comprehension. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Clay, moist malleable ground with the potential for permanence, is in its most potently creative state right out of the box, mixer, or pug mill. At that point it urges use, it seduces us. Suggesting forms already, the freshly mixed clay, pulls at our imagination and insists we do something new to it. Clay is responsive. We play with a poke, a jab, possibly a good punch, before we bag it up or slam it into a heavy plastic tub for keeping. There it waits for further instruction, taunting us. When it is time, we haul out a lump, ten or twenty pounds, divide that into smaller portions and wedge. An exercise affirming connection between mind and hand, imagination stirring in potential. Clay is easy. A child can do it, and as the adage goes, so many of us try to remember that the more our practice grows. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Clay is a mimic. It can’t be pinned down. I think it is wonderful that clay, once fired, still confounds professionals and the public alike. That such an old medium, a mere geological substance, can continue to stir up speculation and controversy, says more about our humanity than anything else. Clay successfully dodges labels with each unique incarnation of form it takes; in the twenty first century that is a rather amazing thing to be able to say. Clay is political. The subject doesn’t take sides, the people do, creating a tension that will only spur discussions between the convictions of future generations. The debate will never die, it is not in clays material nature. It is messy and stupid, and constantly in motion, just like we have always been and should never forget to be. From that point of view, we can make anything and should. </span></div>
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Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-57535746593061590582015-03-26T13:12:00.004-07:002015-03-26T13:18:42.554-07:00The Philosophers Stone, Virtual Light, Nothing Left to Resist<div class="p1">
In his book, <i>Earth and Reveries of Will, An Essay On the Imagination of Matter, G</i>aston Bachelard considers the physical world in a state of hard and soft. “The dialectic of hard and soft governs every image with which we picture to ourselves the inner nature of things. This dialectic animates every image through which we participate actively, ardently, in the interiority of matter. Hard and soft are the primary qualifiers of the resistance of matter…” I find that observation of the world utterly mind-blowing, so simple and also so exact. As a ceramist, I am quite familiar with Bachelard’s notion of the world, and yet consider other possibilities. </div>
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<span class="s1">Leather-hard is term ceramists use to categorize clay in a firmness state between soft and hard. It is a material state with in the making process that has numerous possibilities. At first it is a difficult condition to understand, one has to gain a tactile sensitivity to drying clay and that is only learned through extensive making. Often the first few attempts to execute an intended project end in disappointment due to not having gained the sublets of leather-hard clay. There are varying degrees of leather-hard as well. With each tick on the scale of firmness, water moisture escapes clay and thus losses plasticity. What was once pliable, slowly renders to crumbles. After some experience a ceramist becomes attuned to the varying leather-hard states of clay and realizes that each one is moment when something can be done to a work in process. Leather-hard is a making moment, when decisions in form can be executed; they are charged moments. Between clay’s soft and hard state is the moment of potential. It is no longer held by its weight to the conditions of gravity as it is when soft, also, it is not yet to be handled lightly as it is fragile when in a completely dry and hard state. Leather-hard is a third state of thinking about things. For me the leather-hard state is a moment of consideration, clay is at its most limitless in form.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Considering that material qualities inform thinking about the world, and using the concept of leather-hard as a theoretical jumping off point, I would say that the world now consists of other states of mind, between the physical and the virtual. Over the past twenty years I have spent exceedingly more time on-line. Just as the material conditions of the tangible world have informed my thinking, so too have the immaterial conditions of virtual space. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I was born in the late 1970’s. My understanding of things was formed pre-internet. To know things was to touch stuff, to get messy. I was introduced to clay at a very young age and working with it has created a foundation of my understanding of the world, a tactile material knowledge. When I was an freshman in college in the mid 1990’s the internet was made available and thus began my engagement with virtual space. I was talking to unknown entities from who-knows-where in chat rooms, they could have been anybody. I was going to webpages and buying things with money, a very risky endeavor back then. The words to describe the internet were co-opted from real material things and places; this was the beginning of my confusion with the internet, but also my growing interest. Peers in the freshman dorms thought I was a geek for spending so much time on the shared computer, now it is probably quite the opposite. Generation X became a generation of crossovers, of transition, from clay to code. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">A few years ago during graduate school, 2009-2011, I started playing with some form building software called Google SketchUp, and it had a major impact on my notion of materials, objects and spaces. What I once knew to be hard messy hand-work was now neither soft nor hard, just mind-bendingly confusing, it was a complete 180 degree turn around in thinking about what a world could be made from. The more time I spent working with those particular digital materials, the more my thinking about things changed. Things that I knew to be concrete, both physically as well as psychologically, were no longer rendered in my mind as being from purely physical origins. Objects became, before my very eyes, simultaneously immaterial and obsolete. One was replaced by the other and not in the soft to hard transitions I previously understood about objects through my use of clay, a material that changed based on conditions of time and climate. The objects I was creating online were no longer held by these same circumstances, they had been created by a new set of criteria in a new world. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I spend more time on a computer and in a virtual world now than I ever did growing up. That world, ever expanding, ever growing technologically, has radically altered how I think about things. I still work with clay, I still make ceramics. In a way, I think clay is the perfect medium for understanding this shift in thinking from the material to the immaterial. Clay’s amorphous qualities allow me to adapt to new forms; it allows me to regain a perspective of the object with each leather-hard interpretation. Each poke, each bend in the clay, keeps my mind as adaptive and plastic as the material is. Its limitless possibilities have helped me to become pliable when it comes to considering things, and as quickly as the nature of things is changing, that quality is of utmost importance to have today. Ceramics continues to serve a purpose. Its material qualities serve to help our psychological transition from the soft and hard to the limitless and immaterial. Ceramics continues to help us think about change.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">My experience with the internet is ubiquitous these days, we have all had to acknowledge its influence on our lives. It is a major conversation in many circles of thought, including art. What I don’t see, is many ceramists talking about it, and that concerns me. They are not considering the internet-mind. If at all, the internet appears to be only considered as a marketing tool for self promotion, which it excels at, but the way it does so has its effects. My mind thinks differently because of the amount of time I spend online. I have witnessed that change in my thinking. Connections happen instantaneously with clicks. Places are no longer a condition of static objects casting shadows. Space is an infinite tundra of flat code. Forms hover ominously at eye level. The sun never sets, never rises. Life and death merge into one continuous loop, if they exist at all. Producing in virtual space, with digital materials, eliminates a resistance to material. I can’t leave a lasting mark, I can’t carve out a space. Labor defines nothing.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">All of this would suggest the need for new forms. I don’t see ceramics doing this as much as I think it can. Ceramics appears to have given itself a pass, made itself exempt from the meta-modern post-internet condition of life that the rest of the world it trying to figure out. Ceramics continues to re-create rather than innovate. (Three-dimensional printing is merely individualized industrialization, a mere appliance, another gadget to clean up after wards.)</span></div>
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<span class="s1">But what would a ceramicist make if the notion of the object is in flux? If a whole generation of young people consider objects and images equal? What to make then? What would be the best design to exemplify our current formal situation? This has been my existential quandary for the past few years since graduate school. I love making with clay / nothing physical has any meaning anymore. And yet, I wake up every morning in the sunlight. I still have to watch for cracks in the cement when I’m walking outside on my way to work. The physical world never went away, just the context of how I look at it has changed. Everything is fantastic these days, nothing material is taken for granted, I see labor in every object. I see misuse or care, and a story in every thing I can pick up and hold. Everything has become a sculpture in a way. The internet-mind is a mental condition, a context which places everything in a virtual light. That is the condition that needs to be told. I believe ceramics has that possibility and needs to add its wisdom and experience. It needs to look forward. I continue to need its help. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Although, in the end I ask, what’s left? Ceramics can’t transcend its material state, its material qualities. I am left with desires to make objects but wrestle with the permanence of that end product. Making lives on as an innate human expression but objects appear to have become irrational or in the very least non-relevant, taking up space. Ceramics and all things really, after considering the contemporary state of objects in todays post-internet world, appear to be nothing but takers-up of space, mere records of time obstructing my physical path. Needless to say, and maybe this has been the case for many makers over many years, I struggle between the need to make with my hands and my logical mind, but will say that the post-internet context that continues to blur realities, exemplifies this struggle ten fold in very rational ways. Without the ability to work against matter, how do I know my place in the world?</span></div>
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Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-87919904982292074602015-03-13T10:15:00.003-07:002015-03-26T13:20:12.919-07:00An email to a possible grad student considering the AC+D program<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">Dear Jason,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hi! My name is ______ and I am contacting you hoping you might have a minute to offer me some feedback about your experience in the AC+D program. I am very excited about the opportunity, but am trying to weigh all my options carefully and get as much information as I can. Many thanks for your time!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about the ACD program, please consider that it has changed a lot since I was a student in the first class of 2011, but I will try my best answering honestly. Email works best, please just send my your questions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Best,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Thanks Jason. Any overall impressions would be appreciated. And any feedback about how grad school helped further your career or didn't help. I am grateful for you taking the time to write!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Well ______, grad school in the ACD program changed my life. How's that for an over all impression? Just kidding. But it did really. In the ACD program we considered what I call everything known to human kind. Allow me to explain. the program is not specific. It considers, in conversation with your student peers as well as in open dialog critics, art, craft and design. Those three disciplines are the umbrella for all human thinking and innovation including all of the sciences. In my opinion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I considered the program vast in scope, our dialog was not art or craft or design specific. There are many different teachers and students with different interests and backgrounds. No one previous language is suitable to discuss all the different view points in the room. At times this is freeing and at other times this is like treading water and gaining no traction for what you want to do. At no one time did I ever feel that I had an ally in my group who had the same intentions or expectations in this program while in grad school. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">While the generalized language we developed over the first year opened up my mind to possibility in the things I make and what they could be, at no time did I find a focus. Personally, only now, some 5 years later do I feel like I know what I want to make as well as gained a group of like minded people to help support those ideas. And I had to move across the country to do so. I did meet one person during grad school to help with my current situation though. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This may all sound like bad things, it is not. I say if you want your practice expanded, go for it. It is the long road, you may not find your immediate group. You will be exposed to one or two guest artists or mentors who you respond to and they may become helpful to you after school. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The program is odd, it is what you contribute to it, it is very open in that way, you may feel empowered by this or you may feel isolated at times. There is not much of a previous history of which to attach your anchor to. (there maybe now, as I said I was part of the first class, I had no anchor, but there are more current graduates who have looked to me and my class for support, I did not have that opportunity.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This may all seem pretty wishy washy, but I will end on this, if your graduate intention is to focus on a medium or a certain discipline, a certain way of thinking (for instance a specific interest in ceramic sculpture) consider another school, if your graduate intention is to loosen up and explore other ways of creative thought consider the ACD program.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">FYI the ACD program has other things to take into consideration as well, there is a strong focus on branding, marketing and entrepreneurial studies. This may or may not be of interest to you and therefor you may or may not find distracting to you creative interests. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Grad school in the ACD program did not further my career, it confused the shit out of me, which I think is what all grad school programs are supposed to do. Its called being a student. I took in a lot of information, I considered a lot of other peoples interests that I had no interest in, I learned patience. I learned to look at the world in a more broad light, I can talk about the same thing from a few different stand points now. I appreciate this greatly, but I will say that most people don't appreciate this, people want specifics, they want to know what you do in one sentence, they want to be able to attach what you do to something they all ready know, they want to label what you make and what you do. I find this annoying and limited in thinking about things today. But I enjoy challenges and that won over my decision to go to the ACD program.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sorry, there are no simple answers, (that's probably due to my education in the ACD program as well.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Best of luck,</span></div>
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Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-54570496007826983872014-12-31T12:57:00.004-08:002014-12-31T14:44:12.513-08:00The Foundations of Privilege, from Portland to Philadelphia with Goblins, 2014.<div class="p1">
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<span class="s1">After six years of living in a utopia bubble, my wife and I moved from Portland, Oregon so she could go to graduate school at UPenn. Ivy league, social work, full ride. Of course you leave / go. She’s been learning about mass incarceration, race and gender inequality, and interning as a transitional counselor for soon to be released inmates. We are an interracial couple, married for one year, have been with each other for ten. </span><br />
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<span class="s1">Privilege has come up often. In our time together, I have learned a lot about mine. But not as much as I have learned about it than in the past six months living in West Philly.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I didn't grow up in a household that talked about religion, politics or race. We ate dinner together every night and mom, sister and I went to church every Sunday morning. Dad stayed home, we never talked about it. These subjects were considered impolite I supposed. We were kept safe and then we watched TV in the evenings. Around ten years old I started drawing cartoons and making ceramic animal sculptures delving into my own fantasy world, filling in the gaps of my ignorance about the world.</span></div>
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The first time I was introduced to the idea of privilege, the word, the meaning, was during my first art critique in graduate school. It happened so fast, in the middle of confusion, art history and theory. At one moment we were talking about holes in ceramic work and why mine didn’t have any, and then the next moment the professor was saying he wanted everything I had always had as a child. I said I wanted what he had, I felt so empty and naive at that moment. It all ended abruptly and the group moved onto the next students work. </div>
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<span class="s1">Philadelphia is the biggest city either of us has ever lived in. We found our place on Craigslist from Portland, took a FaceTime tour with our iPhones. We asked about the neighborhood and she was honest, Philly is divided block to block. It was close to the school for my wife and a landing place for us. We took it and signed the lease contract from a Fedex Kinko’s. Nine days driving and we pulled in front of our apartment in West Philly. One of the first things our new landlord said, upon meeting in real life, was don’t walk anymore north or west from our new apartment, ours was the last block. We are on the edge. Safe for others but not me, it’s not my culture, I don’t fit in here and I’m not welcomed. I am an uninvited guest. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">We’ve driven around and can see why. Abandonment, undefined masses, rubble and debris, black windowless structures, and garbage slowly fills the streets the farther you drive in either of those directions. My co-worker said once when he was growing up that his mom wouldn’t let him go past 40th. We live on 50th and I haven’t walked past 52nd, and I only do that if I need to catch the train, but usually walk the opposite direction to 46th for the same reason, it feels safer. The ten blocks past University City, from 40th to 50th, are a mix of housing for home owners, students and low income renters, and abandoned lots and buildings, the contrast from block to block, even from building to building is jarring. I stay in my apartment most of the time, usually only going out side to walk the dog or go to work.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I have an upbringing in building, making and maintaining things, objects. I place a high value on material and space. They are precious to me, I identify with them. Material is potential, expression, thinking with my hands, exercising my imagination, and has always helped me to understand the world. Material lies around in mounds and as discarded waste in empty lots where buildings once stood in West Philly. Broken cement chunks and bricks randomly thrown in heaps in the allies. It’s a chaotic mess, I have to watch where I step. There are whole abandoned lots in my neighborhood that could fit every tiny shitty apartment I’ve every lived in. Philadelphia is old, one of the oldest cities in the United States, layers upon layers of rebuilding and change. I know, but still vastly different from Portland. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I did not know how much organization and maintenance played into feelings of safety and beauty until I moved here. I keep thinking that all this potential is lost when I walk outside. I think, if this material was maintained, it could still be what it was intended for when it was originally constructed, or, after its demolition, it could be recycled and made into something new. And this is when I start to be aware of my privilege. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Make. Build. Maintain. New. These are the ideals of my culture, I was afforded to think in this linear fashion. Some call this progress, but now I'm learning that maybe it is the foundation of privilege. It was my upbringing. I had the time, money, material, and space, the resources to create. I had abundance and didn't know it, didn't know it truly on a level of comprehension that was specific to my learning language, until now, seeing, being, and living here in this neighborhood. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I don't live in a place that can afford the criteria for life that I had / have. I’m having a very hard time understanding that. I'm left wondering who made this place, who left this junk here, what happened here, how did it happen and how come no one seems to care? Who would choose to live like this? As I did when I was a child, I am filling in the gaps of my ignorance with fantasy explanations. Goblins must have constructed these surroundings and I am a goblin for thinking that as well. I feel like shit, no one chooses to live like this, they have to, and they have for some time now, this is and has always been life. I am the unwelcome guest and they have never been to, or will probably never go to an overly well manicured place such as Portland, Oregon.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In Oregon I was poor, as I am now, but there I could still fake like I wasn’t. And before Oregon, living outside of Detroit, I was poor too, but we just called it young, stupid and searching. Now, here in Philadelphia, the curtain is raised, I am in my late thirties and for the first time in my life I am living in a place that fits my financial situation. It’s ugly, depressing and heartbreaking. Everyday I walk the dog trying to become more accustomed to it all, but find a quick reason to return back to my apartment, hiding in my fantasy world, drawing and making dumb ceramic sculptures, furiously processing these feeling in starts and fits, scratches and smashes.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Only recently, after six months living in West Philly, have I been able to rest with it all. My privilege is mine and I am thankful for that, from an early age I learned a way to cope with change and stress and loss. But my fantasy world has been a blessing as well as a hinderance, and I see that now, I am hyper aware of my place and surrounding. I am a humbled guest in the neighborhood, some people say hello now, and some don’t. </span></div>
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Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-84929594458668375132014-08-27T08:44:00.002-07:002014-08-27T08:44:39.042-07:00<a href="http://www.fontichiaro.com/activelearning/2013/10/15/hbr-tactile-intelligence/">http://www.fontichiaro.com/activelearning/2013/10/15/hbr-tactile-intelligence/</a><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; line-height: 24px;">The more time our “digital native” kids spend on entertainment media, the more we lose the tactile intelligence critical to design and manufacture physical products.</span>Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-20518047115595308192014-07-24T11:23:00.000-07:002014-07-25T06:59:09.673-07:00The New Influence<div class="p1">
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Bruce Metcalf’s essay <a href="http://www.brucemetcalf.com/blog/?p=128">Craftsmanship in the Age of Hot Glue and Tape</a>, edited and renamed Hot Glue and Staples for American Craft issue June / July 2014 irritates me. I guess it has irritated many other folks as well, but I feel compelled to share some of my own thoughts. I don't disagree with much of what he says about the importance of craftsmanship, but its a rather narrow perspective to have with consideration to the changing state of the object these days. Metcalf is projecting his values based on his practice onto the entirety of art. Doing so, he is perpetuating the classification of objects solely between art and craft. His essay doesn’t include a perspective of the object beyond physicality, a world we have lived in for quite some time now. The age of the internet has changed craft. </div>
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<span class="s1">Metcalf does highlight an important aspect of craftsmanship, the influence that practice has to change our minds, but fails to consider it in a much broader analysis. Prolonged repetition does change neurological pathways, that is to say, how we think. After twenty years of using the internet we are just beginning to catch up to the implications of this new information technology, this new medium. With prolonged use, the internet has changed our minds. Nicholas Carr, in his book The Shallows, proves that how we communicate, think, and create, have all been neurologically reformatted due to the internet. After two decades of working within virtual systems, with virtual material if you will, how can I be expected to approach physical materials in traditional ways? How can I think of objects by a purely physical description alone? How could I possibly approach them in the same way? Furthermore, why would I want to? </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I believe that craftsmanship is on a sliding scale, a tool used incrementally from low to high, in order to support a makers intention. I have witnessed two unspoken reactions to the internet over the past few years when it comes to object making in craft. Very high craftsmanship, inciting an over fetishized product, both in form and nostalgia, and very low craftsmanship, creating haphazard, almost lackadaisical works which slightly refer to Process Art, but lack in the that movements intention. The high end reaction feels stubborn, in denial of the technological change we are all going through, and the low end reaction is lost in the quagmire of infinite possibility, feeling half inspired and half defeated. Given the overwhelming influence the internet has had on our notion of production, objects, and materials, I find it truly amazing that both camps are still making, with there hands, and with tangible substances. It is a testament to our genetically formed relationship with all things tangible and the will of humanity. Non-the-less, the notion of the object has been forever changed in the minds of all the internets users. I do not believe sloppy craft exists. The so called sloppy craft maker has purposely put that object into the public, opening it up for discussion. I have to at least meet the maker half way and believe that they choose that level of craftsmanship very intentionally. Furthermore, I have to consider why they choose to do so, and by that I mean what context the maker producing from. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I suspect that Metcalf is not so much upset with so called sloppy craft, as he is with wanting makers to have a sense of respect for material, with their work, and taking some pride in themselves. I agree, but the classification of created objects must transcend the previous models of art, craft and design, and begin to include, in the very least, the awareness of virtual sensibilities. Science fiction writer and design theorist Bruce Sterling helps to give some semblance to the virtual objects of the present and near future in his book Shaping Things. The physical object, what he calls the artifact, is merely our first notion of the object, there are many more to come. If form equals content, I suspect that there is a lot more understanding to be done and this can only happen with continued experimentation.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">Metcalf calls for us to look through the surface of the object and into the meaning of it. I argue that lavish attention to an object completely hinders the disappearance of the surface and only reflects the makers technical ability. This is not concept. We need to think broader. We can no longer rely on our previous definitions of what makes a good art or a good craft object. To start, we all need to stop defining craft by material association and start defining it by the makers intention. Even infinitely malleable clay has its limitations in use, which in turn creates limitations in practice and the associative maker’s identity. Like the internet, intention has no bounds. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Let us pretend for a moment, that craft, as a noun, has died. It no longer exists. Regardless of means of production, whether by hand or by machine, people will continue to produce objects, for there will always be an innate calling to do so, that is something we can always rely on. Now, regardless of the inspirational source, utilitarian or not, people can now set there intention on only one aspect, whether an object is functional or is not. There would be objects that are sculptures and there would be objects that are designs. My point is, as makers we all side either one way or the other already, and that may change from day to day, but what I’m asking for is that makers get out of their own way and label the objects they make and not themselves. Let intention drive form and thus content.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Playing out this thought experiment a little further, how would such an approach to material and making change how we think about craft? Craft is reformed into a verb. Craft becomes a means for sociology including, but not limited to, education, community awareness, sharing, empathy, thinking, and discussion. These craft qualities far exceed the stagnate limitations of the individual object. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The influence of the internet places the maker in confusing territory, without a doubt, but that does not exclude us from trying to make sense of it. Any reaction to a major paradigm shift, is a good reaction, it shows consideration and thoughtfulness, but if there is one thing I have learned from my considerations of the internet, is that it affirms that there is more than one approach to thinking about things and that includes objects. The possibilities of a thing are endless, embrace them all, and let them influence what you love to do. You’ll make better work for doing so. </span></div>
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Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-68988856174111751512013-07-31T19:26:00.002-07:002013-07-31T19:26:49.717-07:00In the year 2013<div class="p1">
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<span class="s2">How do we know we exist today?</span></div>
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<span class="s2">What evidence reflects this awareness?</span></div>
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<span class="s2">Do we still gain knowledge through physical experiences, through tactile interpretations and bodily acts?</span></div>
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<span class="s2">Is knowledge merely the outcome of research?</span></div>
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<span class="s2">What does this information look like?</span></div>
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<span class="s2">Does physical information have the same relevance today as it once had?</span></div>
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<span class="s2">Is material evidence still important? Is it even necessary? </span></div>
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<span class="s2">Has documentation replaced our artifacts of effort?</span></div>
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<span class="s2">What is the outcome of labor?</span></div>
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<span class="s2">What is the purpose of intention without physical evidence?</span></div>
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<span class="s2">Is art merely the refuse of the making act? </span></div>
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<span class="s2">Are there substances to resist to in virtual realms? </span></div>
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<span class="s2">What can be learned form those types of resistances?</span></div>
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<span class="s2">What materials can genuinely record my interpretations? My questions? My curiosities?</span></div>
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<span class="s2">Can I trust them? </span></div>
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<span class="s2">What continues to compel me to leave pieces of myself behind?</span></div>
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Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-1811392919176819952013-04-03T22:56:00.004-07:002013-04-03T22:56:49.280-07:00Object Changer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This short SF novel changed how I think about objects, craft, craftsmanship, and technology. The general mechanic in the story is that in an alternate reality there is no technology that improves the quality of things, but rather the effect of using objects makes things better. Though use, objects evolve, become better tools, and become more luxurious. As a maker of objects, keeping this concept in mind in this reality, has radically changed my intention for making a "new" thing at the onset of its making. Thank you David Brin.<br />Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-30007131752033180342013-01-12T21:48:00.002-08:002013-01-12T22:10:35.929-08:00“My interest in technology is in its relationship with culture and its effects on society, and in many cases that can be communicated in things other than code.” (O'Dwyer 2012: 7)<a href="http://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/dec/6/whats-really-specific-about-new-media-art-curating/">http://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/dec/6/whats-really-specific-about-new-media-art-curating/</a>Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-90563850444089453272013-01-12T21:46:00.000-08:002013-01-12T21:46:03.426-08:00"The Future-Present is a series of weak signals, gut reactions, and uncanny fascinations, laid out into sketches and short blurbs, printed on an esoteric deck of cards."<a href="http://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/jul/12/guide-future-present-archetypes-part-1-spark/">http://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/jul/12/guide-future-present-archetypes-part-1-spark/</a>Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-60989962985740454082013-01-12T21:34:00.000-08:002013-01-12T21:34:38.504-08:00"Retro physible hackers will take up woodworking, just to “make something real”. <a href="http://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/mar/8/shape-shaping-things-come/">http://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/mar/8/shape-shaping-things-come/</a>Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-52481175221433017532012-12-31T14:42:00.003-08:002014-12-31T13:04:30.575-08:00The Return from a Fantastic Place<br />
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I entered the virtual space as an object maker, recognizing Sketch Up as a sculptor might recognize a chisel as it is in the context of a great hunk of marble challenging him to carve out of it some thing greater, if not beaconing a worth while pursuit of time. The virtual space confronted my notion of material, my tactile self in knowing and understanding my self as a person who processes life and the world through expressions of the hand. Physical material slowed me down, gave me time to contemplate my emotions, stresses, and intellectual curiosities. Virtual space and the material it is composed of, was shockingly immediate; it was altogether uncomfortable. I persisted though, and spent a vast amount of time there, adapting by producing many digital things. Indeed, I spent more time in that universe of virtual material, than I did in my initial world of physical material wrought with all its resistances. Only the intermittent realms of dreams interrupted my waking hours in this new virtual space, which probably only exacerbated my temporal confusion. </div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Still, and once again as it is a truism in my life, this new virtual environment needed processing, and after a days journey through virtual space, I still had to process my findings physically. I continued to make with my hands in my medium of choice since very early childhood, clay. The great amorphous philosophers stone if there ever was one, again only adding to the chasms and endless tunnels of my elastic mind. It appeared for a long time that every thing I once relied upon to keep sane was only compounding my sinking into the fortuitous and proverbial rabbit hole. Working in clay, which was once a stronghold in my psyche was now equally queer as the virtual worlds I was inhabiting by day as well as the dreams I was having during sleep. Nothing made sense anymore, and yet I persisted as the good student I was and as I only know how to do, on masochistic levels, hopelessly addicted to the nothingness. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>One day, while crafting some new digital object, free from the confining notions of entropy and gravity, I had what addicts can an epiphany. The digital material I was working with created both form as well as space. In physical reality, on earth, we have air as space, only defined by the ground and the objects protruding from it or resting on it, in what ever substances they may be occurring in, of natural materials or human made ones. In virtual space there is no preexisting air. All that is seen on the computer screen is code, ones and zeros. In order to define the simulacra of digital things, all must be programmed. This premonition gave way to my understanding of context as it is defined and in relationship to form, in a very formal way. As an object maker, my idea of physical context has always been taken for granted, except perhaps when considering the display of said object or sculpture. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>It has been a while since I have visited the virtual space of Sketch Up, about two years. Sure, I may dabble here and there, but I am grounded once again in the physical, it seems more important to me. But I am still left with questions. For instance, if it takes physical knowledge to create virtual spaces, for both visiting and creating, then can the opposite be true? Can the virtual influence the physical? What is happening now, in my head and in my studio is, I am making things by hand as they have been influenced by virtual means and experiences. I am using tools such as Push/Pull and Rotate from Sketch Up in my mind in order to create physical objects in clay. My studio is now more than a sum of equipment, it is in my mind as well as my hands now.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>I am still an object maker, but these new objects are strange as if created by a foreign self who I’m still getting to know. Considering clays origins, the buried earth, in conjunction with the context / form relationship in Sketch Up, that of each thing being created of the same coded material, blurring the lines of distinction and distinction-ability, I feel my self finding common treads in the land and the landscape. Both made of small things like rocks and trees, and at the same time vastly expansive as far as the eye can see and the feet are willing to traverse. As infinite as a virtual plane and also composed of the same unifying material. In a way, my current practice has come full circle, the last major intellectual journey having taken during my undergraduate studies, where I returned processed clay of various mixed powders to the earth to do with it what it may through a series of different weather and climate conditions. Accepting the larger and uncontrollable forces as they come; what ever the outcome may be, clay can adapt. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The objects have become contexts or fragments or ideas of contexts, which is a very odd thing to think about, distinguishing intention from interpretation. But, that is how I felt during my virtual journeys, each foot in two different worlds at the same time, not alive and not quite dead. In the physical world, I felt as if I was just going through the motions, a sort of muscle memory reaction to life and the things going on around me. Like knowing where the light switches are in the dark but not using them because I knew they now longer worked. In the virtual realm, every moment was wrought with tense short bursts of excitement that never amounted to any one memorable experience of pleasure, a steady drip of morphine, one drop at a time just sustaining me until the next, always under the guise that the next click will be the click of something great. But nothing there amounted to anything, or I should say any actual object. How does a sculptor conceive of this?</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>These feeling of loss of self and detachment have began another line of work that is intertwined with the loss of making by hand. When working with digital material, it seems odd, almost futile to go back into the clay studio and get dirty. The medium, as all physical materials do, has its limitations, quite unlike virtual material. Furthermore, and from another perspective, I thought a long time about excess. I would ask myself questions that challenged my making beyond mere compulsory habits. Such as, do I really need to make another ceramic cup? For that matter, with the ease of digital technology at our fingertips, three-dimensional printers, and factories, do I really need to make by hand, a coffee mug? Won’t it become yet another coffee mug to add to the heaps at Goodwill later? Does yet another coffee mug need to be made at all, by anyone? Some would say yes, as a defiant gesture of the hand made. As an act which defines humans from all other things, in meaning, imagination, and identity. For those qualities of humans, I agree, they are vastly important to uphold and have daily reminders of, but the time of designed trinkets are over. They, in the context of virtual communication and connections, like morphine drips themselves, are outmoded. If you believe other wise, stay in the Shire.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>My point here is that for my own practice, making by hand, and all the functions those objects hold themselves to answer, is being replaced by virtual things. At times I feel very sad by this and at other times it makes the most sense logically and I think it may actually help our overly commercial and materialistic society. But at what cost, is always the opposing thought in my head. It is in my nature to flip-flop over issues and this subject matter will not change that fact about me. As our lives become more and more entangled with virtual experiences, my feelings of the loss of human identity, as making physically has sustained and formed our minds since our beginning, has also become a major theme in my practice. This feeling is nothing new when seen in reaction to new growing technologies, just look at all the hoopla over industrialization. Our current neo-craft movement is nothing more than a reaction to virtual technology, just as folks were reacting to machines making objects instead of us and our all import souls. Both reactions are about loosing touch with the ways of life and how we as humans have always understood it, by manipulating the earths material with our hands. Life is a processing of natural materials, or I should say it was. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>So what we have here is death on an exponentially rising incline. Not the death of humans per ‘se, instead a very old and identifiable human identity. The pinch pot holds more information in our being than it does the liquid it was mean to contain. Now we cast is away. The new world is untouchable, not worth fixing, and quickly replaceable. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>As per usual, I have about two or three main bodies of working going at all times, usually each contradicting the other, or each merely presenting the two sides of the same coin, as if coins naturally stood on their edges, as a sculpture would be seen on all sides at all times. The last few paragraphs explaining the loss of human identity is the first. The other body of work is about fantastic new perceptions of what is possible, embracing the qualities of virtual spaces and digital materials, accepting their influences by finding similarities between them and the unseeable and expansive preexisting earth. It is a hybrid living that is mature, simple and constant. I feel this understanding is broad in scope, which reassures me. This series calms me and gives solid weight and grounding to me and I feel that it is moving beyond my initial hang ups and gut reactions to digital technologies, alas it must be made though.</span></div>
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Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-38727548742586999982012-11-04T20:17:00.002-08:002012-11-04T20:17:04.119-08:00Material Interest
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<span class="s1">I am interested in the dynamic between interpretation and intention during the act of making with clay, a medium that inherently possess parallel states of being as it changes from soft and malleable to hard and permanent. I find these active moments in making similar to the process of experimentation, creating a push and pull tension between the desires of play and control. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I like swishing clay with my fingers and hands. With little effort or refinement, the impressions of my curiosities are recorded instantly. Due to the amorphous nature of clay, human identity is at once set and challenged during the same moment in time, urging constant reevaluations of self as it exists within fluctuation. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">My interest in making, and not things to be made, gives suggestion that its end products can be understood as evidences or artifacts. It is the firing process that instills the making act with meaning, holding it in place, slowing down the experience, nearly stopping time completely. These petrified moments are possibilities in form, alluding to the meaning of material and its connections to our consciousness. </span></div>
Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-18194329841322755212012-11-04T20:13:00.001-08:002012-11-04T20:13:11.519-08:00Craft / Craftsmanship(Having recently re-watched Sloppy Craft, a public conversation hosted by The Museum of Contemporary Craft, at PNCA, Fall 2009), I believe much confusion on the topic of craft is based on conversations which confuse the place holder of certain things with the notion of skill for intention.<br />
The latter, Craftsmanship, in my opinion, is a sliding scale of quality based on a makers intention and/or concept; do with it as you would or need to do, for the sake of the viewer / user of that thing you are making.<br />
Craft on the other hand, is two things. One, a wonderfully confusing, frustrating, and convoluted catch-all of issues, topics, and objects that have double, if not unlimited, meanings as those things mean so much to us as a species. Due to which, and my second belief, Craft is the origin of all humanly constructed things, parenting Art as well as Design, because it was and continues to be the defining moment of our very existence in survival and intelligence. Craft is simply the manipulation of natural materials for our perceived betterment, and indeed survival and intelligence are important, but furthermore, as we work with and change materials, we become attached to them on many levels, making Craft emotional. <br />
When opening discussions about Craft, as in new perceptions of form or considering intentions in concept by challenging traditional techniques, I think it would be thoughtful to consider one's statements either in the realm of Craft or Craftsmanship. Not doing so, as I have seen in this lecture, as well as having participated in many academically based critiques and conversations, sets any discussion of Craft on a confusing path, which becomes quickly heated and subject to ominously broad quagmires of tangental topics and passionate interjections. As a participant in such discussions, after some time has gone by, I have always felt like I was watching a Great Dane chase its own tale until it has exhasted its self. <br />
Such is the arena of public lectures, but discussing Craft is sticky enough already, I think that by stating distinctive guidelines between Craft and Craftsmanship could ease the tension and hopefully lead to greater insights. Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-59979997095537620512012-10-19T17:46:00.002-07:002012-10-19T17:47:55.689-07:00Virtual Funeralhttp://www.calebbooker.com/blog/2008/01/13/v-funeral/<a href="http://www.calebbooker.com/blog/2008/01/13/v-funeral/">http://www.calebbooker.com/blog/2008/01/13/v-funeral/</a><br />
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Click link above for a small essay on the experience had by the participants.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JaEgu8NnJn8" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8778348773610536476.post-71886701181820604392012-10-17T23:04:00.001-07:002012-10-19T22:42:06.811-07:00Virtual Conclusion I have come to the conclusion that talking about Virtual Reality publicly is a bad idea for my artistic career. I presume folks either think I'm crazy or a few decades late to the postmodern world. <br />
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When I say Virtual Reality, I tend to think of it as digital things, places, objects and materials such as the Internet, SketchUp, or Minecraft. Different environments alter human consciousness and I do not think these digital realms are any different. Having massive influences on how we communicate, distribute information, VR is challenging our perceptions of what is real and what is not, turning the pillars of philosophy up side down. <br />
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I try telling this to common folks and they just look at me weird. On the other hand, I want to talk about it with art peers and sometimes I feel like they are staring me down with the loudest "Duh" one could utter. To the former group of folks, I want to say go read some McLuhan, and consequently, the latter group may being saying the same thing to me. Thanks, I have, and then some.<br />
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I see this VR thing being worked out/on by artists of all sorts, but in very abstract manners. I know, that's art right? I argue that the source material strange enough; why are artist's making it more confusing? <br />
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Calling on abstract explanations of VR as modern day witchcraft or magic is unsettling for me, a rising theme in contemporary art I have noticed, including Neon-hippy or cyber-pagan expressions. I mean, I get it, when the notion of objects transcend physical law, defying gravity and begin to levitate in the digital spaces we inhabit, appears more common than actual grounded concepts of objects, there may be rise for any sort of reasoning. When a co-worker, an avide Minecraft player says, "You would think real life would be more interesting, but it isn't." I begin to worry, on some fundamental level, about the state and condition of human beings.<br />
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Casting off science and math as magic has always been a fools way of explaining that which is not commonly, publicly, or rationally understood. It's too simplistic. Indeed the power of influence that VR has is ominous, so I also wonder if these fantastic explanations are warranted in a way. Maybe a Virtual Reality is that much so, that these types of reactions are no longer ignorant or with out consideration. Maybe these explanations are the closest rational we can get to a real understanding of something so mind boggling.<br />
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Magical explanations, although they leave me stunned, in a paralyzed sort of way, are but one way to explain the influence of VR on the human conscious. In terms of identity, VR has influenced every notion of trans-person-ness in every which way. Which brings me back to my understanding of what VR is and what it means to me and my artistic interests. To me, VR is changing how we think of material. How materials ought to act, bend, and may be formed and manipulated. Changing material has been our first inclination toward a relationship with the earth. Now that material has been numerically coded, those limitations have been stretched so far, that it is hard to even see their origins. I fear we are literally losing touch with the previous understandings of the haptic world. Possibly, testing the limits of our notion of materials may set a new perspective of our own limitations, questioning just how far we want to influence how we see ourselves and how we see others.<br />
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Alas, I have been thinking about this subject of VR and how it is changing us, to the core of our being, every fucking day, every exhausting waking moment for well over two years and I am sick and tired of it. I'm tired, very tired. It has been a constant circular conversation that i just can't shut off or tune out. All this thinking and considering isn't getting my art work anywhere. It seems I need an equally outlandish explanation of VR of my own, just so I can move on. <br />
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In conclusion, a quote from an unknown-by-me source:<br />
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"I fully realize that I have not succeeded in answering all of your questions... indeed, I feel I have not answered any of them completely. The answers I have found only serve to raise a whole new set of questions, which only lead to more problems, some of which we weren't even aware were problems.<br />
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To sum it up... in some ways, I feel we are as confused as ever, but I believe we are confused on a higher level, and about more important things."<br />
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<br />Jason Lee Starinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01572837091320888516noreply@blogger.com0