Salon 88 // Education

Hi, everyone. My name is Colin Goldberg, and I am zooming in from Vermont, U.S.A. And we're here at the 88th text Salon, and the theme of this salon is education, and we have a special guest, moderate moderator here, Malavika Mandal Andrew, who is here with us from India, with a bunch of her students. And basically, the idea of this salon is the students that she's been working with have created collaborative artworks by passing digital file back and forth together. And that's something that originated from an activity in this text. Freshness community that was spearheaded by an artist named Davonte Bradley, Aka Davo, and we did a couple collaborative exhibitions using that format. And it's very exciting that Malavika has taken that idea and brought it to India. And she actually is the 1st Techspressionist artist listed in the artist index from India, and also co-founder of the Indian node along with Goba Kumar. So I'm good.

Colin Goldberg

Oh.

Come on!

I'm not sure who's talking, but whoever is, can you mute.

He's gone.

Can you mute yourself for a sec? Just hear you? I don't think she hears us, anyway.

Much the moment recording started. Yeah, yeah.

Well, comic relief here. So Malavika is an artist whose practice includes mixed media, digital collage and digital art tapestry and other fiber art. She received her Mfa. And Bfa. From A university in India. I'll let her pronounce it and at that university she was awarded the National Scholarship by the Government of India, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, and she did her training under Reten Mazumdar in 2012 Malavik was awarded Pollock-Krasner Grant.

Colin Goldberg

Which is also a grant that I received. So that's something we have in common. And she received a senior fellowship from the Ccrt Ministry of culture, Government of India and she founded this organization collaborative art space in August of 2021. And it is an international art organization that conducts collaborative art projects. So without further ado, I'm going to hand the microphone off to Malavika, and she's going to talk a little bit more about this project, and then move into introducing the work of the students. So, Malavika, this, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Colleen. Am I audible?

Yep. I can hear you.

Thank you, Colon, for the introduction. A warm welcome to all of you in our 88th Exhibition and salon text. Visual Salon is the platform. From where the idea of collaborative art space, thought developed one of the intellectual virtual platform where we interact, plan, meet all different artists from all over the world. Discuss about expressionism, art, and events. The idea of collaborative art space was born out of collaboration with artist Davante. Bradley's curated show, titled Expressionist collab. 2 Collaborative art space started in July 2021, when the second wave of the pandemic came to its end. But People were still not comfortable to go out.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

This gave the idea that while our physical body remained static. Confined in the 4 walls of our home. Our art has the ability to travel across the globe. Reach places and corners that seems impossible. What is collaborative art, space, collaborative art space uses collaboration as a tool to foster artistic growth and creativity by organizing international art projects connecting artists to create collaborative artworks in various medium Interaction. Experiment, thinking, managing, suspense, challenge, are the key words of collaborative art, space.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

Collaborative art space projects are about creating something new beyond imagination. The project gives participants to experience the joy of creating together, caring, sharing, and learning. This helps in understanding each other's capability and makes the paths to a new idea. The project are about, give and take adjustment, discussing and creating the best Collaborative art. Space doesn't believe in age and gender-wise group. We believe purely in creativity. It conducts over 5 different collaborative events spread throughout the year along with virtual exhibition and art catalogs Number one event, community art project, timing January to March every year, individual ages 8, 14, and ever living, studying, or working in a community, a building society, or a locality, or in institution like school college companies or organization Collaborate with each others to create an environmentally friendly art piece that must be at least 50% made out of waste material.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

Winning entries are chosen via judges. Considering an online voting and all artworks exhibited online second event. Interschool expressionist, digital collaborative project timing April 2, September every year. Interschool technicians. Digital art collaboration is a project where 2 artists between ages 14 to 18 years different from different school, and colleges work together to create artworks on chosen theme. There are 2 different work batches. One is April, May and another one is July. August. Artists can choose. The batch suits their comfort.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

The exhibition for both the created, both created during both the batches sorry, are displayed together. The project ends with virtual exhibition and walkthrough, or a presentation along with exhibition catalog. Today, this batch only going to present or their artwork. 3, rd Jugalvandi, or Conference timing May to September every year an artist and artisan or a craftsman like folk, singer, dancer, folk. Musician, collaborate together to create wonderful works of art. It's an open team of 2, consisting of one artist and artisan above the age of 15, currently living or working in India. The focus of the project is promoting traditional and folk art of India in all shapes and form.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

4th Project is international collaborative art. Binale timing July to August every 2 years selected artists 18 years and above work in trials create 3 collaborative and one individual artwork in mixed media or digital art on their chosen theme. Mine ends with physical and virtual exhibition, and Walkthrough. The last project emotion which timing is October to December. Every year it invites artists of 15 years and ever from India to collaborate artwork, exploring emotion. The artist can work with anyone close to them, including friends, family, classmate, grandparents, or teacher. They can blend different art forms like painting with music, dance with poetry.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

And any combination you can think of. Winning entries are chosen through online voting, and all artworks are exhibited online. The details of all the ever mentioned. What I explained are available on our website, collaborativeartspace.com. Let me come to today's presentation today. Collaborative art space presents the 4th edition of our interschool expressionist, collaborative art project created by our young artist. The expressionism coined in 2011 by artist Colin Goldberg. It means an artistic approach in which technology is utilized as a mean to express emotional experience. It's a 21st century artistic and social movement exploring the intersection of technology and expressionism. In interschool expressionist, collaborative project. 2 young artists from different institutions have worked together to create 2 collaborative and one individual artwork on the theme of dreams.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

Let me start the presentation. Our 1st group who are presenting today is Kedar Shah and Vivansh. Osla. Hey, Darsa, you are there.

Hello. Yeah. Yes.

Is share. Screen is visible to everyone.

Yep.

Yes, so hello, Abdul! I'm Kedarsha from Jaida School for excellence. Gudavi Ahmedabad. It's a privilege it's such a pleasure and privilege to be with you all here today. Me and my friend Devan from Calcutta International School, Kolkata, have done artwork on the theme of the phenomenal sector of space. Can you please swipe to the next image. In the 1st artwork there is a person on swing which is supported by moon. And the shadow of the swing is seen on the waters of the earth.

Kedar Shah

Usually someone on a swing on Earth sees the moon from down below. But with the giant leaps in the space technology. It's fair to dream that a person on a swing on moon sees the shadow From above in the waters of the earth. So when human race will go for space tourism to moon. They will not only be exploring the moon, but also getting entertained in an adventurous way. So the upper part with the moon is done by me, and the lower part depicting the oceans of the earth, and the person attached to the moon is done by my friend Divan.

Kedar Shah

Can we have the second article.

This is the 1st stage. This is the second stage. Am I right?

Yes. Yeah.

Kedar Shah

So this was artwork done by me. It's fully done by me. So when we had the idea of space tourism. I wanted that an astronaut from India will be going to the space on a mission and will be standing, or, you know, jumping from the space to Boots Khalifa. So this was one of the very initial dreams I had of this competition. So it went this way around.

Kedar Shah

Yes. So the second artwork shows the infinite possibilities on a voyage of universe as a part of space mission. We have dreamt of 2 friends, one from India and another from western country who have traveled on a celestial body nearby. Can I have the second one?

Kedar Shah

They are musicians by profession. There are space tourists, space tourists and messengers of planet Earth. They want to spread the message of harmony and peace to the aliens there. The bottom one is a musician from India, and is playing dole as dole is visible on his face. I have done a small Miniature of the word dole on the face of the bottom artist. A classical Indian drum which is releasing Indian tunes, Indian ragas, and the way Indian people celebrate music.

Kedar Shah

The another one is the musician from Western country and is playing Imperial concert piano. He is playing the piano to a suitable note to match it with that of the Indian friend. And together they are making a fusion. Music which is pleasing to the celestial friends. Up there. Together they are projecting the culture of Mother Earth in turn. They are also entertaining themselves in the vast expanse of the universe where someone may feel lonely, otherwise all this night all this might also become a reality in near future, as countries are planning to send humans to universe in upcoming years, in different forms and on different missions. We have used adobe fresco as a tool of making both of the artworks.

Kedar Shah

Digital artwork is quite fun, because whenever a mistake has been made, you can just erase it or redo it with a touch of button. But it's not possible on doing it with on the paper. I we have used chisel, eraser, pixel brushes, live brushes and water brushes. As for making them. We also tried to add as many as elements as we could to make the appearance of the artwork look more realistic as possible. We sincerely thank the judges for selecting us and also for the platform to speak today.

Kedar Shah

Thank you so much. There you go.

So this, I mean, this artwork is started by Vihan and ended by Kedar. And this is Vihan's individual artwork. He's not there today. See, this is Sterey. C. Vihan Khusla is from Calcutta International School, Kolkata. Thank you, Kedar, for the beautiful presentation.

Thank you.

Anyone asked to ask anything.

Yes, I had a question. I wasn't quite. It's very interesting. Very interesting, thank you. Or the pieces. I couldn't quite understand if the pieces were created with a digital tools, or were they or were you working on paper? I know you. You spoke about paper versus you know how you can undo things, and I just was curious.

So could you please go to the last one?

Kedar Shah

Yeah. So the elements I have created which are being released out of the instrument. So what I did was that I used live brushes to cover it up, and then, by reducing the size of the eraser as necessary to do. I've done that elements by just Chiseling out the things from the color. So it's not white color. It's erased out of the color.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Very interesting.

I believe you said you used adobe fresco. Is that the software.

Yes. Gotcha.

Thanks for clarifying colleen. That's good.

Yes.

Yeah, I mean, I just have a comment about it. You know. When you said you're we're showing the artwork is conveying the culture of earth, you know, to people off the earth, or whatever it just made me think of how this particular salon is really bringing in people from at least, you know, 3 or 4 different countries from all over the world, and at this particular moment in history. Right after our election. I think it's. You know. It just struck me that. You know we're on one planet and you know, it's nice for us all to get together to look at our, to share our work and everything else like that. So yeah, it's just a little observation.

Yes.

Absolutely.

I particularly enjoy the piece with the musicians. I'm enjoying the fact that the music that is emanating from the person playing the Indian. Drum, or whatever it is, I think it looks like a drum, is sending out peace symbols and trying to show harmony, and I think that's quite important for all of us to see today, particularly, as Colin said, there's a connection of people different countries within the piece. If I understand what you said earlier.

Cynthia DiDonato

So thank you.

Yes. Thank you.

So now I'm going to the next group. The next group who are presenting today is Anya Chaturvedi, and Drew Gurg.

Hello, everyone! I hope I'm audible.

Yes.

Firstly, a big thank you to the organizers. You know, digital artwork is something very new to me, something I've recently taken an interest in and expressionism. I've never heard of it until only a few months ago, and it seems so fresh, and I'm loving it. Secondly, Malvika, ma'am, because Colin, sir, because of this collaborative art project I got to meet someone wonderful. Someone talented drove. He's here with us right now, and he'll be talking about his process, too.

Anya Chaturvedi

So please allow me to start. This was our collaborative artwork that I started. It's called Journey through the Unseen. Now this was a blank canvas, and when I wanted to fill that canvas I had no idea what to go ahead with. The theme was dream. So I decided to take inspiration from my own life. And at that point in time we were having our summer vacations, and it was a time where I was reconnecting with Nature. You know I was at ease, and I think that shows through the artwork, because I have tried to use very soft colors here.

Anya Chaturvedi

And I wanted to show that piece while still keeping the mystery, and I wanted to keep it very open-ended for drove. So A major part of the canvas is empty. Drove over to you, ma'am. Can you please have the next part.

Good evening, ma'am. So in this like, I just wanted like it's a very basic artwork. So in this, like, it depicts it depicts a journey into the realms beyond which is not visible to a normal person. And like the this hidden world is in the mysterious nature. And the girl is a curious and like explorer, kind of girl who wants to explore the world. And she explored this world, which is very unseen and very unseen to the world.

And might I add something to that? When I sent this, you know, half piece to draw? I was not at all expecting it to turn out this way, so you can say it was quite literally a journey through the unseen for the artist Herself. Ma'am. Maybe please have the next one.

Anya Chaturvedi

This is my individual art piece. It's called lucid flight. Now. I wanted to really grasp the theme of dreams here. So ever since I was a kid. I have been wanting to fly, and I don't care if I fly a plane, or if I somehow magically grow wings. I just wanted to fly. And I wanted to show that through my art. So here you can see it's very simple and easy to understand that there's a little girl who is looking at another girl who is flying a plane, and she's dreaming of it.

Anya Chaturvedi

And the story behind actually naming this artwork. Now I have an absolute love for psychology. And there's a type of dream called lucid dream. Where you can control what is happening in the dream. So I thought that it would be such a beautiful name, because this is a type of thing that I can control like. If I want to fly, I can fly someday. So I wanted to bring that control over it, and that's why I named it lucid flight. Over to you. Bro.

Yeah. So like er in this artwork, the scene is basically symbolizing the a shared dream between the father and a son like it's a bonding between a father and a son. And like they had a traumatic experience, a traumatic past, so like by doing stargazing, or like just seeing the stars. The they both are little like this. It's a source of a comfort for them, and.

Well, I think we lost the audio there.

Oh, your mic is off, I think.

Yes, ma'am, that. Ma'am. Can you move on? Then.

Okay, we could hear you now.

So, Anna, you want to say you have added this. Am I right?

Yes, ma'am, I have added this when drove, sent me his piece. I loved it absolutely, but I felt that it needed some more life to it, some more emotion to it. So I thought, What's the one thing that's missing? The mother is missing, of course, so I tried to weave a story through the artwork, and we can see a constellation in the sky which is actually the face Of the mother. And I have also added some little details like there's a Northern light, and there are some trees. There's also a telescope, so to add depth to Vps to an already beautiful piece.

Anya Chaturvedi

Well.

Drew. We will talk about this, your individual work.

Yes, ma'am. So the apps I used for crafting this artwork was Photoshop and blender. So like in this artwork, I just wanted to depict a dreamer who is bound with the limitations of the real world. Like. In this artwork you can see the chains which, which, like symbolizes the responsibilities, obligations that hold the dreamer back from of the real life that hold the dreamer back from his, from his exploring. And the setting is basically based on the unseen world. And like it's a realm of a dream and imagination.

Great so. And I is from Delhi public school. Natpur. Who presented just now and Dhruv is from Sala Villa Academy Bangalore. Am I right? Correct.

Yes.

Yes, ma'am.

Cushions for them.

How far apart, geographically, are the 2 schools.

2 States away. So around 700 to 800 kilometers.

Thank you. It's very interesting. The work is beautiful. By the way, from both of you.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

I agree, and I'm fascinated with the concept of the chains holding back the dreamer. Very powerful image.

Yes. Cnpo, I failed. Thank you, both of you. Let me go to the next presentation.

I just wanted to note that there are a lot of comments in the chat.

Lots of comments. Yes.

I actually have one other question the 1st piece that had the girl sort of standing on that field of pink, the color solid color was that painted digitally like the figure.

Yes, sir, it was entirely digital virtual.

Really nice.

Thank you.

And are we meant to see this girl here? But then the girl in the second image, as 2 separate pieces. Are you showing us the building of the final piece.

No, ma'am, those are 2 completely different pieces.

Thank you. They're both wonderful.

I wanted to say one more thing. We've touched on it in the comments, but what I think some of us are particularly enjoying is not just the color and the technique, but the stories. Every artist, every artwork has a story. And you can really feel the stories. And they're complex. It's nice.

Thank you.

You.

I just wanna comment that it's really interesting from a point of view of iconography. That there are universals that are beginning to show up. And that gives me hope.

So our next group who is presenting is Adrita Purkait and Aisha Malu.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

Are you there?

Yes, ma'am. Okay. So Yes. Good. Good evening, everybody. So I'm Ajitha Purkhai from Future campus school in Junarpur. This is my drawing of dreams. So I collaborated this with my partner, Aisha Malo. I don't think she is present with us, so I am just going to say. Here, we can see that this girl is painting something in a bloody image. My thought was that this girl is in a bloody world, in a blurry future. She's painting her own future. She's drawing her own path towards the future. She's having that thought of herself like one day in future she can have.

Adrita Purkait

She can have something that she wants. You know, something that she needs that is like she's depicting that. She's thinking that she's dreaming of that. This is what this drawing actually means in just few words. Here She's dreaming of a family that she might have someday a nice job she might have someone to love. This is just something some everybody dreams of since their childhood, that one day when they grow up, what can they do in this bloody world, in this future Blurry in this blurry future? What can they do? What can they do to draw the path?

Adrita Purkait

2 weeks is. Who clears the future? Oh. And this is The individual drawing that I have drawn. This Stays a dancing girl here. The girl is Sewing a cloth. This cloth is The Pathway of her dream. It's like, it's like she's just showing her future together, piece by piece, to create something that she really desires.

Adrita Purkait

Thank you. Do that.

This is Aisha Malu from modern international school, Calcutta. Her work. This is the 1st stage title is Chasing my dreams. And after that can you speak about this, Adrita?

Yes, so her concept was that when we go to a grand hotel like the Itc Hotel or some grand hotel, we ourselves feel that feel like the queens, or feel like goddesses there like we get the treatment. And all she through these pictures try it to depict that only here The spotlight falls on the girl that she is entering into this grand hotel. She's feeling like her own boss. She's feeling like. Her own queen, you know.

Great. This is Aisha's individual work. We are finally safe.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

She's not present today. She's not well. Any question for Adrita.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

Thank you, Aditya, for the beautiful presentation.

I had a question.

Please.

I noticed that. Thank you so much. I noticed that some of the images no, the woman she's looking out with her her hands. But maybe it was the 1st image where she's standing on what looks like it could be a mountain or a wave. Yeah, is this? Is that? Yeah, no. The last one where the blue dress, where.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it also looks I don't know. It reminds me of some was that famous Japanese the wave, or it looks like, is that supposed to be geographical as well as dream like her dress? Or am I making more than is there.

It was. Actually, it was actually intended to be like that. You see the this dress. It is actually depicting our future. It is supposed to be like this, like a wave of flashy waves like mountains supposed to be like unclear. Certain kind of thing, you know.

Nice.

Like something that is uncertain, but still is something that you can build up From your own hand. With your own hand. Your actions will build up this Future. It's something like that.

Yeah, that's nice. And I noticed on the other one where she's in the Grand Hotel, that again from her waist it goes out like it's kind of an unusual image to see, like again the red how it goes out. And I wonder if that has anything to do with Indian clothing or your concept, or it's just it's kind of unusual and intriguing. Yeah, no.

And

Sorry. No, actually, this was the 1st stage the artwork is given to by Alicia, to her.

Oh!

Adrita. So she has her style, you know. You can make out when she added that same. What do you want to express that mountain.

Yes.

That expression is here also involved.

Yeah, I thought that was curious as a form to see it twice coming from India. I just wondered if it if it's just serendipitous, or is there something that it means, you know, underneath it? I don't know.

It's funny. I had the same reaction to it being a mountain as well. In the 1st one I thought of Mount Fuji and Cinderella dancing over Mount Fuji.

Yeah.

I was seeing it as a road or a path, her journey to where she plans to go, and I really like the what appears to be a thread in her hand that somehow she's responsible for bringing this to fruition.

Thank you for your all comments. Yes, Aditya, you wanted to say something.

Yes, I just wanted to say that this Dress is just like something that is uncertain. It's something that what we'll see, something that what one individual thinks is not like a particular dress or particular way is something that what we can make out of it something uncertain. You know. That what this meant in this picture.

Thank you, Adrita, and thank you for helping in explaining the Alicia's Aisha's work. Also.

Yes, ma'am, thank you, ma'am.

Now the next group who are presenting is Riyan Bari and Anaya Shah.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

This is Riyanne Burri's work. Floating.

Yes, I don't think he's present here today. Yeah. So.

You can From where you started.

Yeah, sure. So this is his collaborative piece. He started this. It's a very simple yet unique piece. I feel. So if you go on to the next slide. Yeah. So I added my own unique touch, I added, like a sky full of galaxies, clouds grassy fields. And I added, a cute little dog. Because why not? And I feel it really brought out the pace. And I liked how it turned out in the end. So the next slide is. This is his individual piece on the topic of dreams.

Anaya Shah

And then I feel now, my individual piece, the next slide. Yeah. So this is my individual piece. So in this piece there's like a girl wearing a white dress with paint splatters all across The on her neck. If you see there's a stethoscope which turns into a palette, it depicts her wishes to be a doctor, while also being really artistic. At the same time her wings and the birds that are flying high in the sky depict freedom. We are really free in our own dreams. We can you know, weave our own dreams and do what we want.

Anaya Shah

The blooming sunflowers depict the nature of our dreams. How bright they can be! The eye depicts vision and the hope of our dreams. How we can dream of any thing we want, and our imagination has no bounds. The next slide. The next slide. Yeah. So this is my collaborative piece. I started out with the theme of galaxy and magic. The next slide is the slide I sent to my group made the next slide. Yeah, so this is the piece I sent to him, and this is what he did. So the piece I started out with. It consists of many stars, planets, galaxies, and like there's a face fading away. It shows the mythical, mystical, and, you know, magical realm, and how imaginative our dreams are, he added, a few plants which I feel is his own unique style of doing. Art, adding plants is his own unique touch to pieces. So it's a simple yet it's a nice touch I feel to my piece.

Anaya Shah

So these were the pieces I made. And thank you so much for this opportunity, and if you all have any questions, please feel free to ask.

Yes, any questions for her. Perhaps.

Joey here, I'm wondering if there was. I also really like that 1st image, the floral with the sky scene is really nice. Was there a kind of instruction for making this based on dreams? I feel like dreams are kind of a common theme throughout a lot of this work.

Yeah, that was the team topic given to us. Yeah.

Okay, awesome thanks. And then I also wonder if anyone has any of the work available as like nfts? If so, just put the links into the chat. Thanks.

I'll inform them they are all students, so I don't think here it is available, but we can always work out for that.

I wanted to make a comment about the last piece where the flower pots were cut up and scattered around. And I guess we said, Yeah, this seems really effective. We didn't see this in other pieces kind of saw some repositioning, but it seemed to be more layered. And I love this idea of cutting it up and flying them around.

Yeah, I feel like it's my friends, you know. Unique touch. He likes adding plants everywhere. He loves plants. I feel like. Yeah.

That's true, because in his individual and the early work, if you see everywhere this is Riyan's work, adapting wherever and everywhere. So anywhere, everywhere, so everywhere he have used the plants, so he is in love with the plants. Very true, Anaya.

But it's not just the plant imagery. It's that I'm not sure where the plants came from. Did they come from this image? And then they got cut out and are flying. Yeah. So I find that really compelling to be so playful with the image. So that was a really great move, maybe a little brave to do, but it paid off.

Yeah. So what? What? Basically, we have done for this particular group, I mean, 1814 to 18 years group. We are not very strict with the use of the tools in the sense we have told that because they are learning. So we have told that you can create semi, you know, some part in the by hand and taking the photograph scanning it. Then you're applying all the different tools. What is available on you, I mean, whichever is comfortable to you. So that's how they develop their work. Some have done totally on digital, and some have done mixed match which is allowed for the I mean in our rules. We have said, Okay, for that.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

Any more question for Anaya. Thank you, dear, for the.

Yeah.

So we end up our students presentation here. Thank you. Everyone for asking the questions. They really feel interesting and appreciative.

Thanks, thanks so much. Malavika. I also had the thought while these presentations were going on, that just, you know, the students ability to articulate. You know what the work is about in English is really remarkable. You know, it made me think about how I'm not fluent in any other language. And you know I mean, most American high school students study another language, but I don't think ever get to the point where they can really speak you know, in such a way that it just sounds like you know their native language. And you know, I think initially, I just sort of took that for granted. Oh, they're explaining their work and everything. But just the fact that it's basically, you know, in another language that isn't their language that they probably, you know, learned initially. It's pretty. It's pretty amazing. So and you know, I wanted to thank you for organizing this Exhibition and project, you know, especially you know, bringing students into the mix. I think it's really refreshing to see the work done by students where there's really no other, you know. Kind of agenda. When the work is made. It's really just pure creativity, I think. In terms of you know, it's just kind of different. And just showing how you know this idea to Expressionism has touched people. You know, in India. I think it's pretty great. So I definitely want to thank you. And you know, if I don't know if anyone in the Zoom has any general questions, comments, either for Malavika or anyone else. Just jump on in, Cynthia.

Yes, I very much enjoyed the presentations. I had a question for any and all of them. What were the challenges of collaborating on a piece together or pieces. I know artists tend to want to express themselves. And then when you're working with someone else. How do you come together and find a piece that you both enjoy. So I was wondering about those challenges. If you could speak to that.

Anyone of you wants to say any challenges you have faced.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

Yes, and I,. You want to see A nice.

Yeah. So during making my piece, I feel one challenge was that we both artists, we have our own unique styles, and we have a different. We have different ways of expressing our art so like collaborating on it and making one piece together was probably the biggest challenge other than that, because of technology. Making pieces together was pretty easy, and it was a smooth process.

Malavika getting back to the English language, and thank you so much. This is so wonderful to hear everything you're doing. Seems like it's all year long you've got projects going on. It's fantastic.

It is all because of the salon, you know, you got the idea itself from here, and the way you people, you know, inspire in talking and different ideas, sharing. That's making a lot of difference in developing this.

Oh, that's great to hear. I just also wanted to clarify. I believe. That English isn't English now the lingua franca only only because of British colonization. Is that true? Does everybody speak English, or is that not true? Even though it is impressive? I mean, they speak better English than we do here in America. That's comfortable.

No, no, it is a compulsory subject in all the schools, so almost everyone knows about it.

And that's from Britain being, yes. Yeah, right? Yeah. Okay. But thank you. It was terrific. Really.

Thank you. Colleen. Shall we go ahead with the other presentations.

Sure you know I did. I know Sahar had asked me. You know, if there'd be time for any of the other artists to present and you know, looks like we have about a half an hour left. So you know, she could start us off. And then, if there's anyone else that wants to share some of their work. You know. The only thing that I ask ideally is that it somehow is related to this idea or topic of education. In some way it could be work that you did as a student or work that you've done with students, or even work that, you know is created as a result of you know, an influence that was from a teacher or something like that, you know, just some way to weave it in. I did also want to remark that, you know. So this idea of taking a digital file and passing it back and forth to create a collaboration.

Colin Goldberg

You know, it was something that Davo Davonte Bradley came up with, and his inspiration for that was the collaboration between Andy Warhol and Jean-michel Basquiat, in which they made very large paintings together and took turns working on the canvases. So it's really interesting to see how you know this idea Evolved where you know it came from in terms of the roots of the idea and where it's at today. So just kind of very cool to see the flow. And certainly I encourage anybody on this zoom and watching it on YouTube to go to the Techspressionism website. And under exhibitions there's Collab one and Collab 2, and that those shows have work.

Colin Goldberg

By many of the artists. Here in this zoom that were passed back and forth. So those were the original collaborative exhibitions that came out of the Techspressionist community. And they actually are. You know, there's something that can be experienced in VR through a platform called Kunst matrix. So they're really interesting exhibitions. At any rate, I'm gonna open it up to Sahar and yeah, feel free to share your work with us. And thank you. If you could tell us where you're zooming in from, also, that'd be great.

Hi, everyone. Hello! Thank you, Malavika, for the great presentation. I'm zooming from Iran. And I'm going to share my screen.

Sahar Moussavi

Can you see my screen now?

Yeah.

Okay? So. I am. Okay. My presentation is about jewelry design with AI. I was sponsored by a jewelry academy to conduct a 3 day online workshop on applying AI to jewelry design. So I 1st and different people enrolled in my workshop, including jewelry, design students, shop owners, and traditional jewelers. So first, st I define AI and explain how it works. This blend of art and science could lead to the next wave of innovation in jewelry design. With my background in industrial design and product design, and also jewelry design. Like a decade ago I introduced them to several AI tools useful for jewelry design, such as Vizcom, Leonardo.

Sahar Moussavi

AI, and Bing image Creator, and the last one because they were able to write prompts in Farsi because we have to consider language barrier in AI tools. So Wiscom is A is a powerful AI driven tool, tailored for designers and artists, transforming the way they visualize and conceptualize their ideas. It allows users to convert sketches, concepts, or rough visuals into high quality, realistic renderings with a focus on speed, creativity, and detail.

Sahar Moussavi

This can be particularly valuable for fields like jewelry design, product design, automotive design, and more so I'm just going to speak about Vizcom because. For time saving, and I just chose Vizcom. So I described Vizcom for the students. And this is how it looks. This is the interface of Wiscom and home files, and how can they import? And the settings? I describe everything to them, and some of them didn't have any background in design or art, or anything else like the shop owner. So here I explain to them how they can import their sketches, and I have to say that actually Vizcom works with hand drawing sketches that students can import their files, or there is real time tools for sketching in the program, so and then they can render it later. This is how it looks when you import a file hand drawing file, so I ask them to scan or take a photo of their hand drawings or any linear drawings they have, and import it in Vizcom you can see the right, and I describe them, the right side panel rendering, defining, and how they can use the palettes and reference images.

Sahar Moussavi

And there's a small prompt box, because in Vizcom Vizcom can render without prompt. And at the left I just I showed them the layers like other softwares that it's layered, and on top there are other tools for drawing, like eraser pencil and drawing tools, and the newest feature is that actually, after you render the 2D. File, you can export it as a 3D. File. So I chose one of my students artworks, Sara Yousefar. She's actually a classic jewelry designer who uses which uses a watercolor pencil and Classic tools for designing. So at right. This is her 1st render. She imported one of her actually very simple pencil drawing into Vizcom and rendered, and you can see the result at the left.

Sahar Moussavi

We are going to see Sara's artwork again. So another artwork was by Sara Yousafe. Far as right you can see the simple pencil drawing and the final result in Red 3D. Render.

Sahar Moussavi

And she kindly just made this for me on top. It's her drawing and a render in the middle, without any prompt, and her final render, with prompts At the bottom. A very clean watercolor drawing at the left by Sara again, and a very nice render from Vizcom at the right. This is very useful for students who just started jewelry design, and they don't know matrix rhino or other engines to 3D. Model their artworks. A bracelet by Sara again on the top, very clean watercolored painting.

Sahar Moussavi

And she just imported the file into Vizcom. And we can see the final render at the bottom. Another linear necklace, and a very nice render at the left by Vizcom. And the last one is very fascinating. I liked it. It's a drawing of she used mythical creatures from ancient Persia. And she first, st added the hand pencil hand drawing, and then Watercolor drawing and painting, and then she rendered it in Vizcom that you can see at the bottom. That's the final result of the render.

Sahar Moussavi

Thank you so much that was my presentation.

Sahar Moussavi

Should I stop sharing Colin.

Yeah, you could stop sharing. Thank you so much, Sahar. That was really great presentation. Those tools are unbelievable. I've never seen something that can take you know, something like a hand done line drawing. And translate it into 3D. Like that. Is that is that software something that runs online? Or is it run locally on your computer.

It's online.

Gotcha.

I can put it in the chat.

Great and you know those watercolors were just unbelievable. I mean some of those I actually preferred the watercolor drawings, paintings to the AI version.

Yeah.

I was wondering, is it? Is it also rendering out 3D. Models.

No, but if you render like you like what you did, you can export it as an Obj file or Glv.

Okay.

That's dangerous for us.

Cool.

You're saying the 3D piece is moving to another. You move to another piece of software to create that. And that when you put the line drawing in. Maybe the second item that we saw in the list of 3 is what the AI does, and then from there you take it to another piece of software to create 3D.

No, it just you just click the 3D model and it generates a 3D model out of the final render.

Oh, that's amazing!

And then that could be taken, and a actually 3D. Printed so you could go to From a line drawing a hand pencil drawing right to The product prototype. That's really incredible. A lot of, you know, jewelry designers actually using these tools to make products.

Usually they use matrix rhino and rhino. And that's they use it. And then they just 3D print it with rhino or matrix Matrixes, especially, I think, for jewelry design. But Beside the beside, the renders they can get ideas new ideas from AI using Leonardo, and being that I didn't actually present it. But I just wanted to present. Because it's like unknown for most of people, because, like Leonardo and Midjourneys are very famous, but Vizcom is especially for product designers.

Sahar Moussavi

So I wanted just to talk about risk.

Is that very expensive in terms of like, you know, you'd pay a monthly fee to use it, or.

Actually, I'm using the free plan and you can, I can have one render per generate. But if you use the paid plan. It's 4 renders pay per generate per like per generate. Yeah. Cause.

Imagine that you know I mean all the tools that I personally use for my art are commercial design tools myself, like illustrator. So I could imagine that artists could really exploit these tools, and, you know, take abstract hand drawings or whatever they want, and then send them into 3D. Models. I mean.

Actually my background. My background is it. It was a watercolored painting from when I was a teenager, and then I just put it in Vizcom, and rendered it, and give them give it some prompts. In one of the co-working sessions. I showed it to other friends.

Awesome. Yeah, if you could put that link in the chat that would be great to the platform. Awesome. So does anyone have any you know questions for Sahar. So.

I just.

Stephen Carpenter

There we go. Yes, I just want to say to Sahar. This is a link, a missing link for me that I've been looking for about 3 months. And I can't wait to try it. Just wanted to say.

Awesome. Well, we do have about 15 min left. Usually we stop the recording at. You know, 1, 30 or so. So I guess, unless there's any other questions for Sahar. If anyone else would like to present just, you know, jump on in so it looks like Roz and Cynthia both wanna share something. So Roz, you want to go first, st maybe go until I don't know one 22 something like that.

This is, gonna be very quick. I just want to share one drawing that.

Okay.

Pivotal to me, pivotal to me in Art school. I went to the Lamar Dodd School of Art that's in Georgia, at the Athens, Georgia, B. 52 s. And a lot of great music coming out of there. And it's a really wonderful art school. And I just wanted to share a drawing. I did. And what impact a teacher can make on an artist. And thank you, Sahar. And this whole presentation has been really awesome. So I just wanted to share my screen. And this I'm just showing one drawing. Let me go to share.

Roz Dimon

Desktop one. Okay, we're going back in time. After all this innovative high tech stuff we're doing. I'm kind of the old fogey of the group here. But can you see my image? It's a drawing of a woman. Okay, great. I thought I'd share that when I went to this is done from okay, I guess I'm revealing age getting older older and better in some ways. But this is 1973. It's my 1st drawing school I was lucky to. I've always been able to draw, because I got it from my grandparents seriously. I could draw, since before I could talk, and I didn't talk for a long time, which is hard for all the people here to believe at this point, but when you find what you love, it does open you up. But I must say I went into this drawings course At the Lamar does School of Art at the University of Georgia, and I we were drawing from the model.

Roz Dimon

This isn't my 1st day in the class, but we were drawing seriously from the figure, the nude model, and this particular teacher had seen my earliest drawing when I, the 1st drawing I ever did, and he said, Well, look at this artist like she I mean, she can obviously draw. But he said, What is she saying. What is she saying? And just that I just oh, I just went! What? What is? What am I saying like? Look! Look how I can draw! I look how I can make this figure look like a figure. And this particular piece we were doing a figure drawing.

Roz Dimon

And I stopped looking at the figure, and I started looking across at this woman in our class who was drawing the figure. And I just loved her face. And I just went after that face, and I just that for me. I just wanted to share with you how in a matter of minutes A life change can happen, because I knew. Then, when I went after this emotional thing of this woman, nothing could stop me, and I wasn't really obeying what we were supposed to be doing. But the teacher came by and said, Keep going, and that was for me a real beginning of what I think. You know how I feel, what art is all about, but it's all about so many things as we keep learning here, and that's all I wanted to share. But that was a big, huge educational experience for me.

Awesome. Thanks, Roz. It reminds me a lot of Kathy Colwitz. I don't know if you look at a lot of her work, but things. I thought of.

Oh, yeah, I like her work very much. Yeah.

That's great. Roswell.

What is that work that you have in the background to? Kind of compare it to earlier work, and maybe, is that something newer, or what's going on there.

That. These are the. It's from my information painting series. When I moved to New York City in the eighties, and I've told everyone here how my paintings start to fill up with pixels and squares. And there's a famous downtown nightclub called the Pyramid Club. And all of my oil paint. This is an oil painting, and it's before I got into digital. All of my oil paintings started filling up with these layers and stories and squares and math. I mean all this math in the air. So that's what that piece is. It's from the information painting series.

Roz Dimon

And I did lots of them, lots of them. And then I finally just said, Oh, you know, I gotta give up my brush. I mean, I got so tight I just. I went into 4 colors on an Ibm clunkiest drawings you could ever see, and I was thrilled to death because I knew I knew I had to have that brush so it can be torturous. Some of these things that we have to do. But they get you going. But thanks for asking Zoe. I'd really like to show these pieces again along with digital, because it kind of tells the story for people and connects old to new. Thank you.

Alright, Cynthia, do you wanna share something.

Yeah, I'm trying to hide my captions on my other screen. But I think they're gonna be there. So I actually wanted to share something. Oh, maybe this won't happen. You're not seeing the captions, are you? Okay?

It's sidebar but.

No, that's good. I had captions enabled earlier, and now I can't close it quickly. So what I'm going to show is actually an assignment that I developed about 30 years ago. So this is really dated. But I'm still really proud of it. And since we're talking about education and adobe, put this on their teaching materials. They didn't pay me anything, but they came and visited me and interviewed me, and I got feedback from all over the world from people who were doing it. So I'm just going to run through quickly and talk about this I was teaching, and I'll talk as I go through the slides.

Cynthia Beth Rubin

I was teaching a cultural heritage class. And so I started it with the idea of American quilts. And what the students did is they scanned their coats, they scanned natural materials, and they put them into traditional quilt patterns that I gave them. But what was really interesting about it was, it was a way to teach overlapping, to really encourage the students to modify the colors and just to go. Some of these are labeled different ways, and they just really went crazy with, you know, I would say, make this one bigger. Make this one smaller, really simple kinds of instructions. Why, they were working.

Cynthia Beth Rubin

And you can see some people did drawing 1st and then developed patterns out of it, most of them. I brought this into another course that I was teaching called digital nature. And so some of them started. Many of these are from nature photographs from nature, as the course. You know, I taught different courses, so. But I kept this assignment going through many years. So I just wanted to share this, because I think that for people who are teaching it was just an incredible thing to take this pattern. And I guess that's all I have on this one. I yeah. So I have another presentation that I did of patterns, but I think that kind of gives the idea.

Cynthia Beth Rubin

So I would encourage if people are trying to look to think about traditional fabric patterns and having people scan, they would come in, and I'd say, just scan your coats, scan whatever you have. And then, later, as you can see, we went over the nature lab, and somebody took a picture. I think this is actually a turtle that she took a picture of. So that was really cool. Okay, so that's. That's all.

Yeah, I just wanted to also, ask you. So you actually had started the digital art program at University of Vermont. Correct?

Yes, there was somebody teaching there before. For one year she actually applied for the full time job, but I got it, and it was a very interesting experience, because we taught in a regular computer lab that had no digital software and they hadn't. They hired me. But they didn't budget for software. So that summer I went to one of the conferences. I went to both Siggraph and the Mac thing, whatever it was called. In those days I can't remember. And the person was there from electronic arts which at the time was making the best software. And I asked her about the software. And she said, Well, I can't really give you any software.

Cynthia Beth Rubin

But then I said, Are you here alone? And she said, Yeah, and I said, Well, do you want a lunch break? Would you want someone to demo for you? So I actually bartered demoing the software and giving her, you know, demoing the software and then giving her breaks. And then I got software to teach with. So that was really wonderful little exchange. And then I also used what was then Nih image. You know, that was free. And so, and I actually liked the fact that in the beginning the students had to go between 2 pieces of software that they absolutely have to.

Cynthia Beth Rubin

And one of the reasons why I wanted to show this project. Actually, the main reason is that I always said in my teaching. I refuse to teach a class called Photoshop. You know it just or whatever. I think that the whole idea of teaching software is really just doesn't work and doing the quilt project actually taught people everything they needed to know. They learned how to make, you know, rectangles and rotate them and overlap and resize, and they could just get started with that and go from there.

Cynthia Beth Rubin

So that's I still believe that I believe that software little workshops and how to use the software fine, but a whole semester in how to use the software, you just freeze people into thinking. Oh, I can't find the right menu. What am I going to do? I'm going to fail the class, you know. So yes, I did that in Vermont. I also was one of the 1st people at RISD, not the 1st people person. But when I started teaching Digital at RISD, Rhode Island School of Design, I was teaching in an all-purpose lab. We didn't have computer labs yet. And I also started. My 1st teaching was at Connecticut College, where I brought in. I wrote the grant to get the computers, and I brought it into my 2D design class. Apparently I thought I didn't do it till about 87. But Liz Lee.

Cynthia Beth Rubin

Who, as a digital artist who weirdly just retired, mentioned in her siggraph interview that I had her working digitally earlier than that. So I think 80, 85, or something like that on our tronics that predated The color, Max.

Were you at RISD at the same time that Anne Spalter was there.

No. But Ann had moved to Brown, to Andy Van Dam's lab at that point, so I saw her pretty regularly, and she actually arranged for me. You know, Pre laptops. Wherever you went, you had to make an arrangement to use a computer. And so I used the computers at Brown through Ann's connection, which was great. I have to say I missed that. You know I had The best 2 weeks of my life was when I found myself in Aix-en-provence in between conferences and things, and I called up the director of the Art School, and they already knew me because I'd had a had lived in Avignon. And I said, I need to use the computers for 2 weeks. And they're like.

Cynthia Beth Rubin

Okay. And I was the only one there, because it was between classes. I they wouldn't have said, Okay, I think if the classes have been going on. Yeah.

Oh, it's great, you know. It's really I think one thing that I really enjoy about this group is that there's people here who have been involved in the academic side of you know, art and technology for decades, you know. And it's really it's become sort of like a place where a lot of real, you know, pioneers are able to come share their experiences with us all. And you know, it's pretty great to see people from all different you know, age groups and levels of experience and everything else like that. So I appreciate you sharing and also giving us a little bit of that. You know the history of this sort of field. So yeah, thanks very much.

I just wanna cut.

Go ahead!

I just want to comment to Cynthia and to everybody that the that the best learning starts when a student has an idea that they need to work out The tools, take care of themselves. And that was how I learned design. And I'm going to thank Lee Dusell, who was at Cranbrook Academy, and was my design teacher. Because, he said, you start with a premise. And everything else takes care of itself. And it's so true. If you learn Photoshop, that's all, you know.

Stephen Carpenter

But if you have an idea that Photoshop is the tool, for then, you know, Photoshop, when you're done. And that's just it's that's the only way to go.

Yeah, I'm really adamant about that. And I was fortunate to be able to fight the forces that wanted, you know, at places I just was able. Some people are not always able to fight that. And I like to say I did all of the software teaching in group Crits, I mean. So you'd bring it up. And I'd say, Oh, did you know, you might be able to modify the colors doing this? And then the students were really paying attention because they would do it on their own work.

Cynthia Beth Rubin

Which I wouldn't save. Of course they have to go back and do it themselves.

Well, thanks again. Thanks so much, Cynthia, and you know, thanks a lot to Malavika, especially for organizing this salon and bringing students in from India. I think it's really special. You know. And I appreciate all of you guys who came into the zoom. We're coming into 1 30 now. So I'm gonna stop the recording momentarily. But you're all welcome to come hang out at the after party. Actually have to drive about 2 h to take my daughter to a dentist appointment immediately after stopping the recording. So I'm gonna have to jump.

Colin Goldberg

But you guys are welcome to hang out and chat. I do know that the next salon, the next 2 salons the subjects, have been decided upon, so we don't need to come up with ideas for that. The December salon is going to be Renata Janiszewska, and Karen LaFleur introducing Mariniana, which is their exhibition at the Cape Cod Museum of art. It's a 2 person show that, I believe is opening this month, and they're going to be down there, as far as I know, in December, to give artist talks and stuff like that. So that show is actually also on the Techspressionism site. There's a micro site there under the exhibitions tab, so you could check out their trailer, which is amazing, and an online catalog. And then the January salon, I believe, is going to be moderated by Cynthia Beth Rubin.

Colin Goldberg

I think, or maybe also with Cynthia D. Donato, I don't know but it's going to be the Co. Working group, Cynthia, is that? Are we still on with that? For with you guys. Work from the working group.

I didn't know about that, but.

I thought you had volunteered the last one that you're gonna.

But it's probably okay.

I'm gay, I'm gay.

Yeah, it's probably good.

Okay? Well, yeah, I mean, you know, like that could be a way that you know, the people who have been there as regulars could share some of the work and also introduce the Co working group to a wider audience. You know not only the people in the Zoom, but since these things are recorded, you know, that might open it up to some people watching the salon on YouTube and get some new artists down in there. So. And I really appreciate what you 2 have done to organize that as an ongoing event. So yeah, I mean, that's a couple of months out, so we don't need to decide on it.

I think it's a great idea.

That's great idea. If we can just get in here, too, that people are invited to join our Co. Working on Tuesdays. It's the same time slot as this. It's a different zoom like Link. So you have to go to The Techspressionist website to find that zoom link. But the same time slot, and it's pretty informal. We get on. Everybody says very quickly what they plan to do for the next hour, and then the idea is that you work. Although some people present work later. You know, they organize. Some people use that type to organize. And then, after an hour, people come in and show what they did, and it's become a really tight.

Cynthia Beth Rubin

Open, but very friendly type group of people who are encouraging each other and getting to know each other's work, and there's a lot of trust people show work that they're really unsure of. They'll show a series of 10 and say, Hey, which way should I go? So I would encourage you to come. And if enough people want a different time slot, I think we're willing to help that get going, but we haven't heard any suggestions of other time slots, and somebody who's willing to organize a different time.

Cynthia Beth Rubin

So.

Alright awesome. Well, the link is on Techspressionism.com. Right on the homepage is a section virtual Co working that describes the format, and also there's a link to register for the zoom. So I hope. You guys who haven't been there? Will come check it out. So that's it from the record for the recording part of it. And like I said, You guys are all welcome to hang out afterwards. So this will be posted on the text. Russianism site, I would say. Probably by the end of the week. Maybe not. That's tomorrow. But sometime very soon. So yeah, thanks again, everyone. And we will stop recording in 3, 2, 1 and cut.