Concrete, wood, paint
This month my work ended up all being pretty consistent theme wise! Not everything shown here will be the finished product, but I figured since it’s all working together as one theme, it could be nice to show the process.
I started working with concrete quite a bit, which has been really fun and inspiring. A lot of the work I made this month was centered around the same theme of being a pedestrian and being curious about cities, so using concrete just freakin pulled the concepts right out of me.
I also want to dive into showing inspiration a bit this month. Inspiration can be a pretty vulnerable thing to talk about sometimes- I always feel like someone is going to pop out of a bush and accuse me of copying or something. But that’s pretty silly and it’s not that simple. I am always interested in what inspires people, visually and conceptually, so maybe this will be interesting to you too.
First, two collages and one paint doodle
I think i’m going to call this one “Infrastructure”
This looks like impaled organs and I really like that! It’s concrete that I cast in a plastic bag to get smooth textures and precise divots, and I put a bunch of yarn all in there. It was fine, but I wasn't sure about it, so I banged it with a hammer to see what would happen. (You will notice a theme there with the city concepts and also hitting things with hammers to make them more interesting.) Then I loved it, and painted the yarn very messily, and hung it on my wall with skewer while it was still wet because I was so excited about it.
Divided
This is one was super fun to make! This is a fictional story of a beautiful city that has been separated by a highway. On either side of the highway, the citizens live similarly but may not know it because their neighbors are a world away. They see the same moon and stars, have the same trees, but they can’t ever easily wander a little too far into each others neighborhoods. The made up people in these communities live very nuanced lives where they recognize that the highway is helpful in bringing them where they need to go faster, but it feels like the highway values bringing other people right past them faster, too (and rarely into their neighborhoods.) They don’t quite know what to make of being more connected than ever, while also being further apart and isolated. They don’t love that some of their neighbors homes have been sacrificed to the making of the highway, and their fictional place they call home is changed forever.
I love how this turned out, and I think I will probably do more similar wall sculptures.
Inspiration break
It might be interesting to some of you to see what I am inspired by sometimes. I saw this piece by Paz Ulloa in Architectural Digest, and my vision came to me instantly. I loved the variety of shapes, but how they all look like they still fit together, kind of like if you put sand under a microscope. I knew I wanted to go for variety, and thickness so they really come off of the wall.
A pound of feathers, a pound of bricks
This is inspired by the how roughly 40 people could fit into an average bus, yet often in the US (and certainly in a lot parts of Kansas City) we would most often see 40 cars over 1 full bus. Once I saw one of these graphics for the first time, it changed my life. It’s kind of like when you realize when you're eating an order of mozzarella sticks, you're really eating like 6 string cheeses. It’s also kind of not like that at all but it makes sense to me.
This is made out of a super thick wood that I beveled real nice to look very “story book” and playful. The red shape is a bus, and the green shapes are to represent cars. I love this!!!!!!
Inspiration break
This inspiration for this form came from Ted Larsen. I knew I wanted to do a piece on this 1 bus = lots of car concept, and it simmered in the back of my head for a while. Then, I saw this piece and it all came together. Thanks Ted.
Categories
This is made out of scrap wood. I wanted to see if I could puzzle together the chunks without altering them too much. I also made the frame too. This reminds me a lot of what it looks like when you look down on a city from an airplane- all of the chunks of land pieced out. I also took a history class for fun last semester, and I spent a lot of time looking at red lining maps for a project I was working on. This reminds me of those as well. (The history class was really fun, not redlining. Booo redlining.)
Foundation
For this, I made a tiny concrete foundation and a little wood house. I put the wood house in here, and while it was drying I decided to take it out. Then it made this cool textural shape. And then I thought... damn.. this is straight up like an empty lot... thats crazy
Horse shaped hole in concrete
To make this, I made a horse out of oven clay, and put it into concrete.
Inspiration break
I got this idea from seeing this photo- this is done by artist duo Adam Frezza & Terri Chiao. They call this a pulp painting. I really like the shadows mixing with the color divots in this and I decided to try my hand, but with concrete.
Oven clay stallion put into place, ready to be covered in concrete.
I didnt think this through, so the stallion got stuck and I had to break him apart and beat him with hammers and gardening shovels until he broke into pieces. I cut my hands pretty badly two different times.
Now I have a slab of concrete with a horse shaped hole in it that I painted. Very good
Where the sidewalks ends
This is a very early stage idea. I had a whole vision, and how ideas often go, once I started working on it, the idea shifted. I made this box of of wood. I wood glued and filled and sanded so much, it is the smoothest triangular box in the world. I have many ideas for this, that you can probably gather from the title maybe.
Inspiration break
This shape was inspired by this shape. This is done by Janice Caswell. I really like the shape coming out from the wall, and I really like the abstraction all along the multiple sides. I am planning on having some abstraction and expressive line work on my piece. Stay tuned!
The Vision
For this, I mixed some concrete, and crumpled it up in plastic, put wire in it, and waited for it to dry. I once again decided to hit it with hammer to see how it broke apart. Looks cool.
I painted half of it yellow to kind of look like a chunk of street. The thing is, I hate that yellow. But I still really want it to be that yellow because of the road. So i got the idea to put it behind some colored glass so you can still tell from the value what the color is, but it wont look disguisting.
Work in progress city thing
This piece is still a work in progress. Not quite sure what to do with it, but with patience and more destruction, I should get there.
Inspiration break
I saw this on Pinterest one day from ceramic artist Jun Kaneko. The long rectangles reminded me of skyscrapers in a grid system, and it gave me the idea to make my own little skyscraper inspired forms, and see where it could take me.
I started with putting a bunch of wood rectangles into some concrete. It was fine but I was bored with it.
So then I hit it with a hammer to see if I would like it any more. I did! Cool.
The cut down some wood, traced the chunks, and drilled holes so I could tie them down with hemp cord. (I also glued them down with liquid nails.)
Now it looks like this. I’m pretty bored with it, but im not giving up. I have some ideas. Stay tuned.
Pioneer Species
I am intrigued by the idea of people finding evidence from people from the past. I love metal detector people and all their weird little civil war buttons they find. I think it’s pretty cool that people leave little clues behind. I always think about that when I drive past empty lots from condemned houses, or new neighborhoods that have replaced older forgotten ones. I wonder what stories are in the land of those places. I wonder if those people wanted to leave, or if they were forced out (by law or by means of being priced out, intimidated, etc.) I always feel very weird when I am in an older neighborhood, and then suddenly, there is a new build, totally out of place, not complimenting the houses around it.
This is piece is about that. On a lighter note, I also love going to where I grew up and getting to say “that used to be a long john silvers!” This is piece is about that too. Areas changing. Stories lingering.
Right now, it’s a chunk of concrete painted with a stamp on it, and it’s lodged between pieces of siding I cut down. It’s still a work in progress, and I am not sure where it is going.I am calling this “Pioneer Species”. To my non-scientist understanding, a pioneer species is a plant that can survive really harsh environments. They are the plants that can grow after fires, and up through parking lots. They inspire plants after them to grow as well. I like to think of humans and the stories they come with as a pioneer species.
I learned about this concept from The Happy Urbanist on tik tok. If any of these things interest you, check out his videos. They're super informative, productive, and very inspiring.
Katelyn Betz
October
Concrete, wood, paint
This month my work ended up all being pretty consistent theme wise! Not everything shown here will be the finished product, but I figured since it’s all working together as one theme, it could be nice to show the process.
I started working with concrete quite a bit, which has been really fun and inspiring. A lot of the work I made this month was centered around the same theme of being a pedestrian and being curious about cities, so using concrete just freakin pulled the concepts right out of me.
I also want to dive into showing inspiration a bit this month. Inspiration can be a pretty vulnerable thing to talk about sometimes- I always feel like someone is going to pop out of a bush and accuse me of copying or something. But that’s pretty silly and it’s not that simple. I am always interested in what inspires people, visually and conceptually, so maybe this will be interesting to you too.
First, two collages and one paint doodle
I think i’m going to call this one “Infrastructure”
This looks like impaled organs and I really like that! It’s concrete that I cast in a plastic bag to get smooth textures and precise divots, and I put a bunch of yarn all in there. It was fine, but I wasn't sure about it, so I banged it with a hammer to see what would happen. (You will notice a theme there with the city concepts and also hitting things with hammers to make them more interesting.) Then I loved it, and painted the yarn very messily, and hung it on my wall with skewer while it was still wet because I was so excited about it.
Divided
This is one was super fun to make! This is a fictional story of a beautiful city that has been separated by a highway. On either side of the highway, the citizens live similarly but may not know it because their neighbors are a world away. They see the same moon and stars, have the same trees, but they can’t ever easily wander a little too far into each others neighborhoods. The made up people in these communities live very nuanced lives where they recognize that the highway is helpful in bringing them where they need to go faster, but it feels like the highway values bringing other people right past them faster, too (and rarely into their neighborhoods.) They don’t quite know what to make of being more connected than ever, while also being further apart and isolated. They don’t love that some of their neighbors homes have been sacrificed to the making of the highway, and their fictional place they call home is changed forever.
I love how this turned out, and I think I will probably do more similar wall sculptures.
Inspiration break
It might be interesting to some of you to see what I am inspired by sometimes. I saw this piece by Paz Ulloa in Architectural Digest, and my vision came to me instantly. I loved the variety of shapes, but how they all look like they still fit together, kind of like if you put sand under a microscope. I knew I wanted to go for variety, and thickness so they really come off of the wall.
A pound of feathers, a pound of bricks
This is inspired by the how roughly 40 people could fit into an average bus, yet often in the US (and certainly in a lot parts of Kansas City) we would most often see 40 cars over 1 full bus. Once I saw one of these graphics for the first time, it changed my life. It’s kind of like when you realize when you're eating an order of mozzarella sticks, you're really eating like 6 string cheeses. It’s also kind of not like that at all but it makes sense to me.
This is made out of a super thick wood that I beveled real nice to look very “story book” and playful. The red shape is a bus, and the green shapes are to represent cars. I love this!!!!!!
Inspiration break
This inspiration for this form came from Ted Larsen. I knew I wanted to do a piece on this 1 bus = lots of car concept, and it simmered in the back of my head for a while. Then, I saw this piece and it all came together. Thanks Ted.
Categories
This is made out of scrap wood. I wanted to see if I could puzzle together the chunks without altering them too much. I also made the frame too. This reminds me a lot of what it looks like when you look down on a city from an airplane- all of the chunks of land pieced out. I also took a history class for fun last semester, and I spent a lot of time looking at red lining maps for a project I was working on. This reminds me of those as well. (The history class was really fun, not redlining. Booo redlining.)
Foundation
For this, I made a tiny concrete foundation and a little wood house. I put the wood house in here, and while it was drying I decided to take it out. Then it made this cool textural shape. And then I thought... damn.. this is straight up like an empty lot... thats crazy
Horse shaped hole in concrete
To make this, I made a horse out of oven clay, and put it into concrete.
Inspiration break
I got this idea from seeing this photo- this is done by artist duo Adam Frezza & Terri Chiao. They call this a pulp painting. I really like the shadows mixing with the color divots in this and I decided to try my hand, but with concrete.
Oven clay stallion put into place, ready to be covered in concrete.
I didnt think this through, so the stallion got stuck and I had to break him apart and beat him with hammers and gardening shovels until he broke into pieces. I cut my hands pretty badly two different times.
Where the sidewalks ends
This is a very early stage idea. I had a whole vision, and how ideas often go, once I started working on it, the idea shifted. I made this box of of wood. I wood glued and filled and sanded so much, it is the smoothest triangular box in the world. I have many ideas for this, that you can probably gather from the title maybe.
Inspiration break
This shape was inspired by this shape. This is done by Janice Caswell. I really like the shape coming out from the wall, and I really like the abstraction all along the multiple sides. I am planning on having some abstraction and expressive line work on my piece. Stay tuned!
The Vision
For this, I mixed some concrete, and crumpled it up in plastic, put wire in it, and waited for it to dry. I once again decided to hit it with hammer to see how it broke apart. Looks cool.
I painted half of it yellow to kind of look like a chunk of street. The thing is, I hate that yellow. But I still really want it to be that yellow because of the road. So i got the idea to put it behind some colored glass so you can still tell from the value what the color is, but it wont look disguisting.
Work in progress city thing
This piece is still a work in progress. Not quite sure what to do with it, but with patience and more destruction, I should get there.
Inspiration break
I saw this on Pinterest one day from ceramic artist Jun Kaneko. The long rectangles reminded me of skyscrapers in a grid system, and it gave me the idea to make my own little skyscraper inspired forms, and see where it could take me.
I started with putting a bunch of wood rectangles into some concrete. It was fine but I was bored with it.
So then I hit it with a hammer to see if I would like it any more. I did! Cool.
The cut down some wood, traced the chunks, and drilled holes so I could tie them down with hemp cord. (I also glued them down with liquid nails.)
Now it looks like this. I’m pretty bored with it, but im not giving up. I have some ideas. Stay tuned.
Pioneer Species
I am intrigued by the idea of people finding evidence from people from the past. I love metal detector people and all their weird little civil war buttons they find. I think it’s pretty cool that people leave little clues behind. I always think about that when I drive past empty lots from condemned houses, or new neighborhoods that have replaced older forgotten ones. I wonder what stories are in the land of those places. I wonder if those people wanted to leave, or if they were forced out (by law or by means of being priced out, intimidated, etc.) I always feel very weird when I am in an older neighborhood, and then suddenly, there is a new build, totally out of place, not complimenting the houses around it.
This is piece is about that. On a lighter note, I also love going to where I grew up and getting to say “that used to be a long john silvers!” This is piece is about that too. Areas changing. Stories lingering.
Right now, it’s a chunk of concrete painted with a stamp on it, and it’s lodged between pieces of siding I cut down. It’s still a work in progress, and I am not sure where it is going.I am calling this “Pioneer Species”. To my non-scientist understanding, a pioneer species is a plant that can survive really harsh environments. They are the plants that can grow after fires, and up through parking lots. They inspire plants after them to grow as well. I like to think of humans and the stories they come with as a pioneer species.
I learned about this concept from The Happy Urbanist on tik tok. If any of these things interest you, check out his videos. They're super informative, productive, and very inspiring.
Katelyn Betz
October
Katelyn Betz
Concrete, wood, paint
This month my work ended up all being pretty consistent theme wise! Not everything shown here will be the finished product, but I figured since it’s all working together as one theme, it could be nice to show the process.
I started working with concrete quite a bit, which has been really fun and inspiring. A lot of the work I made this month was centered around the same theme of being a pedestrian and being curious about cities, so using concrete just freakin pulled the concepts right out of me.
I also want to dive into showing inspiration a bit this month. Inspiration can be a pretty vulnerable thing to talk about sometimes- I always feel like someone is going to pop out of a bush and accuse me of copying or something. But that’s pretty silly and it’s not that simple. I am always interested in what inspires people, visually and conceptually, so maybe this will be interesting to you too.
First, two collages and one paint doodle
I think i’m going to call this one “Infrastructure”
This looks like impaled organs and I really like that! It’s concrete that I cast in a plastic bag to get smooth textures and precise divots, and I put a bunch of yarn all in there. It was fine, but I wasn't sure about it, so I banged it with a hammer to see what would happen. (You will notice a theme there with the city concepts and also hitting things with hammers to make them more interesting.) Then I loved it, and painted the yarn very messily, and hung it on my wall with skewer while it was still wet because I was so excited about it.
Divided
This is one was super fun to make! This is a fictional story of a beautiful city that has been separated by a highway. On either side of the highway, the citizens live similarly but may not know it because their neighbors are a world away. They see the same moon and stars, have the same trees, but they can’t ever easily wander a little too far into each others neighborhoods. The made up people in these communities live very nuanced lives where they recognize that the highway is helpful in bringing them where they need to go faster, but it feels like the highway values bringing other people right past them faster, too (and rarely into their neighborhoods.) They don’t quite know what to make of being more connected than ever, while also being further apart and isolated. They don’t love that some of their neighbors homes have been sacrificed to the making of the highway, and their fictional place they call home is changed forever.
Inspiration break
It might be interesting to some of you to see what I am inspired by sometimes. I saw this piece by Paz Ulloa in Architectural Digest, and my vision came to me instantly. I loved the variety of shapes, but how they all look like they still fit together, kind of like if you put sand under a microscope. I knew I wanted to go for variety, and thickness so they really come off of the wall.
I gave all of these pieces a beveled edge, and I sanded so much that I was hearing the electric sander in my ears as I tried to fall asleep that night.
I love how this turned out, and I think I will probably do more similar wall sculptures. I love that I was able to capture my illustrative style in a physical format. This is probably my fav thing I made this month.
A pound of feathers, a pound of bricks
This is inspired by the how roughly 40 people could fit into an average bus, yet often in the US (and certainly in a lot parts of Kansas City) we would most often see 40 cars over 1 full bus. Once I saw one of these graphics for the first time, it changed my life. It’s kind of like when you realize when you're eating an order of mozzarella sticks, you're really eating like 6 string cheeses. It’s also kind of not like that at all but it makes sense to me.
This is made out of a super thick wood that I beveled real nice to look very “story book” and playful. The red shape is a bus, and the green shapes are to represent cars. I love this!!!!!!
Inspiration break
This inspiration for this form came from Ted Larsen. I knew I wanted to do a piece on this 1 bus = lots of car concept, and it simmered in the back of my head for a while. Then, I saw this piece and it all came together. Thanks Ted.
Categories
This is made out of scrap wood. I wanted to see if I could puzzle together the chunks without altering them too much. I also made the frame too. This reminds me a lot of what it looks like when you look down on a city from an airplane- all of the chunks of land pieced out. I also took a history class for fun last semester, and I spent a lot of time looking at red lining maps for a project I was working on. This reminds me of those as well. (The history class was really fun, not redlining. Booo redlining.)
Foundation
For this, I made a tiny concrete foundation and a little wood house. I put the wood house in here, and while it was drying I decided to take it out. Then it made this cool textural shape. And then I thought... damn.. this is straight up like an empty lot... thats crazy
Horse shaped hole in concrete
To make this, I made a horse out of oven clay, and put it into concrete.
Inspiration break
I got this idea from seeing this photo- this is done by artist duo Adam Frezza & Terri Chiao. They call this a pulp painting. I really like the shadows mixing with the color divots in this and I decided to try my hand, but with concrete.
Oven clay stallion put into place, ready to be covered in concrete.
I didn't think this through, so the stallion got stuck and I had to break him apart and beat him with hammers and gardening shovels until he broke into pieces. I cut my hands pretty badly two different times.
Now I have a slab of concrete with a horse shaped hole in it that I painted. Very good
Where the sidewalks ends
This is a very early stage idea. I had a whole vision, and how ideas often go, once I started working on it, the idea shifted. I made this box of of wood. I wood glued and filled and sanded so much, it is the smoothest triangular box in the world. I have many ideas for this, that you can probably gather from the title maybe.
Inspiration break
This shape was inspired by this shape. This is done by Janice Caswell. I really like the shape coming out from the wall, and I really like the abstraction all along the multiple sides. I am planning on having some abstraction and expressive line work on my piece. Stay tuned!
The Vision
For this, I mixed some concrete, and crumpled it up in plastic, put wire in it, and waited for it to dry. I once again decided to hit it with hammer to see how it broke apart. Looks cool.
I painted half of it yellow to kind of look like a chunk of street. The thing is, I hate that yellow. But I still really want it to be that yellow because of the road. So i got the idea to put it behind some colored glass so you can still tell from the value what the color is, but it wont look disguising.
This piece is not done yet, but here is a prototype version I made with some cellophane glued to some plastic. I have some red acrylic coming in soon, and we will see where this goes!
I wanted the acrylic to be red because red is a violent color, and I want this to be representative of the idea of the danger of walking across a street. Lord knows I have almost been hit by a car so many times, and I know way too many people who have been hit by cars.
Work in progress city thing
This piece is still a work in progress. Not quite sure what to do with it, but with patience and more destruction, I should get there.
Inspiration break
I saw this on Pinterest one day from ceramic artist Jun Kaneko. The long rectangles reminded me of skyscrapers in a grid system, and it gave me the idea to make my own little skyscraper inspired forms, and see where it could take me.
I started with putting a bunch of wood rectangles into some concrete. It was fine but I was bored with it.
So then I hit it with a hammer to see if I would like it any more. I did! Cool.
The cut down some wood, traced the chunks, and drilled holes so I could tie them down with hemp cord. (I also glued them down with liquid nails.)
Now it looks like this. I’m pretty bored with it, but im not giving up. I have some ideas. Stay tuned.
Pioneer Species
I am intrigued by the idea of people finding evidence from people from the past. I love metal detector people and all their weird little civil war buttons they find. I think it’s pretty cool that people leave little clues behind. I always think about that when I drive past empty lots from condemned houses, or new neighborhoods that have replaced older forgotten ones. I wonder what stories are in the land of those places. I wonder if those people wanted to leave, or if they were forced out (by law or by means of being priced out, intimidated, etc.) I always feel very weird when I am in an older neighborhood, and then suddenly, there is a new build, totally out of place, not complimenting the houses around it.
This is piece is about that. On a lighter note, I also love going to where I grew up and getting to say “that used to be a long john silvers!” This is piece is about that too. Areas changing. Stories lingering.
Right now, it’s a chunk of concrete painted with a stamp on it, and it’s lodged between pieces of siding I cut down. It’s still a work in progress, and I am not sure where it is going.I am calling this “Pioneer Species”. To my non-scientist understanding, a pioneer species is a plant that can survive really harsh environments. They are the plants that can grow after fires, and up through parking lots. They inspire plants after them to grow as well. I like to think of humans and the stories they come with as a pioneer species.
I learned about this concept from The Happy Urbanist on tik tok. If any of these things interest you, check out his videos. They're super informative, productive, and very inspiring.