11.2.14 Day 4 with Randy Guthmiller

This week was our last class with visiting artist Randy Guthmiller. He has been such a great instructor for us as his energy is high, he is well informed about the works in the collection, and he is a lot of fun!

Class began with the students cutting their drawn shape from last class out of pink insulation foam. Randy made sure to demonstrate proper technique before the students used their box cutters.

Once the shapes were cut out, the students applied layers of paper mache. The process involved tearing strips of newspaper, dipping each strip into a mixture of glue and water, and then placing them carefully onto the shape until the entire object was covered twice over. This process took about an hour, and the goal was to not have any pink foam showing through the paper mache.

The next step for this project was to paint the pieces with glossy house paint. Randy chose fuchsia, milk chocolate brown, minty green, and tan. In order to proceed, though, we had to allow the paper mache shapes dry. This gave us an opportunity to return to the Urban Theater exhibition to see some of the work in more depth and have Randy guide us through a few of his favorite pieces.

In the exhibition, we talked about several works, the first being Peter Halley’s Glowing and Burnt-Out Cells with Conduit, 1982. Randy led the class in a discussion by asking questions related to the aesthetic qualities of the work. He also stopped at Allan McCollum’s Collection of Two Hundred Plaster Surrogates, 1982/1983–85, and we talked about symbols and the notion of the original versus the copy.

The last work we viewed and discussed was Nancy Graves’s Wheelabout, 1985, not a work in the Urban Theater exhibition but part of the Modern’s permanent collection.

Randy shared with us that he has loved this work since he was a child and still does to this day. He stated that he enjoys the work for its whimsical character, method of construction, imaginative form, and paint application.

Back in the classroom, the teens began to paint their paper mache shapes. Everyone was assigned one color and as the paint was applied, the shapes seemed to come to life.

When these works are exhibited, they will function as a single work of art. Randy has volunteered to install the works (with the students’ permission) in Gallery 414 for the annual T/AP exhibition in May.

We concluded class in front of the Modern sign, saying our goodbyes and posing for our weekly class portrait. Thank you Randy Guthmiller for a wonderful four weeks!