Announcing My NEW WEBSITE!!! NafisWhite.com

After a semester of fighting with a wordpress template and then walking away from the interface entirely, I have decided to go with a new format and after a month and a half of image gathering, fine tuning, and learning ( & relearning) I am pleased to present to you my new website! It will be updated regularly with new works. I am so excited to have finally figured all this out! 

So, please stop by often to say hello.

Don't Forget to Thank Your Heroes & Sheroes

So many times in our busy lives we move from one thing to the next so quickly without stopping to smell the roses, especially in this dawn of technological breakthrough. In 3 minutes, you can check email, text a friend, update your status and write on your blog, all while waiting for the light to change so you can cross the street.

I would like to remind you to make time to acknowledge the people who got you where you are. It didn't happen magically, we didn't just arrive at a place, we were brought their through community, through generosity, belief, support and above all LOVE. 

So today I salute a professor of mine whom I had the great opportunity and privilege to learn from. He is a masterful painter, he can draw superbly and is above all a sterling individual. 

Meet Rick Rodrigues...

Shout Out! Holly Gaboriault & The RI Art Archive Project

Rhode Island, the Creative Capital has many hidden gems, particularly their inhabitants. Often the people you pass on the street who look unassuming are powerhouse artists who have made Rhode Island their home. And lucky for us! But what happens when you don't know how to access these incredible talents? How do you meet them and support their work?

Holly Gaboriault's brainchild, the Rhode Island Art Archive Project makes finding these talented folks easier than ever. She and her film crew have been spending countless hours visiting artists, and documenting the exchanges on video. I highly recommend checking out the RI Art Archive Project's Blog to meet brilliant artists living in the state, smartly called "In The Studio".  The premiere is coming this October 2013. I am overwhelmed with excitement around this event and will post more information as we near the opening.

Go Here for the RI Art Archive Project Blog

New York Summer Bucketlist #2 - The Guggenheim & James Turrell

Being surrounded by the fabrication and then containment and display of objects has led me to think about sculpture in different ways. What happens when these objects outgrow their space and cannot be contained any longer? Where does the work go when it is not being enjoyed by an audience? How can you make the work more sustainable, take up less space and resources? If sculpture moves away from its traditional iterations what does it become, and is it still sculpture?

Everything must transform and become something else over time and we see that sculpture is morphing into a new representation and the new exhibition at the Guggenheim certainly salutes this transition. James Turrell uses light as sculpture and creates a conical form that goes high into the air of the rotunda to support the visual aspect of the work. The lighting embraces the viewer in tones and serves as a meditative landscape. Sculpture has become more and more about experience for me and less about the fabricated object. I look to Ann Hamilton's Event of a Thread and the recent show at the New Museum as examples of this phenomenon.

What's more, I look forward to seeing this in person later this month.

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/james-turrell

New York Summer Bucketlist #1 - The Rain Room at MoMA

The Rain Room

Showing at MoMA until July 28th.

I will be going.

In Preparation of New Works

I have been wanting to start out on new works and have been so busy that it has been difficult to set aside time to make. I miss using my hands to create and to think. Sometimes I feel that I am lost but it is the loss of this tactility that creates a void in my world. Not to say that worthwhile endeavors haven't happened lately. I have recently finished my first year at RISD, I assisted Admissions and CSI with new student orientation and I am working 40 hours a week in the Foundry. There are six more weeks left before I begin preparations for classes and my goal is to make new works each week. I will chronicle them here as they come forth into existence. 

Before those pictures come, here are some snaps of Waiting for Godot in process and finished.