Betti Pettinati-Longinotti

Summary- Semester 1
Hannah Barrett, Advisor
June 1, 2011

Summary of Semester:

I. Introduction/ Gleaning of Residency

Jumping into the new semester my desire was to focus more and attempt

to unify my style as advised by my new advisor. I initially had a feeling of

dread and impossibility at unifying my style to a person idiosyncratic one.

I was avid at keeping a sketchbook as I began my series. As the

semester rolled along I felt less of a need to keep the ritual of the

sketchbook, once the sustained works were underway.

II. Focus for the Semester

Attempting to resolve this pursuit of an idiosyncratic style and in initial

discussion about this with my new mentor artist, I decided to immerse

myself in the work and the strands I desired to continue exploration.

Focusing on the contemporary portrait as a subject helped to unify my

work conceptually, and as the semester wore on the concepts evolved

more intensely into meta-narratives behind the portraits. Though I cannot

say that all my work connects as one idiosyncratic style, I see strong

connections that have emerged from one work to another across the

spectrum of the media explored.

III. Mentor chosen/ Experience

I was fortunate to work with Glenda Wharton, the recipient of a Creative

Capital grant, whose recent hand-drawn animation, The Zo, was shown in

May at MOMA in NYC. Early in the semester this animation and a display

of Wharton’s animation was shown at the Southeastern Center for

 Contemporary Art, in Winston Salem. I was able to arrange a special visit

to view the animation and exhibit, with an opportunity to meet the artist,

for my students. Glenda proved to be an outstanding mentor and

provided good material for me to research, and thoughts for the

continuing of my studio work after each visit. Initially in the semester I

had desired to create a modest animation, but as my work enfolded and

the semester ensued, I realized that the volume of what I desired to

complete was unrealistic to the quality of time it would take to actually

finish before the next residency.

I had to make decisions about what strands needed to continue, works to

be brought to completion. I think the narrowing of my ideas and

exploration are a natural evolution to the progression of my work, and that

some explorations would need to be put away so that others could

materialize with the quality of effort I desired.

Listening to Glenda’s feedback at each interval and visit allowed me to

reflect on what piece of my work connected to the main concepts of my

Semester’s exploration.

IV. Advisor

Leaving the residency in January, I felt that I wasn’t in that good a footing

with my advisor, Hannah Barrett, and then began to feel a little paranoid

when I was not getting much feedback through the submission of my 3rd

research paper. However, I learned to speak up and once the

communication was opened, I was able to gain good insight about my

research as connected to my studio work. The suggestion from my

advisor to find a local editor, in addition to using the Lesley University

Writing Center, was seriously taken and has evolved to a relationship with
 a local editor that also reads over my written work and has been a

valuable resource for me to sound my ideas out. My advisor helped me

to make a critical decision about a piece when I met a crossroads that I

desperately needed a 2nd opinion to get to the next step. Self-critically, I

realize I sometimes get so wrapped up with the concept, that I forget

some of the best decisions for the piece’s visual success. One of the

things brought up in last residency’s critique was an evidence of

‘safeness’ in my work. So taking visual risks is a constant internal

struggle for me and my work. However, sometimes the risk-taking

means potentially making bad choices for the best interest of an

otherwise successful piece of art.

V. Studio Accomplishments

My inventory of completed/ continuing works bringing to Residency III:

• 3 different Sketchbook/ Journals

• 15 Vitreous Paintings on Glass/ Uomini Famosi, each piece is 8 x 10 x 2”

• 2 Vitreous Femmage , each is 10 x 10” (Gabrielle Munter, Kaethe

Kollwitz)

• 2 Homage paintings: Pieta for Kaethe Kollwitz, oil on linen with photo

montage, graphite; The Other Half- Gabrielle Munter (or All Dogs- Go to

Hell), oil on canvas with graphite; each painting 4 x 8’.

• 3 vitreous paintings on glass not completed, Triptych- We Three Kings

(Red Grooms, Claes Oldenberg, Jim Dine; not bringing to residency.)

• Stained Glass Assemblage: Homage to Kaethe Kollwitz)

See images at: http://plstudioart.blogspot.com/

VI. Academic Work/ Research

Within my research papers this semester, I think I have been more cohesive

within the direction I am going. I enjoyed the diversity of studio exploration last

semester but the research undertaken in support of the body of artwork felt

incongruent. With the ability now to focus more, my research has begun to gird

my studio work. It also gives me sense of accomplishment within this program.

Since my days as an undergraduate, I have always taken my studio seriously,

but have never had the opportunity to accompany research to my studio

direction. My academic study matched with my studio seems intertwined now,

and it has consumed my life and conversation.

VII. Blog/ Facebook with Peer Colleagues

The Blog requirement for me has been a documentation of my process, and

archive of my completed works, and an online journal of my thoughts. This

program is different than any other educational pursuit that I have ever

undertaken in the past, and it has a feeling of an experimental project. The Blog

helps to view the semester and comparison of semester to semester, sensing the

breadth and growth that has been achieved. When we were told in Residency 1

to keep a blog, I initially balked as I am a person that thought would never keep a

blog. It can sometimes be lonely not having interaction with your colleagues in

this program, but the blog assists in sharing with each other what we are each

accomplishing. In addition to keeping my own blog for the program, I spend quite

a bit of time looking at others blogs and their progress through the semester. I

do though think some of my colleagues take it more seriously than others, and

the equity of the assignment to keep a blog is uncertain. The blog takes a

considerable amount of time, and I wonder if it is really evaluated by the

administration.
 VIII. Closure

My hardwork this past year of two MFA AIB semesters, has brought me some

special opportunities. I have secured a place in two special exhibitions: 1- A

Curated/ Group exhibition at the Sawtooth Gallery in October 2011, with its

theme focused on Portraits (I am invited to show 6 pieces); 2- A Solo Exhibition

at the Salem College Fine Arts Gallery in February/ March 2012 (This is my 2nd

solo exhibition at Salem College; My last exhibition there was in in 2001.)

All the way, I am talking up the MFA program at the Art Institute of Boston at

Lesley University and the process and progress of my work.

Artist Statement:

This semester my work has been devoted to the meta-narrative of women artists. I have
adopted the mission statement of the Guerilla Girls, an activist feminist group fighting for
the rights of women artists, past and present.

Historically, female artists have been historically written out of the art canon. My archive,
parts of which are complete and developing, allows the medium of stained glass,
through vitreous paintings on glass to present the heroines of art as patronesses of art. I
am embracing a concept from the sacred to the secular by utilizing a metaphorical irony
with both the historical traditions of the icon and traditional portraiture through the
symbolic nature of the medium of stained glass.

This developing archive presents the icons as honestly and forthrightly as possible to
convey the seriousness of my intent, as opposed to caricaturizing these heroines.
Through a metaphor of hypertext that is found electronically on my blog, the key to the
archive can be found and understood. Hypertext as a contemporary notion alludes to the
code and meaning of these collective images as a gestalt. It serves to tell the story of
women artists and their meta-narrative of generations, represented through the varied
intensities of glass, color and light.

Furthering the collective ideas presented in my work, in an attempt to conceptually bring

together my vitreous paintings on glass, vitreous femmage, stained glass assemblage,
and mixed media/ oil paintings, I have explored the idea of the ‘homage’. These
significantly extract and tell the stories of heroines of art. The homage paintings which
stem technically and aesthetically from my intuitive paintings from last semester as
‘visual prayers’, extend the meta-narratives of these paintings by asking, “So what shall
we pray for?”

Research/ Reading List (s):

Critical Theory II in Relationship to My Work:

Bazin, Andre. Ontology of the Photographic Image. Print.

Boltanski, Christian, and Danilo Eccher. Christian Boltanski. Milano: Charta, 1997. Print.
Boltanski, Christian. Christian Boltanski: Lessons of Darkness: Museum of
Contemporary Art, Chicago: 23.4-19.6.1988 .... Chicago, Ill, 1988. Print.
Didi-Huberman, Georges. Images in Spite of All: Four Photographs from Auschwitz.
Chicago: University of Chicago, 2008. Print.
Elger, Dietmar. Gerhard Richter: a Life in Painting. Chicago: University of Chicago,
2009. Print.
Emmanuel Levinas Web Page. Web. 12 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.levinas.sdsu.edu/Primary.htm>.
Francois, Corinne. Roland Barthes, Mythologies. [Paris]: Brelal, 2002. Print.
Freud, Sigmund. On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia. London: Penguin, 2005. Print.
Levinas, Emmanuel, “The Trace of the Other,” translated by A. Lingis, in Deconstruction
in Context, edited by Mark Taylor, 345-359. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1986. Print.
Marter, Joan. "Strategies for Women in Art." Women's Studies Quarterly 15.1/2 (1987):
51-53. JSTOR. Web. 02 Nov. 2011.
Merewether, Charles. The Archive. London: Whitechapel, 2006. Print.
Newman, Michael, and M. Catherine De. Zegher. The Stage of Drawing--gesture and
Act: Selected from the Tate Collection. London: Tate Pub., 2003. Print.
Nochlin, Linda. Women, Art, and Power: and Other Essays. New York: Harper & Row,
1988. Print.
Pollock, Griselda. Differencing the Canon: Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art's
Histories. London: Routledge, 1999. Print.
Robinson, Hilary. Feminism-art-theory : an Anthology, 1968-2000. Oxford: B. Blackwell,
2001. Print.
Simpson, Pamela H. "Untited Review." Women's Art Journal Spring-Summer 22.1
(2001): 59-61. JSTOR. Web. 02 Nov. 2011.
Spieker, Sven. The Big Archive: Art from Bureaucracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2008.
Print.
The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York:
Penguin, 1998. Print.
"Untited Review." Women's Art Journal Spring-Summer 4.1 (1983): 59. JSTOR. Web. 02
Nov. 2011.
Verstegen, Ian. Arnheim, Gestalt, and Art: a Psychological Theory. Wien: Springer,
2005. Print.

Stained Glass as an Art:

“Alfred Menessier” Bechtler Collection. Charlotte: Bechtler Museum of Modern Art. 2009.
Print.
Ashworth, Alec Hargreaves. “Twentieth-Century Painting: The Approach Through Music
“Music & Letters 20.2 (Apr. 1939): 115-129. JSTOR.Web. 16 Mar. 2011.
Boczar, Danuta A.“ The Polish Poster” The Slavonic and East European Review 11.33
(Apr. 1933): 617-630. JSTOR.Web. 16 Mar. 2011.
Borowy, Wacław. “Wyspiański” Art Journal 44.1 (Spring 1984): 16-27. JSTOR.Web. 16
Mar. 2011.
Butts, Barbara. “Albrecht Durer and the Modernization of Stained Glass” Master
Drawings 41.4 (Winter 2003): 341-358. JSTOR.Web. 11 Mar. 2010.
Curran, C. P. “Evie Hone: Stained Glass Worker 1894-1955” Studies: An Irish Quarterly
Review 44.174 (Summer, 1955):129-142. JSTOR.Web. 16 Mar. 2011.
“Doctor Marc Chagall”, Art Journal 24.4 (Summer, 1965): 348-350. JSTOR Web. 16 Mar.
2011. Harshav, Benjamin, and Marc Chagall, and Barbara Harshav. Marc Chagall and
His Times.
New York: Tudor Pub. Co., 1973.
Langdon, Gabrielle. "A Spiritual Space: Matisse's Chapel of the Dominicans at Vence "
Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 51.4 (1988): 542-573. JSTOR.Web. 16 Mar. 2011.
Lyon, Christopher. “Seeing Matisse Whole” MoMA 13 (Autumn, 1992): 2-13.
JSTOR.Web. 16 Mar. 2011.
Museum of Modern Art. “Chagall: Stained-Glass Windows” MoMA 6. (Spring 1978): 3.
JSTOR.Web. 16 Mar. 2011.
Piper, John. Stained Glass: Art or Anti-Art. London: Studio Vista. 1968. Print.
Schjeldahl, Peter. "Many Colored Glasses." The New Yorker 12 May. 2008:1-4.
<http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2008/05/12/080512craw_artworld_schjel
dahl>.
Savile, Anthony. “Historicity and the Hermeneutic Circle” New Literary History 74.2.
JSTOR.Web. 16 Mar. 2011.
Sheehy, Ruth. “Hope and Resurrection: The Late Work of Richard J. King” Studies: An
Irish Quarterly Review 88.252 (Autumn 1978): 430-447. JSTOR.Web. 16 Mar. 2011.
Tryggvado, Nina. “Painting through Colored Glass” Leonardo 1.8 (Apr. 1968): 125-135.
JSTOR.Web. 11Mar. 2010.
Walker, Dorothy. “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman” The Crane Bag
4.1(1980):106-111. JSTOR.Web. 16 Mar. 2011.
Pettinati-‐Longinotti
Walker, Dorothy. “The Light of Noon” Irish Arts Review Yearbook 10 (Winter 1999): 89-
93. JSTOR.Web. 16 Mar. 2011.

Homage, Montage, Collage, Assemblage:

Barnum, Jeff. “Jeff Barnum: Homage to Other Artists”. JeffBarnum.com. Artist’s

Homepage. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
Drucks, Acham. “Audrey Flack: Breaking the Rules”. Deutsche Bank Artworks. Deutsche
Guggenheim, Berlin. 2011. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
Eco, Umberto. The Limits of Interpretation . Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press,
1990.
Grusin, Richard. Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. New York: Routledge,
2005.
“Homage: Paintings by Pietro Lista”. ArtInAsia.Com. University Museum and Art Gallery
of Hong Kong. 17 Sep. 2010. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
Jangelo, Joseph. "Joseph Cornell and the Artistry of Composing Persuasive Hypertexts "
College Composition and Communication 49.1 (1998): 24-44. JSTOR.Web. 18
Apr. 2011. Print.
Kelly, Adam. “Homage 10x5: Blake's Artists”. Interface. Waddington Galleries, London.
Nov 2010. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
Lipman, Jean, and Richard Marshall. Art About Art. New York: E.P.Dutton in association
with the Whitney Museum of Art, 1978. Print.
Morgan, Robert C.. “Oral History Interview with Audrey Flack”. Smithsonian Archives of
American Art. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 16 Feb 2009. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
Rollyson, Carl E. “More Than A Popcorn Venus: Contemporary Women Reshape the
Myth of Marilyn Monroe”. Journal of American Culture. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
1987:10.3. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
Torres, Anthony. “Homage and Remembrance: The Past is Present”. Museletter.
Sonoma Valley Museum of Art. Summer 2010. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
Van Schepen, Randall K. “Benjamin’s Aura, Levine’s Homage and Richter’s Effect”.
InterCulture. Florida State University. Oct. 2009:6.2. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.

Required/ Critical Theory III Bibliographical References:

Seminar 1:
The Politics of Difference and Otherness: Colonialism, Primitivism and beyond

**Jonathan Crary, “Critical Reflections.” Artforum, February, 1994.

** Patrick Williams & Laura Chrisman, “Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A
Reader (Introduction).” In Williams, Patrick & Laura Chrisman eds. Colonial Discourse
and Post-Colonial Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

** Vijay Mishra & Bob Hodge, “What is Post(-)colonialism?” In Williams, Patrick & Laura
Chrisman eds. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1994.

** Zhang Longxi, “The Myth of the Other: China in the Eyes of the West.” Critical Inquiry,
autumn, 1988.

** Abigail Solomon-Godeau, “Going Native.” Art in America, July, 1989.

** Roger Benjamin, “Matisse in Morocco: A Colonizing Esthetic?.” Art in America,

November, 1990.

Seminar 2:
The Politics of Difference and Otherness: Race, gender and authorship

** Maurice Berger, “Race and Representation”. In Berger, Maurice. How Art Becomes
History. New York: IconEditions, 1992.

** Nanette Solomon, “The Art Historical Canon: Sins of Omission.” In Preziosi, Donald
ed. The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology. New York: Oxford University Press,
1998.

** Craig Owens, “The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism.” In Foster,

Hal ed. The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. New York: New Press:
Distributed by W.W. Norton, 1998.

** Anna Chave, “Minimalism and Biography.” Art Bulletin, March, 2000.

** Patricia Leighten, “The White Peril and l’art negre: Picasso, Primitvism, and
Anticolonialism.” Art Bulletin, December, 1990.

Recommended:
** bell hooks, “Talking Back.” In Ferguson, Russell et al eds. Out There: Marginalization
and Contemporary Cultures. New York, N.Y.: New Museum of Contemporary Art,
Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1990.

** Anna Chave, “New Encounters with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: Gender, Race, and
the Origins of Cubism.” Art Bulletin, December, 1994.

** Michel Foucault, “The Means of Correct Training.” In Rabinow, Paul ed. The Foucault
Reader. New York: Pantheon, 1984.

** Trinh T. Minh-ha, “Critical Reflections.” Artforum, summer, 1990.

Seminar 3:
The Museum in Postmodernity: The museum as a cultural space

** Emma Barker, “The Museum in a Postmodern Era: The Musée d’Orsay.” In Barker,
Emma ed. Contemporary Cultures of Display. New Haven : Yale University Press in
association with the Open University, 1999.

** Chantal Georgel, “Museum as a Metaphor in Nineteenth-Century France.” In

Sherman, Daniel J. and Irit Rogoff, eds. Museum Culture : Histories, Discourses,
Spectacles.
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, c1994.

Recommended:
** “Musee d’Orsay: A Symposium.” Art in America, January, 1988.

Seminar 4:
The Museum in Postmodernity: The Museum as a cross-cultural space

** “Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief”. In Ferguson, Russell et al eds. Discourses:

Conversations in Postmodern Culture. New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art,
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, c1990.

** James Clifford, “Histories of the Tribal and the Modern.” In Clifford, James. The
Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988.

Recommended:
** “The Whole Earth Show” (an interview with Jean-Hubert Martin by Benjamin H.D.
Buchloh). Art in America, May, 1989.

** Eleanor Heartney, “The Whole Earth Show”. Art in America, July, 1989.

** Stephen Greenblatt, “Resonance and Wonder.” In Karp, Ivan & Steven D. Levine eds.
Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. Washington:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.

Artists I am looking at:

• Julian Scnabel
 • Liza Lou
• Mark Bradford
• Alfred Manessier
• Joseph Cornell
• Richard Pousette-Dart
• Gabriele Münter
• Christian Boltanski
• Miriam Schapiro
• Agnes Martin
• Julian Schnabel
• Gustave Singier
• Evie Hone
• Gerhard Richter
• Mary Beth Edelson
• Sir Peter Blake
• Käthe Kollwitz
• Hannah Höch
• Julia Ciccarone

Exhibitions:

January-
Mark Bradford at the Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston, January 2011 (Post
Residency).
Glenda Wharton, The Zo, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, January 2011.
Underground Abstracts, Community Arts Café, January 2011 (I had a large painting in
this exhibition!). Ed Rice Exhibition: Hanes Art Gallery, Scales Fine Arts Center,
Wake Forest University, January 2011.
February-
A Yadkin River Story, Sawtooth Gallery, February 2011.
The Trains That Passed In the Night, Reynolda House, Museum of American Art,
February 2011.

March-
Philadelphia Magic Gardens, an art environmental installation of Isaiah Zagar, March
2011.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Paris through the Window: Marc Chagall and His Circle;
Notations/ Everyday Disturbances; Revisit to the Modern and Contemporary Art
collections/ exhibits, March 2011.
Museum of Art and Design, Judy Chicago Tapestries; The Global Africa Project (Fred
Wilson piece very relevant to my work!), New York City, March 2011.
Museum of Modern Art, German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse (Kaethe Kollwitz,
Kandinsky; Contemporary Galleries- works by William Kentridge, Agnes Martin,
Richard Pousette-Dart, Guerilla Girls, Barbara Krueger; Abstract Expressionism.
The Great Upheaval: Modern Art through the Permanent Collection, Guggenheim
Museum of Art, March 2011.
Bechtler Collection/ Museum of Modern Art, Charlotte, NC; The School of Paris/
Alfred Manessier, Gustave Sangier, Georges Roualt among others, March
2011.
Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Charlotte, NC, Judith Schaechter among
others, March 2011.
April/ May-
Highlights, Sawtooth School Gallery, Winston Salem, April 2011.
Beastiaries, Gateway Gallery, Winston Salem, May 2011.
Sawtooth Faculty Exhibition, Sawtooth School Gallery, Winston Salem, May/ June 2011.

Online Journal of MFA progress with studio and academic work at:
http://plstudioart.blogspot.com/

My MFA Log of Hours can be found linked from my Blog as a Scrib publication at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/47382928/MFA-Log-2011