{"id":235,"date":"2015-07-13T09:58:17","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T13:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/?p=235"},"modified":"2015-07-13T10:02:57","modified_gmt":"2015-07-13T14:02:57","slug":"julia-harrison-on-looking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/2015\/07\/13\/julia-harrison-on-looking\/","title":{"rendered":"Julia Harrison: On Looking"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Click here<\/a> to hear Harrison discuss imagery in her work.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Look long enough at Julia Harrison<\/a>\u2019s work and you may feel like you\u2019re staring. That is, in fact, precisely the point. Harrison explains that \u201cthe act of looking really hard at another person to try to figure out what the hell they are thinking or feeling or talking about is a universal thing.\u201d It\u2019s a theme most immediately evident in the pursed lips and oblique eyes that appear specimen-like in Harrison\u2019s hand-carved brooches and wall sculptures. Though these pieces invite our gaze, the ambiguity of their expressions unsettle us into considering what it means to look and to be looked at. \u201cThe specifics are different,\u201d she adds, but \u201cthe grasping for understanding is everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

The playful reflexivity of Harrison\u2019s fanciful body parts reveals a mingling of art and anthropology. Professionally, Harrison wears both hats. She was inspired early on to study the anthropology of craft, but was frustrated by the tendency of ethnographers to ignore processes by which objects get made. A two-year stint studying traditional needlework among Minnesota\u2019s Hmong refugees allowed Harrison to explore linkages between craft technique and the rhythms of daily life. The experience was formative, and it encouraged Harrison to turn her anthropological lens on another favorite topic: sweets. In recent years, she has blogged<\/a>, mapped, and exhibited research into the complex web of cultural forces that sustain our global appetite for sugary foods and fantastic confections.<\/p>\n

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Click here<\/a> to hear Harrison discuss looking.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looking also figured prominently in Harrison\u2019s path to wood art. Although formally trained as a metal artist, Harrison warmed to carving wood while studying conservation science in England. Previous experiences with basswood had been unsatisfying, but carving small objects from aged boxwood was different: \u201cI could get it to hold all of these tiny details.\u201d Harrison next traveled to Japan, boxwood in tow, and acquired tools suitable for working in a small apartment. She recalls being surrounded by Japanese wood art. \u201cMy first teacher was just going and looking at things \u2026 and trying to imagine, if this is what the carving looks like now, what kind of shaped block would it have come out of.\u201d Learning by looking enabled Harrison to engage Japanese artisans through careful acts of observation.<\/p>\n

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Click here<\/a> to hear Harrison discuss materials.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Years of travel explain the prevalence of small objects in Harrison\u2019s body of work. \u201cI had to have things that were really really small, really durable [and] I had to figure out ways of making things more engineered than they look.\u201d Even more significantly, Harrison explains, she had to learn to work \u201csubtractively.\u201d \u201cEven if I was having a bad day \u2026 I could look at those wood chips and think \u2026 at the very least it\u2019s getting more portable.\u201d The press of travel, however, has preserved within Harrison\u2019s work a material record of the artist\u2019s journey. Bits of wood gathered here and there \u201cbecome part of the story,\u201d she says. And new places invite new techniques. Turned paintbrushes and miniature dirigibles highlight Harrison\u2019s run with the lathe in Philadelphia. New directions for an artist who is always looking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Look long enough at Julia Harrison\u2019s work and you may feel like you\u2019re staring. That is, in fact, precisely the point. Harrison explains that \u201cthe act of looking really hard at another person to try to figure out what the hell they are thinking or feeling or talking about is a universal thing.\u201d It\u2019s a … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Julia Harrison: On Looking”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2638,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2638"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}