I attended a wonderful lecture the other day that explored the history and the fascination behind the famed Russian Fabergé eggs. These eggs were elaborate gold, silver, and gemstone creations made by Gustav Fabergé’s company in St. Petersburg. The Imperial Egg collection was commissioned by Alexander the III for his wife Maria Feodorovna, as he gave her a decorated egg each Easter. The interesting thing about the Fabergé pieces is that Fabergé never made any piece himself, rather, he hired the best craftsmen and oversaw the operation. Fabergé used different artists and it resulted in a unique collection. Each piece was crafted meticulously and no one piece was the same. Additionally, with the Imperial eggs, I think it is really interesting that each one had a little something inside. The inside usually held an ornamented object like a statue or a picture with an embellished frame. The lecture discussed the value of the eggs today, both in artistic and monetary value. I think the speaker described it really well when she said the eggs represented the story of a vanished world. They have a romantic value like the search for lost treasures or a doomed love story, that just makes people obsessed. The last egg sold was valued at around 33 million dollars. This seems crazy at first, but is it? These eggs are one of the last remnants to the Russian world that ended after World War II. So I wonder what would be remembered from our American society if it were to disappear. Would our artwork be sufficient to sustain the legacy of American ideology? Art is not just about the aesthetics, it is about leaving behind a legacy, telling our history, and trying to improve and make a more beautiful world. I know I will ask myself these questions the next time a create art because I want to leave a positive impact on the world and I want be conscious about the message I send to both the present and the future.
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This symposium was especially helpful to me, as I am in the process of thinking about what I want to do and what colleges I would like to learn more about and eventually apply for. It was interesting to see people’s different experiences in the college art program and their different paths. There were students of illustration, craft, sculpture, architecture, and more. I did not know about the Art Foundation Program and how it is a prerequisite for many art colleges for their art majors. Overall, the students felt that the program was helpful although exhausting, I believe that a foundational program like this would ensure that a student has all of the basic skills in many different art forms. I think it would make me a well-rounded art student if I chose to go to art college. However, I do not think I would go to college for art, rather I would go to a college of architecture. I love crafting art and making statements through artwork, but I am really interested in architecture, in which art is a component. The art students recounting of their curriculum and workload gave me the impression of a lot more freedom, which I definitely look forward to in my future. However, I do not work well without some guidelines and fittingly the architecture student described that architecture was creating a work with guidelines. Architecture is about both the design and about fitting the demands of the consumer, which I respond to well. That is the kind of creating that I am really interested in. I think this symposium helped push me further towards applying to an architecture college and made me excited for the possibility to do a mentorship with an architecture firm next year.
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Emma LindleyHi! I am an art student at Maggie Walker and I am so excited to share with you my thoughts, my art ideas, and my finished works. I hope you enjoy! Archives
June 2021
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