Tag: TJ Barczak

My Artist Statement! With Another Video Made by Yours Truly.

November 1st, 2022
TJ Barczak

Below is another video I made with a “small tour” of my piece, “Stiched Alexandrine Parakeet” along with my artist’s statement.

Audio Clip Used in Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMfllLeLQ3c – Calm by ØDYSSEE x Florent Garcia

This piece of music really resonates with me because of the style of music and the simple but important name given to the song. I’m being really honest here, lofi/instrumental jazz music got me through this project. I have probably listened to at least ten hours of this style of music while I’ve worked to finish this embroidery piece. I love how the music simply flows with great beats to calm your mind but also kind of bleed out the outside noise, so you can work on your project. Also, the title Calm is exactly what I needed to be when toiling over my project. If I wasn’t calm, chaos would ensue like pricking myself with my needle or stitching into the hole outside the piece leading to twenty to thirty minutes of me trying to undo these stitches I made. All in all, this ambient music piece fits perfectly into the stitching world I lived in for the past couple of weeks, and thanks to lofi hip-hop music for staying with me while I loved and struggled through this project.

Guiding Questions for Discussion:
- When people focus on different aspects of a mosaic, how does the point of view of an audience change from piece to piece?
- Is using a square tile the best way to portray a mosaic or are more unorthodox shapes the better strategy?
- Were certain aspects of a mosaic better to replicate since they are easier to connect between the original and the replication?
- In what ways can audio/music change an author’s perspective on the piece they have just constructed?
Above is a photo of the floor from the Vincent Van Gogh Art Experience in Washington D.C. Even though there is a lot of simplicity in this photo (only having raindrops as a focal point), it ties in perfectly with the theme of the mosaic I created. My personal goal was to contrast foreground and background in my stitchery to the point where you could enjoy both separately while also enjoying the whole composition. That idea applies to the short time the raindrops were simulated on the floor because the two were so sharply different you could take in both or either one by itself and enjoy its simplicity. Another small continuity between this photo of a floor and my mosaic is the use of circles. Both compositions make use of a bordered outline (farthest circle) and then place the rest of the piece inside of that bordered outline. I find this as a really interesting similarity because it allows each bubble on the floor to shine individually while also being a cohesive set, and my mosaic can also have its own individuality when placed with all the Parrot Pergamom recreations.
Mosiac Project Part 3: Progress Report w/ Special Video!

October 26th, 2022

TJ Barczak

Below is a 15-minute YouTube video that I created and edited to show my progress! Have fun with it, it’s a trip.

Written Transcript of Important Parts:

TJ: So yeah, up, in, up, in, no big deal anywhere. All pretty simple. And then, once you get to like a point where you want to change colors which is in about two more stitches for me, I know I have been working on this color for about a minute, but I was doing so much work at school that I just had a little bit more to do. What’s gonna happen is you’re gonna knot it off. And, the way you do that is, if we are gonna look at the back, you see how there’s, welp you can’t really see, you see how the tail is right here, you’re gonna loop it through the knots you already made. So that, everything stays in place. So you’re just gonna take it, loop, probably do it twice to make the world happy, because we love making the world happy. You know, world peace, world peace, world peace, Miss Universe, what do they want, world peace. So, you just do that twice, and you cut a little bit of the tail but you also want to cut your original tail down because those things are normally way too long. So, you just cut them all down. You get, a lot of extra, like for some reason I just have a lot, so we are just going to keep that extra actually. And we are going to use it again once I have to.

TJ: Okay, this is a learning experience. Twice a time, my work has popped out of its hoop. Well, I would just like to tell you, folks, it’s not fun. But, putting it back together is really simple.

TJ: Another thing that can happen is that when you’re putting your hoop back together, your string that you’re actually using gets stuck in between the hoops, so you lose about all of it. So, you have to redo it to make sure that it’s all intact. How lovely!

TJ: Finally! That, yea we can go back to work, and another like way you can differentiate, say that you’re using the same color for a very long time, what you can do is actually just change the direction of your stitch to give it like, I guess dimension or like variety. So, you’re not just looking at a solid block of color, you’re looking at a solid block of color but there is like different edges and borders, so when you look at it, you just kinda move a little bit instead of going: “Oh look, color.” No, oh look color, but there’s a little midsection here, or a bisection here so that you could be like, oh a little focal point. But, I don’t know if it’s just for the audience, it might just get them to look at it for another couple of seconds for them to be like: “Well why did he do this?” And a couple of seconds means more praise, hopefully.
The Barczak Plan to Produce a New Parrot Pergamon.

October 17th, 2022

TJ Barczak

In my hunt to recreate this Greco-Roman mosaic, I realized many things. First, I love Michael’s. This craft store will hopefully someday become my next apartment; I can make crafts anytime I please. The medium I have chosen to compose the Parrot Pergamom is embroidery stitch, good ol’ embroidery stitch. Now you might ask, TJ, where did you learn to stitch? I didn’t. I just like making those summer camp friendship bracelets and said, “I can roll with this.”

$31 of Embroidery Supplies from Michael’s (Hoop, Fabric, & A lot of Thread) lain across my bed.

My hoop setup is very mobile, so my work environment can change wherever I take it. I love that about my project because I won’t have to be cooped up in a room or basement to finish my project. I have achieved the ability to have options. How this will relate to the mosaic, mainly color and shape will be of note, color through the invention of dyed thread and the shapes of the main details in the mosaic. So embroidery floss can fill the whole hoop, and the background will distort into a circle. Some problems I am willing to anticipate are creating a parrot template, seeing that drawing isn’t something in my daily routine, and playing around with a new medium I have never tried (the stitching aspect). On the other hand, my drive to recreate a colorful parrot on a brick will keep my mind positive in this endeavor!

Homemade Template ready to be stitched!

When audiences look at my composition, I hope to appreciate the fine details that coincide with the creation of this stitched parrot. Also, I want audiences to look into the contrasts of color between the background and foreground and the contours/shading of the entire piece. Pushing the thought away from the audience and more the maker, my sister is an influence on me whenever I try to do art. She’s my best consultant and lifeline if I ever feel that I’m struggling to “open my creative side” and just craft. Since she’s a sophomore at MICA, Renee knows a tip or two when it comes to shrinking down work time or working out an art-related problem. For that, I often thank her. Another influence I’m taking is the style of the stitch which I’m inspiring my piece from (making this stitch slightly simpler). This video by Sarah Homfray Embroidery explains a condensed mosaic stitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvbpbg_xQBY. This stitch can give off the effect of a mosaic tile with smaller “groves” surrounding more full sections. I’m super excited to work on my recreation of the Parrot Pergamom and the peaceful stitching I get to do for the next couple of weeks!
Parrot Pergamon: A Research Narrative

October 12th, 2022
TJ Barczak

Original Mosaic “Parrot Pergamon” – Source: Wikimedia Commons

Parrot Pergamon is designed after an Alexandrine parakeet or parrot. This bird’s name comes from Alexander the Great; he created a large empire that stretched across Eurasia from Greece to India. Designed a made-in Pergamon (modern-day Turkey), an artist completed the mosaic around the middle of the second century BC, during the reigns of Eumenes II and Attalus II. This mosaic is from a floor panel in the “altar room” of the Pergamon Acropolis in Palace V; the mosaic was discovered in an excavation led by archaeologists Richard Bohn in 1996, where his team excavated this piece of art along with tons of other mosaics across the acropolis. Today, the Pergamon museum owns and displays it in Berlin, Germany.

A mosaic is a design or image created with small pieces (tesserae-i) of materials to decorate floors, walls, or ceilings. The Parrot Pergamon mosaic was created using opus vermiculatum; this Greek method of artwork made rows of colored stone tesserae, so it imitates color painting. Opus vermiculatum means “worm-like work” and is supposedly one of the hardest and physically demanding styles of mosaic work. Borders were made of darker tesserae to brighten the focus of pieces usually made with more vibrant colors. Mosaics like the Parrot Pergamon only used artistic styles like color and tone to accentuate their subject. Another technique used in the mosaic was emblemata. This method was easily transportable; master artists could make a more detailed section of tiles to send out to the acropolis, where tiles can be placed into the more basic background and then touched up and fixed by assistants. Here is a short video to learn more about this style of music building: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0rDj-hOViM

View of the Pergamon Acropolis – Source: Thrillophilla.com

The city of Pergamon in the course of the reigns of both brothers Eumenes II and Attalus II prospered. The Library of Pergamon was established; it rivaled the Library of Alexandria due to its wide array of books. Pergamon became a cultural, political, and scientific center for the Mediterranean world with tons of literature, Greek architecture, and art across the empire. Throughout Pergamon’s vast history, it was a multicultural landscape between the Hellenistic Attalid dynasty and the Roman Empire annexed the city from the Attalids. The parrot mosaic would then have influences coming from Romanic and Hellenistic art styles seeing that both controlled the acropolis.

A detail lost to history about this mosaic is its author. There is no historical record of mosaic artists that created anything in the Pergamon Acropolis. The only piece of literature that mentions an artist was by Pliny the Elder, which wrote of Sosos, an artist who resides in Pergamon.

Moving back to the main subject of the Parrot Pergamon, the Alexandrine parakeet is a medium-sized parrot that Alexander the Great transported across the world. These birds went from the Punjab region in India to many regions of Europe and the Mediterranean coast. These birds were cherished by royals and nobility whenever and wherever the birds were received. The parrot in the mosaic also resembles the Alexandrine parakeet’s close relative, the rose-ringed parakeet, because of the bright red or rose ring around the neck of the bird.

Alexandrine Parakeet is situated on a branch looking outwards. – Source: Hagen Avicultural Research Institute

Overall the research on the Parrot of Pergamon, conclusions can be made from the unknown details. All the techniques used in making the mosaic were kept through history but the lack of documentation on the artist leaves a tremendous detail out of the picture. But, both the city and the mosaic were specific examples of cultural syncretism between the Romans and the Greeks in their separate reigns of the city of Pergamon.

Works Cited: