Karly Klopfenstein!

This past Monday I attended the visiting artist talk.  (In my opinion)Karly Klopfenstein has a very interesting and amusing(in a good way) art style.  Graduating from Saint Mary's in 1997 Karly soon found out (the hard way) that graduate school was not for her, and moved to Florida where she began creating large scale temporary art in an outdoor sculpture group.  Her first works involved a large, red, satin ribbon-- "The Gift", "Red Tree", "Red Tide".  While I think it is interesting that she reused her material, I thought the idea felt a bit repetitive, three times in a row.  However, of the three I think the "Red Tide" was the most striking--I think that one had the best message behind it (of the three).  Which is actually a point that stuck out to me- she seems to have a good general message behind her recent works.  Her idea about naming things with puns/play on words gives her already creative ideas an extra dash of spunk. "Carpet Bomb"-- her hand made replica of "Fat Boy" that she covered in hook rug, seemed to me the perfect example of Karly's general thought process.  Taking an object/icon/idea that is associated with death/destruction/other bad things and cover it with  a soft rug, or something else that one might associate with comfort/home/other good things...a contradiction, with a name that is a play on words...it seems like a very affective approach.  
Her Macrame Guns are amazing!  They may not be covered in elaborate patterns, but the attention to detail she puts into her works is astonishing!  She appears to put lots of research into all of her projects as well.  The fact that she would attempt a tank of any size is impressive, but the scale that she decided to model hers upon is both impressive, and maybe a tad insane.  The fact that she also decided to incorporate the "war rug" idea again connects the tank with her other works, and makes it stand out for the scale on which she is using the technique compared to what she has done in the past.
I can not say I have ever built anything as impressive as a tank, but I did attempt to build a fountain with a friend out of cardboard and duct tape for a middle school event one time.  It looked much better once we had spray painted it of course, needless to say, cardboard is not one of the more impressive construction materials--which is why I found Karly's explanation of how she combined a wood frame, with cardboard, plaster and fiberglass, keeping her tank both sturdy and portable very interesting.  I also have done "crafty" things, like hook rugs for example, from a young age, and still enjoy making things that I can look at later and say "I made that."   I think this contributes to my appreciation both of why the tank is such an undertaking and why she might be driven to do such a thing in the first place.  
I like that Karly is trying to get her (to extremely generalize) anti-war message through irony and pieces that obviously take a lot of time a effort.  I am not exactly sure how this may be similar or even differ from "my ideas", but I love the idea of changing how someone might think of something through irony!
I also had trouble coming up with one artist in particular that  Karly's work made me think of, I can't say I've ever seen anything like it, but I do remember seeing some pictures of some hook rugs that were rather intricate and each unique, as I could remember.  It took a little time, but thanks to Google, I found a couple pictures I recognized that eventually led me to the artist's website.  Deanne Fitzpatrick (http://www.hookingrugs.com/index.html)
makes bold and unique hook rugs that she says are inspired by everyday life...I guess I never really thought of hook rugs in the sense that they were "art" before, but looking at Ms. Klopfenstein's and  and Ms. Fitzpatrick's I definitely have a new appreciation for the form.  I can't wait for Karly Klopfenstein to finish her tank, I'd love to see it some time.  I hope those who do see it, or any of her pieces, can appreciate her message of thought and responsibility for our actions, or at least take something similar away from these impressive piece of both thought and handy work.