Cage Free Contemporaries: Drew Hyatt

What's up, ya nerds?! 
Welcome to the long-awaited second edition of Cage Free Contemporaries, featuring my good friend, Drew Hyatt.  Drew is currently a Printmaking BFA student at Ole Miss.

I really enjoy Drew's work.  The subject matter always intrigues me:  while the work is very personal, the execution ranges from the comical to the very serious to the abstract.  He's a jack-of-all-trades in the printshop.  Its easy to pick one medium that comes naturally to you and stick to it.  Drew does it all and does it well.  I admire that.  
Here's Drew's artist statement:
I create art as a means to ignore, resolve, and understand my experiences as an infantry line medic in Iraq. I am usually hesitant to create work pertaining to these experiences, but I believe my observations and opinions are socially relevant and should be explored by my peers. I prefer to use traditional printing processes, because they are so time intensive and force one to have complete control over the medium in order to have successful work. I believe that the actual process of creating work in this way is more important than the actual finished product.
I see process is being very therapeutic, because my mind becomes entirely occupied on the process while working as opposed to the content. I identify with the Buddhist tradition of creating sand Mandalas, because they are an exercise in focusing ones mind. I see my art as a way to focus my mind on something other than these intense and painful experiences.
M.C. Escher, Ralph Steadman, and Daniel Reeves also influence me. I strive to attain the level of craftsmanship in both Escher and Steadman’s work, while working with similar themes as Reeves. Prevalent themes that have begun to present themselves in my work are conflicted identity, physical pain, emotional pain, violence, shame, and peace. I have tried to move from creating pieces that broadly explain my experiences to work that is representative of specific situations that bother me. I hope that working through these themes and experiences will give my viewers insight into my personal experiences as well as providing them with first hand experience of an ongoing and important conflict. 
Below, a few examples of Drew's work.

See what I mean?  A little bit of everything.  Each piece makes me question not only its meaning, but why Drew made it.  Was it to resolve, to understand, or to ignore his experiences in Iraq?  Drew's attention to detail and desire to control his medium are apparent in each piece.    
I'm very much looking forward to Drew's thesis show.

THE BRIDAL BLOG

Alright.

With Christmas at the store finally out of the way, I feel like I can focus my energy (previously spent lining thousands of envelopes and indulging parents in photoshopping the scab off their kids face for their Christmas card photo) on getting this wedding thing on the road. Most things are falling into place and I think I finally have enough information to let you all in on some of the details of the upcoming nuptials. So everybody who has been looking for the poop, get your shovels out cause I'm about to give you the scoop...

Our wedding is taking place April 30th, 2011 at the Newman Bandstand in Audubon Park:

The reception following will be just a few steps away at the Audubon Golf Course Club House:

Ross and I are registered at Macy's, Dillards and Adlers.

We have picked out china (available at Dillards) and silver (Adlers) and a bunch of other fancy things that we are pretty excited about (Macy's). I'm actually very pumped about the china which is called "Painted Camellia" and it is a special Lenox pattern that was designed by Marchesa.

Even if we don't get one speck of china its cool... as long as we get some pots and pans. The remaining pans I have from college are peeling up their non-stick surface so aggressively that I'm pretty sure if I keep trying to make eggs in them my stomach lining is going to turn to Teflon.

People keep asking me what the theme to our wedding is and they don't seem satisfied with answers like "Our wedding theme is Marriage" or "The theme of our wedding is True Awesomeness." If i had to pigeon hole us into a theme I would say the stylistic inspiration of our event is "Southern Printmakers In Japan." We have been actively trying to finalize plans for a honeymoon in Japan. With our combined abilities to get sunburnt to a crisp we knew the beach was out, plus we both wanted to go somewhere we had never been before. Ross has already done Europe and I have done the Caribbean so we came up with someplace that was still exotic and peaked our interest in terms of art and history. Boom. Japan. Ross loves the ancient woodcuts and I am seriously loving some contemporary Japanese art... not to mention there is a Gundam Museum.

The wedding party is a collection of favorites. Brooks is Ross' brother. Kyle is his cousin. James is my younger brother and Jeff is one of our closest friends from college. Joanna and Julia are my sisters and Kolbi and Emilie might as well be. We have been friends for nearly 15 years.

No, I have not picked bridesmaid dresses yet. I know I am cutting it close. I can't find a style/color/shape/price I really like enough to force 4 other people to buy. I want to find them something off the rack (not j.crew) that is either in a beautiful light blue that I can pump up with my red accents (shoes perhaps?!) or an awesome pattern that would make my friends look rockin. The fellas are wearing sand colored, poplin suits. They were fitted at Perlis the other day.

ok... we good? Cause that is literally all the bride I can handle being tonight. Further posts as events warrant. For now enjoy my little inspiration board. (Calm down, calm down, the pink hair pic is for the flower... not the hair)