Arts & Life
Reclaiming the Past for the Future:
Carrie Ann Baade By Casey Crowley, Staff Writer
Passion, originality, and unmatched skill: these three qualities are sought after by artists, but are rarely epitomized by one person. Here at Florida State, we are not far from an artist and teacher who embodies all three. Carrie Ann Baade, an Assistant Professor in the Fine Arts Department at FSU, injects her original work into masterpieces of the past, creating innovative, beautiful pieces of the present by visualizing existing art. The combination of vibrant colors, meticulous detail, and surreal images demand the onlooker to spend minutes, hours to absorb the effect of these paintings. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago for her Bachelor of Fine Arts and the University of Delaware for her Master of Fine Arts. Baade has received a nomination for the United States Artist Fellowship and currently resides in Tallahassee.
YETI: Most of your paintings resemble art from the Renaissance. What is it that inspires your
22
TheYetiOnline.com
renditions of this period?
CAB:
My desire is to reclaim the past and preserve lost techniques for the future. By cutting up images of old paintings and using them to create collages, I combined the power of these historical masterworks with my own experience as a contemporary artist. Using this fragmentary “bone yard,� I took historical images that appeared meaningless and breathed new life--my life--into them. My reverence made me a scavenger salvaging lost aesthetics but also a technician who was researching processes and methods that were lost or underground during the 20th century. I do believe I am a “visionary� because I see the complete image in my mind, or I hear the title and then I seek out the source material needed to construct the vision into reality. In a sense, it is like reverse engineering—starting with the end result, UIFO mOEJOH NZ XBZ CBDL UP UIF CFHJOOJOH My art has been an attempt to reconcile the
irreconcilable, resulting in fragmentation; I’ve become a kind of Dr. Frankenstein attempting to piece together the sublime.
YETI:
This summer, you are set to begin teaching classes overseas in FSU’s London Abroad Program. Have you ever gone abroad before as a teacher?
CAB:
In 2011, I was teaching for FSU in Florence, Italy. Jersey Shore was there the exact same weeks we were. The producers created a frenzy of sensationalism among the students by texting and organizing nightly debauchery. By the end, I wanted to call the United Nations and complain that the unchecked 9,000 American students from 24 programs “in school� for the summer were destroying the birthplace of the Renaissance with the Jersey Shore! I felt like I had an intimate understanding of the story of Pinocchio and his trip to Pleasure Island. The shop fronts had signs that read: JERSEY GO