Above: Two photographs of Joshua Diedrich: one during the fabrication of his WMU Seal icon, and the other of him at work on a clay sculpture of a woman -- one of his personal works.
Joshua Diedrich’s presentations in class Wednesday included the following:
• Introduction to his personal work, featuring his clay sculptures of nude women.
• Commissioned sculptural work including statues of an aviator, of local businessman Mr. Harding, and of a Christian holy family.
• The complete story of his commission to create the WMU Seal for the university.
• The artists who influenced Joshua Diedrich: Gustave Vigeland, Makoto Aida, and Jean-Antoine Houdon.
• Glimpses of Joshua Diedrich’s life including involvement with the Burning Man and Lakes of Fire festivals, and behind the scenes in his studio.
• Additional personal work by Joshua Diedrich featuring drawings and other 2-D works of art.
This semester we have been privileged to host a number of extraordinary guest artists. All of them have generously shared not only their work, but given us insights into their lives, enabling us to better understand what makes different kinds of artists tick. Joshua Diedrich, who chose “Naked Identity” as the title for his presentation, shared detailed information about how he makes his work, why he is an artist, how he makes a living, and his philosophy on a number of topics.
Possible questions to consider:
1. What impressed you most about Mr. Diedrich’s personal work? Cite/describe one or two specific works you recall, and talk about what most intrigues you, and tell us what your personal reaction is to these one or two works.
2. What impressed you most about Mr. Diedrich’s commissioned work? Cite/describe one or two specific works you recall, and talk about what most intrigues you, and tell us what your personal reaction is to these one or two works. If you choose to talk about the WMU Seal, you might want to look at this link: https://wmich.edu/news/2015/04/23020
3. What most surprised and/or intrigues you about Diedrich’s background, education and/or his personal activities such as the festivals he’s involved in.
4. Talk about the science and engineering involved in the creation of his work with exceptionally varied media.
5. Talk about the fact that most of Diedrich’s work is of women without clothing on. How do you feel about the work? In the PM class I asked him about his choice to concentrate mostly on nude women. If you are in the PM class, you could discuss what he said about this.
6. Choose your own topic about Diedrich and his work.
This post is open to EVERYONE. It opened just after noon on Thursday. It will be open until 10 pm Sunday.