Foundation Drawing

Monday, April 18, 2011

Okay I am not going to lie it was nice having a break and watching a movie but I thought it was a little mediocre we were watching a kung fu movie with subtitles and had to relate it to art. The movie is not about art nor was it ever intended to be about art. Also the movie, in a nut shell, is about a student, San te, who rebels against the government, that kills his family and friends, and becomes a monk so he can learn how to get revenge. I can not get past the idea that a monk, someone who is thought to be peaceful, someone who has taken a vow of silence, has this master plan to kill the people. He finds the most corrupt young men and teaches them too. But when you look past all the silliness there are a lot of parallels that could be made. First of all it is San te's life experiences that inspire him and motivate him. That is what got him to Shaolin. When he got there he was very interested in learning kung fu just like artists are obviously interested in making art but we both have to start at the bottom. Most of us came out of high school being the best and when we got here we were pretty much taught to forget everything and start over. At the end of the movie the boy gets his 36th chamber and it is a happy ending but in this case it is hard me to think about art school because while I was watching it I kept thinking about my job. I have been working at a gymnastics center for about 4 years and like any job you start at the bottom. I worked my way up and now I have a lot of responsibilities there. Part of my job is teaching gymnastics and it is really fun. I form relationships with the kids I teach and I get to watch them grow and improve. I work with babies and kids with special needs so that part is just fun and i work with older girls who remember me and they can't wait for the next week and they get excited when they accomplish something and they honestly make me proud of them.
Rubens asked "What do you think of the abbot's quote "it's peaceful in this
temple but outside is turbulent" in relation to art school, art and art making with the

world at large?" and in terms of art school I think it is an appropriate quote as well. As an art student I work really hard, harder then all of my friends who are not in Tyler. And in art school your hard work shows and pays off. We are rewarded good grades in exchange for our commitment. But once we graduate, in 3 years, after all the long nights and money spent on projects, and all the good grades, there are no guarantees. That is scary and also crazy to me that we all in Tyler work our asses off everyday and every night with no breaks and all of this may add up to nothing for some of us. I do not mean to sound pessimistic but in reality they don't call us starving artists for nothing. This brings me to the next question I wanted to address; "How do you think art making will be different outside of college?" Art making will be so different. I will have no restrictions as an artist my art can be as big or as small as i want, as realistic or as abstract. I can use any media I want and there are no deadlines. My art can start in a studio and stay there because I won't be sharing the room. My art will not be influenced by the teachers and students around me but just the world I will be living in. There will be no more suggestions in the paths I take and at the end people will see my work and they may hate it or love it but it doesn't matter.

Computers Project

Started in Illustrator then I added color pencil, spray paint, dropped ink, pastel and oil pastel.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

To Be Determined

2. Which movement do you think Armleder fits in better? Fluxus
citationism, neo geo, design as art. Explain
I really do not know to much about each movement but from the breif descriptions on google I think I would call it neo geo just from the picture shown at the top of the article.

3. Do you agree with him when he talks about being included in so many
disparate movements? Why or why not

I do agree. Again I am not to familiar with the movements but categorizing his art in different movements does change the piece. As the audience we try and analyze every aspect of the piece, it's size, color, form, space, positing etc. And the idea that the artist presented the piece as a part of a certain movement means a lot. Even though it may not be intentional calling the piece Fluxus is different than calling it Neo Geo.

4. What do you think of the quote:
"Most important, I've never believed that what I think about my own
work has anything to do with the work itself"?
I think he worded this just right. What ever the artist intended is not always translated clearly to the audience especially in the form of huge colorful lines. For all we know he may have been making a memoir based on a childhood toy but a critic might say it's a gay rights protest. Once someone is convinced they might spread the idea. The only thing a viewer has to work with is the pice presented and the title, in this case "too much is not enough."

6. What do you think about his "recycling of forms"? Do you find this
still relevant today? Explain

I think that every day as new art is made and new palettes are introduced to us it becomes even more relevant. We have associations with certain forms and colors, for example red and green, and yellow and red. These are the kinds of things that, as an art student, I am taught to stay conscious of, we have to choose wisely. People have these associations and in art they automatically send a message. Something interesting that Armleder points out is that these things that represent other things can sometimes work for you. Some of these shapes can be be used to say something without you having to work to hard. For example, when I draw a lady wearing a red sweater and a green skirt maybe I want the audience to know it's christmas time in my painting. This does not seem like a very good pice but you never know.

8. What does he mean by "pseudointelligent idea"? What do you think about
this way of making art?
I am not really clear on what he's saying but it seems that when he talks about the dots he is almost saying those artists were recycling shapes but not meaning anything. The artist are recycling something meaningless so every time it is does it stays meaningless.

11. As an artist do you believe in confusing or explaining things to an
audience? What's more exciting and why.

I like the way art school works. I like to hear they way people have interpreted my piece to see if I have successfully depicted a message. If not it is interesting to hear what people have though instead and why. Sometimes it is because of the relationship my palette or forms have with other things (recycling). I then get the chance to explain and sometimes convince people otherwise. But if I were to be an artist who did a lot of gallery work I think I would like to just hang my art and title it. The audience can ponder and make up their own mind about it. I feel like in that world, when there are no restrictions art seems to be open for more interpretation. In terms of my success as an artist I would hope that I can put my thoughts down but I would not mind if my art stood for different things to different people, if it started arguments and debate, or if people just didn't get it. Ultimately as long as I'm pleased with the result, enough to publicly display it, I'm satisfied.

12. Refer to the last page for this question. What do you think about Armleder's way, methodology, modus operandi of making art and the way he makes work vis a vis his audience. Do you agree, disagree, find it naive, interesting, condescending, irritating, arty, stupid, transparent, etc (what things do you find it to be)?

I am not gonna lie. I answered questions as I read and I answered number 11 before I got to the last page and I feel like he took the words out of my mouth but just made them sound smarter. So I will say I agree. But with out all that in mind I think it would be hard for me to say someones mode of creating something was stupid, dumb, easy, naive, etc. I think every "artist" does things for a reason and I wouldn't challenge that. I may not like their art but it is their art not mine. If I were to think differently than another artist I don't think I could call their way anything other than not mine, or different, maybe creative.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Aunrico Gatson

The other at day Tyler Aunrico Gatson gave a lecture on his own art which was mainly video and sculpture with a little bit of painting. His videos were the most interesting part. In his videos, in general actually, his art is made from scenes in history. There is a lot of art inspired by the civil rights movement. His videos reminded me of a kaleidoscope and its movement was made up of video clips from different movements and protests. The soundtrack that went along with the videos made me think of the gallery that we saw in tyler just a week before. I did a little more research on Gatson and saw some new art he did not show us and those, too, had a lot to do with civil and rights more specifically with black history and civil rights.
I feel like I was just introduced to a new world of exhibits because twice in a week I saw two people use video projections as a piece of sculpture. This is not really anything I could see myself getting into but it is an interesting way to set a mood in an exhibit using sound and video. The way people interpret art with audio in the background is completely different then if the viewer was not influenced by any sounds.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Exhibit Response

The other day my drawing class went down to an exhibit in Tyler. It was one artist and she filled up all 3 rooms. One with photography and small sculptures the other had nothing other than a table with a tub in it and a ying-yang flag on the wall the third room was a projection on the wall of a man speaking a man and woman kissing and dancing.

When I first walked into the exhibit I was really intrigued by the things laying on the floor, probably because they were the first things I saw. I was most attracted to the room with the tub and the ying-yang flag. I like the pieces that are not as obvious as to what they are. I walked through the exhibit several times before I made a connection to anything. There were a lot of minor repetitions throughout the whole exhibit. Like in one photograph of marble and the marble tiles on the table. The ashtray and the ash that sat on top of a row of cylinder blocks. The majority of the work was black and white and a lot of it was very industrial made with cinder blocks and poles. Between the cinder blocks, marble, and steel poles you can see a lot of the material is very concrete and hard. There was a hand in a position suggesting it was holding something small. Then there was an ashtray right next to it.

I would really like to hear an explanation of the whole exhibit but I think it is saying something about relationships and breakups, potentially homosexual ones. I am saying this because when you first walk in there is a row of objects starting with a frame, which could represent a memory. The other hints are the images of 2 women and the video. Also, the reference to smoking, which is often associated with stress, could suggest something is happening in the artist’s life. What really confirmed it all is on the wall in the first room are the symbols “I,” a heart, “U,” and, “4E”. = I love you forever.. The “I” and “U” were lying on the floor and the rest were sitting against the wall. This could represent some type of falling or imperfection.

All together the exhibit was very interesting and made, I think, the whole class think.