My Art Capacities

I enjoyed exploring my art capabilities. It was a nice way to reinforce confidence in things I feel I do well and  consider ways to become stronger in the areas I felt were weak. I marked mostly ones and twos on my page. However, I think that is because I am not prone to thinking in extremes and the wording "no evidence" is difficult for me as I think it is rare for a person to have shown absolutely NO evidence of something.

That being said, some of my weakest areas are exploring marking systems, embracing stillness, utilizing mistakes, and taking action, with taking action probably being my weakest. I am not sure that my understanding of this capability is how it was intended, but to me taking action simply means being brave about moving forward with an idea.  I feel like I can come up with ideas, but then I get nervous and freeze up when it comes time to take the leap into creating art. I worry about making mistakes or feel that I don't know how to create the vision I have in my head. In general, I have a hard time making decisions which can stall me. However, this semester I feel that I have gained a lot more confidence in this part of the art making process. I think in the future it can help me to make a few small samples in order to discover what works best for me. In my last concentration piece I  just jumped right in and let the ideas and product morph as I worked. I think that sometimes I just need to be brave and jump in. I need to be unafraid of making mistakes (this goes back to one of my other weaknesses). I think it might also be useful if I embrace art making activities that have unpredictable outcomes such as dying cloth or burning paper or staining something with foods.

Though there are certainly some areas that I need to work on there area also several areas in which I am very strong. My strongest art capacities are noticing deeply, connecting diverse disciplines, exhibiting empathy, and questioning. Of these I feel that my strongest is exhibiting empathy. This is something that has developed in me a lot over the last 5 years. I was not very empathetic when I was younger. Now I feel that I try to think of most situations from the point of view of others. I try to consider how my actions affect others. This is brought forth in some of my artwork having to do with social justice. However, I feel that this capacity will be most useful in my future teaching. Though sometimes I lack confidence in my art skills and worry about that affecting my teaching I feel assured that I will be a caring, supportive teacher and those qualities are more important in my opinion.

Studio Thinking Concentration #2

In this concentration piece I am butting the structured nature of science up against the ephemeral nature of consciousness as it relates to art, yoga, and meditation. It is interesting to me how something that is so intangible can affect the brain in a very concrete manner. Furthermore, the act of creating art is a way of making the intangible become more tangible. 

Please fell free to let me know any suggestions or comments you might have. 

Secret Mission from NAEA

A lot of Lawrence's work makes me feel a little nervous. I kind of hate her lists. It makes me think of everything I have to do. I think that this a probably a really relatable feeling for  lot of people, which makes it kind of interesting. I also think that the unpleasant feeling that this brings up in me might be more common to women. I think there are a lot of conflicting pressures put on women in our society. Also, I think list making might be a practice more common to women.

Lawrence's stacks of junk mail also make me feel uneasy. The amount of waste that this advertising practice produces is insane. I wonder how often this form of advertising really drives a sale. I never even look at that stuff. It goes straight to the recycling bin. In my opinion looking at time through junk mail also speaks to the clutter in our lives and in our brains. We see and hear so much that we have to process, but we don't really care about it. How does this add to the stress we feel in our lives?

It could be interesting to have high school students explore this intersection of time and stress. Students have ever increasing demands being put on them. I think they often think that this is just normal and they don't look critically at the stress in their lives and most importantly how to reduce stress.

This past weekend I just happened to be exploring the idea of time on my drive to Chicago. I was thinking about how sometimes time speeds up or slows down on us. The seven hour drive to Chicago feels like an eternity. It is also a drive that I make pretty frequently and I know it well. I video recorded a  few seconds every hour or so. My plan was to edit these snippets into a short video called 30 seconds from Columbia to Chicago. It is interesting to see the landscape, weather and time of day rapidly change. What if sometime in the future this commute does only take 30 seconds? Even though it seems like I would love to be able to condense time like this, how would this change the world we live in? Would globalization increase to the point that we hardly have distinct cultures? Would races disappear since people would be more likely to meet people who don't look like them? And most importantly would all of the beaches be overcrowded on every nice day? This sounds a bit like the lesson a 16 year old stoner would create, but none the less, I think high school students would have some really interesting thoughts about this idea.

I had hoped to share my little video with you guys, but my iMovie is not working, so it will have to wait:(

Idea No. 89 Personal as Political

Bird describes "Personal is Political" art as a movement that rethinks the relationship between the individual and institutions of power. This art typically presents the message of marginalized groups. Bird specifically discusses the use of personal as political art in the feminist movement of the 1960's and 1970's. This art was not only a personal means of expression but was also used to generate meaning "with in a wider social system, social, political, linguistic..." Personal as Political art helped to bring women into the art world in a way that they never previously had been.

Though I understand Bird's explanation of this idea in art in terms of the political nature, however, I am not so clear on the "personal" part of it. Is he saying that it is personal because the feminist movement was important to the people who created the art? I am not sure that I am clear on the difference between this idea and the idea of protest art. In my blog on the idea of protest I discussed creating a message about gay rights. Since I am not gay does this mean it's not personal as political art, even though the issues concerning this topic are very important to me? I feel like this chapter should just be called the "Feminist Movement."

So in that vein of thought, I think that females have come a long way in the last 40 years. I do not feel ostracized as a female artist. I did feel like I was in the middle of a big boys club when I worked in advertising. I also think that in the fields of art criticism and art history females are still placed on the outskirts. I do not feel particularly compelled to create feminist art. I do have some interest in creating art about pregnancy and birth, but I would not have considered it with the intent of specifically advancing the view of female artists. I think just by being strong, confident and interesting artists females can continue the progression towards universal respect for all artists regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.

Pen Tool Demo

Idea No. 79 Protest

Bird says that art as protest is one way of turning propaganda on its head. He cites Goya's The Third of May and Picasso's Guernica as examples of protest in art. I find both of these paintings to be very powerful. Clearly others feel this way since Guernica was covered at a press conference at United Nations meeting to discuss bombing Iraq. I think that covering the painting drew more attention to it and in a way strengthened its protest. It is clear that artists can have political and social influence. As the interaction between art and mass culture has increased so has the artistic influence in politics.

I love the idea of using protest in my artwork. I am strongly drawn to this idea. I find myself very frustrated by the lack of gay rights in our country, particularly marriage rights. This is something that is coming to the forefront in our society right now. I hope that I will be feeling more confident soon so that I feel prepared to take on a piece that communicates my views on this issue. I have a partial idea related to this that would involve a diorama/doll house that depicts a non traditional family. I think that major changes in society's view of homosexuality have taken place in our generation and I think that this change will be even more prevalent in the next generation, so a doll house seems like a particularly good way to present this idea. I have also considered replacing the people in old 1950's ads with new people to represent the vision of the new 21st century family. However, I am not sure if my intentions would be understood. I think this idea needs more development.

Idea No. 20 Icon

Bird begins this chapter by discussing icon in art as depictions of holy figures. Bird says that these painting began in early Christian times. Some people consider these paintings to carry part of the spirit of the figure that they depict and feel that they are capable of receiving prayers. Bird also discusses another use of the idea of icon in art as depictions of celebrities. This trend was popular amongst pop artists, notably Andy Warhol.

I think that the visual culture of our time has shifted, making seemingly insignificant elements immediately recognizable. People can pin point the font of certain companies or small fractions of a corporate logo. Saturation of advertising has made corporations into icons. I think that this is an interesting idea. Maybe I could use tiny snippets of corporate identities and other images to make a collage. I could also explore using text in my images that feeds off of these recognizable identities and their affiliated values. It might also be interesting to flip this idea on it head and create iconic looking portraits of everyday people. Maybe I could directly appropriate from old paintings of religious figures.