Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Susan Sontag

1. This picture is of my friend Shelby from the first time we tried to play racquetball. We didn't know what we were doing so we just hit the ball around the room for fun.

2.The purpose of this photo is to show what kind of idiocy we bring out in each other. We are only ourselves around each other because we know the other person doesn't care about our stupid mistakes.

3.If someone saw the picture their biggest interest would be to try and figure out where it was taken. Since the entire room is white there are not a whole lot of signature elements that give away her location.



1. This picture was taken a long time ago by my best friend on a cruise we went on. The ship was on the outskirts of a tropical storm so the boat was rocking like crazy.

2. My best friend decided to take this picture at this moment because when I thought I was walking in a straight line down the hall I was actually walking like a drunk person and was about to be sick so she decided we needed to preserve the memory.

3. This picture would catch someone's eye because of how the picture is taken I am standing diagonally across the photo. The way the hallway is lit is another thing that catches your attention. The lighting of the photo gives the background a blurring effect which creates mystery.

1. This picture is of people I don't know taken by someone I don't know. This picture is of a child with cancer meeting a professional hockey player Mike Fisher. This picture contains elements of both joy and sorrow.

2.This picture preserves one of the greatest moments in this child's life. The child is facing a great difficulty in his life and the meeting of this hockey player makes this moment special. The celebrity in the picture saves the fact that for that moment in time the hockey player cared for this child and wanted to make him happy.

Abstract Expressionism

There are three essential components which are:
  • subject
  • form
  • content
The Principles of Organization
Harmony: Pleasing relationship between different sections of a composition. Occurs when elements or independent parts have characteristics in common, such as repeated colors, similar textures, shared edges and so forth. Known  as the factor of cohesion that relates certain parts to another in a piece of work.
Repetition: Primary way of creating harmonious relationships in a composition, does not require exact duplication. Just similarity. Relationships created by such resemblances give a work a degree of harmony.
Rhythm: continuance, a flow, or a sense of movement that results from the repeated beats. Relies on the repetition of pauses between repeating units. Variation in the negative spaces or intervals of silence between beats, helps create the rhythmic pattern. Space visual silence.
Pattern: involves harmony as established through repetition. If the basic pattern is repeated numerous times, then that basic pattern can be referred to as a motif. Repetition of a motif then creates a new design, called an allover pattern, which is only seen when the entire whole can be seen.
Closure (visual grouping): arrangement of visual units suggests that they are part of a larger pattern or shape, people mentally “fill in” missing gaps. Artist provides a minimum of information or visual clues and the observer provides the rest.
Visual Linking: closure unifies shapes that share an implied group relationship. Shared space itself becomes the cohesive factor.
Variety: If an artist achieves complete equality of visual forces, the work may feel static, lifeless, and unemotional. Visual boredom is a sign of an overly harmonious composition, by adding variation, they can then introduce essential ingredients for sustaining attention.
Contrast: opposition or dissimilarity, and it occurs wherever elements with opposing characteristics are places in the same area. When artists repeat elements in a way that makes them appear unrelated such as a few wide lines in a group of narrow ones, the differences or contrasts, stand out. Area, image, or shape are emphasized through the introduction of contrast.
Elaboration: Make up stuff to make dull spots have more energy, counterbalance your work. Altar the looks to make them a bit more out there.
Balance: important to unity that it is impossible to consider the principals of organization without it. Gravitational equilibrium of pairs or groups of units that are arranged on either side of a central axis. Implies the gravitational equilibrium of a single mark on a picture plane.
Proportion: ratio of individual parts to one another or to the whole. When related to size and refers to a standard gauge or “norm” in order to judge the relationship between objects the term scale is used. Golden Mean or Golden Section represents the ideal standard for proportion and balance in life and art.
Dominance: creating differences through contrast that call attention to significant parts can make them more dominant.
Movement: there are two kinds of movement, implied and illusionary. Kinetic sculpture involves the physical movement of the work itself. Actual movement found in kinetic art are set into motion by air, water, mechanical devices, or interactive computer-activated programs.

Photography/ Photo-based art

-photography started with black and white

-Ansel adams still used plates even with the invention of film

-Taking pictures of pictures

-There was a photographer nick named oiji because he arrived at a crime scene before police and had a photo lab in his car. Changed street photography

-Robert Mapplethorpe was a disgusting person who did not believe that what he did was wrong. Took homo-erotic photos. Was very likely was a necrophiliac.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Hybrids

Hybrid/logo painted on T-shirt

Hybrid Stencils



I use my iPod everyday and it is something I love and the reason I believe my iPod is greater than any other mp3 player I could have is that the touch-wheel is spectacular. I integrated the signature touch wheel of an ipod into the photo of the object I had selected which created the my hybrid.The explanation for the placement of the hybrid on the T-shirt was a suggestion by PJ because it appeared as though it was indicating the direction of where the head is located.  It also is similar to the above the influence drug commercials targeted at high school age teenagers.  The direction of the hybrid is also eye-catching.  Although the play/pause signal from the iPod touch wheel was not in the traditional relation to the center selection button it created a more abstract appearance of the hybrid; which makes the viewer pause to try and solve what two objects were combined to create the hybrid.

Mark Making device

I made my mark making device out of a stick with a sharpened end similar to a pencil lead there were some rubber bands around it and  a coiled string of beads attached to it. The beads are allowed to move both as a group and individually which contrasts to the stick portion which is a very controlled part.

The Inflatable Happening

These kids were our target audience

The inflated bubble dome

The explanation of our project

Our project began as two layers of plastic with air in-between in a dome-like shape. As we were building we realized the plastic would be too heavy to create a two layer dome so we created a single bubble and blew the air in directly. We decided to put balloons inside and since the air was being directly added the leaf-blower made the balloons fly around the inside of the bubble house in a very fun way. There was an issue with the power source so our project was deflated for a bit, but we made some lemonade and were back up before the day was done.

Lecture 1

Composition- everything in the world created by us

All organized of ideas made up of elements

Elements
  • point
  • line
  • shape (form)
  • color (hue)
  • texture
  • space
  • value
Gestalt- the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
  • proximity
  • continuance
  • similarity
  • closure

human object
















I selected my foot as the subject for my human object.  Many people used their hands as their object because the human hand provide a extended range of motion.  The foot is similar to the hand in the way that provides a similar interesting range of motion although the range is not as large as the hand's it allows more movement than many of the other body parts.  The second and third toes on my left foot are webbed which means they don't have the same range of motion as other peoples do.  My last foot is also a half size larger then my right foot which can kind of provide an abstract appearance even though it is complete accident and cannot be helped.  I believe choosing my foot as my object was an interesting choice since they have such rare features.  The differences between my feet provide the uniqueness at peoples scars on their hands do as well.

Process Write Up: Live Performance

For the live performance piece I selected to do something that I love very much and has a meaning to me. I used to take lots of dance classes and my favorites were ballet and tap. The sounds and rhythms that you can produce with your shoes in tap are so very interesting and fun that I thought it would to be cool to share it. Unfortunately my mom gave away my tap shoes so I had to borrow some from a friend and they ended up being too small so my performance didn't come out as good as I imagined it would've been.

Process Write Up: Uncomfortable

For my video that makes you feel uncomfortable I discussed something that I have to deal with everyday that is very unexpected and puts people in uncomfortable positions when they find out about it. I thought that if it naturally put someone in that awkward position than it was the perfect subject for my video.

Process Write Up: Monologue

I had watched the season premier of Jersey Shore he previous night and it was still floating around in my mind. I kept thinking about the people on the show, so I just went with that as my monologue. I talk about Snooki and The Situation and how they have the most exaggerated personalities.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

What is Art

Art- image of a person, aesthetically pleasing, inspires thought, someone made it
the impulse for art

representation- one thing stands for another
styles of representation:
  • naturalistic- as in nature
  • realistic-true to life
  • stylized-simplified to emphasize important details
  • abstract-highly sylized (may not be recognizable)

Modernism/Post Modernism/Impressionism

Post Modernism
  • Pluralism of viewpoints
  • shifts from a dialog taking place in person


Modernism
  • shock of new rapid progression of styles
  • transgressive-opposition to mainstream society
  • avant garde
  • rejection of past
  • colonial view of non-european cultures
Impressionism
  • Monet

Surrealism Lecture

Surrealism
  • less political
  • new psychological theories of Sigmund Freud
  • 1899 "The Interpretation of Dreams" by Sigmund Freud
  • Access to the subconscious
Surreal Artists:
  • Max Earnest
  • Rene Magritte
  • Salvador Dali
  • Giorgio De Chirico
  • Man Ray
  • Freaky Frida
  • Jean Arp
Automatism-a technique of surrealism mostly created through the usage of drugs

Color lecture

Hue- location in the color wheel

Value-lightness to darkness

Saturation- amount of grey variant in the shade

Colors in a rainbow are:
  • Red
  • Orange
  • Yellow
  • Green
  • Blue
  • Indigo
  • Violet

Feminist Art Lecture

Essentials/identity
  • The body
  • Vaginal iconography
  • Sexuality
Materials/techniques- unique to women

Activism
  • Performance Art
  • Sisterhood
-distinguish art of men and women

Abstract Expressionism final lecture

Jackson Pollock was the personification of abstract expressionism.  Pollock was also known as "Jack the Dripper" because of his style of "action paintings." He made many paintings that were so sizable that he had to fling paint onto the canvas while on the floor creating the part of the nickname "Dripper".  He lived a life of crazy antics and behavior similar to present day celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. When he painted, he used his whole body in a very loose manner. Pollock felt that he did not need to think so much about art and that it should be free with artwork and that there does not need to be a special meaning for it.

Cy Twombly went back to the roots of Pollock's paintings.  Twombly made very juvenile marks onto his canvas and treated it as if it were a wall and he was an amateur graffiti artist.

Bryce Martin began as a minimal painter.  Later on he used some sticks and branches as his brushes and painted on giant canvases like Pollock and Twombly.  His paintings had very loose strokes and the backgrounds were very plain or blank. Some strokes were different colors and others were a very grayish black color. Bill hates Bryce Martin. Bryce Martin spent a large portion of his career working in a single specific style of art which most artists do but all of a sudden Martin shifted his focus and started working soley in a different style of art.

The Painted Word
Tom Wolfe was a satirist about many things and his book The Painted Word was a satire about the art world.  He made fun of hard edge, pop, op, and all the -isms.

Pop Art
Pop Art is known to have had a lot of social satire.  Andy Warhol was one of the ringleaders of pop art. When people think of pop art the artist that immediately comes to mind is Andy Warhol

Dada

Dada, Surrealism (Berlin 1919 to Paris 1924)

Dada
-began in WW1
-protest against,war society old social order

Contributions
-appropriation
-assemblage,construction
-conceptual art
-chance

Some Dada Artists
  • Jean Arp
  • Hugo Ball
  • Kurt Schwitters
  • Marcel Duchamp

Marie Osmand-pop singer

Collages were introduced 
the cathedral of junk in Austin

Conceptual Art- art that is intended to convey an idea or concept to the perceiver and need not involve the creation or appreciation of a traditional art object such as a painting or sculpture.

Yoko Ono- most famous for marrying John Lennon and causing The Beatles the most influential band in rock in roll history to break up meaning I hate her for that reason alone

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

3-D Clay Sculpture

re-creating an inanimate object and then giving it animated features: mine was a piggy bank with wings equaling flying piggy bank


I started with a base structure of newspaper for the body then covered it with clay I used wire to make the feet, wings, ears, nose, and tail. A piggy bank already has feet and facial features so I used a non-human features, wings, to show it's animation.

Peter Piggy Bank

side of the piggy bank

top view of piggy bank

front view of face

side view of other side

view of butt and tail

Monday, November 15, 2010

Friday, November 5, 2010

The Mutation

These photos are of MY actual foot.
Can you see it?

look a little closer...can you see it now?
There they are!
Yep they are really like that
My toes are as they look they are actually webbed. You may of heard of it, and if you haven't seen it here you go. The bones are bones of two different toes, but the skin holds them together. It has been called a birthmark and a genetic trait, but it actually a genetic mutation. I got these toes from my father who has them and his mother who has them and her father that had them. It is a linking of my family one person per generation has them and only the child that had them can pass them to their child. January 20, 2004 was the day my grandmother died that date doesn't remind me as much nor as closely as my toes do. It sounds stupid but it is a cool way to remember someone by sharing something as strange and rare as the mutation of webbed toes.
My grandmother that shares my toes passed away but here is her tomb stone