Artist Statement

Most people say that being an artist requires patience with your work. In my case, it's the exact opposite. At the beginning of the year, before Ms. Roberts knew me as an artist, she wanted to me to plan out my work beforehand. As we got further into the year, she decided to let my work flow and have me reflect on it afterwards. I dislike both. I feel that real passionate artwork can't be planned because a lack of spontaneity makes art bland. I can't reflect afterwards because it just makes me over-think my work and waste time when I could be making more art. I can't be restrained by mundane tasks when I make art, because the work that those tasks revolve around will turn out to be the same thing: mundane. I love making art when I can make it real. Since I rarely to never think about my artwork, whether or not it is good is determined solely by whether I am passionate about the work I am making. My favorite medium to work with is permanent marker, because whatever is marked is irreversible. This forces me to work with any mistakes I've made if I want to preserve what I've already taken the time to create.

Process Reflection #2

This week, I've finished my final project. I called it SHAPES: A Collective Piece of Artwork by Joe Chafkin. It turned out pretty well. My three main pictures were glued up with a title piece. Next week, I just have to get my blog more up to date, then I will be done with all of my work.

ART:21 TRANSFORMATION

Paul McCarthy is an artist who creates installation and video projects. His early work was very minimal in the sense that he would tape himself using his surroundings (for instance, the architecture of the room) and create something obscure. Other videos of his include him spinning around in circles, taping his face, and covering it in butter. He used personas, like masks and costumes, and I'm not really sure why. His videos are dark, strange, disturbing, provocative. Mr. McCarthy's videos are also sometimes funny, darkly of course. As I continue watching these videos, they get weirder and weirder, plunging into the depths of sheer nonsense and obscurity. I don't like this.

Yinka Shonibare is a video artist who "always enjoyed using beauty and seduction as a way of engaging the world." His first video attempts to blur boundaries between two races, and seems as if it is a testament against racism, or even racial identification. His work with headless mannequins was supposed to parody the French revolution, as aristocracy had their heads chopped off by guillotines. His grandfather was a Nigerian chief. His father was a lawyer, so he grew up wealthy and was not discriminated against. Because of this, when he was young he did not understand the hierarchy of race. Small details which seem irrelevant, such as clothing on fabric patterns, tell a story. I like Mr. Shonibare's work because it is interesting and provocative without being dark and twisted like Paul McCarthy's art.

Process Reflection #1

This week has been productive for me. I wrapped up all of my projects, and started my independent project: shapes. Basically, I draw a shape and form a work of art around numerous amounts of the same shape. I got a couple pieces done, then tried to do something but ended up screwing around with a party hat, listened to music, came back, and made something unrelated. I have no process. I have no plan moving forward. I will make art.

ART:21 SPIRITUALITY

Ann Hamilton believes in a strong connection between the line of sewing and the line of writing, the unifying theme being art. She thinks that each thread of cloth together making a piece is a powerful social metaphor. The relation between the written line, sewn line, and drawn line are about the fundamental act of making. Words are a material like anything else. Her work is broad, ranging from balls of text, to toothpick covered suits, to installation projects. She talks about installation as "animating space." I like her work. It's well thought out, and a little weird.

John Feodorov creates spiritual altars creating "kitsch-objects". He notes how in modern culture, animals have become "Disney-fied" whereas totem animals used to be powerful and command respect. He combines totems using toys, various religions, and sawdust to represent ashes to create some of the strangest, most bewildering artwork I've ever seen in one presentation. His art incorporates and exploits ambiguity and contradiction found in society. His particular interest in Navajo culture and religion stems from Navajo roots, combined with Jehova's Witness Christianity. These completely opposed cultures definitely took part in making his work the way it is. His other work, such as the teddybears with masks, also focus on Navajo tradition and obstruction in modern culture. I like it, but it's a little too weird for me.

Project Planning

During my independent project, I want to create something interesting and entertaining (obviously.) My plan is to have no plan. I will take the same causality that I use in my sketchbook and turn it into something more finished.

Sketchbook Archeology

At times, the sketchbook felt live a privilege. At others, it felt like a chore. Looking through, I see I used a lot of graphite, charcoal, and paint marker. There was a time where I experimented with realism, and another where I experimented with cartoonism. Countless times I mixed both. Some abstract pictures are stories of my life, stories of other people's lives. I feel that the ability to experiment with various artistic elements in my sketchbook has been very beneficial to me as an artist, because it gave me a chance to recognize what I am most comfortable with and what elements I enjoy using.
Things that appear multiple times:

• Dice
• Numbers
• Eyes
• Smeared charcoal simulating wind
• Drips
• Circles
• Trees
• Mushroom clouds/explosions
• Cubes
• Text

Initial Reflection

Art Principles has been great for the past 2 terms. My strength has been overall creativity... getting frustrated with a project, then finding hidden inspiration. I began Art Principles not liking art, thinking it was just another class. I have found a creative outlet in this class, and though big projects were sometimes frustrating, they have been overall rewarding. I'm not sure which art I will be taking next term... probably not clay, because clay is a challenge for me that I don't really enjoy. As cliche as it sounds, after this class I try to see art in everything, which will be useful for broadening my creative spectrums later in life.

ART:21

I liked the way Raymond Pettibon uses writing in his work to verbalize art and communicate humor, drama, anger, jubilance, and sadness.  His work requires two arts: writing and drawing. His work ranges all over, because he has a very broad artistic spectrum. His work is varied, but always meaningful. I can relate to his type of art, as it requires an ever-changing, all-encompassing creative mind.

Elenor Antin work always tells a story. She defines what she does as, "inventing histories." The abstraction of her work with cutouts both confuses and intrigues me. There has to be a lot of thought that goes into her work, as the complexity is planned. She continues to talk about re-inventing herself as someone else, in alter-egos.