Digital vs Organic

Step #1:

Joseph Mallord William Turner's The Salve Ship (Salvers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Tpyhoon Coming On)

Step #2:

Step #3:

The Final Piece:

The colors aren't exactly the same as in person but this is the closest I could get. I did a little bit of collaging and some fancy Photoshop stuff then draw with pastels over top :)

I was trying to go for a chaotic feel. My piece is kind of a war between technology and nature/natural things.

This might be one of my favorite things I've done all year.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

I think I can relate to San Te in the way he grows as a person and the changes that occur to him prior to Shaolin, while he was in it and after it. Prior to Shaolin, you could say he was fairly set in his ways and was full of spirit without any real logic or reasoning behind it. But once he got in Shaolin he kind of got a slap in the face to wake up and really dig deeper into himself than just that on-the-surface-fury that he felt towards the the Manchu (I think that's who they are.... basically the bad guys). Once going through Shaolin he wanted to create the 36th chamber, which is basically a representation of all he has learned and who he has become. From what he has learned in Shaolin it basically inspires him to go further than what is already in existence. I feel like that's how art school can effect a person. When you go into art school with limited knowledge and no expectations outside of just wanting to learn, you get knocked on your ass at first and kind of get a big wake up call that there is more to art than just simply wanting to become better. There's discipline, conceptual problems, technical problems, money issues, and a bit of a competition going on, not so much with the students around you, but within yourself between your habits in creating art and your full potential - really going that extra mile vs just doing what comes naturally to fulfill an assignment. There's tons of things that, while you're in school, slowly start to become something that you always think about in your art and soon you're thinking about art and making art with a passion and a mindset that you didn't have prior to becoming a student. After art school, everything is fair game. It's a fend for yourself kind of thing and some people will begin their journey to become the next big hit, others will just fade into a routine and others will use the skills they've learned to fulfill their desires but in a different way. It's actually kind of insane how much a movie about learning kung-fu can relate to art school.

At first glance you wouldn't think the twol are similar in any way but if you really think about it they are kind of the same. As a student you come in with passion that is pretty much driven with no real logic. You go through a foundation course where you basically get the shit beaten out of you but you somehow still manage to hold your own.The physical cuts and bruises on the kung-fu trainees are somewhat reminiscent of all the harsh critiques everyone gets where they really just weren't on their A-game and totally created shit. But each time the student tries again, they keep the lessons from the last experience and prior experiences in mind to get better. Art school and Shaolin are a series of levels to complete and a bunch of sleepless nights to practice. They're both little bubbles in the world that shelter their students as they make them grow.

"It's peaceful in this temple but outside is turbulent." : To me this quote really relates to art school because of how much we can get away with in school versus out. In school it's more of less okay for us to appropriate images we find and somewhat use or copy the works of other artists without permission. Outside school, we'd more of less be sued to hell for so much as looking at an image and considering to use it in any way. Art school is more liberal in terms of what is allowed and what isn't. We display work in a safe environment where people certainly get offended by things but it won't necessarily end our career as an artist or put us in some deep shit. On top of it all people in the outside world don't give a rats ass about you. Let's just say on some rare occasion you find people to truly critique your work. If they aren't fellow artists who are your friends, dude watch out. People will rip you to shreds to discourage you from continuing. People outside of art school don't want to help you out and make you grow, they want to get you out of the game and get themselves ahead. It's just a big competition of who can be the next master.

But who/what is a master anyway? I'd have to say everyone's master is themselves. I am really the only one who can limit myself and keep myself from fulfilling my full potential as an artist. Most people would probably say their teachers would be their master(s) but I don't really think teachers an obstacle. A teachers job is to challenge their students and draw out the full potential within the student that they are just too lazy to bring out or don't know how to bring out.

I'm not really sure what art outside of Tyler is going to be like honestly. When I came into Tyler I wanted to learn new techniques to help with my craft and the way I see the world. But I honestly feel that Tyler is a more conceptually based school than it is a craft school. Being able to be more conceptual has been very challenging for me but it's been a really wonderful thing for my art as well. I don't know. Maybe I'm a lame artist but I find it more impressive when I see something so expertly done that I have to question whether or not it was done by hand or see a painting/drawing so realistic I'm just kind of thinking "wait....is that a picture?" Sure being able to make an abstract drawing that has splashes of color that represents someones frustration with society or have a still life drawing of shoes represent a person's fear is awesome and all but it's too much bullshit for me. Just because I can attach a really heartfelt or complex meaning to a blank sheet of paper doesn't mean it's art. I'd like to live out my days illustrating books, not necessarily children's books always, but I just want to make little drawings inside books that make people happy and is more accessible to people. I'd also like to get a teaching job at some point because I never want to stop talking about art as well as inspire people to do art like my teachers have done for me. As a foundation student who isn't 100% sure what to major in, the possibilities are endless. All I know is that I'm going to do what I love; I don't need to label it.

Pig Installation Piece

 



One of my 3D projects was to create slip casts of an object out of a two part plaster mold and set up the casts in a space to either create a new space or tell a narrative. For my set ups I tried to make these cute pigs seem sinister and cult-like. I had originally wanted to play around with the idea of recycling (thus the first picture) but as I was painting them before I put pupils in their eyes they just look ghost-like and downright creepy which led to these militant-like setups.

I painted the pigs in 3 different shades of pink, put corks in the sprue where the nose was and painted the imprint from the tape I had on my original object purple to make them all look like part of a group or cult.

John Armleder Response

1. What does the artist think about the relationship between artist and audience?

I feel like he is saying that the relationship between artist and audience is very important but it's not a relationship on which he bases his art. He seems to create work without really caring how his audience might interpret or understand it because he himself doesn't really have a clear understanding or opinion of what he does. But later in the article he talks about works where he lets people add on what they think belongs and even talks about one private collector who owns a piece of his that added onto it and he doesn't even know what has been done to it. I feel like in that instance the audience is what makes the art, the artist is just a tool. He seems to create art and then just let the audience think of it what they will, just as long as they think at least a little bit.

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 his thoughts about his work would have to have an impact on the work because if he didn't like something he wouldn't create it. I mean, I kind of feel like everything that has to do with an artist impacts the kind of work they make. Regardless of how his thoughts about his work change overtime, they still matter and they still have an impact. I think he's just trying to make himself sound like a super complex artist. He creates what he likes. He even says it somewhere in the article that he decided it was okay to make what he likes. Isn't what you like part of what you think about something? But as I went on reading the article I'm being to question whether or not this man  does have any sort of opinion of his "art" because he just lets people add onto it or takes art from other artists. I wouldn't even necessarily call it appropriating others work because he's not even really creating anything new.

5. Do you agree with him about a generic or neutral work of art? Explain
I don't agree with him that generic art wouldn't exist if it was generic. Art is art no matter what label is attached to it as long as some sort of idea comes across to the audience. Generic art, in my opinion, is just a form of art that is somewhat elementary that all audiences would be able to understand and take something away from it because it is so common that it's universally understood. I think generic art exists so that the average person has some sort of art to appreciate. Sure it won't stand out, but it still matters. Plus, his work in the 80s was considered generic... how can he just dis art like that when he made art like that himself? I do agree with him that making generic art is very restricting. If an artist is trying to make a certain type of art there are a lot of limitations that the artist would need to follow that may inhibit their full potential. But at the same time, it's impossible to make art without being influenced somewhere along the lines. I mean, at this point in time everything has pretty much already been thought of. It's just a matter of building onto what's already been done and doing it better. Again. I feel like he's trying to be super revolutionary and complex. He's trying to disconnect himself from the basic foundation where all artists start. He says that artwork that is essentially a portrait of him would be very boring. I think I disagree with that. To him the art may be boring because he already knows things about himself but the audience might find that type of art very engaging. Art speaks a lot about someone. That's not boring.

8. What does he mean by "pseudointelligent idea"? What do you think about
this way of making art?

This was slightly confusing for me. He says a pseudointelligent idea is "something that’s sort of trying and failing to be smart" but then later states that he hopes this idea will "trigger an original response more readily than work that proceeds from these very academic premises." I think he's saying that this art is attempting to be art but isn't actually. He hopes that since it's essentially wannabe art it'll evoke a response to real art someone else did...whaaatt?....From what I'm understanding, he's taking other artists works and pieces of trash essentially and putting them together and calling it art. Associating other artists work with disposable items that are essentially trash seems like a major dis to the artists he's using to me. And what does that say about him? If he needs to rely on other artists can he call himself an artist if he's not really producing anything? In the article he talks about taking "ready-made junk" and piling it up to bring "it to a much higher status than it had when it was functional." He goes on saying that he just asks people to add on what they think belongs in it

10. What does he say about "vagueness and precision"? Do you find that you
work in that manner as well?

He talks about how he used the same composition, essentially, in each of the rooms in one of his exhibits but they all produced completely different images. By using, for example, a light source in each of the rooms he creates a sense of déjà vu. But the viewer probably won't recognize each thing as a light source in the same spot because they are each so different from one another. The precision comes from the fact that each light source was picked specifically to look a certain way. I'm not entirely sure if I work in this manner... I probably don't. I kind of don't think much about my art; it kind of just happens. That may or may not be a good thing but I feel like when I plan out my artwork it's often more disastrous than something I kinda just went with after a had a vague idea of what I wanted to do at the start. I think it'd be interesting for me to start forcing myself to work more precisely and see if I can somehow be vague like he is.

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

I think explaining things and being confusing are both exciting for different reasons. I believe you should be clear to an audience what you're trying to do to a certain extent. It's nice to be able to explain your ideas to people who have no idea what you're thinking. It's also nice to just be able to express yourself verbally sometimes instead of visually in some way. But if you paint the whole picture for the audience then there is nothing for the audience to look at besides some technical aspects of the painting but that is only interesting to a person for so long. There needs to be a slight element of confusion in art so that the viewer has something to think about and can engage in the art. It's exciting to confuse people because it's enjoyable to see peoples brains working hard to unravel your work. But when the work is so confusing that the audience doesn't know where to go, then that's just no good. As an audience, it's their job to do something thinking and come up with their own conclusions about the art. As an artist, it's our job to create a balance between confusion and clarity to create amazing and meaningful works of art.

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)?

He seems to create art for his own sake and also so he can grow as an artist. While the art is displayed for an audience, they are merely a second thought to him. He doesn't feel every decision needs to have an explanation because if he can't figure it out, it's kind of irrelevant if the audience understands or not if they even notice something like that. He creates work for himself. Period. I find that somewhat inspiring and stupid. He must have gotten lucky to have become a successful artist because most of the time people make art for themselves, it is basically seen as crap to the public. Just because you make art for yourself, and it's fantastic to you, doesn't mean anyone else really thinks so. But it's also inspiring in the sense that he is so set on making work that he seems to care less about anyone's opinions but his own. He just wants to grow and learn and become better; the success just seems secondary. Sure, he could only be saying that after the fact but the fact that he has that firm stance on making art for himself is just amazing. Of course I'm in the art field for myself. If I wasn't interested in a career that I was doing strictly for me I would have picked something where I can definitely make some money. But while I've been creating art this year, it hasn't always been for myself. It's been to fulfill an assignment. Yes, I've tried challenging myself and picking subjects I'm interested in but I don't know if I'd necessarily create art that fits all the assignments I've had. These assignments have definitely made me grow as an artist and look at things a different way, but it's not because I was doing it all for me like Armleder was. His art may not be so inspiring to me, but his words definitely are.

Bruce High Quality Foundation

When I arrived at the building to go to this presentation, they were letting nobody in. We stood out front while a mass amount of people gathered in the lobby, half of the people not even signing in like they were supposed to. A band was playing music behind the locked doors and outside of that there was no real sign that anything would be going on here tonight. We waited outside for at least 10 minutes past when it was supposed to start and I was beginning to wonder if I had my timing wrong or if something was up. Finally they opened the doors and we were greeted with Temple's marching band playing music. A guy behind them was dancing around and had a t-shirt gun. He was wearing the mask of a president, that I know, but I couldn't begin to tell you which one because it was just disturbing to me... but that's besides the point. Balloons were scattered around the seating and I was really confused as to what to expect because I could see nobody around who looked like they'd present anything to us. There was the creepy guy up front but I felt like he was just for show. Then there was a few people in the same tie-died shirts they were shooting out into the audience.

Suddenly the music came to a close and the lights went off. The creepy guy unmasked and everyone sat down as one lone, modest, bearded individual stepped forward to the podium. As he began to speak, I felt all the excitement and craziness going on in the room vanish. His voice was monotone but not in a boring way. He had a seriousness that went with his words that meant you had to listen, really listen. He wasn't just up there talking out his ass about something. He was actually speaking to us. He was actually talking about something - passionately. Something which I don't hear in much speakers anymore. He was telling a story and behind him flashed a series of images and sometimes video clips. Some of the images or statements he made were clever references to today's culture. He started out lightly, speaking about some made up girl and asking questions like why are there so many artists when so few are actually successful? Why is our education so expensive? Why is our education set up the way that it is? Basic questions. General questions. Harmful questions. Suddenly, things were serious. He started speaking of how few jobs there are. How colleges make tuition high and max out classrooms with expectations, not even hopes, of people dropping out to get a greater profit. Again and again he brings up our fictional girl and how she's in her studio and needs to talk to someone. He keeps making more and more controversial things in an aggressive way. Asking more and more questions. Making more and more accusations. But what stuck with me the most is he asked something along the lines of would you still make art if you didn't get paid for it in any way... that's where he got me. Would I? Why do I make art anyways? After he hit there I was really anticipating him answering some questions that he brought up or making suggestions or something that deals with something as important as art school. But he didn't. It just ended with the unmasked creepy guy inviting us to get drinks with them....

What? That's it? For something so important and that was made to seem like such a huge thing, I feel really cheated. In the beginning I felt like this was so important to be listening to and like this would be something that would really have a great impact on me but with the way it ended totally ruined it for me. I felt like the presentation was structured in a way that captured my attention so I was practically on the edge of my seat only for them to throw the Bruce High Quality Foundation University (aka BHQFU) in the picture so that I'd want to join in. It felt like an advertisement. I was even let a bit confused as to what the point of the lecture was. So I went on their website and read this "The Bruce High Quality Foundation, the official arbiter of the estate of Bruce High Quality, is dedicated to the preservation of the legacy of the late social sculptor, Bruce High Quality. In the spirit of the life and work of Bruce High Quality, we aspire to invest the experience of public space with wonder, to resurrect art history from the bowels of despair, and to impregnate the institutions of art with the joy of man’s desiring. Professional Challenges. Amateur Solutions." 


Did I miss something in that lecture? Their mission statement is to basically revive the art world right? But, to me anyway, that lecture was almost discouraging. Telling me I'm going to fail because my university expects it of me. Telling me I probably, or rather I won't, get a job as an artist. Telling me I won't even make it in the art world period because so few do. The only thing that really got to me was him essentially asking me why I do art. It's not something I think about often so he easily got me listening and really thinking about the rest of what he said. I paid attention. I paid attention closely so I wouldn't miss anything because I felt this was a big deal to be a part of. But what was I apart of really? Them networking their "university?" Initially after it was over, I thought it was a great lecture. I felt inspired by them in the sense that I was like "man if I don't make any money doing art, fuck it. I'll still do it anyway." But after taking almost a week to digest it I don't feel that way anymore. I feel like I should have left questioning whether or not to continue what I was doing. Better yet. I should have been questioning what the hell was the point of all that. I feel like there was much more to talk about and much more to be said. This is important. "Amerika" did a very poor job teaching me anything but that BHQFU is a great place to go to make art and volunteer my time.

Guest Lecturer

Aunrico Gatson came and give a lecture for us last Thursday about his work. When I had walked into the lecture hall he was already well under way presenting and had one of his video pieces already playing. I will be honest in saying I wasn't totally impressed with what I initially saw. Then he spoke. I was even less impressed. With an name as fancy as Aunrico Gatson I was expecting some energetic and spicy individual who just loved to talk. Instead I found a man who was well groomed and shy. He fumbled a lot with his thoughts and words and sometimes didn't even make sense. He also seemed to forget a lot of the names of his pieces. He made some awkward jokes and tended to laugh at himself a lot. I did find him pretty funny I'll admit because he was just so damn honest about things! I could tell he was super nervous but dude at least take some notes! All the video pieces he showed seemed very amateur to me and looked like something anyone could make if they had a simple video program. The pieces didn't even seem very thought out aside from 'oh this just looks cool with I'm put them like this.' Sure, the videos created stimulating images, but the concept behind it just falls short. It shook me a little to find that all the videos he took clips from were videos that were extremely racist towards blacks and he is a black man. It wasn't exactly explained why he chose any of these videos or what their purpose was in terms of his work but I can't really find any sort of logical reason myself for picking such films...

I did, however, like his other work such as his paintings and sculptures. They seemed to have more reasoning and thought behind them and on top of it, Aunrico seemed more comfortable talking about these pieces. His personality seemed to shine through as he talked to us about these pieces because they were solely his ideas and weren't appropriated from others. Most of his paintings consisted of the same colors as the piece above or were all black and white with a splash of red. He was fairly limited in terms of exploration but he seemed to at least know what direction he was going with his art and found a style that worked for him. I mean, hey, he's had 5 or 6 exhibitions and he seemed to not even be working for very long. Maybe 10 years? I looked up his OCD dot work and it's really beautiful. I actually enjoy looking at those pieces over almost all of his other work. The dots are just so time consuming and almost mind-numbing that I can't help but appreciate it more. It was hard to tell where he was joking and where he was telling the truth, but I kind of admire the reason for doing art is because he was just sitting around and was like 'wow. I need to make some art.' I do nothing but make art because I'm going to school for it and sometimes it's a little exhausting and since I make so much of it, I sometimes always don't want to make it. When I have spare time I don't always think 'man I need to do some more art.' Whether he was joking or not, that was somewhat inspiring to me. And the fact that he picked something so tedious is inspiring that much more.

As with his videos, it's hard for me to determine whether Aunrico is somewhat glorifying black abuse, bringing attention to it, or showing how it's wrong. His videos seem to glorify it with all it's psychedelic style. His paintings involving black individuals are both neutral but also grab your attention like the piece above called Nape of the Neck, Small of the Back. To me, it's a hard read. The colors are fairly bright and vibrant and outside of my association with whippings as painful, I feel nothing towards this piece in terms of my view of black slavery outside of being subjective about it. Sure I could look up an explanation of the piece, but should I really need to do that about a work of art based on a topic like this? 

I felt bad listening to him talk because he seemed to be so gifted and talented and really had a lot of thought put into his pieces but I believe he felt very crunched for time. Throughout his lecture, from about halfway to the end, he kept saying how he wouldn't explain everything because he didn't want to keep us long. I would have loved to hear thorough explanations of all his pieces because he put so much thought into them that glazing over them with a shortly worded explanation doesn't give them justice. He seemed uncomfortable answering questions about his art. Anything that was about a specific piece he would start out with a confident response, but then slowly weeny out and come out with babbling words that didn't make sense. I feel like many people who sat in that lecture are going to give him a harsh critique because he presented himself poorly. But I believe if he was confident with his work and comfortable with us, our opinions of him would totally change. As someone who is very shy and hates talking, I have to give the man some slack and applaud him for standing up there because I don't like giving my opinions in front of people I'm not comfortable with.

 I feel like I could have really learned from him had he of been more confident with what he was showing us. What I've taken from his lecture is that I shouldn't see art as a chore, but something I want to do. I should be confident in all the work I do because if I don't, my ideas won't come off as I intend them. And what I really liked from his presentation was that he refers to himself as a maker, not a painter or a sculptor or anything. A maker or art. A maker of art allows a person to be more well rounded and free of limitations. It makes me want to explore all the talent I have in all the areas I can.

Naked Night

As part of class, we had to go to the MFA thesis show called "Naked Night". This show took up all 3 rooms in Tyler's small gallery. The name of the show itself is enough to give someone a certain expectation of what they would find on the inside but all expectations will be let down, in a good way, by what's actually going on. From outside the gallery, the rooms all appear to be empty. But upon walking in you find very little in the first room and since the second room is blocked off, it leaves you hoping to be bombarded with some answers in the next. There was a scattering of items on the floor such as shoes, an ash tray, jars, vases, records, and grapes. To the one side items were placed on black yoga mats and cider blocks on the other. The items on the black yoga mat were completely covered in what I'm assuming is black paint. Each item was evenly spaced and given it's own spot on the mat; nothing was on top of each other or sharing a spot with another item. The items ranged from being unrecognizable to being the actual object without being modified. On the other side, items were placed on cinder blocks. There were little wooden sticks on the cinder blocks (which was in a semi-circle) that, if I remember correctly, were the colors of the rainbow. There was also the bristles of the broom and another black object. Placed away from this semi-circle of cinder blocks was a small stack of cinder blocks that had what almost looked like crushed charcoal spread over it. In the center of the room was a peace sign made out of rope. In the center of the dividing wall was metal rods that spelled out "I <3 U 4E" which one can only assume means I love you forever.

The second room you walk into with hopes of getting some answers as to what the first meant, only to find even less in this room than the first. There's a poorly made table that is holding up a marble slab with some sort of crater-like thing in the center of it that I really can't give a name to. There is a piece of paper that is torn a little on the table and I'm not really sure whether it wasn't supposed to be there or if it was intentionally put there. I looked around and there was nothing but a few spot lights on this poor excuse for a table. I didn't really notice until I came out of the third room that there was a black flag hanging on the dividing wall between rooms 1 and 2. The flag is held from a single point making it almost impossible to see the ying and yang symbols on the flag. 

The third room is dark and lonely. A single wall is lit up with a blurry looking projection. It's really slowed down. There's a new overwhelming sound in the room. But in reality, it's always been there but now it isn't just a background. You can tell they're supposed to be words. There's a somewhat meditative quality to the words that are slowed down so much it's impossible to comprehend. There is a white and black woman and what I think is an Asian man. There is a lot of tension between the two women. The black woman is doing a dance. The Asian man pops up and turns his head, his mouth going along with the slowed down words. At the end, the women have a passionate kiss and the white woman looks at the screen as if to challenge the audience. 

There are links between all the rooms but they are somewhat easy to overlook. For one thing, the sound is heard throughout all the rooms. The less stuff in the room, the louder the sound is. There is a similarity in a photograph on the wall in the first room of the mixed race couple in the video in the third room. The black from the first room is found in the second room on the ying yang flag. The marble on the table in the second room resembles a photograph in the first room that one could easily claim was marble. The ying yang symbols on the flag go with peace just like the peace sign, perhaps even the yoga mats. The yoga mats go along with the meditative feel you get in the third room. These parallels are small things. Things one might easily overlook and think nothing about if they missed a part.

Everything just feels very empty and solemn. But is that because there isn't much in the gallery? Is that because galleries always feel that way to me? Or is this the feeling she created? How am I actually supposed to feel about it all? How am I supposed to read it? There are so many things one could draw from this exhibition. I think everyone can draw that it has to do with a lesbian relationship, but that's only if you look very very closely and think about it. Is this a statement for or against a homosexual relationship? The black and lack of color could be interpreted as sinful or as mournful. The blurriness and slow-motion of the video could be interpreted as our blurred views in society or it could be viewed as craziness as if people were on drugs to consider this type of relationship. I don't really know which side to fall on.

Good art doesn't always need to have a clear message, but it at least needs to be able to communicate to it's audience. I'm sure there were handfuls of people that left feeling moved and inspired. I will be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure what was going on in there. Maybe it's because I'm narrow-minded. Or because I don't think everything should be considered art. I don't really know the answer. But as I walked around that gallery I was confused. It's taken me days to even come up with this because I've dwelled on the title and it's really not even a reaction with much substance; I'm rambling. There were many parts that were just utterly confusing to me. The piece of paper on the marble counter top, the difference in the items on the mat, and what the table was supposed to be. There is a very strong message here; I know there is. But it's just in some foreign language.

Museum Vist

Another museum visit assignment! I decided that in case we need to visit the piece again it would be in my best interest to go somewhere where I know the piece will always be there no matter how many times I visit.

So today I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art with everyone else and their mother. I spent a decent amount of time in there navigating through crowds and trying to find the perfect piece to write about. Tons of pieces caught my eye and I must have walked around and sat with about 5 or 6 different pieces multiple times before I decided on this one. The Agnew Clinic by Thomas Eakins was the winner.

I did a small amount of research on it because I was curious about it. Thomas Eakins is an American artist who actually lived and worked in Philly (which is a bit more appealing to me than other artists). This piece was completed in 1889 for the Medical Class of 1889 who would be graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. The subject matter is fairly self-explanatory, but what I found fascinating was why it was painted in the manner that it was. In the source I was looking at The Agnew Clinic was compared to an earlier piece Eakins had done called The Gross Clinic. The reason the two were being compared was because of the contrast between the two in terms of the one being really dark and the other being lighter. In  The Gross Clinic, Dr. Gross is wearing dark clothes that he might typically wear on any ordinary day. When compared to The Agnew Clinic, the manner in which the doctors are working seems very unorganized. In The Agnew Clinic, on the other hand, Dr. Agnew is in a clean, white outfit. The doctors are also in white and a nurse is present in their group. The reason? In 1875 when Eakins had worked on The Gross Clinic, antiseptic surgery and hygiene wasn't as big of a deal as it was in 1889. Due to this new interest in hygiene, Eakins painted the doctors in a more "sterile" manner (lighter colors/white). Eakins also made the compositions pretty similar on purpose to show this contrast between the two. Interesting stuff. 

The Gross Clinic

I had somewhat gotten lost when I was in the PMA so I'm not exactly sure where the heck I was when I found this. All I remember is that this enormous painting was to the left of a doorway and, if I remember correctly, was the only piece on that little section of wall. Standing in front of the piece made me feel small. The doctors were a little less than life size, but it was still somewhat creepy. And, if my memory serves me correctly, this piece may have been the biggest piece in the room. The scale of it was something that really attracted me to the piece. I'm a bigger fan of larger pieces that I can still appreciate from far away as well as up close. With smaller pieces I hate how much detail or color I lose when I walk further away from it.

 I think one of the things I rather like about this piece, or rather what I find very amusing, is that the elderly man (Dr. Agnew) kind of looks like a baker or a chef to me. Which is comical to me because he's performing a surgery. To me it just looks like he's about to make a delicious meal in front of a studio audience. I also rather enjoyed looking at the different faces of the people in the class. They aren't as detailed as the people in the foreground, but each person is an individual with a different look and a different expression. The people range from boredom and being asleep to attentiveness. Most of the people seem to be uninterested though, which is interesting. I think I liked everything about the piece. I like the way it was painted. I like the composition. I like the colors. I like the feel of the piece. I dare say I love this piece. It's big. It's dealing with a subject matter I'm really interested in. The colors aren't overwhelming. It has enough detail that it looks realistic, but not so realistic that I can still appreciate it as a painting and not a photograph. Every part of this piece looks like it was worked on with careful observation and isn't generalized. I love it!

 But what really got me was that the 4th time I had sat with this piece was that the room smelt like death with a combination of gagging perfume that smelled like chemicals. Someone must have nuked the room or was carrying around a corpse... Whatever the case, it made my decision to pick this piece a sure thing. Having that terrible smell around me when I was looking at the piece made me feel like I could have been a student in that class watching this surgery happen. To me, if that room didn't have the death smell more powerful than that chemical smell, it would have smelled exactly like Hahnemann Hospital's morgue. This association of smell reminded me of my visit to the morgue with my forensics class my senior year. I'm really interested in forensics and all that goes along with it so seeing something that, to me, looked immediately like an autopsy caught my attention in a heartbeat. The body laying on the table is what initially caught my attention and brought me to look at the piece. That's also probably ultimately what made me decide on this piece as opposed to the others.

I heard people talking about how the piece was disgusting and wanting to know why someone would want to paint anything like this. Others were about two finger-lengths from the piece talking in a technical manner about how it was painted. I don't think I saw one person pass by it who didn't look at it. I think this will end up being that one piece I have to go and seek out every time I go to the PMA for the rest of my life.

Mid-Term... sorta...

I had missed my mid-term crit so I decided to put up the work that I have in my possession and can find at the moment so my teacher sorta has something to reference... even though I missed class 'cause I was sick :/
I also don't have an insane amount of work because I missed one figure drawing class....

In order:

 Obstruction Drawing: Acrylic

Black Drawing Without Using Black Fail: Chalk Pastels

(teacher has the better one!)

In-class Still Life Drawing: Oil Pastels

In-class Figure Drawing: Chalk Pastels

In-class Figure Drawing: Chalk Pastels

In-class Figure Drawing: Oil Pastels

In-class Figure "Remix" Drawing: Vine Charcoal

Figure and Pattern Drawing: Oil Pastels

Maggie

Assignment: Draw a figure surrounded by patterns. Figure can either be nude or clothed. Must be 5x5 feet

Again, a late assignment... This is a drawing of my suitmate Maggie done in oil pastels.

The color never looks as good on a computer or in a photograph....

Gallery Adventure

I was supposed to find my way over to the PMA to look at some art over the course of the week. But, I kinda realized it's sort of inconvenient for me to get to. And along with the fact that I don't really care for the PMA, I certainly wasn't going out of my way to go there. So, when I was on South Street this weekend, I decided to look for some art around there. I've been to South Street a handful of times and I always found myself wandering into the Dumpster Divers gallery (http://dumpsterdivers.org/  The website itself isn't very great, but some of the links to the artists are pretty nifty and definitely worth looking at) I like the Dumpster Divers gallery because there are pretty much always new things in there and the fact that some of these really cool things are made out of garbage is all the more appealing to me. I saw tons of nifty pieces like this guy!  

 

But none of them really "spoke" to me enough that I could write a giant post about it. I could write little tidbits about all of them but that's not what I was asked. I had walked into the gallery and circled around it counterclockwise and when I was just about finished looking through the gallery I stumbled across this

I have no idea who the artist is, why it was created or what the title is. The few workers at the gallery were very preoccupied with various war stories and debates about politics and life for me to ask anything about it. I also looked through all the links on the Dumpster Diver's website and none of the artists' work seemed similar enough to this that I could even guess. It's kind of a shame but I guess there's nothing I can do about it...  Anyway! This piece really caught my eye because it was so much unlike everything else in the gallery. This was one of the only pieces that was mainly flat and wasn't a sculptural piece. It was also one of the biggest things in there. I am terrible with eyeballing size and measuring things, but to give you an idea of scale, the heads of the 3 people in this were roughly life size. Whenever something is life size or larger, it always becomes a little more personal and invasive to the viewer I think. Even though the figures in the piece didn't look super 3-dimensional, I still kind of felt like they could come out of the work and stand next to me.

The piece is fairly limited in terms of the color palette. The entire piece is mainly black and white with splashes of color around the heads of the figures. Most of the pieces in the room at the time were a range of browns and everything was so crowded nothing really stood out. But, this piece was actually across from this really rich green fabric that had been wrapped around a support beam. The fact that the green fabric was there just really dulled this piece down when walking up to it. But looking directly at the piece, it still seemed very muted because the colors that are in the piece aren't at a very high chroma so they don't actually pop too much. I like that even though the piece is fairly flat, there are some elements on it that pop out, but not in a gaudy or awkward way. I like the splashes of color against the black and white, it adds for a nice touch but it's too overwhelming I think. I don't think I really disliked much of anything about the piece. There's no real reason why either. I just like it. The only thing that kind of bothered me is just the fact that there is a thick border on the top and then a little thin border on the top and nothing on the bottom. I'm also a little bothered by the fact that the one figure on the left is cut off while the other two are not. It just doesn't seem to have any real purpose to it. It's just me being nit-picky honestly...

Subjectively I can't really say anything about this piece because I go absolutely no background on it. No matter how much I searched I really just couldn't come up with a thing about it. Objectively, I feel like this could be a very powerful statement. I'm not entirely sure what on, maybe a certain race of people or a specific event that is taking place, but just by the set up of the piece I think it has some really intense meaning to it. The faces are the only photographic/3D elements to the piece, everything else is flat and graphic. The fact that the faces are different like that says to me that the faces are important. 

I had gone with a few friends of mine and most of them don't really get art (but who's to say I do either) so they had only gone in because of me. The one guy I had been with walked up next to me and shouted a few colorful words because he found it utterly creepy. Other than that, no one actually paid much attention to this piece. Thinking about it now I guess to most people the cute little statue dudes made out of all these intricate little things is much more appealing than some fabric on a wall. I had asked my friends what they thought of it and they didn't really have much to say. Someone had thought of tribes. Someone thought of Africa. Nothing with much substance to say the least. When I looked at the piece I got a sense of solemnity and sadness in a way. The figures aren't smiling and looking closely at their eyes they just seemed empty to me. That could explain why the colors are muted because maybe these people are living in a supposedly color world but they just see it in a muted way because they are unhappy. Or maybe they're unhappy because this is a wedding or something. Like there is a little girl in the front being given away by her father, who is behind her, to this man who is to the left and no one wants to go through with it. I could probably sit and make up stories about this piece all day, but I will never be able to say for sure what on earth it's really about unless I asked someone. 

Obstructions

Due to my lack of memory and just being busy with other things this is just a LITTLE late.

Obstructions:
- must be in color
- must be from direct observation
- monochromatic red
- use a design and use it throughout (ex: fence on porch)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Personally I think the original is WAY better. I'm not much of a painter.... and it's not super red....

Snowmageddon

Maybe staying outside for most of the night wasn't such a good idea.... hooray for ramen noodles?

 

and my poor dog couldn't even get through the snow :(

Response to quote

"The point it, that every piece of art changes your whole perception of the rest of the world for the rest of your life. And it's not a joke! And if it doesn't, then it's not art, it's a commodity."  

                 - Laurence Weiner

It's hard to judge art really. What people view as art differs from person to person. To me, a line on a canvas looks stupid, but to someone else that may be the greatest work of art they have ever seen. On top of everyone having a different opinion about what is good and what isn't, what even is art? The definition of it is so broad that it's almost impossible to actually have only specific things be considered art. Sure there are all those paintings and drawings and sculptures and such in museums and they are all considered art. But is that all art is? I know people consider a variety of films to be works of art too, but I don't really see those movies up in museums, so does that mean those films aren't art? It's hard to say. I do agree with the quote about how art is supposed to change how you view life. If it doesn't, then what's the point of it outside of a way to get a heck of a lot of money?

Personally, I'm sick of seeing art that people know nothing about on purses and shirts and folders and bookmarks and posters just because it's "trendy" or "cool." I'm not claiming I know squat about artists and art, 'cause I don't, but I mean I think people should at least know something about what they're carrying around. I think today's society is so concerned with money that it is starting to make all art seem like a commodity. This mass-production of art is making these images so common that I feel like it takes away from the beauty of the work and instead of it being unique, it's just a pretty picture like everything else.