Art and Fear Quotes and Reflection

One quote that I picked was "We have met the enemy and he is us. " (23). I picked this because I feel like everyone can relate to it and it’s totally true. I take it to mean that we ourselves are harder on ourselves than anyone else so we end up being our own enemies. We always tend to be really harsh on ourselves. I know that I always think my work is bad whether it by m art work or my karate work… whatever it is I’m convinced it’s terrible and that I should be able to do better. I am just recently starting to break out of that habit of being overly harsh and critical about myself and for once I am actually accepting that sometimes my art and karate and school work does look and sound ok. I still wouldn’t call anything great, or amazing or anything like that, but im not saying everything is terrible and I’m a complete failure anymore. This step I have made in my own life has allowed me to try new things in Art class (like mixing media and experimenting with simplistic pieces as opposed to very detailed pieces) and I have also been able to try new things in school and at karate. It’s a good thing, but at the same time it is hard and by no means comes natural to me. I am a creature of habit and I tend to stay as far away as possible from change. I am really working on overcome my OCD tendencies and to stop being a perfectionist when it comes to my artwork. This hasn't been and won't be easy for me because this mentality is so ingrained in me, but this quote helped me realize just how harsh I am on myself all the time in almost everything I do, so I am now making a conscious effort to change the way I view myself and my work.

Gallery

As far as the Gallery goes, there are only a few things that I would like to be in the gallery it self. My other pieces can find temporary homes in other places around the school so that they don't take up too much space in the gallery.

I would love to see my underwater, multi-media octopus painting get into the gallery as well as my umbrella hanging. The umbrella piece is a number of 8.5 x 11 pieces of transparency paper all hanging with fishing wire one on top of the other. It would probably hang roughly floor to ceiling and probably wouldn't take up a ton of space. As for everything else I can find places to put them around school. I would ideally like to find a place to put big print outs of the photos I have taken, and the multi-piece animal drawings I have done, but like I said I will find a creative place to put those outside the gallery. I was actually thinking it would be cool to hang the photos or put the photos in the circle window in the new building either hanging from the top or flat all along the inside circle of the window (except for the bottom where people sit) but we can talk about that later.

Old response - various artist's slide show

I really enjoyed looking at all of the different art pieces on the slide show. I am always amazed at how many different ways artists find to express themselves. Each artist has his or her own particular style and it is always fun to see some different styles. I think my favorite piece from the slideshow was the piece by Sandy Skoglund. I loved the immersive feel of the piece and also the bright and vibrant colors. She also is very intricate in her work, which is cool but also very difficult. I can’t imagine trying to put that whole thing together, but the end product is very cool! Her piece also leaves you wondering how everything fits together. She uses a lot of very different objects and mediums to put the piece together and when you think about is a lot of them don’t make much sense together, but when she puts them together the way she did they all look like they belong in one cohesive piece. I find that truly amazing! Another aspect of her piece is the women walking around in it. That just adds one more aspect and dimension to the piece really pulling everything to a different level.

I don’t know what I want my final piece(s) to be for the gallery. I am thinking about maybe doing a series of paintings or photographs. I really like the idea of dealing with nature related things though and combining mediums.

Some Pix I've taken for my photo project :)

Gallery Visit Prep.

I am really interested in going to see the Howard Yezerski gallery and the Boston Sculpture Gallery. All of the shows look really cool and I am excited to get to walk around and see the different galleries. The Boston Sculpture gallery interests me because I have found that I really enjoy sculpture. I like both creating and seeing sculptures and I am looking forward to seeing some other mixed-media pieces.
The Howard Yezerski gallery looks like a lot of fun too mostly because of the style of the pieces. I really love figures and the quirks that people have in their look so this looks like an interesting exhibit. It doesn't look like any of the people in the paintings have faces, but they are still unique purely based on their clothing and hair styles or posture. This exhibit looks very cool!

Boston Art Scene

It is clear after reading the articles that the Boston Art scene is changing. This change is for the most part a direct effect of the recent economic crisis. Many galleries are having to close because of the higher rent prices and the lack of people buying art work. People just don't have the money right now to spend a few hundred dollars on an art piece no matter how much they may want it. Also, a lot of artists can't afford to rent a space to display their art in the Boston area so they are moving to other parts of the country or other countries in general. The one place that seems to be a safe-haven for Boston Artists is the South End. The rent in the south end is currently lower than most other places in the city so the handful of artists that are left and wanting to display their work in Boston are flocking to the South End.

Another change in the Art world is the sudden surge in online galleries. It is proving to be much much cheaper to display art online so the online gallery world is growing. It is also much cheaper for viewers to go online and see art than it is for them to pay to see a gallery. This is both good and bad. It is wonderful that artists can continue to show their work without having to go bankrupt, but there is a certain charm in going to a gallery. You don't get the same experience online as you do in the gallery.

I have been to a few galleries... the ICA and another one relatively close to the school, but I can't remember its name (I have been to that one a number of times for a number of different shows)

I am continuing to work on taking pictures and developing an idea for a compiled photo project, but I am working on that outside of class. In class today I started a painting. I'm not entirely sure what the painting will end up being, I just let myself paint today. I am developing the painting as I go along. I work best when I have several things to work on at once so I can change when I get bored or frustrated. I will now have both the painting and the photo project to work on as well as sketching and brainstorming.

Photo Project

I am thinking about doing a photo project. One of my problems with photo art is that I feel like its is kind of a cop out because not much work goes into taking a picture, but I think that I am going to explore things close up through photos and do some sort of installation or art piece with the photos after. I realize that I am going to need to take a TON of pictures and that only some of them will be used, but I might also make a book of the process that would use more of the pictures and be more for me than the gallery.

Twyla Tharp

Scratching, according to Twyla Tharp, is the process of brainstorming through making a series of small projects. Scratching is meant to help you generate ideas without fear of judgment or criticism. Twyla Tharp thinks that scratching is important because an artist needs to have time for them to just create without thought or judgment sometimes. It may be that all of the brainstorms are thrown out, or it mat be that the brainstorming leads to a wonderful idea or spark for a great project. Either way it is important to work through the brainstorming process before beginning a long term in-depth project.

I would agree that brainstorming, or "scratching", is very important for any artist because it allows working without influence and without too much thought. I tend to doodle which for me, sometimes leads to great ideas for projects, although I tend to be very critical of myself a lot of times. I need to work on just letting myself work and not think about how it looks so much as what it is as a piece of art. I like the idea of just drawing or painting or what have you and not putting too much planning behind it. It is good to work through the creative process in a way that is not meant to be closely analyzed or criiticized, but I need to learn to let go and not criticize my own work.

Artist Studios (presentation)

After going through the slide show, it is clear that artists need to feel really comfortable and at ease in their work spaces to create the best work and to work most efficiently. The artwork itself sometimes reflects the work space and in turn the personality in a way. Some artists need to spread out and just be able to start and stop where they please. Some artists make a mess and don't worry about cleaning up, they just keep working. Other artists need to have everything neat and organized so they know exactly where everything is when they need it. The common theme among the different studios, though, is the need for the artist to have inspirational objects, a sketchbook or camera as a way of documenting certain images, and other art pieces they have done. It seems that the artists studio is as important to the creation of the art as the medium itself. I would agree with this statement and say that without a comfortable space to work in and familiar and inspirational objects or images to help inspire (for lack of better word).

Artist's Studios

Looking at pictures of various studios, it is clear that the studio tends to resemble the work of the artist. All of the studio's that I looked at contained a number of nick-nacks and seemingly random, somewhat personl objects that seem to serve as inspiration. It was very interesting to compare the overall look of the studio to the art the artist creates because the sense you get from the studio is most often reflected in the work itself. The really neat and organized rooms often revealed a very clean and organized style in the pieces, whereas the wild and crazy disorganized room revealed a lot of confusion an crazy and random "movement" in the pieces of art. I'm not suprised by this I guess, it was just interesting to see that all laid out in front of me at once.