Soo didn't get the portfolio award or scholarships. Disappointed? Yes. But who needs it. Why do I feel so rushed to become FAMOUS! (maybe because i still feel like that is the only way I can make it as an artist) Of course I will be thinking about that still. I can't get it out of my head. Everyone has gone through something in their life that they enter to win something. and they feel that deep down inside they have a great chance in winning. Well I just felt that. Bummer. Buttttttt! The out come of that was that I understand why I didn't get the awards or scholarships. Why should life be that easy? I still have to prove myself to the world. Who has ever won something they didn't even work for? I am ready to work even harder now. This summer will be the most challenging summer ever. On top of babysitting.... and well keeping a SOCIAL life. I am going to be building my meaning of art. You might ask... "meaning of art?" Yes, I want to show people what art means to me. According to everyone! ART HAS NO CONSISTENT MEANING! That is why a card board box with sprinkles on it is considered art..... (this artist came in to my currents arts lecture class and told us that he did that) Art means something totally different to mee... That is what I need to find and discover thoroughly.
Well the reason I am posting tonight,, (besides rambling on about what I am thinking about) I wanted you to read my current arts forum paper. This should help explain how I felt this year.
--------- Finishing up with my first year at DAAP, I have expanded my artistic skills greatly. As the professor of the three large lecture classes I was required to take, you may not know me well at all. You may know me as just one of the many students that turns in papers when she is told to, goes to class when she is told to and speaks when she is told to give her opinion. I am not always the first one to join into discussions, but I have a lot to say. Originally, I thought these classes were going to explore the options available for emerging artists. I was surprised, and not negatively so, to discover that this class was about becoming an artist and showing my work in galleries. However, as the year progressed I realized how important these classes would be for me.
When I realized that this class was mostly concerned with encouraging me to become a famous artist I wanted to know what else I could do in the art world. For example, being an illustrator, advertiser, or a photographer are very important goals in my life. Even though, this class didn’t talk about what I expected, I still got a lot out of the experience. It only took me till the final quarter to realize it. What was interesting about the classes were that they were showing us famous artists and telling us how to be one, I understood the meaning behind all of it. Or at least what I took out of it. After reviewing the past three quarters, I began to understand that they were showing us all these artists to find what we are interested in. As a learning artist, I know that I can’t just find a concept and randomly pick any medium and call it art. Maybe once I become a famous artist, I can do whatever I wanted but for now, I need to learn the foundations. Each and every class taught me a specific thing about becoming an artist.
In the beginning, I had a hard time getting used to fine arts, but taking Intro to Contemporary arts made me feel more comfortable. Seeing all the artists that were introduced to us was also overwhelming. It was like we were being showed who exactly we will be like in the art world. Then I realized who not to be. For instance, I hope I don’t end up like Jeff Koons; who has other people make his artwork. I want to make my own art. There is more of a meaning to it when you can see the artist’s hand. An artist that I grew to be interested in was Maurizio Cattelan. Cattelan drew my attention because of his use of satire. The irony in his art draws the attention to the crowd. That is something that I want to make my goal. I want to catch the audience’s attention by having them notice the irony in my art. The article, “A Fine Italian Hand” by Alexi Worth, explains Cattelan’s way of exceeding the boundaries of art. He exceeds these boundaries by being the “art world’s most famous prankster” (Worth 1). As humorous and risk taking that his works are, they are the most influential to me. Now that I have found artists that show a view of art that I am interested in, I feel that I can now start paving my way to getting to the point that they are at.
Visual Cultures was actually a class I was looking forward to taking. I have always been interested in the media. The one class that I took the most out of was the class on music videos. For weeks after that class, I would go around and show everyone I knew the slideshow from the class. Analyzing those music videos in class was different from watching them with my friends and family. There was a different understanding that I realized when I watched the videos in class. I knew exactly why they showed them to get an idea across. The media has a big portrayal on which we are supposed to be. The most creative idea will have the biggest impact on society. People will look at certain things differently after seeing something through the media. As an artist, I know that I need to keep paying attention to the media that surrounds me. The media will help me realize my perception on things and what my inspiration will be as an artist. Inspiration leads to the final class we had to attend as freshman at DAAP.
Current Arts Forum was the final class we had to take. This class put all the knowledge and skills we learned over the course of this year to work. Finding my inspiration, audience, and mission is one of the most important things for me as an artist. This course helped me realize what all those answers might be or will end up being. Reading about other artist’s inspiration was very helpful. Every artist started with an inspiration to create a series of astonishing work. The artist I became interested in was Scott Grieger. Grieger discovered an artistically satisfying way to compose his inspiration. Grieger says “his artwork cleanses minds that have been indoctrinated by the unrelenting assault of political and corporate propaganda” (Weintraub, 151). To display his inspiration to the audiences, he manipulates them, usurps their authority, and reverses their flow of influence (Weintraub, 152). Once an inspiration is found, an audience is created based off that inspiration.
An artist’s inspiration is the main thing that attracts the certain audiences. An artist that has a branded audience is Thomas Kinkade. Kinkade makes art for the majority of the population, rather than working in isolation for specific audiences. This is why Kinkade’s style is differentiated so much from that of other artists. Being named “Painter of Light,” Kinkade’s mission is to capture those special moments in life adorned with beauty and light.
Once the inspiration and audience is found, the next thing an artist needs to discover is its mission. The mission is what the artist wants to show to his or her audience a long process that will have a big impact on people’s ideals. Alix Lambert portrays her mission very well. Through her investigation Lambert identifies fictional situations that were missing in her life, involves her self in that real life action, gathers data, and then documents it through photography, film, or video. Lambert has become a boxer, a divorcee, a bride, a rock star, tattoo artist, and a basketball coach (Weintraub, 342). Lambert has overcome many of her fears by involving herself in certain situations. After researching what these artists have done, I now know what the procedure is to become a successful artist.
The questions you ask now like: “what I got out of this year?” “what did I not like?”, “where do I see myself?”, and “where and who will I be?” don’t really matter. I am a freshman at DAAP. I wasn’t expecting to cultivate my interests in becoming a fine artist as a freshman but that is what these classes prepared me for. This isn’t high school, where we are just given projects that will look good hanging in our bedrooms. I am here to create masterworks of art. These classes, without the teaching of our drawing or painting skills, taught me how to become a better artist. At the beginning of the year I thought I would be just an ordinary art teacher, but now I am more interested in creating art for the people that know me. I want them to get to know more about me through my drawings. Where do I see myself in the future? I see my self sitting in my studio working on some illustrations for the job I have, but on the side, when I have time on my own, I will be working on individual works that show my inspiration/mission to my audience. Thanks to these three lecture classes, I now know how to get my artwork out into the world. There are no boundaries in what I can do. I just want to succeed. My succeeding will be when I have people looking at my artwork all over the world finding their interpretation of it. Isn’t that what art is meant to be?
Bibliography
Weintraub, Linda. "Scoping an Audience." In the Making: Creative Options for Contemporary Art. New York: D.A.P./Distributed Art, 2003. 19-23. Print.
Worth, Alexi. "A Fine Italian Hand: The Work of Maurizio Cattelan - NYTimes.com." Fashion and Design - T Magazine Blog - NYTimes.com. 11 Oct. 2010. Web. 03 Nov. 2010. .
SORRY FOR THE LONG POST RECENTLY. I JUST WANT YOU GUYS TO UNDERSTAND.
The next assignment I had to do was draw half my face and half skull. This project help me understand the size and placement of the skull compared to my head. This is it!
Both these assignments really helped me pay attention to detail since I was drawing straight from an illustration. However, my face side was draw through a mirror!
