Week 13 Progress

This week I tried to finish the two paintings that I have started; however, I was only able to finish the painting of Kinsey because I have been sick. I have a lot of work ahead of me before the end of the semester, but I know that I can finish it.

I had some issues with what she is sitting on. The picture below is what I tried to do first, but it turned out looking like nonsense and took away from the background and the blanket that is draped over her.

So, I decided to change it. The photo below is what I changed it to. I like it much better!

This week, I’ve been looking at Benjamin Cohen. I like his planar style of painting, the saturation of his colors, and the neutrality of the backgrounds.

 

Week 12 Progress

Because the Friday of this week is the larger Community Critique, I have felt the end of the semester creeping up on me. It has urged me to work extremely hard because I’m freaking out.

I am quite worried about the critique because I don’t have any doubts about my work–it is exactly what I want to be making right now–but I am worried that people will just not like it or think that what it is about has no relevance or is stupid. Ultimately, I love my work, even though I say otherwise sometimes because I am frustrated, but I am just worried that other people won’t like it or think it has no significance or reason for existing.

I made a good bit of progress on Kinsey’s painting. While I was painting it, I kept feeling like it wasn’t looking right, but after I stepped away from it for a day, it looked new and better. I still have to finish the hair, eyes, background, and pedestal she’s sitting on as well as a few other things.

Because Kinsey’s painting was too wet to continue working on and because I wanted to have had Kinsey’s painting done by the Sunday before this large critique, I decided to begin on the painting of Allison. Also, the painting of Kinsey was too wet to continue working on it. This second painting is quite a bit different because of the body position and Allison’s skin has a different range of colors than Kinsey’s. It feels like the colors are wrong or too much in this one. I often worry that these paintings will look like paint-by-numbers paintings or the paintings where blocks of random colors are just put anywhere on the body because that is not what I am doing. I look at people and see the different colors in their skin. Yeah, it’s exaggerated, but, hopefully, not so much so that the exaggerated colors make the figure completely unrealistic.

The artist I have been looking at this week has been David Kassan. I just absolutely love the way be paints elderly people. Even though none of my subjects are elderly in this collection of friends, I think the way Kassan paints elderly flesh has importance to my work. In the closeup shots of his work, you can see the multitude of colors that go into making his hyper-realistic paintings. He also works quite large.

 

Week 11 Progress

This week I spent a large amount of my time making all the panels I need for the rest of the semester. It was long process because I had to build braces for the back of every panel because they were warping. I had to be very precise when making the braces because I’m not planning on framing the paintings; instead, I’m going to paint the sides of the panels colors to match a specific color in the paintings. This color will reflect off the wall when hung, giving the painting more overall depth and presence.

I also took the last two sets of reference photos this week also. They were more challenging than the first two photo shoots but that just makes me more excited for the actual paintings.

I decided to spend a large amount of time prepping. I needed a break from stressing over actually painting; however, I did end up painting a little by going over some areas and working on previously untouched areas.

 

I stumbled across Jennifer Balkan earlier this week on Instagram. I like the colors she uses in the skin tones, and she also works larger.

Week 10 Progress

This week was about production. I felt like that wasn’t possible though because whenever I had time to paint, the studio was occupied by a class. I’ve also found that just working has been difficult. Usually, the work flows easily, but this semester, I feel like I’ve had to forcefully push the work. I feel like it’s just so difficult.  I’ve been thinking a lot, perhaps over thinking, about how my work exists in the world and what my work means to the other people who don’t know me. I’m just trying to figure out if this work means anything to anyone else while, at the same time, I know it means so much to me. I’m just trying to find the time to not only physically work on the paintings, but also find the time to mentally work on them.

The sketches aren’t coming easy either. However, I feel like the paintings will come easier after I’ve struggled so ardently with the drawings, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Instagram is the main way I experience new work from current artists on a daily basis. One artist that I have been looking up quite a bit lately has been Casey Childs. He mostly does portraiture, both drawing and painting. I’ve been drawn to his work this week because of the amount of color he puts into the shaded areas of his paintings. Honestly, I just love the way he uses color in general. I also enjoy his drawings. I like the way the drawings become less specific as they move away from the face.

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Response to 33 Artists in 3 Acts

This reading was different for me. Usually, the readings make me think specifically about the artist’s work, not the artist. This reading made me think of the artists as people and their relationship with their work, the viewers, and the rest of the world. Each of the three artists discussed in the reading have different personalities and ways in which they go about their work and the world.

Jeff Koons seems like his work is out there and very different. He is talked about by many people and called naive. However, it seems as if he is only making it seem like he is naive when, in reality, he is incredibly wise and has meanings and reasons behind everything he does.

Ai Weiwei’s work is very politically driven. He portrays himself as the constantly outraged, bellicose artist. He has personal experience with injustices and political control, which gives him suitable authority to make such fiery comments and art work.

Gabriel Orozco seems like the type of person to go about his life and work quietly. When the author, Sarah Thornton said that he lived in New York City, I was shocked. He seems like the type of artist who would thrive in a less stimulated place. He is easily excited and is very introspective.

This reading gave me some insight on how different artists’s personalities can be. Obviously the art community cultivates and welcomes differences, but this reading cemented this for me personally. I was given examples of the artists’s actually words and thoughts. I would definitely like to read the rest of this book.

Week 9 Progress

I ended up doing the 8 hour assignment on Sunday, but I didn’t include it in my last blog post because I did it all day Sunday and didn’t finish till after 5pm, which is when the last blog post was due.

The 8 hour assignment wasn’t difficult for me because I like having long, continuous periods of time in the studio. Usually, when I go in to work, I bring enough food and other things to be able to stay in there for as long as I want, which is usually till the studio closes at 1 am. I was in the studio from 8am to 7pm Sunday. I left for an hour for lunch from 12-1, but other than that hour, I was in the studio for the entire day. I shot multiple reference photos, began the large painting of Kinsey, and did some studies of Kinsey’s face because I had never painted nor drawn her. I did get quite a bit of work done that day, but because I got very, very sick, I was unable to work anymore this week.

My goals for myself for next week is to bring in a completed work and more work in general. I feel like I’m behind everyone else because it took me so long to figure out what I wanted to do and because I was hesitant in getting started with this work. I feel like I haven’t produced work up to my standards, which is how I feel about everything for every class ever, mainly because I wish there was more than 24 hours in a day. I think that because I have finally figured out where I want this work to go, the work will begin to flow easier. I want to have made something that could stand alone as a finished piece.

I’m very disappointed in myself in what I’ve done this semester. I don’t know where to pull some more motivation from. It’s making me question everything that I’ve done. I’m just disheartened and dejected about what’s been happening. I don’t feel like I belong in the class and amongst my peers. I know that I shouldn’t worry about that. I just think that people always assume that I’m ok and can work through things because I have always done that in the past, but it’s getting harder and harder to do that anymore, which I don’t think people recognize.

Critique today didn’t offer me much mainly because I didn’t have anything that was done. I don’t know how to feel in class anyway because not much is ever said about my work, and I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing or a neutral thing.

Even though he doesn’t do much figurative work, I’ve been looking at Timothy Wilson a lot lately. I like the way he draws the figure with such emotion and energy. It’s the same with his paintings but in a different way. It’s very gestural, and his colors tend to be darker.

 

Manifesto

Being an artist isn’t something that I always wanted to be. Sure, I wanted to be creative, but that never meant doing something that completely depended on me and what was in my head and what I could bring into the world and what I wanted to do. Art excites me more than anything else in the world. It is something that can be universally felt, something that crosses the barrier of language, something that connects everyone to everyone else and everything else. Artists are here to connect and see things that others can’t. We are a breed of constant observers who are also constantly wrapped up in ourselves. Making things is the only way we know how to communicate what we observe. Humans are what interest me. There’s no two alike, even if their DNA are the same, as with twins, they are still different in at least one way, which makes them completely different. We are all different, on the outside and on the inside. We have different colors in our skin, different eye colors, different nose shapes, different lip shapes, and, yet, we are all the same. We need essentially the same things to survive: food, companionship, oxygen. We are all God’s creations that have no reason to fight other than the reasons we create for ourselves. There are so many different reasons behind why I am fascinated by and want to paint and sculpt the figure. It has to do with physical and spiritual concerns. I love how many colors can exist in a single person’s skin, no matter their ethnicity. I like to see how this complex thing operates and interacts with the world around it and how it creates worlds within itself. I am always worried about what people think about me and my body, which is something that makes me observe the bodies of others, not to scrutinize, but to see what is different and beautiful in each person. I don’t think that anyone is ugly or unattractive but we are different. The human body is one of the greatest things that God created and it wasn’t only created to be a sexual instrument. The body is the artist’s greatest instrument, not to be seen just as somethings so minimal as an object for someone else’s pleasure. I think that the figure is universal and is able to communicate so much. It can communicate things that I have an incredibly hard time communicating. It is adequate enough while I feel like I am not adequate enough in the sense of existing in the art world. I struggle with feeling like enough and I feel like the figure is something that will always be seen as enough. The figure will always be relevant to the world and, most importantly, to myself. I will always be able to understand it even when others don’t understand my work, which feels like all the time. I think that the work is for myself and not for others but also it can be for others. It’s not something I own once I make it, it’s owned by everyone and everything. Art is something that connects me to everyone and everything around me.

Response to Manifestos

To be straight forward, the first part of this reading didn’t make much sense to me. However, the second and third parts made quite a bit of sense and were enlightening.

The second part, Jiro Yoshihara’s Gutai Manifesto, was about how Gutai art was about not changing materials but bringing then to life. He says that in Renaissance art, there is no more life. There used to be “magnificent life,’ however, because of the change in time and society, the life has died. He says, “They [the art works] already belong to a world of the past.” He goes on to talk about what Gutai art was. “Gutai art attaches the greatest importance to all daring steps which lead to an as yet undiscovered world.”

What Yoshihara is saying in the first part is basically that representational art is murdering or corrupting the materials or mediums that are used to create it. The artist is trying to make something out of something that already has meaning and “spirit.” The art that is produced will someday not mean anything and not create an emotional experience for the future viewers because the meaning will eventually have no context. The only thing it will be good for is technical observation and archeological existence. I completely disagree with these ideas. I feel a connection to work from the past and not just to the techniques within the works but to the meanings and life in the work. However, I do believe that there is a good point in that abstract art is about the life within materials. They have so much potential and energy in them. I think that its essential for every artist to explore abstraction in the sense that the exploration will lead to a better understanding of their materials.

The third part, Mierle Landerman Ukeles’s ‘Maintenance Art Manifesto,’ was very interesting. It made me think about every action I take and every thought I have. It opened  my eyes up to how little of my day is actually about “development” or creative work. It showed me how much monotony there is in life, and it showed me that I should continue to be more mindful of my actions and thoughts so that I can be more productive.

This reading has shown me once again how amazing people are. I would have never thought to think about the ideas that these three authors wrote about. It has shown me that I need to continue to think about every single thing in life and art to fully understand what’s around me and in my head.

Weeks 7&8 Progress

So, these weeks have been crazy, obviously. All I had time to do was buy boards, put two coats of gesso on them, set up some models for reference photos, and take one set of reference photos. I had planned to do this week’s assignment of working 8 hours straight in the studio Wednesday the 5th, but I ended up traveling to my grandparents’ house in South Carolina that day to escape Hurricane Matthew. I didn’t bring anything with me because I was just trying to make it out of St. Augustine safely before everything got too crazy.

I have made progress on the ideas behind my work. I don’t have them cemented yet, so I don’t want to share just yet. I’m excited to get to work when it is safe for everyone to return to the residence halls and school.

Also, I don’t have any photos of work in progress or finished work. I don’t want to post the reference photos I took because I told the model that I would be the only one to see them.

Response to History, Frames, Filters

Though this week’s reading was short, it gave me a great deal to think about. The first section helped me understand my work better. The question, “How do you describe your work in a historical context,” and the three questions that come from that question being broken down “into three concentric circles,” (“First, describe the history of your own work; second, describe the events and circumstances during the time you were {and are} working; and third, identify the influential events in the history of your artistic field.”) are a great way to begin to look at my work more closely and more deeply.

My past work usually had to do with the figure and humans in some way. I have tried for so long to figure out why the human body captivates me. I just thought that maybe it was because it was the hardest thing to draw or paint or sculpt because we are the most familiar with it because it is us. That theory is part of the captivation, but I think that another part has to do with my issues I have always had with my body. It has to do with being comfortable in my height and weight because I have always been the bigger person in my friend group, and I was the tallest girl in my class since preschool. I think that I am trying to find the beauty in all figures, including my own.

The second question is answered in that I am constantly thinking about human bodies because of the contemporary movement to accept everyone’s body as being beautiful. I am trying to figure out how I fit into this world, both in a life purpose and in a physical existence.

With the third question, I’m not quite sure how to answer that one just yet, but I believe that with time I will not only be able to actually answer that question, but be able to answer all three questions better and with more clarity.

I have always, at least as far back as I can remember, been aware of the ideas brought up in the second section on frames and filters. Every adjective and adverb is relevant to the present time. I know that in my twenty-one years on the Earth, many words have changed meanings. Also, my mom and grandparents use some words in a way that is outdated compared to the contemporary usage of the words (unfortunately, I cannot think of any words fitting this). I think that as artists, we must always be aware of current frames and filters because viewers of our work will more than likely be up to date on the current frames and filters and could be confused and could erroneously perceive our work.