Project II: Consumption

3 Hours (Morning):
- Toothpaste
- Tissue
- Water
- Hot Tea
- Bagel
- Cream Cheese
- Paper
24 Hours (After the 3 hours)
- Water        
- Soup
- Hot Tea     
- Paper
- Water        
- Animal Crackers
- Paper        
- Chocolate Truffle
- Water        
- Peanuts
- Soda          
- Chocolate Truffle
- Water

On this page are a few preliminary drawings for the project.
My idea stems from the idea that consumption can be like a monster.  Growing up I've seen a lot of friend's lives ruined with consumption.  Your classic alcohol or drugs, or even greed.  Four years into college I've met some new close friends and I'm still seeing how consumption can effect their lives.  Alcohol becomes a necessary tool to function in society.  (I've even seen this in myself within the past year.)  Street drugs help them feel a happiness they can't feel anywhere else.  Prescription drugs help them not struggle with chronic pain but destroys their inner organs.  Consumption for them is a monster.

However, I also see how consumption helps.  By the consumption of healthy foods, or really food in general, plenty of fluids, etc, a person can remain healthy.  Just for me consuming enough calories each day is hard but a necessary and rewarding task.  Something that I found when keeping track of the things I consume was how much paper I use each day.  I use it for assignments, printing out notes, test photos, jotting down useful notes, planner, working out thoughts, writing poems, etc.

I chose to make a type of constume for the project.  It will represent a type of Consumption "Monster".  I italicize monster because I want it to not be clear if it is a monster or not.  Just like no one can clearly define consumption as good or bad.  The base skirt type thing will be entirely of recycled magazines and papers representing how much I use daily.  It will also be made of ads that we see everyday.  Ads telling us what we need to consume.  The mask will compose of cardboard from item packaging I use daily, bottle caps from the drinks I've drunk, among other recycled items I've found or used. 

Reading: Thomas Kinkade and Vanessa Beecroft

Thomas Kinkade

Beginning questions:
1.  Why is this type of artwork in this book?
2.  What is the purpose of this kind of art?
3.  Is this even considered art?  Or an art with meaning?

I initially asked "is this even considered art" for a conditioned mentality.  I certainly recognize Kinkade's paintings as art, I mean they are aesthetically beautiful and I would imagine would take very developed painting techniques.  However I've seen them my entire life on merchandise type objects and when I first saw the pictures for the chapter, I automatically thought, wait, this isn't art, this is merchandise.  It took me a second to realize that yes, originally this was produced as art and not mass produced machine printed items.

Ending Questions:
1.  Is his "happy" perfect sounding life still that way?
2.  Has he worked on any other projects besides this one?
3.  Has he been through any traumatic experiences?


Vanessa Beecroft

Beginning questions:
1.  What is her message concerning multiples.
2.  Is she going for a sexual feel?
3.  Is all of her artwork like this? 


Ending questions:
1.  What will she do as she ages and loses her "youth beauty".
2.  What is the real reason for not using herself in the pieces?
3.  Is there any other medium she has (or does) experiment in?

In Class Notes Sept. 21

Michael Ray Charles - Painter who paints graphic design type paintings addressing the issue of racism in ads.  He started out stating that many people say that he is perpetuating stereotypes in his work.  For every painting displays a black figure displayed in a mocking or even scary way.  He says that beauty embodies what we find ugly as well as beautiful.

Mathew Barney - There wasn't much I took away from this artist that was in words.  His major piece of artwork covered in the film was Cremaster.  I didn't have many words for this because I was just so interested in watching and seeing the intriguing images on the screen.

Andrea Zittel - This was an artist who created small spaces with everything she needed to live in.  Her artwork definitely made me feel uncomfortable, especially since I'm claustrophobic.  In a way I don't understand why she would want to create spaces like that, but in a way I do.  She mentioned that she grew up in a protected type living space and then moved to N.Y. as an adult.  She seemed shocked by the idea of new environments or people, culture, something in that experience.  So it seems that she creates these controlled spaces in order to feel safe.  If that is the case I understand it, but I hate tight spaces.

Mel Chin - This artist had some very interesting works.  Some I didn't quite understand, but still interesting.  For instance the idea of putting a dying out art form into a new one, IE the patterns from carpets from dying out cultures into a new culture of video games.  Or a project to give new life to a house that was burnt down.  The involvement of worms in the project didn't make sense though until the end of the film. My favorite though was the project where plants were planted into an area with toxins in the soil in order to clean it up.

Jennifer Price's Lecture

I'm always surprised by the artists in residency we get at the McColl Center.  They always seem so interesting, it feels too good to be true in a way.

Jennifer Price, a fine arts print maker from the UK whose work is similar to ink blot tests.  Reflecting her past and current conflicts with mental health.  My overall impression of Price's lecture was a good one.  She presented a variety of questions.  Should art perform a duty?  To this question she presented the option beauty for beauty's sake but at the same time she pointed out that content is important.  She almost made it seem as if art for beauty's sake wasn't worth it, at least for her.

Price also presented the question, what is my art about?  A common question among developing artists.  (Its certainly a question I've been asking myself lately.  She would later go into details, but she presented an interesting viewpoint being that in the beginning her art lacked confidence and it showed.  She began using ego as a tool and continued to use it.  It helped produce endurance and a drive for her artwork.  I was a bit surprised to hear that ego could be used as a motivation in art.  It certainly was an interesting viewpoint, especially since I try to take ego out of my work or artwork.  When I thought more about it though, it makes a lot of sense.  Artwork without confidence can seem meek, and ego could definitely boost that.

Price said that she began getting a firm hold in the art world with the Inkblot Series.  A series of prints in which she made by inking up objects and then laying down a sheet or similar cloth item on top of the inked item to make a print.  The process for the prints results in the use for the objects being taken away.  In a way the prints are an oxymoron of giving and taking.  To make the prints something has to be given up, lost, and that is the object's purpose.  But in the loss something is gained, a piece of artwork.  Something that I admire in the ink blot works is that Price leaves the interpretation of them completely to the viewer.  I normally try to push the "meaning" of my artwork on the viewer, but I really want to get away from this.  Examples of these prints were The Angel In The Laundry Basket and Suicidal Fairie.

She also commented on her work acting as art therapy.  But she also mentioned that she wanted to steer away from it be self serving only. Again this spoke to me.  Being an artist who uses their work primarily as art therapy, I often don't think of others when I do my art.  Many times my primary goal is to just get out a feeling on canvas or paper so I can deal with it there.  I really liked this aspect Price presented though.  It would be nice to reach a point where my art is not only self serving.

More questions were presented like can obstacles be overcome?  During a rough part of her career starting out she used salvaged plates from friends, bedsheets, and stockings for her prints.  She found places that she could exhibit for free.  So she found a way to do art in many obstacles.  It wasn't just laid in her lap.  Soon she found herself in the last year of the university feeling overwhelmed with the next step in life.  She had to decide to stop thinking about leaving the university and tell herself to just do something.  On this note I really feel for her.  Its something that has been approaching me lately and its frightening beyond belief.

Her talk moved on to her accident and I thought this was an interesting part.  When she was in the car accident she mentioned that her first thoughts were,  "I can't die yet.  I haven't done anything to be remembered for."  She mentioned that until you think that you cannot do something will you want to do it.

To finsih, Price mentioned during the Q and A with the crowd that she was very personal with her work.  That she has to find a way to part with an artwork that she feels a connection to and then sell it.  Hearing this made my heart leap because it is a major dilemna I've been facing lately.  I want to create, I want to paint a lot, I want to be an artist.  But I am very attached to my artwork and never want to let any of this go.  It would be interesting to hear how she gets around this attachment and I'm sure if I get a chance to talk to her at the McColl center I'll ask her about this. 

Identity Project.... Finished?

 

My piece makes a commentary on my identity rather than an explanation.  The figures in the painting are fictional illustrated characters that I have formed during the last year. They were formed after a best friend's car accident that left her brain dead.  The figures in the painting have similar bruising to hers when I saw her for the last times in the hospital and then wake.  

The figures represent the escapism defense mechanism that I have been using since the accident.  Creating a different, fictional world in order to cope with the present realities of accepting traumatic experiences.  The figure on the left is looking off, possibly at the wooden stake driven into the canvas.  He is weary, bruised, but determined and alert.  The girl on the right has a slight smirk, addressing the audience.  The boy's color is blue, the drips representing memories, internal like veins.  The girl's red drips for streaming blood, that has been exposed to oxygen.  As his blue memory tries to extend towards the right of the canvas, trying to connect to something, it is cut off by a smear of the blood of the red drips, leaving part of the blue drips floating without connection on the right hand of the canvas.  To me this symbolizes the accident.  Blood doesn't turn red unless its released.

The scarecrow in the back is the presence of alternate realities and escapism too.  I began drawing scarecrows in almost every piece after her death.  In a way scarecrows can be very cute but also very sad.  They are made to mimic being human, left in fields by themselves.  I think I use that as a metaphor for myself sometimes, when I don't feel like I fit in to the whole being human thing, isolated with certain feelings or experiences.

The pieces of wood driven into the canvas are related to experiences.  Within the last five years it seems that situation after situation keeps occuring.  Starting out with the death of my father, going through friend's suicides and murders, most recently ending with my best friend's death.  These wooden pieces are like the challenges coming through, piercing through the canvas.  The canvas in a way is like my skin I suppose.

Identity Project: Cont'd

My idea for the Identity project keeps changing.  At this point I've started my project, but it has changed from the original plan of digital paintings.  I'm doing a more traditional painting.  I haven't figured out if I want to use oil or acrylic paint though.  I want to paint in oil, but I don't think I can handle the fumes at this point with this respiratory infection or have the time for it to dry completely.  [Edit:  I decided on acrylic.  Here are some photos of what I have so far...]

I realize that I didn't add some of the information requested so I'm adding it now.

Touch points:
- Moving back into my childhood home.
-  Meeting Mrs. Faires. 
-  Joshua's death. 
-  Pam's disappearance. 
-  Dana's accident. 


Chosen touch point:
- Dana's accident.

Five adjectives describing that touchpoint:
- Heartbreaking, Stirring, Painful, Disheartening, Dismal, Understanding, Shocking,

Five metaphors/list of materials describing touch point:

- Scarecrows, pieces of broken items, objects or colors referring to the womb, sharp items, birds.


Action applied to materials:

The paints are applied both in dry and wet format.

- A scarecrow will appear in the painting, pieces of broken items and or sharp items might be impelled in the canvas, bird items might be added to the canvas, etc.

Touch Points for Identity Project (Continued)

For my identity project I will do a series of five digital paintings that might include some more fine arts materials such as watercolor or inking but they will be primarily done by digital means.  These five "paintings" will be sequenced and named Concepts of Dream Identities.

Each "painting" will depict a scene of a dream.  None will be literal representations of actual occurrences of my life, but they will try to depict some type of mood, feeling, etc of the experience.  Right now I'm going through a type of artist funk where I realize an artist will never be able to fully get across their meaning or intention to the audience.  The viewer will always view a piece with their emotional or experience "luggage" or their lack of it. 

That sounds very pretentious on my part but there is truth in the statement.  A viewer who has never had their friend go missing for two years, knowing that they were murdered by their father and also knowing that the murderer could never be caught without the body.  Going through the psychological trauma of desiring their friend's body to be found, only two years later having the friend's remains found in a field, and not enough of it for a trial to be started, the viewer normally won't get it.  Even more so, they'll probably translate it completely wrong or even be so turned off by it that they ignore and draw away from it.  I'm tired of trying to portray experiences like these and having reactions like these.  You pour so much of yourself into it for nothing.

So for my project everything will be in a dream state, nothing too literal or personal so the viewer will literally be thrown off.  There will be traces of feelings felt, but nothing that reveals too much.