What is Art?
Art is expression. I use it to express myself freely and compassionately. Art can’t be judged or criticized. If someone creates something they like, it is art.
Self Evaluation
This past semester in Advanced Art, I have done more than I realized I could ever do. Everything from working in depth with photography to creating a project made of eggshells; I feel that this semester I really grew as an artist. My horizons have expanded. This semester taught me to appreciate a variety of art, not just what I or MoMa likes.
I would say that my best piece, so far this year, is my Sally Mann inspired series. A series of three photos, I replicated aspects of Mann’s pieces, in my own, creating an entire new image with me as the subject. Intense and disturbing, Mann’s pieces evoke an emotion in her viewers that many photographers struggle to achieve. I believe that my interpretation of her pieces evoked emotions, from my viewers, as well. Hearing everything from “that’s creepy” to “whoa, this is cool,” confirmed my aspiration that I pulled equivalent emotions from my viewers.
On the other hand, I would say that my worst piece this semester was the artist inspired project. Just getting my feet on the ground in the new school year, I did not have the best start. My mirror project asked for too much viewer participation and the complexity of it left people not wanting to look at it at all. I think that I had a fascinating concept, but conveying its intricacy was where I went wrong.
Throughout this semester, I have improved in a variety of ways, but the most obvious would be my photography skills. I believe I have doubled in strength of taking pictures and my efficiency in the dark room has also excelled. I want to work more now with lighting and placement. Contrary to photography, I would say that I could improve most on my drawing skills. To be honest, I am intimidated to draw in a class full of very talented realistic sketchers, but I think that next semester I could work hard on abstract sketching, painting, and drawing. I want to sketch a picture of Chuck Close. I want to use paint freely, exploring the canvas. I want to draw a realistic picture of my dad. I will be able to do all of these, if next semester, I work on my drawing and precision skills.
One artist that I will definitely be studying in my pursuit to become a better realistic drawer is Chuck Close. We have looked at his work a lot this year, but I want to go deeper. Where did he first learn to draw and paint? Was he always so good? Close has a level detail in his work I think I could emulate by dividing up a piece into sections to work on each day.
I would say that my work has a high level of conceptual elements, while at the same time maintaining formal (visual) aspects to it. When creating a new piece, I think of a story I want to tell, then, pick how I can display the piece to stimulate my viewers. I always want my pieces to be visually pleasing and I want the viewer to be intrigued. I want them to get so close they could touch or smell it. I would say that so far, all of my pieces have been heavily visual and appealing to the viewer.
One of my main goals for my art is to create a piece that evokes emotion from my readers, enough to make an impact. I want to create a piece to stimulate enough anger, passion, or happiness, to change a feeling with in the reader. Whether my piece smells so bad the viewer has to walk away or my piece is so beautiful, they cry, I have achieved my goal. Once the viewer has felt an emotion, they are attached to the piece.
For our group installation, I will help splatter paint the canvases, draw the sharpie lines, sew the sheets, and many more things. I think that I will be able help my group stay organized and aware of due dates. I want to be a big part of this project; I will not just sit back and let my group do the work for me. One of the hardest parts so far of the installation has been unified agreement in our group. We have so many different styles and personalities of artists, each person wants to do a different thing. But we have reached a place where we are all thrilled about our piece and cannot wait to begin designing it.
So far, I feel most proud of my Ten Commandments piece. The piece consisted of ten photographs portraying an interpretation of each of the Ten Commandments. Each photograph took days to take and develop, and then after I printed all the photos, I individually cut, from the newspaper, each letter that spells out the wording in each commandment. The piece was tedious and time consuming, but I thought the way it turned out was fabulous. The photos were displayed on a white wall, straight across, the first photo being “Thou shall not steal.” This commandment piece set into motion an idea that I would like to achieve before our off campus exhibition. I would like to create a 20 to 30 photographic series of people and their cars. I have always believed that cars have their own personality, when driving down the road, you can see which cars are mean, nice, scared, or happy. The cars with a burnt out headlight are winking and the cars with LED lights are wearing glasses. My odd fascination with the personality of cars, I think, would create a very intriguing series of people and their car. I would have the car owner stand next to or sit on their car. From looking at the finished photos, I want my viewers to see cars how I do.
This semester has helped me realize who I am and where I stand, as an artist. I am not ready to continuing exploring both my comfort and uncomfortable zones. Next semester, I am excited to see how I grow and use my skills I developed from first semester.
