Finals

Graduation in almost here.

I can't believe it. Pretty soon I won't be an "art student" I'll be an "artist". It's kinda a scary transition, but one I've been working towards, and one I feel I will always work towards. 

This past semester has been tough. From my computer crashing, to finding love, a lot has changed.

But I'm still working away in my studio. 

Here's some of the pieces I've done this semester:

I'll write more about them once the semester is up, and this art thing becomes my job/life. Right now, I have deadlines to hit and science exams to cram for. 

End of the semester

I'm halfway through my senior year. My studio is a mess, but my portfolio is rocking. Here's a few images of my workspace.

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The history of the avant-garde; as seen by a worn out, brain dead senior art troll.

Basically, the early modernists/impressionists looked at the salon and went FUCK YOU WE'RE GONNA DO WHAT WE WANT.

And for a while, everyone went with it. The cubists and fauves eventually formed their own special clubs, and everyone looked at it and went "HEY THATS COOL CAN WE JOIN?!" And they said "LOL NO" so the expressionists and futurists made their own special clubs that were similar BUT DIFFERENT from the cubists.

Then WW1 happened and everyone was like "OH SHIT". Cubism, futurism, and expressionism fell out of favor cause they were considered elitist and their intellectual optimism didn't fit with how much the world sucked. Many artists went back to realism, cause well, the world sucked so abstraction and intellectualism was no longer fun.

 The dadaists came forward with a "Everything sucks and nothing makes sense, so our art isn't going to make sense and we're going to point out the fact that the world sucks." They also laughedd at the elitism of ART, and loved mass production, and tried to blur the lines between art and machinery. Everything was art as long as you said it was, ALA Duchamp's ready mades.

 This gave the ability to De stijl, Bauhaus, and the Constructivists to shout "DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE IS ART TOO GUIS!" and they started mass producing art, and using their artistic skills to design every day objects that were useful. They wanted to bring art and good design to the EVERYMAN.

Surrealism also grew out of Dada, which embraced weirdness for the sake of weird, and trying to bring art back to some basic, subconscious world. They like sex and thought Freud was a cool guy.

Then the Nazis (and Commies) came and chased them all out to America or killed them cause they were a weird bunch of freaks anyways.

THE END

Epilogue: In AMURIKAFUCKYEAH they all invented a NEW INTERNATIONAL STYLE YO and made lots of money that they cried themselves to sleep on cause they were so misunderstood.

Epilogue II: The Americans they taught to be weird freaks were used by the CIA to defeat the RED BASTARD COMMIES and bring INDIVIDUALITY back to Europe.

Epilogue III- Feminism rejects the PHALLUS and celebrates the VAGINA that gave birth to POST MODERNISM. Pie was served by Ms. Chicago.

Epilogue IIII- Post modernism looks at this shit, calls modernists a bunch of FUCKING PROGRESSIVE OPTIMISTS who succeeded at NOTHING, and turns art into irony and cynicism. They declare Duchamp a god and TROLL ON.

Midterm Painting Crit

Man oh man, I just had my first painting crit yesterday.


I was sort of expecting to get ripped, My paintings are weird, especially next to everyone else in my studio, who's work is either super illustrative(people trying to get into gaming and concept art) or people trying to be Lucian Freud and Jenny Saville. Not that there's anything wrong with that, those painters are amazing, but that's just not where I am right now.

 So after critting a few lovely figurative works, and some great fantastical landscapes, we come to my quirky cities. At first, I was met with silence. Dead silence. My stomach fell. Silence is never good. Ever. But slowly, someone piped up about my neon, vibrant colors. There was also talk about my mark making. My professor posed the question of whether I'm naive or sophisticated.

Some of the ways my classmates described my paintings made me laugh. Vibrant, gutsy, aggressive, childish, nervous, and plenty of attitude. Things that describe me more than my paintings. One thing that was noted is I'm much more process oriented than content oriented. I'm constructing these spaces with nothing more than formal issues in mind, and just trying to have fun with quirky, confusing, and odd spaces. (Which harkens back to a comment my professor made to me that I'm having "too much fun" with these partings. Har Har)

But I have never heard my professor speak to highly of a students work during crit. He said that he loved where I was going, and was excited to see what happens next. I was so scared for this semester, since he's a very critical teacher, and often speaks so deeply and philosophically that I thought I might not understand anything, and butt heads constantly.
 
There were things that needed help, especially speaking about the content of my work. But all in all, there as nothing negative about my finished painting. the one I had started last week had much more wrong with it, but that's because it was only started a week ago. Things like I was being too self conscious, too controlling with the paint and marks. So I went in and I loosened up, and purposely messed a few things up. The image above about is just a corner of the painting- part of it that's working very well.

First Project's In!

It's been a whirlwind of a few weeks. You know you're in for a time consuming semester when you're handed the first assignment before the syllabus. That on top of 2 jobs and theory readings? Man, I'm just glad I have time to sleep! (I'm trying REAL hard to keep this thing going though. Really). Actually, not really. While I'm pretty busy with homework and studio, I seem to have a lot more time at home, and have been getting pretty good sleep. My roommates this year totally rule, and they're (trying) to teach me how to cook. Handling food jointly and cooking IS way cheaper, so I'm perfectly okay with that. No ramen either! Yay!

Anyway, last week, or was it the week before that? I turned in my first sculpture project. I was working with some old ideas. The last 2 times I wanted to work with these concepts I got shot down and told my ideas were "vandalism" Pfffffft. Lamers have no sense of fun, right?  

School Has Started

School's back. Been back for like, 3 weeks now? Whoops. I've been so busy getting into the motions that I haven't really had time or energy to update- but hopefully that'll change and I'll make a habbit of updating at LEAST once a week. Yay.

It's weird not being in 3 studios. Only having 2 art classes is really throwing me off. I have more 'free time' but a LOT more readings to do. Theory and Early modern are really killing me, and they really make me think way too much. I'd rather be spending all that time actually painting than spending whole days reading.

 I've really missed the studio. More of the group feel, and the constant feedback and help with my work. I already feel like I have stronger work and a better direction.

And yes, my studio is clean. It won't be for long.

I'll update later with some of my drawings and other fun things I've been up to, with more info on how my process has grown and changed.

Road Trip! Pt1

No real drawings for this one folks, I'm on the road, so no scanner! (Might be able to swing a few photos of the sketchbook though, I'll keep in touch!)


Anyway,  as said in my last post, school starts next week. (bleh)

And in ONE LAST DITCH ATTEMPT to embrace the freedom given to me and my mother by being an unemployed 20-something college student living at home and a stay at home mom/freelance photographer, respectively, we decided to hop in the car, and see where the road would take us.

Option 1 was west. Towards the mountains. Towards Yellowstone. It'd be a loooooong drive, flat, but with seriously awesome results.

Option 2 was south. More mountains. a road well traveled, but a place we really do love.

 

Option 3 was to the East, and slightly north. Towards ocean breezes, mountains, and awesome fishy foods.



Well, we chose one of these options, and piled our stuff in the car. BIG pile there. And we drove.

 I have photos from some of our stops, and rambles about our adventures that I'll post as  I feel like it, and plenty after the fact! I'm not even posting on facebook where I am. That's half the fun.