Reading Responses

Digital Journal Exercise #1

1. The “spirit paintings” and figure paintings I did last semester were probably the most me... because they were clear representations of things that existed in my dreams and mind, and the content of them was far more personal.
2. It may seem like a lousy answer, but I don’t think I’m directed enough to relate to any amount of particular artists. I enjoy experimenting in medium and meaning too much, and am inspired by too many things to develop a sufficient response to this question. I’m currently watching photoshop painting videos from amazing artists... unbelievably inspired and yet- I already have forgotten the majority of their names. I find someone that inspires me every day. 
3. Because a key component to all human interaction and civilization building is communication... which art is a form of.
4. The idea of “completing a relationship with something outside of myself” is pretty foreign to me, but I’m familiar with the idea of making art in response to the world... isn’t your thought process in general a reflection of the world around you and how you interact with it?
5. What do I notice about myself? Well, currently I’m painfully aware of my inability to focus.. it’s taken me an hour to write these short responses because I’m so distracted by the illustration section of tumblr and the photoshop painting tutorials I keep searching out. I also am aware of how annoyed I am at how little I seem to be pushing myself. Frustrating. What are my methods? For what? Eating? Painting? Sleeping? Living? I have no idea how I do any of these things. The fact that I made it this far is a miracle in itself. I’m hardly self aware. For this reason, I don’t think I’m exactly in the position to determine what my ordinary subject matter could possibly be. I like stories. I like getting responses from people. I like making them laugh. 
6. I care about understanding how my mind works, and how to better my way of living. I care about how my art develops. I care about where it will go. I’m simply passionate about what I do... whatever that is.

Choosing a Mission Response

I enjoyed the reading in the sense it gave me some clarification as to what is expected from artists, what is thought about them, what they think about themselves, and what the do- or don’t- do. The reading also took the form of another ruthless device to pull me even further from whatever kind of structure could have remained in my career choice and artistic direction. I have an appreciation for the lack of rules in art today, and how we’ve reached this point. I have an appreciation for the people who broke the boundaries of what is considered “art” or what the job of an “artist” is. The more I read this, though, the less I think of myself as an “artist.” In the career sense, anyways. I mean, everyone is an artist, really. The way you walk or choose to eat your donuts every Tuesday morning makes you an artist. If you make decisions and interact with people at some point in your life, you can qualify for the job. I don’t know if I find this as liberating as I do hopeless. I don’t know if I find it inspiring, or literally overwhelming to the point of evoking nausea. Where does that leave us? Where do we want to go? I entirely understand the writer in bringing up the question of why “artists” follow their career path.   After it all, it seems their driving force is simply their craving to make art... shallow as that seems to me at times. I don’t think of myself as an artist because I’m not working for myself. I don’t know if I even enjoy making it. The conscious decision for it to be created is hardly there. I largely do it because it is simply what I do. It may sound pretentious, but the process is often devoid of feelings altogether. My attention deficit is so bad that when I do start making art I’m hardly aware of what I’m doing till it’s finished. Even then I don’t know what to think about it. The cycle continues, and here I am today. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a robot. An art making robot... and a bad one at that. I’m in a sea of artists that seem infinitely better than me. What is my driving force, then? What drives me down this ungodly sketchy career path? Nothing. This is just what I do, and this is just how it goes.

Drawing 3 Walk the Line

    I was pretty stuck on what to do for this assignment, so I began dissecting its name. My focus began on walking and different methods of making lines while walking, but then it turned to the actual line itself. While researching line as an element, I came across a Paul Klee quote I particularly enjoyed; "A line is a dot that went for a walk." With this, I decided to conjoin every word from this quote in a script-like line, and literally walk it. At first I thought of doing this on a much grander scale, but the idea of reducing your size to something near an ordinary lines level was intriguing to me... like, being able to walk/follow the lines of a drawing. I use my hand in the beginning of the video to give a sense of scale, the follow the line of the quote closely with my camera lens. As I do so, things become rather ambiguous, which is kind of relaxing to me because it enables you to simply looks and the changing levels of light and composition. When the line comes to an end, I draw back the focus, and the full quote appears. In addition, I picked the song because the line in the video reminded me of traveling down a road, of progressing through life ( with it's ups and downs). Finally, the sound produced while hitting the "button" at the start of the video is only a very happy coincidence.

Portfolio Progress

Quick drawing from a dream I had earlier today.

Unnecessary Clothing (Drawing III Assignment)

Drawing 3 Tape Lanterns

      For the tape assignment I made a series of eight different lanterns, made entirely out of tape, and hung by tape. The inserted lights are battery operated candles.