Wednesday, December 14, 2011

food art 2



art is a cat

food art images



Food Art and Final Post

For my final project for this class I decided to make two kinds of food. My original idea was to play off of two jokes we had during class, 1: Art is a Cat and 2: time is white. So I was going to bake a sheet cake and use white icing to cover the cake then top it with the figure of a black cat. Then the more I though about it, that idea just seemed too simple and too normal. I then came up with the idea of mixing my passion for photography of course in to my art and created a cake in the shape of a camera. Then while I was exploring a craft store back home I was a box to make pretzel mix and decided to go along with my cat idea and make a cat out of pretzels.

I chose to bake a cake because I was home and could use my kitchens and all its supplies better then at school, and my mom also had all the ingredients. I chose chocolate cake because it is dark, like a camera, and its my favorite flavor. I used a bread pan to make the overall body shape, the mix allowed for two of these pans. I chose the best overall shaped one and then cut the camera hand rest out of the other cake and shaped it and stuck it to the main body.I also put some cake on the top to represent the flash section of the camera. I experimented with using white icing and then black color food spray, but that turned out really gross so I just stuck with chocolate icing. So I just put chocolate icing all over the shape then stuck a photo on the back where the main screen would be on a real camera. Used dove chocolate pieces to represent the shutter button and another dial. I put white icing in shapes to represent other buttons and marks on a real camera. I finally created the lens out of doughnuts. I put one doughnut on the cake first then placed a photo in the hole and placed another doughnut on top of that one to give a medium lens size effect. Visually it is not perfect of course and there is not black icing but I think the photos within the lens and on the back are a nice visual additive. I am happy with how it turned out and excited to eat it.

My pretzel, although probably stale not, was more of a random experimental project. I have never made pretzels before but I knew I could shape them however I wanted to so that is what I did. I made the shapes of the face, eyes, nose and ears from pretzels, picked the best shapes and then pieced them together to create a cat face. I decided to use the cinnamon coating for this cat because I though it would make the pretzel look hairy or fuzzy like a real cat and create that visual effect. I used green jelly beans as eyes to make them stand out. Then I used tooth pics to create the mouth and wiskers because I though it would be un-reliable to make small enough and thin enough pretzels to look right. As I was placing the pretzel into its container it started to fall apart and I have had to use more tooth picks to hold things together. It took a long time to complete both and I just hope in the end that neither fall apart.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

KoKo

I have been hearing KoKo talk about her SMP all semester while in class with her and it was interesting to see it up close finally. I heard her talking about making a quilt and to myself all semester I was thinking how is this really art? Not just is it art, but I just expected more out of KoKo because she is a very compelling artist and usually brings in a background story. Then as the semester went on I heard more about it an that the quilt was about home and connected to her passion for habitat for humanity and then I was amazed once again by Ko Ko.

Her SMP is titled Sew It Seams, this play on words fits her work nicely. She talked about how there are homeless people in St. Mary's County and that it is an ongoing issue. There are a lot of foreclosures within the county and many homeless people are squatting in abandoned homes around the county. This issue is very hidden to us college students. It seems like we as a general population are sort of hidden from the outside world of this county we are a part of. The idea of this really seems close to KoKo's heart and she wants to show the SMCM student body what issues lie outside SMCM's boundaries.

The quilt she made is a strong way of raising this issue through her art work. Yeah, she could have just made some posters and tried to get her point across, but in the end they just become wallpaper and disappear. The quilt is a fun new way of showing people the truth. To create the quilt she sat outside the great room, and askeed people to think about what home means to them. Then to translate this onto a quilt square, through art. So no only is her piece her artwork but it also hold other peoples views on home. These squares were then literally and figuratively stitched together to create this big quilt, holding the many views of home. People drew what they loved about home, whether it was a scenery or maybe a pet or family member. The quilt as a whole was very well put together and designed. Also, her presentation of the quilt was very effective.

She hung the quilt on the wall and also places a rug, pillows and other home like items around her corner space to make the set up feel more comfortable. People were then invited to sit on the rug and use markers, hot glue and so much more to create even more quilt squares.

KoKo is a very effective artist in everything she does, she always finds a deeper meaning and tries to show it, and I believe she did this very well with her SMP. I dont know if she will make more quilts or expand the current one or go off on a whole new idea all together. I am very interested to see where she goes with it for next semester and how her final project will turn out.


Jenny Metz

Although I did not make it to the SMP talk I did go into the gallery multiple times while it was open. The Art I was most drawn to was that of Jenny Metz. She created three pieces of wall art fro multiple photos. From a distance, walking into the gallery I saw the images and from this distance they just seemed normal. They seemed like places she had just photographed, cut up and layered back into their original landscape. It was not until I got closer that I realized that the large scale landscapes were not actually just repeat images of the true landscape, just broken up. But they are actually very zoomed in single photos of a space then put back together again like a puzzle. At this point I was like this is so awesome why didn't i ever think of this. Then I kicked myself in the butt because Chris Saah showed me an artist that does something very similar to this. I cannot remember the artists name, but he takes photos of a space then puzzles them back together layering them as he goes. But the catch is that with this freedom of multiple images, he recreates that space and alters it so that it is not an exact representation of the actual space. While remembering this artist and looking back up at Jenny's art i realized, she did the same thing.

Two of the images are very familiar places to St. Mary's students, route five and up by Kent hall. When I first looked at them they seem unaltered, but after remembering the artist Chris showed me, I relaized she did the same thing. These very familiar images I was standing in front of instantly became unfamiliar, they had been deconstructed and reconstructed in a different way. The route five image made it look more like a fish eye effect. in the foreground you see the gaurd rail and grass so close up that you would have to kneel down in real life to see them this detailed. But then you see the guard rail shoot back in the direction behind you and in front of you, In real life this could never happen but in this image it has. You are seeing far more then you would ever see in real life just in one image.

The image near kent hall is far more deconstructed and then reconstructed in an altered way again. The two main trees appear to be almost touching in the sky. It gives me that feeling like you get when you lay down on a grassy patch and just look up. The trees seem to fall inward toward you at an angle that is unrealistic.

As an artist I have learned to look at the image first then read the description so that is what I did this time. In her description she talks about how she deconstructed the subjects and "calling attention to two types of vision: the way the camera lens sees and the way the human eye sees" these two things are often compared a lot in the photography world. The camera lense sees the world as we see it. Just capturing the light reflected off subjects and seen by our eyes and the camera's film. Jenny talks about how the public has become accustomed to seeing the world in photographs and that photos are proof, proof of the world. This idea is brought up a lot in my art classes recently. The issue that an event is not true and did not happen unless it was photographed. I think this is because of how much we are bombarded with news, ads and social networking these days.

The aesthetic that Jenny's pieces create is amazing and they make the viewer see different things as the get closer and pan the art work. She did an amazing job and has sparked many ideas in my head for future projects.

Monday, December 5, 2011

critique response

The in class critique was interesting and helpful. I learned things about how people interprete my work more then I would even see with my own eyes. It was brought up that people did not see the red and black color association with MD terps colors especially since it was a poster about the real terps. I though that was obvious, but probably because I am the artist. I learned that even the animals like the blue heron are not recognizable to some people. I mean clearly they have all seen one even i they have never taken notice to him, but one lives in the pond on campus that people walk past everyday.

As for the book the main response I got was just that people liked how it was constructed and it was easy on the eyes. They liked the photos.
I feel that the posters were effective in the simple fact that it made some people ask, so what are those animals it means they were showing interest and I achieved the goal of making people look.

self assessment for studio project

The artist I chose to research was Kevin Fleming, he is a nature photographer focusing on Delmarva's wild life. I chose to research him because I look up to him as an artist and I want to be a wild life photographer as successful as him one day. I decided to create a photo book as my studio response along with three activist posters. I know of Kevin Fleming's images primarily because of his print and books. My intention with creating my book was to show my view of the Delmarva shore thus far, and my photographs of it. I also created three posters which consisted of three animals I hold dear to my heart and accompanying them with activist statements. By creating these posters saying "Appreciate Nature" I wanted to show people the beauty of what is in their own back yard and make them want to save these animals.

I made the photo book as soon as I heard about the project so that ever really change din intention or ideas. Yet originally I was planning on just using the book as my studio response but then as the actual studio response time approached I decided to create posters to get my point across. It is sometimes not just enough to show the public pictures of the wild and expect them to care. A lot of the time it takes more, it takes statements to make them realize. So for this reason I printed posters with bold text over the images. All of them said "Appreciate Nature", then on the individual ones they had more specific statements. It bugs me how the University of Maryland portrays the terp to not even look like the true species, s0 for one of the posters I used my photo of a Diamondback terrapin on the beach and printed on it "The Real Maryland Terp" and "Save the Terp". To show people how beautiful the real Diamondback Terrapin species is. The statement on this poster was taking the realistic direct approach to make people act. Another poster I made took the sympathy path by printing "Save those who cannot save themselves" on my photo of a blue heron. Lastly I used on of my favorite pictures ever of horse shoe crabs. Animals often forgotten about and not even noticed.

When creating the Poster I did not have the original idea of keeping "Appreciate Nature" as the key phrase on each, that idea just progressed after making the first one. I also imagined them larger at first and only a pair but then was advised to create three. The end result was rewarding though especially since I have never created posters like these before.

Stepping back from my art work I would be probably a little puzzled at first glance at the posters. I would first of course notice the pictures and like them but them start reading the words and try and figure out their point. I think the "Appreciate Nature" would make me realize it was an activist poster rather then just a photo of an animal. When looking at the horse show crab poster I would wonder what it meant by "supporting out health system" and would look it up on my handy dandy i phone. I would notice the visual boldness of the font and colors and how the colors match nicely with the background enough to stand out but also fit in. I would immediately pick up on the color association in the terp image as being the MD terps colors. I do agree though that the blue heron image is a little too busy compared to the others in how there is more going on in the background and it is distracting from the fords especially "graceful' wrapped around the birds chest. I think to make a better statement they should be bigger and possibly have outlines around the text to make it stand out more.

Stepping back from my photo book I would notice the neatness of how it is formatted and presented. I would immediately want it to be larger to seem more professional. The contrast of the black book ad the bright colored images would catch my attention better and help see the images in a more professional manner. I may not notice at first how the book is set up as far as progression through the year and places across the shore but it may click with me the second or third time I viewed it.

If I had the opportunity to change anything I would make both projects larger. I would edit the typing on the posters to stand out more. I would edit the blue heron photo slightly to make the background not so distracting and I would take the word graceful out of the poster. I love the book, so I would not change probably anything about it.


Monday, October 17, 2011

First half of the semester



Even though this class is only a 100 level course it is challenging for me because it does not just have one focus. It is all over the place as far as mediums of art. i was never interested in art as a child, which broke my mother's heart, since she was an artist in her younger days. I elected not to take an intro art course in high school, so I never learned the artistic basics past middle school. So when we have to create simple art works in class it is slightly more challenging for me. I am happy that I elected not to take an art course in high school though because in place of that class I too Communications Technology which focused a lot on film photography. This is when I first got into the photography medium and never looked back.

Since this is an art class and I am a photography major so this counts toward my core requirements, but I am also an Environmental Studies minor, I have been trying my best focus all my work on photography along with the environment. I have a huge passion for both the environment and photography. I believe that you cannot convince people to save the environment and this beautiful world if they have not experienced it first hand. Whether that be in person or through a photograph.

This class specifically focuses on Time and how it is incorporated into art. It has been very interesting how much our world and the art world revolve around time. It is shown in paintings and music videos. We watched a couple music videos which based their hole set up on time and reversing and distorting it. The videos went in reverse and repeated and just confused me completely until I watched it multiple times. i guess time itself is a lot like this. You may not realize what has happened as it is happening but once you look back and reflect it may begin to make clearer sense. Then we watched the movie and that just had so many flash backs and was a web of people and time and lies to create the back wards motive of the main character to kill an innocent man.
As we created the collage and post card we had to think about time and the outside world and how to show ideas in art. in the collage I wanted to incorporate photos and the cameras themselves as a sort of portal into time. For the post card I focused on St. Mary's beauties and the people. Just all switched around and misplaced to create an alternate world. We also listened to musical selections and drew during them to express the feeling we contracted from listening to the music. The music that was chosen was very different in styles and sounds so each art work was fairly different. The readings we have completed have helped up understand how time is incorporated into life and art and how time can be percieved in different ways. Some people much like myself believe that time exists in nature and is based off of nature and that the natural creatures of the world do have a sense of time. Then there are those who believe that time is artifical and concrete for the sole purpose of society.

In the end I think this class is helping me to understand art in are broader view then just photography. Yet it will still be my focus an all the outside perspectives and ideas are helping me thing about photography and my photos in a more abstract manner and is helping me to come into shoots with new ideas and perspectives. I think about time more and more about how photos are visual archives of time and without those frozen moments, those times may be forgotten.


Artist proposals

I have decided to propose three photographers that make a career out of the topics I also find interesting.

Kevin Fleming: Nature and News photographer from Delmarva. Mainly a nature photographer, that has worked for National Geographic and has also covered events and places in his career. i have seen his photos my whole life and I admire him very much. I have done small amounts of research on him before but if I choose him this time I wish to personally contact him and find some further info on him that is not available on the internet.

Walter Iooss: A sports photographer who photographs many sports not only game play but portraits of the athletes. He was successful at a young age and has had many images in Sports Illustrated. I am getting more and more into sports photography so I think researching a professional further may help me.

Toni Frissell: First ever woman photographer to work for Sports Illustrated, worked as the photographer for Women's Army Corps and took photos of presidents and other famous individuals. She was a pioneer in sports photography and her work is so famous it in in the Library of Congress. It would be interesting to research her more because of the simple fact that she pioneer women sports photographer which I am.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Post 2

Since the last post we have played a game, read an article, drawn, and watched half a movie. We played a form of Pictionary which was very interesting. We were asked to write ideas on paper which we thought would make good art pieces, unknown to us the intentions of these ideas. Then as the game played out it was interesting how ideas we thought would make good art turned out to be so hard to draw and depict. For example, how do you depict "Sarah Palin", well I tried to draw Alaska and a woman's face but my partners just could not figure out what my topic was. Not only was it hard to depict with a simple pen and paper but with out words or voices it was hard for the viewers to figure out what our lines and figures meant. This theme of drawing simple pieces of art continued when we were asked to draw out first memory. I feel like the over all composure of the image reflected the memory itself. For those who had a vague and blurry memory their drawing reflected that and was also blurry and vague. then those, like me, who had a very distinct first memory, their drawings were specific and crisp. My memory was of sliding into my refrigerator at age five and slicing my head open. I drew everything I remembered from that memory: a fridge, dog, rain, the floor, and my head now scarred. Last class we then were asked in a moments notice to draw how we got to class. People like always interpreted this in different ways. Aaron took a broad view and drew a stork whereas I drew my shoe, and most drew a map like scenery of where the traveled on the way to Montey. I took from this past weeks classes that everyone interprets things differently. Many people are given the same topic yet they see it in all different lights.

The reading Time 2 kind of confused me and I did not like it too much, the first reading was far more entertaining. Although much like the first reading they refer to animals and their senses. In this reading it says: "wheres animals inherit various particular patterns of sensory awareness". Also saying how these are "releasers because they automatically initiate specific types of action" and how man must learn from experience. I think animals learn from experience too it is not all habit and nature. An animal learns that if they go hunting at a specific time they will be successful. They can learn how to obtain food and where to move too in times of need to survive. Also throughout our discussion on this reading we talked about whether animals have a sense of time. I think they do, even though it can be argued that animal migration is all mother nature and that they cannot control or learn the timing, I think this is false. For example, even though by innate nature Canadian geese will migrate south for the winter and they know exactly what time to leave. Well in the Eastern Shore of Maryland some of the geese never leave. They have somehow learned that they do not need to leave, the winters are not harsh enough, and when that nature calling to migrate goes off in their head, they don't go. The timing may be right but they have the senses to know not to go. The reading then touched on this idea that we observe everything and its just whether we remember it or not, and whether we key into everything or just specifics. "We recall best those thoughts that are connected with our special interests" by human nature I think this is true. I know speaking for myself when reading or listening to a professor lecture, I will remember something very clear if I like it and take interest in it, but if I don't take interest in it I will not remember.

I want to learn more about how others perceive nature and animals' sense of time. I take a lot of interest in animals and in nature. I watch them a lot and observe their motions through life. I feel as if a lot of people view them as lesser species then the superior human race but they take it to a level that degrades them and makes them seem unaware of their surroundings. I have grown up with all different kinds of pets and I see how they react in time and to changes in their lives. I just want to learn more about time in respects to nature. Maybe how remote places perceive time...?

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Post 1 : 9-7-11

So since the beginning of IVT we have gotten to know the class through their partners eyes, talked about what art is (or what is isn't which is very little), watched some mind bending music videos and read an article. The music videos were quite confusing and without watching them multiple times I could have never fully understood their meaning and what they were trying to convey. I don't think i could actually ever fully understand either video. People were traveling backwards then forwards and even multiplying. I thought they were really interesting and made you watch more closely then any Lady GA GA video. I even began to not even notice the music and the longer and more I watched the deeper and deeper into the background I saw.

The whole ball of wax was this pretty radical off the wall article written by this critic who got completely off topic from what he was supposed to be doing and going on about what art is and how people think about art and how art is simply a cat. I found it quite hilarious and interesting even though it criticized scientists, but I understand whee he was coming from. I really liked the quote "art can change the world incrementally and by osmosis." As we all know from it being drilled into our brains in 8th grade biology osmosis is the diffusion of water through a semi-permeable membrane. Well humans brains and feelings are semi-permeable membranes. We choose to let art in and try to understand it and others don't. I disagreed with the statement he makes that "things one doesn't understand changes ones life." I think in order for art or anything to change your life you have o understand it in some respects whether it be very limited or on a full dimension. I also agree that art is a cat. Dogs are easy to read and understand and they are in your face. Cats take an extra element to understand.

I would like to know more about the way the Director makes those music videos. Recording movies and film is so foreign to me and I would like to know how he cut and times the mso welll along with cloning people in the first film. I would also like to read more articles like the whole ball of wax. Short Articles that get to the point and are commical and blunt.