Wk10-Art Experience-INSTAGRAM

I personally love using Instagram and I was more than happy to make some posts of my day.  Overall, I wanted to take mostly night pictures because I was heading home so I took one flying out, and one in my car.  The other two were of my bag, and of the interesting 3D model of Helen Werner Cox’s exhibit Silent Screams.  Taking a picture on Instagram involves some serious decision making.  First, is it worthy of taking a picture.  Second, what colors are you going to add and what effects will you make it.  Does it enhance the image is the last most important question!  I personally love taking photos on Instagram, sometimes so many people will text me to stop posting on Instagram!  Our class hashtag actually had beautiful continuity on the time of day.  Of course because they are sorted that way but it makes it look very interesting.  The number that were taken in door and outdoors varies however it seems there were a lot more taken outdoors.  Overall, there were some really cool pictures that varied from in campus to out of campus and they all looked pretty cool.  In conclusion, we all have super interesting lives and I advocate the more constant use of Instagram to express it!

Wk10-Artist Conversation-Helen Werner Cox

Artist: Helen Werner Cox
Exhibition: Silent Screams
Media: Oil, water color, pastels, canvas
Gallery: CSULB School of Art, Gatov Gallery West
Website: www.HelenWarnerCox.com
Instagram: N/A

About the Artist

Helen Werner Cox is a graduate student at California State University Long Beach.  She has been doing art for a large part of her life however did work at Middle Schools.  She moved to the west coast because she did not like the weather in Boston and enjoys reading and gardening in her spare time.  She is working on her MFA in drawing in our arts program here.  She has been devoted to learning art throughout her life as she was studying art at Boston University, and now here.  To talk more on her personal life, she grew up in Ithaca New York but when she moved to California it was in Southern California.  She immediately loved it because it was a 180 from the weather in the Northeast.  She soon caught inspiration seeing horses in carousels in Santa Barbara and Southern California.

Formal Analysis

Her pieces of the carousel horses are smooth however sharp and edged. The smoothness comes from the oils and water coloring.  The sharp lines come from pastels and this creates a very interesting contrast. The colors are vibrant and there is stark contrast between them.  This lack of blending in the colors make them pop off the art piece itself.  Actually there is a very unique piece she has that also draws our attention.  Its a sculpture of one of the horses, a centaur.  Its saddle is colored while the horse is tan.  This change in medium shows her expertise in art.   Her larger canvases show larger strokes.  The horses silhouette is smooth however there inside is pastel based.

Content Analysis

Her artwork is actually super symbolic.  The carousel horses are obviously symbolic of childhood and memories.  However, she dives deeper into it.  She describes how society is stuck in a loop and how we kind of “go through the motions” everyday.  The way she used to describe this was the carousel horses themselves, and how we just wake up, go to work and go back to bed.  She criticizes this new modern way of life we created.  Her artwork I believe shows the beauty of everyone in some ways.  If the horses represent us, the colors also do too.  These vibrant colors give us the feeling that we are also individuals.  Also, it creates this theme that we should feel beautiful no matter what color, or how you look.  Overall, its a critique and comment of our society and our population in the modern era we are in.

Synthesis / My Experience

When I walked in and saw all the horses it immediately took me into a flashback in my childhood.  As a young child, I would always go to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk carousel.  It was an enjoyable time and a memorable moment of my life.  This exhibit made me feel a little bit like a child.  However, i saw her symbolism with society immediately when I read the title of her exhibit Silent Screams.  It made this feeling how we all hate the way we go through the motions.  However, we never do anything about it or speak out against it.  Hence the Silent portion of the Screams.  However, the vibrant colors and bright artwork gave it a pretty positive feeling into it.  She described her art as never leaving her and it makes me feel so very happy because thats how I felt about my life.  I, at one point, admitted defeat in art and went for Business Administration.  However, it never truly left me and so I changed my major to Film because of that.  Art never truly leaves a person, its a bug.  Once its in you, it never leaves.

Wk9-Artist Conversation-Sean Joy Cabanig

Exhibition Information

Artist: Sean Joy Rosario Cabanig
Exhibition: All Work All Play
Media: Metal, Bronze, Copper, Gold, Silver etc.
Gallery: Marilyn Werby Gallery
Website: N/A
Instagram: N/A

About the Artist

Sean Joy Cabanig is an undergrad. at California State University Long Beach.  Sean Joy works with her art and expressed that she always keeps trying new things with it.  She finds the hobby of reading books enjoyable and is originally from L.A. proper. Her jewelry usually expresses fashion form in modern day society.  She is a art major.

 

Formal Analysis

Most of her pieces seem to have smooth contours and not to many jagged edges. The metal contains rough and rustic looks.  Meaning it is done by staining and having patterns on the metal.  The brown and dark colors are also used showing earthy tones.  The ball necklace piece shows a comparison between the shined chains and the dark colored balls that rest at the bottom of the necklace. There is a overall theme of jewelry and accessories in her metallurgical artwork.  Smooth curvatures meet at peaks on many art pieces as well.

Content Analysis

I believe her artwork is mostly about this image of bondage and jewelry we have today.  This could express maybe a cultural criticism on the purchasing of fine jewelry at high costs.  Overall, you get a sort of darker emotional feel from the objects. Especially the art piece that is a finger restraint with metal.  It shows maybe a co-dependency with accessories.  Or maybe, the title of the exhibit All Work All Play shows the type of role jewelry plays in society.

Synthesis / My Experience

To me it almost displays how often the jewelry is used.  We see a type of restriction with jewelry as it almost defines us a certain way.  At least, this is my interpretation.  She honestly might have created this art piece just because she really felt she wanted to create jewelry with a more rustic feel.  I feel honestly the artwork should be sold because its really visually appealing.  However, most of her pieces seem like they wouldn’t be very culturally accepted.  In the end, I really enjoyed this art exhibit more than any other.

Wk9-Classmate Conversation-Aaron Dela Rosa

For this weeks classmate conversation I talked to classmate Aaron Dela Rosa.  He is a Psychology major and is a first year at California State University Long Beach. I first talked to Aaron about his hobbies.  He really enjoys hiking, going to the beach, and taking Polaroids.  I really mended well with him because i love going backpacking and, because I am a film major, I love anything that has to do with a camera.  He stated that school could be tedious but enjoyable.  That is honestly a very similar view to school I have.  Aaron is from Los Angeles.  A varying experience because I am from Santa Cruz a small 60,000 person city.  I briefly discussed with him how bad the smog was in Los Angeles and how Santa Cruz never had that problem.  Lastly, before I left, I referenced how because he was a psychologically he can read minds.  The discussion closed there and in the end I learned something pretty important.  There are a lot of people like me, and Aaron is one of them.

Adam McConnelly- Space Scientist

Date: April 24th, 2046

Another day another catastrophic failure.  A couple days ago we failed to create the necessary flux drive to be able to travel at the speed we need to go to a solar system in our local group.  We need to be able to go 8 parsecs/hour but are reaching everything shy of that.  Ugh, if you do not know who I am, I am Adam McConnelly.  Noble Prize in Physics, and inventor of the Mark IV Warp Drive.  I was born about three decades ago in Brooklyn, New York.  I would always sit on my apartment roof and look into the sky seeing the thousands of stars that are splattered across the celestial sphere.  I wanted to fly up there and call one of them home.  It was always a dream.  At the age of 20, I was able to find and create the Mark IV Warp Drive which, in a sense, manipulates space time allowing objects to approach times faster… near Light Travel Speed. Now, NASA commissioned me to do studies on Moonbase Alpha and it is THE ABSOLUTE WORST PLACE to do scientific work.  Now I am stuck on this damn rock in space.  I am overseeing the creation of a launch pad and It is honestly what I am managing most of my day.  The launch pad, because of the lower gravitational acceleration on the moon, will allow for spaceships with less thrust to go farther.  This mediocre work is making me go partially insane to the point of where Ive went to get multiple psychiatric exams.  Oh well, such as like on a dark grey moon like this.  Hopefully I can go back down to earth where I will feel more appreciated.  Well at least I have made some friends along the way:

J, a pretty much renown engineer, meet him if you get the chance… he has a pretty interesting story: https://jmarquezart110.wordpress.com/2016/03/20/wk9-art-experience-j/

Mr.Dahrk, a more so sketchy fellow, keep an eye on him: https://davidbensite.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/mr-darhk/

Pepe Sanders, This is the great man who actually sent me here.  NOT! I am extremely upset by this mission and I want to go home gosh darn it!: https://aronismblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/21/pepe-the-frog/

 

 

Wk8-Art Experience-Automatic Drawing

For my Automatic Drawing Art Experience I did this with a friend Brian Nazarian.  This was actually a pretty cool art project.  I first started by taping four printing pieces of paper on a piece of plywood.  This created a great piece of support.  Brian and I sat on opposite coaches and put it between us.  At first, Brian did not understand and tried to forcibly draw his name so  I resisted.  Then we slowly let the process work and we actually almost got a face out of it.  One constant problem we always had doing it was hitting the edges of the paper.  Sometimes the edge would catch the pencil and cause wrinkles and tears.  At the end of the project, it was a silly and fun experience.  I really enjoyed it!  It was a bonding moment and also showed how maybe next time I should’ve chosen a friend who was not such a close friend.  So they wouldn’t try to draw random objects.  

Wk8-Artist Conversation- Almira M. Nikravesh

Artist: Almira M. Nikravesh

Exhibit: Farsh

Medium: MDF and Hydrocal

Gallery: Merlino Gallery

website: None

Insta: almiranikravesh

 

Almira Nikravesh is an Iranian CSULB undergraduate student.  She is currently a BFA Major and is in the sculpting specialization.  She is a senior and is graduating this semester.  One thing she does outside of art is lifting.  She said she likes to be kept in shape.  She chose art because art provides an escape and allows a person to be freeform and free.  She feels her artwork she creates applies to her life.  She chose sculpting specifically because it is free flow and has no medium boundaries.  Like many artists, one of the aspects she enjoys the most is that she can express herself, her life, and how she feels through art.

One thing that immediately drew my intention was how many soft smooth lines each foot and sculpture in the middle had.  The number of harsh lines was limited and what was striking was the lack of color.  All the feet were done in white and the structure in the middle was tan.  The toes were also not perfectly straight.  They were also remained human, as in imperfect.  The middle art piece was beautiful as it was perfectly symmetrical. The circles and lines in the art piece seemed to create really beautiful replicating textures. It actually replicates details that of a Persian rug.

To connect the idea of the Persian rug. Her sculptures seem to tie a lot with her ethnic background.  I talked to a Persian friend of mine and it is seen as respectful and polite if you take your shoes off.  Maybe this is why the bare feet are surrounding the rug.  Or, maybe the feet tie into a communal factor that she may have felt with her Iranian background.  Overall, you get a feeling of home when you enter into the exhibit.  Such as you are entering a place of warmth which comes from not only the color of the “Persian Rug” but also the absence of color in the feet that surround it.

I got the experience of entering a home from this art piece.  The feeling of the sculptures created a tranquil space.  I felt that her artwork created a peaceful nature and reflected a culture that I have never met.  Which, was a fun and interesting feeling in a way.  Being able to visit a culture that is foreign and alien to yours is a intimidating and exciting feeling.  I felt this on multiple trips to South America.  I felt it reminded me of those times when I wanted to learn more about a separate culture.  It almost highlights the idea of accepting other peoples cultures and seeing them as beautiful, fruitful, art.

 

Wk8-Classmate Conversation-Justin Marquez

My classmate conversation this Thursday was with Justin Marquez.  I found out Justin actually lives in my dorm!  It was an interesting fact.  One of the first topics we engaged in was basketball.  I noticed he was wearing a Lakers jacket and threw some funny jokes his away about it.  Me being a Warriors fan and him being a Lakers fan was an important discussion we had.  He did have a good point, his team beat mine a couple days ago.   However, having one of the greatest records in NBA History is a good point to establish.  Justin and I talked about certain dorm gossip and things about how it was to live in Parkside J.  If anything came out of it, a have another friend in the Parkside dorms.  Lastly, before we left we talked about video games.  We both play computer games and I was able to vibe with him on that.  To wrap up, I really enjoyed talking to Justin.

https://jmarquezart110.wordpress.com/

Wk7-Artist Conversation-Andrea Williams

ANDREA L. WILLIAMS

Artist: Andrea L. Williams

Exhibition: Sacrifice

Media: Cement, Clay

Gallery: CSULB School of Art, Gatov Gallery West

Website: mrsdubbayoo.weebly.com

Instagram: @andreawilliammms

The first exhibit I saw was Andrea L. Williams Sacrifice gallery.  Andrea Williams is a undergraduate student here at California State University Long Beach and is, obviously as many are, an arts major.  She is specifically in Ceramics (probably why she had a Ceramic exhibition).    She was born in California at Riverside.  Her being devoutly Christian and being a mother is expressed in her gallery.  Lastly, she has a wide love for animals as she owns some!

Her artwork contains ridges and bumps as it seems the cement and clay have not been flattened evenly. The colors that are mainly expressed are red, white and the background, grey.  This use of three colors creates a more impactful feel then a use of wide colors.  The painted lines are very sharp and defined.  Silhouette lines seem very exact.  However, non silhouette lines seem to follow a more chaotic pattern.  The clay forms at the bottom create a contrasting color with the grey background.

I believe her art piece describes how everything in life is a sacrifice.  Jesus sacrifice on the cross is no different then a women’s sacrifice of time with a child.  The colors create a dark intense tone that makes the observer almost unsettled.  Obviously religious feelings play heavily into her pieces.  She has one with clay models of sheep’s heads representing the good shepherd himself.  It also expresses a lot about the women body as It has women playing biblical roles.  Their is also one of a female torso, and baby hands around it.  The message of fertility, religion, and femininity are all heavy handed messages in her artwork in this exhibit.

This art experience actually made me question biblical masculinity a bit more.  There, of course, is always many male roles that are important in the bible.  However, females play a very minor role biblically except for the Virgin Mary. So, I took it more so as a religious commentary in my perspective.  I personally really enjoyed this gallery it definitely was one of my favorites of this year.

 

 

Wk7-Art Experience-Group Video Project

 

Megan and I made this video where we interviewed students on their college life!  It was a pretty interesting experience! I interviewed the people in my college suite.  First, I interviewed Brian who proved to be hesitant to be filmed which is why it is in such a weird angle and not head on like many of the rest.  The other, was John Hoyt.  He only wanted to be interviewed while he was showering and said he would not do it any other way…  Which honestly confused me.  Both interviews gained valuable insight into the diversity we have on campus major and life wise.  No two lives are similar.  Overall, you can see my friends are pretty weird and it was fun to collaborate with Megan on this project!  I am looking for other cool art projects in the future because this was one of my favorite ones.  At the end of the project, I obtained a closer bond with everyone (sadly, John Hoyt a lot more than others). The medium of camera is honestly very important to me because I am a Film and Electronic Arts major.  So whenever a camera is in my hands I get really happy and go crazy with recording.  This experience has just helped reaffirm by major choice and made me that much more happy I am in it!