Rationale: I had been feeling depression creeping up as the end of the semester approached, and so I needed to do something that was fun for me, and that I knew could be a spirit lifter for me.
I also really hate the way my laugh sounds.
By challenging myself to do something that does come naturally to me, such as laughing, was a challenge. But also to record myself laughing even though I hate the way I sound when I laugh was pushing me out of my comfort zone.
Picture someone who identifies as a feminist. One of the most popular stereotypes is an angry, loud woman who declares that all men are awful, probably a lesbian of the "butch" variety, holding up a sign in front of a capitol building wanting more women in leadership.
Some of this image is fine, some of it is not. So what exactly is feminism, if not an angry lady screaming about equality?
I only managed to read a segment of this book (as it is very long and pretty dense, and I wish I could take more time to read it because it's fascinating), and one of the big questions that was posed in the sections that I read was "can a work be 'feminist' if it doesn't allude to the female body in some way?"
Recently, the word "feminist" has become such a powerful and loaded term that a lot of people shy away from it. As a woman, I consider myself a feminist, not because I hate men or want women to rule the world, but I want equality for all genders. I don't want a role decided for me, my brothers, sisters, friends and associates, based on what biological sex I was born as. A woman shouldn't have to work twice as hard as a man for the same position, and a man shouldn't be seen as weak for choosing to stay home with the kids.
The argument here in this book is are we restricting women by only committing their art to that of a sexual nature? By restricting women to being just certain body parts and images, are we restricting the very definition of feminist art? And are we continuing to objectify women as nothing more than the parts of the body that are labeled as sexual? Men in art don't necessarily have to make art about their sex, or their experience as sexual beings, in order to be successful (though many of them do at least one piece that has sexual undertones, don't get me wrong). But it seems as though women artists, "feminist" artists, have a stigma attached to them, that they can't be "feminist artists" unless their work is somehow connected to their sexuality.
And the "feminist" movement is also seen as limited, or was seen as limited in the 1970's. Somehow if you wanted to be a successful artist as a woman, your art couldn't have a gender. "My art is genderless." Of course it's genderless. It's a painting on a wall. But the artist who made that painting on a wall has a gender, and for years women artists have been shamed into these stereotypes because they are, in fact, women artists. Women had to be "one of the boys" in order to get any respect in the art world, and that is simply not the case, and is a stereotype that is slowly coming out of play.
"To deny one's sex is to deny a large part of where art comes from." I don't think that women artists should deny their sexuality in their art--after all, why not own something that for years has been downplayed and downgraded by society? When you own an aspect of yourself, you make it all the more powerful.
Some questions accompanying this subject:
1. Have we restricted the label of "feminist" art to something predictable and confining?
2. How can we as teachers promote equality without shouting it from the rooftops?
3. What can we as artists do to promote equality?
-Color theory in relation to painting the skin is
something that I believe has been standardized. History has been “white washed”
to believe that skin color is just this white, peach, or slightly tanned color
that is easy to mix, but when presented against outside influences such as a
darker background, in this case, changes must be made to the mixture in order
to achieve that “sameness.” I didn’t quite reach the same color against the
darker background, it was a struggle for me to reach the color of my own skin. A
postmodern viewer could potentially find the struggle of trying to reach the
sameness shown here as attempting to reach the “white standard.”
-The black and white paintings follow an almost
AbEx feel and flow, constructing nonsensical patterns, and one could almost be
representational but could also not be. The modernist approach to viewing these
paintings would be to discuss how these paintings related to the use and
essence of the paint itself, not necessarily the painting.
1.How can painting your own skin color open up a
discussion about race and color? What about color privilege?
2.Would the abstract paintings mean more if you
could see them in person, or are they exactly what they are from the image?
3.Would you hang something like this in your
house? Why or why not?
My roommate has a friend (that I am well acquainted with). Jacobi was staying with a friend one night, here in Utah, and it was late, somewhere between midnight and two in the morning; he heard a knock on the back door of the house, waking him up. Half asleep, he went to the back door to answer it, and he could hear his friend saying, "Hey, let me in!"
As he opened the door, Jacobi noticed that it was his friend, but he was standing there naked. He asked, "Bro, what are you doing?"
And he realized that his friend was upstairs and asleep.
As soon as he asked the question, his "friend" backed up, turned a dark shade, grew to a large size, and vanished.
Later, Jacobi drew what he saw.
It was the same image from the top photo of the figure in the middle, with the shadow coming out of the top.
SKIN-WALKER
Photos of Pueblo Bonita from the bottom, and the top!
Fossilized sea-shells!
Pottery shards that we weren't supposed to pick up, but we DID. Oops.
Photo of Pueblo Alto, where we found the pottery shards.
This is Yolanda, a Navajo woman we met at the Four Corners monument. She was kind enough to explain the meaning behind the designs of her pottery that had been passed out from generation to generation of her family. Everything from the way they made the clay to the painted designs are family traditions. It got me thinking that we, as white people and as a white culture, for the most part don't have anything like this that last hundreds of years and are passed down to our children from our ancestors that connects us to where we live.
Some folk art reminiscent of the clay dolls Navajo children would make out of clay.
Edgar Arceneaux is an L.A based artist who questions the status quo by wondering if it does get better than this, especially in regards to social movements and civil rights. He seeks to put political leaders in a vulnerable state, treating them like people and not the gods we seem to paint them as. Some of the questions that arise from looking at his work are:
Can some works be ahead of their time, to be re-imagined for the audience of today?
Are historical figures fair game in terms of art making? Re-imagined, put into a vulnerable position, etc.
I feel as if the lines between art and design are becoming more blurred with the inclusion of illustrative and graphic design into the fine arts--Before, it seemed as if design was decried as being on the same level of craft arts, and it just followed technique and rules, and was almost on a level of being corporate/industry.
Design, to me, is a way to incorporate art into the every day and it makes Good Art accessible.
Greenberg's definition leans more towards the idea that modernism is the movement that is focused on how a painting can separate itself, and be apart from, the other arts--he focuses on the unique ability to contribute to the art and culture of the time. It is mean to create the illusion that the artwork IS the space, or IS the form that it's meant to portray. Modern art however seeks to not create that illusion, it is meant to be flat and viewed as such.
by the light of one flashlight the old shrine room waits in silence.
While above the door we see the terrible figure, fierce eyes demanding. "Will you step through?"
And the old monk leads us, bent back nudging blackness prayer beads in the hand that beckons.
We light the butter lamps and bow, eyes blinking in the pungent smoke, look up without a word,
see faces in meditation, a hundred faces carved above, eye lines wrinkled in the hand held light.
Such love in solid wood! Taken from the hillsides and carved in silence they have the vibrant stillness of those who made them.
Engulfed by the past they have been neglected, but through smoke and darkness they are like the flowers we have seen growing through the dust of eroded slopes, their slowly opening faces turned toward the mountain.
Carved in devotion their eyes have softened through age and their mouths curve through delight of the carver's hand.
If only our own faces would allow the invisible carver's hand to bring the deep grain of love to the surface.
If only we knew as the carver knew, how the flaws in the wood led his searching chisel to the very core,
we would smile too and not need faces immobilized by fear and the weight of things undone.
When we fight with our failing we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself and wrestle with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good.
And as we fight our eyes are hooded with grief and our mouths are dry with pain.
If only we could give ourselves to the blows of the carver's hands, the lines in our faces would be the trace lines of rivers
feeding the sea where voices meet, praising the features of the mountain and the cloud and the sky.
Our faces would fall away until we, growing younger toward death every day, would gather all our flaws in celebration
to merge with them perfectly, impossibly, wedded to our essence, full of silence from the carver's hands
As an artist, I experience so many boundaries that keep me from producing what I want to be making. First and foremost is the fear of rejection. I've said before, I've been starting to sell my work online, and at conventions and festivals, and some shows I do really, really well and it is seriously such a confidence booster. But I recently had an experience where I didn't sell and single piece of artwork. I moved a lot of business cards, but I maybe walked out there with $10 more than I had walked in with.
It was easily one of the most disheartening things I have ever experienced as an artist.
This goes back to taste, of course. Also, my audience wasn't my usually targeted audience. I didn't connect with people, and people didn't connect with me. But I walked out of there with this feeling of wanting to burn all of my prints and just stop.
Time is another looming boundary of mine. I wish that there were simply more hours in a day to make things, but there isn't. And when I get overwhelmed I put art down--it's a horrible habit, because it's also my outlet. But I become so tired that I don't want to have an outlet.
Ira Glass’s taste video is one of my favorite videos in the
world when I’m feeling down about my work. This is why I’ve started to embrace
the idea of failure. I’ve dedicated my sketchbook to failure, actually, because
sometimes you just have to DO things, and as I’ve started to reach out and try
and sell my work, my ideas of what’s good doesn’t necessarily come across to
other people; as I embark on creating my original works in comics and graphic
novels, my idea of what’s good won’t necessarily match up with what other
people think is good, and that’s okay.
Because someone out there will connect with my taste and if I can reach one
person, that’s all that matters.
I found this chart after I actually watched the Ira Glass video, and I think this really relates to not only taste, but skill.
Mike Birbiglia’s article is something I needed to hear,
especially the three steps 1. Don’t wait, 2. Fail, and 3. Learn from the Failure.
I’m so scared to start anything for fear of failing—like I mentioned about the
Ira Glass video, I’m trying to embark on so many different paths in my
artmaking, and I’m terrified of the failure of rejection. I’m so scared of being rejected, it seems better to
wait, and rework things and rework things and keep reworking them in order to
post pone actually doing anything. Artists are inherently vain creatures, I
believe; we need validation for our art making, if we can’t get that validation
we feel like we aren’t real artists and thus, must quit. It’s a horrible,
vicious cycle, but it’s the worst cycle an artist can be in.
I think this poem can be used to relate to the journey that a lot of artists take, and as educators--really, about any time one chooses to take a path that otherwise deviates from what other people expect of you. "Determined to do the only thing you could do -- determined to save the only life you could save," speaks poignantly to me about you need to do the things that make you the happiest.
Devil Wears Prada response:
"This stuff." I love the way Meryl Streep's character says this, because it's how I react when people ask me about "this stuff" (contemporary art). Art in modern society can be attributed to centuries of art tradition, especially in our visual culture. A lot of the things we see are taken from historical references of art, and art criticism.
