Responses

-        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? 

Chaco Canyon Trip

Sego Canyon Cave Paintings:

Fun story: 

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: Does it Get Better Than This?

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.

Art and Design

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.

Modernism Vs Modern Art.

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.