Identity

What's "identity" to me? The word itself is very vague because there isn't a real way to connect it to one particular meaning. In my opinion identity starts out with awareness of self and agreeing with your own reality. I think that people identify themselves with different aspects of life that are unique to them, whether it's fashion, art, music, drugs, occupation, food, religion, culture,etc. The list is endless. If our world wasn't full of variety and diversity identity wouldn't exist. I also think that identity is a way of expression and establishing a way of belonging in this world. It's about finding out who we are and how we relate to our world and other people. History has a lot to do with identity because with history we can trace back and see what originated before our time and that alone answers a lot of questions about who, what , where, when, and definitely why. I also think that identity is self proclamation of what means what to you. It's relating to particular things that ring a bell to you. Identity is relating to something or someone and knowing what it means to you. Identity can also be altered or completely changed. I also think that identity is constantly changing because all the different aspects of life are constantly evolving also.

Midterm 1

Wow! Yesterday's midterm was totally unconventional and I liked that about it. College can sometimes get a little redundant when it comes to testing and I think the way our midterms are structured will keep us on track and it makes learning about art a more personal experience. After we watched Ernesto Ramirez's speech and learned that we were going to be standing up during the entire meeting, I found it funny, but very smart. I'm not sure what my classmates thought about it, but by the end of the class meeting, I could see some people leaning against a desk. I tend to stand up usually when I'm out of my house and not in a class room. I actually prefer it so I was in my comfort zone with the idea. After watching the speech I was a little proud of myself because I actually make the time to work out so it was good to hear someone talk about how physical activity will help you live longer. I always knew it was a good thing that I'm athletic. At the same time, though Ernesto's speech put some guilt in me because when I'm at home, most of my time is spent on my bed whether I'm laying down or sitting up.

Even though I was second to last and ran out of time when we went over our blogs, I was okay with the way it worked out because I got a lot of information from my group. It was refreshing to share opinions with my class mates and hear about their blogs from a first person stand point rather than glancing at someone's blog with no real connection to the writer. I wish this was the standard way for all college tests. hahaha!

Viva La Venice!

My trip to Venice was quite the adventurous one. As me and my art trip buddies walked to te beach I couldn't help but notice the different samples of art we were already coming across. I took this picture of fake dollar bills, which were some how printed on the ground. It had to have been some sort of paint because it looks pretty permanent. Its funny that instead of a president's face in the middle of each bill, there was a girl smiling instead. Could be the artist's face.

The more we walked down Venice blvd., and the closer we got to the beach, the more graffiti we started to see. We saw pieces on different cars and I felt like I was inside the "Bomb It" documentary. lol

I was surprised how close the walls were once we arrived at the boardwalk. From my previous visits to Venice, I assumed it would be a long walk to the walls, but it wasn't surprisingly. Once we started filling out papers to get our permits, the excitement in me went up about three notches.

I felt like a little kid in a candy store and ran around from wall to wall to check out different pieces. I even captured die-hard Raiders fans creating a Raiders masterpiece!

Before I initiated myself into the graffiti world, I was drawn to a piece being done by an artist called Mike Fearo.

I loved the colors in this piece! Here's a pic of Mike infront of his piece.

He gave me a few pointers and handed me information to look up his work.

Here's a pic of Mike taking a break next to another wonderful piece by an unknown artist.

Mentor.... check.

Spray paint... check...

Now I'm ready to bomb it!

My art trip buddies and I decide to work on a mini version of one of Jackson Pollock's murals.

Here's me putting my touches on our mini mural.

The finished product:

 I had fallen in love with graffiti painting!

I couldn't leave the walls without making a bigger debut and painting a flower. I was determined even though I was running out of spray paint.

I also made sure to leave my stamp everywhere!

I can't wait to go back!

Inspired by the Norton Simon Museum

To be honest, before my trip to the Norton Simon museum, I could swear it had been over a decade since I visited a museum. I was surprised by my emotional reaction while I walked through the halls. My eyes welled up a little bit as as glanced at every art piece not simply because of all the history I was witnessing, but because every art piece had it's own story behind it and I truly found my appreciation for museums after this trip.

Right when we walked in, I had to take a zen break because the huge Buddhist sculpture in the center of  the entrance area inspired me to meditate even though it was for a few seconds. Some of the guards at the museum couldn't help but laugh at my silliness.











Right away I came across many sculptures and I was drawn to a collection of small sized sculptures of dancers. I'm a dancer as well so I was just fascinated by the detail in the sculptures. One of my favorites was "Arabesque Over the Right Leg, Left Arm in Line" by Edgar Degas. This piece was made in 1885.

After seeing a few more sculptures, it was pretty clear that I had found a new addiction in posing like statues and capturing it in an image. Soon enough I came across another statue that called for my attention and I couldn't resist posing like it! This piece was called, "Standing Bather with Raised Arms", which was scuplted by Aristide Maillol. One thing I'll say about the artist is that most of his pieces were of volumptious, naked women. If we look back at the picture of me and the Buddhist sculpture, at the top right of the picture we can actually see another piece by Maillol called "Three Nymphes". It took Maillol from 1930 to 1937 to create it. I didn't realize that piece was in my picture until after I started writing this blog and I thought it was cool how I mistakely captured it also.

Here's a better view of "Three Nymphes".

I was very inspired the more I walked around the museum and really took my time with each piece I came across. I wanted to take in the paintings and drawings for what they are and try to understand why each artist created certain pieces. It seem as if I was having an out-of-body experience because I imagined being those artists create their art and saw my self as someone in the future trying to receive the message from each piece.

When I came across Diego Rivera's, "The Flower Vendor (Girl with Lilies)", I was sort of in shock because I had learned about Rivera in high school. The story about him and his wife Frida was one that touched me and I knew I would never forget it. I kind of had to do a double check and ask myself, " Am I really standing infront of this painting?" Although his piece's were based on the Mexican life, I loved how unrealistically Rivera painted.

Rivera did this painting in 1941 with oil. It was painted on masonite, which is a type of wood. As you can see the painting is showing a girl holding a massive amount of lilies. Like I was saying earlier, Rivera was probably trying to tell the story of this girl who is doing what she does for a living. What I love is how the lilies are so big that she can basically hide behind them. Lilies aren't that big in real life, but the way Rivera portrays them in this painting is beautifully done. I could almost sense that those lilies are that girl's life. I also get from the image that the girl is hard working and her life isn't a simple one. As beautiful as the lilies are, they're overwhelming her.

The masonite is probably the reason why the texture of the image is sort of 3rd dimensional. Rivera also made good use of the space in the painting.

Another piece that stood out to me in the museum was Jacob Meyer de Haan's, "Still Life with Ham", which was painted in 1889. I was not expecting to come across a picture of ham especially and that is basically why it caught my eye. I'm a big lover of ham so I could definitely relate to the artist. Either Meyer de Haan loved ham or hated it because he took the time to create such a detailed painting of it.  Like Rivera's painting, Meyer de Haan used oil for this piece, but unlike Rivera's piece it was done on canvas. That might have something to do with the difference in size with the two pieces. Masonite could be used for bigger pieces, where as canvas has limitations. The two pieces were 52 years apart but both are simple portrayals of life. Rivera's piece was unrealistic because the proportions were of scale. Meyer de Haan's piece was proportional since it was a still life painting (which I find impressive since I think it's harder to paint still life than creating a painting from scratch). Both pieces use very realistic colors and have so much detail that I made sure I looked at every part of the images.

As my trip to the museum came to a close, I walked into another nice surprise. It was a giant mural called, "Basel Mural I", which took Sam Francis two years to complete (from 1956 to 1958). I mentioned to my art trip buddies that it was almost like a cleaned up version of Jackson Pollock's pieces.

Lecture 3.2

On Wednesday (February 2nd, 2011) we went through a semester's worth of art history in about an hour. I realized that in a way it was really cool way to find out which artists really stuck out to me during the speedy process. The lecture began with the question, "What is art?". I was curious to hear what Professor Zucman's answer would be. I'll admit I expected an elementary type answer such as, "Art is anything you want it to be." It was refreshing to hear that there were actual definitions, but definitely more than one. One definition that Professor Zucman mentioned  is that something is considered art if it is worked by the human hand. I thought that was a very interesting statement because for example what if someone's dog came in contact with something like paint and paper and created something that looks like art to the human eye. That particular definition makes sense because its a far stretched example that I mentioned, but a dog can't be consciously aware that they are creating art. Only humans have that gift of awareness.


As Professor Zucman continued to talk about art from three million years ago with the Australopithecus era up until the middle ages, the next thing that stood out to me was Gothic art and architecture from the middle ages. I sort of wished the lecture was entirely on Gothic art because I found it a bit appealing. Professor Z then showed us the Chartes Cathedral in France. Before we enter the cathedral, I want to mention how amazing the architecture is from the outside. I mean when I see such a magnificent structure it gives me this sense of darkness and it

 reminds me of movies about vampires and things of that nature. A building like that exudes the fact that it has a lot of history in its walls.
Inside the Cathedral, you could find the rose windows and I like that Professor Z compared it to today's Imax theaters. I understood that comparison right away because I believe standing in front of those windows would be a complete mind f*ck.  I love the detailing in the windows and again, the architecture. Everything about the rose windows looks mathematically correct and very organized.  Although its a cathedral, there's something very dark about the art and I think that's what makes it goth. It's not about the "light" side of life, but its very grand in my opinion.

There was a lot to take in as the lecture went on. We came across the Renaissance artists, through the Baroque era, all the way to the Enlightenment, and to the present. The thing about art that's cool is that all throughout this history, different artists from different times had the same ambitions and sometimes even created similar pieces. One pattern that I noticed was that artists that are closer to the present were sort of updating the styles of those who came before them.

In the second part of lecture, our focus was turned on the artist Jackson Pollock. Although I don't think his art is that special, I think him the artist is. Earlier in lecture Professor Z had mentioned what can fuel someone to do art. I think that Ed Harris (director of the film Jackson Pollock) was definitely fueled to make the film about Pollock. He was fueled to create his own art piece about Pollock. I thought it was cool that after I made that connection, Harris mentioned in a interview that he just wanted the film to work as a film, "just like you would look at a painting" and say does this work? Another very interesting thing that Harris mentioned in the interview was that when Pollock was painting he was simply just "doing it", and purely creating. Harris mentioned that this was a good thing until Pollock's work got recognized because he then had to explain his art and why he was doing it. This is what eventually brought Pollock to stop doing art.

Most people would probably do anything to get their work recognized. We've all heard about the starving artist who is waiting for their break. I understand why Pollock probably couldn't adjust to being noticed. He was doing something for himself and  like Curt V. mentioned in the film, "the studio became where he had the control he didn't have anywhere else."  Unlike the typical starving artist, Pollock's break was probably every time he painted. To me it seemed that painting for him was a very emotional thing and it was his way of releasing. I was reminded of myself because I do art for fun and every time I'm done with a piece, I feel at ease and proud of myself for creating something beautiful or ugly even.

I also noticed that Pollock may have been a dedicated smoker. Maybe some of his work was influenced by his cigarettes. The lines in most of his paintings resemble the streaks of smoke that come out of a cigarette. Just a thought.