Appropriation

I have appropriated this photo. And turned it to a gif. I find particular discomfort and offense when the name Westboro Baptist Church. Yes, they of the "God Hates (Pretty Much Everyone." I wanted a Biblical response to something that I find to be in opposition to Christianity, and at it's best extremely perverted, and inappropriate use of speech. So I was able to visually and rhetorically "wipe" the messages off using actual quotes from God's word; rather than flat out lying, and misrepresenting God's word as these signs do. The verses and what they disprove are as follows: Disproving "You're Going to Hell": Jas 3:10 Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Disproving "Dont Pray for USA": 1Ti 2:1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 1Ti 2:2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 1Ti 2:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;" Disproving "Thank God for Dead Soldiers": Joh 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Just Doodle It

I originally pursued this as a project using a medium I love to elevate or explore something I love. I began with the campus, but I was dissatisfied with my results. I found myself going back to the drawing board, only quite literally. While exploring mediums, I found a set of brilliantly colorful permanent markers. I was attracted to the fullness of life and vibrancy that they represent to me. I have recently been turning to bright colors and white backgrounds as a way to work through some more challenging and dark times in my own life. I like to draw, but only in a very simple, cartoon-esque style. I love it when my work is able to capture a fun, light, yet somewhat substantive element to it. One of my favorite hobbies is to work out specific projects and ideas onto a blank notebook. Right now I cycle through about five. I used one to map out a doodle info graphic about doodling. I chose one blank piece of foam board, took my markers, and went to work. So I made a project that was about my project. One might call it meta-art. It is art that comments on art's ability to enter other fields. I have long struggled with attention issues in many environments. After seeing Sunni Brown reveal research onto the academic and realistic merit of doodling and learning combined, I was inspired to work it into my own life. Author and corporate trainer, Dan Roam encourages companies to use it to problem solve. Many stop short because it seems to frivolous. To me, both offered brilliant, simple solutions to a variety of problems. Epiphanies all around for me. In short, doodling (and many other art forms) can be also be described as external processing. What goes on as partial abstracts in portions of our brain can be made concrete and further developed through art. In terms of education, communication, and perhaps even innovation, this is a largely unknown frontier. It seems so fraught with frivolity that no one dares enter into the terrifying world of doodling. Now that's ridiculous to read, write, or say; but that's how I see the world acting. And that, in turn, corresponds to art. Art has the potential to be a frivolous act or serious endeavor. Or it can be both. I believe one of the largest obstacles in our cultures progress in art is our inability to recognize the validity of frivolity, and to expand the bounds of "serious" art. However, not all folks are assured or confident that they can be "creative," or true artists. I wanted to challenge these very things. Doodling is a common, ordinary way to express oneself. Turning it into a time based art form, gave it an interactive quality that I think would be lost in other mediums. Approachability was paramount to this project, because I want someone to look at this, say "Hey! I could do that!" and then go out and doodle, draw, or express through some other medium. The world is at a loss because of unrecorded, un-captured, and lost ideas. I would like to change that.

Final Project WIP Part 2

This is the video version of my project. Enjoy!

Final Project WIP Pt. 1

This is a still from my whole project. I will eventually bring the board in and use it as a permanent fixture.

Final Project Proposal

For my final project I would like to record a doodle of me drawing a sort of Infographic. I am hoping that by recording marker stroke by marker stroke as I apply it to either marker board or paper. I want the piece to be art about art, or use art as a communication tool. It will be versatile and meant to be shared across social media platforms and hopefully be something that I can further develop.

Performance Piece

For my performance art piece, I chose to place a blank sheet of paper beside my collage of brush strokes, and encourage my audience to join in my piece. My project deviated from my anticipation of what it would be. I was hoping that individuals would embrace the idea of making abstract marks and joining in continuing the project. However, what I have thus far is a combination of abstract marks and acrylic brush graffiti. I observed that my audience was also more interested in observing and participating than they were reading the statement. What I believe the project informed me is that individuals are interested in communicating things literally. Symbols and marks are, as of now, an even spread across the page. While not literal some of my marks are, in fact, representations of specific emotions, movements, and gestures themselves. Also, I observed some fear about violating a clean canvas. Then I encouraged mark making, as did Kate, and John, and people joined right in. When given unrestricted freedom it was interesting to see what came about, and how quickly individuals actually joined in. I had a filled page within an hour. As the project continues I am still hoping for more abstract marks. I may very well hide the graffiti marks and put up a half sheet of abstract lines and patches. Where the audience takes it will be interesting to see.

Participation & Performance

For my performance piece, I will be setting up an easel near my exhibit "Untitled-1." The existing piece has roughly 100 patches made from digital and paint brushes. I made the patches along with my siblings and grandma. I gave them a blank sheet of drawing paper, brushes, and black acrylic; and said "Make whatever you want." I then took those brushes and scanned them into photoshop. Using photoshop I also made digital patches using simulated brushes (the digital version of what I used in the originals). Finally, in full color, I made collages of those are central to the piece. Folks will be asked to approach the easel and make their own patch of paint. By joining in something so simple and freeing, I hope that negative perceptions and attitudes toward art will be broken down. The action is so primitive in the simple making of marks, but so freeing in the unrestrained expression of self. I hope that the piece grows with completely random additions from artists, professors, students, the public, and possibly E. Gordon Gee, himself.

Drains: The Feature Presentation

This is a video of my house. I decided to use the most mundane element that I could possibly find: my drains. I think this video causes me to consider many things. One is the equality that a drain represents. Sure the MTV shows might display bigger more elaborate homes but I doubt that the drains are much different, save some gold plating. I find a little comfort in that fact. That though life may give us different things, there is the common denominator of our humanity. Also, I think that we take many things for granted. Drains and other mundane elements are quietly integral to our lives. So I wanted to give the mundane a little time in the limelight.

Drains

Today I will be exploring my house using only drains. This is an abstract social/economic commentary that I think only this assignment would allow me to get away with. Part of me hopes this is as really weird and awkward as it sounds, and part of me hopes it isn't. Hahaha. But seriously, my thought in doing this is two fold. What if I were able to make drains exciting, or what if I were to choose to make a boring video? Furthermore, with MTV shows about houses showing every bit of huge mansions, what if they were to only take footage of people's drains. Now, with the few overdone exceptions, all of our drains look the same. The inside of our toilet bowls are pretty well identical. And it's in this lowly denominator I find kind of a cool equal ground with every single human being on the planet.

Nice Noise

This is a soundscape. Now, how I did it. I basically wanted to grab the most unconnected sounds that I could. My initial ideas was to mash them into a glorious "stampede" of sound. I started to do just that. My idea was to export a work that just showed how an excess of sound was not always a good thing. I was kind of wrong. I found that the sounds had these unique pleasant elements that I wanted to stay on and enjoy. Further more the chaos that ensued from stacking them on top one another was not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I found comfort in it. This piece was actually a learning experience for me in that there is alot of good to be found in the presence of much sound. If those things present and making sound are good, then life and the atmosphere we live in will be in turn good. I think that this piece makes me examine what I enjoy and how I react to things on the basis of what they are individually not necessarily just a massive lump of sound.

Skadooshko

Skadooshko

This is my made up word that will debut in my soundscape.

Deep Listening

The computer tower whirs below my desk. The buzz of something electric resonates like awful white noise around me. The dog yips from his spot in the garage. Probably at a toad. More likely because he heard a noise and has the need to make one in return. Still more buzzing. The floorboards groan. Old floor boards do that. The room down the hall emits a half snore, and the rustle of my brother rolling over in his bunk. The other dog barks. It's likely the shadow of a neighborhood cat taunting her. The furnace vent makes a pop and groan. It's a little cool tonight. Footsteps rush down the hallway and into the bathroom. A toothbrush rattles, scrubs for 25-30 seconds,humming of Adele music accompanies it, the water rushes down the fawcet and sink. The water stops. The light switch flips, and footsteps carry down the hall, and downstairs. The volume of silence is almost overwhelming it drags on. I hear only the hum of appliances and well, eerie absence of sounds that make the house alive. Will this silence end? It does. My ten minutes are up.

Legomation

I started out with a box full of legos and the simple idea of competitive friction.

I built the set in about two hours. I limited my movement to one lego "dot," one step, one third of arm movement at a time. and I repeated each guesture three times. This gave a uniformity, that I was able to make comic breaks, and also gave a nice smoothness to the overall work.

I love competition. But only healthy competition. I believe that working out with friends, playing other teams, and competing with your own goals is a healthy process. It is how I work every day. I am aware of my shortcomings and want to work toward specific achievement through enhancing my strengths. However, I find that individual success is something that has taken a perverse turn in things I observe. 

I have been struck with the idea of folks needing desperately to "keep up with the Jones." People would rather keep status quo in a lot of ways than be bothered with stepping up. That is not cool. I also think that other folks are obsessed with not being anything "less" than what someone else is or has. These lego men fight over who has the better wall. It is a petty, jealous exercise that is comically stupid. I think jealous competition is unhealthy and has a destructive energy about it. And I think that plays out rather naturally in this video. I think we improve ourselves when we use our own compass as a guide and only refer to competition as an occasionally appropriate measuring stick. (For example, before you call yourself the best _____ ever, you ought to look at what all the other (fill in the blank)'s are doing. I think individual success is something that is to be celebrated by the whole.

Reaction to George Rush

I was lucky enough to sneak in the gallery around noon, shortly after Darker by the Day opened. I was immediately drawn into the show by the dark window, and shadowy branch marks that adorned the first wall. I felt an immediate sense of calm wash over me. I found the paintings aesthetically pleasing primarily for that reason. When viewers go into the gallery they are congronted with one plain, curtained white window (staring out). The other three windows are filled with varitions of a composition involving all or some of the following items: a milk, carton, tape recorder, candle, and pill bottle.

My interpretation hinges on my reactions to color. I really enjoyed Rush's use of black, white, and gray tones. I thought the windows each had a masterful touch to them, and I also found the use of those colors gave the show an earie life without the presence of life. I found the subject matter so mundane that it forced me to consider larger themes. I think the elevation of the mundane forces us to consider those objects functionality, and to not take for granted both the mundane and not mundane. If the objects around us are lifeless without our presence then that gives us as humans a duty to use our space of time to color that space, or simply fill it with things worth considering.

Three Questions
Why black and white for the Pearl Conard Gallery?
Is the minimal and mundane nature of the subject matter a reflection on those items or the items left out of the frame?
What is the function of the branches on the wall?

Muybridge's Mare Runs a Wall

The Sweet Lives of the Amish

This is one of our neighbors. My brothers and I call it the Amish Mobile Home. It was an amazing opportunity to capture a moment, image, and scenario that happened and passed very quickly.

WednesDAY 3/28/12

This map of my day is something that categorizes both large and relatively insignificant portions of my day. I put down words and a symbol for things that stuck out to me for each portion of my day. I was really happy with the large cluster that resulted from many images. I felt both tired and a little discombobulated throughout the day and I think that overall this image captures that feeling.

Make Faces

Life needs as much levity as possible. Grave danger, epic adventure, and other such high falootin' things will take care of themselves. Levity only comes from the spontaneous combustion that is human interaction. So here's my face doing just that.