cubism

my record player

candlestick holder

everybody needs a little hippie love <3

advice to young artists in a postmodern era, chapter 3

artists and teachers

this chapter is about the relationship between art students and their instructors.  when a student signs up for a class, the first thing they should do is determine what they want to learn from the class.  they should also decide what their expectations of the teacher are. some students will see their teachers as mentors, they truly want to learn all they can from the teacher.  others will expect their instructor to do everything for them. then there are those students that join a class, yet they feel there is nothing the teacher could teach them that they don't already know, and that their ideas should just come out of nowhere and need no guidance.

the chapter goes on to discuss how teachers often tend to get lazy, or unenthused.  the author says this is due to the fact that students have stopped wanting to really learn. teachers have grown tired of seeing the same old apathetic attitude with each new class they meet.

another topic discussed in the chapter is critique.  how should instructors critique their students? constructively is the answer, although many teachers will go beyond constructive and beat the artists work down to boost their own ego.  while saying this, many teachers do hold their critiques in a constructive manner, but often the students will not know how to respond to any kind of critique because new artists tend to be insecure at first.

basically, this chapter stresses the importance of the "give" and "take" aspect in the relationships between artist and their students.  in order for the relationship to go smoothly each party has to respect one another.

website ideas/artist statement/resume

next assignment: build a website. 

i'm pretty excited that vaughn made this a requirement for our class, otherwise i would have put this off and it would be a million years before i actually had my own site.  

below are just a few layouts i'm working with

resume

Education

Texas A&M University at Commerce

    Studying photography

    Spring 2011 to present

         

Northeast Texas Community College, Mount Pleasant, Texas

    Associate of Science

    Fall 2009 to Fall 2010

    3.6 GPA

Paris Junior College, Paris, Texas

    Fall 2006 to Spring 2009

Rivercrest High School, Bogata, Texas
Graduated 7th out of 77 students
*youth for christ
*spanish club
*FFA
*lady rebel athletics
-softball
-basketball
-track
-cross country
-golf
-cheerleading
*student council
*class secretary
*national honor society

    2003 to 2007

   

Work Experience

Housekeeper, Paris, Texas

     September 2010 to present

Crosswire Club, Paris, Texas

     Server

     May 2009 to August 2009

Smalltown Rags, Paris, Texas

    Tee shirt designer/salesperson 

    October 2007 to August 2008

Community Service

Camp Maxey, Paris, Texas

    Cleaned up around the camp

    2009

Big Brother Big Sister Annual Bowl for Kid’s Sake, Paris, Texas

    Helped raise money for the Big Brother Big Sister program

    2007 and 2008

Bogata Food Pantry, Bogata, Texas

    Bagged and delivered groceries to those in need

    2007

Freelance Work

Musician Promotional Shots

     Pearl Street Riot, 2011

     Alex Addy and the Tambourine Machine, 2010 and 2011

Family Portraits 

     Todd family, Jason and Courtney Todd, 2011

     Manetta family, Reid and Danielle Manetta, 2010

Weddings

     Mckee/Williams wedding, Jaycurt and Danielle Mckee, 2010

*Shoot with EOS Cannon Rebel XS

*Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom savvy

artist statement

i am an artist. photography is my art and what i love.  this world is all about perception, and no two people view it the same.  through my photos i can show others how i see this world. i photograph my life, for my life is all i know. i surround myself with music, nature, and love; so many of my subjects fall into these categories. however, i have never been the kind to place myself in a neat little box, and that goes the same with my photos. i strive to find the light, in life and photography. 

   

light painting/night photos

final project

these are a few images that help tell a little about my final project.

the final project assignment was this:

15 matted photos with a theme

i juggled with a few ideas for about a week before finally deciding on a completely new idea last thursday. the idea came to me while driving from school to work.  

my final project will tell the tale of two young lovers, caught between the "real" world, along with all its demands, and a world where they are totally free from everything.  

i chose this theme because it is one issue that i am facing in my life right now and it weighs on my heart daily.  my boyfriend and i have been together for five years and lately we have been asking ourselves, what do we really want out of life? and what kind of life do we want to live? who and what do we see as a necessity? we talk of the day we are going to run away and leave everything behind often, but seem to be stopped by this world, its ordinary ways and day-to-day routines.  so my question is why not? why not, live like pirates, gypsies, or outlaws? on the other hand, what is so wrong with living a normal life? 

modern museum of art in fort worth

on wednesday, april 13th, i took my very first trip to an art museum.  vaughn and michael miller took their classes to the fort worth modern museum of art. we ate at the cafe modern and toured the museum afterwards. the modern had a lot of nice pieces. the ladder above was my favorite piece of all.  the ladder had me wanting to to climb it so bad. even though i could see where the top of the ladder ended, i still wondered what was up there and where it was going.  another favorite of mine was "The Ark" by Melissa Miller.  her color choices for the painting were beautiful, i especially liked the deep teals and golden yellows. the visible brush strokes gave a nice texture to the animals fur and made the painting even more pleasurable to look at. sadly, this piece was located no the second floor,where no photography is allowed, so i was unable to get a picture of the painting itself. 

the Ed Ruscha exhibition was nice and i'm glad i had the opportunity to see it, but i must admit i wasn't blown away by his work. i think i feel this way because his work is not something that particularly interests me.

i really enjoyed the day of art and look forward to my next trip :)

student art show

i attended the student art show at texas a&m commerce on tuesday. here is my overall review of the show.

i felt that all the pieces accepted into the art show were very deserving.  there was a good mix of all different kinds of art. the only piece i was not a big fan of was the video piece, it was called "Human Architecture", while i understood the concept and thought it was a creative idea indeed, it just isn't necessarily the type of art that i am interested in.  i was very impressed with the wearable art in the show. there was a white dress that looked like it was crafted from trash bags and coffee filters, which i thought was very interesting because the dress looked very elegant. another wearable art project i liked, was "the roller skating tree". it was a dress, and the skirt of it had lots of leaves attached to it that gave it a nice ruffled look. the shoes were actual rollerblades with tree bark covering the entire skate. the only thing that i thought could have been better with this piece as the presentation.  it would have been really cool if the artist would have made a hanger from tree branches, instead of just using a regular wire hanger. there were many beautiful drawings in the show, my favorite drawing was one of a giant baby screaming.  the artist showed great skill and i really liked that they chose a large scale over a small or normal sized scale.  there was one active art piece that really impressed me, it was titled "For a Slice of my Life, Take Out a Knife." the artist used a knife block and each knife (models of knives, not actual knives) told a story from their life. i thought this was a very personal and interesting piece, nice creativity.  

now to my favs

"Linked" by Robert Turner was one of my overall favorites. this piece caught my eye immediately because as i entered the room i saw two chairs "linked" together and hanging upside down from the ceiling.  one chair was a sea-foam green color and the other was a baby pink color.  each chair had been covered in that popcorn ceiling stuff. the green chair had a light fixture attached to it, the pink had a green air vent cover. they were linked with one of those old light chains that normally attach to the ceiling at one end and the actual light fixture at the other.  in my eye, this piece represented the relationship between a man and a woman. the green acting as the male and the pink as the female. the attached parts were even similar to the male and female genitalia shapes, in some sense.  and the chain that connected the two reminded me of the idea that men and women will always be connected in some way.  i thought this was a very well thought out. way to go robert "ross" turner :)

 "Blue Trailer" by Ginger Cook was another unforgettable piece.  it was a cubism photo of a bright turquoise trailer house in a trailer park with a child's baby doll in the front right corner.  the doll had on a reddish pink color dress.  there was also a nice little pop of color on the turquoise trailer, a bright, very bold red number 5.  i really liked that she used the actual prints of the images she took to make the cubist image instead of digitally doing it in photoshop.  the way she displayed it was very nice too, it was a curved clear frame and this gave the entire image a nice look.  i would buy this piece and hang it in my home. i found myself drawn to it the entire night. this artist also had another photo piece in the show that i really liked, it was called "Man in the Hat." this was an image of an elderly man in a black bucket hat. it was the man's expression, or lack of one, that made it so beautiful. alsdoo the eyes were nice, they told a story of a man that seemed to be recalling a moment from a long time ago. his face made no expression, but his eyes told the story. she did a wonderful job of capturing this moment. jolly good show ginger :)

Joshua Robinson's "Make Me One With...." was pretty groovy. this work consisted seventeen hot dog buns painted or covered in something different. this piece had a nice child-like quality, it made me happy every time i looked at it :) i really liked the fact that each bun was very different from the one next to it.  it's like each bun represented a different type of person in the world.  my favorite bun was the fourth from the left, it was covered in a gold foil and had diamonds in the center of it.  it was pretty snazzy.  i also liked the second one from the right, it was made to look like neapolitan ice cream, which is something i enjoy eating very much.  i can't help but smile every time i look at this work, so thank you joshua robinson :)

the student art show rocked!