Final Project--"I Need You"

Hey guys!

All right, so thank you for keeping up with the craziness of this project for the past week or so. Here's everything in a nutshell... :)

Premise:

Each and every story of adversity is unique to the individual, but it has the capacity to connect us all and inspire. So, I am taking peoples' stories (retaining the anonymity of the individuals) and creating pictures from their accounts. I will make the pictures out of words.

Website: http://www.ineedyouproject.com

Blog: http://www.ineedyouproject.wordpress.com

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/INeedYouProject

Email: ineedyouproject01@gmail.com

New Idea: This is where I really need your help!

I met with my mentor and discussed the project idea yet again (yesterday). Having done a final project with words in his class, he urged me to look at buying a projector that would project words onto the pieces (instead of making the pictures out of words). I have dabbled in both, and I am going to explore what each does to the concept at hand when I get into summer. But, what do you think? Here are some examples of both--

Questions: Do you like ONLY the background made of words? Or, should I make the whole piece out of words?

Questions: Do you like the projection? Here's what the projection does: it allows people to walk in front of the piece and be "in" the piece as the words run across that person's back. Also, I could tune the projection to different slides, so with the same piece, there would be multiple slides of that individual's words (in that individual's story).

Application for the artist:

So, being the artist of this project, I also wanted to put myself into this . . . literally. So, I put in a story :)

After anyone submits a story, the submission page reads, "Thank you! I promise I'll take good care of it."

Process:

1.) Submission of story

After someone submits their story via one of three things: email, website contact box, or blog, the artistic process begins. But, it all starts with you! :) Which, is a very cool thing.

2.) Sketch it up!

So, after I receive a story, I make a sketch, or a couple of sketches. Here's one for my story:

Specifically, I tagged the part where in my hospital visits, I had IV treatments. And, this is what I came up with. Usually, I do sketches in pen and shade them with colored pencil. I know . . . I'm weird. haha!

3.) Break out the graphite

After I make a sketch, I choose the paper (maybe 2-ply--and for a side-note, "ply" is the amount of sheets an artist's paper is made from; if we say 5-ply, it's pretty thick. If 2-ply, the paper will be thin, and I do light graphite, which does not require thick paper--or, I was thinking of something thin, like parchment paper, something that will fade with time, that looks archival, playing off the simile that people are like walking books . . .).

So, for this part, I will do a more detailed, time-consuming piece. Like so:

4.) Start all over again with a new story

This is always an adventure.

5.) Hang it up in the gallery :) (and this is still tentative--this may be completely different come time when I decide between pictures made of words vs. projected words)

But, the rough gallery sketches look something like this right now:

The little rectangles are the frames (and this is a quick Hite gallery sketch--where the BFA exhibitions take place). And, the small gallery space allows for a ( ) hanging, like two parentheticals, almost like an eye shape. And, these will be chained to the ceiling, or maybe even hovering with fishline. And, in the center there is a mirror box, where individuals (I use this word a lot, apparently!) will be able to write with dry-erase markers on the mirrors, as well as input their comments on comment/submission sheets that will be on the table.

This gallery space is a little bigger--this is where we went to see Smilde's cloud-works. So, I outlined the gallery and placed a few (okay, a lot of) frames in the gallery space. In the center of the heart shapes, there are double sided frames, so the frame will all be suspended and will allow for a walk through of the gallery, any side you want to take.

The name: I need you:

The name came from one of those epiphanies you always here people getting. I thought about calling it "catharsis," or "Soul Works" or something I thought was clever. But, when I started on the website, what really came to the forefront of everything is that I need you. I need these individuals and their stories. I'm not in a bubble, especially as an artist. And, I need people to make art, to digest it, and to be influenced by it, and to influence me. So, I need you. :) I hope you will take the time to tell your friends/anyone who's interested in this project. It's going to take a lot of time and effort and research (I'm researching literary theory right now to see how I can further my words and make my own fonts and handwritten scripts to help these stories breathe on the page). But, I really believe that stories, especially yours, can be powerful. Your story's worth believing in. I believe God made you--and your story. So, it's valuable. That's why I want to tell it.

And, I need your help to do that. ;)

Website!

Yay!!!

Here it is: ineedyouproject.com

And, I promise, I am dyslexic. Every time I type "Here it is," I type "Here is it" first. My brain is so confused. College. 'Nuf said.

Last drawing for the year (for ART 505)...

Quick snapshot of the end of the year drawing for a studio class:

For Art 505...the figurative auteur (author). So, we were supposed to "add" an element to the drawing...and I decided to go with words. Shocker...I know. ;)

So, this is the picture... Called "Ripple Effect" :) And, I need to work with the words a little more...

I like this idea...I need a bigger wall, and more words...and more time ;) seems that's always the case--more time. Huh... ;) haha oh well, we take what we can get. Every minute's pretty great.

So, I think I'm getting better. I still have a lot to learn.

Blog up and running!

Here it is!

http://ineedyouproject.wordpress.com/

Any ideas for improvements?

I've made the website and am waiting for the admin to clear the title so I can put it online... I've also made an email:

ineedyouproject01@gmail.com

And, I'm making a facebook page.

So much technology! :0 It's a bit much.

Thinking...

Final Project Idea:

Craft a website

Set up a blog

Set up an email for the project

So, for my final project, I'm dealing with the idea of what we get out of suffering, whether on a betterment of self basis, or a religious basis. And, to start, I have a whole conceptual basis to draw from.

So, for my project, the form is mostly based on the conceptual analysis of how this idea is evolving. So, the bulk of the project will be the why, how, what of what is going to happen because this project is extensive and requires multiple participants (and lots of time). But, essentially, what I’m wanting to do is take myself and apply all of the parameters—why, how and what of the meaning of suffering and draw a picture based on this. I started getting involved in this process of what part an individual plays in a composition through means of this self-portrait a while ago:

Dealing with the idea of body/soul, I started to go back to the basics that "connected" us all--and I found that everyone bears a burden. Who was it that said, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is facing some kind of battle"? Well, it is true. So, I want to describe the value of suffering (if it has a value) to aid the viewer in questioning their own ideas as well as coming away with answers.

Trust me, I have a whole lot of research, interview snippets, books, drawings, sketches, ideas of how the installation will look. SO! haha sorry for all of that, but you'll have to trust me: it's gonna work out in the end ;) Just gotta be patient.

Works in progress

AH! This is the first time I've ever really done chalk pastels :0

Unfortunately, these are still dusty with poor phone lighting ;) But, you get the idea--experimentation: the artist's bread and butter!

The Lives of Others

This movie starts with an introduction into the German world around the time the Berlin wall falls. Actor Ulrich Mühe, who plays Hauptmann Wiesler, portrays one of the main influences in the film.

The director described the film this way:

“I suddenly had this image in my mind of a person sitting in a depressing room with earphones on his head and listening in to what he supposes is the enemy of the state and the enemy of his ideas, and what he is really hearing is beautiful music that touches him. I sat down and in a couple of hours had written the treatment.”

The point of transformation comes with the music--Beethoven's music that spanned across time to reach Weisler, listening in, and even Dreyman (the writer, or symbolically, the artist, who sits at the piano playing this music).

In the words of the director, Art is powerful.

A review of the movie (HERE) posed the idea that Art is powerful because art possesses TRUTH and BEAUTY--and beauty can transform "Communism and its savagely imposed "truth" within a committed disciple [Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao] into humanity's unending mysteries of love, dignity, and self respect."

Life, as portrayed in an active artistic way in this movie, requires beauty and truth.

These two powers, almost invisible when bogged down by a society that feeds you "truth" constantly, are what truly open the individual up to living life authentically.

Art is a searching, an expression within life's possibilities. Art brings to mind the power of truth and beauty, and how it can change an individual, who can indeed change the world, if even for someone else.

I loved the last line of this movie, "It's for me," when Wiesler finds the Sonata for a Good Man, dedicated to him--the artist (Dreyman) came to realize that it was Wiesler who became the expression of truth and beauty by reaching out to an individual that expressed beauty to him. I can't get past Wiesler's eyes. All throughout the movie, I was sutured by his expressions. His face did not move an inch, except for his eyes, and in the beginning, I kept thinking to myself--he has too beautiful eyes to not have some good in him somewhere. And, it just goes to show that he was a "good man." Why?

Because, he acted with conviction on the truth (thinking for himself instead of buying into store-bought truths). And, his actions created great effects--devastating (with a death) but also beautiful (with restoration and more truth through the reciprocation of his actions through Dreyman's further works).

"How beautiful are the feet that bring good news [truth]." --Isaiah 52.7

Rachel S :)

This was such an intriguing presentation because I had no idea there were theories like this--and it changed my elevator speech for good; I'm definitely not a figurative formalist like I thought!

Essentially, there are four theories... let's see if I can do this without peeking!

1) Formalism - all about the form, all else (question about the piece of art from a content standpoint) is irrelevant

2) Expression - all about content (idealist), because content only has form in the human brain

3) Family Resemblance - art is about the variations that create a pattern (art is changing)

4) Institution - art is insider art and about the theory and artifact of its art world

So, I don't fit into any of these camps directly. How intriguing. But, I did do some thinking, which is always good. Rachel, this is good stuff! Thanks so much.

So, what I came up with was the idea (from Professor Chan) of the analytic philosophy of aesthetics: i.e. mathematical ways of defining art. We've found that art cannot be fully analyzed in a mathematical way. It loses so much in translation (if subject fits a, b, c . . . and a few others, then it's art). The subtleties of the abstraction (art) are lost.

There's another camp, though, and we didn't discuss it, so I researched--the continental philosophy.

Continental philosophy deals with these ideas--science is inadequate to fully understanding art; elements of context, time-period, language, culture, and history around the art are valid descriptors; related to personal, moral and political changes (as opposed to strictly interpretative works of analytic philosophy); and, there is an emphasis on the big picture--metaphilosophy (above philosophy). The thing to remember with continental philosophy is--reflection is the key.

I think that art, always spoken of in terms of form and content, can be an equation from these two entities--form and content. While it may be possible to divorce content from form (I don't know how true this can actually be, because a friend of mine is strictly a formalist, but their work involves content, even if subtle--this just goes to show the phenomenology that takes place in our brains, which tries to make something out of nothing) . . . it is not possible to divorce content from form (this content without form is just an idea, and art, I believe, is more than just an idea).

So, can there be a marriage that cannot be divorced? Because, it is evidence that these two need each other, even if an artist says otherwise; a viewer will always impose some sort of content (what does this mean?) on a form because our minds function this way, scientifically. So, if we're looking at the analytics here, the analytical philosophy has been stabbed by its own device--the scientific function of the brain when faced with a non-representational picture is to create meaning out of it--impose a recognizable shape/picture/idea onto the picture.

So, can there be a marriage that cannot be divorced--these two, form and content . . . Well, it may be that content multiplied by form is what art is all about. Multiplied. Why multiplied? Because, multiplication creates a compound that is not simple anymore. I don't believe art is simple. But, it requires the first variable (content) to be thought up--philosophized, theorized, idealized--and then married to some sort of body (form and formal functions).

So, art would transcend descriptive/prescriptive/aesthetic/non-aesthetic/externalist/internalist theories.

[And, yes, don't worry--I am watching the game... ;) AH! Come on, boys.]

Maggie C :)

I enjoyed how this conversation threaded the idea of the history of art (the first art) to the concrete motif of the first art object (a garden) and how it morphed throughout the ages.

I admit, the garden was not something I had thought of as an art object. But, I do now! It's intentional--built for a purpose--shouldn't all art be this way?

The conversation Maggie's presentation sparked afterwards was one of, "What (really) is art these days?" The reality of the situation, I think, is that contemporaries find it hard to define the art of their present day situation. While we're in it, we don't fully understand its ins and out because we're too close. Still--I know what you're thinking--that's no excuse.

You're right. So, what is art, anyway? Not everything is art. There is a quality that makes it artistic. Is it the "how" you do it, that makes it art? The "why?" I think every age had to come up with "what is art?" (Much like Kierkegaard, sorry, bringing up the philosophers, again--much like Kierkegaard insisted that each generation need think for itself what it believes.)

We've been left with a legacy of post-war art, hyper-realist art, painters, and technology booms. So, what do we do with it all?

Well, that's where artists come in. Art is expanding. It is an expression of intention. Something for certain--art is moving toward an age of discovery in bridging the gaps between itself and other fields of study--art and science, say, in technology. Art and math, in CGI.

It's like art comes in this seed packet, where the instructions read as follows:

1 part fresh air
1 part materials
1 part time
7 parts thinking

Thinking. How to make real art: philosophize. ;) Thoughts are always in the air. And, thoughts are always expanding, the function of expressing. And, art is always an expression of intention. I think the two go quite well together.

Some days you just feel--