Before: Me awkwardly posing in front of my artwork sold for a preschool
Before: Me at WonderCon in the same outfit but better posed
After: Me at school with a more fancy outfit. My face is covered because it looked ugly.
After: Me in the same outfit I had on at school but once again better posed. This was for my friend’s photography project.
My typical outfits are more casual in a simple way. Some people may believe that the outfit in my before pic isn’t casual but it is to me. For the new outfit I wanted to look more fancy and “high-class”.
People liked my outfit and thought it was cute. I didn’t feel that I was treated different because of my outfit.
These were the reactions:
Tiffany, fashion major
Jessica, political science major
Veronica, dance major
I thought the experience was fun since I had an excuse to dress up. Since I didn’t feel that people treated me differently I can’t exactly comment on that. Maybe the people I encountered were just really chill, or my outfit wasn’t “transformative” enough.
A welcome table with business cards, a notebook where you write comments on the exhibition, the handout for The Enchanted Borderlands, and a speaker that played music.
Ricardo Corona is a senior at California State University, Long Beach and is currently in BFA Pre-Production Program. According to Corona’s website, he is essentially an all-rounder with mediums as he works with “watercolor, digital, graphite, ink, gouache and acrylics”. His favorite subject to draw or paint are “cityscapes, forests, fantasy creatures and landscapes, and creating worlds”.
“The Confrontation”
I will be talking about my favorite piece from the exhibit, The Confrontation. The color scheme of the digital piece is earthy and has a rustic feel. A band of thieves are confronted with a giant beast soaring to them. The beast has its beak wide open, screeching at them. In comparison to the giant beast before the group, they are tiny.
The piece overall feels nerve wracking (forgive my lacking vocabulary). Looking at this, I felt tense. What’s going on? Is this beast powerful? Can the band of people handle it? I’m a big fan of action/fantasy genres so this pulled me in right away. I’m awaiting an outcome anxiously while looking at this piece.
Corona and his partners wanted to combine two different genres and create something new in this exhibit. They decided to combine the wild west and fantasy since it is rarely seen in media. The exhibition has a story that follows it.
A group of explorers and miners go to mines and dig out minerals as their main source of power and weapons. The protagonists confront a group of thieves who try to steal minerals that they mined for. When they’re about to rob them, a sacred beast appears. The beast has an effect over the minerals which overpowers them. The thieves ditch the minerals and decide to go after the sacred beast instead. This scene with the beast is depicted in the piece “The Confrontation”.
Fun tidbits:
“Lavender Haze”
Corona’s favorite piece was “The Confrontation”. However, everyone else’s was “Lavender Haze. Corona commented that it was ironic since it was the piece he spent the least time on.
Background of “The Confrontation”
Corona was very inspired by Mark Maggiori (Instagram: @markmaggiori), another artist. Corona praised the way Maggiori rendered mountains, skies, and deserts and how he wanted to apply those techniques to his own skill.
Assortment of bottles and plants
“The Enchanted Borderlands” was an extremely fun exhibit to walk around in. The combination of the west with fantasy was definitely a first for me and caught my attention immediately. I’m in love with fantasy genres as they let me escape into my mind and explore more exciting ideas, such as magic. This exhibit did just that.
I chose this idea because it seemed interesting to me to see what people hated being most.
I wanted to spread to others how imperfect we can be. Instead of something that promotes love, I have shown hate.
I thought I was pretty successful. It is a straightforward piece. Unfortunately, it isn’t very shocking. Maybe slightly unsettling if anything.
If I could do this project again, I would space the words better. Some of the words are overlapping in the painting and they shouldn’t be. It still worked out in the end fortunately.
Another idea I might explore through shocking art is “accepting self-hate”. I feel like in this day and age it’s often shoved down our throats to always love ourselves. It’s a great message but I feel it should be okay to dislike something about ourselves once in a while and doing something to change it (for the better).
My friend, Emily, and her dad picked me up from my home. Emily has a photography assignment and I’m modeling for her. Her dad got us Holé Molé. This was the first place we took photos at. It’s some kind of hiking area. Honestly, I don’t know the name of the place and neither does Emily. We remember places through memories. This is “where we stole a shopping cart”. The photoshoot at this location was successful. We moved on to deeper parts in Los Angeles. Our next stop was the Grand Central Market. Emily wanted to snap photos of candy. There was a guy painting a tribute for Kobe in the market.In one of the elevators at the Grand Central Market, there was this engraving. Scum Gang. Powerful words.Outside Grand Central, there was a guy handing out free flowers. He actually wasn’t asking me if I wanted a flower, but the lady was hesitating so I snatched it.After Grand Central, Emily and I headed to Little Tokyo.In the underground shop area, there was a huge wall covered in drawings, words, and graffiti. This was my favorite out of everything on the mysterious graffiti wall. This was the last photo Emily needed (this wasn’t the photo she took). She had a lot of problems getting a city shot because the sun had set and it was affecting the lighting. After she got all her photos, we made our way home.
I chose this story because my most valuable memories are with my friends, so this was something I felt like was worth sharing.
I think I did great. Maybe it’s not the most engaging story, but it has some fun elements.
The best image in my story is the image that as me posing in it (the third one). It’s the best one because I’m in it and I look great.
My very last photo, albeit not very interesting to look at, is essential. Every story needs a beginning and an end, and that photo is my end.
Next time, I would shoot more photos of me with my friend(s). You can’t really say I was spending time with my friend(s) if I wasn’t in any photos.
There aren’t any other photo stories I would like to tell because the only ones I want to share are memories with my friends. Nothing new here.
A welcome table with business cards, a notebook where you write comments on the exhibition, the poster for “glass eyes” and a map of the gallery.
Jean Iwohara is an undergraduate student at California State University Long Beach who is working towards her illustration BFA degree. Iwohara mainly works with watercolor and gouache. According to her website, her aim is to “create a sense of wonder and fantastical narratives” through her art.
“will you really save me?”
I will be discussing one of my favorite works from her exhibition, “will you really save me?”.
At a glance, the oil painting generally follows a muted, pastel color scheme. The objects look smooth to the touch with jagged edges. A girl sits upon a cloud throne of sorts with her hair following the contour of it. A multitude of arms (presumably hers) grasp onto her desperately, coweringly. Chains hold up her cloud throne, ascending into the sky and fading away.
The painting overall feels lonely and forbidden. When I look at it, I feel like I’m looking at someone I shouldn’t be looking at. I shouldn’t know of her existence and turn away. At the same time however, I’m filled with guilt to not acknowledge her.
The theme for “glass eyes” was anxiety and the external and internal forces produce it. She came up with this theme while talking to her partner, Chanmealea Huy, as they were collaborating together for this show. They wanted something broad and personal that she and her partner could work on. They were also looking for something that viewers could relate to as well as physically move them, and anxiety fit the agenda.
Fun tidbits:
Jean was very proud of her piece “dance with me” as it had technical difficulties. Unfortunately, I did not take a photo of it.
“headache”
As stated earlier, Jean typically works with watercolor and gouache. However for this gallery, she decided to make two oil paintings. Jean chose oil paints to not only get better at them, but to also make aesthetic blends/gradients for her pieces.
“cute muzzle”
Jean also likes polymeric clay as it doesn’t dry till it bakes, giving her time to perfect and add on to her sculpture.
The “glass eye” exhibition resonated in me. Although the theme was anxiety, everything was pastel and cutesy, as if to disguise the feeling. I feel that we often do that these days. We sugarcoat our feelings to not worry others or seem “weird”, but upon closer inspection it’s apparent things aren’t right. I would definitely recommend to others to check “glass eyes” out.
Overall, this was fun. I do like to draw but I’m not sure if I would ever do this again. I like drawing particular things.
If I practiced for a 100 or 1,000 hours I would get better. That’s how practice works.
I am a pre-biology major. Sketching is useful for understanding processes such as a hydrolysis reaction.
Drawing is a language and there are some things that only drawing can convey. Art conveys a message. A feeling. Despite there being hundreds of thousands of words in our language, there are just some things it can’t communicate.
The art my group and I chose has an organic shape. It is small in size but bright in color. Its leaves have a bumpy texture due to the grooves in the leaves. It looks calming and feels tranquil. Looking at it should inspire and soothe the viewer. Although a generic meaning, this weed growing out of concrete tells us to not worry about our beginnings. We should be proud of where we come from and thrive from thereon. The second meaning is that we should learn to stop and appreciate what’s around us. We are boxed in and surrounded by concrete walls with areas of foliage that we constructed to be there, but this weed is all natural. This weed plant that’s not purposefully placed does not force us to look at it like the plants at our school, but invites us too.
Our art was art before the frame. The frame only brought more attention to it.
As long as the weed isn’t pulled out, the art will still be there.
Art is what we determine to be art. It is not some inherit property that objects have. Art is dependent on the person. A person’s likes, dislikes, aesthetics, all of that plays into what they perceive as art.
Things besides objects can be art. Such as a person. We can idolize someone’s and claim that their face is art. To take this to an extreme, plastic surgery is like sculpting but for the face. Therefore, plastic surgery is art because we are reconstructing and maintaining (like maintenance art).
I don’t believe an experience is art. The thing someone is viewing that gives them the experience is art. For example, if I eat a burger at In-n-Out and have a euphoric experience, the burger is art (culinary arts), not the experience of me eating. Another example, if I’m enjoying a sunset, the sunset is the art, not me taking time out of my day to stop and look.
My friend, Sopana, finger painting because I forced her to
The experience was super fun and really relaxing. I definitely want to do this with my friends again.
I knew this assignment would be easy and so nothing went out of my expectations.
I am an artist and I’ve been drawing for 11 years. Even when we were given huge canvases in high school and told to make an abstract painting, I didn’t. I painted my friend. So this experience was very liberating for me because I wasn’t worried about making my piece perfect.
The paintings I typically look at are hyper realistic and detailed. This was (obviously) very abstract and free flowing.
My finger painting pieceMy friend’s finger painting piece
My answer is quite boring, but I didn’t feel much from performing the maintenance art. I know for sure I felt tired. I was reaching for the stars trying to clean the statue.
Ukeles cleaning of the steps involved restoring something to its original state, while Serra’s flinging of molten lead was destructive. They are both the same in the fact they are altering the state of something. One is being cleansed while the other dirtied. I felt that Ukeles performance wasn’t really art because it was just her cleaning steps. But Serra’s is more like art since flinging molten lead is similar to throwing paint on a canvas.
I still don’t think her cleaning is art. All she is doing is cleaning. Whether she’s at a museum or being hired as a janitor, it’s not art. What makes an act art is the passion and drive for perfection to show to the world. I just don’t believe what she did really shows any of that.
Art is art because of the intentions and the materials. All paintings on canvases will be art if it is considered by the person to be art. House painting would be art if it is considered by the person and general populace to be art. One example I can think of where a painting on canvas isn’t art is the art made by elephants in Thailand. Those elephants are tortured and forced to create something they aren’t aware of. Therefore, it’s not art.
I don’t think differently about “women’s work” because it was never really something that came to mind. I don’t believe there is something called women’s work. I do believe in work that no one wants to do, resulting someone else to pick up after them. Therefore, women’s work is not art because that type of work doesn’t exist.
I would get on my hands and knees to clean Danny Devito’s Star. Honestly, I don’t know anything about this man but my friend likes him a lot. So basically, I would do it for her.
This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
Rosa Eap's Blog :) 