SEMESTER TWO BLOG

"Gross" Art I asked a friend what adjectives came to mind if I were to say something were "artistic". She replied with the words "pretty, colorful, and beautiful." These words have become synonymous with art, and for good reason. It's rare to find people who dislike Van Gogh's Starry Night or Michelangelo's Pietà, both impressive works of objectively attractive subjects. Although beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, art does not fail to depict horrifying scenes. I remember being struck by the galleries in the Lourve, filled with paintings of war, murder, and suffering. I do not believe these works are any less beautiful, the subject they depict is just more grim than a moon-lit nighttime view. There is beauty in the ugly side of life, which is what Francis Bacon's entire body work is based on. Like these artists, and in the spirit of Piss Christ, I will attempt to subvert expectations of what the subject matter in art can be.

Process At first, I had planned to just present the photos for this project as they were, with some minor edits in Lightroom. I wasn't the biggest fan with how all of the photos turned out, but I really liked three or four of them on their own. I think my displeasure with how they turned out, and sitting through my first day of Mixed Media and Collage class inspired me to turn these photos into collaged pieces. I have not worked with non-digital collage in a while, and though this would be an interesting experiment, further altering 'gross' imagery, perhaps making something 'beautiful' as a result. 

In my conversation with Professor Beaudoin about my first ten works, she reminded me that I had to rework one of my projects from last semester. I plan to use my collages from the same project last semester, which I was unable to completely print entirely because of a printer issue. I was only able to print five of them, so will only use pieces from those five collages. I feel that my work is normally black and white, but these collages are based on photos taken in the summer, so are filled with vibrant colors. I plan to focus on these colors and include them in collage/drawn pieces for the next ten works, mediums that I wish I incorporated more into my work, but am normally not confident enough in my abilities to even attempt it. Professor Beaudoin also asked how these works related to my past projects, and I do not think they do. I don't think there is much consistency in my work, which I never considered much of an issue until recently. It might just be a reflection of my ADHD and my inability to focus on anything for a long period of time coupled with having a new interest every few weeks. I think my multiple interests are part of my artistic process, which is ever evolving. 

Inspiration I looked to John Stezaker for this project, an English artist who just to happens to be from Worcester (the original one). Stezaker used photos from magazines, post cards, and other commercial imagery in his work, which normally consists of figures in the background and a natural scene in the front. Using this natural imagery to block the figure subverts expectations of what a viewer would expect to see with a posed photograph, placing the beauty of nature before human beauty and vanity. I have come across commentary on his work that labels it as 'disturbing,' but I have to disagree. With Stezaker, we are not looking at anything that would make someone squeamish, we are familiar with these scenes. He takes idyllic, romanticized British imagery and combines them where they are not meant to be combined. It is certainly interesting, but I would not consider it 'disturbing'.

This week primarily involved planning my next, more long-term works. To the right I included an image of my notes on the matter, but what I would be especially interested to try is underwater photography. With the exception of using a GoPro, I have never attempted this, mainly because of how expensive it is. Growing up swimming, I am very familiar with how the body interacts with the water, how a certain movement will create a certain slash, how the water may envelop the entire form as it breaks for the surface. I suppose what I would be interested in covering in this project is how the body, and it's movements, interact with water. Water is the basis of all civilization, it is essential to survive, something we use everyday. I plan to build off the photos from 10+10= 20, are print them large. The final works will possibly be a combination of photographs and collage, but I plan to only collage my own work. 

References As a lifelong competitive swimmer, what often comes to mind when I think of photography pertaining to water is photos by Mike Lewis. Most of his photos are commissioned for advertisements for big brands like TYR and Speedo, and others are more dedicated to documenting elite swimmers leading up to important meets. However, some of his work is very visually interesting in how it pertains to water interacting with the athletes. Although his work is sport-heavy, it still serves as an interesting reference. 

Planning This week I mainly worked in Photoshop to prepare to print larger. Since I plan to work so big, and printing will take a significant amount of time, I wanted to go in with more of a plan than I normally do. Attached above are collaged images based on the photos I took a few weeks ago at the Hart pool. I do plan to take more photos, perhaps ones which can stand on their own without collage, but have been unable to do so since I have not been on campus. I definitely would like to explore how waters surface tension interacts with the body emerging from beneath, but this also means I need to ensure the best possible lighting since it will require a very high shutter speed. This upcoming week I plan to print, photograph new images, and have approximately three to five works completed by next Wednesday for critique. 

Working I was able to print two large photos on Wednesday, which enabled me to start working on the collages. They are fairly simple, since they only consist of strips of the photos, but working with images that were three and a half feet tall was new to me, I am much more accustomed to working with paper that is letter sized. This week I also discovered that the paper cutter in the upper drawing studio is at a little bit of an angle, so does not make completely straight cuts. This was certainly another challenge I had to face, but working with a large format means that it is much less obvious. On Monday I also had to opportunity to take more photos after finding a model, but unlike the subjects in the larger collages, this model was submerged in water rather than interacting with it on land. I think this can be even more visually interesting since you are able to see the bubbled, white water, and obscurity the water provides the figure. As far as the subject matter, I mainly focused on the face and limbs, but never include the torso. There are the most expressive parts of the body, so I found it fitting to feature them. I wanted to further obscure the figure by continuing with collaged elements, this time done digitally in Photoshop. All of them use geographic shapes, to match with the measured neatness of the large collages. This managed to create abstract images with only a few modifications becuase of the abstractness of the water obscuring the reality of the figure. 

Poster Development This week I created a rough draft for a potential poster for the senior exhibition. In class, we landed on the name of the show: Essence. I personally find this word to be too broad and not representative of our collective work, so I wanted the imagery on the poster to further expand on its meaning. I decided to work with the plan I detailed last week to utilize images of scraps in everyones studios, which represent the mediums and color palates of their respective works. For instance, Obiamaka is a painter, so I used an image of her paint knife, and Teaken is working with plaster, so I included an image of a discarded latex glove used in the process. I do this this current design has the ability to be reworked, but I am pleased with how it looks as a first draft. I think it offers an interesting but not overwhelming array of colors, which is a departure from the relatively monochromatic exhibition posters in the past. The next step is to determine the title layout, which has proved more difficult than I thought. I would like to get opinions from my classmates on if they would like it to be in color or just black, but I think the font should be sans serif, like Arial Black or Impact. I think a serif font would overwhelm the already chaotic composition and not flow as well as a sans serif font. The names on the poster are not permanent, they are temporary guides as to who's "scrap" is who's. I also made another poster based on the color scheme of my first collage, and the five main colors that Adobe Color picked up. I choose not to use the gray that came up, so I was working with a vibrant pink, baby blue, gold, and saturated yellow. I am not as big of a fan of this sample as I am of the other one, I think it looks too neat in comparison. 

For the Senior Show I continued to work this week on finding new interesting ways to alter my images digitally. Instead of separating and adjusting geometric sections of the images, I experimented with the array of filters Photoshop has to offer. I have already been experimenting with these more while making the exhibition poster, and wanted to see how they would work with my photographs. In the next week, I plan to take more photos since I did not have access to a camera this week. I will also continue to develop the collages in Photoshop. I also further revised my artist statement as part of the assignment but also for the Reardon Award and senior exhibition. I would also like to determine by next week which pieces I would like to display for the award. 

More Work for the Show The bulk of my work for the show this week was printing. I printed all of my photos on Monday, which came out with a slight sepia filter on all the photos. I met with Professor Beaudoin to figure out a solution, which was most likely a printer issue. I was able to reprint them all on Tuesday to be true to the black and white edits as they appear on the computer screen. For the next week, I would like to meet with Meredith to get the frames that Prior already has, and figure out how I will matte each photo in the frame. I have never done matting outside of working with the matte already in a purchased frame, so this will be an interesting learning experience. I had also intended on doing reshoots the beginning of this week, but the pool unfortunately has to be shocked (chlorine levels are turned up), which means no one could enter the pool. I still want to take a few more photos in case I end up liking them more than my original photos, it will just have to be in the next week. 

Reshoots and Revisions This week I took more photos for the senior show, taking advice from the Reardon Award juror and studio visit with Mae-Chu O'Connell. The main feedback I received from the juror was in regards to my artist statement, which she suggested I complexity scrap and start from scratch. We have the final draft of the statement due April 19, and I plan to develop it and make it more specific over the next few weeks to better connect it to this series. The juror seemed to be a fan of the more subtle collage which mimics how water moves, which is consistent with the feedback I got from my peers during critiques. Mae-Chu's commentary was interesting, since she labelled me a weaver, something I have not heard yet about my work. She also interpreted my work as sensual, if not sexy, since it depicted women showing skin. We discussed how it would perhaps be different if the subject in the water was a man, and that the introduction of body hair and more masculine features would change how the overall series is interpreted. This week, I photographed one of my male teammates and created a few more collages in Photoshop. I would like to see how my peers react to these images, and if they think I should include images of both male and female models in the final exhibition. This is also the only model I have used so far who is a swimmer instead of a diver, and I believe these photos are reminiscent of that. Swimming is a very aggressive sport which requires the athlete to slice their way through the water, while diving requires the athlete to gracefully enter the water, leaving the smallest splash possible in their wake. Therefore I think he interpreted my directions to be aggressive with the water. This is not a consequence of gender or gendered expectations, but a consequence of what is familiar to him versus the female divers in my other images. 

Random Glitches Professor Beaudoin and John mentioned that I can convert my images into text and glitch them, which means losing the control over the collage in Photoshop to the randomness of code. Unfortunately, after sitting through YouTube tutorials and reading online and email instructions from Prof. Beaudoin, the images I was using kept crashing on my laptop. I am interested in trying this technique, but am incredibly unfamiliar with this process. 

Preparing for the Show This week, I spent the bulk of my time figuring out the measurements required to make a grid layout on the wall. Since I am no mathematician, this took much longer than expected, and I now have a newfound respect for photography curators who have to do this on a regular basis. Using Adobe Illustrator and painstakingly converting measurements out of 100 rather than 12. Upon reflection, I probably should have done the measurements in the metric system, but that ship has sailed. I also continued to revise and redo some of my collages. Some of the feedback I have gotten recently is that people tend to respond better to the collages that emphasize water in motion. I the collage below on the left include the checkered layout, but subtlely altered the entire image rather than just an checkers in the middle. I also revised on of my collages that I intend to print large to mimic the collage I did by hand. When I composed this collage digitally I broke it up into several sections, which viewers did not respond well to. I went back to my original plan of including seven sections, which allow for larger sections of the image to be read in the composition. 

Reshoots I also retook a few more photos, going off of the feedback from last week that some of my images read too much as a swimmer in water, rather than just a person in water. I used a female swimmer this time, and mainly focused on creating a portrait. Some of the most cohesive images I have created so far include other parts of the body, so I wanted to give myself more portrait options to edit with. Between revisions, rewriting my artist statement, layouts, reshooting, and editing, I spent about 10 hours working this week. 

Final Revisions This week, I worked on finalizing which collages I will use for the final layout, ordering mats for the framing, and working out what frames are available for the larger prints. When meeting with Meredith and Tim on Friday to discuss how to hang my pieces and framing options, they were unsure if I would be able to do the larger layout with eight images, so I made a mock-up using only four images in the middle, seen below. I also did not get information about the size of the larger frames until Tuesday afternoon, so had to wait to print since I intend for the images to not have a bleed, and will have to print to the exact size. I also purchased six mats for the 16x20in frames which are supposed to be delivered on Thursday. 

I have seen my peers work all year, but never, until recently, have I seen all our work in the same space. When in Millard, everyones is scattered. Some people are in sculpture, drawing, or in the ramp gallery. In the Cantor Gallery, everyones work can be displayed together, despite the variety of mediums and content. While I received feedback, gave feedback, and revised along with my classmates for the last semester, everyone developed their own, unique artistic style, a culmination of all their previous work on display for our first and final show together.