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While on our Journeys, My group got the chance to see art that was made during and after the Soviet Rule in Bulgaria. One of these was a group of stone slabs that were set around an excavated Roman era Circuit in the city Plovdiv. These stone slabs were parts of the Berlin wall. Each piece was reflected in a different artist view. To be able to touch something that caused so much pain, to be able to make art with it to make sure no one forgets what has happened, is incredible. And the fact that right in the middle of the whole installation was a place of joy and fun almost two thousand years ago, its mind boggling. I could talk about what each piece could mean, or what emotions overcame me while walking around them and touching them. There are simply too many words I could write about them, and also not enough. All I can tell you is that if you ever get the chance to travel to Bulgaria, make plans to go to Plovdiv and head towards the old town and if you get lost just ask someone where the pieces of the wall are.

So the end of the semester is coming and with it a final project. When I first started out, I knew kind of what theme I wanted to go with, a theme of life and death. Though I didn’t really know how to express this concept. First I wanted to the six drawings based off of still life. I sketched out what I wanted, took pictures, then scraped the whole idea. I knew I wanted to do something with skeletons. Dr. Emerson suggested going to the Oakland Cemetary to take a look at the graves and statues in there. Then after looking through past pictures on my phone, I found an old selfie that I had taken about 3ish years ago. I then remembered a project I did in high school where we took a picture and recreated with a bunch of tiny squares. I took this idea and decided to divide the picture in half, one side living, one dead, but instead of the divided being just straight down the middle, I did a checkered-like pattern. I wanted to show a person can be both alive and dead. I plan on using more cool colors like blues, purples, and some blacks. I am really excited to see how this turns out.

While working on this project I found my self biting off more than I could chew. The main problem, in my opinion, was that I should have picked a different angle to work with. I really liked making all the small detailed things out of paper, but there was just so much space that I really should have done things on a bigger scale. When we did the crit a lot of people really like the color scheme and the little details.

I, however, really did not like how it turned out. I felt like there was to much space that wasn’t really filled like other spaces were. It almost felt busy too. Like there was too much going on overall. Though it was pointed out that while looking at it in a distance, it looked better. That the scribes I did on wet paint for the wood frames of the bed really looked like wood grain.

Overall if I was to do this project over again, I would pick a different angle of the room to work with, something a little more up close on one aspect of the space. I really like the idea of this project, but I do not like the results that I produce. But the shortcomings I experience have taught me new things to think about with new projects in the future.

Nick Cave is an artist based out of Chicago. He creates these “Sound Suits” moving sculptures. These suits are made of various materials, everything from buttons to twigs to metal toys. The concept of this type of moving art piece is really fascinating to me.  Cave said that the first suit was inspired by the L.A. Riots in the 90s. He states that the idea was to create this ‘suite of armor’ from the rest of the world. He never plans out his suits when he makes them. He just seems to go with the flow. He goes to flea markets and antique shops and just roams around looking for items that call to him. He states that during these trips, he can plan out entire pieces in his mind, just by finding one piece and looking for others to go along the piece. I really like how Cave is just a ‘go with the flow’ kind of artist. He seems to get this one idea in his mind and just goes with it. He makes the idea come to life and tries to honor those who help influence those ideas. He says that the sound suites are all about honoring and celebrating different things. I understand a little about making art to honor someone or something that has helped you become who you are today, and this method of creating not only art that moves but also makes sounds, music almost, is something that blows my mind. I had never really thought about making art and sound in a way that can move and that can take on a life of its own with having live performers.

When I started on this midterm piece, I had no clue what to do. I played around with this idea of the rules of thirds when trying to figure out how to incorporate a grid into the piece. When I did my six small drawings, I really loved working with the Charcoal and playing around with the subtracting method. I really wanted to play around with different tones of black and white, and I thought the ink would be a nice contrast with the charcoal. At first, I felt really good about where I was going with this piece. I did all dry materials first. I really like how the paper took the charcoal, and how it almost sat on top of the paper, which when rubbed out, made a really nice texture as well. However, when I started to add the ink to the piece, I kind of did not like how dark the ink made everything. By the time I finished the piece, I felt like I messed up the whole thing. There was not a lot of contrast in terms of light and dark. Overall there was so much dark in the piece by my standards. Though when we did the the crit, a lot of people seemed to like how dark the piece was. Also that I somehow had a white outline around most of the objects, that created a glowing effect to the whole piece. Even though I still have some negative feelings towards my midterm, I felt a lot better after the crit when people said the like the “Moodiness” of the piece and how it was different from what other people did.   

I was nervous when we were first given our assignment of the 6 small drawings. I had never really worked from a 3D still life, or a lot of pieces in only using black dry materials. I only really have experience with wet media like acrylic and oil paint(which by the way is flipping hard to do because the number of LAYERS) Anyway…even though I was scared, I really liked how most of them came out.

The only one I actually don’t like is the first one I did. I spent to much time on it in my opinion, and it became to busy.

My best pieces, however, are the ones that I spent minimal time on. Like the positive/negative piece. It was simple to do, just lay down charcoal and then erased to make lighter points, and used more charcoal to darken areas. My peers also seemed to like this piece because of the contrast between light and dark.

There is just something about working with charcoal, no matter the form, that makes me feel happy inside. That I can make lines then use those lines to shade without adding more media to the paper. Also, there is just something about getting messy, and seeing my hands slowly become dirty over the course of the pieces.

Given that this is only the first of many projects for this class, I’m really looking forward to seeing how my art improves. Not only in class, but outside of it as well.