When I was around 7 years old I saw a movie called “Spirited Away” by Hayao Miyazaki and it changed my view of art forever. I remember seeing the main character and noticed how smoothly she moves, and how magical the creatures and dragons made me feel when I saw them gracefully fly across the screen. I became obsessed with Miyazaki movies. I would beg my mother to find more of his movies and I would sit and practice drawing the characters I saw. It was then that I decided that I wanted to follow in his footsteps and become an animator. However, as the years went on and life got in the way my goals changed; it took me a few years and hardships to bring myself back to the realization that doing what you love in life is worth it. Miyazaki, along with other animators and cartoonists, gave me a type of inspiration that no other artist could truly achieve. These artists brought me back to my passion so for my Artist Tree, I dared to place myself among my actual heroes. 

I love the art of animation, I admire the skill and patience it takes to simply create an animated episode. Animation is an extremely delicate and time consuming artwork but it creates some of the most beautiful works of entertainment. So when I decided to place myself among them in this tree, I sadly realized I knew less names of these wonderful creators than I thought I did. For my tree, I decided to create it in the classic Tree-House style of Winnie the Pooh, one of my favorite Disney animations. This tree is composed of thick branches that taper out thinner and thinner. I decided to write the names of my favorite animators larger and slowly follow the branches with names that either followed them in my animated journey, or followed them in succession of success. 

I placed the names on this tree on two main sides. The left starts out with my absolute favorite, Hayao Miyazaki followed by names of relatively famous animators but still in a niche category. On the right I placed  Disney, followed by the names of other “Disney” branded animators along with some of the classic cartoon-style animators and pioneers of the industry. Towards the bottom of my tree I placed animator James Baxter, a well renowned and incredibly talented animator who has worked on numerous projects that I deeply admire. Finally, and most terrifying, I placed myself right underneath my current role model Rebecca Sugar, the creator of “Steven Universe”. 

Over the years my goals and career choices have fluctuated. When I was a teenager I lost faith in my artwork, and thought that my art would never become as beautiful as those whom I admired. I was frustrated that my art was not as good as the image in my head and would be angry at myself even though I never received any artistic training. When I finally went to college and attempted to be in different fields and corporate worlds I felt isolated and deflated. I had always been working on my art in my free time and slowly realized that if I had to be in a corporation for my entire life, I would be miserable; so I took my life back into my own hands and decided to simply do what I enjoy. One of my biggest goals I have set up for myself is to create my own original story. Something that I can be fully passionate about, and be able to create into a graphic novel with hopes of eventual animation. I would love to be able to find a working environment where I can hone my skills and still feel inspired to work on my own projects.

After some consideration, I realized that I would love to be an art teacher by day, and graphic novelist by night. Being in a teaching environment is exciting to me, I love children and remember how much I enjoyed my art classes, so being able to teach kids to follow their passions, while following my own is exactly something I would be happy doing for the rest of my life. Art is something that everyone should have access too, and being able to teach children how to appreciate and enjoy their own works is something that I needed in my life. I am  a very practical person and I feel happy with the choices and goals I have set out for myself. I know that I still have a long way to go before I am comfortable and happy with my work; but I am excited to see where that work and effort brings me. I have a wonderful imagination and I am ready to work hard to bring those ideas to life through art.

 

Jeff Koons has made a lot of different works over the years. Out of all the examples we have been shown, oddly enough my favorite has been the Made in Heaven series. It feels like the most “real” work that he put thought and effort into creating. Of course it can be argued that this work is obscene or pornography, but the work itself, how it was created and painted and displayed along with the flowers and animals made the whole series work together in a nice way. Some of his other works look like a jumble of random thoughts and expressions that made it difficult to appreciate. In Easyfun most of his pieces are filled with bright colors, bras, and thongs. There is no narrative in these, these are simply a way for him to place underwear in his work.

2.M.2 Jeff Koons Website

After watching Jeff Koons’s work being created in the Art 21 video put a new perspective on his work in my eyes. It was fascinating and strange to see art being created in such a well planned and structured format; it gave off almost a factory-type production. What I found to be the most fascinating, borderline hilarious, was seeing Koons’s work of the balloon and balloon dog being displayed in a gorgeous mansion filled with eloquent lighting and interior design. I never really think about Koons’s work being kitsch until I see it in a setting where it clearly doesn’t belong.

2.M.1 Jeff Koons Art21

As I perused this list of controversial works I came across many different ones that I loved, hated, and a few I laughed out loud to; but for some reason I kept coming back to Tracy Emin’s ‘My Bed’ that was made in 1998. Maybe it’s because it looks so similar to my own bed, maybe it’s because of the carefully planned objects, and maybe it’s because of the fact that it has a color scheme but ‘My Bed’ is filled with so many small details and distinctions that really show a window into Tracy’s life in a fantastically real way.  

I connect with this piece on a personal level, but it is clearly a perfect example of Open Definition. If Marcel Duchamp can put a urinal on its side and call it art, then Tracy Emin can show what her bed looks like. It’s raw, it’s representative of her life, and it shows a set of emotions that could make some people uncomfortable, but can also give some people a form of connection. A messy room is something anyone with depression is no stranger too, and looking at the different items scattered in this piece, the unmade bed with stockings laying on top, the empty vodka bottles, old slippers, the cartons of cigarettes, the carpet littered with trash, pills, and empty candy boxes ending with a cute little puppy plush on the floor is such a deeply emotional array of items.   

Personally, I cannot see a reason to have this work censored. I am someone who believes that art should never be censored but instead be given a warning if the work can be seen as controversial, but this piece is (in it’s essence) simply a bed with some items around it. We aren’t witnessing anything dramatic, harmful, hateful, or violent. We are simply seeing a glimpse into this artists life, a life that many people can relate to. If you take a look into some of Tracy’s other works you can see how this piece really fits in. This is part of her style, showing raw, real, and unedited examples of life. I find a true beauty in that, and it gives me inspiration to be real and honest in my own art.

Work Cited 

Jones, Shelley. “I Interviewed My Dad about Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’.” Huck Magazine, 2 Apr. 2015, www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/art-2/interviewed-dad-tracey-emins-bed/.

The term ‘obscene art’ is a bit of a contradiction. There are plenty of artworks that numerous people can see as obscene rather than art, but that some would only see as art. Things that are obscene are relative to the individual who experiences it. Personally, I think that pretty much anything can be art, especially if the creator made it with passion and heart. In Barrett’s book they discuss censorship and what should be allowed to be displayed or not and personally I think that the easiest solution would be to simply have a warning. People can make their own decisions as to view different works or not, to simply have a trigger warning for people who do believe in ‘obscene art’ or for young children it would solve the problem of the philosophical question of what can be shown, to be what people willingly see or not.

2.R.3 Mimesis

Personally, I love a lot of work that could be seen as kitsch. I loved Jeff Koons work and plenty of other artists that could be considered kitsch make some of the most interesting pieces of art. One example would be Ryan Kelly, who displayed his artwork ‘Ham Fisted’ here on campus last semester, some of his earlier works are made after the grandmother trinket esque style. One thing that I think could be seen as kitsch is memes. A lot of artists create different memes that are meant to me a little “trashy” the formatting of memes is never supposed to be clean, or well drawn, but to invoke a feeling.

2.R.2 Kundera on Kitsch

In chapter two of Barrett’s ‘Why is That Art’,we learn about realism; especially how the Greeks saw realism and the opinions of tow great philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. In the readings, we learn about Plato’s and Aristotle’s views on art and particularly what they thought about realism.  Both of them grew up in the era of realism so they both saw realism as the true form of art, as well as how representational art holds true beauty. However, Plato did not necessarily like art if it was not in his ideal form, while Aristotle enjoyed art and did not think it needed to have an ideal form.

2.R.1 Truth and Beauty

In Barrett’s ‘Why is That Art?’, his primary goal is to explain art, and to show how it is defined. Barrett goes into detail on how a critic evaluates art and how the critic defines the art by different categories and themes. In my opinion, art is art when the creator calls it art. If someone worked hard on something, or even hardly worked at all it is there choice to call their work art or not. Since I am not adept at being a critic, I haven’t truly utilized the steps and examples Barrett wrote about.

1.M.3 Art Definitions

This reading shows us the different forms of composition and how they can work together. I found this reading to be very understandable, especially since we get to see the “same” image repeated in these different compositions and how they relate to the “subject” or lack-there-of. Since I am a visual person, I often use different references or images to help me form my artwork. However, some of the most enjoying art I have created have been straight from my imagination and therefore more abstract. I enjoy representational work the most but am interested in exploring other compositions.

1.M.2 Visual Expression

After reading the chapters from the parallel universes wiki, I noted that the point of these readings were to show us what visual grammar is, and how it relates to us as artists. Personally, I felt as though I understood the majority of the readings, I already understood what things such as point, lines, volume, light, ect. meant in terms of art usage. However, there were things I had little knowledge about such as kinematics, and would be interesting in going over that topic more in class.

The way I understand grammar is visually. I am a very visual person and always struggled with the typical verbal grammar. That being said I do understand how visual grammar and verbal grammar need one another in certain ways. Being able to see and hear something helps people grasp concepts faster considering they are using multiple senses to learn and understand at once. However, Being able to just see something or just hear something can cause just as much of an impact as being able to see and hear.

1.M.1 Visual Grammar