This weeks activity was finger painting and I really enjoyed it! The last time I remember finger painting is back in pre school and I have to say that I missed it. This finger painting activity reminded of me of when I was younger and even helped relieve some of the finals stress. It was refreshing to be a bit messy and just have fun. Sometimes I believe we forget to have fun as we are overwhelmed with school and responsibilities and finger painting reminded me to relax and live a little. The colors I got were green, red and white which was perfect since it’s the holiday season. In light of the holiday season, I decided to paint something Christmas inspired to show how excited I am for the holidays. The best time of the year is almost here and I believe its considered the best not because of the gifts and food but because of the love it brings to everyone.
Exhibition Information:
Artist: Amy Duran
Exhibition: Love Houses
Media: clay, mixed-media
Gallery: CSULB School of Art, Max L. Gatov Gallery
Website: N/A
Instagram: polkadot.pony
About the Artist:
Amy Duran is currently a senior undergrad student at CalState Long Beach working towards obtaining her BFA in Ceramics from the School of Art’s Ceramics program. She plans on graduating after spring semester. After graduating, Duran has no plans on attending graduate school and would like to get an internship at Pixar for sculpture. All her life, Duran has been interested in sculpting but when she’s not doing that she decorates cake at her workplace, paints, or watches her favorite fantasy movies such as Harry Potter.
Analysis:
Duran’s exhibition consisted of her works in Love Houses where she collaborated with her friend Luis Casas and her sculpture work with the wolf, girl, and man. Her collaboration with her friend inspired the name “Love Houses” as his last name, “Casas” means house and her name “Amy” means love. Love Houses consisted of multiple detailed vases covered in roses and ornaments that could be hung up for the holidays. The detailed roses on the pottery was done by Duran through the same methods she uses to decorate her cakes when she works. Her sculpture containing the wolf, girl, and the man is a reference to fantasy stories and instead of just having her own idea of the story told, she also wants viewers to create their own stories from her work.
Walking in and seeing Amy Duran’s work caught my eye immediately. The detail of the roses she placed on the pottery reminded of when I took ceramics back in high school and liked to put roses on the things I would make. Her skill for cake decorating can be seen in her roses because they were all precise and identical on the pottery. I found it interesting that cake decorating methods could be used in ceramics. Duran’s love for fantasy stories could be seen in her sculpture work which referenced the story of little red riding hood.
Roses are one of the my favorite flowers and I really enjoy seeing them on household items wether they are painted on or piped on because I think it adds beauty to the common household item. I enjoyed Duran’s work because the roses she did were so precise and perfect and added beautiful detail to the pottery. I also find it nice to possible put flowers inside a vase decorated with them as well.
I would like to start off by saying that this class has been the highlight of my semester. Professor Glen Zucman is a fun and amazing instructor. I always had a good time when it came to that class and always left class happy.
My favorite activities were the graffiti drawing, landscapes with a corpse, and the art care package. I really enjoyed how graffiti drawing and landscapes with a corpse pushed me to come out of my bubble more and be a bit more adventurous and take more chances. I’m glad I decided to be adventurous and go to Venice for the graffiti activity because I got to not only try my hand at graffiti art but also see the diversity I don’t normally see at home. The art care package made me really think about symbolism and deeper meanings which was nice because sometimes I think we tend to forget about those things as we bury ourselves with work. My least favorite activities would be the automatic drawing, plaster casting, sketching in the Japanese Garden.
I enjoyed the hybrid format because it allowed me to interact with my fellow classmate and my professor
I think the classmates conversations were fun especially because we were a hybrid class so it was a bit harder to talk to classmates sometimes but I think the conversations we had to do helped fill the gap. It was nice meeting classmates from different majors and learning about them.
I enjoyed doing the art blogs because it allowed be to see the art my classmates did and their thoughts on it as well which was nice to see and read.
I enjoyed the art talk because since it was online it allowed people to not only have time to gather their ideas and put in into one post but it also was good because some people are shy and find it difficult to share ideas and opinions in front of a class.
This weeks activity was Instagram day where everyone in the class posted at least 4 photos throughout their day on Instagram and tagging it with #art110f16. Though the tag I was able to catch a glimpse of everyones day and it was interesting to see how everyones day was so different. We pass by people everyday in the halls or around campus never knowing that what they did that day was completely different from our own. It’s amazing how we are all the same yet all completely different at the same time.
This week I had the pleasure of meeting Marlene Rodriguez for the classmate conversation. Marlene is currently a 2nd year Speech Pathology major here at CalState Long Beach and is from Hispanic dissent. Everyday, she commutes to school from Downey, California. When she isn’t at school, she works at the Costco optometry office. During our conversation, I found out that we had a common interest in our love for dogs–it’s her favorite animal (and is mine too). Her favorite food to eat is pizza and her favorite color is anything that is a neutral color. Marlene has one sibling, an older brother. When it comes to the question of the week, she believes that school in 2036 will be different from todays schooling as it will be mostly online or involve teachers speaking through a TV. She hopes that by then there will be less or no debt for students as the government will be able to provide and support the educational costs for college students.
This week I met Cindy Le in class and we did a classmate conversation together! Cindy is currently a 2nd year Pre-Biology major here at CalState Long Beach. Like most student at this school, Cindy commutes. In the future, she wants to work in the Bio Research field so she can do work outdoors. In her spare time, one of the things Cindy likes to do is play the violin, which she has been playing for 7 years. Other things that Cindy enjoys doing is drawing (she especially likes to draw dragons) and eating. She has two younger siblings, one sister and one brother, making her the oldest. During our conversation, we both discovered that we both like dogs. Cindy plans on getting dogs someday and wants to name them Belka and Galtero. For this weeks question about which pill we would choose if given the choice, Cindy said she would choose the red pill which would show her the truth. She would choose the red pill because she loves to learn and if given the chance to learn about something no one knows about, she would take it.
Exhibition Information:
Artist: Sage Garver
Exhibition: BIO
Media: Mixed media
Gallery: CSULB School of Art, Dennis W. Dutzi Gallery
Website: N/A
Instagram: N/A
About the Artist:
Sage Garver is currently a senior a CalState Long Beach working toward obtaining her BFA from the School of Art’s sculpture program. After graduating, she plans to move to Hawaii to live with her sister and find an art related job. She currently has no plans to attend graduate school for long time. Art has always been something she had interest in but, her passion did not become serious until college. Other than her passion for art, some of Garver’s other passions/hobbies include swimming, hiking, and cooking. She especially like to cook and eat Asian foods such as Indian curry.
Analysis:
Sage Garver’s exhibition took about a month to complete. It consisted of round and curved shapes whose color blended with that of the walls, which caused them to merge together and become one. The shapes themselves were a multitude of sizes and were 3D. The shapes were also created with foam. Along with the shapes lining throughout the walls, there was a gold center piece attached to gold chains that dangled and hung from the ceiling and reflecting the light
Walking into Garver’s exhibition, I was reminded a lot of the cells from Biology class. The shapes were similar to that of the organelles found within the cell and the body such as the nucleus and the golgi apparatus. According the Garver, the walls represented what was inside of the body, thus explaining the similarities between the shapes on the wall and the shapes of common bodily organelles. The gold center piece attached to gold chains was a representation of the outside of the body with the chains possibly representing the fine lines and wrinkles on the surface of the body as it ages and the gold ball representing a shriveling skin cell.
Garver’s exhibition was built upon the illness that she herself experienced in her lifetime. Personally, I never experience an illness that had a large impact on my everyday life, but I do read about them and know that there are many things one needs to give up and sacrifice when facing certain illnesses. These sacrifices can alter ones way of living forever as there are dietary and physical restrictions. Illness shows how fragile life can be as one mutation or mistake can cause a domino affect, leading to drastic changes within the body. Garver’s walls shows that to me as they are white and blend perfectly with the wall they are on but if one accident is made, it may no longer be white; thus hindering the piece in some shape or form that may lead to be detrimental.
Exhibition Information:
Artist: Kyle Kruse
Exhibition: Janus Maxima
Media: Mixed media, Installation
Gallery: CSULB School of Art, Marilyn Werby Gallery
Website: kylekruseart.com
Instagram: kyle.kruse
About the Artist:
Kyle Kruse is currently a senior at CalState Long beach and is working towards obtaining his BFA in printmaking from the School of Art. After graduation, he plans to continue hi8s education at graduate school. Kruse struggles with insomnia which causes him to have a hard time resting. He uses the time he has doing activities that he enjoys doing such as rock climbing, exploring with his camera, and reading/researching about topics he finds interesting. He finds living through experience meaningful to him which is reflected on his art exhibition Janus Maxima, which is his degree show.
Analysis:
Kyle Kruse’s exhibition, Janus Maxima, consisted of a side that had dark films such as burning bones and flesh eating and a side that had his wood carvings. Throughout his exhibition, the floor was crusted with damp dirt that created the illusion of actually trekking through a dirt path which added onto the cultish aura of the room. The wood carvings were incredible with the attention to detail it had.
Walking into Kyle Kruse’s exhibition was like walking straight into a cult ceremony area or walking right onto a set of a cult horror movie. The exhibit took Kruse 10 months to complete. His preference of living through experience can be seen in this exhibition as the whole show allowed the viewer to experience the dark and damp feeling of entering a darker reality. The relationship between the room and the videos meshed very well in the sense that all the senses were tied together in order to obtain the full experience of the show overall. From the dirt crusted ground to the crackling sounds from the video to the visuals of the carvings and video content, it all gave way to the dark and cult like vibes given from the show.
Growing up in a Catholic family, the idea of dark cults and things considered to be heretic were things that I’ve been told were evil and bad–thus instilling a fear in me when I face those things. Entering Kruse’s dark and cult like exhibition was an interesting experience for me as I was able to appreciate the amazing art work he did along with having the feeling of fear that I have long been taught to have towards darkness and cults. The mixture of awe and acute fear/discomfort was a new feeling for me as I never before been amazed by something that also instilled fear in me. I was taught to be awed by beauty and was taught that beauty was light but inside Kruse’s show which displayed a dark reality, I was in awe at how the senses were use to fully experience the darkness of the exhibition.
This week for our classmate conversation, I met Hannah Adams! Hannah is a super nice person and is very easy to talk to. Currently, she is a second year Biology Education major here at CalState Long Beach and plans to become a biology teacher. At first, she considered being an occupational therapist, like her mother, but soon after shadowing the career she decided that it wasn’t for her. Her decision to become a biology teacher is due to her love for all things science. In her spare time Hannah likes to draw and look up new animals (anything without a backbone). Some TV shows she likes to watch are Stranger Things, Person of Interest, Supernatural, and X-Files. When it comes to the question of the week, Hannah thinks the topic of fan art is a broad topic and it should be appreciated for the effort an individual puts in. She believes the right of free speech also applies to art since it is a way for once to express ones view and send a message. Individuals should be allowed to exert their freedom to draw what they want even though it might cause offense to the person especially if it is found offensive because love and hate is part of what one receives as a celebrity.
Linda's Universe 