comics ch 9 reading response

i must say, i am glad to be finished reading this book. it was very entertaining at first and informative overall, but i did get a little annoyed with "scott". i was just bugged by how many times he tried to get deep...then DEEPER....andDEEEPER AND DEEPER AND DEEPER. give it a rest!!! all of his "enlightening" points weren't that enlightening after a short while. and also, the italicizing, bolding, and capitalizing of words really really annoyed me. not only did these elements make it extremely hard to read, they all put the emphasis on the wrong thing!!!! reminds me of this:

FAST FORWARD TO 1 MIN 33 SECONDS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FQESCVkXnU

but the chapter is about communicating ideas between different minds without ever actually being able to convey to those minds exactly what your mind knows and sees. thus, the chapter is called "putting it all together". for example: pen goes to paper, goes to eye, goes to brain. only communication can breach the walls of ignorance that keeps human beings from seeing each other clearly.

art show for week 5

the art show that i attended this week is not your typical art show but it is one that i think exquisitely examples the unison of art and life. i went to a Los Angeles Dodgers v. San Diego Padres game this week with my bff Lauren Mackey. I was really excited to go because not only am I a Nor Cal Dodger fan, but I have never been to a Dodger game, let alone any professional baseball game.  The creation of baseball, known as "America's Past Time" is an art in itself. It is a game built upon the people who make and allow it to exist. I'm not merely speaking of the players, I am referring to the fans, the umpires, the radio reporters, the t.v. reporters, the newspaper reporters, the magazine reporters, the after game show reporters, the pre game show reporters, the vending stand vendors, the mobile vendors in the stands yelling things like "Dodger Dogs!" or "beer!" or "cotton candy!" or "frozen lemonade, chocolate malts!" or "peanuts!", the ticket salesmen, the fan gear sales men, the ticket checkers, the bag inspectors, the stadium builders, the stadium cleaners, the guest singer who sings the National Anthem, the guest singer who sings "God Bless America" before the 7th inning stretch - all of these things an countless more create and preserve America's Past Time. All of these people living and sharing an experience or many experiences together are participating in a historical establishment of the people before them, an establishment that is an art that comes to life by these people who feed it. This art that lives took stronghold upon me the moment I entered the stadium - suddenly I was a part of it all. And I felt like a child.

I think of many things I do in this way. I mean art is life, our lives are art. No one on this earth travels the very same path throughout their time here and everyone creates their own art out of their lives by what the choose to do and not do, the habits they form, the actions they take, the people they choose or allow to enter their creation , their creation of art which is life.

This reality always crosses my mind when I'm driving from LA or Ventura back to SB, for some reason not on the way there though. Pacific Coast Highway and 101 perfectly run alongside the ocean. In some parts the waves even crash up against the highway you are driving on. The mountains to your right or left. This highway is an art that was researched, sketched, constructed into a physical being (sculpture perhaps?), and then and to this day is an interactive piece installed along the coast line, adjacent to a mountain range, that people participate in (re)affirming its existence at all times. It is a living dead piece of art. It is the art of life which is continuous, constant, and everlasting.

Sequence/Narrative Proposals

1) So my 8th grade year was the only year I ever attended a public school - and it was AWESOME. Naturally, seeing as it was my first time ever not having to wear uniforms, I was certain that all of my outfits must be awesome and never repeated. To prevent this, I literally wrote in a notebook every single day my entire outfit - from shoes, pants, socks, skirts, shirts, jackets, dresses, sweatshirts, sweaters, and all clothing items, to earrings, headbands, hats, bracelets, rings, necklaces, anklets, any and all tchotchkes to the way I did my hair and if applicable, any special make up I happened to be wearing that day. As you can see, this is a very long narrative and time-lapse sequence. I really wish I could have my mom send it to me so I could present it in class, but I doubt it would come in time. So, alternate proposals would be to document my outfits from today until tuesday or maybe have her take pics of my old notebook and send them to me.

2) I am a strong anti-technology activist and the cameras these days drive me crazy. I hate all this digital nonsense and photos on the computer nonsense. I like to look at a photograph in my hands and feel it, knowing that this specific photo is of a one time moment that was not shot and recreated/edited over and over again, thus falsifying the memory and documentation of that "moment." This is why for about a year now I have been purchasing disposable cameras. Each camera only contains 27 pictures so every photo taken is a once in a life time opportunity to capture that specific moment, so there are no re-dos or faking a special moment. Since there are so few pictures per camera, you have to choose each "click!" wisely, thus ensuring all of the photos you develop are very special and bring back very specific memories. Also, after I fill a camera, it takes me at least a month to get it developed. When I do, I am reminded of memories over a long period of time, random ones and significant ones that bring me tons of joy when I look at them. Not only do I want to make a book of my memories, I want to use them all for drawing, painting, sculpture, and all mediums inspiration in the future. One proposal would be to spread these photos in a sequence that displays different moments over a long period of time and photograph them - I cannot make the book or paintings, etc. in time.

3) I will write a poem that touches on the last year that I've spent with my boyfriend - a great portion of the time before we were actually together. I want to write a poem that portrays the passage of time in our relationship because in August, I am leaving for 9 months to go abroad. It is really sad and hard for me because we fought to be together for so long and now we are, and are so deeply in love that when I leave, it is going to break both of our hearts. Because when I leave, our relationship will end and end in sorrow and what kills me the most is that we will never know what could have been. Who knows how it will be when I return too? I want to write letters to each other that we can read when we are a part and remember our love together. It goes much further and more in depth but for now this is all I wish to disclose. My proposal is a poem, a special poem.

fav artist

So, there's no way in hell I can possibly write about who my "favorite" artist is, I have no clue and I doubt I ever will! But I am going to write about one artist who I do like, not necessarily more than any other artist, but he came to mind given recent events - Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Last summer I went to the MOMA in San Francisco and got to experience one of his pieces. This piece was one of the stacks of photo posters that you can take. So I took one as did Jonny, now my boyfriend, who I was with. Unfortunately I was only visiting Jonny for 1 day and it was before we were together. At the end of our adventurous day we parted ways for the rest of the summer and I accidentally left my Gonzalez-Torres poster in his car. It's funny because two days before I saw this piece in the museum, I was in Berkley at my bff Taylor Chang's pad and someone in her apartment had two of them hanging on the wall next to one another. I didn't know what they were from or who they were by until I went to the museum a couple days later. I'm sad because I believe Jonny and my posters are gone for good because he left them in his car and he thinks his parents probably tossed them :( I know, really bad. I was just reminded of this on Friday when I visited my other bff, Lauren Mackey, who had the same poster on her wall. It made me sad and bummed that I don't have mine anymore and that I never got to hang it. But this is probably why he came to my mind for doing this blog. Here's a pic of the one I lost, followed by other works he's done:

NEEEEAAAAATTTTOOOOOOO

fr33 f0rm

i hate school. i love it. but i hate it. teachers, t.a.s, classes, the school, everything expects way too much, way too much. say on the first day of school of a quarter i go to all my classes. they've all already assigned at least 100 pages of reading each for that week - so like 400 pages total. well guess what, the books not available yet. or i don't have the money yet. so now, thousands of pages behind in the quarter, am i going to do the reading? probably not. i'm going to try, but there's no way i'll get it done in time for all my classes. fucking ridiculous because now i learn less because you all (teachers,etc.) have given us more. if i had an affordable, decent, practical amount of reading each night for all of my classes, then guess what - i'd do it AND THUS I WOULD LEARN A WHOLE FUCK TON MORE AND I BET EVERYONE ELSE WILL TOO. it's true what they say - less is more. it just sucks because trying to do all the work when you know you'll never succeed in doing all of it keeps you from learning from actual life. if i could, i would go on 3 hikes a week where i would be educating myself the whole time. but guess what, i haven't gone on a hike since fucking fall BECAUSE OF ALL THE FUCKING SHCOOOL FUCKING WORK. IT'S BULLSHIT. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO ACTUALLY LIVE IN SANTA BARBARA IF I CAN'T EVER LEAVE MY DESK?!?!?!?!?! I AM SO SICK AND TIRED OF IT. FUCK FUCK FUCK. THIS IS VERY ANGRY BUT IT IS JUST HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW. LESS IS MORE PEOPLE, LESS IS MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

best/worst confession

In terms of an actual physical piece, I really liked Mary Beth's sculpture. It was really cool, really fun to play with, awesome to look it, just totally sweet all around. I didn't think that her confession was that strong though, simply because I'm certain we all feel that time is passing very fast and we don't know how to slow it down or move with it consistently...at least this is how i feel all the time anyway. i truly think there is not nearly enough time in the day and therefore not enough time in a week, month, year, and a lifetime. there is not enough time in a lifetime. i guess that's the challenge of life - to get as much as you can and as much as you want out of it before your time in this lifetime runs out. sucks. but maybe if you use this as an incentive then you can get more out of lifE? i dunno, cuz then it just feels like you're rushing.
In terms of confession, I really liked the guy who did the lying one...it wasn't like a HUGE confession thing, but it was the truth, and then he allowed us to ask him questions in hopes of receiving the truth. i mainly just like this one because when the truth came out about how he thinks his girlfriend's step sister is hotter, that was awesome and hilarious and so unexpected and just great. it was golden.
my least favorite confession was the letter to god one. maybe because i'm not anywhere near that religious or maybe because i think that that kind of investment in "god" is very old fashioned and outdated because we have so much more knowledge now we don't need a "god" to blame things on or to account for how things occur. gods/religions were made up thousands of years ago to explain natural phenomena, such as the weather, because they couldn't any other way but now we have technology and factual knowledge about these things that doesn't include any sort of super human. also because it just made me uncomfortable that this girl was sobbing about some "god" thing that she's never met or had contact with - how can "god" make you cry and sob and be so emotional when you don't even know god or he know you..people say they know god and have a strong relationship with "god" and shit but i'm like, that's a "relationship with god" in your head, anything you say about your relationship with him is somehting you've made up in your head and convinced yourself of

Respons to kips lecture #5

Kip's lecture was cool, no surprise. He showed us a video by Tony Mendoza called "My Father's Lunch," 1999, which began with a definition of habit and proceeded to be a documentary about his father's addiction to Burger King. The movie was really funny and simple, very unpretentious. This guy's father has been going to the same Burger King for 25 years, every few days, and has gotten the same order every time, except for the medium diet coke in the winter rather than the large diet coke in the summer. It is really funny and I can't wait to show my man this vid cuz i think he'd like it. Then kip talked about personal narrative and the magic of seduction. He gave us this analogy of a donkey-drawn carriage with a passenger who has a pole with a carrot that he/she dangles in front of the donkey. The carrot must be at the perfect distance before the donkey so that it can successfully be pulled. He used this analogy to describe art - if you have a piece, it's important not to put the carrot too close to the audience because you do not want to be too in their face about it, this will result in turning them away. If you're piece does not have enough too it and bores the audience/makes them not really care, then the carrot is too far away. If the carrot is at just the right distance, then the audience will be intrigue and continue to stay intrigued and thus want more. The one part about Kip's lecture that was a bit odd/somewhat irrelevant is when he read that passage from his first book about fucking some fat white chick, or should i say, some fat white chick fucking him....this was a bit t.m.i. and i mean could have been appropriate perhaps in a different context - it was just really random when he busted into this story about some fuck encounter he had many years ago. hahaha still funny though.

Robert Rauschenberg

Soooo...Robert Rauschenberg is awesome! New meaning to collage right thurr. Ostensibly, Rauschenberg compares to the ideologies of Duchamp and Cage, hence he is in this reader. His work travels in all directions, it is all inclusive, yet all exclusive. One of the endless cool things about Rauschenberg is that he does not simply use mediums or allow mediums to use him to create "art," rather it is the act, the duet of the two together that creates art. Rauschenberg believed that in order to create art that resembles daily life, one must use objects of daily life: "I don't want a picture to look like soemthing it isn't, I want it to look like something it is. And I think a picture is more like the real world when it's made out of the real world. Rauschenberg created the "combine". This occurs when he uses objects together always respecting their integrity, 'never altering their appearance to the point where they function merely as formal shapes in the composition and never allowing them to serve merely symbolic ends. The objects and fragments come through relatively intact, with strong overtones of their life in the real world before they embarked upon their present life in art'.

ch. 7 & 8 of "Understanding Comics"

Chapter 7 is about the "six steps" of comics. These steps include: Idea/Purpose, Form, Idiom, Structure, Craft, and Surface. Before the author gets to these steps he gives a few demonstrations as to how art is life and life is art. He first shows us how a group of inactive, bored cave-dwellers is in fact "a thriving art colony!". The cave-woman is drawing lines with a stick and the form of her lines indicates that today she has a stomachache which is why her lines are tight and angular when yesterday she felt fine, thus her lines were curved and open. One cave man is tapping rocks on a giant rock he is leaning against. The smaller rocks tapping on the larger create a rhythmic beat. A boy nearby kicks up dirt and pebbles and pubbels the air with his fist because today he lost a fight to his brother and "now all he can do is dance away his frustration". Lastly, a small girl child sings some weird song composed of non-words. The whole group together is actively living and being and while being and exercising art at the same time. With the six steps the author conveys to us that you can be stuck at step 1 or step 6 or step 2 or any other step between and sometimes it may be good enough to satisfy you, while other times you strive for more, strive to fulfill the next step. Typically people move from step 6, surface, to step 1, idea/purpose. This is because it is easier to create something you like/others would like than to come up with an initial idea and try to create something that you can expand from it. However, as the author points out, this is not the best way at all because it is even harder to get steps 1-5 to relate to step 6 than it is to get steps 2-6 to relate to step 1. ;)
Chapter 8 talks about color in comics and how it derived from commerce and technology and how it changed comics for good. Many different comics styles emerged from the introduction of color as well as different techniques. Even certain characters became associate with specific colors: i.e. super man= red, blue, yellow; hulk= red, green. Overall, the main message is that the black fundamental behind all comics, as is white, and the black line will always exist so it is more important to develop your skill with black and white because if you are good at that, you are a master of color and a master of comics.

ART show for week 4

The art show I am documenting about right now is in the Santa Barbara Art Museum. It is called "A Drawn to Modernism: Selected Gifts from Wright S. Ludington". Having gone to the art museum last week only expecting to see the Charles Garabedian exhibit, you can imagine my surprise when I found myself looking at a Rodin sculpture, a Matisse painting, a Dali drawing, some Edward Munch paintings, Picasso drawings, Derain pieces, Moore, Nash, Sutherland, Lewis, and a great deal more. The exhibition contains European drawings and prints, fragile pieces that have received little exposure in comparison to other works of the period. The prints and drawings are not displayed in chronological order, rather they are installed in a manner that "evoke9s0 the elegant, harmonious way that Ludington displayed his collections in his own home". What I enjoyed most about this exhibition is that it showed the simple things these famous artists created, not the usual pieces that everyone knows about. I feel as though I've now seen a part of Picasso a part of Dali a part of all the artists that no one has ever seen or known before. The exhibition made it clear that all of these artists started somewhere, somewhere simple before they became world famous, just as we as budding artists do. Their drawings, mere sketches, are so subtractive in that they include only the bare minimum of details needed to convey the image. They leave out all the excess, all the stuff we deem as necessary and show us that in fact it's not necessary at all, it's only extra. I applaud the artists of the Modernism period, truly innovative before their time.

anonymous act of kindness or beauty

For my anonymous act of kindness I decided to go to Sweet Alley and fill up 5 bags of candy. Not filllll, but put a good amount of candy in them. I had different themes for each bag, for example one was only chocolate things, one was red things, one was rainbow, one was all jelly beans, and one all blue things. I placed these bags of candy on random peoples' door steps down my street with a note attached that said "anonymous act of kindness, for you. I'm not sure if the people threw them away, thinking there was anthrax in them or something, they were sealed with a twist tie, but I can't say that I would eat a random bag of candy that showed up on our doorstep, sealed or not! Hopefully they took the benefit over the doubt.

My Confession

I am not going to describe my piece here for I do not want it online. I will enclose a few pictures, however.

Cornered.

Strongest/Weakest Pieces

It's hard to actually choose the "strongest" piece presented on Thursday. I was bummed because I missed the first like 3 or 5 minutes so I only came half-way through Johnson's piece, when I really would have liked to see the whole thing, especially since he told me on Tuesday that his relates to my piece. Oh well. So, I'm going to choose Montana's piece. First of all, I really like his name, Montana Dylanger. (This is just a side note). So, for real, I really like Montana's drawing! It's very much cartoon-esque, which would normally has a jolly, light-hearted feel. But it's so cool because it does look like a cartoon but it is creepy as fuck!!! Not even is just the drawing super creepy, but the way he displayed it on the light box (with the overhead lights off) really like up the image in an even more eery way. Additionally, the rose petals and pills on the light box really emphasized the work, mainly the rose petals. The execute was perfect. I love that he did it on wood and used stain rather than pain to achieve the colors in his image.

It's just as hard to choose the "weakest" piece. I'm going to go ahead with Skylar's Minecraft piece. For me, being technologically retarded and video game anti-, this piece did nothing for me. I had no clue we were even looking at a portrait at all! I didn't see it or even know what was going on until Desiree said that there was a portrait! And I don't understand why some other dude was playing the game instead of Skylar...? The only part that I get is intense is that he deleted the thing he built afterward, and for a video-game-aholic I can see how this would be a big step. But for me, I don't understand because I feel that by deciding to do this for his project, he was just giving himself an excuse to play even more video games...or computer games, I suppose. And was the portrait of the girl he likes? I don't get that either...what's his confession? The girl? Or that he plays a ludicrous amount of video games? computer games, sorry.

Wednesday Free Form

School is too much. I just do not know what to do with myself. Every quarter I find myself getting worse and worse at school! I am so behind on reading, blogging, everything. No offense, but I really dislike this "blog by 8 pm every night including saturday and sunday plus two more blogs a week" thing...It's not very practical, fair, or realistic. I cannot blog by 8 pm every night of the week plus 2 additional blogs, I just do not have the time. But I don't have the time for any of the work I have to do. I need to read about 3000pages plus whatever for the upcoming weeks (I'm extremely behind). AND I just turned in a TERRIBLE paper on Thursday for my FEMST class...I feel pretty dumb about it, I should have worked sooner, tried harder, etc. I didn't even turn in the hardcopy with a title, that's how much it sucked,and the online copy I put a bogus-ass title on i mean FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. IM SCREWED. I just want to kick back and relax! There's so many adventures to go be going on that I don't get to embark upon because of school. I really want to go whale watching, I've never been and apparently SB is one of the best places to do so! I also would really like to go snorkeling around here...I think you can by the Channel Islands. I love snorkeling! That's another thing I'd like to do - go to the Channel Islands! I've never been!!! There's some species that lives there and no where else in the entire world (I forget what it is, I believe it to be a bird?) I also want to go hiking. I love to hike. I got a hiking book that's for the SB area, Slo area, Ventura, Oxnard, etc. areas with like 200 hikes in it or something and I have yet to try it out at all!!!!! I really want to :/ Moreover, I still haven't made my brother anything or my mom anything for their birthdays - Stefan's was March 31 and my mom's was April 14!!!!! I'm laggin so hard!!!! I feel terrible about it! Anyway, the moral of this post is ENOUGH'S ENOUGH! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

critique reflection

I thought that Andrea Napoli's performance was outstanding. The way she set up her table with utensils wrapped in a hand-written letter, a wine glass filled with water, a bowl of salad with a heart-resembling bell pepper, 2 candles, some salt, and a name tag was an eery yet inviting display. So many elements of her display were symbolic of all of the different parts of her confession - the bell pepper being her dad's suffering heart, the pile of salt symbolizing a "race against time" but also that salty foods can lead to heart attack, the wine glass with water not wine, the 2 candles touching. It was so hard yet so easy to listen to Andrea read her letter. By hard I am referring to the pain that she feels and that she evoked upon all of us in the classroom. We were all able to actually feel this pain because her words were written then spoken so genuinely. I cried, I mean I was wiping away tears nonstop hoping no one would see, but I was losing it. So was Des!!! And I saw other girls crying too, boys just looking down. It was also hard for me because I am actually very fortunate to have my father. He is exactly what any daughter would want her father to be like. It's not that I felt guilty because I have this blessing and Andrea doesn't, but more like I feel bad and sorry that she always longed for a daddy who treated her like his princess because I know how incomplete I would be without one. I was crying for her and also for her dad, but mainly because I that so many girls feel this way and it's so unfortunate because a real father-daughter relationship is beautiful and so fulfilling. When I say easy to listen to, I am simply referring to the way she captured all of our attention for an extended period of time and still when it ended, I wanted to hear more.
There were a few weak confessions but the one that comes to mind first is the balloon popping. I'm not trying to be mean or anything but seriously, does ANYONE like the sound of a popping balloon???? Can ANYONE not cringe, startle, jump, scream, whatever when a balloon pops? I don't think so. I mean when it was going down and we all were sitting on our balloons and popping them, it sounded exactly like fireworks. So I was thinking shit, maybe she got burned by a firework or shot by a gun or her house got shot up in a drive-by or something. So then for the "confession" to be 'I can't stand the popping of balloons' or whatever, it was just like, that's it? That's not a confession, that's a universal truth. Given that this was the first piece and I knew my piece was an actual confession that I feel very strongly about and worked very hard to allow myself to tell people because it's intense, I was thinking in my head OH FUUUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK - freaking out that everyone's would be so trivial and mine would just be like BOOM and I would be a crazy weirdoo.

respons to kips lecture #4

This lecture was super neato. the theme begins with maps. then mapping. kip presented numerous categories in which maps exist. informational mapping relies upon an assumption of belief. he began with mapping beauty and talked about the barbies that are supposed to be from around the world. they all look the same but have slightly different colored skin, a slightly different stance, and a different box - conveying that there is a distinct cage that defines beauty in american culture and society. these barbies, despite their supposing to be from different places around the world, essentially all look the same - tall, super skinny, huge boobs, big white teeth, juicy lips, big hips teeny tiny tummy. he then spoke about mapping hierarchy and power. i thought his illustrations of this system were very insightful - the ant farm, sea monkeys, shooting a ball into a goldfish bowl at a fair. then he showed the picture of the japanese keychain ornaments with living goldfish, water, and a small bit of oxygen in it. when this image came up everyone was very surprised and aghast because we've never seen that before in our country. but, perhaps the people in japan have never seen aunt farms and would have the same reaction as we did to their goldfish ornaments. then he talked about mapping demographics and mapping fashion. the fashion thing was particularly interesting to me because that is what i want to pursue in the future. it was really funny to me when he used the analogy of dr. seus' "sneetches" and how one had a star so they all got stars and then the first one with the star took his off. this is something i've experienced many times in life where i wear something or do something to myself and then almost immediately it is everywhere so i have to take it off or throw it away or stop what i'm doing - i HATE wearing or having things that others do or looking like other people. i like to create my own style that is eclectic, forever morphing and evolving, eye opening, eye catching, inspiring and much more. my fashion and style is my daily expression.

reading response to John Cage

John Cage is remembered and acknowledged for many break through discoveries in music and art. He dabbled in numerous fields including music, architecture, gardening, ministry, and art. His recognition begins with Cage's piano. His music is less identifiable by nineteenth century standards than any other music being written in the 1960s yet his accomplishments influenced and continue to influence composers all over the globe. One significant feat was Cage's invention of the "prepared piano." This is a "system of muting the strings that transformed an ordinary grand piano into a kind of percussion orchestra," which was recognized by the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Academy of Arts and Letters which framed him for "'extending the boundaries of music and art.'" Moreover, Cage's work and philosophies parallel those of Duchamp in that they draw from the notion that creating art is merely a tool that contributes to the process of exposing to people the real art which is actually the life that we live - the art of living. He referred to the purpose of art as "'purposeless play,'" which is "an affirmation of life - not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation." One thing that really stood out to me that he said that "the idea of everybody reading the exact same information just revolted me." I think this way of thinking is very radical because there are so many things that people can learn about so why waste the copious amounts of knowledge that can be passed down to all generations by focusing only on ONE thing that everyone reads!!!!!?????

reading Response to ch. 5 & 6 of Understanding Comics

chapter 5 in this book is about making the five senses sensible in comics. how do you portray sound? how do you portray taste? how do you portray smell? how do you portray touch? how do you portray sight? how, above all, do you portray these senses with nothing but pen and ink? this chapter covers the answers to all those questions and more. mccloud first alludes to artists such as edvard munch and vincent van gogh who abandoned the technique of impressionism and moved on to a subjective approach called expressionism. mccloud ties this style to comics by the techniques utilized to convey emotions and senses such as lines, colors, textures, shapes, etc. he uses the example of wavy lines above a pip and how they indicate smoke while the same or similar lines above a garbage can indicate smell. at the end he discusses the "word balloon" and its evolvement and many forms. he also mentions that eisner describes the word balloon as a "desperation device," which i think is funny.
chapter 6 begins with reminiscing on "show and tell" in preschool/kindergarten and how when we were all that age, we used images and words interchangeably to describe/portray things but how we grow out of it. he uses the example of books and how when we're little they have a ton of pics and barely any words but when we're old, they have no pics and a shitton of words. this is because words and pictures together are a product of "crass commercialism" and when looking at the image where he says this, it's clear to me that all pics with words in the world are most likely advertisements or some sort of media-related thing. mccloud then talks about the way all ancient written languages evolved from being solely pictures/drawings of whatever it was talking about, to less detailed drawings, and then finally merely symbols that stood for something else or were combined to stand for something else. so interesting!

art show for week 3

just got back from an art show at the santa barbara museum of art. the main exhibit is on Charles Garabedian, a modernist era artist whose main medium is paint. Garabedian's paintings all encompass the themes of love, life, war, and death as well as greek mythology, poems, and what i can only think of referring to as "timelines" (not literal but figurative). before becoming an artist at the age of 32, Garabedian worked as a staff sergeant in the US airforce and for the union pacific railroad; you can see the many experiences he has lived vividly and illustratively in all of his work. he began his career as a surrealist and expressionist artist. then in the 60s and 70s he did much more radical work that was extremely experimental and included installations. his paintings range in sizes but the majority are large, including 2 that are composed of panels pushed together that create a 8-9 by 15 ish ft painting (they are totally mesmerizing).

the piece below is titled Calendar, 1995, and is one of my favorite paintings that i saw in this exhibit (i have a lot of favs though). this painting's theme is essentially history and time periods. the bottom right there is a brown circular area with minimal elements within that represent a more primitive period as well as the last supper. the middle portion of the painting mirrors egyptian hieroglyphics as well as religious frescos. to the left there is a small area that represents manifest destiny and the western idealist conquest. there is a lot to be interpreted in this painting as in all of his others!

one of my other favs is called In Anticipation, The Watchers, 1985-1988. there are many elements in this painting that are depicted including Chinese guardian lions called "fu dogs," etruscan heads, animal heads, faces of women, lips, geometric patterns, etc. my favorite portion of this painting is the middle where all of the women faces are overlapping and facing one another. on each side a few share a certain type of hair before the next few share another type and so on so forth. it's really cool i spent a long time looking at this image.

Garabedian's series of Prehistoric Figures, 1978-1980, reminded me a lot of a modern version of the statues surrounding the stadium at the Foro Mussolini in Rome, but with some bones and women thrown in. i bet he was inspired by these, consciously or sub-consciously, see the similarities:

this first pic is just so you can get a sense of what they look like all together, i know you can't see the paintings at all, but this is so you can see how it relates to the Foro Mussolini stadium and then i will post close-ups...

some of them zoomed in:

and now the Foro Mussolini stadium:

then my fav of fav 2:

scary/fearful moment

One scary moment that comes to mind happened when i was a freshman in high school. though it was the weekend before finals, i was going with my family to los angeles to stay with my aunt and uncle and throw a surprise birthday dinner for my grandma one night. that friday night i had been intrigued and convinced by the idea of going surfing with my uncle the following morning. having taken numerous surf lessons before but never actually doing it for longer than a week at a time, i was excited yet timid and nervous all at the same time. we left very early, like 6 am, in my uncles beat up jeep-forerunner-ish type thing. wearing my aunts wetsuit and holding on to her board, both a bit too big for me, i rushed into the water. being a person of rather tiny proportions, paddling out has never been a simple task and has always taken me a very long time. i'm too small to push the board under the oncoming wave, and too light to roll over with it (my arms being too short to grab around the board in the first place). anyway, once i get past the break i need to take a breather to get at least some of my energy back. my uncle, however, let me do no such thing. he pushed me on every wave that came, decent or not. when i asked him if he typically surfed at sunset beach, he replied smugly, "let's just say i surf up shore," implying that up shore was where the experts surfed. he told me to look around at how no one out there was actually catching any waves - they all just paddled, paddled, paddled as if they were about to...and then just pulled back out of the wave. observing the surrounding surfers, i determined he was right...but also that he was one of those surfers not catching any waves. my uncle continued to push me on wave after wave after wave. some i caught, some i did not, and some i caught but wiped out; still i paddled my heart out back to the spot where you wait for waves again and again. the last wave i rode that day was big and i wiped out on it. i was actually caught in a swell of 3 huge waves, little did i know seeing as i was pulled under for long periods of time. through the passing of those 3 waves, although i covered my head like you're supposed to, my board hit me on the head 3 times. i struggled and struggled and finally managed to make it to shore after like 15 minutes of trying to. i sat there with an angry face as i watched my uncle still out in the distance finally start to come towards shore. he asked me if i was okay and i told him i was fine, unable to feel anything because of the cold water. when we got to the car he was like "let's take a look...oh yep you're bleeding." seeing as he is normally quite the jokester, i didn't believe him until he said, "yea it is, look!" with that he swabbed my wound with two fingers, taking no caution to be careful at all. then i saw he was right, it was very bloody and all of a sudden it was trickling down my face. in the car on the way to his house, i went into shock and became faint. i ended up having to go get 5 stitches which was gross and painful. the scary part was being under the water for so long - not the first time that's happened but definitely the longest. i have gone surfing since as well as swam in the ocean, so i don't think it's had a lifelong toll on my activities, though i am always cautious and a bit nervous. anyway, the conclusion of the story is that i failed my history final that monday, the worst out of the whole class :/ whomp whomp

happiest/proud moment

so i definitely could never distinguish or remember my happiest or proudest moment of all my life - maybe if i kept a diary or pondered for a very long time. but one especially extraordinary moment does come to mind. last summer i was living in i.v. and working downtown at cost plus market. i was on my lunch break at the habit just a few stores up from my work. while i was sitting there eating, alone, there was some weird dude lingering around the ordering line and leaning against the wall of the restaurant next door a bit to the left of me (bear in mind the habit is outdoor). he seemed to say something to someone waiting for their food but then back away quickly. then he walked over all weirdly and came straight up to me. although i couldn't totally understand him, not because he didn't speak english, but because he was just sort of muttering and not speaking clearly. i managed to make out that he was asking if i had a lighter. i told him that i had quit just a few weeks prior and he began to walk away. then, i remembered i used to keep spare emergency matches in my wallet just in case and said wait! i may have some matches. and i did so i gave them to him and he tried to return them but i told him to just keep them because i wouldn't need them anymore. then he went and leaned against the same wall as before but this time right in front of me. i thought this was a bit odd but concluded that he was just a weirdo. moments later as he was smoking his cigarette, my phone rang. as soon as i answered, he came at me, threw the matches in my face AND STOLE MY PURSE!!!!!!! i immediately was up chasing him screaming profanities at him. i chased him down this pathway, through a parking garage, across ortega street, through an alleyway, around a building, and into a park!!!! men were running after me trying to help but they were not nearly as quick. it was some guys hanging out in the alleyway who saw him coming with my purse and me screaming profanities right behind him so then the whole group took after him, 10 or so steps ahead of me.just when i was rounding the final building and just about to die, i saw the alley men with their hands out before him in the park, demanding the purse back. the guys gave it back to me. i felt like i was going to throw up, i hadn't sprinted since i quit soccer 3 years before and still, that was probably the fastest i had ever run in my entire life. i couldn't breathe, but i was thrilled yet overwhelmed that he caught up with me. on my way back to work, people in the parking garage said they were on the phone with the police and that they wanted to speak to me. so i talked to them and said that i had to go back to work but they told me they were sending someone there. i came back to work hysterical and they told me to go chill in the back. then a police man came, asked me some questions, and said he wanted me to come with him to identify someone. so i rode with him a ways and from a block and a half away i recognized the dude who cops had sitting on the curb and stood up when we drove by. i nodded my head, and knew he would take off his beanie and unzip his jacket, which he had. the cop i was with took my statement and talked to me for a while (he totally hit on me which was lame) but he said that the mugger told them he couldn't believe i kept up with him, and i was wearing sandals. they weren't exactly sandals, but not shoes either. but i was thrilled because i know he targeted me because i'm small and a girl but i proved that you can't judge a book by its cover. apparently the witnesses that called described me as a european tourist (so not the case), which is also maybe a reason why he targeted me - perhaps he thought i was a tourist and had hella money on me, though i didn't have anything. although he looked like he was like 26, apparently he had only turned 18 just 3 days before...DUMBASS!!!!! the last funny thing is that the girl who called me was my friend kelsey who was in town for an MIP class thing and was staying with me for the night and after she heard me screaming and hang up the phone she drove around looking for me. when i finally met up with her she said that i wouldn't believe it, she was stopped at a stoplight and some guy was crossing and some cops were following him...then the guy started to run so the cops ran after him and tazed him!!!!! and we realized it was the same guy!!!!!!!!! take that sucker!!!!

personal art fav

Probably my most favorite art work was a series of prints I did winter quarter 2010 called Faults. the inspiration originally came from moss, progressed to moss in cracks, and simplified to just cracks (in asphalt/concrete, hence, faults). The piece also moved from color to just the grey scale. The pieces were achieved through monotype printing with various techniques, combined with printing on hand-made polymer rubylith plates. The prints turned out perfect, just a small central portion to the whole paper. Despite this assignment being our final project that would be featured in the print show, I didn't have the concrete idea until just two days before. An extremely proud moment of mine when I presented thise KICK ASS work in critique and above all before my teacher who had given me hella shit just 2 days before :P And everyone loved them and so did I which was awesome! I displayed them laying on a lightbox and they looked really neat - I was proud of my piece. Since fall 2010 quarter ended, I've had 3 people from my class come up to me randomly if we ran into each other inquiring about my prints, if they could have one, or if they could trade one of their prints for one. Unfortunately I had to tell them all that I gave them to my parents for xmas and that they were all the way in sacramento (but shit! if i didn't mind not keeping them, I'd sell them and make some scrilla!!) There are 12 prints in all, an awkward number in terms of display, that is depending on your wall space. But, my parents matted and framed the first 6 (waaay to expensive to do let alone all of them). Hopefully some day the rest will be framed as well, but the first 6 are supposed to be the best prints out of the series. I apologize for the poor photography, my mom just took them and emailed them to me so there are some glares and shadows, but you should get the gist.

This next one is the best print of the whole series, a.k.a. Faults 1/12

The next are not in any particular order because I cannot see the signatures below them and the photographs are poor and some may be repeats, I cannot tell in posting.

Embarrassing Moment

The embarrassing moment I'm about to describe right meoh happened approximately three and one half years ago. During this time period, I was hanging out in a trio - Harpo (Taylor), Sal, and me. We spent every morning before school, every afternoon after school, every night before bed, and every weekend all day and all night together. Now, Harpo is a girl so if she had been at Sal's house with me during this particular moment, it probably would not have been nearly as embarrassing. So what happened was...Sal, Max, and I arrived at Sal's house and we were hanging out in the living room. For some reason Sal and I started fake boxing, not actually hitting each other. I was jumping around from foot to foot, lots of spring in my step and excitement on my face when all of a sudden....POIAT!!!!! I farted!!!! I turned red immediately and Sal suddenly said, "Oh my god did you just fart?!?!" There was no denying it because it was loud and clear and no one else could have done it, so I just didn't say anything and grew increasingly redder. Sal and Max erupted in laughter and gave me a hard time, which was fun. Obviously they didn't care at all, weren't grossed out, and just thought it was hysterical, but I still could not help but feel embarrassed. I know this is because of gender role in society because boys are taught to think that girls don't fart or poop or barf or do anything gross. Because of this, girls feel so obligated to keep their bodily functions an absolute secret though we all know that EVERYONE FARTS, POOPS, BARFS, SHARTS, PEES, PICKS THEIR NOSE, ETC. I think it's just a fear that girls have of being rejected or repelled by men for doing something that is out of the "ordinary" or out of their gender role.

Response to Kips Lecture, lecture #3

Kip's lecture today focused on the body, advertising, and beauty & gaze. He first began talking about the black male body and how it has been portrayed in films as remakes or sequels and listed a ton of examples such as: Clarence Williams, Morgan Freeman, Bill Cosby, the matrix guy, and more. He then tied this in to the work of Robert Mapplethorpe who's "Black Book Series" shocked the public beyond belief. In this series of photographs he focused on juxtaposition of male and female, black vs. white, shadow vs. light, etc. These details allowed some photos to be barely visible while the notion of them was still present. Kip then moved on to advertising and how people want to be like the person in the advertisement. Once their brain realizes they cannot be a different person, they subconsciously decide that what really stands out is the object in the advertisement. I don't like to admit this, but I feel as though this technique has definitely worked on me in the past, provided that the object being advertised isn't some ridiculously expensive item! Moving on to beauty and gaze,I really liked the former UCSB artist William Feeney. I think his work is so imaginative and so powerful that I want to pee my pants! I really wish I were at UCSB to see his "Some Thoughts On Leaving" from 1995, I would have stopped dead if I saw it from near the lagoon and just watched him until he finally left! So clever! I felt the same way about his "Tower of Discontent," so well thought of and effective.

Reading Response to Understanding Comics, ch. 3 & 4

In chapter 3 we learn about sequences and panel-to-panel transitions. The first is moment-to-moment requires very little closure. The second transitions are those featuring a single subject in distinct action-to-action progressions. The third takes us from subject-to-subject while staying within a scene or idea; must note degree of reader involvement to render these transitions meaningful. The fourth involves deductive reasoning in reading comics such as in these scene-to-scene transitions, which transport us across significant distances of time and space. The fifth type of transition is called aspect-to-aspect which bypasses time for the most part and sets a wandering eye on different aspects of a place, idea, or mood. The last is called the non-sequitur which offers no logical relationship between panels whatsoever. The chapter then begins to elaborate on what comic artists use what transition techniques, how often, and how they combine and alternate between them. Chapter four discusses time frames and how intervening moments create the illusion of time and moment. It also talks about sound and the order/placement in which panels get placed. It also covers Japanese style panels and and how time and space are on the same plane. The ability to achieve closure when looking at a panel or series of panels is crucial in reading comics as well as watching movies, taking photographs, all media, etc.

Reading Response to Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was an innovative man. While reading this article/essay I knew exactly why we had to read it. It relates so much to the class because Marcel Duchamp was a catalyst in the art world, altering as well as creating the definition of art and essentially the way art functions in daily life. In his lifetime, Duchamp managed to combine art and life rather than juxtapose them which thus allowed the patterns and impulsiveness, tools and uniqueness of lifestyles to be brought to the attention of the public. Duchamp enabled people to start thinking and questioning traditional ideas that never had been before. He also credited the thoughts and ideas he conjured in them by reinforcing his philosophy that the spectator's participation is equally crucial as the artist's and "perhaps in the long run even greater for...it is posterity that makes the masterpiece." The essay is relative to the class yet. It talks about how Duchamp was the idol or a growing cult. This reminded me of the work we've been doing such as posting things online and writing truth & fiction stories on the Daily Nexus website. What we're doing is putting ourselves out there, like Duchamp did, to be recognized and "followed". Everyone does it, just think about Facebook - people are just striving for acknowledgement.

Art as Utilitarian; Utilitarian as Art

The art piece I decided to turn into a utilitarian is a small, wire self-portrait sculpture I did last year in 7C. It is made of two pieces of wire - one the length of my height, the other the length of my arm span. It is an abstract representation of myself with my crazy, sporadic, constant thoughts swirling about my head and present all around me. Turning this into a utilitarian device was actually not difficult at all because I did so a long time ago. I use this wire sculpture to burn incense sometimes (I have other incense-burning devices). There are so many small gaps and crevices and places to put incense sticks, coils, ropes, etc. It sits on a plate on my dresser and is very useful. Sometimes I do regret transforming it into this useful device simply because it has made the sculpture kind of gross...there's this black gooey stuff in some places where it'll burn to as well as ashes under, around,and on it. I figure some day I can clean it if I really feel compelled to do so. Here are some pics!

The utilitarian object I turned into art is a very small taxing flashlight. I stood it upright, turned the light on so that there is a glow underneath it on the table, and signed it with a sharpie. I like how it turned out because by setting up and by photographing it, I allowed it to be recognized it as a beautiful piece of art, glorifying what otherwise people would think is a mere tool. Having the light on underneath it intensifies the illumination of the flashlight, bringing its beauty to light. (just dropped 2 puns there, get'em?). Later on when my roommates are home I'm going to set it up again in the middle of the table and see if they recognize it or react to it or inquire about it, etc. Here are some pics!