bennettcollective-blog

[bennettcollective-blog]

Turning Words Into Action

I am currently in my second year of college, but my freshmen year was undoubtedly my biggest learning curve of my life so far. Of course getting used to living on my own (if you can call it that), the massive amount of essays to be written, and snobby art teachers can be a lesson in itself. But, I had a specific teacher who had given me life lessons that my parents couldn’t have given me.

Just to backtrack... both of my parents work for the family business and never attended college. Neither could even imagine what college life is actually like compared to the stereotypical experience that they have in their heads. The university I was attending in my freshmen year was a small school with around 4,000 students, so it wasn’t exactly the partying school with a strong Greek life. I was a graphic design major, although now I am a art history major, and the class that truly fulfilled me my drawing class that I took in the fall semester. 

My teacher was a master printmaker that had a wealth of knowledge and had lived in Paris for a long period of time. I count myself lucky that I was in her presence that semester, she was kick I needed when I felt like art wasn’t my calling anymore and she opened my eyes to what art really is. Some of the exercises we would do in the class were made to use the other part of our brains that we don’t normally use and drawing blindly. She always pushed the idea of working hard to the point where it was all that we were doing, barely sleeping. She made us realize how hard graphic design was and how much work we it took to be the minimum requirement of good. Graphic design is no joke, you have to be intelligent, witty, a perfectionist, and willing to skip out on adequate sleep for your entire career. 

Although I am not a graphic design major anymore, her lessons still apply to art history and where I would like to be in the future. One of the biggest points that she made almost every class was that we have to be constantly “seeing”. Researching art, watching documentaries, films, and reading about anything and everything that might relate to the art we create. We had to become cultured and be able to understand other cultures and their histories. In essence, Knowledge is power. 

As I was swamped with projects at the time and still adjusting to college life, it was hard to figure out a way to immediately start educating myself. However, I had everything I needed: a computer connected to wifi and a university library only a short walk away. I decided, with the slew of challenges being thrown around on social media, why not somehow merge the two into an education challenge for myself. As dorky as that sounds, I stumbled upon a list of films that were considered ‘1,000 movies to see before you die’. The list technically has 1,199 movies categorized by date, but out all of all of them I have seen 64 as of now. 

I can already tell that my way of thinking about film has changed. After watching  Amélie, a French romance/comedy, I was really thrown for a loop. I had never seen a more beautiful yet confusing film. I had never seen a movie directed in such a detail oriented and fast paced way. As dumb as it sounds I initially thought Amélie was a horror film, but that turned out not to be the case (which I was happy about because I am not the biggest fan of that particular genre). I know now to not let a movie poster or my Netflix rating indicator allow me to decide wether I want to watch a movie or not. Movies have the ability to truly move people and transport them to a different world. Film is a powerful tool that , in my case, is teaching me when my professors aren’t around to do so. 

From my freshmen year to now I have learned how important it is to learn as much as I can. I don’t need to turn into a encyclopedia, I can start off by doing something as small as reading a book or watching a movie. Every little thing counts and getting your brain in shape is just as important as your body. Research a topic that interests you or look up a list of all the countries in the world and pick a random one to read about. Watch a Youtube clip of what life was like in Japan in the 1960′s or how the aircraft carrier was built. There are a multitude of resources out there that can assist you in learning about things that you didn’t even think you needed to learn about. 

Get to understanding the world through your computer or you could just sit down and press play, what’s the worse that could happen?  

[bennettcollective-blog]

Artist: Elizabeth Aline

(Disclaimer: All photographs on this post are courtesy of Elizabeth Aline)

Elizabeth Aline is an 18 year old photographer from Kent, England. Elizabeth's work varies between film, polaroid, and digital photographs which combine to make a beautiful collection of hazy, colorful images. She uses both Tumblr and Instagram to share her work with the world.

As a Tumblr user myself, it is hard to ignore the popularity that 90's culture and fashion has on current teens. The soft focus and intentional griminess of photography witnessed in grunge style has definitely had an impact on the photographs that teens have been making in recent years. Elizabeth's work has those aspects as she experiments with multiple ways to create a photograph, but her work explores much more than that.

Through the use of color and personal points of view Elizabeth creates a different type of photography that takes shape into the form of a dream. Her photographs bring the viewer along as she documents her unique personal points-of-view.

[Back to Basics]

Favorite food? Pasta or hummus on toast.

Spirit animal? Alpaca or deer.

Favorite childhood toy? A small dog called Skippy I got when I was five, and I haven’t let go of him since.

If you could live anywhere, where would it be? Cornwall, England. It’s a very calming place with a dynamic landscape that’s always changing.

Your top 5 favorite songs? Atomic by Blondie, Oh! You Pretty Things by David Bowie, Grudges by Paramore, Jaded by Green Day, and Feel Right At Home by Dead Sara.

[Down to Business]

Bennett Collective: How and why did you start shooting?

Elizabeth Aline: When I started taking photos I didn't have much reason... it was something I really wanted to start doing with art. I was never patient enough to practice drawing, but the spontaneous documentation of photography allowed me to practice, and I had my first commission within seven months of picking up a camera. It felt like an instant connection, I didn't have a reason to start taking photos. Now it has evolved into my spontaneous mind whirring and allowing me to take instant photos and instant works of art, something I've always wanted to do.

BC: Who and what inspires you?

EA: I'm heavily inspired by Impressionist art and painters in general. I know for a fact I wouldn't have experimented with art and found photography if it wasn't for a book on Claude Monet my mum would get out the library.

Artists such as Frida Kahlo give me a ton of inspiration. She painted in such a surreal manner that has me almost scared to look at it. With paintings, the thing does not need to exist, with photography, it has to exist to be captured. And I hope one day we can take Surreal art into photography fully, and create scenes that are concerning and weird, but exist, and that's what'll makes them weirder.

As for photography, David Hockney's photography is a huge inspiration to me. The candid nature and the mixed medium messes with perception, and I love that.

Finally, my own anxiety and perception of self inspire me to take many self portraits, to keep my documentation raw and personal, with a touch of Abstract and Surreal art in there too.

BC: I think it's unique how you're using photography to blog, but your photographs are also documenting something. Was this your reason for starting your (Tumblr) blog?

EA: I started my blog about a year ago. I had a lot of photography in my mind at that time that I didn't know how to document and I used my blog to simply post my progress as an artist, but also to look and see how other photographers and artists used their blogs to document art. My blog became a place of artistic experimentation that allowed me to discover the joy of spontaneous documentation.

BC: Have you found inspiration on Tumblr and if so how has that changed/helped your work?

EA: Tumblr taught me to experiment really, allowing myself to try editing, to work with point and shoot cameras and make everything into art. I'd say it has helped me gain confidence in my work and I've definitely been inspired by other creators on there.

BC: How has Tumblr's response to your photography been like compared to Instagram?

EA: On Tumblr, the comments in the tags, the reblogs, likes and occasional anonymous messages feel so much more genuine than the comments and likes on Instagram. While both have given me lots of opportunities to be seen by creators and get some commissions, it feels like those who reblog my photography on Tumblr genuinely like it, as opposed to just double tapping and scrolling away on Instagram. There is more of a sense of community on my Tumblr page, which I like. But, Instagram makes sharing faster and it seems to reach a larger audience, although I have more followers on Tumblr. Both have their pros, but I always share my work on Tumblr first. Tumblr just feels like a safer place to be hyper experimental and creative with all art.

BC: When I looked at your Tumblr archive and saw a bunch of photographs at once it felt like everything is connected. It also feels like I am a fly on the wall looking through someone's personal documentation of their life. This is what I see, but what do you see in your work?

EA: For me, my photography is very much personal documentation in the most surreal and eerie way I can imagine. I want to just capture every instant in life, my anxiety comes and goes, but I like to keep every moment in my photography surreal and somewhat anxious. For me, I just want my photography to be a place of personal thought, with a surreal edge to it that creates the feeling that the photos are all simply a dream.

BC: The colors in your photographs are gorgeous and definitely heighten the emotion in each one. Is color one of your main focuses when you look through your view-finder?

EA: For sure, I went through the usual teenage phase of 'black is my favorite colour'. I think after awhile I realized how much I love colour, how much I love to experiment with colour and how much colour changes my creative process. My film photography looks at colour in a soft, natural way that I think can only truly be documented on film. My digital photography focuses on those neon, emotion tugging colours that I adore and that stings the eyes and plays with the mind. As much as I love my soft colours, I'm very happy to be experimenting with colour and emotion far more than before.

BC: You said that your blog tracked your progress as an artist, do you have any ideas of what your photography might bring in the future? Any hopes?

EA: In an ideal world I'd love to become a full-time photographer, with my photos in galleries across the world and use my art to make money by selling prints, etc. But, I think if that never came around, I'd love to curate other people's photography for galleries. Writing and talking about photography is what I'm passionate about, and by curating I'd be able to keep the conversation of photography as an art form alive. In fairness though, who says I can't do both?

[bennettcollective-blog]

Review: Loving Vincent

I have an odd relationship with film that stems from the fact that I get bored quite easily. Whenever I go to the movie theatre I am mentally prepared to get bored and tired half way through whichever movie I was forced by my friends to watch. However, Loving Vincent was a film that I was anticipating seeing since I saw the trailer on my Twitter feed.

Loving Vincent is the first of its kind, a film made completely with paint. The 94 minute feature film is created from 65,000 frames created by 100 different artists using nothing but oil paint. All of the characters in the movie are painted based off of recognizable actors. As you might have figured out by now the film is about the great Dutch oil painter, Vincent van Gogh. The film is based off of the last year of his life and the mystery surrounding his death.

Of course, being an art history major, I have heard the multiple thoughts on how Vincent van Gogh died and why part of his ear was cut off. Many people instantly believe in the rumor that it was in 'fact' that Vincent cut his own ear off and that he committed suicide. Both situations are unclear and haven't technically been proven. To make things more clear, Vincent had been friends with fellow painter Paul Gauguin and had wanted Gauguin to join him in the south of France in Arles to create a community of artists. When Gauguin did visit they both were drinking one night (mind you, both Gauguin and van Gogh were drinkers) and got into a fight. The next morning part of van Gogh's ear was chopped off. It is not clear wether or not it was Gauguin or van Gogh who cut off the ear.

Now to explain his death, it is commonly thought that Vincent committed suicide, but, again, it is technically not proven to be true. All that is know is that Vincent was shot in the lower left side of his stomach and was in his bed for a few days after then dying due to complications. It is also known that when he was shot he was out for the day to paint, so he had paints, canvas, and other materials to do so, but nothing was there when he was found shot. Vincent was bullied by a group of kids in the town and some people think that he was shot by them and that is why there were no materials with him as they probably would've taken it. Both situations remain unclear and questioning the who, what, when, where, and why of his death is the reason that Loving Vincent was created.

The movie does a fantastic job of helping the viewer understand how Vincent's life was before and after his death. For me, it is important that people understand how horribly Vincent was treated in his lifetime. Beginning in his childhood Vincent was misunderstood by his parents and looked down upon because he wasn't living up to his parents standards. It's heartbreaking to think a man just wanted to do what he loved and nobody could understand that. Even the people he hung out with bullied him and played jokes on him. He was mentally ill and deserved proper treatment, even though he did technically enter a treatment facility.

When it comes to the creation of the movie it is astonishing to think that 100 people came together to honor a man who will forever be known as one of the greatest artists in history. They honored his artistic style in impressionism and used his intense and emotional color and lines respectively.

The 65,000 frames come together to create a literal moving painting that is beyond mesmerizing, something you can't get bored with! When the movie first started I got extremely emotion, maybe because of my intense excitement to view this film or maybe because I was completely aware of how substantial this movie is to art history and the people walking above this underground theatre around Lincoln Center were completely unaware.

Even though I was happy during this whole movie it was also insanely and frustrating. During the length of the film the son of Vincent's postman, Armand, is trying to get a letter that Vincent wrote before his death to his brother Theo. Armand goes from person-to-person around Auvers-sur-Oise, the town Vincent was living in, to try and get Theo's address only to stumble upon people who knew Vincent and had differing thoughts on his death. Armand's mission stretches from trying to deliver this letter to try and piece together what really happened to Vincent. Armand eventually learns that Theo visited Vincent after he was shot, Theo and Vincent were extremely close, and Theo was absolutely distraught after his brothers death. Theo passed away weeks after Vincent did, so Armand had to find Theo's widow instead. Armand comes across multiple people from Dr. Gachet to Adeline Ravoux. As the viewer you are hand-in-hand with Armand going through the twists and turns of information and town gossip surrounding who shot Vincent and the days leading up to his death. This infuriates Armand as he knows that something is off, there is more proof that Vincent was shot than that he killed himself, yet everyone is convinced that he did.

The whole time I was watching this movie I was in a state of awe that I can only compare to the scene in American Beauty where roses are falling on Lester while he is laying in bed and looking up at Angela nude on the ceiling. The next thing Lester says is the perfect description of Loving Vincent, "I feel like I've been in a coma for the past twenty years. And I'm just now waking up."

To not ruin the ending, I want to reiterate a fact that was brought up before the credits rolled. We all know van Gogh as a genius, but during the 8 years that he painted he created 800 paintings and he was only able to sell one in his lifetime. Let that sink in.

Please witness this work of love and genius.

"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream." - Vincent van Gogh