characpsarts-blog

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I had to go to the American History museum to see the First Lady dress exhibit. it was really interesting to see the different styles throughout the years and see dresses that first ladies actually wore. the one i was most excited to see was Michelle Obama’s because they are just the greatest first family, and she’s done so much. 

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i went to see Captain America, and it was a super great movie. it was really exciting to see Spider man in the movie who is my favorite super hero. 

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Final Reflection

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this is a photo of my poster from the academic showcase, and i put the police brutality board on the table as well because there wasn’t a photo of it on the poster.  

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the first photo is a picture of me posing with my skateboards at Arts Fest once I had set them up on the table.

the rest of the photos are of the labels and artist statements for each of the boards in the respective order they’re in in the first photo. 

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Capstone Presentation Requirements

NAME: Charity Aschenbrener

CAPSTONE TITLE: Skate Through Social Issues

MY PRESENTATION WILL BE (exhibition, presentation, or both): Exhibition

LAYOUT/SPACE REQUIREMENTS FOR YOUR CAPSTONE:

If possible I want my boards to be hung from the ceiling with wires or whatever I

can use to do that, and also a table where I can put my research.

TECHNICAL/SETUP REQUIREMENTS FOR YOUR CAPSTONE:

No power source needed

Yes, I understand. CA

(later on I changed my display to setting the boards on a table with labels/artist statement, and did not display my research)

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Mid-semester Reflection

Right before spring break I finished my second board on the topic of police brutality (well i have a few finishing touches still to do), including the research. i have yet to post them on tumblr. over break i thought about how i want to present the boards at arts fest, but i probably won't be able to do it. but i have settled on displaying them on a table along with the labels and artist statement for each one. i also thought about which board i wanted to do next and how I was going to do it. in the next week i plan on finishing my 3rd board, and putting the final touches on the other two. the third board that i decided on doing is on self-harm and mental health awareness. i have yet to decide what i want to do for my fourth piece. 

the difficulties in this project are choosing a topic, and then once a topic is chosen i have to figure out what image to paint on the board. i am a much better drawer than painter so it is hard for me to get as much detail in my paintings as i can in my drawings, so it’s hard to decide on something to do. 

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Elevator Speech

My project takes contemporary and social issues that are prevalent in our every day lives and puts them in a form that may speak to people in a different way. I have painted five pieces in a series of paintings that cover issues such as police brutality and stigma around mental illness, on skateboard decks in order to give people a different view of the issues. the purpose behind using skateboard decks is to make a link between the importance of these issues and youth culture, and how it is our job to drive these issues towards resolution. The paintings are on issues that do not necessarily have one resolution, but are meant to open up the minds of people about their participation is the perpetuation of these problems. 

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Second Look

Charity-I noticed that your passion about your project is evident in your work.  -I wondered if/how you will display your research with your presentation at arts fest. Maybe media’s impact on female body image, as a social justice issueCharityI noticed the research that you’ve done and the trends you noticed when compiling a list of all those cases. I wonder if one of the topics you could do could involve the LGBT community like how bisexuals and transgendered people are usually ignored or not as noticed as often as lesbians or gays but still face the same if not more issues as lesbians and gays in social equality.

Charity: I noticed/heard: You’re working on painting social issues on skate boards because skate boards connect to youth culture. I really respect that you’re painting painting a black lives matter and police brutality board! As an interesting suggestion you could perhaps flip some of your skate boards as gravestones and paint the names of victims of police brutality onto them. Other social issues include: health disparities in the black community, AIDs epidemic in the black community, war on drugs, gentrification, etc.

Charity strength: I like how you add the names of the people who have died from police brutality. And you’ve also made a lot of progress.question: Will you add the personal stories of the people who have died (not necessarily to the board but present it somehow)? Because names are one thing but their stories really round out their personhood and make them truly unforgettable. I wondered: Are your research points on indictments going to be on a poster board or skate board? I noticed…That your “Black Lives Matter” board to very inspiring and addresses the issue.I wonder…How do you intend to physically display the boards at Arts Fest, in terms of layout?

Charity: I noticed: I like how your project is bringing awareness to various social issues that are plaguing society.I wondered: You’ve done a lot of research on people who have died due to police brutality. How will you memorialize each individual specifically in your artwork.

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First Look (Feedback)

“I saw…”

*you incorporated feedback from faculty very well!

*love the connection to skater culture—openness, socially active

*using art to bring awareness to contemporary issues through youth culture

*like that you’re connecting your work to contemporary issues that people will react to

*painting on skateboards is very thought-provoking and will make people look twice

*like that you’re asking for Arts Scholars input to help decide what issues impact young people

*intrigued by the designs that reflect contemporary culture and issues

*good concepts presented in an interesting way

*important issues, art can help people process and confront

*the issues you’re tackling make your project engaging and will get people talking

*project has a lot of potential, think it will be very impactful

*I like that you’re connecting youth & activism with skate culture

*think it’s great that you want to use artwork to start dialogues not just be pretty

“I wondered…”

*how will you be displaying these pieces? What context will you provide?

*how specific/focused do you want the pieces to be—how much detail will you incorporate?

*how will you display these, how can people engage with them?

*I would like to see you work with projects on police brutality and rape culture in America (maybe share information about statistics as well?)

*how many skateboards will you present?

*how did you select the topics, and will there be a narrative to the presentation?

*what makes this format (skateboards) particularly well suited for this project and discussing these issues

*since a lot of these topics are complex and things people will have strong feelings about, how will you decide your stance and how you convey it?

*I would be interested in a board that explored mass incarceration of black people along with police brutality, etc.

*how many skateboards do you plan to do & what do you want to convey?

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Learning Agreement (Revised)

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Over spring break I had completed the second board in the series that focused on police brutality, and specifically Black lives who have been taken by the police. I finished it, but it got messed up because the glue was still wet & fur got on it. SO I’m restarting on a new board, and this is the beginning. I’m attempting to get it done by the end of this week, while I work on the third piece as well. 

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this is a process for the final piece in the series that i did, and it was the hardest one for me. i was trying to figure out what to do because there are multiple issues i wanted to cover but i was struggling to decide which one to do. when i saw the first image it gave me an idea of what i should do. i liked what the image was saying: no matter what you have on, you’re never asking to be raped.

i decided on drawing a naked woman’s body with words similar to the first image because despite the conversation around sex and consent, there is still this issue with how being naked does not invite sex. i used acrylic paint to do the background of this board. and then i used chalk pastels to outline the naked body in red because that is the color that i wanted to paint the body to draw attention to the body. and then i outlined the words “i’m NOT ‘asking for it’” in white, as seen in the second photo. 

once the outline was done i used respective acrylic paints to go over the outline. this is shown in the third painting. 

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this is the third piece in my series of paintings, and the topic of this painting is self-harm. the purpose of this board was to inform people about self-harm and that is a result of more mental illnesses than just depression. there are a variety of mental illnesses in which people resort to self-harm as a way of coping or managing emotions that may be difficult to understand. besides depression, other disorders where self-harm is a “side effect” so to speak are: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), eating disorders (Anorexia, Bulimia, and Binge Eating Disorder), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and various forms of anxiety just to name a few. 

this first picture is of my palette in a sense, and it shows the various colors of paint that I used to make the skin tones i used in the painting. i did a gradient of skin tones on this board to show that self-harm is not limited to one person. i also tried to keep the hand androgynous so that it wouldn’t be assumed that self-harm is more related to one gender/sex than another. 

the second photo is a sketch for what I was planing on doing. the white outline is the hand/arm, and i used a red to make the outline for where i wanted the cuts/blood to be. i used acrylic paint to do the black background on the board, and then chalk pastels to do the outlines. 

the third photo is after I did the gradient skin tones with different acrylic paints. some of the tones are what was in the bottle, and the others are ones that i mixed with other paints. i left the outline messy because i knew i would go back later to fix it up. 

the fourth is the final product with all the details in it. i used fake blood that i had left over from halloween to do the base for the cuts and blood streaks. i stood the board up straight and painted where i wanted the cuts and i let the blood drip down. since it looked real i decided to leave it. once it dried, the blood turned drown and i didn’t like how it looked so i used two different reds to paint over it so it looked like blood again. then i used the fake blood combined with the different paint colors to paint the whole bottom of the board so that it looked like a puddle of blood. i also used black paint to soften the outline of the arm and hand so that it didn’t look so messy. 

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Concept: a relationship where you’re both equally obsessed with one another but still respect eachothers space. There is no lack of communication or trust. Lots of sex.

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someone: you should take a 5 minute break every hour and stretch! :) get some water or a snack

me, a person with a skewed perception of time and inability to care for myself: what