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Art & (My) Life Final Paper

You asked us to explain in a 2 page paper what we learned this semester. To think about everything we did or heard or learned from this class. My senior year prior to my first day here in Introduction to Visual Arts, I had just finished my first ever art class which was Ceramics. I had some knowledge, but of course only towards ceramics and hand work, not much art in general. Not going to lie walking into this class, I was a bit perplexed at first. I was wondering why we weren’t in art classroom or why there were over 100 students. But as I started to later to stop doubting and for once just listen, I found something that was pretty critical to my understanding of this class and art as a whole. You can put the entire school in one class of art, but it all depends on the students themselves regarding what they will learn. You reap what you sow I think was the case for this semester. Anyone can bullshit a few art assignments and anyone can take pictures of art and ask questions. It’s for those who truly want to learn how to apply or just notice art in their everyday lives. I found this class more as a personal journey, sure classmates were there to make friends or talk to, but understanding and actually opening up your ears was ultimately the key to this class. What did I learn this semester? I learned that art is more of a personal fulfillment. You are your greatest and worst critic, you essentially learn to grade yourself. Art does not mean learning to recreate the Mona Lisa or being the most creative. To me, I learned that art is about having fun and feeling good about what you created. Whether you’re trying to send a message, or creating something that represents you, I think it’s important to be confident and stand proud by your pieces. 

My experience of art comes to me in many various forms. I love taking pictures, that could be my art. I still to this day enjoy working with clay and throwing on the wheel, that could also be my art. Interior designing my new remodeled bathroom and bedroom could be my art. There are no limitations to art because it is all around us. I love remixing the music by artists I love, could that be art? I feel that what makes art “art” is an idea brought up on the inside with something to show for it. An experience of art could be something as simple as driving down the streets of L.A. or Venice Beach and just taking the time to notice the graffitti, the billboard posters, the vibes of the area. I think when we come to class on Monday and you ask us, “Did anyone have any art-related experiences this weekend?” any answer can work. Raising your hand to say you planted new flowers or watched a movie at the theater is all relevant to art. I don’t think you can categorize art in this sense. An experience could mean a billion different things for a billion different people. 

My favorite question of the subject, “How has your understanding of art evolved this semester?” Again referring back to the first paragraph, part of it was definitely trusting the process and sitting back, letting it happen, and soaking all of it in. To me, in my mind, my theory and all, I think my sense of art developed as the projects and assignments developed as well. We started off with baby steps with somebody holding our hand with the plaster casting or even as something as simple as the attendance index cards. We were solid and tense at first, and as the semester progressed, we learned to loosen up a bit. We began having fun with what we were doing. The projects leveled up in difficulty as our mindsets started to become more complex. You began to give us more freedom once we got deeper and more invested. Soon, the guidelines became so thin to a point you wish there were more directions. But that’s the thing about art, there’s no parameters, no guidelines, no requirements, no nothing except pure, genuine creativity. 

How will art revolve around my life and my future? Truth be told, I have no idea, I’m just certain it will come in one form or another. My dream career, medical athletic sports trainer or occupational therapist will definitely require art. Improvising and looking for the best solution possible, sometimes with few chances is a requirement for this job. I think being a parent requires you to be creative and have some sort of knowledge of art. Nobody likes a strict boring parent. Not saying everyone loves or enjoys art, but at one point in everyone’s lives, I can guarantee at everyone on this planet had at least one art experience or encounter that they enjoyed or even smiled at. Something I noticed was that every artist had something in common. Notice how there were so many different types of themes, medias, ideas, etc. but they all showed passion for it. They all stood next to their pieces as if they had just revolutionized Starry Night. I think art is so useful because it can be used for almost any situation. Publicizing or protesting or trying to send a message corresponds with art. Expressing your feelings or social media is also art. Simply creating a simple device or trick to hold your straw in a cup is even art! 

Just wanted to say I am very thankful for this class and so happy it turned out to be a very interesting G.E. unlike the other ones I am taking. Thank you for being a committed teacher who wishes to spread and teach others about his message in hopes of the idea of art to be lived up to and to inspire others. Thank you Professor Glenn!

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D7 Last Remix Culture Assignment

Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/xUK3NG/

1. Internet culture, it can be both a fun place to relax for a while and check in on social media, but at the same time it can be a hostile hurtful environment. The saying “With great power, comes great responsibility” definitely applies here because when used correctly, the internet can be where people can spread positive vibes or messages. But of course, the freedom of speech allows for anything to be said, even on the internet. The freedom of the internet use is empowering because you feel like there are no limits, and that you can say or do whatever comes to mind because you feel “protected.” However, that’s when the fear and risks come in as it can be your worst nightmare as well if used in the wrong way. 

2. In my honest opinion, I think copyright should be just a little bit more strengthened. With the rising popularity of creating beats for any upcoming SoundCloud rappers (yay) or simply someone wanting to put music in a vlog that’s not copyrighted, a lot of these beats can be “stolen” and turned into someone else’s work if that person has more subscribers or followers. Watermarking has been tried to fix this solution but even meme pages are accusing other pages of “stealing memes.” Especially for real artists or videographers or photographers, not trying to be a snitch here, but I’m sure most of us have illegally downloaded music at one point in our lives. 

3. The license I have chosen for my work is the least restrictive: Public Domain. Why? Well to be honest, my remix of the song used in the video includes the original song, “Walk” by Comethazine, the lofi remix version of it, and then finally mine. I honestly could care less if someone on TikTok or anywhere else decides to use my version as number one you can barely hear the difference unless you know the original two songs as is, and number two it’s not like I’m going to become instantly famous and rich because of this (knock on wood.) And also for the lights, yes I did make my own design by downloading and combining lights from the internet, but I’m not going to put a license on colors. Let’s be real here, anyone could have come up with the color scheme I chose. 

4. My experience of making this remix piece was a win-win for me. I got to touch up on my music editing and beat remixing abilities, I also got to use my Amazon Prime (yay!), and finally you cannot tell me my room does not look color with the new LED strip lights I installed. I did this by of course using my computer, pulling up my music programs of course, and for the lights, I used a website that allows me to hook up my lights to a bluetooth app that I can control on my IPhone. It definitely came out as I expected, and I think this is because of the remix aspect. Since it’s my work, I want it to come out the way I envision it originally. There were no really surprises, unless you count my rustiness of my editing skills to be challenging, but other than that I had a lot of fun with this remix assignment.

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C7 Last Artist Conversation

Artist: Tatiana Mata

Exhibition: “Postures” The Less We Know

Media: Archival Pigment Print

Gallery: BFA Photography Senior Show, Max L. Gatov Gallery East

Website: Soon to be set up

Instagram: @matatatiana

In the first picture, we see a man taking a breather and just looking up at the sky for once. With everything that has been going on so far, his breakup, his family tearing apart, his schooling second thoughts, Ryan looks up to see any chance of hope. His lover, girlfriend, future wife, and now ex-girlfriend was the one thing he thought he was sure of. He knows he loves her, he knows she loves her, so what is missing? He gazes at the clouds, looking for any type of answer. He contemplates if they were meant to be, but that’s not the case, they’ve been dating for almost 5 years and have been through literally everything thick and thin. It wasn’t a fight, there were no bad memories and no hatred. It was as if the two were drifting apart in space and could not do anything about it. In the second picture, the two run into each other. For a moment of time, everything is still and nothing is moving. Time has been frozen as the two lock eyes together and share this moment. In a couple seconds of time, all their memories, all their ups and downs are looked at and remembered. So many words are wanted to be said, but for some reason nothing comes out except a few waves and glances at one another. Of course, the typical “how are you doing” question is brought up and the small talk allows for the time to pass. It is at this moment in time in which the two think this is when they confess their undying love for each other and begin a cliche passionate makeout session. But instead, a simple hug is exchanged as the two depart in opposite directions. Now again, as the two are slowly walking away, they think they are in the movie where the two run back to each other as Ryan picks her up and kisses her while the rain pours upon them. But no, this is not that story or movie. This title is called reality. Ryan takes his anger out by doing graffiti in abandoned parking lots and wonders where he went wrong. Vanessa can only cry in her own arms and ask herself why she let this relationship fail in front of her own eyes. But that is the thing about love, especially young love. Sometimes, it’s not anybody’s fault, it is simply moving on. If two are meant to be, their paths will cross again later in the future, but for now, life continues whether we like it or not, whether we are ready or not. Rather than a setback, we should look at heartbreaks as a positive impact. It teaches us what we need to work on as an individual, and what we seek in another person. Love does not make sense. One cannot logic their way into or out of it. Love is totally nonsensical, but we have to keep doing it or else we are lost and love is dead and humanity should just pack it in. Because love is the best thing we do.

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Image captions: (disclosure: taken in a span of about a week)

Top to bottom left to right

A. Since it is Christmas time, my girlfriend and I decided to visit and look at some Christmas trees. Put us in the spirit as well!

B. Decided to surprise her with flowers since she has been stressed with college apps.

C. After that I took her out to eat to start off Thanksgiving break at Hiccups, her favorite restaurant in Anaheim.

D. We ended the night off with binge watching Disney + at her house.

E. Day after we went to Disneyland, our favorite place in the world, and enjoyed the Christmas setup/lights as well.

F. The day after that we went to the flower fields in Carlsbad.

G. We both enjoy the beauty of nature so, I wanted to include this picture of us.

1. I chose this story because I just wanted to shine light on I guess you would call it young love. It just feels good to be happy and without being cliche, sharing your life with somebody. Obviously it is a very personal idea/story, but I am fascinated with the idea of love in general. The idea of being happy with someone and always wanting to be around them.

2. I think I did an okay job, obviously I wanted to get an up to date group of photos to show us today. I kept it on a small, personal scale.

3. The “best” picture is the last one of us two in front of the flower fields.

4. Not necessarily, as I think every picture showed a significant part of our relationship and our happiness and helped tell the so what story called.

5. I would definitely cast it on a much greater scale such as pictures of other ideas of love and other additional relationships.

6. Yes I would like to tell photo stories of politics, aka republicans vs democrats or abandoned ex veterans who served for our country. Obviously much greater issues.

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C6 Artist Conversation

Artist: Mandy Wang

Exhibition: Kalopsia BFA Senior Show 2019

Media: Illustration and Animation

Gallery: Dennis W. Dutzi Gallery

Website: N/A

Instagram: @lovemandywang

Mandy Wang is an artist based in Orange County and is a soon to be CSULB graduate in the illustration and animation art program. She is motivated and inspired by the love and support she receives from her friends and family and feels as though she has learned the most from those her are closest to her. Because of this, Wang is an aspiring children’s book illustrator and writer. She is most interested in pre-production drawings such as character design and background painting. One day, Mandy hopes to have several published books to help children learn and feel more important. Her motivation lies within her own drawings as she wants them to be seen by everyone, not just students or faculty at school. 

Mandy’s art is very fun and vibrant. Her drawings themselves are very simple, incorporating a lot of geometric shapes. The texture of her drawings, as a result, is very smooth because there isn’t a lot of minute details. However, she does incorporate some shading that provides the art with a lot of depth. The art is very whimsical and includes a lot of fictional characters. It almost looks like Disney or Pixar characters/settings. She really captures the idea of animated and turns it into a fun story.  It is very appealing towards children especially as the pictures are vibrant and keen to their eyes. Fun simple drawings are her way of going. 

Some ideas that she explores in her work is the creative minds of children. She strives to create a fictional universe where children feel comfortable to immerse themselves. She aspires to produce artwork that prompts learning and creativity from her young audiences and takes inspiration from her own childhood. She takes fond memories of her own childhood as energy to create these colorful and happy worlds that she herself imagined and loved as a child. Mandy combines her love for animated movies and her own personal ideas to create her work.

Mandy’s artwork very much resonated with me because it reminded me of very fond memories from my childhood. My mind was immediately taken to memories of me reading books in elementary school with my friends. So, I feel her artwork is very nostalgic and prompts positive feelings in not only children but adults as well. I personally had a lot of fun with the gallery as it was eye candy in almost everyone’s work and it was cool to see seniors in college go back to their childhoods and share their stories and visuals with everyone here at school. Sometimes I think it is important to just once in a while take a step back and have fun for a little otherwise we are just doing the same routine everyday. 

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Basically what I wanted to change is to keep the wedge but to also expand it like almost how a road works where there’s a lane that divides the two directions: walking in and walking out of it. I’m essentially opening it up by keeping the original “wedge” where it is but moving the beam to the right more that way it looks more like an intentional walkway rather than an awkward space.

It will be better by decreasing foot traffic and still allowing students to take this shortcut. It won’t be awkward because students won’t have to give way and wait for the other person to finish crossing. It will fit two directions of people making it much more efficient. You can’t completely get rid of the space to the right because that’s where students wait for the bus and get dropped off by it.

The only tradeoff will obviously be less space on the right but that’s not a big deal as there is still space near the edge of the fountain for students to wait. Although it won’t have its “original” look, it’s much better in my opinion than just getting rid of it completely as there will still be a wedge. I made my choice because I’m sure lots of alumni go back to visit and enjoy still seeing that small but memorable piece of school. Coming from a senior at high school, there’s still lots of significant aspects that were part of your school. Something as simple as this can be very meaningful as well which is why I wanted to keep it and improve on it.

I’m sure students will describe this new route as a much better alternative and improvement compared to the original design. Freshman will even laugh at how small it was before and wonder why people still waited to save an extra 10 steps. It will be only positive talk about the design and how effective it is. Especially in a year, that is a long time for students to adjust to the change.

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C5 Artist Conversation

Artist: Deanna M. Falcone

Exhibition: “Body/Mind”

Media : Acrylic Paint, Mixed Media Collage, on Arches Paper

Gallery: Marilyn Werby Gallery

Website: N/A

Instagram : N/A

Deanna is an undergraduate student in the arts major from the ceramics program at CSULB. She is pursuing her MFA in ceramics as well. Falcone is proud of herself and her identity and is interested in intuition and emotion. Her interests include eating and binge-watching her favorite animes and tv shows. Lots of her ideas come from everyday emotions or something she will just see along in the natural day. Her ideas of work explore internal divisions and shifting perceptions of the self in context to identity. The decorative outside scrolls speak to the banality and artifice of the scripted roles we play everyday, whether its culturally, demographically, and professionally. The flanking of a center scroll presented is intended to represent authentic awareness held in the body by experience, intuition, and emotion.

Falcone works with very large pieces in order to portray her creativity and ideas, almost 9 feet tall. Her art is set up with two large scrolls in between a smaller scroll with fragments of collaged media. The two larger scrolls are dark brown and as you move downward, colors of blue and white are implemented. The middle scroll is blue with a narrow strip of mixed media going down towards it. It is made up of Arches paper with acrylic paint on top of it and the scrolls look textured from the rest of the blue. The colors are mostly consisted of the blue family, except the mixed media portion. With this process, raw and intimate objects are assembled vignettes and offer no pretense or fakery. The process id mediative, slow, and self-reflective. This gives the opportunity to greater personal awareness of actions and reactions within her life and to those who she cares about. 

The flanking painted scrolls are rendered in a fast automatic calligraphic freehand a style of mark market making an format that extends Asian far E tradition of calligraphy to modern and contemporary art making of the 20th century some influential artists like mark Tobey we all utilized a form of automatisme in their mark marking as an intentional breaking out from conventional drawing. In this work I proposed the inverse where these marks are created with the thoughtless hand simply going through the gesture of an enforced cursive handwriting as an action of rote mechanical muscle memory that prompted intentionally decorative rather than expressive quality. The stylization reinforces the reference of an artificial the vague an unoriginal as a metaphor for public personas and rolls with our assumed identities socially professionally and sometimes personally. Like the penal decorative surface which is developed to be pleasing and beautiful that the kids of our identities of doctors at a public selves services circumferentor authentic character allowing the public friction to be more acceptable version of ourselves in a given set of conditions or environments.

This exhibition allowed me to have an outside perspective on what art and ceramics really means to me. I really found myself fanticizing and remebering what it was like to be free as a child with no certain reconstructions tying me down. It truly is something special, what Falcone accomplishes and portrays in her work. I hope she continues to do this throughout her life as she really does hold true talent and art that tell stories and ultimately makes her audience remember and reminisce. 

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Student Art Choice

So, this was a joint little project between me and my girlfriend. I guess what I wanted to say with this piece are something along the lines of being a big believer in love. Without being sappy or cliche, I think that love is an amazing aspect of human life. The idea of sharing your world with somebody and wanting to spend everyday with them is just something so special and beyond human thinking. I think young love is adventurous and vital to maturing in life. I choice of media was a blank canvas and acrylic paint because they’re very simple tools, almost how the term love is very simple and general. But I wanted to transform it into something much greater just as how love is so many unexplainable and unrational beliefs. I wanted to make the audience view my painting and feel good and loving vibes. I think I was somewhat successful, obviously I wish I could have done it on a much bigger scale but I am very satisfied with my end product as well. My experience on this project was very fun and memorable considering the fact I got to do it with my significant other as it definitely means a lot to me. I’ve been with her for about 2 and half years, so I wanted to illustrate how we fell in love.

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10/30/19  C4 Artist Conversation

Artist: Yucen Liu

Exhibition: Fill in the Blank

Media : Metalsmith and Jeweler

Gallery: Dennis W. Dutzi Gallery

Website: N/A

Instagram : yucen_metalsmith

Yucen Liu is an MFA Candidate at Long Beach for her work in metalsmithing and jewelry. She earned her BFA from Southern Illinois University and came here to the United States to study abroad. Liu made her solo exhibition in hopes to get the position of being in the MFA program. Her interests include animals, specifically in the form of cute stickers or stuffed animals.This has shown up in her art and played a great deal of inspiration in her exhibition. Her ideas of work explore childhood and nostalgic memories we can all relate to at one point or another in our young lives. 

Most of Liu’s artworks showcase her talent in metalsmithing. She often uses fine silver, copper, bronze, and steel to formulate her art. Despite how tough the metal she uses is, she bends it and puts them together to make a softer look, as seen in “A Magic Pen: What Do I Eat For Dinner?” The colors that aren’t a bronzed or steel are made up of fabric, glitter, or painted boards behind the main piece. Most pieces would be considered of dull color if not for the shine of the metal and the extras she adds in for color, giving her work a uniqueness only she can fulfill. Her pieces are not on a large scaler, fitting the definition of medium more. There is extreme detail in which one would have to step up closer and individually take in each piece of material that makes up the larger picture.

In Liu’s artist statement, she attributes her work to her family. Being from China, she came to the United States to study abroad with her parents’ support. She was alone and forced to become independent, which took a toll on her as she was unable to visit home often. To this problem, she kept stuffed animals in her room as her parents had given her several when she was a child. From this experience, she used the stuffed animals from her childhood and her parents love to make the exhibition Fill in the Blank. As stated, it had been 9 years since Yucen left home. She claims that “the memory of my family from 9 years ago is almost a blank”, referencing to her gallery. She “fills in the blank” by creating this series of narrative animal works, which carries significant parts of her memories of her childhood. 

I absolutely loved the fact that her whole gallery reminds her of her childhood and more importantly, her time with her parents. The childlike nature of the pieces allowed me to connect with her on a higher level. The love of cutesy things and stuffed animals is something almost anyone can relate to. Other galleries had also caught my eye, such as Fine Line, however, I haven’t really chosen an artist whose main focus was metalsmithing and which it showed in their gallery. All-in-all, I am happy to have met Yucen Liu and get to know her journey from the past 9 years. She also put out a book where everyone can leave their thoughts and comments and all of them were very positive and heartwarming, another personal touch to her exhibition. This just takes you on a reministic journey as most of us I’m sure have a favorite childhood memory of some sort. 

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I chose this medium (canvas and acrylic paint) because I feel like I was able to really use warm colors to represent the wildfires and black trees to show burned environments. It looks deceiving because as you get closer, you notice it isn’t as pretty as it does from far away. I think I was pretty successful but definitely could have added more details. At the same time however, I wanted to keep it simple and really let the viewer interpret it without a lot of help and details. My speech is basically representative of how we are when it comes to climate change and global warming. We may not really see it or we might choose to ignore it, but if we care and actually look closer, you’ll see that it is indeed a big worldwide issue. If I did this project again, I would for sure choose a more specific issue and use a different medium to portray my view as well.

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C1 – Artist Conversation – Charlie Roses

Artist: Charlie Roses

Exhibition: Dead Man’s Party – Haunted Shelf From the Back Room of Your Local Public Library, Madame Leota, How to Build a Scarecrow the Old Fashioned Way, Funky Lil Forager.

Media: Watercolors, ink, color pencils, pencils, linen.

Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Gatov Gallery East

Website: Not provided

Instagram: charlieroses

Charlie Roses is a senior graduate student working towards her BFA degree in Sculpture at California State University, Long Beach. She loves the idea of sculpting and instantly fell in love with it, causing her to major in it. Roses likes spooky things and everything that relates to Halloween, she finds them very interesting and inspiring; therefore, most of her work of arts are Halloween related and give out a terrifying feeling to the audience. Towards the end of her last semester in the School of Art, she decided to do a Halloween-theme group exhibition with 20 artists from the Sculpture, Photography, Painting, Printmaking, Metals, and Illustration programs.

Obviously, with the theme revolving around Halloween, the gallery emits feelings of October, Fall, and spooky aspects. Roses captures this by using both monochromatic and bright vivid fall colors to bring spirit and life to her gallery. She also uses more than one platform to show her artistic skills. Charlie is very careful about the details of the drawing: for the parts that she wants to highlight, the lines are clean with sharp edges; for the parts that are used to set off the highlights, the lines are more casually drawn with round and irregular edges. The shapes of her work of arts are undulating instead of uniform, which gives a more life-like view. Even though Roses’ drawings are static, they show a chaotic, creepy, peaceful yet dangerous rhythm; and this rhythm sets the gallery with a spooky theme. The drawings are mostly done with watercolors and colored pencils, thus the texture of these drawings is two-dimensional and flat. The sizes of the drawings are medium to small, to view the details in the drawing, a close observation would be recommended. 

The goal Charlie was trying to accomplish is that throughout our lifetime as we age, Halloween has a different meaning each year. When we’re young, it’s all about dressing up as our favorite heroes or princesses and getting candy. Then as we mature, it’s about matching costumes with our significant others or carving pumpkins together. Then maybe it has a darker meaning and finally as adults we take our own kids to go trick-or-treating. Roses explores and breaks down what Halloween means to us as we age. This could mean scary, or fun, or just nostalgic especially with the numerous ways she displays her theme. She even shows how dedicated she is by dressing up as a ghost and reading scary stories.  The monochrome drawings convey a depressing and creepy feeling; in contrast, the colorful drawings may give out a peaceful feeling at first, but if look deeply into them, the dangerous and spooky feeling will emerge out slowly.

My experience in this gallery was really fun for me. Especially with Halloween coming up, it really fit the mood and tone for Fall. You could tell that she is really passionate and it just makes you feel a lot better when you see someone who cares about something so much. She definitely had a lot of fun with this gallery and you could feel it. It was structured, yet still free-flowing at the same time. Noticing small simple details really let you know that a lot of time and effort was put into this gallery. It made me feel like a kid all over again and made me excited to go trick-or-treating again this Thursday.

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The goal of my zine was I basically wanted to really break myself down as a person and entertain the idea of exploring “identity.” This zine is mainly composed of simple but very significant aspects of my life that I believe describe who I am as my person and define my identity. I wanted to tell a short story of important parts of my life using only one word. I feel happy about my end product because I was able to integrate the words into my drawings and sort of combine them in a way to form one whole figure. Next time obviously I want to go a little more in depth and definitely add more texts and visuals. I also want to format it as a literal book with a table of contents with labels of pages and chapters. In future zines, I want to explore our generation and how social media plays a huge role in it as well. I also want to explore deeper meaning topics and issues while still being able to get creative with it.