Art 334

Postcard Project:

       Artists Statement

           This project was both technically and conceptually a challenge for myself but became a rewarding experience in the end. Throughout the process of creating these postcards I found that the existing ideas I had about the place I chose would be pushed and my mind opened to new ideas I had never thought of before. In my postcards I tried to convey some of these explored concepts with the new tools I learned in Photoshop, as I further deepened my thinking and understanding of the place I choose to photograph; the cemetery.

            
              My postcards explore the concepts of our cultures influence on ourselves relating to the cemetery, ambiguity within our beliefs systems, and a futility among human kind, which leads us to a place where most of us have found a common ground.  My first image was already a conceptually and compositionally interesting image with an eerie clown figure sitting on an ancient tombstone. Questions that came to mind were who put this thing on this random old tombstone, and why this objet? These questions seemed to relate to my ideas of the uncertainty as to why we find ourselves at a cemetery. Why do we feel the need to attend funerals or visit our loved ones? The answers I came up with seemed to oppose my beliefs and left me questioning our society’s influence on how we deal with death, even if none of our practices really makes sense to us. This eerie sort of figure resting on the grave and repeated in the background seems to play on this ominous and uncertainty.

            My second postcard portrays more of a fantasy world where the heavens meet the graveyard and butterflies are thriving in this place. I used the butterfly to illustrate the idea of metamorphosis in a place, which is not really what it seems. One butterfly is taking flight in the corner of the image, illustrating our temporary and fleeting lives here on earth. My third postcard is a little more direct in its concept with the text which says, “And on the third day he rose,” on a cracked tombstone. Whether the viewer has the same belief system as I do, I think this image pushes the viewer to open up their understanding of the cemetery and see it as a place which can seem somewhat like an illusion to all of us in one way or another.

Animation Brainstorming: on Cat Soup animation

What is this animation about (big idea/key concepts/ themes, etc)?

What artmaking strategies (conceptual/ technical/ visual) does the artist use to illustrate the theme?  What is the artist’s point with example? Assess the effectiveness of the example.

Give a personal response or ideas on how the animation(cat soup) might help you create your own animation. 

-I think that the big idea is not something I can not sum up in one word. I felt like a lot of smaller concepts made up a few big ideas such as time, power, and relationships. A few branches of the concepts are corruption, entertainment, destruction, curiosity, and cycles. They all kind of revolved around world issues 

         - The artist uses art making strategies such as repetition with a Japanese influence for some of his technical strategies. Conceptually, the artists illustrates very oppressive and thought provoking issues in the world which make the viewer uneasy to watch the animation, yet unable to look away, which is actually very insightful to a few of the scenes in the animation such as the circus and when the man lights the bird on fire and the one cat is very fascinated by this in humane but sickly entertaining act. He also uses the repetition of time in examples such when it shows the aging process in the cats and humans, or with the mechanical clock throughout many of the scenes, illustrating the affect of time on our physical bodies and mentalities. The nuclear bombs and decapitation of the soldiers also illustrated time the idea that we can't take those moments back.

   

    -This animation helped me to understand the power of an animation without sound and how illustrations can illustrate such deep concepts. I haven't really seen many animations like this and it also just helped me to see technical skill such as how the scenes were played out.

Flash Movie Project: Artists Statement

         My animation was created through my big idea of spirituality.  I wanted to illustrate a passage from the Bible which was for me,  a very visually powerful passage. I wanted the viewer to become interested in the lives of these seeds such as, what became of them, why they became this way, and the things that affected their growth. When I first thought I was finished with the animation I realized that the viewer might not have any understanding as to where the story of this sower and his seeds came from since I had not yet included the text in the introduction to the animation. I felt like when I included the text, that it became clearer to the viewer that this story had some significance and was not just created to be visually interesting.  I also hoped that the text of the passage I used combined with the animation would spark the viewers interest to look into reading more of the passage themselves.

Akiane Kramarik

- Experienced poverty and affluence as a child

  -Began drawing at 4, and painting at 6, teaching herself and learning mostly from observation

  -At age 4, had a life changing spiritual transformation, bringing her family to God.

-

  Her work comes from her inspiration of visions, dreams, observations of people, nature and God. She also uses both poetry and painting as a way of expressing her thoughts thoroughly The goal for her paintings is to be inspiration for others and to be a gift to God.

  She uses acrylic paint for full figures and oils for large portraits.

  The artist is self taught who acquires knowledge of what she is going to paint through visions she recieves, observation, and her imagination.

  She considers her style: Akianism-a universal blend of realism and imaginism 

Evening Swan, 54"x54", Age 9 (2004), © Copyright

      You need to cleanse

      and silence your eyes

  For dizzy prayer
  bounces off a wall

All of your smile
lands on a silent swan

You need her love
to catch you when you fall

Brassy visions
count each and every stone

There are so many lives
in this lonely womb

When feelings are hungry -
mirrors show different faces

The only evening the swan lands -
she looks for you

Change, 30"x40", Age 11 (2006), © Copyright

      Each falling leaf is a feeling that you want to listen to.

It has to be a place where it is warm and accepting.

Sunny and fresh autumn morning is just the right time where you want to sit by a tree and listen to each falling leaf, while squirrels run and jump through rustling leaves.

You sit and listen. Sit and listen to leaves change colors and fall. One by one, they slowly circle as they land on your shoulders. The intensity of yellow orange and burgundy is the intensity of emotional awareness.You are ready for the falling leaves. You are ready for the change, because you know where you belong. You know who you are. You know where you are going.

1. The artist’s background (personal, artistic, and social contexts) 
2. The big idea and key concepts (what is the work about?) 
3. Boundaries (Media, subject matter, visual form, techniques) 
4. The key artwork(s) (include title, year, medium, and insert links if needed) 
5. The artist’s artmaking practices 
   
   • Knowledge (how does the artist acquire knowledge?) 
   • Artmaking problem (how to investigate and express the idea?) 
     o Technical strategies (i.e., limit color choices or only use secondary colors)o Conceptual strategies (i.e., play as a conceptual strategy for experimenting, pretending, 
     and risk taking)

    

   Stained Glass Windows of Chartres Cathedral 

  

  The Bishop Gislebert ordered then the construction of a larger cathedral after many attempts to build this cathedral which ended in ashes. Of this building remained certain parts of the Saint-Lubin chapel, one of them being the current shrine. However, it was in 876 that the sanctuary started to become an important pilgrimage site when King Charles the Bald, grand-son of Charlemagne, gave the cathedral the holy relic of the “Veil of the Virgin Mary” or “Sancta Camisa”.

  The stained-glass windows of Chartres recount the history of the world – from Creation to the Last Judgment – as it was understood in the Middle Ages. Most medieval worshippers could neither read nor write, but they could easily understand biblical “texts” told in stained glass.

Aritsts Statement

For my iMovie I attempted to illustrate the lack of awareness of the happenings of nature in the too familiar business in the lives of the people in todays society.  It can relate to many people in many ways, but my hope is that it is relatable on some kind of a spiritual level. It can relate to the idea of someone who is in a spiritual slumber, and who needs to wake up to their spiritual calling. It can also relate to the idea of learning lessons taught through nature, although lessons from nature can only be taught if one is paying attention to them. I choose to use the sounds from the recordings, which the camera picked up, to give the movie a naturalistic experience and the ability to focus on the experiences of the imagery rather then on a song or other sound affects.  I choose to reverse the day of the person with the intentions of getting the viewer to ponder the idea that each day can be chosen to be lived differently and doesn’t have to be lived with a sort of stagnancy that comes without adventure and without going beyond the boundaries of the average day.  Ones life can be lived thinking about the past, pondering the future, or in the moments which we live within.