This week the art experience was to use Instagram and post our pictures of the day. I enjoyed this art experience because I like using my Instagram. i think it s pretty awesome that I can have people look at my profile and to appreciate the photos that I took. I took a lot at school because I was there for the majority of the day. After school, I visited a vinyl store and took a photo of the vinyl. Overall, my 24 hour experience was quite fun!
Artist:Helen Werner Cox
Exhibition: Silent Screams
Media: Oil Paint, Wood Carvings, Pastel, Prints, Water Based Materials
Gallery: CSULB School of Art, Gatov Gallery West
Website: http://www.helenwernercox.com/
Instagram: none
About the Artist:
Helen Werner Cox is from Ithaca, New York where she was born and raised. She is in the MFA drawing and painting figurative program in CSULB. She said that she obtained the inspiration for her exhibition by being in the presence of carousels. Helen likes to garden, solve puzzles, and read fiction and mystery books. She also has a teaching background, teaching at a high school in Boston. She also taught in a middle school in Boston.
Formal Analysis:
Helen’s work uses a wide variety of colors, mostly a darker spectrum. When I take a good look at how much detail there is on each of her artwork, it is quite amazing. The strokes that are visible in her artwork, make it seem as if the texture on the horse are real, as if I can touch and feel it. The fact that Cox used darker colors helps portray the dismay in the horse’s emotion.
Content Analysis:
The theme within the work is “Chaos”. To portray this, Cox uses the carousel to talk about the cycle of certainty in our current society. Our current society takes the same routine over and over again, making the same mistakes and not necessarily moving forward in life. The carousel uses horses because Cox believed that the complete dismay portrayed by the face in the horses expresses the emotion.
Synthesis/My Experience:
I think that Cox’s work gave me a deeper analysis on our current society. The deeper meaning behind her work had me think about my role in out current society. If our life is really on a carousel that has a designated course, than where am I? Am i taking the same course? The dark colors that are present in her work also makes me think that this “carousel of life” has a dark twisted side.
I am Samuel Sartoff Seras Slothington III, and I am from the Planet of Sloth. I was chosen by the royal court to be the first sloth to go to Moonbase Alpha. I accepted and was sent to Moonbase Alpha in the year 2018. Moonbase Alpha was still being built, but we Sloths just like to take our time, so we set our ship to get us there in the year 2047. Until then, I was sleeping and looking at my claws and stuff. I did a lot of thinking, like why the heck do I have claws? Also like the stuff im missing out on ” House of Trees” and “Game of Thorns”. Eventually, I made it to Moonbase Alpha, but it took me three weeks to crawl to my living quarters. The biggest difference from here and Sloth is that I seem to be the slowest thing around. Back in sloth, I was the fastest sloth in the western hemisphere, while the eastern hemisphere had “Slothaine Bolt”. I’m still not very accustomed to this fast-paced life, but I am trying my best.
Dank Waters is a human I met from the planet earth. He was a millionaire? I wasn’t too sure what that meant. He said it means he was rolling in paper, but I don’t see the point in rolling around in paper if you can’t eat it. He is a strange fellow from “Earth” but he knows a ton of things about “Earth” and I think he is a great storyteller. Apparently there are also these things called “Zoos” where they enslave Sloths and Tigers and all kinds of planetary beings and put them in cages and show them off. I get nightmares from this story because that sounds like a terrible way to live…. But I heard that they give free food, so that sounds pretty awesome.
Robert Lee Abram was also a human, and is heavily involved in the military. He has a family line of tank commanders and strategists and takes great pride in it. I did not know that “Earth” was such a violent planet. In Sloth, if someone is mad at someone else, we get into a fight, but because we can’t see anything with our poor eyesight, we end up hitting ourselves and we call a truce. Humans should just get poor eyesight too, it stops wars. However, Dank Waters told me that in “Earth” there are these things called glasses that help you see. I think he is probably lying, but a sloth can dream y’know?
Bupkus Elwing is from the planet Blov, and is like my favorite person ever. Elwing is so athletic and stuff that Elwing helps me get around places when time is quite a factor for me. It’s nice to not see a human because there seems to be so much around. Elwing is so tall and strong that even the bigger humans leave Elwing alone. YEAH THAT’S RIGHT! Samuel Sartoff Seras Slothington III HAS A SUPER STRONG AWESOME FRIEND THAT CAN MAKE HIM POPULAR.
Artist: Sean Joy Cabanig
Exhibition: All Work All Play
Media: Metals, Silver, Copper
Gallery: CSULB Marilyn Werby Gallery
Website: None
About the Artist: This week, I had the pleasure of speaking to Sean Joy Cabanig. She is an undergraduate student at CSULB’s BFA metal department. She was from Los Angeles but currently resides in Long Beach. She says that she doesn’t like being a couch potato and likes keeping herself active. However, this doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy just playing games or reading a good book. She likes to work at the studio and really experiment with different materials, where she explores different ways to express her creativity into her artwork.
Formal Analysis: The majority of her work was silver or copper that was turned into different items. Some were in the shape of a penis and some were in the shape of a ladle that also looked like a musical note. She also makes jewelry with them and all of which had a smooth distinct feeling with them. The tiles also have a nice design of a flower on them, and the colors resembled the pretty colors i would see on the inside of a clam’s shell.
Content Analysis: Cabanig explains that her artwork was inspired by her daily life. She likes to incorporate things such as humor, her personal feelings, as well as emotions. All of these things help her create the artwork, but she explains that she does the artwork without a set plan. She uses the emotion and her feelings at the time she is working and puts it into her work
Synthesis/ My Experience: This was definetly a different type of experience for me. I liked hearing about how she is a spontaneous artist and how she would incorporate certain things in her artwork that were also based purely on the moment. She would also always have some video games in mind, being a gamer would also have made an impression on her artwork. The random thoughts that spring from her head are put into her work, and I don’t see them as “weird” or “rushed” but instead, I see it as “unique” because these were her own experiences or thoughts that have been put into the work
Exhibition: Merge
Media: BFK reeves paper, screen, emulsion, ink, stencil, and light box
Gallery: CSULB School of Art, Gatov Gallery East
Website: None
Instagram: bri.joy
About the Artist:
Bri Joy is a transfer student from Orange Coast College, she transferred to CSULB and is in her final semester. She will be getting her Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking. She grew up in a small town, where it seemed that all of her neighbors seemed to know each other. Then she moved to the city and saw that people were completely different from back home. She likes to do active things for her hobbies such as hiking, skating, snowboarding, and surfing.
Formal Analysis:
The artwork is done with only black and white colors, and the design of the artwork makes it look very meticulous. I found out later that it took Bri lots of precision and time, she had to transfer her artwork from the screen to actual paper. She put ots of work into this and when I saw it a second time, with a fresh set of eyes, a pair that also has some extensive knowledge on how much work she had put into this, I saw different shapes within the artwork.
Content Analysis:
Bri’s inspiration came from the idea of a conception and color, the things that make them different, and what conjoins the two as well. For this exhibition, she chose to use only black and white as the colors for her art. This conveys a slight mystery for the viewers, allowing them to create their own mood of the artwork. This means that the viewers create their own meaning of the artwork, by the absence of color and mood.
Synthesis:
As I stated before, the artwork makes me think of different hings when I see it with a fresh set of eyes. When I first saw the artwork, I thought of just scribble marks made in black and white. One of which had a scribble of a woman. However, when I learned of the hard work and dedication put into the artwork, I looked back at the artwork and saw a different artwork than the one I had just seen. I saw faces where it looked like scribble before, I saw letters, and other things that I had not noticed the first time. I think that When I saw the artwork with a better critical thinking approach, I saw the deeper layer of art within the artwork
This week, I met Andrew Andrade! Andrew is a 2nd year here at California State University Long Beach. He was part of the group that I gave a tour around school with. Andrew is a Political Science major and he works at Journeys. He says he likes the work environment because it is very competitive. Everyone is always fighting for hours and he likes the competition. He wrestled a Milikan High School, and I thought that was cool because when I wrestled in Warren High school, I remember going to Milikan and wrestling their team. He likes watching tv shows like Bates Motel, The Bachelor, and Better Call Saul. As for his life plans, he plans to go to law school but is taking it one step at a time. Something cool that he can do is a semi 360 headspin. He said he can kinda do it, and at this point in the conversation, I thought, “Hey, I can’t even stand on my head, that is impressive” .
click link above for video
This week, I made a video about College Problems with Aaron. We made some scenarios that many college students can also relate to and made a “Television Ad”. I filmed my scenes with my camera with the snapchat app and added the words “#collegeprobs”. I had a lot of fun filming this because it directly shows the problems that I face on a weekly basis. It was pretty funny to make a hotline for it, and I think Aaron did a great job at editing the video.
Artist: Alicia Keyworth
Exhibition: F* ART
Media: Woven Cotten yarn, metallic yarn, and trash bags
Gallery: CSULB School of Art, Gatov Gallery West
Website: N/A
About the artist
Alicia is currently an undergrad here at California State University Long Beach. She is currently in the Bfa fiber program and art education. In her free time, she likes to give attention to her cats. She is obsessed with alpacas and visits them at a petting zoo.
Formal Analysis
The art piece is created out of trashbags and other pieces of yarn. It is dark black and has a “tattered” feeling to it. It reminds me of a piece of ripped jeans. Just like jeans, it felt “worn” but because of the “tattered” style of the artwork, it was quite edgy.
Content Analysis
This artwork was inspired by the pacific garbage patch. She focused on waste and recycling of items by using a lot of scrap pieces. Alicia also stated that she tried to challenge herself by only using two colors. She wanted the artwork to feel very “garbage-y” and told us to try and feel the artwork.
Synthesis
Just as I stated before, the jagged and tattered style that showed from the artwork has a connection with the pacific garbage patch. It gave me an image of a pair of old tattered jeans in the pile of the pacific garbage patch. I feel as if Alicia was trying to shed light on the issue of pollution. This artwork has definetly gotten me to start thinking about the environment a lot more.
This week, I met Aaron Valenzuela, a freshman here at CSULB. Aaron likes to play video games, take photography, and likes to do some editing on videos on his free time. He like taking studio, landscape, and industrial photos. As for video games, Aaron likes to play FIFA and Call of Duty. Aaron is taking this class because he feels that it is a great way to take an introduction into a film because he is a film major. Surprisingly, he lives in Downey just like me!
Josh 