Final Portfolio

Mom

Oil on Wood

13''x 17''

                                                                    

Pop

Oil on Wood

12''x 17''

                                                                 
                                                                       

 Party Time

Oil on Wood

15''x 24''

 Nose Out

Oil on Wood

13.5'' x 14.5''

Recycled Bench

Wooden Pallets

54''x 16.5" 

Recycled Table

Wooden Pallets

24''x 16''

Light Box

Mirrors, Lights, Wood

24''x23''x6''

Materials List

2 sheets of wood- $6.95 each

Everything else I recycled, or previously obtained

End of year Questions

1. What work have you made that seems most yours? Why?
-I feel that all the work I make seems to be mine. In art, technically nothing is original, every artist seeks
 inspiration from other artists and go from there. My light box, wood furniture, and paintings are all
special to me in different ways and portray my enjoyment for creating a creative process in route to the
finished product.

2.Who are artists that are making work that relates to you? Are there other influences? 
    How are these other influences connected to your work?
-There are several different artists who create wooden pallet furniture and with my portraits, it is
influenced by technological software such as illustrator and photoshop. These influences are connected
to my work because they give me inspiration and ideas and allow me to gain my own ideas and put them towards my own artwork.

3. Discuss, in your own words, why you think this is so.
-No one can survive without art because art is a way to express yourself. There are so many different forms of art in everyday life and everyone needs a creative outlet. Creating art, performing it, or doing whatever you feel is art is fulfilling to the mind and makes people feel good.

4. Which of these ideas resonates most with you? Why? If they all resonate, how do they differ?
-Art is something that I do for the world. Why I say that is because I love for people to see my work and be intrigued and think it is exciting. I do artwork not only for myself, but to spark creativeness within another person. This semester, I feel I have accomplished that. I created a light box with different materials and that piece of art sparked the interest of another classmate of mine to create his own form of light art.

5.What do you notice about yourself? What are your methods? Subject Matter? The answers do 
not have to be limited to art related topics.
- I noticed that I enjoy working with my hands more than anything. If a piece of art that I am working on does not involve me to build or create a process to complete it than I am not enjoying myself. I love the qualities of wood and what you can create with it. Wood in my opinion is limitless and there are so many artistic possibilities with the material.

6. What do you care about? The answers do not have to be limited to art related topics.
- I care about being happy and enjoying what I am doing. My outlook is that if I am happy and enjoying what I am doing the success and money will come. Art to me isn't based off being super successful or being famous and having shows all over the world. Art to me is about having fun with what I am doing and creating things that blow peoples minds. I find that making other people happy by seeing my art is the most success I could ever ask for. People take life to seriously and get upset when they don't obtain their goals. I wish that people would take life one day at a time and really enjoy each moment.

Reading #13

Yukinori Yanagi
Pg. 236-243

Yukinori's take on art is interesting to me and attention grabbing. I enjoy how he includes animals in his artwork and doesn't take dominance over an animal like we tend to do in our society. He includes metaphors on how animals resemble art and portray wonderful traits. One example he gives is how contemporary media associates themselves with animals, such as how cars are associated with mustangs, thunderbirds, and impalas. Also, sports teams such as the Denver Broncos, or Seattle Seahawks, he says that human behaviors are explained in accordance to animal traits. I completely agree with him saying that because as humans we definitely do associate ourselves with animals, but always tend to overlook it. His artistic piece involving the ant in my opinion takes a ton of patience and determination, but the concept is extremely creative. I enjoy how most of the marks are around the edges leaving the middle somewhat empty showing the movement of the ant and its intentions. Overall, I find Yukinori to be interesting and intelligent, I enjoy how he takes a lot of time to think about his artwork and have a different mindset than most of us do when it comes to animals.

Inspirational Work

New Work

Reading #12

Kim Jones

Pg, 208-213

            After reading about Kim Jones and his alter ego Mudman I became very interested that his man dressed up as this different man and walked the streets and several different cities. Kim intrigued me because it was such a different way to express oneself than the other artists I have read about so far. I thought it was awesome how he did not try to hide anything in being Mudman. He got dressed and put on his costume in the open and took mud from wherever he could find it in the city, which was either in a park or on private property.  I enjoyed how his character was mostly natural and one big conversation piece. He did not put on an act with the costume he talked to people as he normally would, but he just wanted to get a reaction out of modern day society and see how they would react. He said it was a good way to meet people. My thoughts on his artwork, is its very creative and different. He took a different approach than most people because he said sculpture and painting were too restrictive. He wanted to branch out and be different, which I respect. I think Mudman is an awesome idea and very original. He gets to see how modern day civilians react to it, whether they are curious and appreciative or stand-offish and offended. Kim Jones is very creative and I respect his courageous and appeal to not being tied down to restrictive artwork.

                                                                   Inspirational Artwork

New Work

I do not have a new photo of my finished pallet bench, Stay tuned. I will have one up on Monday.

Reading #11

Scott Greiger

pages 150-155

After reading about Scott Greiger, his attitude towards society really interests me, as well as his artistic approach. First, it states that Scott is an image collector, not an image inventor. What they mean by that is throughout his day he is exposed to different media and design elements that stand out to him and they stick with him. I can relate to that because that always happens to me too. If I see something visually pleasing in my opinion that image will stick with me and down the road will influence a piece of work. Next, he states that he is against the vocabulary of corporatization. “You are required to adapt your activities and thinking to what is available.” That is a great statement in my opinion. Because I feel there is so much more out there and so much more you can be creative with that is not presented in front of you.  I enjoy Scotts approach to artwork trying to get society to think outside the box and go beyond what they are accustomed to thinking.

Inspirational Artwork

New Work

Reading #10

Julian LaVerdiere

pg.142-149

 After reading about Julian, I enjoyed his artwork. Positive statements that I received from his article were how he based his artwork on imagination, curiosity and motivation. I enjoy that thinking process and those traits in human beings. I realized everyone obtains those traits but not everyone chooses to use them at all times. I also enjoyed his statement  "History is the most valuable territory. writing of history is the definition of the world at present." History is very interesting to me as well. The world and people base a lot of their choices and decisions based on history and what has happened in the past.  A piece of his artwork at intrigued me was how he designed cots and pillows inserted with electro-luminescent wires and microprocessors. These devices would trick the humans brain to feel rapturous state of resistance free motion. In my opinion, that is genius how you can manipulate a persons thoughts in the subconscious world. Julian seems to be a very intelligent and deep minded person who never stops thinking about what he can achieve next. 

Inspirational Images

New Work

Reading #9

Julian Miller

Mariko Mori

            After reading about Mariko Mori she has a good outlook on the future and what technology should bring to the world. I agree with her second statement that she thinks technology will be the demise of civilization. Why I think that and agree with her is because technology allows us as humans to be lazy and take things for granted. What I mean by things is nature. The more technology advances in my opinion the less nature is appreciated and made a concern. People are to caught up in their high-tech world and don’t take time to look around and enjoy what is already there for them. I enjoy a quote she says, “ But what I am really trying to do is point out where technology should go in the future, which is to coexist with nature.” I agree with this statement, but do not see them coexisting. Once technology becomes more advances I see nature taking a backburner to it and people relying on technology more than Mother Nature. As for her artwork, I think Mariko Mori has a beautiful futuristic style that is very eye catching and creative. Her work that is shown in the book is extremely creative and I feel could be very powerful if you saw it in person.

Inspirational Photos

New Work

Reading #8

China Adams

Pg. 332-340

After reading China Adams article, she seems to be a very interesting artist. Her conceptual thoughts and theories seem to be very different than the other artists I have read about so far this year. She uses mythology and scriptures to base her work off of and different views that most people do not think about. What I really love is her light box. I can relate to her light box in two aspects of my art. First, I make my own light box that reflects infinite space, and her light box reflects infinite life. What I mean by that is that she waits until her death and then the art collector receives that light box portraying her body part, so her being will live on for long after she dies. That brings me to my second point, my paintings reflect infinite life because I paint portraits of people that I care about and I want their being to remain on this earth long after they pass away. China Adams is a very interesting artist who I can relate to with my artwork.

Inspirational Images

Encaustic

New Work

Reading #7

Julian Miller

Gregory Green

Pg. 322-331

After reading about Gregory Green I find his work very interesting. His outlook on the world is different than many others. He believes in anarchy and educating the public about bombs and how to construct them. He says that we loose power in a governmental society if we don’t equip ourselves with explosives. His work to me is awesome because in my opinion I don’t always agree with the government and its actions towards problems in society. Gregory Green plays around with the minds of many people because he develops explosives and gives the public the option to make them. His catch is that he leaves out little bits of information so an outsider could not complete the explosive completely. That is his catch in the legal system so that he cannot go to jail, which to me is brilliant. His outlook on his work and society is very engaging, and after reading about him I wanted to know more. He has also gained a ton of media attention because his artistic style is very avant-garde. His artwork stirs up a lot of attention and questions from outsiders, which has made him famous in a way. To me, Green is a different and brilliant artist who took a feared concept and has made it into an art form. His creativity is out of this world, I would like to meet this man and talk to him for a little bit to understand more. 

Inspirational Works

Ivan Navarro

  New Work

 Paint of a good friend of mine

 Wanted to step outside of oil paint and play with some texture. Melted candles down on a black surface and added the center of a record to play with the illusion that a record was actually there.

A self portrait I completed with oil paint. Loose brushstrokes.

Reading #6

Betsy Damon

pg. 356-363

      After reading about Betsy Damon, I have an new perspective on certain artists. This artist deserves a lot of respect for dropping the money aspect of art and by doing that she is going out in the world and trying to make a difference. She is taking the form of water and making it an art. She is looking out for the health of others and taking it upon herself to make other people’s water cleaner for their consumption. One quote that I read in her article really interested me, “The Chengdu project is an extension of my philosophy of what it takes to live on the planet, the necessity of working together, bringing together unlikely partners, and forming new relationships. It is about building new kinds of connections and relationships while grappling with the consequences of a globalized class system and the economies of dominance, possession, exploitation, and greed…Water as the source of all life can form the basis of such connection.” This quote means a lot to me because I have always felt very negatively about money and what it does to human beings. By forgetting about the money and forming relationships with people who have the same goal of you to better the environment and make a positive impact for a community is awesome. I wish more people were like this woman. I also respect her outlook on water and what a resource it is to human society. A lot of people take it for granted and it’s not right. Overall, I really enjoyed reading about Betsy Damon and found her story very interesting.

Inspiration Images

New Work

Reading #5

Will Schade

Pg. 86-92

             After reading about Will Schade and understanding his conceptual outlook on his work I came to the conclusion that I like this guy. The subjects he paints and why he paints them is very interesting. Also, he adds texts in his work that comes off as “stupid” to some, but comes off as comical to others. It is not his fault he is dyslexic and rather than shy away from it he uses it to his advantage. “ Bill Schade’s works are ego builders, morale boosters, and status elevators.” Why it says this in the book is because his work makes people laugh. He is a very talented artist but the texts in his works are horribly misspelled and in our society that is comical to people. I respect this artist because instead of getting offended by people laughing at his work, he simply enjoys it and it makes his work very successful. His work to me is awesome, “Gerasimus” is a comical illustration on homemade paper that is extremely creative and beautifully appealing. I enjoy how he takes old stories and recreates them to read how he wants them too. He has a very creative mind and enjoys creating work that makes people feel good about themselves. Out of any artist I’ve read about so far he is by far my favorite. His light-hearted spirit and creative mind is very appealing and respectable. 

Inspirational Images

New Work

Reading #4

Michal Rovner

Pg.44-51

After reading about Micahl and her artwork Mutual Interest, I was intrigued by her work of birds. Her process is very interesting, how she uses sounds, ink and computer technology to go in and manipulate her images. Her artwork really is beautiful in my opinion. At first glance I wasn’t sure what it was and after reading I began to see that is was birds, not a specific species just the symbol itself. I was interested in how she doesn’t view them as birds but as symbols. She states, “symbols are components of our cultural inheritance, they do not need to be learned, and often elicit the raw immediacy of an emotion.” This quote matches her work because you will always recognize birds no matter what it is formed into our culture. She took a common symbol and threw and artistic twist to it allowing her viewers to form an opinion and a thought. I enjoyed reading her thoughts and explanations about her work.

Inspirational Images

New Work