Blog Entry # 4

ART: 21 - Place
1. First we define a place, than a place defines us.
2. Richard Serra is influenced and inspired by ships. Sally Mann is inspired by ambiguity and mostly she said that what ever she is surrounded by is what she takes pictures of. Margaret Kilagllan was inspired by American and Indian folkart. Barry McGee is inspired by a football field, folklore also and he likes freedom.
3. All places can look different just like homes but just because they are different forms they can mean the same thing just to a different person. Different places have different faces and the video showed how art can look different and how some people come across it can be different also, an example is that the grafiti on the side of buildings can be seen to anyone walking by, but art in galleries has to be inquired, people have to make time to go and look at it.
4. I think that I feel most connected with Richard because he likes to use scale and makes things memorable for all the people that see them. I don’t think that I could personally be a good artist like him but I feel more connected to him than the other artists because his art is something I would go to see in a showcase or gallery.
5. Richard uses many people to help him put his work together, especially because he uses steel he has really good media attention, in the video it looked like there were field trips looking at his work. Sally did everything for herself, she took and developed the pictures (of course with the help of her family), I am not sure of what type of media attention she gets because the video never really specified where her work could be seen. Margaret and Barry’s work were shown in the video, while they were setting up, otherwise it seems like they do work for free, they painted on the side of trains and Barry grafittied on the sides of buildings and explained just how much he liked freedom in general.
6. I liked the Mall, it was mysterious because it was so big. I was scared of my basement, because it is dark. I liked my room because it intrigued me. I liked the lake behind my house because there was always something to do back there. Escalators I was defiantly scared of because I thought they would "eat me".
7. My room was occupied by stuffed animals, posters, pictures of family, I had a bunk bed for when my friends came over, a desk and a radio with a vtech laptop. The lighting was really good in my room, my window was huge and when you opened it, it was possible to crawl out onto the top of the roof and just sit there (at night it was the best place for the stars), it was always a happy place. The textures of my room were really no different than any others, the carpet was soft and thick (and pink) the walls were just painted white and most of my stuffed animals were squishy, some hard, others wore clothes that had corduroy on them. The radio and desk were hard, one was wood and the other was made of plastic.
ART: 21- Stories
1. Some important stories we hear are defiantly by older family members, like grandparents etc. sometimes it is hard to understand how they lived while they were younger but the stories at least create a picture in the persons head. Books and movies also provide us with stories mostly stories that make our senses and imaginations go crazy, in action movies/books you are always on the edge of your seat, in horror movies/books the heart beats so quickly, when it comes to sad and romantic things usually crying or feeling sympathetic for the character is a common feeling. The news also tells us stories, more recent and new coming though, sometimes they are things we don’t want to hear so we pretend that they cant possibly be happening. Music stories usually tell of child hood memories, or some experience in that persons life. I could not pick out one story that would be passed down, there are so many funny stories and memories that I am sure at some point will all be told when the time is right.
2. Sometimes people want to forget the terrible things that happened to them, terrible meaning that there is no way you could look back on that and laugh and oppose to something like falling down the stairs and looking like an idiot. Happy memories are usually the most appropriate they can be an any occasions laugh whereas the other stories might actually ruin the moment of happiness.
3. I think the artists used their sketch books more for ideas than anything throughout the video I noticed that Kiki for instance used larger scale paper etc, to make practice drawings and get ideas like how she cut out the silhouettes. A journal or sketchbook could defiantly be considered a work of art because it shows ideas and sketches even though minuscule examples it can still be art, a piece of artwork or a painting doesn’t have to be life size or huge, because it is not at all the size but the meaning.
4. While living at my old house my favorite thing to do was go fishing in the lake we had behind the house. It was fairly small but the fish catches were always impressive. One morning I was wearing my bathing suit and I wanted to go fishing so I headed out. The happiness was short lived because (I am not entirely sure how it happened anymore but) I fell into the lake and landed on something sharp, when I stood up I was in shock and for the second I didn’t feel terrible pain I stood up and saw bones in my leg. Blood rushed out of my leg as soon as I was out of the water and of course I started screaming and crying, my mom took me to the emergency room where I received many shots (because who knows how dirty that lake really is, and we had no idea what I fell on to begin with) and internal and external stitches. For weeks I had to sit with my leg up and if there was something I wanted to do my leg had to stay completely straight so I didn’t rip or break the stitches. I remember feeling sorry for myself because I could not go out and swim or fish like everyone else and it was summer so no one really wanted to just sit with me while there was so many other things to do. When I look back on it I realize that I was being stubborn, I fought my mom to not take me to the emergency room and ruined some of her towels I the process (because I was bleeding so badly). Also I should have understood more why people couldn’t sit with me and that they did have other things to do, instead of whining and making them feel bad. Overall it taught me to be more careful and not to argue with someone older because either way they are going to win and I had to go to the emergency room.