Art and Society

In my art and society class we have a final project where we must take a culture that we haven't studied thus far and analyze a particular art form from that culture. After we analyze the art form and its context within the society, we are to create our own rendition of said art form and present it to the class. I still have very little idea what I will be analyzing and creating but I do have a couple of things in mind.

Ideally I would like to create something using the skills we've learned and the materials available in sculpture class. This could end up being pottery maybe, or a statue of some sort. But ideally it would be a 3D object that wouldn't take too long to create from scratch, and that exemplifies the art form well.

As far as cultures to study and analyze I am thinking about choosing a tribe of indigenous peoples from the Americas. I have always been interested in these types of cultures as well as their clash with colonies from Europe. As I come up with more ideas and progress with my project I will post updates and progress reports.

Jin-me Yoon

Jin-me Yoon

Jin-me Yoon is an internationally known artist who emigrated from Korea and now lives and works in Canada. Through her works, and especially her early photographs, she touches on issues of race, gender, nationality, etc as a means of identifying oneself. Her more recent work has shifted towards artistic videos and film, and exploring the relationships between bodies, cities and history. It doesn't take an expert to notice that much of her work deals with social commentary and using subtle humor or irony to express her feelings about a particular subject in our rapidly shrinking world.

Many of her works use simplicity as a means of mystery. I find it hard to really pinpoint the exact messages that she is trying to send to her viewers. It is also a lot more difficult to understand the context of these images and videos considering I am from a younger generation who hasn't seen a lot of these historical events first hand. Most of her works touch on some sort of crucial moment in history, many of which are not directly relevant to me or my life.

Artist Statement Draft

Connor Felt

Sculpture

Eric Norman

29 March 2013

Artist Statement

Currently I haven’t narrowed down a specific path that I want to follow in terms of artistic expression or messages that I want to portray. If anything I want to create works that are thoughtful and make people question things that they normally ignore or take for granted. I find myself analyzing things that I would imagine most people don’t spend their time thinking about, so I would like to create things that inspire people to question the same things I do.

These questions could be about topics as broad as society or authority, or as specific as current world conflicts for example. We live in a very interesting age in terms of technological advancement which also consumes a lot of my thoughts. This is a theme that I would like to continue to depict or touch upon if I continue making artistic works. 

For me, life is a careful balance between logic and emotion, science and art. Even when it comes to an art studio class, I like to bring some function or scientific principal to the work as well. Sometimes this is required in order for a work to be structurally sound for example. This duality of nature is another theme that I like to express on many different levels through different works.

Statement of Intent Draft

Connor Felt

Sculpture

Eric Norman

27 March 2013

Statement of Intent

For the rest of the semester I want to focus on having a complete final project finished as well as catching up with my blog. Since there aren’t many class days in the semester left I will make sure to attend each one and work on my final project. Outside of class I will be coming up with ideas on how to improve it as well as keeping up with my blog. Ideally I would like a final collection of polished works to be able to display for my final project.

As far as concerns go, I am mostly worried about having enough objects, or detailed enough objects. I am not sure exactly which media I will be using exclusively either, but I want to mainly focus on plaster and wax. I am starting with simple objects and moving up to more detailed so I am hoping I will have enough time to have a set of detailed objects I am really proud of.

Overall I am not too certain where I want to take my work past this semester. I am glad to be learning skills that will eventually help me in the future. I am also learning that I enjoy working with my hands and 3D objects more than expected. This will help me narrow down a career path, which has been something I have been struggling with immensely. 

Gabriel Orozco Collection

Gabriel Orozco

After watching the video on Gabriel Orozco and viewing some of his popular works online I got a simple understanding of what his works are about. To be honest I am not a huge fan of artists like Gabriel Orozco who can take a picture of the simplest thing and sell it for thousands of dollars. I respect  what he does as an artist, but I don't see any value in a lot of his works. This isn't to say that some of his works were amazing. When asked to come up with a collection of three works that represent Orozco's style, I decided to take two photos and make one 3D work.

This first picture is of an abandoned piece styrofoam that I placed on top of a fire hydrant. What inspired me to take this picture was the segment in his video where he takes the flattened two liter bottle and places it different areas around Mexico.

This next picture is of a bunch of bananas that I put in a gap on a grocery store shelf. What inspired me to take this picture was his several photos of misplaced grocery items such as the cat cans on top of the watermelons.

This last piece was a simple clay model I made that sort of mimics the several clay works he has done. His are very abstract and have very little resemblance to a real objects so I attempted to make a shape similar to his.

Final Project Ideas

Final Project

My proposal is still somewhat vague as to what I will actually be sculpting for the rest of the semester. Rather than just doing a series of objects with no real relation to one another, I was thinking about having a series of objects that evolve from extremely simple to more detailed and complex. Starting with geometric shapes such as a sphere, a pyramid and maybe a cube, I would then branch off to more and more detailed and protruding sculptures. But the objects I will be creating will aim to be more realistic depictions rather than abstract works.

As for the media I will be using I still haven't figured out exactly what I will be doing either. During the semester I enjoyed working with plaster and wax so I imagine I will be using those. But I am also thinking about adding a third, whether it be wood or paper or maybe something I haven't worked with yet. The other problem is I'm not exactly sure which objects in the series of detail evolution will be made out of what. I may make a series out of each media which would give me a lot to work on for the last few weeks of class. Especially since I will have to make each sculpture in each media look similar to one another.

Currently I need to figure out what exact subjects I will want to sculpt in the series of evolution. I need to know how many I will be sculpting as well. Maybe three to five in each. Lastly I need to figure out what media I will be using and for which objects.

Ice Sculptures

Ice Sculptures

When doing some research earlier today for my final project I came across several different types of sculpture. I noticed many different images of extremely detailed ice sculptures and was very impressed. I have always been aware of ice sculptures but the works I viewed today astounded me after having to imagine the work behind them. Not only is ice extremely fragile, but is obviously extremely heat sensitive. It surprised me how well the artists were able to create such realistic and detailed works without the ice melting or cracking. I can imagine the artists in a very cold room working quickly but with great precision. Here is a small collection of pictures that I noticed earlier today.