National Portrait Gallery: Alexander Calder's Portraits

A few weekends ago, I finally made my way out to DC to the National Portrait Gallery. I really enjoyed the trip and thought all of the artwork was amazing! In particular, I really liked Alexander Calder's portraits. He uses wire to create 3-D portraits. He somehow twists the wires to construct portraits with facial expressions and emotion. Calder began his career in portraiture in the 1930s and has been extremely successful with his art. Throughout his life, he has been most renowned for his wire mobiles and stabiles. His mobile figures incorporate suspended that move in space within the sculpture. I was amazed by his unique sculpture portraits as I had never seen anything like it before! I came back and did some research on him. He was born into a family of artists and showed great talent in art as a child, however he did not originally intend on making a career of it. He went to school for engineering and worked in the field for several years. Eventually he decided to try out the art career and thrived. He started creating figures of wire and found that he really enjoyed the material. He started his career in portraiture by creating wire portraits of friends and family. He eventually began creative some kinetic mobile sculptures.

I was very intrigued by his artwork. It looks as if he made a sketch of a person or thing and then magically turned it into a 3-D piece. Walking around each sculpture, I could see through the sculpture and view it from all different angles. No matter what angle that I viewed the portraits from, they always looked like portraits. Looking at the wire portrait face to face wasn't the only way to view it and understand what it was supposed to look like. Some portraits also had a fair amount of detail, which I was impressed by because it seems to me that incorporating detail into a figure made all of wire would be difficult. Non-theless, Calder made it work. I think the meanings of his work are that people can be seen and thought of in different ways by different people. People also have different emotions at different times. I believe Calder tries to incorporate emotion and a bit of personality into each of his unique portraits. I believe he does so magnificently. 

In my opinion, Calder's artwork is amazing. There wasn't a single piece that I saw and didn't like. Every portrait was unique and exciting in it's own way. I honestly can't think of any way he could improve his artwork. He is a master of crafting wires into objects of beauty with meaning.

Calder at the National Portrait Gallery

Calder Foundation

Artist Talk: Animated Film Series: Lewis Klahr

Lewis Klahr is a very unique filmmaker. He makes short animated films via elaborate collages. He creates each of his collages from cut outs of magazines, papers, books, comics, etc. He came to St. Mary's earlier in the semester as part of the animated film series. I found his films very interesting. Of the films he showed, all used cut outs and themes of an earlier era. They seemed to be set in the 1950s time period. The films he showed were "April Snow", "A Thousand Julys", and "The Nimbus Trilogy." Each had it's own unique theme and style. I thought his particular type of film really applied to what we were learning in digital art at the time. When I saw this lecture, we were working on our vector portraits and viewing some of the vector animated films. I really enjoyed the style of these films so I was interested in seeing some other types of unique animation.

"April Snow" was all about the love he has for his wife. Klahr said a few words about the film after our viewing. He said he wanted to portray the ideas of married life and how relationships change over time, yet stay just as significant. He chose appropriate images to display this feeling of love. He said most of the images chosen were from old comics that he read as a kid. I thought it was interesting that he chose to display current feelings for his wife through old cut outs. "The Nimbus Trilogy" was the next film he showed. I found this one a bit harder to gain meaning from. However, the animation was very interesting. I noticed certain cut outs making appearances several times in different ways. For instance, a penny kept sliding across the screen at different periods in time. A student asked Klahr the significance of the penny and he didn't really give a clear answer. I know the broad idea of the first part of the trilogy was a about a man and woman struggling with their relationship. Klahr added some word bubbles similar to the ones found in comic books. I thought this really helped portray his message since their was no actual dialogue to be heard. I think he was trying to portray the miscommunications and misunderstandings that are bound to be found in relationships.

I really liked the uniqueness of Klahrs films. I have never seen animated films where cut out figures are used with or without background music and without dialogue. The ways in which he positioned the cut out figures with cut out backgrounds and slid them across the screen was very creative and I am sure very time consuming. I enjoyed watching is films for the visual aspects, however I sometimes found them rather hard to understand. This may be partly due to the fact that I had never seen animations of this sort and kept getting distracted by the different visual aspects rather than focusing on realizing some meaning. Most of the clips that we viewed seemed to present messages about relationships. Some relationships were good, some were bad, others were repetitive and boring, and still others involved lack of communication. I like the messages he presents because they are ideas that everyone can relate to and they are very realistic as well.

I think artistically and visually, Klahr is a master of his art form. I think the only change I would make if I were making a film like his would be to somehow make the message more clear. He did a good job using different songs in the background to symbolize different emotions, however more word bubbles with the human cut outs would have been helpful as well. Overall though, Klahr's work is extremely visually pleasing and flows together very naturally. I enjoyed viewing his unique film style. I couldn't find any of the films we viewed at St. Mary's on youtube, but here is a link to one of his other videos.

Artist Talk: Gabriela Bulisova: "Portraits of Iraqi Refugees"

Gabriela Bulisova is an extraordinary documentary photographer from Czechoslavakia. She came to St. Mary's earlier in the semester to present some of her work in the WGSX Colloquium on "Women in War." Her photographs were hung all over upper Monty. As I walked past, I took a look at some of them and was in awe. Each photograph was so distinct and had so much emotion and purpose. I used to do a lot of photography in high school and have great interest in that particular art form so I decided to go to her talk. Of all of the lectures I have been to at this school across the many disciplines, this lecture was by far the most interesting and moving to me. Not only is her artwork amazing, but the research and stories behind each photograph is amazing. Each photograph has it's own in depth story to tell. For this particular art show, Bulisova was displaying portraits of many Iraqi refugees. She titled this project, "Guests." It focused on refugees who fled the war in Iraq and relocated primarily to Syria. She said that this was one of the greatest refugee crises in history. Approximately 15% of Iraq's population is or was in flight. She found a lot of interest in this topic, especially because it had received little to no attention from the media. 

Bulisova went to Syria and interviewed and photographed many of these refugees. She said she wishes she could make a bigger difference for them after hearing their stories, however she already has a made a difference by telling their stories through her art. Many of the people she interviewed fled due to political or religious affiliation. While in Syria, she stayed in a very poor area and was restricted from photographing in certain areas. She learned that many of the refugees in Syria don't have the same rights. Some can't even work or earn money. Many of the women had to resort to prostitution because they couldn't work.

Bulisova took the time to go through some of her photographs and tell the stories behind them. One of the photographs shown was of a man whose house was bombed targeting him. He was luckily not home at the time. However two of his four children were killed. Of the other two, one received major burns to the stomach and the other has post traumatic stress disorder. After the event, the mother had a stroke. Another image showed a man who had been shot at seven times and was in severe need of spinal surgery, but couldn't afford it. One of the photos that moved me the most was one of a man with a sign reading "a boy for sale." The man holding the sign was too poor to take care of his son anymore and loved his son so much that he felt the only option for his son to survive would be to sell him to a family who could afford to take care of him. He took his son out on the street then began weeping and took his son inside and said they would figure out some way to make it work. Bulisova went to Syria a second time. She went in search of people who wanted their stories told and found that many people had given up and didn't want to talk. Upon arriving at the house of the her translator, the translator said, "I need a break; let's go to the beach." Bulisova reluctantly went along with little hope of finding refugees to interview on the beach. Luckily they found a group of woman at the beach with their children. The women forced their children to go to the beach that day because they were too depressed and needed to find some happiness. The photograph was almost a bit humorous because it was of these smiling woman in long black robes in beach chairs; quite different from the majority of the refugee photos. The last group of refugees that Bulisova discussed was a group that had made it to the US. Upon hearing about refugees relocating to the US, most would think this would be good news. However this particular group was made up of Iraqis who actually had been helping the US by being the eyes and ears for the US army. Many of them worked as translators. They were marked at traitors and were targeted to be assassinated. There were over 100,000 of them and only about 3,000 were granted visas to the US. Once they arrived, their lives did not improved. They were forgotten and felt abandoned. Many Americans ignored them or looked at them as if they were terrorists.

I really look up to Bulisova for doing this project. I think it takes a lot of bravery and determination to do a project like this where she went to dangerous places to document and tell the stories of the refugees that some people may have tried to ignore. She really is making a difference in the world through her art as is her goal. She is currently working on a project on women in prison to tell their stories. I really admire her work because she completely delves her mind, body, and soul into it and really cares about these people and their stories. I can't think of any way she could possibly improve her work. Not only does each photograph have it's own emotional story, but each photo is taken with delicacy and purpose. I really love her work and enjoyed going to her lecture.

Gabriela Bulisova at Mica

Gabriela Bulisova Website

Info on some of her work

Artist Post: Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois is an extremely talented artist from France. She was born in Paris, then emigrated to the US in 1938. She began her art career primarily as an engraver and sculptor. She eventually found her niche in sculpture. Her early pieces were often abstract shapes carved in wood. She experimented with materials such as rubber, bronze, and stone as well. The central theme of the bulk of her pieces is her childhood. She often uses portrays family relationships and sexuality of family life in her works. One concept seen in her artwork is the role of sexuality and innocence of humans and the conflicts between the two.

"Maman," pictured above is a sculpture of a female spider and happens to be the piece for which Bourgeois is most renowned. It is a 30 foot tall sculpture is made of stainless steel. Underneath the body of the spider are 26 marble eggs. The sculpture was first displayed in London in 2000. Since, she has made many bronze casts appearing in other museums around the world. It is one of the world's largest sculptures. The intended message behind the spider was very surprising to me because, personally I am not a huge fan of spiders. Bourgeois' intention was that the spider would represent her mother, hence the us of the french word for mother, "maman." Her mother was not only her nurturer and caregiver growing up, but also her best friend. The ways in which she compared her mother to a spider actually made a lot of sense. Her mother worked in the tapestry business. So similar to a spider weaving a web, her mother wove tapestries. She also considered her mother to be clever, like a spider. In Bourgeois' opinion spiders were protective and helpful because they killed harmful mosquitos. Furthermore, she thought of her mother as protective due to her maternal instincts. In these ways, it makes a lot of sense why Bourgeois would choose to make such a large sculpture representing her mother, someone very important to her. She created the spider to appear scary and threatening because of the great size, yet also vulnerable because of the marble eggs hidden beneath the spiders' belly. It seems that Bourgeois wanted to bring forward the ideas surrounding the relationship between mother and child. In her particular case, this was a good relationship, which she portrayed through the protectiveness of the spider. She hints towards sexuality because of the eggs . It seems as though she wants to bring forth the vulnerability of females in general as well.

I think her artwork is amazing. In this particular work, I thought she brilliantly combined making this huge sculpture that one may assume would have some blatant and obvious meaning, when in my opinion the meaning is a bit more subtle. I personally think a vital part of the sculpture is the sac of eggs which is underneath the body of the spider and can't be seen from most pictures of the piece. I really like how she created this huge spider, but was still able to include some nice subtleties. Obviously it was a popular sculpture because she created other versions that have been placed in many other museums. I really like this sculpture and much of her other pieces that I cam across. I think she was very successful in getting her point across in a creative way. I honestly can't think of any way she could change the sculpture to improve it. I think it serves it's purpose as is! She is a fantastic artist!

biography

quote about Maman

article about Maman

Project 2: Vector Self Portrait

Chris Leavens: Vector Artist

Chris Leavens is an extremely talented vector artist from Pennsylvania. He spent his entire life making doodles of crazy creatures and make believe worlds. It was always a hobby for him; nothing he took very seriously. He went to Penn State and majored in film. He went on to become a filmmaker, but became tired of the job and gave a shot at becoming an illustrator. Little did he know, he would turn out to be an incredibly talented and successful vector artist!

I was drawn to Leavens' artwork because it is so vivid and exciting. It's very creative and invigorating to see all of these fantasy worlds that he creates. He draws a lot of inspiration from the outdoors. This is another reason I was drawn to his work. I am a big outdoors fan and the way he takes a landscape and warps it into this unknown realm is amazing. All of his illustrations have a central theme of humor and absurdity. He tries to tell stories about places through his illustrations. Eventually he wants to create a line of children's books. After that he hopes to turn those books into animation. Most of his work is created for a young audience. He never incorporates violence into his images. He uses many bright colors and imaginary creatures with a positive ambience. This is the perfect art for children because children have so much imagination and positivity about life. Some of his artworks include Manzanita, an illustration of a very slow growing tree that eventually becomes huge and beautiful. The image has some cute little creatures dangling throughout it as well. This is one of the images at the top of this post. Another interesting project of Leavens' is called Glitch. Glitch is a video game that Leavens collaborated on with several other vector artists. Each artist created different areas within a fantasy world. One of the illustrations Leavens created for this game is also at the top of this post. His art is all fun and full of life!

In my opinion each of his illustrations has their own meaning. For example, I believe Manzanita is about how something that may seem small and insignificant at first can really become something beautiful and amazing. It has a very positive message. Overall, I think all of his artwork exudes positivity and humor through vivid images of creative creatives and fantasy landscapes. It is very imaginative and obviously geared towards the child audience.

I think Chris Leavens artwork is extremely successful. It serves the purpose that I believe he wants it to: to get the creative juices flowing, inspire positivity, and make the viewer smile. His work is his own and is very unique to his style. The images he creates are so imaginative and elaborate that they could only be created by his brain. I really don't see any way he could improve. Each illustration is different and each has extreme detail, humor, and absurdity. I love his artwork!

Line Drawing Sketch

This is a sketch that a friend of mine drew and which I manipulated on Illustrator.

Musical Sketch

Self Portraits

Harold Cohen and his Creation: AARON

Harold Cohen is a very unique artist in the digital world. He combined science and art to develop some really interesting artworks while making new discoveries about the capabilities of a computer. He started off as a painter in England, then worked his way over to the US. He was an art professor at UCSD and developed a project that turned into an ongoing research project. He created a computer program known as AARON. He was one of the only artists to delve into the topic of artificial intelligence and art. Little did he know this invention would change his life.

AARON is an ongoing research project that began in the seventies . Cohen wanted to create a program that could exhibit human characteristics in such a way that it could think for itself enough to create drawings and artwork. He wanted to create a program that cognitive skills and abilities like the ones that humans use when creating or evaluating images. At the start of this project, AARON could only recognize figures and background, closed vs. open figures and manipulate these figures in a very basic manner. Since the beginning of the project, AARON has come a long way. Cohen has devoted a significant portion of his life to the project and the works that have been created by Cohen and AARON are incredible.

Soon, AARON was able to make decisions about how to continue drawing an image by "remembering" what it had already done and thinking about its goal. Cohen wanted AARON to be able to be cognitively aware of what it was currently doing and what it had already done, just as humans think while drawing a picture. By 1985, AARON was able to create a picture of the statue of liberty from a description Cohen provided through question and answer with the computer. Soon AARON was creating pictures of plant life and eventually human figures.

At this point, AARON has created thousands of drawings, many of which Cohen has taken it upon himself to add color. Now, AARON can create one unique image in two minutes, a pretty unbelievable task for a computer program. AARON is the first computer/program to be able to create its own pieces of art from scratch.

Cohen is a very interesting artist because he indirectly created much of his art through a machine that he created. Its an incredible process that I don't fully understand, but am fascinated by. He has created so many different pieces that I couldn't possibly try to discern a meaning from each one. However, the whole reason he created AARON (which is really a work of art in itself) was in hope of understanding why people recognize drawings as real life images. For example, one topic Cohen may have wanted to address is how a bunch of lines drawn on a piece of paper can somehow be recognized by the viewer as a human figure, or tree, or whatever image is being depicted. In researching this topic, he created an amazing piece of art that lives a dynamic life in it's very own creations. Not only is Cohen an artist, but a scientist and inventor. I think the goal of his art is a bit more scientific than anything, but it is also very visually pleasing. Through his art, he aimed/aims to make scientific discoveries. Thus far, he seems to be very successful in doing just that.

I am extremely impressed by Cohen's creation. It is a remarkable piece of art and scientific invention. I never thought that something like AARON could be created, let alone help someone gain scientific input on genetics and human thought. Personally, I find math and science to be extremely interesting. I never really thought they could be combined with art, but Cohen did just that. I believe he may be continuing to work on improving AARON today. I really don't know how AARON could be improved because I don't fully understand how AARON does what it does. AARON continues to function successfully in creating vivid pictures. It is an inspiration to scientists and artists alike. Nothing like Cohen's achievements have been seen before, but I am sure many more people will try to combine science and art in the future. I can't wait to see the capabilities and discoveries to come from this wonderful invention!

Final Version of Photoshop Project One

Photoshop Project 1: Alternate Reality

I created this image to represent a girl/woman looking back on her childhood. It's supposed to show her feelings of longing for the past and feeling sort of homesick.

photoshop editing

After:Before:

Before:After:
After:
Before:

Hannah Hoch Photomontages

I came across Hannah Hoch's art in the New Media Art Introduction. I decided to delve a little deeper into her art and found it very interesting. She seems to be a very powerful artist. She is well-known for being the only female member of DADA and was one of the first artists to experiment with photomontage. She related each of her photomontages to her own life. She specifically tried to convey her feelings as being a woman in an art movement which was primarily run by men in the pre and post-war times that Germany faced. I found her art particularly interesting because of its "unrealistic" representation of her reality. Because she didn't use just one real photo as a representation of subservient woman in World War II Germany, but instead manipulated many photographs in combination with some scrap paper/objects, her art is very unique. It sends her strong personal message. It also seems almost other worldly because the people in her photomontages don't look realistic. She would sometimes combine pictures of different body parts to create a person. She would even explore distorting reality by placing pictures of women's heads on male's bodies. When she began creating these photomontages, they evoked very serious messages in a serious manner. Over time she began making her montages more humorous.

Her artwork is not just creative and fun to look at, but very meaningful. She illustrates the subservience of women to men in Germany before and after WWII. She shows how men dominated not only her world (because she was the only female in DADA at the time), but also throughout the world. For example, the top image I have displayed is one created by Hannah Hoch. This image conveys a message of women being viewed as sexual objects because of the bare female legs. The image also shows that these women are being watched by men because of the eye under the legs. Much of her work shows her feminist ideals in a male dominated society.

I think her work shows true genius. It is invigorating and thought-provoking. I think it took a lot of courage and creativity to not only be one of the first to make art out of a photomontage, but to also convey such a strong and controversial message. She was risking a lot to create this art as a woman during this time and it probably inspired many other women of that time and even today. I can't think of any way she could have improved her work because it is so unique to herself, her message, and the time period. I really enjoyed her work. Seeing her art has helped me brainstorm for even more ways to create a "fabricated reality" of the current society that I live in today through scanned images and photographs.

Mirta Kupfermink project

Collage

Digital Scans!

Nancy Burson: Beauty Composites

In today's society everyone is constantly attempting to exhibit an "image" of themselves to others. The purpose of this image may be different depending on the individual. Some want to look different and stand out to make a statement. Others want to blend in. Overall, most people want to look attractive and beautiful. Whether they want to look like all the "beautiful" models in Cosmo or embrace their own beauty varies. Anthropologically, humans see beauty in symmetry. So a person with the golden ratio appears more attractive scientifically. A person with symmetry would have a nose starting directly between the eyes, even lips, etc. Scientifically, women with bigger hips and men with big muscles are also attractive. This all is due to the fact that people with symmetry often have good genes to pass on. Women with big hips are built for child bearing and men with muscles can protect a family. In today's day and age, these factors still may play a part in our brain's deciding what is attractive, but individual's have personalities. Different people attract for many more reasons now. So beauty is relative. Nancy Burson explored this idea of beauty by morphing images of women who were widely thought of as "beautiful." In the reading by Christiane Paul, he talks about morphing as transforming images together. In Nancy Burson's Beauty Composites she created two images. The first image combined the faces of Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelley, Sophia Loren, and Marilyn Monroe. The second combined the faces of Jane Fonda, Jacqueline Bisset, Diane Keaton, Brooke Shields, and Meryl Streep. Her focus was on beauty as seen by different cultures and decades.

I really found Nancy Burson's project to be interesting. Every culture, society, age group, etc has a different perception of what is beautiful. In American culture in the 1950s, many people thought of the women whose faces combine to create the first image to be beautiful. The women in the second photo were famous actresses in the 1980s. The differences in what was seen as beautiful in the 1950s and thirty years later are obvious. The differences aren't huge, but they are visible. Beauty and attractiveness is something that consumes the thoughts of people around the world throughout life. Everyone wants to be perceived as beautiful by someone. It is interesting that what is seen as beautiful changes throughout cultures and over time. This is what I think Nancy Burson wanted to show through this project. I think that part of the issue that Burson was presenting is that these ideals for beauty that are decided by society and culture at any given time are sending a message that there is only one type of beautiful. When teenage girls and even women see the tan, skinny, "beautiful" women in magazines, they strive to make themselves look as close to these images as possible. This causes people to lose their individuality. I remember in high school, all the girls tried to look the same. They all wore bronzer to look tanner. They kept their hair long and straightened it everyday. They wore Uggs, leggings, and North faces. It was as if a uniform was required for looking pretty.

I think Burson's project was brilliant. Yes all of the women she used to create these images were beautiful, but when they are all morphed together they lose their individuality. Girls today are losing individuality by trying to look like the ideal beautiful girl of the time. I think it would have been interesting if Burson had expanded this project to several other cultures to see how different cultures perceive beauty over time. It would be interesting to see what different areas of the world think of as beautiful.

Links:

Image

I got some information on Burson's work here.

Nancy Burson's website

First Day of Class!

I look forward to learning about digital art this semester! This website talks about the different kinds of digital art: http://digitalart.org/
Here's a cool picture I found online. I think it was probably digitally edited on photoshop or something. I found it at http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.stevegoslingphotography.co.uk/images/general/steve_gosling_photography.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.stevegoslingphotography.co.uk/&usg=__CuOLofaePv8ag67ILPjbKrktrJg=&h=400&w=400&sz=25&hl=en&start=7&sig2=jASFBUQGIjTZP-7uhbMCEg&zoom=1&tbnid=9B4fvRMLEvTrXM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=124&ei=rHo4TbmwI8PLgQf1qNytCA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dphotography%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1227%26bih%3D616%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1