9th Grade Artist Statement

As an artist I’d say that the three most influential aspects of my art are 1) movies, 2) comics/cartoons and especially superheroes, and 3) satire. I’ve always admired animation and cartoons because of how difficult they are to create and how fun they are to read/view. When my sister was growing up she experienced the dinosaur obsession and my brother went through the truck phase, but I only had one interest; superheroes and action figures. Sure I played with the plastic animals at nursery school and participated in sports outside, but from about ages 1-7 everything else was done half-heartedly. In the early stages of my life prior to preschool my mornings consisted of cheerios, strawberry milk and the same Broadway recording of peter pan. Every morning for at least 2 years my sister and I would wake up at 6 wake my parents moments later and by 6: 25 both of us would be in the playroom eyes glued to the TV playing the same movie we could both recite by heart. Eventually we got bored of this, but it took a while for us to outgrow this tradition. What I’m trying to say is that though I’m not usually well prepared, when it comes to certain areas like my mornings as a toddler and Art, I usually know where I want to go with my project or what I plan to accomplish from 6-8 in the morning. While it can be really nice to have an idea from the start more often than the idea I am imagining in my head is too elaborate or difficult for me to recreate perfectly and this always disappoints me. I have always been told to keep it realistic and simplify my ideas but for me it’s really hard to do that. I guess sin theory if I stuck to ideas that were always achievable I wouldn’t experience as much disappointment but it’s not easy to let go of an idea. While the complexity and practicality of these ideas I have are a large factor in the disappointment, time is also and always has been an issue. Its usually a combination of shortage of time and lack of skill that interfere with fulfilling my ideas but hopefully over time I will become good enough at art and time management that In order to succeed I wont have to change what’s in my head.

-Eric

art 21 #3 transform & places

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I will start off by saying that Paul McCarthy is by far one of the more disturbing artists I have ever seen in my life.  I first heard my peers and my art teacher discussing an artist on art 21 whose work was just sickeningly twisted and vomit inducing. Though I am a very squeamish person I naturally was curious to see this “Monstrous work”. I try my best to keep an open mind and generally consider myself accepting but this mans art however is something I regret seeing. Mr. McCarthy’s work ranges from videos of him dressed up as disturbing characters with huge noses to an inflatable pile of feces the size of a building. I’m not saying that I think McCarthy is a terrible artist, or he lacks artistic skill, but I personally am not impressed or entertained by his peculiar art. Except for the Pinocchio balloon I didn’t read or see anything that appealed to me. As far as what McCarthy is trying to accomplish or achieve with his art is a mystery to me. I’m assuming he wants to make viewers uncomfortable and sick to their stomach but which I’m sure he does a fine job with. I suppose McCarthy also tries to be funny and make his audience laugh but I just didn’t see what could possibly have been humorous. One of his performances consisted of rolling around in ketchup inside a classroom while spectators watched him ram into walls and maim himself to the point of both him and the audience puking. One thing’s for sure, Paul McCarthy is a unique artist and it will be interesting to see how his career goes in the future.

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After Watching such an unpleasant segment featuring Paul McCarthy I decided to find an artist I really liked for the last art 21 reflections.  One particular artist had been recommended to me multiple times and it seemed like a perfect time to pursue the offer. I must say that within seconds after hearing Barry McGee speak I knew that I was going to enjoy learning about him and his work. Barry McGee is a very talented Graffiti artist and painter who’s career involves the selling his art to customers and presenting in galleries (which is what most professional artists careers consist of) and also his so called “vandalism” or public art career in which McGee tags throughout the city making incredible graffiti for the public to see and increase his ”street cred” as he called it. Though the sophisticated world of making and selling art is considered to be so different from the world of making graffiti for the public they are incredibly similar. Over the years the art of Graffiti has developed a bad reputation mainly because in most places it is technically illegal. While I believe that defacement of private property isn’t okay in some circumstances like spray-painting someone else’s home or vandalizing the white house or a memorial I don’t see anything wrong with painting a message or an image on the wall of a concrete subway station or the side of a rusty old boxcar. In these cases as long as the message isn’t disrespectful or crude the graffiti is a good thing providing something for the public to admire and discuss. Barry McGee seems to now his limits regarding Graffiti and what’s okay and not okay to post in the public and from what I saw of him, he stuck to those restrictions. The way I see it, McGee is doing the community a service of making something nice to look at free of charge to liven up the surroundings. I thoroughly admire not only McGee’s actual work but also his class and style that he makes his art with.

process reflection # 1

3rd and final attempt at clay.

though over the course of this whole week i have gotten that much done, i feel like it was a useful week and successful. I have been feeling quite tired working on my clay project this week but i am really glad and feel  a lot more accomplished after doing this rather than just giving up even when i was tempted and had the opportunity to. I spent the week struggling to complete my clay project but i had toughened the clay up too much and it wasn't  in a practical state to continue on. I got more clay and i assembled a whole new rabbit practically in  the Friday double block. I have never worked this fast and i felt so good to follow through  and have something (not something great but something) to show for it.

art 21#2 play

In the episode of art 21 titled "play" artists are shown making the work and the focus is on a particularly interesting method of art, which I don’t have much experience with. When I think of play in the art world there are a few different activities or experiences that come to mind. The first one is our collaborative mural that our group made earlier in this term, in which we did our best to recreate the after math of a food fight. I think this was play because half the project was fueled by taking chances, and not knowing what to expect, which now that I think of it is similar to what I assume a real food fight feels like. Though we did brainstorm and rehearse our technique for creating the splatters and drips of the vegetables and fruit in our mural, our technique of throwing paint covered sponges from a distance against our canvas really added a risk factor that at times can be really frustrating, frightening or fun.

One of the artists’ in the episode "play" is a man named Arturo Harrara who’s work ranges from cartoons and public art, to photographing irregular shapes and images he has painted and developing the roll of film after submerging it in water for the chosen time. I find this really neat and interesting because unlike any other methods of play i have seen/heard of; Harrara tampers with a reproduction of his work. I'm not clear on whether he ever presents the water "damaged" photo and original piece together but I would be a really interesting and unique way to document his work. I really admire Harrara's work and even more his methods of play, which I think is the main focus of not only this episode but play in general. Not everybody can/is willing to subject there work to the risky and unpredictable ways of Play, but while many people sweat and suffer over that one irregular splatter in the left corner of their masterpiece, Harrara is making equally great art and having fun doing it.

Oliver Herring is another artist featured in the episode "play" but has a completely different approach then I saw in Harrara. Oliver Harring makes movies and animations of bizarre things such as flying in the jungle wile wearing a wig, or unknown strangers spitting out what looks like paint. Herring states that while his earlier art was filled with colors and more of an upbeat feeling, all this disappeared from his work following the suicide of an artist he admired.

Independent Project planning

I know we don't have unlimited time to work on our independent projects and at the pace i work there is NO way I will ever be able to accomplish anywhere near all of these ideas but I'm using this bog post to brainstorm and list any possibilities that i would consider pursuing over the course of my independent project(s).

• varnishing/painting the skateboard i designed and made last year in shop class*
  

• working with the program i have on my laptop designed for stop motion animation to create stop motion animations as i have done in the past and taken a course on*
  
  • since i enjoyed paper cut outs/collage this year i could incorporate this into my animation e.g. characters cut out of paper like they do in "Southpark" (note: I do not like that show and am just using it as a fitting example)
   
•  comics/cartoon characters and images*
• this year i have sort of developed a cartoon character within my sketchbook who has even influenced at least one of my projects in this class and i think it would be a great time to work with this character as it is a chance to develop him even more
• a drawing/painting/paper cutout of a boxing match between a red kangaroo known infamously for there left hooks, and a rock'em sock'em robot (i haven't decided whether the red robot or the blue robot should be fighting the kangaroo). 
• this idea was inspired by looking at pictures of kangaroos for my clay project and how i immediately picture/associate kangaroos with boxing gloves ready to take on any challenger.
• a project with references to my  favorite movies and or TV shows books etc
• i have done this in my sketchbook and i live it and find it really fun and they tend to turn out the way i like (knock on wood)

ONE THING KNOW I WANT TO INCORPORATE SOMEWHERE IF NOT BASE AN ENTIRE PROJECT ON IS HUMOR

Sketchbook Archeology

I have mixed feelings about my experience with sketchbook(s) so far because in the first term I misplaced my sketchbook with work and drawings in it that i actually did like and enjoyed reflecting on them. As for the cover of the sketchbook, i never actually did do anything to it because i was looking forward to decorating it with unlimited time during one of the early weekends of class. I sadly never got around to doing it which is too bad because i know i wouldve enjoyed manipulating the appearence of the book and it also would have made it eseir to identify the owner if i lost it (which i did). Though it was a while back (i confirmed i lost it on the first day back from winter break ), i still do somtimes hope that i will stumble upon it somewhere in my bedroom or lying around at beaver. I remember most of the stuff in my old sketchbook pretty vividly, such as, my depiction of the japanse print (the great wave) done from under my covers looking at the poster i have the morning it was do. I also had one week that i used to reference some of my favriote movies such as the dark knight, and castaway. With my brother in mind i filled a page one time with only emblems of DC superheros, leaving the page next to it blank so i could do the same thing with marvel characters (i never got to do this before i lost my sketchbook). I had a comic about a toddler's descent into pyromania (i sense have done two more pictures in my new sketchbook with a variant of this character). I had other stuff in my old sketchbook too, but those were a few of my favoriotes. In my NEW sketchbook (we dont get along well) i have filled up with drawingds that are not terrible but not as good as my previous sketchbook had in it. I am posotive that the reason for this is because i haven't been as enthusiastic or excited to work in the new book.

Reacurring themes,:

wide eyed child with baseball cap that seems to be the main character in most of my humorous drawings or cartoons/comics.

-objects,characters and refrences all from movies that i love

-stuff from my childhood like
     -muppets
     - batman

Art Principles Initial Reflection

Though its only been for 2 terms, it seems like the blog posts and projects from the fall were so long ago. Looking back i think that this class has really helped me in terms of art and also feeling comfortable at beaver in my first year. I have made some really good friends in this class and some artwork, and some artwork with those really good friends. I had so much fun in this class making art and talking about art whether its a double block, xblock or even Monday morning class first thing. All the projects have been fun even when they were really challenging but i think one of m favorite experiences was when the visiting artist Hamlett Dobbins came to work with us. I thought Mr Dobbins art was really fun and interesting to look at and between Ms Roberts and Mr Dobbins i felt i learned a ton of really valuable art skills. Though there are some pieces I made that i like I am not that happy with a lot of my work. A big reason for this is because the majority of my work i never finished so its hard to look at it the same way. I do think that seeing the work finished would really make a big difference. I do feel that i learned a on though and that if i had worked faster or it was a longer course (full year would be awesome) i would be less disappointed in myself. My favoriote pieces that i did this year are not surprisingly the ones that i finished and what was really interesting that i discoverd this year is that the ones i tended to finish were collages. I learned that i really like to work in collage among other things in this class and its been a ton of fun.