So... why DOES man create?

The most unique movie we watched was Why Man Creates? it was a kind of documentary esque video about the reasons for creation. The First segment we saw was a cartoon and it showed how man has been creating and solving problems since the beginning of time. It was interesting to see all the inventions and ideas that came through time. Another one of the segments we watched that I thought was interesting was the one where the artist put up his sculpture and all the people were criticizing it and how those bad reviews were shooting him. I thought that was a really interesting way to portray the idea that the artist depends on recognition from the public to survive. The last segment that I thought was cute was the bouncy ball that didn't meet the standards and was thrown out of the factory for bouncing too high. Then he made a life for himself as an individual and bounced into the sky forever. I think this was trying to show how sometimes when there is something new it might be rejected at first but if you perservere you never know how it will turn out in the end and eventually it may take off. The video as a whole was really neat to watch. It was a good unique way to look at some of those concepts.

Lust for Life: Vincent Van Goh

Watching Van Goh's story was interesting to me becaue it is the most widely known of any famous artist out there. Van Goh is the portrayal of the 'starving artist' stereotype that we all know of. It is interesting that his name is even in the dictionary definition penniless. I think the story of Van Goh shows how difficult is is to be an artist. How he can have so much passion but get no recognition becausae he was different than the norm. It is a shame that he was so shunned in his own time but so respected now. In essence his obsession with art drove him mad and in one of his many downs with depression he shot himself. It is the darker side of art but it is a story that needs to be known and understood to know all the trials of an artist.

Jackson Pollock

What I took from watching the movie clips about Pollock was mostly about the viewers of the art and how that influences the artist. In the beginning when Pollock meets Lee Krasner I thought that was interesting because of the way she acts towards him. She asks him alot of questions about what his art is and who he studied with as if that will give him valedation but he doesnt really believe that and he doesnt answer her questions very thoroughly. When he finally does get a break and have an exhibit at the Gugenheim all of the critics there don't like his work and it has a profound effect on him. He changes the way he is painting and is doing the splatter painting that gets him very famous and a lot of good recognition. In this video the people like Lee Krasner and Peggy Gugenheim were the ones who interested me the most. They show how important it is to have recognition in the art world but also how fickle it can be.

Basquiat, what an art sounding name.

Earlier in the week we watched movies about different artists whose stories are important in understanding the story of art and artists as a whole. One video we watched was about Jean Michele Basquiat. His story was interesting to me especially because it was more contemporary then the ones we watched about Van Goh and such. It showed how he came from being a construction worker-esque job while pursuing his art work and finally became an artist. His story portrayed to me what I feel is one of the stereotypes of an artist in the sense that he was very out there as a person and with his art. I think it was best demonstrated to me in the scene with Andy Warhol when he is painting the Amaco mural. It showed how distraught he had become and how confused and possibly under the influence of drugs. It seemed like he had become lost in all his fame and had lost a part of himself. Even after he strived for so long to become famous it somehow consumed him and tore him apart. He then says he is going to go away and write poetry and play music again. It seemed to me like he was looking to find his former self without all the fame and confusion of being a known artist because I think this actually stifled him instead of liberating him.

"I don't know whether you can understand that one may make a poem only by arranging colours, in the same way that you can say comforting things in music." - Vincent Van Goh



Van Goh takes a lot of time in his letter to his sister to describe a painting that he is creating. He explains in great detail the colors and why they were chosen, the people in his painting, and the lines that are in it that may even be overlooked by some people. All of these things in his painting have great meaning. He explains them all to his sister and then presents the quote that is at the top of this entry. I think he is saying in essence that his painting is like a poem or a song that you can get great feeling from. He is comparing the art forms of poetry and music in the sense that the painting that he created is powerful to look at the same way as a poem or song can move you so dramatically. Van Goh's painting is something that you don't just look at to see a pretty picture. There are meanings to his work and he takes great care to make his paintings so that when seeing them you call up a host of emotions and feelings. I think that what he is saying has a lot of value because to me I think that paintings can have the same impact as any other form of art.

Cartooning it up.

In class we have been watching some cartoons as a way to showcase some ideas about art. It is great how by using theses cartoons like spongebob and the Simpsons we can take something that is usually reserved for entertainment and use it as a teaching tool. The cartoons actually do have a lot of little subtleties that you wouldn't necessarily notice when just watching for pleasure. It is really interesting to look at those cartoons that we are so familiar with, especially the episode of Spongebob that we watched, and even though I have seen it a million and one times when looking at it from an academic point of view it is like i have never ever seen it before. I liked how in the Spongebob episode it showed how art doesn't always have to go by the rules of the book and that sometimes the rules can actually be stifling. Also in the Simpsons it was neat to see how Homer made art by accident and then he effectively turned the whole town into art. I think both episodes show that art doesn't have to be really traditional or be created using a set of rules, art can be anything that you make it.

Grad Project Slideshow

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What is Art.. Podcast

this is extremely cliche

artists are often portrayed in a very stereotypical manner. When some people think of artists they imagine very moody people, dressed in black or just dark colors sitting in coffee shops sipping tea or coffee, sketching feverishly into a black bound book. Other people may think of artists as very outlandish people looking a little 'strange' outfitted with piercings and other crazy clothing choices like tattered dresses and shirts, looking a little dirty and unkempt. With both of those two ideas of an artist there comes a vision of what their home life may be like. It is easy to imagine them living in broken down little apartments or condos covered in peeling posters of indie musicians and artsy statues of naked people leaning purposefully skewed to one side of a corner of the room. The artists in these houses I envision having a room covered with piles and piles of papers overflowing from counters onto the floor interspersed with writing implements and painting supplies while simultaneously there can be seen incense burning and the artist himself standing in a corner, smoking a cigarette and looking out the window to the vast city spread out underneath him. This is not, by any means how artists actually are but it is how sometimes I imagine the stereotype of an artist.