Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Friday, December 7, 2007
Accumulation
Accumulation
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
I chose to collect people or rather portraits of individuals that I meet in everyday life. I decided to use multiple mediums to collect these portraits, some are drawings done in pen and ink, some are paintings done with acrylic on canvas, some are gouache on paper, and some are photographs. I used multiple cameras to capture the photographic portraits such as digital, Polaroid, and medium format. This was important to give variety to the portraits and made the accumulation much more interesting. I believe I chose the best possible thing to collect for myself because with every portrait I took, I was able to meet a person who has a lifetime of stories and was able to reflect my interaction with each individual into somewhat of a therapy for myself.
In the beginning I started taking mostly medium format portraits in any situation possible and most of the images were turning out great, but I felt that it was almost to traditional so I decided to mix it up a bit. I decided to start adding my drawings to my collection because I am constantly drawing people that I find visually intriguing. That was still not good enough for me so I tried to exhaust every medium I had and would carry at least three cameras with me whenever I went places that I thought I could get a portrait or two. I think overall it changed from something I was just doing for class into a personal mission to capture people figuratively and it was a complete success in my eyes. I was able to meet a lot interesting people and now I have individual reminders for each chance encounter.
I believe we were assigned this project, first of all because accumulation plays such an important role in contemporary art. So many artists in the modern era have to work in such large scale because landscape paintings and the basic canvas no longer excites the art world. Accumulation is a way to take something possibly on a small scale when viewed alone to a much large scale when viewed in large quantities. It is the basic strength in numbers argument. I also believe we were assigned this project to explore the basis of conceptual art, because we started out just collecting a few things at a time and then it turned into this massive collection that we would eventually have to create an artwork out of. It required much exploration into the concepts of why we collected these objects to create a piece that was cohesive yet inspiring.
For my final project incorporating all of the portraits I have collected I would like to create a large format book. Ideally I would want the book to be hardbound and be at least 14”x11”. The concept behind the book would be the people I meet in everyday life and my thoughts about them, this would include stream of consciousness thoughts of my first impressions of these people, quotes from these people, and maybe a short story about my interaction with the person. So on one page there would be one of the portraits I have accumulated, either a photograph, a drawing, or a painting and on the directly adjacent page there would be text in a basic, black font on white background, text describing who this person is in relation to our meeting. My artwork is most inspired by the people I meet everyday, and my ultimate goal is to capture their stories and images that make them the individuals that they are. I find human interaction so incredible and fascinating because it is unavoidable yet so avoided. This project would be a look into my life and the intimate details of all the people I meet and the circumstances we meet under, it would hopefully inspire others to go out and interact with strangers and ultimately promote a greater sense of universal community. I was inspired to embark on a project like this by artists such as Robert Frank, Dan Eldon, and Robert Crumb, all artists who captured the importance of the mundane everyday activities and interactions that make life so exciting. I would entitle the book “Everyone I Know”, which connects with the simplicity of the overall project. It is an interesting way to focus our attention on the personal interactions we naturally take for granted. I believe I have a learned a lot about myself by accumulating people (portraits) and this book is intended to show people the creative journey I have gone on to capture these images and inspire people to do the same. It is somewhat of a self-motivation concept, promoting change and empowerment among individuals.
I chose to collect people or rather portraits of individuals that I meet in everyday life. I decided to use multiple mediums to collect these portraits, some are drawings done in pen and ink, some are paintings done with acrylic on canvas, some are gouache on paper, and some are photographs. I used multiple cameras to capture the photographic portraits such as digital, Polaroid, and medium format. This was important to give variety to the portraits and made the accumulation much more interesting. I believe I chose the best possible thing to collect for myself because with every portrait I took, I was able to meet a person who has a lifetime of stories and was able to reflect my interaction with each individual into somewhat of a therapy for myself.
In the beginning I started taking mostly medium format portraits in any situation possible and most of the images were turning out great, but I felt that it was almost to traditional so I decided to mix it up a bit. I decided to start adding my drawings to my collection because I am constantly drawing people that I find visually intriguing. That was still not good enough for me so I tried to exhaust every medium I had and would carry at least three cameras with me whenever I went places that I thought I could get a portrait or two. I think overall it changed from something I was just doing for class into a personal mission to capture people figuratively and it was a complete success in my eyes. I was able to meet a lot interesting people and now I have individual reminders for each chance encounter.
I believe we were assigned this project, first of all because accumulation plays such an important role in contemporary art. So many artists in the modern era have to work in such large scale because landscape paintings and the basic canvas no longer excites the art world. Accumulation is a way to take something possibly on a small scale when viewed alone to a much large scale when viewed in large quantities. It is the basic strength in numbers argument. I also believe we were assigned this project to explore the basis of conceptual art, because we started out just collecting a few things at a time and then it turned into this massive collection that we would eventually have to create an artwork out of. It required much exploration into the concepts of why we collected these objects to create a piece that was cohesive yet inspiring.
For my final project incorporating all of the portraits I have collected I would like to create a large format book. Ideally I would want the book to be hardbound and be at least 14”x11”. The concept behind the book would be the people I meet in everyday life and my thoughts about them, this would include stream of consciousness thoughts of my first impressions of these people, quotes from these people, and maybe a short story about my interaction with the person. So on one page there would be one of the portraits I have accumulated, either a photograph, a drawing, or a painting and on the directly adjacent page there would be text in a basic, black font on white background, text describing who this person is in relation to our meeting. My artwork is most inspired by the people I meet everyday, and my ultimate goal is to capture their stories and images that make them the individuals that they are. I find human interaction so incredible and fascinating because it is unavoidable yet so avoided. This project would be a look into my life and the intimate details of all the people I meet and the circumstances we meet under, it would hopefully inspire others to go out and interact with strangers and ultimately promote a greater sense of universal community. I was inspired to embark on a project like this by artists such as Robert Frank, Dan Eldon, and Robert Crumb, all artists who captured the importance of the mundane everyday activities and interactions that make life so exciting. I would entitle the book “Everyone I Know”, which connects with the simplicity of the overall project. It is an interesting way to focus our attention on the personal interactions we naturally take for granted. I believe I have a learned a lot about myself by accumulating people (portraits) and this book is intended to show people the creative journey I have gone on to capture these images and inspire people to do the same. It is somewhat of a self-motivation concept, promoting change and empowerment among individuals.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
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