Choose the MOST Beautiful Cracker

Assignment: Lay out nine crackers and ask a stranger to pick out the most beautiful cracker. Then 

smash the cracker in front of them. 

photo credit: Sam Kuniholm

 

The man I asked to choose a cracker had walked away before we could take a picture of/with him.

Map

For class, we created maps of things that inspired our art work. The core three sources/categories of mine were: Feelings, Media, and People. See the picture below for more connections I made and discovered.

Elevator talk

            Art was the only place I had completely to myself. It was my own little world where I could freely express myself. As a fourth generation American Japanese, I was always under the impression that I had to try to be the perfect daughter. There weren’t any questions to be asked, I always had a role. A place - a social obligation to my family.

            Whenever I feel sad, disappointed, or am struggling with some thing, I draw. I like using pencil, paper, graphite, pen, charcoal, paint, and photos to create multilayered works. Images are received differently than words. They also speak a language that not everyone understands. My work tends to be about human nature and issues in the world I struggle with. For example, I made a piece that acted as a commentary on the media’s portrayal of the perfect woman and man. My piece I over exaggerated being skinny, strong, and shallow. The two figures were forced to co-exist on the same plane. It was not a harmonious existence. In order to see both figures you would need to rotate the paper 180 degrees.

            My current project is about filling in the gaps of memories. People do not remember every detail from their past experiences. As time since the past event increases, the amount of information we remember and the connections between parts of the experience tend to decrease. Medium sized images will be cut into smaller pieces and altered so that when two pieces that are supposed to connect do not connect because part of the information has been removed. When the images are viewed, the viewer’s mind will want to fill in those gaps and connect the two parts of a whole, but the connection is already gone and cannot be filled perfectly with any thing short of the original.

A Parallel to How the Body is Used

How does my work relate to the body?

We all only have one body to use in our life times. Regardless of what you choose to use your body to accomplish, the fact of the matter is our physical bodies matter and are essential components to getting matters done in life. So now that it has been established that we all have bodies and our bodies are necessary, the issue is no longer if what you have is good enough or not; what matters is how you use what you have.

            To be honest, it frustrates me to come to the realization that I could have used what I have in a way that would have been more beneficial to everyone if I was not always such a diplomat when it came to making decisions. Take for example my idea of a well-done art project. At first glance the project yields an aesthetic appeal and pleasure to the viewer. However, if a viewer so chooses to attempt at looking deeper beneath the surface, they will find conflicting and darker meanings to the work in front of them. Why is this not a good aspect of diplomacy? Viewers who do not choose to look for a deeper meaning could just walk away from my work with a fabricated illusion, and will never have a clue of the under laying messages.

It is not persuasive and requires a lot of initiation from the viewer. This brings me back to my first points. My work relates to the body as a parallel to how people use their bodies. We all have bodies. We all have the opportunity to use what we have. Will you use what you have to try and see what’s beneath the surface? Or will you gladly use what you have to take the picturesque narrative I have painted before you? If you don’t want to look deeper, don’t feel bad. There are plenty of people out there who wouldn’t want to see past a beauty that is only skin deep.

Reality?

I thoroughly enjoyed the Interview of Richard Prince from the simulation articles I was assigned to read for class. Yes, I know that must make me sound like a total dork, but some thing I have been struggling with since I came to college is the lack of black and whites, and the abundance of shades of gray for issues in the world.

The quote of Richard Prince on page 85 of the reading excerpt that particularly appeals to me says, "You know something that can be used as admissible evidence. Something that can be eblieved. It's unimportant whether it's true. it's only that its truth be possible. That's what the virtuoso real is. The possibility."

As you grow up, for better or for worse, you learn the concepts of good and evil, right and wrong. I went to quite a sheltered high school named Hawaii Baptist Academy (HBA). ha ha, yes, as you can probably infer from that name alone, there was a strong influence of southern baptist christianity in almost every aspect of the curriculum. A kind of bubble was created; essentially the students my school produces are very book smart, but the typical student lacks a great amount of street smarts. Coming from a background of so many rules and proceedures, willamette has been the place for me to learn those street smarts I lacked.

One thing I like doing is observing and watching people interact with each other. I like getting to know people, and that quote exemplifies what I have noticed: in an environment where you're not quite sure which way is up, and you don't know the hard truth about controversial issues or which direction to go in life, the possibility of some thing being true or attainable can mean the world to you.

I enjoy working with technology and digital painting..when the programs cooperate with me. However, due to the way the internet functions and how easy it is to create articles and publish them (like the one you are reading now), the almost limitless capabilities of photoshop, ever developing sophistication in creating animated people and objects, and probably just the nature of technological developments in an age of globalization, it is often hard to really know what is true outside of your own opinion. Yet with this cloud of uncertainty that questions credibility of any news article or blog you read, people still take in information from various sources and have hope.

my work: I create a lot of responsive pieces to things/people in the world that just annoy me to no end because there is always the possibility that I will feel better after I got out my frustrations in a visual representation. I do not know if I will feel better after i make the work, but there is always that possibility, and some times that is really all that matters: I could possibly feel better after I draw this monster. Note: Not all my work is responsive.

Artist Statement

Creature 1
Summer 2011

During the summer of 2011, I had a trip to the emergency room for severe abdominal pain. Painfully convinced the pain was from an exercise routine I just tried, I had refused to believe the pain and fever I experienced was caused by any thing serious. However, the final diagnosis was an ovarian cyst rupture. *

My art is often a manifestation of all the feelings, emotions, and darker aspects of soul and myself. The creature you have before you is a result of my wacom tablet and Photoshop Elements 4.0. After hours of researching the ovarian cyst diagnosis and talking with parents who were for the most part unsupportive of conventional treatment, I desperately needed an outlet for the sake of my own sanity and emotions. This is my visual representation of Ovarian Cysts. I thought that maybe if I gave my parents a creature representation of what I went through it would help them to understand how I feel a little bit more. For the most part, I find creatures to convey a mood in a much louder way than scientific diagrams on the computer screen.


* During a woman’s menstrual cycle, a sac forms on the ovaries for an egg to develop in. When the egg is released, the sac goes away, however, when the egg is not released and the sac keeps growing, you have an ovarian cyst. If the sac of fluid pops and the liquid is just floating in your abdomen, you have an ovarian cyst rupture. Even a couple drops of this fluid can cause a sever stomachache.

Creature 1, Summer 2011, Photoshop & Wacom Tablet, 8.5" x 11"

Artist #3 Salvador Dali

Now for an artist from the classics: surrealist artist Salvador Dali. I enjoy surreal/unrealistic works of art. They appease the unrealistic portion of my brain that just longs for things that logically don't make sense to exist. What else is there to say really? I am willing to bet that we all have an unreasonable part of our brains.

I was entranced by this genre of art since my history teacher showed me the picture below by Salvador Dali.

Over and out for the night.
-J

Artist #2 Takahashi Murakami

I just had to put down Takahashi Murakami as one of my 3 artists! Some thing would not be right if I did not put him down. His work, while a bit childish in appearance holds more water than your average Saturday morning cartoon show. How many of you are familiar with lesportsac's Tokidoki brand of bags and apparel? The tokidoki line also shows strong similarities to Murakami's work.
Do not let the childish appearance fool you or turn you off to how bit of a sensation his work is. Murakami's work has appeared in Louis Vuiton branded items, been showed in numerous art meuseums, become integrated with other merchandise, and most of all speaks about issues of Japanese society that may some day come true for the world at large.

Superflat, coined by Murakami, is a type of art work that appears visually very flat and tends to take on the appearance of and share strong characteristics to anime. This post modern art movement also addresses the issue of superficiality. In my opinion, super flat's anime qualities and cute fictitious creatures are a perfect vehicle to address Japan, a nation whose fashion and trends tend to center around being cute (kawaii).

Chiho Aoshima is another artist of this Superflat style who has work all over the world

Artist #1 Tumblr artist Jamie from NYC

Hello, hello,

First off, as someone who does not like beer, I loved Jamie's post: A day with Dogfish Beer. It demonstrates amazing art skills in photography and making the animated gifs that first got me interested in following her on tumblr. A combination of photos and animated gifs are up on this post dated July 11, 2011. The Dogfish Beer post can be viewed at the following web address:
http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/post/7494758147/a-day-with-dogfish-beer

The animated gifs are in older posts, and are just so pretty. They go beyond just being a picture (ha ha, no duh right). Time stops in the world, but continues for the small things that can look so beautiful and be taken for granted like fluttering hair in the wind, flashes of light from a movie reel, strawberry juice flowing out from a fruit crusher. I really recommend looking over her site not just for the gifs, but also at her photography. Her photos are consistently very well done too.

Contemporary Art Theory Class Blog

Janelle's blog about art.. and maybe some about life too. We shall see what the class material provokes out of me.


So to go into detail a bit about the name of this blog.
First. Toblerone is the name of a delicious type of Swiss Chocolate I have on my desk. 
Second. Art, that's what this blog will be about. Art and Art theory.
Third. I love chocolate.
Conclusion of making the name: combining two wonderful things in my life just seemed like a good idea at the time.

I hope this blog is an enjoyable read.