emiley.

My name is Emiley Hansen, and I am from East Dubuque. I am very close with my family and adore my chocolate lab Louie. I love food and have a very bad sweet tooth. After NICC, I hope to further my education in business at another local college.

[bigmayne92-blog]

Blogpost Week 7

I want to start off by saying that photography/film-making are wonderful forms of art that - in my opinion - are centered around capturing a moment or a theme. In connection to our assigned videos, I felt like they were effective in doing so. 

In Short Film: Hot Beach Babe Aims to Please, by Jillian Mayer, I felt like she greatly depicted how sex is something that humans gravitate towards. Fruit flies are attracted to sweet things such as banana and peaches . For them that’s their source of energy. This video is simply simplifying life and how sex is something that humans gravitate towards. The girl in the video is like a banana. Although the theme of this video is very simple The next is quite opposite.

In Short Film: Belly, by Julia Pott, the theme was much more complex. I had to re-watch this film a few times. Initially, I was just confused, deciding that the film was just weird with unique animations, but ultimately I decided that it outlines the complexities of different individuals. Contrasting the defining principles of empathy and care. Pott primarily used 3 different characters in order to ouch her theme: Oscar - little brother and owner/friend of “The Beast”; Alex - Typical teenager and Oscar’s older brother; and lastly “The Beast” - Oscar’s pet and best friend. For me, Belly retains it’s mystery. 

The first couple short films are much different than Jim Cummings’ Thunder Road. In my opinion, Thunder Road begins in a funeral that quickly goes downhill when Jimmy Arnaud - main character - decides to give an unprepared speech at his mother’s funeral. The speech quickly turns into a comical dance recital in which a family member in the front pew begins to record on Snapchat. A couple themes from Thunder Road are love your mother while you still have time, and don’t proceed to publicly “reminisce” at her funeral if you didn’t!

I Chose Wolfgang Tilmans’ Peas as my Relevant Artist Piece. This short film most resembles the “hot” babe film by taking a simple and natural approach to providing mental stimulation. As the peas boil, the bubbles fade creating a oddly stimulating moment.

[maddywaters-blog1]

Hello, Jay!

I enjoyed reading your thoughts and opinions on many different topics throughout the photography/film-making week. One I found particularly interesting was the Hot Beach Babe Aims to Please. The only reason I could think of for the artist to objectify herself in such a revealing video was to show that people get click-baited from stuff like women in bathing suits, nudity, misleading titles, etc. When I read about what you saw in the video, it really opened my eyes to a different way to think about things like this.

[emileyhansen-blog]

Hi Jay, I am happy I decided to read your post.  I did not focus much on the short films in my blog post, because I did not understand them but you really helped open my mind to the meaning behind them.  I found it interesting about what you had to say about “Hot Beach Babe Aims to Please” and your comparison to fruit flies.  We do live in a sex driven world, where more and more people are gaining attention by posting photos online wearing less and less clothes.  Unfortunately, those photos are the ones that get “clicked” on and people get some sort of rush from the number of likes they get. 

[emileyhansen-blog]

Week 7

[emileyhansen-blog]

5

[emileyhansen-blog]

Week 4

[palexie-blog]

Week 3 Chapter 15

I found this chapter very hard to read. These chapters have been difficult because I am still not sure how to see behind the art. However, I do like how this chapter dives into more history aspects of things. I really liked looking at the timeline in the book about famous works of art and when they were made. I also like looking at the timeline because it shows me how art has evolved throughout time. Based on the timeline I do believe that I enjoy looking at the gothic through neoclassicism the most. The part where they show the last supper from the mannerism point of view really pops out at me because of the detail and use of coloring/lighting.

The video on Kiki Smith did really help me in finding the right direction on how to take in art. I love how she explained that art is moving something the mind into the physical world. I am not sure why, but that alone helps me in starting to understand art. I need to remember that everyone thinks different and the way they put it out into the world is different than how I would put something out into the world. When she explains that art is just another way to think, it catches my eyes and moves my brain”. Now when I think about art, I am thinking about how that person thinks and how they display their thoughts in whatever form. That really moves me because when I look at sculptures and paintings, that is what is in their minds. I love how when forming sculptures, she is the sculpture. She is using her own body instead of some model. I think it brings her closer to her art. From the reading, I think maybe that Kiki Smith is more toward the Greece kind of art than any of the others time periods. I think that because she is into the sculptures, but Smith’s I feel are more realistic I guess? I think that because she is using her own body where the other bodies in the Greek art are chiseled. Toward the end of the video she kind of asks herself as to why she does art. Her answer was because I believe that is what I should be doing. I like that simple answer. She trusts her instincts and knows she would not want to do anything else.

I chose to do two pieces of art from the artist, James Turrell. He has been my favorite relevant artist so far in this class. I like his work because of the way he uses lighting. For me, when I look at art the first thing I look at is the lighting. Is it too dark or bright? Do the colors match? In this piece, A Retrospective, I am moved by how the light fades from light blue in the center to purple on the outsides. This is the type of art that I really enjoy looking at because it is soft on my eyes and there is not a whole lot to take in beside the simplicity.

I chose this second piece of art by Turrell simply because I like looking at it. I do not need to find a story behind what is in front of me. From research, Terrell does many of these simple pieces and is more inclined on how the people view them from different points of view. In this one, these two people could very well be in the same room, but the shapes and colors make it to where the and looks far away.

My understanding of art is starting to change and I am enjoying it. With the reading and examples, I can connect with the writing and the visual at the same time. It is still very hard to understand, but slowly I am getting it. 

[shaferbailey-blog]

Peyton, I really enjoyed reading your views and thoughts on James Turrell.  Your comments on his work helped me understand the reason and meaning of his work. The blankness and light of the thing the people they are looking at really makes the meaning of the artwork open ended. To me, the people looking into the distance on both paintings could mean they are looking into the future or trying to figure out something important about themselves.  

[emileyhansen-blog]

[emileyhansen-blog]

Week 3

[bigmayne92-blog]

Week 2 Blogpost

I am glad to say that I am familiar with many of the basic art concepts in chapter 2. I am a graphic design minor and in my previous tenure at Upper Iowa University, I’ve participated in 2 graphic design classes - Intro to Graphic Design and Advertising Design. Although I am fortunate to have studied art from different perspectives, I am also fortunate to be able to refresh my knowledge with the some of the concepts in “The Art of Seeing” chapter 2. One concept that I wasn’t as familiar with is Islamic Calligraphy. I’ve seen different writings based on Islamic, Arabic, and Persian cultures, but never any of it used as a form of art. I can say that my new finding are quite exhilarating and expressive!

I also find Katharina Grosse’ art in “Fiction” quite exhilarating! Her use of various colors in abstract sculptural figures is something that I never seen done before. Creation of such art must be physically demanding because it’s not just painting on a canvas. It’s using one’s effort to maintain cleanliness over a complete area and creating art on standing figures sometimes near-towering in height.

 I admire Grosse’s work ethic and use of vibrant colors! She clearly enjoys to experiment with form as space as read in chapter 2 of the book - comparable to Henry Moore’s Sheep Piece. However I compare Grosse most with some of Mark Rothko paintings. Rothko’s Black in Deep Red is an abstract painting that includes the use of “[colorful rectangles] that appear to float within the boundaries of the canvas” His aims of this painting is to “ offer painting as a doorway into purely spiritual realms, making it as [unimportant] and [suggestive] as music, and to directly communicate the most essential, raw forms of human emotion” ( markrothko.org/paintings/ - Back in Deep Red).

[emileyhansen-blog]

[emileyhansen-blog]

Week 2

[cammiecakes-deactivated20180109]

Week One

Hello everyone, my name is Cammie. 

What interests me about visual art is leanring more about it. There is nothing specific I hope we cover in this class. 

I chose to research Magda Sayeg. Magda is a textile artist from Austin Texas. Magda uses yarn to create bright bold textures on things we would normaily not think to much about. She knitted a whole bus in which she calls “yarn bombing.” Her work has since moved on to large scale installations. 

I find her work so fun. I never would have thought to knit a whole bus. I was drawn to her work by the use of vibrant colors and uniqueness. This is something you do not see everyday and it is just something that would make you smile if you saw it. 

[emileyhansen-blog]

Hi Cammia, I also chose a piece from Magda in my blog post.  I think it would be hard for anyone to ignore her bold and unique pieces of art.  I like that you brought up how you think her art would bring a smile to someone’s face.  To me that is one of the most important things about a piece of art, making someone feel good.  Life can be complicated and fun artwork can be a way to lighten things up from time to time.

[emileyhansen-blog]

The first thing that catches my eye about visual art is color.  I love all the different patterns of color that can be used in a piece of art.  My favorite kind of visual art is photography.  I think it is amazing the beautiful images that a person can capture.  The photos can be edited in ways where they almost seem to come to life.

In this class I hope to learn about the meaning behind various pieces of art.  I also hope to better understand where artist get their inspiration from.  I think it is important also to know the effect that social media has had on art and what it has been able to do for artists. 

I chose the artist Magda Sayeg, because I love how different her art work is and all the color she uses.  Magda is a 24 year old knitter who works out of Austin, Texas where she took her art to the streets.  She has used her knitting/crocheting to cover buses, ac duct work on buildings, cars, trees, and much more. It is inspiring how willing she is to push the limit with her art work, and how big she is willing to go.  I chose this particular piece of art by Magda, because in world where there can be so much negativity and hate, how wonderful it would be to walk out into these trees and light up with a smile from all of the color they are exerting.