Beautiful Losers film trailer

sculpture art

I thought our class discussion today (Thursday) was amazing! I have rarely had such a lively and passionate class discussion. Very cool. Props to Ty for leading that.  We started off the class talking about the role of the studio. I was thinking in terms of what I've always seen it as. A cluttered place to be messy and paint. Tanaz brought up the idea that the studio is political. I have to disagree here. I understand what she was going for. I would agree more with Barbara in saying that ART is political rather than the studio. Once the art is created it can be seen however the viewer intends it to be seen. Political may be how you see that. But, inside the studio it is about the artists intent. It is about the creation of the art rather than the art itself. This is not political. If anything it is more psychological than political.

I do appreciate that she is challenging the concept of her space. This is absolutely relevant because she is a sculpture artist, and space is her medium.



Okay. I love this. "Giving value form." So perfect. I have rarely heard such an all incompassing way of describing art. I like this because if a person finds value in a leaf they find on the ground then that is art. But at the same time it could be used to describe a painting, a performance, or any other avenue of expression. It's interesting to think of this statement in contrast with its transverse. Giving Form Value. When you put it that way it puts the word value in terms of monetary value rather than personal value. These two conceptions of value must find a way to relate.



For some reason I couldnt post it along with this entry, but my visual element to this post is a preview for the film Beautiful Losers. One of the people in general caught my attention along the idea of the art world as a commmercial market. It was the asian guy who did a pepsi ad. He was talking about how instead of treating the commercial world as separate from your art world, just give the commercial world exactly what you're doing on your own! It's a great way to bridge that gap and still get paid for it. I don't think it's selling out if you stay true to what you truly love to do.

Terri Warpinski

Terri is cool. I want  to take a class from her. I liked how intelligent and well spoken her presentation was. She kept my ADD brain focused for much longer than most people are capable of doing! I think the main part was that her work was really awesome. My favorite things were the black and white photographs that she took oil paint and other drawing materials into. Her photographs looked like drawings to me. I think because photography is so constantly surrounding us in advertising I'm less inclined to appreciate it in a fine art context. Terri's work felt manipulated enough so it had it's own individual feel to it aside from most other photography.

I liked that she took inanimate objects and treated them as figures. She had one example of this in a picture of trees. The trunks were so rounded that they felt like hips of a bodacious lady. Love it. Another example was an image she had of lounge chairs on a beach. Not only did the chairs have a human impacted impression to them, but they were radiating a vibrant yellow color that showed strong life force as well.

Terri said one of her favorite quotes was, "Chance favors only the prepared mind." I like this because it's basically telling you to have an open mind. As an artist, many avenues will be presented to you and you must be open enough to accept these chances. Also, some aspects of life can be seen as a burden or a blessing. The chances you take are strongly dependent on how your mind is grasping life events.

I also liked when Terri said that when she was in school she didn't see a purpose to studying things outside of art because she didn't see how they would apply to her work. Not until her artwork directly brought her back to these areas of study was she able to devote her mind and energy toward studying these things like botany, geography, or cultural history. I have found this to be true in my life as well. I see and base my interests on what I feel directly applies to my art, and I hope that in the future my studies come as full circle as hers did.

I thought Terri was cool because she seemed very open to learning. A friend recently told me that if you're not learning, you're not living! And if you're not living, what is there to make art about? So keep learning.

 This is an image of wheat pasted photography by the street artist JR. He takes a similar tactic of presenting real life through photography and not overly aestheticizing it. The main purpose is to learn from this work and to have a greater understanding of cultural differences. One of Terri's photographs had wheat pasted images on the walls of a building in Poland that reminded me of JR's work as well.

Her ideologies relate to the reading titled "Breaking out of the White Cube". In the article they are talking about gallery art as being seen as separated from real life. It is seen as "higher" than average life and idealized. Terri's work does not do this. She captures a space and attempts to tell it's story and background rather than focusing purely on anesthetizing an environment.  She does take beautiful photography, but there is a purpose to her work beyond just their beauty. The reading quotes, "The aesthetic attitude implies a break with the world and the concerns of ordinary life; its premise is that art and real life are, and should be strictly separated." Terri beautifully combines the aesthetic with real life.