Focus Statement Annotated Images

I'm not sure exactly who made this because I did find it on google but I really like the playing of type as imagery and that is something that i've always wanted to achieve. I like that it's a face I've always loved drawing from life and particularly the human body and portraits which I think still gets carried over to come of my designs.

This I found while looking at examples of info graphics and I just loved the texture of each one. Its called Synesketch by Uros Krcadinac no clue who that is but I really like the layering of the tiny simple shapes that make up this large complex entity. I really like stuff like this because it tends to have a life of its own. I think visuals like this really do come to life and have an energy to them which is something that I want to explore for my thesis.

This I saw in the same spot of the one before and I immediately thought of energy and energy waves and frequencies which is what I'm exploring for my thesis so I figured I would include it. It also reminds me of water and has this fluid motion and even the graphic looks like it has ripples in it which is pretty cool.

Focus Statement: For my thesis I want to focus on the theory of energy never being created or destroyed but only displaced. Technically I want to explore making textures and patterns that create visual energy.

Design III A Readings Parts 1 & 2

I enjoyed reading Danielle Aubert's Track Record focus statement because she not only gave a great description of what she planned on doing but where her ideas came from and her influences. It's good to read other focus statements because it gives me an idea of what I need to shoot for and how a broad idea like paths and tracing or in my case energy can be really developed into something else. I really liked that she explored what traces could mean or tell about a person and not just the physical tracing of the paths as the pure focus of the work. I also like how her statement is set up how her thought process was to get to the end point of her idea. I think her explanation of the start of the idea to the end is extremely helpful to me because I currently only have a start idea of energy but what about energy interests me that I can explore for my thesis is kind of beyond me at this moment in time but hopefully I'll get there.

Seeing the Unseen by Huy Vu I enjoyed reading because it explored topics that I have brainstormed myself for my thesis such as the idea of seeing the unseen and at the end talking about spirit photography as a branch off of my energy idea. I liked that the article is split up into categories to display the thought process and also all of the examples that influenced them. I found this article/focus statement to be inspiring because you can see how a broad topic can be narrowed into something more personal and the ideas and topics discussed really relate to where my thought process was going over the summer trying to brain storm ideas. They gave plenty of ranging examples that influenced this idea and all were different in their own way.

Jensen Barnes collection of annotated pieces were interesting because there was a lot of variety however they all were relative to the idea of taking things out of their contexts and becoming something new. I like the range of works that had to do with scale like taking something small and complex and blowing it up really emphasizes its complexity and becomes this abstract shape that out of context creates something entirely new. I think the more I gather annotated works of interests and inspiration it'll help guide me towards my thesis. I read my mind through you by Mary Banas I found interesting but a little confusing also. She's obviously very involved with politics and has a fascination with emotions and social interactions. I wasn't sure if she was trying to create an emotional response in her work or to help guide her viewers to having an emotional response of their own personally to them. I think all art creates and evokes some form of emotion because I feel that is its purpose. All of her examples of inspirations were extremely varied but she related them back to works that she has done and relating it back to emotions.

Hands down I absolutely loved Milton Glaser's Ten Things I Have Learned. Aside from being entertaining, he gives useful advice that not only can be applied to the design field but in life as well. I like how in the beginning he talks about relationships with people and the effect of those relationships on ones work. Working for someone you don't like can not only make monday through friday that much worse but can effect the type of work you produce. The choice of never having a job if you have the choice to seems to be this ideal aspiration. However, money does make the world go 'round and the likeliness for myself to be able to not have a job is slim. People being toxic, agreed. Professionalism is something that most people want to achieve but it does act as a limitation. It is creating within the safest means possible like he says about the brain surgery. Less is more/bigger is better..any of those "slogans" are stupid. It is always variable and and designing along a slogan is worthless in my mind. Like he said, just enough is more. Styles are something that tend to be trendy and ever evolving. He mentions that after viewing the same styles over and over again it becomes boring and tiring. That's how designs become dated but as a designer you should be willing to adapt to the changing surroundings to always be prevelant. How you live changes your brain absolutely. I love his metaphor of the brain being an overgrown garden because it is and it's always changing and evolving. Doubt is better than certainty. There can always be room for suggestions and improvements because thats how we learn. Doubting yourself is apart of life and if you never doubt yourself..it doesn't exist..everyone does at some point. I agree with the statement that you can compromise your work but you have to know what to compromise. I think designers today are almost protesting advertising that aren't truthful and don't want to be associated with that field of design. It goes back to the job. If I didn't need a job I wouldn't want to make an advertisement for a product I wouldn't use for myself or recommend to someone but its also the professionalism part of a job. It's the job it doesn't reflect you right? But it does it some way.

WlcmBcK Show

The piece(s) that I liked the most in this show were Erin Dunn's Woops pieces but I preferred the larger work to the smaller one. Both were filled with mixed media that created a lot of texture and colorful patterns which I loved. I thought that it was interesting that she wanted the paintings installed in the middle of the room as opposed to just normally hanging on the wall. Though I did not like that the second piece was just on the floor resting up against the pedestal however it does go with her idea of the works being sort of "as is" in the gallery. Both pieces reminded me of a kind of whimsical landscapes.

Another piece I enjoyed was actually in the sketchbook of Lyda Craig. She had a lot of nice stuff in there but this one piece stood out to me the most with the Miss America immortal beauty with cut out paper. I not only like the content but the handwork of the cut out paper that has this graphic quality with an organic quality also. I really like how she cut the type. The actual words themselves, immortal beauty, and how they are cut out in a ransom note format I think really speaks loudly to what she's commenting on. The types of things that women do in not only beauty pageants but in normal life to be portrayed as "beautiful" is this unnatural immortal notion. The woman she made has a slightly creepy aspect to her face and in a sort of clownish way which again contributes to this immortal beauty.

Another set of works that I liked were Suzanne Joelson's Easter West paintings. To be honest I just really like the color scheme of the earthy tones and the patterns on these pieces. I like how they are 2 separate canvas's but they are set so closely together and just the actual content of each image flows into one another which I thought was interesting. I have no idea what these works are about and the title doesn't give me any clues. The earthy tones are displayed very "painterly" in the background and the black graphic pattern projects to the foreground in a systematic way. The two balance each other out.

The last set of works I enjoyed were the Hate and Jealousy pieces by Chris Guerra. I actually noticed the Hate piece first and was drawn towards that and once I kept moving around the room I noticed Jealousy across the room in the same spot but on the opposite side. Conceptually and physically there are a lot of similarities. Hate and jealousy are very strong emotions that sometimes go hand in hand. If I didn't read the titles I probably would not have gotten those emotions directly out of the pieces because both are abstractly portrayed. The connection between colors relates to the connection between the emotions. Red is a very strong color that has a lot of emotions associated with it and one of the main ones being hate. There is a nice balance in each piece. I wonder why he chose to have them separate but in the same spot but opposite sides. I think they work separately and being right next to one another would make it difficult for the viewer to see them as separate.

All of the works in the show were very individual ranging from mixed media to mixed content. A lot of the content seemed to be very abstract. I liked the range in media and content because it wasn't overwhelming.

Design III Focus Statement/Images

Focus Statement: For my thesis I want to focus on energy with creating energy by using patterns and/or textures that form a visual energy. I like the concept that energy cannot be created or destroyed only displaced. So I’m hoping I can create movement visually through my patterns/textures.

I chose these 3 images to display both my interest in textures and patterns but also to show type as image which is something I want to be able to accomplish successfully this year though I may or may not use type in my thesis. The map made of typography shows not only text as image but creates a flowing texture that I love. Its very detailed and somewhat complicated which I think is intriguing. The image of the fork, knife, and plate demonstrate the text as image but also a form of a pattern with the text that make up the plate. I love that the solid forms of the knife and fork are used as a reference to and balance of the plate. The 3rd image of the face made up of tiny lines I think is a great textural piece. Though, there is a lot of detail, the small lines together make something greater which might be a theme/technique for me to explore.

Interview with Kristen Pastore

The following is an interview with Kristen Pastore, a senior painting major at Mason Gross. We briefly talk about her inspirations, themes in her work, thesis development, career goals and life after graduating Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.

Me:So, Kristen you're a painting major right?

Kristen:Yes, I'm a BFA painting major.

Me:Ok. What made you want to choose painting?

Kristen: Because I really love drawing and I explored painting at Mason Gross and I just thought it was really interesting and a new way to explore drawing further.

Me: Do you prefer using color versus black and white or kinda like both?

Kristen: Um, I like to mix it up but I like the presence of a painting.

Me: Do you usually use oil or acrylic, gouache?

Kristen: I usually use oil and I use a lot of stand oil that make my materials really shiny and glossy.

Me:Do you ever put like a kind of gloss on top of that also?

Kristen: When I'm done I usually put a finish of stand right on top of it just to maintain the gloss.

Me: Oh ok yea I'm not a painter so haha. Um..it looks like you like drawing a lot from life..um..why is that?

Kristen: I just like um I just get overwhelmed with a presence of a person or thing and I like to capture that in my work.

Me: Yea I always like drawing from life because it's like a lot of detail and it's like you have an association you know like I want to make this look like how it is exactly in front of me you know. Um..so what are you thinking about doing for your thesis?

Kristen: Um I'm really interested in exploring graphic painting with a painterlyness and maybe to take that further in possibly representational art or even abstraction. I'm really interested in fashion in art and like their ties and their relations.

Me: So, you're looking to do something on the graphic side but with a textural part of a painting like brush strokes and stuff being noticable and like you know like expressing that while also having the graphic quality.

Kristen: Exactly.

Me: That sounds cool. Um, yea I think if you did a series of something from life because that's obviously something that you like to do and you're really good at it that it would be really successful but do you know as far as a concept? Like it looks like you have the design standpoint down like the technical thing you want to do but like the actualy concept behind it do you know yet?

Kristen: I'm not 100% sure yet but I like to explore this aesthetic further. Like possibly take my representational art and abstract it more and possibly comment on the fall of American industry and take this like Americana kind of aesthetic and kinda comment on America today.

Me: Yea cause I feel like that's actually something I didn't initially notice but I feel like you use a lot of like American symbols like Al Capone and Kurt Cobain and like this very pin-upy kinda like going back to all of these big icons and oooh if you did a series of just like American icons but you know using those techniques that you were saying I think that would be really cool. Um, do only painters influence your work or do a whole bunch of different artists?

Kristen: Um..a bunch of artists influence me. I'm really interested in Richard Prince's work involved with a lot of car art.

Me: Oh ok very technical kinda.

Kristen: Yea. Andy Warhol has always influenced me. Um..I like how he took his subject matter like pop icons and his mixture of silkscreen and painting. I think I might want to possibly explore that for my thesis.

Me: That'd be cool. Um, so what did you want to do after Mason Gross?

Kristen: Um, continue painting and possibly go into advertising. A lot of my imagry is based off of advertisments so if I could kind of carry that aesthetic of my painting into the advertising world I would love that.

Me: Would you ever consider going into graphic design type like also bridging maybe the gap between?

Kristen: Um yea I took alot of graphic design classes and I was actually going to take one this semester but I didn't have time. Haha. But I would love to do something like that. And I'm more interested in the image based work than like typography even though I have a new appreciation of it this semester.

Me:Well it's hard you know with typography is like looking at type as image as opposed to just type which I'm struggling with right ha. Um, but yea I think definitely like I can see the pop art and the Americana theme in your work and I think if you did something like that for your thesis it would be successful.

A lot Kristen's work reflects the theme of American pop culture. One of her influences being Andy Warhol who we all know shared the same theme in many of his works. Kristen hopes to bridge the gap between painting and design in hopes of continuing forward into advertising after graduation.

Water Show @ Zimmerli

The Water Show at the Zimmerli was definitely full of works that I didn't initially expect to be connected to one another. However after the curator explained each room and why all of the pieces were put together and their connection to each other covered many different bases in the broad subject of water. I really liked how the pieces ranged from containers that carry water, landscapes, men and women in connection to water in art, pieces emerged in water, and water in different contexts that all portray water in very different ways. I think the space between works was perfect for the show because the pieces were somewhat close to one another that it forces you as a viewer to connect the pieces with one another as opposed to looking at them separately. It also makes the viewer notice not only the differences between the works but the similarities; why 2 works were next to one another when they look completely different from one another. I loved the area with the men in boats and women in the water because it relates to common themes in a lot of paintings with water that have people in them. Men are often portrayed in boats and women are often portrayed in the actual water. The notion of objects being "man-made" and "mother earth" and Venus being born in the water, assigning genders to things that don't have a gender in connection to water I thought was great seeing them all together in the same room. I think this connection might have been unintentional by the artists but it seems like a "natural" connection that is being made by assigning genders to objects.

The works I chose to curate and group together were Nancy Graves' Bottom of the Pacific Ocean Between California and the Hawaiin Islands-Sub Cable Survey 1891-92 1972, Maya Lin's Pin River - Hudson 2009, James Yohe's Every Cloud Engendrs Not a Storm May 18, 1986, and Amena Simeon's Mami Wata as a Serpent 1999. I chose these works because they all demonstrated and accomplished the fluidity of water through an entirely different texture. Creating the illusion of water through something that has the opposite texture I think is difficult to communicate but all of these works were successful in doing so. I really like Maya Lin's Pin River because the installation flowed like water even though it was made up of steel pins. Steel pins are the opposite texture of water. Steel is solid, hard, and demonstrates no movement whereas water is flowing and constantly changing shape. The way that the pins were aligned gave the illusion of movement and fluidity. Nancy Graves' work is made up of small dots on gouache paint on paper that creates a texture and pattern. Because of her range in the colors of the dots and the closeness of the dots she created the illusion of flowing water and depth. James Yohe's work has a lot of movement within his brushwork. The marks are aggressive and large which creates texture and I think that mimics the storm quality because there is a lot of movement. The blue paint is a more obvious connection to water. Amena Simeon's work does the same with her blue beads however she varies the blue tones and the way they are arranged creates this form of movement and ripples in the water. Even though she uses small solid beads, she still accomplishes the fluidity, movement, and depth ranges in water using her variations of colors and how the beads are sewn into the fabric in a contour-like way.