For this class session, we met in our groups and conducted presentations of our progress made so far on our projects. Unfortunately due to the previous assignments over the last 5 weeks for this class having to take priority for the  sake of my grade, my progress on my work ultimately suffered because of it. Despite this, I still sought to present my sketch work as a means of exploration for my ideas. I felt the presentation went okay, though the ideas I wanted to convey were a little misconstrued. Although the element of the importance of church in the black community was included within my intended works, I never meant for it to encompass the entirety of of my project. While the numerous suggestions were very insightful, I don’t feel as though I can use some of them.  I will, however still try to consider an audio element to incorporate to my work as it could add more depth to the project as a whole. For now my next task will be digitizing these sketches and getting the initial line work down by my next deadline.

For my art exploration, I decided to focus on my favorite artists, Rebecca Sugar and the duo Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dimartino. These three are behind a lot of the concept work that went into my two favorite shows, Steven Universe and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Between the three, I felt like Sugar’s methodologies were the most outside of what I usually do. When she creates her works or concepts for the show, She tends to approach her art with a sense of freedom. She creates what she envisions and is not afraid of making bad art. She stated that she gets her best ideas from studying the world around her, which is evident in her series in which the hometown of the main characters and even some of the main characters themselves are based around real locations from her childhood and real people that she knew/knows. By watching the video where she flips through her sketchbook, she shared that she works through a LOT of trial and error and her work is created through a series of very loose lines. Lastly, Her main inspirations for her animated series were her home, her brother for whom the show is named and magical girl anime and its form of storytelling.

For the duo affectionately known a s Bryke in online communities, Bryan and Mike have methodologies based around the generation of ideas rather than the actual process of drawing. As people who studied a lot of film production in their college days, I felt like they had a lot of unique insight that could expand my artistic horizons. For their team, They found inspiration in the many films they watched, like Studio Ghibli’s  Princess Mononoke, a film that features heavy subject matter written for young and  old audiences and containing a plethora of fantasy action sequences as well as many kung fu films. In addition to their study of the real world, they were inspired by many different cultures from around the world, one of which became the inspiration for the first sketch of a character for their future cartoon series. They also stress the importance of collaboration with projects. Their most notable example of this is their use of martial arts consultants in their show to make sure that their action sequences were as authentic as they could be. To put it into their words, their big idea for the show was a bunch of smaller ideas stitched together in a way that was fitting for their story, which is encouraging in the idea that a bunch of my smaller ideas could potentially become something bigger.

As for the experimentation, I tries using Sugar’s methods of exploring body types in combination with the three artists suggestions of observing the world around me, so I decided to also incorporate sketches of some objects I had lying around me as a start. The items include my pouch for my handheld systems, my laptop, my pencil case, my drawing tablet, and a Hi-C juice box.

For today’s class sessions, we visited the Toledo Museum and 20 North Gallery. To be honest, I don’t think I really got anything out of the trips that would really benefit me in the long run of my project and career wise in the future. Yes the displays were, well displayed effectively for the corresponding works, but I just don’t think I can really apply it to my work. I had to come to terms with the fact my type of work is more suited for comics and children’s books rather than galleries, so I couldn’t connect very well to the gallery work and what deemed it worthy of being there.  Despite that, I did find a few of the works to be interesting in arrangement, color and or style. For example, I found Kawase Hasui’s woodblock prints to be aesthetically pleasing. the works were so vivid in color and gradients of color that they felt like something straight out of a comic book. In addition to his work, I found Gajin Fujita’s work, Rider, was something otherworldly with it’s unique combination of urban street life with Japanese iconography.

When we visited the Sculpture X exhibit, it was refreshing to see an artist of color, but I had mixed feelings about the works presented. I’m not quite sure that I understood what the point of the work was, but each work featuring the women sitting alone with the foliage felt really lonely. I always have the notion that whatever I make will always be tagged as political because of an effort to simply place POC’s in positions or places that mainstream entertainment doesn’t bother to place us in, but what if I actively tried to NOT be political? Would that change how my work would be received? It’s still something that I have to think about, but as my first deadline is drawing closer, I seem to be having less and less time to think, so I will just have to create instead and see what becomes of it.

For my BFA project, I would like to create art through a digital medium. As I have spent the last three years to hone my craft, I would like my possible showcase piece to encompass everything I have learned in my time in and out of the classroom. I prefer digital painting/ illustration, so I would like my project to reflect those interests and more importantly, the skill set associated with it. Considering how I may able to time myself, I would like to create at least three works to illustrate my ideas as a series. In my series of works, I would like to illustrate the feelings and sensations that I experience as someone who faces depression and anxiety and how my perception of the world has been altered as a result.

What I found drives my project is the idea of having  the ability to bring awareness to the issues I face through my art. As a person of color, the complete lack of understanding of my issues and the stubborn attitudes of the older generations to not make the effort to understand within my culture makes addressing these issues properly almost impossible. The lack of understanding of the impact of generational traumas, dysfunctional family dynamics and the effects of society’s perception of people like me are all factors that tend to be pushed aside when discussions of minority mental health are brought up ( if they are at all). Although it would be quite the undertaking to address these issues in more than three works, I want to strive to illustrate the facets of conflicts that mean the most to me.

In terms of unique style, I would like to work in a limited color palette. I seek to work this way in an effort to convey a sense of  isolation. While everyone else is able to live in a vivid and colorful world, I seen mine as the polar opposite. Darker, yet vivid colors will accurately depict the distortion and disconnect I feel from the world around me. It’s cold and feels lonely, and I’m hoping that my choice in color will illustrate that accurately. In addition to this, I want to include the use of a consistent figure, representative of myself, in each work. As these experiences are mine, I want to make something that I can not only be excited about making, but also bring forth something that is personal to me, as I feel that I create my best work when I focus on myself.

In its final form, I will, of course, be creating three digital works. For size, I would like each to be 11 x 13 (though I can make them larger, space permitting). I would like each piece to be simply matted together as a triptych. I feel that a horizontal display may work best for this series of works. Using the eye to guide viewers through the work at about eye level would seen to be much easier to manage than going for a vertical display.

List of Equipment:

• Printing materials
• Matting material (26’’ x 11)

Included Below is my tentative production calendar and a possible display design

For this class session, we continued with our presentations. I was up seventh and I was quite nervous about how I would say what I had to say and convey it effectively. Fortunately, thinks went over decently and I have to say, it was nice to see some of my old works again. It actually made me feel like my time spent in school wasn’t a TOTAL waste. I made something, and although it was only a few things, I felt like for a brief moment that I could actually be proud of them. I felt like these works were more dear to me than others especially because they held real connections, relevance, and were representative of me, my race, and my family. For my BFA project, I hope to be able to continue exploring those themes and feelings and create at least 3 well done pieces at the minimum. I’mm trying to decide if I want to make pieces related to my perception of the world through the lenses of my race and/or mental illness, or make a few works dedicated to the sensations i have to deal with  related to dealing with anxiety, depression, and the  Once I draft up my contract and get a schedule together, I hope I’ll be able to get myself started promptly. The pressure is on for sure, but I think I may be on to something.

Today, we began the first half of our initial art presentations. To be honest, I was really unsure about how we should talk about our artwork and what information would be seen as relevant to presentation. Luckily, chose to go on the second day to see if I could at least meet the expectations set by the first day. I can say with certainty that the people who went today had a really impressive collection of work. From my classmate whose focus was on landscape, to the other who made 3D glass-based work, to even my roommate who amassed a large volume of work with such organic movement, it was very hard not to be amazed by how skilled everyone was. When it comes to my work, however, I feel as though it’s okay, but hasn’t improved the way I would have wanted it to over the last four years. I honestly felt like the work I did on my own outside of a school setting was among some of my best work, but I’ve only done two images like that over the course of  the last 3 years and one of them was anime fan art.

As far as preparations for the final project go, I’m quite intimidated by all of the restrictions placed on what we can’t do, which is ironic considering we were told we were finally going to be able to do something that we actually wanted to do. All I can think of topic wise is focusing on either the lack of attention given to African American mental health or my experience through life feeling like an outcast not only through my skin color but also the hobbies/ activities that I engage in (which in the black community are seen as “white” things to engage in like fandom/nerd culture, and how I carry myself as compared to others of my race in my age group. I feel like I am able to create my best work when I’m focusing on myself or experiences that I can relate to. How I will be able to create that without using illustrations or a pre-written narrative is beyond me, but hopefully with some research I plan on conducting, it may come to me.

Today’s class was a little hard to sit in on due to more emotional issues. What I can say I did get were several opinions on artists from the previous section. I found myself agreeing with  Cloe’s point on trying to understand how Susan Kae Grant managed to bring her dreams into reality exactly the way she remembered it. When our instructors insisted it was most likely a lot of practice,  I could only think about how much effort possibly went into every shoot she had conducted, and how many hours were possibly spent getting each image just right. That kind of dedication to my craft is something that I hope that I’ll be able to regain before it’s too late, especially after all these years of being hindered.

After I finally calmed myself down after my time outside of class, I reproached a suggestion to me by a few family members that could possibly become the basis of my studio project: “What if you made a story around how you’ve had to cope with your mental illness?” As interesting as having this sort of hurdle in my life explained through the lenses of an African American where mental illnesses are considered a “taboo topic”, something that is heavily stigmatized and something that we simply have to power through on your own with no real resources to cope properly, I think that If i tried a project like that, it may be able to help people like me who feel that they have no one and on where to turn to for help. I guess its just a thought for now.

Today we watched a few videos based around different artists and the methodologies they use toward their respective crafts.

The first two were Rob Lugo and Ira Glass. Out of the two, I felt the most connected to Lugo. His difficulties as a minority and constantly being seen as less than no matter what you did really hits home. with his video I agreed that access to the arts is extremely important as it provides an outlet for people to express their views of the world. The only question I would have for it would be how we as a community/ country can make art more accessible.

The next artist we viewed was Krista Tippet. Something I learned from her talk was that she feels that showcasing  vulnerability in art is important. She stated that having that vulnerability can make you feel complete, to which I have to disagree. Personally, I hate the feeling of vulnerability. I find it incredibly embarrassing I  and showcasing it while I’ve been in the art program has never gone over well.

Next Is john Cleese. What was new to me from his video was that we can come to ideas without thinking (Which is difficult for an over-thinker like me), and how important creating an oasis of solitude is to foster an atmosphere to generate creativity. I agreed on his points that good ideas come form the unconscious and that sleeping on an idea can make it better the next time you visit it. I definitely know this from experience through my time in and out of school. In short, my only question would be how could one go about creating a space where you can have the courage to play?

Susan Kae Grant was a really intriguing artist. Her use of dreams and shadow work made her work feel very ethereal. I agree with her in the sense that dreams are one of the greatest sources of inspiration for artistic works. The one question I had for her would have been how far into reality can the works of the unconscious be generated?

I tried my best to pull something from David Whyte’s talk, but I found it quite difficult. It sounded kinda depressing and honestly like a lot of the “spiritually based rambling” I get back home. I would honestly like to ask what constitutes as  Honestly, it was just to abstract for my tastes.

In addition to this, Chitra’s Ganesh and Miwa Matreyeks’s videos were a little hard to grasp anything from as well, mostly a someone with a focus in digital art. Despite this, I can really appreciate their use of feminine imagery. A question I could generate from these two would be how one could effectively create  the feeling of the universe in such an enclosed space.

Finally, we have Maggie Taylor and William Kentridge. Both had really interesting art forms> Taylor’s use of vintage photos with a relatively new form of artistic media allowed for some really amazing works. The same goes for  Kentridge’s use of hand drawn charcoal animations. One thing that I agreed with from Maggie’s video was that getting proper input can make a work better. I found it great that she was able to get non-biased input from her husband that actually improved the quality of her work.

All in all, though most of the videos weren’t too relatable to me and my craft, I still found some minor key points that I could latch onto.