Day 2: 8/29

September 1, 2018UncategorizedElisha Scott

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.