Life Update

Well, I decided to get my awesome Blog going again.

Life Update: I graduated college. I moved to Atlanta. I started grad school. I got a job. I quit my job. I quit grad school. I’m moving to Wyoming.

Painting

Cool colored still Life on a warm colored ground. My first tackles at painting in ART 216.

Kilt man

A few weeks ago, a few friends and I went out to eat at Chucks on a friday night. The restaurant was packed because Nick Saban was there with recruits, so we had to wait forty five minutes to be seated. Normally, when I am hungry forty five minutes would be unbearable, but since Saban was around I could suppress my appetite long enough. My friends and I stood awkwardly in the way of people coming in and out of the restaurant until a large enough spot on the bench against the wall opened up and we quickly scooted over and claimed our waiting positions. While we sat there drinking red wine and people watching, a man with a huge beard and a kilt walked in. Although I live in a college town and am used to seeing people dressed in strange ways, this was particularly unusual considering this strange outfitted man was walking into Chucks (a very nice restaurant). The man had long scraggly hair and a full beard. He had a white T-shirt which tucked his large stomach into his flamboyantly turquoise lime green and blue plaid kilt. He was wearing tall white socks and a pair of high tops with British flags embroidered on them. Immediately, I found myself needing to laugh and point at this odd character, but politely I refrained.....UNTIL. A girl, dressed in a cute outfit, the normal friday night Tuscaloosa get up, jeans shirt and heels walks up to the kilt man. "Heeeeey" she proclaims as she leans forward to give the hairy beast a hug. I am shocked that she willingly acted like she knew him in public, much less initiated touching him. His back was towards me so I couldn't really see how he responded. His kilt moved gracefully against his tree trunk legs as the girl spoke to him. "Wow, you look great." she told him. False, your kilted friend does not look great. He looks like a freak show. "What have you been up to?" she asked. At this point I lost all control and laughed at the situation. I have included a picture of the scene that I secretly took with my cell phone.

Keith Haring- ART as an AID

Keith Harings work can easily be recognized. The distinctive thick lines and vibrant colors are a definite indicator of his creations. Haring’s work helped Americans to understand and appreciate Graffiti as an art form. Living in New York, Haring constantly traveled using the Subway systems. He made thousands of drawings “”In transit” always, quick,simple,strong and direct, for the activity carried with it the risk of arrest for defacement of public property”(Arnason 718). Through these quick chalk or marker drawings he developed a “distinctive vocabulary of cartoon figures” (718). Although his images may appear to be juvenile and senseless, they explore some very obscene topics.

Keith Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 (Haring). During this time it was taboo to discuss the disease and its effects on society. Instead of the government investigating the pressing issue that this disease created, the topic was avoided altogether. Haring devoted his art work to AIDS awareness. His earlier subway cartoons had given him the publicity and recognition in the art realm to have an influential voice. The biography on his website stated that “Haring enlisted his imagery during the last years of his life to speak about his own illness and generate activism and awareness about AIDS” (Haring) Not only did Haring devote his imagery to AIDS awareness, he donated his money to “establish[ed] the Keith Haring Foundation, its mandate being to provide funding and imagery to AIDS organizations and children’s programs, and to expand the audience for Haring’s work through exhibitions, publications and the licensing of his images” (Haring). It is interesting to explore the evolution of Haring’s artwork from the walls of a subway into gallery spaces. While the prestige of his works increased throughout his career, his monumental underlying messages remained the same.


Arnason, Mansfield. History of Modern Art. Sixth. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 718-719. Print.

"Haring." www.Haring.com. The Keith Haring Foundation, Web. 7 Feb 2010. .

"Keith Haring." Artbrokerage. Web. 7 Feb 2010. .

Student Driver

I took this picture on my cell phone while driving. An eighteen wheeler student driver. This is both comical and terrifying to me.

Figure Drawing

My figure drawing professor is ninety years old. He is one of the funniest people I have ever met. He and his stories will be a large part of my ramblings.

On the first day of class he brought out some of his drawings and said "Yall will never be able to do that." The class appreciated his encouragement and ability to see our potential.

The first critique went like this, I pushed two tacks into the top of my 3x4 foot drawing I had been working on for a few hours against the white cork wall. Then joined the class on the other side of the room. Silence, I've found is one of the most uncomfortable noises. There was a lot of that. Then Professor Sella took out a pen and walked over to our drawings. He put a check on the drawings that passed his approval and a large X on the ones that didn't. Mine definitely had a black X on it. Feeling a little depressed by the harsh mark, I was still proud of the drawing simply because I had never drawn a nude model before and I didn't think it was half bad for my first try. I was going to go get my drawing off the wall to add it to my portfolio, Sella ripped it down crumpled it up and took the liberty of throwing it away for me. A few weeks later he said now class I want you to turn in the three drawings you've completed over the semester. Being a smart alec, or a person who is obnoxiously self-assertive and impudent I raised my hand and politely yelled "Sorry, I will only be able to turn in two drawings since you threw my first one away." Never skipping a beat, he just responded "Yeah, well then you turn in two."

His encouragement doesn't come through in positive statements. His way of telling you that he likes your drawing- "Its not bad. But don't get a big head about it." "Who the hell do ya think you are Michaelangelo?" "Don't get fancy with it.'

On a wednesday before class he and I sat on a bench on the third floor balcony overlooking Woods Quad. He looked down at my feet. I had on my cowboy boots, I wear them everyday. "Hey, what kind of boots are those?" "Cowboy" I responded. He reaches over and feels them without seeking my approval "Suede, they're nice." "Thanks." "I like em', they give you a high ass." I walked away.

The model poses in the center of the room and all of the students stand at their easels which surround her in a circle. Sella was absolutely destroying the guys drawing next to me. He was erasing ferociously at what the kid had made. As he erases he likes to remind you “this isn’t right, that line is too dark....yatta yatta yatta.” The guy just stood back while Sella criticized loudly, I started laughing hearing his statements. He immediately stopped, looks up at me and said “Who the hell are you? A cop? Get back to drawing and stop listening to me.”

One day the model was sick, instead of letting us go he walked the entire class down to the Art Gallery. We all wandered around the room stopping at one work then moving on. Once we had all had the opportunity to look at every piece. He asked “Which one do you like?” One guy said “that one” and pointed to an ink drawing. “Why?” Sella asked. “I just like the lines and the composition.” “Yeah, well all it is is lines an you could do that you know.” Another girl expressed interest in a painting. Again Sella questioned her as to why she was attracted to that particular piece. He told us that all art should have the “Aesthetic of Possession” when you see it you should like it so much that you want to own it, you want to wake up everyday in your house and see it in your living room or hang it above your bed. He then walked up to the painting pointed to it and said “This one here, this one I would only hang in my toilet.”

There was a mixed media piece on a pedestal in the gallery. The work was made up of embroidered items and other sewn objects and was called “Woman's work”. There was a sign sitting with the piece that read “DO NOT TOUCH”. He took a quarter from his pants pocket, and placed it on top of the work. He saw me watching him. He winked and then whispered “I’m just showing them, what that piece of shit is worth.”

Rambling...It's what I do best

ram⋅ble  [ram-buhl] Show IPA verb, -bled, -bling, noun
–verb (used without object)
1. to wander around in a leisurely, aimless manner: They rambled through the shops until closing time.
2. to take a course with many turns or windings, as a stream or path.
3. to grow in a random, unsystematic fashion: The vine rambled over the walls and tree trunks.
4. to talk or write in a discursive, aimless way (usually fol. by on): The speaker rambled on with anecdote after anecdote.
–verb (used with object)
5. to walk aimlessly or idly over or through: They spent the spring afternoon rambling woodland paths.
–noun
6. a walk without a definite route, taken merely for pleasure.



#6 under the definition describes me well. Walking, just to walk for mere pleasure. I love that.

Artwork

ARH Matthew Barney

A strange male character with a strikingly white chroma stands in the center of a blossoming flower. On each arm stand three perched white birds with odd feather arrangements. The mans eyes have a reddish tint surrounding them, making him look ill or deceased. His mustache is brown around his lips and slowly turns to the striking white as it curls downwards to his chin. A silver crown adorned with shells and trinkets sits atop his head. There are numerous colorful ribbons wrapped around his penis in a tight bundle. The pastel ribbons gracefully twist from the tight bundle around his testicles and flow down the budding flower. Who is this man? Why is he standing in a flower? And why does he have ribbons attached to his penis?

Matthew Barney is a very important American Artist. His work is hard to place into traditional art categories. His film series Cremaster “can seem ingeniously complicated or nonsensical, depending on one's inclination. Suffice it to say that it is a mix of autobiography, history and private symbolism (Kimmelman).” His films are elaborate displays of color, sound and scenery. The imagery is almost too much to absorb. The New York Times Magazine suggests that “A good way to think about Barney's work is probably just to accept its ambiguity, which, in a sense, is his basic point (Kimmelman)” In an interview Matthew Barney stated that “Art is unresolved, otherwise it is uninteresting (Kimmelman)”. Barney’s characters within his films are ambiguous. Many of the extravagant costumes discourage the viewer from attaching a gender. As the Cremaster series evolved, “the films also became visually more deluxe, with saturated colors and fabulous costumes, despite budgets that, while growing, were nonetheless nonexistent by Hollywood standards (Kimmelman)”




Gothamist. Web. 2 Feb 2010. .

Kimmelman, Michael. "The Importance of Matthew Barney." New York Times Magazine October 10, 1999: n. pag. Web. 2 Feb 2010.