Tension Piece

I'm particularly disatisfied with this project, mainly because I ran into so many hinderances that the idea is so far stretched from my original plan that it's a new piece entirely. I wanted the piece to express the tension I feel when walking barefoot (which I do often) and I come across areas which have things like thorns, broken glass, gravel, etc. As well as it being uncomfortable for me, whoever I'm with shows an obvious reaction to my discomfort but they usually don't say anything. This is the tension I wanted to capture in the photographs, and I wanted to go one step further and bring an element of the photographs into the room with the broken glass. I wanted it to be subtle, hard to see unless you're really looking for the edges, and in this manner create an undefined edge to the piece. Overall, I love the way the glass worked and will hopefully be working with it again.

People Who Inspire Me

Harold Edgerton

Wenda Pyman

Ansel Adams

Michael Frye

Bill Cunningham

Mitchell Davis

Tom Milsom

John Green

John Muir

Richard Serra

Brian Dettmer

Andy Goldsworthy

Marisa Vitielo

Tom Swope

Stanley Forman

Vincent Van Gogh

Vondell Swain

Andy Warhol

Martin Scorsese

Bob Peterson

More Book Art - Brian Dettmer

I know this assignment was a while ago, but in my online adventures I stumbled across Brian Dettmer. 

The Household Physicians, 2008. Altered books. 10-1/2" x 8" x 12"

Modern Painters (1873,) 2008. Altered books. 9-1/8" x 6-3/4"

Kingdom, 2008. Altered Books. 9-5/8" x 10-3/4" x 9-3/4"

Dairy Nets and Soda, 2007. Altered Book. 6-12" x 6" x 2-1/2"

Result, 2011. Encyclopedia Set with pedestal. 34-1/2" x 27" x 11-3/8" (46-1/2" x 35" x 16" with pedestal) 

American People,  2011. Hardcover books, acrylic medium. 61" x 39" x 14"

I won't go into detail about his statement or process, but I suggest that if you have time, go to his website and read for yourself. His work is inspiring to me, he enjoys the same kind of slow and meticulous work that I do, and I look forward to learning more of him and his work. 

http://briandettmer.com/
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Local Coffee Shoppes - Site Book

For my sites book, I decided to document some of my favorite local coffee shops here in/near Downtown Seattle. Coffee is a large part of my minimal diet, and one of the things I was excited about in coming to Seattle was the coffee culture. Compiling this book was more about the experience of going to all these cafes (and more) than it was about the finished project, but I am satisfied with both nonetheless.

In this blog, I will talk a little bit about each cafe I highlighted as well as something I like about them which makes them a favorite of mine.


                                                   BEDLAM - 2nd and Wall
This is somewhere I visit frequently with my roommate and her friends. They have really unique, delicious specialty drinks such as Lavendar Lemonade and Nutella Mocha, two of my favorites. They also have AMAZING thick-sliced toast.
Get it. Now

IL FORNAIO - Pacific Place

My brother introduced me to this cafe (branched off from the main restaurant next door) because his friend works here. My favorite drink to get is an Iced Mocha, but it's not cheap - it's a special, occasional treat. They also have delicious food options in their main-floor cafe, so you don't need to stay for a whole sit-down meal in the restaurant if you don't have time.  

           ARTISAN CAFE - 5th and Vine

I went to this place off a recommendation of a friend, and I really liked it. They're coffee is great, and I'm also a big fan of French Macarons, so I look forward to trying theirs.

CAFE LADRO - 8th and Pine

I absolutely love this place. Great Coffee, great environment, and there was a beautiful selection of paintings displayed, which I particularly liked. The barista was friendly, helpful, and provided great service. I love stopping here when I get off the bus right across the street.

CHERRY STREET COFFEE HOUSE - 1st and (Blanchard and Lenora)

I don't go to this place often, but mainly because it's not on any of my regular routes. All the way down on first, I discovered it when walking back from Pike Place one day and fell in love. 

                                              UPTOWN ESPRESSO - 4th and Wall
 This is probably the place I go most frequently. It's a decently short walk, good prices and great drinks. they pride themselves on their "velvet foam," and rightfully so. I have tried a wide variety of drinks from them and loved them all.

Artists Who Inspires Me: Mitchell Davis

(photograph of Mitchell Davis at VidCon 2011)

Mitchell Davis is an young, modern artist who I have recently found inspiring myself more than I originally realized. He focuses on a lot of the same mediums as I do such as  photography, video, and digital imaging. I also focus on a lot of the same subject matter as he does.

1989-2059

Untitled Photograph

Please Turn Off and Stow All Cellular Devices

He is deeply invested in two worlds which I also am also passionate about, both the world of art and world of entertainment.  There's a clear separation between the two, but while many people realize not all entertainment is art, few realize not all art is entertainment. It's an important distinction that Mitchell embraces and understands, which allows him to navigate both realms successfully. This is something I really hope to achieve at some point in my timeline.


if you would like to see more, this is the link to his blog:
http://mmitchelldaviss.net/
from there you can navigate to such places as his Flikr, Twitter, YouTube channels, etc

9.19.11 (Crayon on Canvas Experiment)

In recognition of having no classes today, I wanted to try something new.  I like pushing myself to try new things, whether they seem odd or scary or pointless, and this was something I have seen quite a bit lately.  Melting crayons on canvas is apparently the new big "thing," and it looked interesting so I decided to try it. I've usually only seen it done like this:

(via http://dayanatuna.tumblr.com/)






I wanted to try it so the dripping patterns were flowing outward instead of in one direction so I did. but I ran into a few problems.

1) Hairdryers are very unpredictable when it comes to crayon-melting patterns. I couldn't very well control which crayons would melt, and because the hairdryer was so big (in comparison to a crayon,) I couldn't simply melt one crayon at time. In pointing the hairdryer at one crayon, the heat would mainly hit the surrounding crayons, which led me to my next unexpected problem.

2) The crayons splattered. In the photo of crayon melting I put on here from Dayanatuna's tumblr, the crayons are melting in a beautifully smooth, almost controlled manner. HAHA no. This didn't happen with me. The hairdryer I used had two settings, high and low, and while "high" sent melted crayon splattering all over the bathroom (apologies to my roommate for our newly colored bathroom, I'll clean that up soon,) "low" didn't put out enough heat to melt the crayon. I had to flicker between high and low to melt the crayon, then try and lightly push it in the direction I wanted it to go.

Overall it was fun. I love the texture and the flow, and my next test will be to figure out how to solve the two above problems. It was a fun monday, I would love it if you could let me know what you think of the idea/ how it turned out.

Reflection on My Artist Statement

Today in class, I finally gave my "artist statement," which is something I had been dreading ever since it was first assigned to write one. The main reason for this being that I don't consider myself an artist. I am confused, chaotic, disorganized, and inexperienced in every way and in no way exemplify the qualities of an artist. Other reasons include my discomfort with talking in front of a class, how intimidating everyone was, and my general feeling of how I didn't have much to say.

I know, what else is new.

But I think it went rather well. I think. Whenever I speak in from of a class like that, no matter how informal the setting, I can't focus on one thing and my mind goes everywhere at once. On top of that, I always blackout as well, so I don't remember what I said in addition to not knowing what I was saying in the moment. The only two things I remember are how difficult I found it to formulate sentences, and I talked about my mother, which was awkward. It was awkward only because I think I said "oh, my mother's dead, that put a bit of a damper on my life," but without explaining why that was significant in my growth as an artist. So in this next paragraph I will sum up for you what I wish I had said in that classroom, more or less.

I don't consider myself an artist, but I want to be. Art is a universal language of relation and inspiration, a medium through which emotions, feelings, moments, and ideas are preserved. Art is the only way, in my opinion, to remind society of what we were and what we could be. Through my art I hope to show people new ideas and new ways of thinking. Understanding different perspectives and opinions is the only way to progress and art is the way I best express my perspective.

I've been creating things for as long as I can remember. I really began to take an interest in art my sophomore year of high school when I took a year-long photography course. The medium was magic to me, working in the darkroom was all I would look forward to. At the same time, my mother was diagnosed with Lung Cancer. As she grew sicker, my need to create and fondness of photography grew stronger and the path of my advancement directly followed the path of her decline. I worked constantly in the darkroom, but I didn't look to broaden my experience because I was so preoccupied with not only taking care of my mom, but the ridiculous courses at the college prep school I was attending. I'm not an academic, but I went to an intensive college prep school and the idea of being an artist was out of the question. I was told it was illogical and would only ever be a hobby and I didn't question it. I didn't even consider applying to art schools until my senior year, until after my mom had died. I fell into a long-lasting depression and couldn't make sense of anything. It was only coming out of this that I realized I wanted to be an artist. In looking for colleges, the only path I wanted to take was one to lead me into the world of art. Art was the most liberating aspect of my life and I knew I couldn't do anything else. When our lives boil down to nothing, we still have that instinctual desire to create, and I never want to subdue that. It sounds terrible of me to say, but my mother's death is the best thing that ever could have happened to me as an artist. It destroyed me as a person, but I rebuilt myself into who I wanted to be. I am still rebuilding myself, but the only thing I know is that this is where I want to be and this is what I want to do.

Thoughts From Humanities (Regarding "Where is Home.")

For Humanities yesterday afternoon, our class was supposed to skim two excerpts, each from a different reading, and in class we decided which one we would like to read further. I confess, (as I did to the teacher,) I did not do the reading. ONLY because when I clicked the link it took me to one of those obnoxious "page not found" pages. Apparently at 5 PM on Monday night, all the links stopped working for some reason so thankfully I wasn't the only one with issues who didn't do the reading. Even though I didn't do the readings, I picked up on a lot of key points from the readings that got me thinking and my mind wandered a bit.

One of the readings was called Where is Home, and a woman finds herself contemplating where she's from and where her home is because a cab driver asks her "Where are you from?" Or something like that… I didn't do the reading… remember?
Nonetheless, this struck a chord with me because I find the concept of "home" to be quite strange. As it was mentioned in class, Freshman in college find themselves in an awkward situation when they call their dorms "home" because they still feel like where they previously lived (with their parents, grandparents, guardians, etc,) is their home. This differs from me because I refer to my dad's house as my dad's house, not as my house, and this begs the question why.
Well, person who apparently begs questions. Calm down, no need to beg...
It's because I have a broad idea of where home is. I don't consider home to be within a specific house or pre-defined boundaries of any size. I consider wherever I find myself to be home. I may find myself to be in strange new environments at times, but I consider them all home. I don't mean to say there are not places where I have felt more comfortable than others, I specifically feel very "at home" while backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains or while spending time on the Athenian campus, but I never consider myself to be completely separate and isolated from a specific place I call "home." While most people would say that a home should be restricted to a certain area of a certain size, I think this is only for people who want to go back to that area for an extended stay. I feel like this is then restrictive and the concept of home can become something that puts undesired limitations on one's potential, and I don't want to do that to myself. I have no specific concept of home, and everyone I've told this to thinks I'm absolutely nuts.
This is kind of becoming a regular thing for me. I think to much and people think I'm nuts.
So you heard I like Mudkips? Yeah, I know...

Game Theory - Afterthoughts (Stream of Consciousness)

When asked to answer the question, how do video games affect our work, I found the biggest correlation between the two is the attention to and obsession with detail. People today are no longer satisfied with the 8-bit games or even the 2D mario adventures games we used to geek over. Instead we are demanding for the complex details of the gaming experiences offered by games such as Assassin's Creed or Legend of Zelda. We have been swept off our feet with these immensely detailed games which offer us a 360 degree view of a completely virtual world, and we see our old 2D, single-plane video games as "old school." This expectation for complex detail applies to art as well. People are not satisfied with a simple piece anymore, they want complex and detailed, which influences us all to strive to create our works bigger and better. We sometimes forget that it's not always about how complex something is, or how technical it is, rather it is how well a piece portrays the artist's concept (which if simple will more than likely be portrayed in a simple way.) The most obvious example of this to me is music - the best pieces may not be  about how intricate and complex a single instrument's part is, but how well that part compliments and works with the rest of the instrument's parts. However, I am also not trying to say that complexity is bad - complexity is only achievable by those who have mastered that which is simple, but now I'm being redundant. You get what I mean. Hopefully…

There is something else I wanted to address though. It came to my attention, not during our walk through of the gallery, but during our discussion while I listened to other people's responses (I'm big on listening as opposed to partaking in conversation. My brain is more productive while listening.) People continually brought up the concept of addiction and it ultimately became a focal point in the conversation. Video games seem to be the biggest topic of addiction, falling right behind drugs and substance abuses. This is probably because video games came into the majority of American homes and are growing and progressing so quickly. Practically every teenager I know plays some form of video games, whether it be a first person shooter on Xbox or Angry Birds on their Phone, but something people forget is that it is possible to play video games without being an addict, it's simply because addiction to video games is becoming so common that the only way people know how to avoid getting sucked in is to distance themselves before it's too late.  I know if I ever tell anyone that I play video games, they would automatically give me a condescending look, as if they know that I'm an addict, or on my way to becoming one. Not only does this create a wonderfully awkward moment, but it's a bit irritating. This happens with many subcultures of society, scrutinized because the only group of participants taken note of are the extremists and the addicts. This is because of the media - the only source of information most of us have on pretty much everything. While I won't get into my opinions of the media now, they don't make money off of "Timmy beat his old high score on Pac Man." People only want to know about the crazies and the amazing, and so that's what they get. Video game addiction is an extreme, but there are extremes to everything and because of these extremes people who fall into the moderate are more harshly judged. This doesn't just apply to video games, but to many different medias. The one I have the most experience with is YouTube and online video. 

In order to continue, I should tell you that I am a YouTuber. I watch other people's videos as well as create and post content of my own. The only information pertaining to YouTube most people hear are the stories of cyber bullying and people being seriously injured or dying because they tried to do something stupid to gain internet popularity- in fact, someone I personally knew accidentally hung himself trying to make a video. But it's these preconceived notions that result in close-minded judgement of the entire Youtube community. These aspects of internet video do exist and they're terrible, but it's a very small, very extreme part of online video. Most people call me a YouTube addict, which I wholeheartedly deny. I am involved in the community - I make videos, I watch videos, I collaborate, I make friends, and I even went to VidCon (if you don't know what VidCon is, think ComicCon, but smaller and for YouTubers.) It's more than a website to myself and hundreds to thousands of others, it's a lifestyle. It's about the interaction between creator and viewer, and how those roles so frequently change. I've met some of my best friends on YouTube, most of whom I met at VidCon 2011. It's about doing what you do because you want to, and people who want to watch you do it will watch you. (For example, there is a very successful YouTube band called Chameleon Circuit. They're a rock band who write songs about the TV show Doctor Who. And they're amazing.) Youtube is about expression, growth, education, entertainment, and there are so many subcultures and different kinds of video makers (not necessarily filmmakers or video-art makers, but just people who make videos) that you will most definitely find someone who shares interests with you. John Green, an author and co-video blogger on the channel "VlogBrothers" is a big member in the community and in talking about his top ten moments from VidCon 2010, he said:

"...Ze Frank gave the most astonishingly brilliant keynote address I think I have ever heard. Reminding us that we don't make or watch videos for money or subscribers or views but because we want to feel what it's like to be other people and let others feel what it's like to be us." -John Green (Top 10 VidCon Moments, 7.14.10) 

I am a part of this community, and though it is a huge part of my life I don't consider myself an addict. An addict is someone who lets their object-of-addiction get in the way of everyday life. I won't blow off friends to go watch YouTube, I don't spend countless hours watching videos and doing nothing else, I don't stalk people who I watch and think are sexy, and it's not all I talk about (unless I know you're a YouTuber as well, because a YouTuber finding another YouTuber in the "real world" is almost as rare as a Dragon Fruit in Fruit Ninja. It's extremely exciting.) I am a nerdfighter, a beard-lover, a CTFxC and a member of the DeFranco Nation. I am all these things, but to anyone who asks I simply say "I am a YouTuber." Not once has someone (who is not a YouTuber as well) given me a reaction of approval because all they know is what is written about the news. For so many different things (such as video games and YouTube,) people are generally oblivious to an entire subculture of people who are working and interacting, but for YouTube that's beginning to change. The YouTube community is becoming more widely recognized and appreciated, but I still wonder if there's a subculture like this in the video game world. Are we all so caught up in the horrors of video game addiction that we can't see something else that might be there?

Something else I find interesting is how addiction is usually only associated with electronic medias and drugs. If you have a friend who reads a lot of books, you don't usually consider them an addict, just someone who gets "lost in his reading." While I'm not denying video games are addictive, nor am I saying that they are an amazing way to spend your time, I am saying that people are a bit quick to judge. Electronics are never good to spend too much time around, but it is not always about the electronics themselves, but about the doors they open. The YouTube community is not fully about internet and video, that is merely how it begins. It is about the real-life connections we make and the collaborations which occur. I could go on forever about YouTube, but I will cut it off. Mainly because you can go figure it out on your own, but also because this post is extremely long. 

To introduce you to the YouTube that I know, I've chosen 6 videos from 6 different creators, each of which in a different style and subject matter. In addition, these people are also some of the nicest people I've ever met.

Michael Jackson Medley - KurtHugoSchneider (Kurt Schneider and Sam Tsui)

Kurt is an amazing director and composer, on his channel he composes various medleys and mashups which he finds some of the most talented singers on YouTube to perform.  His most recurring partner is Sam.

This Shore - Hexachordal (Tom Milsom)

One of my favorite artists and musicians. I haven't been able to stop listening to his most recent EP, Explorers 6. I even ordered it on Vinyl.

Looping Again - MysteryGuitarMan (Joe Penna, in Collaboration with Freddy Wong.)

Both extremely talented, both known for their skills and experience with camerawork and editing

LITERAL Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Trailer - Tobuscus (Toby Turner)

He does "literal trailers," and they're one of my favorite things. ever. Another trailer of his I would suggest is Harry Potter, it can probably be found in "suggestions" to the right of the video

Everything Out Of Context - LiveLavaLive (Mitchell Davis and Kyle Sibert)

One of my favorite channels, they do an assortment of different kinds of video.

(I should add that mitchell is an artist, and has a second channel where he post some of his Video Art)

The Things? I destroy them - MeekaKitty (Tessa Violet)

This is Vlogging (video blogging.) Most people don't like vlogs but they're one of my favorite kinds of videos