The Hero Of My Generation

This is a photo of my grandpa when he was in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War had to do with countries wanting to become communist. The United States wanted to step in to help prevent the Domino Theory. In other words, once a country becomes communist, the surrounding countries will fall into it too.

 

In the end, we lose the war because the North Vietnam had better technology and such. But even though we lost, I still think of my grandpa as a hero. This picture is very important to us because it is part of history and I’m glad he made it out alive. I remember all the crazy stories he would tell me, of how he saw people die, even his best friends. He, himself, almost lost his life when one of the other soldiers shot him right next to his heart. But God had mercy and helped him get help and recover from the severe wound. The photograph will always be kept and well taken care of because soon this photo will be ancient to my great grandchildren, and hopefully they will continue to pass it on from generation to generation.

Module 5.3: 3D Media

In the beginning, I never really understood the whole performing arts. The whole performance and installation of art really expanded my experience of what I thought art was. It really made me appreciate what the artist does and the whole point that they are trying to get across throughout their performance.

Cornelia Parker, she is the most interesting of them all. It is very crazy on where she gets her ideas from and how she puts them to action. One of her works, really caught my attention. The art work is called Cold Dark Matter. It was a small shed and she exploded it and created an awesome art piece that just blows your mind!

        

 

Ann Hamilton is a very smart and creative woman. She loves working with threads and all different types of material. One of her art performances that best describes her would have be The Event of a Thread. She connected many sheets of cloths together by threads that were connected to swings! So when people would swing on them, the sheets would move creating a beautiful illusion. Many people even laid right under the sheet just to stare at its marvelous movements.

  

Marina Abramovic is another art performer who uses herself as a medium. One of the most known performances is called The Artist is Present. Which is ironic because in her performance, she sits on a table with volunteer audiences and they sit around the table just staring into each others eyes, without saying any words. It’s really as if she’s not there. Some lasted only 7 minutes, while others lasted hours. Many volunteers would even start crying at some point. Some believe its a type of therapy of some sort. Even though this performance is really different than many others, I’m not a huge fan of it because it doesn’t really intrigue my interest. But like they say, someone’s trash can be someone’s treasure.

        

Capture The Moments

For some reason, I’ve always loved taking photos, whether it be taking a picture of myself, or the ones around me. I take multiple photos almost everyday. I don’t see why anybody wouldn’t, because that picture you just took can be something valuable to you in the future. For me, I usually take photos with my Samsung Galaxy S4. It can take some amazing photos for it just being a phone. When I’m about to take a photo, I try to capture the best angle and lighting possible. If there was a way to improve my photos, I would like to take a photography class and maybe some better lighting.

The reason I love to take pictures is because I can always look back at how many things has changed. For example, watching my beautiful son grow up day by day. It’s that amazing mixed feeling that I get because he is growing so fast, but I thank God for creating such technology to snap photos like these. I feel blessed because if you think about it, back in the old days, there was no such thing as a camera, and now, everyone has it at their fingertips.

Here are some adorable pictures of my son, Aiden, and a couple I took at the zoo that I loved!

                 

 

 

 

 

   

“The Medium Is The Message” (Journal Topic #2)

Marshall McLuhan states that the mediums that an artist use are ways to demonstrate more than just the painting itself, but more of their creative minds. So as we learned in Module 5.1, there are some categories art falls into, such as drawing, painting, printmaking, and collage.
When it comes to drawing, there are many ways you can add very specific details to the art work. One of the details I have noticed is that drawings lack color because they are composed with pencils, charcoal, chalk, etc. This art piece was created in 1915 by Georgia O’Keeffe, called Drawing XIII.

 

In painting, you can express yourselves more with the colors or textures you decide to use. I say textures because there are some artist that paint without paint, for example, they can use sand. Here are two examples of the types of painting.  Brian Pike formed the sand painting and the famous “The Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh.

 

Printmaking category is a bit different from  the rest. I for one, am not the biggest fan of it. Kathryn Trigg’s “Meet the Sea” is a good example. It’s very plain, but catches the audience’s attention.

 

I am really interested in collages for some reason. It amazes me how so many little pieces become a whole giant picture. Kurt Schwitters’ “The Merzbau” is an incredible collage. Even though it is monochromatic, it really captures my attention with the shadings.

What ever medium an artist uses, there is always a reason to why they chose it. It’s amazing to know how you can be true to yourself and show who you really are behind the shades and colors of an artwork.

Creating Art: Nothing to Something

Richard Serra graduated from a university as a painter, but two years later, he became more interested in sculpting. He soon started experimenting with rubber, neon, and lead. He then started to create amazing sculptures. One of his sculptures that caught my eyes was The Forty. The meaning behind his sculptures were for that space wouldn’t just be a plain. boring space, but for others, such as artist, can use it as a benefit and/or entertainment. It’s crazy how you can build something marvelous out of items that you find around you.

Make Your Dreams Come True

I believe anyone can make their dreams come true by just trying their best in everything they do. I think everyone has the potential to bring an idea to life. We may all not have that “natural talent” that people have, but we can acquire that skill with dedication and practice. There was a man named Frank Gehry who had a pencil and a paper, and just started sketching, but little did he know that he would create the most amazing buildings around the world! But that’s how it all starts, from an idea, to a dream come true.

   

    

Monochromatic VS. Color

These two works of art really made me realize how different art can be. The one on the left is a painting by Piet Mondrian, called The Gray Tree. It’s a monochromatic cubism painting that he created in 1911. But a little more than 20 years before that piece of art, Winslow Homer painted Sunlight on the Coast in 1890. Both works where oil on canvas. Piet’s art work shows more shapes and lines that help define the tree. On the other hand, Homer’s painting has more life in it, in my opinion. One of the major reasons why is because it has a major emphasis on the wave. it also has a high contrast that makes the painting more bold. Both art works are beautiful and amazing, we just need to learn and appreciate them more.

Amazed by Pointilism!

In this art piece, the lines are all implied lines. The reason why is simple, they are just made of a bunch of points that form the figure of a line (for example, the tree). The shapes on the art are dots, so it’s more of a complex drawing because you have to get your image across by just using points. The work has high contrast, which makes the colors really stand out. The colors in the art all work together to balance the drawing out. She uses green, yellow, red, pink, blue, and purple to create this piece. For me, the major emphasis was the tree, perhaps because of the colors the artist used. As I analyzed the painting, I just fell in love with it. When I saw it, I suddenly got in a peaceful state of mind.

Looking for Art on Campus

So our art professor sent us out on a mission to find art around our campus, UTPA. As I looked around, I saw many art work, but this one specifically caught my attention. It has emphasis on the horse because the background is black (negative). And the horse itself is monochromatic because its painted with similar colors like red, orange,  and yellow. The way the artist painted the horse shows texture by the strokes the painting has. For some reason, I recieved the emotion of confusion and sadness. The painting was very well put and makes you think why they painted this and in this way.

The Meaning of Art

When I came into this classroom, art to me just meant drawings. But we all soon learned that it was more than that. Art can mean so many things, from a photograph to a piece of trash. I learned that art can mean many things to others. It can describe all the emotions the artist is feeling or even hide them and become a vague piece of art. Well I’m going to share a couple of art pictures, one is one of my cousin’s drawings, and another is a Lego artwork, pretty amazing!