3/31/08

I wasn't in class today.

4/16/07

What's it about?
This project represents my personal views of what happened that awful day at Virginia Tech almost exactly a year ago- wikipedia describes it a the "Virginia Tech Massacre" Seung Hui Cho killed 32 students then himself. I fortunately was not in Norris Hall when this happened- unfortunatly 2 of my dormmates that lived down the hall from me fell tragically in the massacre.
Part of the Process

After brainstorming many ideas with different people- one stuck out to me the most- Digging 32 holes to represent the 32 victims- Then covering myself in the mud from the holes, and putting picked green leaves in these holes.
My Project
I have to give my friend jeff who is an amateur photographer credit for these pictures- he did a great job in capturing my vision. In all of these photograph I am covered in mud- this represent the emotion that overwhelmed me from these people dying all around me. An emotion I had never felt before covered my body and I didnt know how to interpret it.

In the first photograph you can see the shovel in the background- this is Cho- he dug these holes that blemish the earth. The process of emotion is first viewed here - confusion- and disbelief- as we go through the photos the development of emotion is shown as it comes over my body as I watch this incident unravel.

The 2nd photograph is when the numbers kept adding up from 9 to 12 to 15. This mud is shock.

The 3rd photograph at about 20, 22, 24. The mud is numb- as you see there is leaves in each of the holes, picked leaves- the lives of these victims was just picked away from them.

And finally the last photograph represents sorrow- not only for the victims but my school, how would we recover from this? These kids families- it could have been me. I also found out the names of the peopel which I recognized. The mud is in my hands - the spilt blood is on my campus.

Artists
Ana Mendieta
Whitney Museum of American Art, Ana Mendieta Earth Body, Sculpture, and Performance,
Resource Library Magazine, http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa459.htm (Jan 2003)
Julie Taymor
Academy of Achievement, Julie Taymor Biography,
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tay0bio-1 (Sept,17 2007)
Why these 2 artists?
Malena told me about these artists who concentrate on performing, and showing their work thorugh people in their pieces in which I had intended to do.
How will these sources make your aesthetic choices richer?
Mendieta really inspired me to work with the mud- she worked with lots of earth elements in her pieces and she makes it aesthically pleasing which is hard to do with mud. Taymor who directed Across the Universe is an amazing artist and closely works with costume to reveal her characters personalities- she taught me to alter everything you can to make it look like what you want.

3/19/08

Today we discussed Project 2 at Ritazzas with our classmates. It wasnt very helpful for me- nobody really knew what they wanted to do, and was really negative about the whole thing- not excited- with exceptions of a few people. I want to make a sculpture piece with bullets to represent the VT massacre- but Im not really sure that will be time sufficient- people didnt really seem interested either - so I dont know what Im going to do. I talked to Joey for a while and he tried to help me figure out what i was going to do- but I just kinda got confused haha. I was going to photoshop the bullets because they are so expensive.

3/17/08

So today we went to the McColl Center for their new exhibit: Phantasmagoria. I really liked this exhibit- it was so interactive and entertaining. So many of the pieces were interesting to me. I loved the piece with the motion sensored lights and the shadows projected on the wall- the electric engineering in that piece was very impressive- i dont understnad anything to do with wiring or motion sensing - it's like a foreign language to me. I didnt like the piece where you had to go in that room and it looked like their was an avalanche coming towards you- I just didnt think that the form of presnetation was very effective- it wasnt believable.

3/14/08

So Im realizing that I get all my buttons from Galax. Maybe I will do something for my final project dealing with Galax.

3/12/08

Today's class was rather nice cuz we got to go outside yay! I honestly only remember one of the artist videos because I was so interested in Quang's work with gunpowder. I actually right as I saw that I thought to my self it would be cool to work with fireworks! and then you mentioned a student had done it(totally not doing it now) I really do love looking at other artist's work- I tihnk that inspiration is 50% of what goes into art.

3/10/08

For class today we watched a video on Theo Jansen work is very site specific. Most of his sculptures it seems involve coastal land. After viewing some of Julie Taymor's work I wanted to work with the beach because I go there all the time. My parents have a condo at Ocean Isle Beach. I have probably spent 1/5 of life at the beach. It is mu second home- and Im really into doing pieces that reflects personal experiences. But the beach is so cliche'. Maybe sometime in the future I will learn how to do a landscape without being boring

3/7/08

This weekend I had some trouble finding buttons, but I found some at this consignment shop. Buttons are expensive!