BlogPost#10/Final

Artist: Steward Uoo (b. 1985)

Artwork: Untitled (Versace/ H&M small white), 2015

Artwork: Untitled (Hollister small white), 2015

Materials: Cotton, shopping bags, flies (Calliphora vomitoria), cockroaches (Periplaneta americana), pigeon (Columba livia), feathers, pigment, polyurethane resin, synthetic fibers, dust.

These two works of art display a multiple use of materials that are mixed together using “techniques similar to those of traditional paper fabrication”. The whole display includes two separate pieces that combine to represent one. The artist creates two versions of this type of  artwork both named untitled but with parenthesis around it to describe it better. One set has ‘small white’ after the name of the brands inside the parenthesis while the other says ‘medium black’ and ‘medium gray’ after a different set of brands for the work piece. I liked both but i choose to focus on the white version because the ease in which the materials can be seen. But both include the same materials. I choose this artwork because it deals with a topic i can agree with, which comes from the description in the museum of why the artist made this and how he got inspired. “Uoo first became interested in shopping bags as an artistic material when he observed two female impersonators exiting a taxi, their arms laden with glossy paper bags bearing the logos of various luxury brands. Inspired by the way the shopping bags instantly communicate the desire for a particular lifestyle of indulgence, Uoo repurposes them to invoke an aesthetic closer to what he describes as ‘curbside garbage’”. It is because of his desire to covey a strong message that really captures my attention because it is something that is very relatable and i feel the same towards. Also the use of materials are very unique and intriguing. After taking this class going to a museum feels like a fancy treat. I feel like I have to know what materials were used. And I wonder what their purpose was in doing what they did,which is difficult to figure out sometimes because sometimes the their isn’t a description for the work of art being displayed. Art seems more mysterious and meaningful than simply to be pretty and/ or labeled as weird. During this semester I learned that art is everywhere and not only in museums, but also in almost everything. And that it can carry a purpose behind it or it can be simply done to capture and/ or recreate beauty.

Creative Project #2

          For my topic I decided to choose Latino Discrimination since it affects many Latinos throughout the U.S. By this I mean anything from being labeled, shamed, and/or underestimated, and all of this would be not including the problems immigrants face but still linking to the raising immigration status and laws because of discrimination and labeling.

          I chose this topic because not only is it something that's trending or constantly present because of politician Trump but also because it is something that is always on my mind and maybe even something that affects me. I take pride of where I am from but for some reason I always notice that i want to make it clear that I was born here in the U.S. This was something that bothered me because it felt as though I was trying to reject where my parents had come from and where I am also a part of. This made me wonder and think how many things i see in the world that made me unconsciously and against my will, believe that being from somewhere else other than America is wrong. And I realized that it was the way America portrays itself compared to other countries. Since all we ever see in the news is how Mexico has a drug dealer, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and so and so are at war. Or also the fact that Muslims are considered to be terrorists or what not. America uses media to put everyone else down and therefore make America look amazing in comparison. The media is used in many ways that benefit the U.S such as shows that portray Mexicans or certain Latinos as being maids, gardeners or people that serve Americans and nothing more. Most Latinos or Mexicans are labeled as criminals, poorly educated, incapable of doing anything besides house work for Americans. There is obviously nothing wrong with being a house keeper or even a babysitter because it is an honest job, but for some reason this is seen as a poor low level job even though I believe no job is too small. Labeling goes as far as physical labeling such as Latinos being dark skinned and short, that can only speak Spanish or other Latino women as having voluptuous bodies, with accents, that we all like or know how to dance etc. when in fact Latinos can be as diverse as America with all of its different mix of cultures. This can be backed up by a fact taken from 11 Facts about Discrimination and Poverty in the Latino Community which states that, "according to a Pew research poll Latino people are the 2nd most discriminated against ethnic group after African-Americans”.

          I took these reasons and added them to my work of art using pen, paper and color pencil to create a simple yet concrete image of what America seems to be doing or attempting to do to Latin America. Which is mixing in together all of Latin America and labeling it as a bunch of stereotypes, that may if anything apply to only a smaller percentage of people within the whole Latin America group. Comments such as Trump's are what create this feeling of wanting to rid America of Latinos or immigrants or people considered to be outsiders, when in fact we all belong here. And what really is an American? At this point we are all a mix of something whether it be religion, race, or dare I say sexuality preferences.

        And as we progress into the future it is evident that social media is one of the many things that have started to take over, and therefore I would like my idea and drawing to be what helps stop the spread of Latino stereotyping and labeling. This way perhaps all of these same thoughts throughout the internet may join and cause a big change, and I hope people not only see how diminishing and oppressing this can be to someone that is thought to be only a certain way without having the opportunities to show that their being isn't based solely on their ethnicity or the actions of minorities.

Blog Post# 7/8

Original-Concrete Butterfly love fatigue fantasy:

Nobody ever suspects the butterfly...
They see things as they are, they are concrete thinkers. .... 
Some ISTPs may stop caring for love altogether if they were hurt ... 
They get energized by it and can even work themselves into fatigue, but the fatigue is generally satisfying.

Chapter One: When Hearts Are Large My love, when we first set sail and pushed ....
There are butterflies alive in that couple's eyes a few years since forgotten by all, .....
dying scared me, I wanted to be brave enough to engage in the fantasy.
Missing: concrete

We have seen children totally change as they acquire a love for things and as .... 
to be serious about two fundamental things … 
the first is the love of activity… ......
the interruption, produces an unpleasant sensation which is identical to fatigue.

Missing: concrete butterfly fantasy

My love is not dead: Growing in the lands of the evermore......
 a rusting on a mellow-ship phase. 
but of rivers dancing wild about a tired curb of wall and disregard...

Missing: concrete fantasy
... Butterflies may represent beautiful and tempting women;...

After a few moments of silence, a butterfly from behind the curtain darted .... 
let fatigue take me, 
hearing the shouts of help on the way in the distance.

... Concrete jungle where dreams are made, oh, .....Fatigue numbs my appetite,.... 
"I could feel it a bit in my knees when I bent down to collect butterflies this morning.

The most beautiful-sounding English word? ... Renaissance.
I love words that sound or looks so innocent yet have a bold meaning. ......
Turn the same sounds into a fantasy name.
I do not like ... Butterfly….it sounds good and brings about lovely imagery in the mind.
Reply ......
I think “fatigue” is the best sounding word in the English language.

Translated into 10 languages (Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Spanish, Russian, Greek, Portuguese, Latin, Swedish and back to English):

All this seems to see ......
asked butterfly. To work itself ....
But if you take advantage of the completion of the inward, allowing them provisions ISTP ... some Now it's possible to hear, he is tired question of satisfaction mercy of our compassionate.

First of all, forget about the head of the dead from the heart, because I was afraid ......
I love it that the imagination was a powerful encouragement, ...
Glory to the wildest two full years I want to be at life.

Missing: Concrete

But what is man, because love is really changed, you see, is such love rector of the serious troubles of things ... .... ...... ... ... for the first time and fatigue.

Missing Person: A butterfly Feifei

I prefer not to die, and you can grow and incomes...... Rust and bot software.
However, the road leaves the river and dancing tired, restless, wall ...

Fantasy lacked concrete

... Butterflies can be beautiful and seductive woman. ...

After a while he had silenced the cries of a variety of butterfly ....
because, since then, is it legal for tired.

The meaning of the dream vacation is slow to feel tired ah ...... ..... ... for my taste, but stooped down, and the Stone Forest to collect butterflies "I'm on my knees, you can feel in the morning .

The most beautiful word in the English language are moved?
... Played.
I feel stronger or less will just love his voice. ...... In the same tone of a fancy name.
You will have a good sound ... ....... as a butterfly, and the image of our hearts. ......
The answer, I think the word "fatigue" English higher profile.

Creativity Project #1

For this project I choose to create a collage using the works of art i created in high school art class. Reason being because a part of me is made up of my love for art and because my works of art big or small contain a fragment or big piece of me, in one work of art in particular was made from the emotions I had towards the subject of my artwork which is my dog,Hershey. At the time he lived with my grandmother in Mexico and i saw him for maybe a month or so a year. And not only do i love most animals but I also love nature(except insects,arachnids or snakes) so i decided to incorporate them in the art piece i made since it reminded me of Mexico in a personal way. Shortly after he was given away for certain reasons and in a sense the feeling i had to make it dedicated to him was right, which is why i feel more especially attached to the artwork. My other works of art also had emotions and hard work but were made in a totally different perspective than the one of my dog. Such as the collage i titled as “fear” includes what i believe in a sense or what i imagine to be in the dark, both maybe figuratively and literally. I decided to show what i feel, which i believe is the side to me no one gets to see and in the center of everything is what everybody perceives,which the fact that it’s in black and white helps show that that’s not the full version of me and that art brings out some of my inner colors that paints my world and helps create who i am. Stuart Hall talks about stereotypes and how images can show, spread and in a way immortalize the ideas. My collage doesn’t use the place I'm from as a way to show who i am,because although my parents are from Mexico, meaning i am Mexican-American,and am not ashamed of it,i decide to give other things the spotlight to show who i am and what makes me. Because I am more than just a place.

Museum Essay #2

African Head, 1988

The Hit, 1995

  Dear Rodriguez Calero,

I think your work of art is very interesting and unique. The combination of materials you used were so unique it become a new form of style. The use of collages, prints and photographs create the mixed media, acrollage. Why did you decide to mix these? Do they represent anything to you? Was it to invoke the same emotion your pieces of art do? Because i feel if so, the combination of both the medium and the subject can make the viewer feel confusion, curiosity, or make them become deep in thought trying to figure out your point of view or what it may mean to them. How was the process to create these pieces and did it take many attempts to get the pieces of paper to the shape you wanted and needed? Because the way the paper is cut and arranged on top of another piece seems very precise. For example, “The hit” piece seems to be arranged in a specific way that shows the woman’s face in the magazine cut out, as well as the “African Head” which seems to show a face on the patterned paper. Was this on purpose to show creativity? What were your ideas and motivations? What were you trying to convey and explain to the public? I can see that your inspiration came from religious beliefs, and societal beliefs. Was this made to unite the two biggest things that seem to be governing our society? Was it to show how these things are capable of controlling people’s emotions and actions? I believe it shows great depth and outlook on what makes people in society run. I think you may have created these to show what people see and believe is good or right based on what they’ve been shown. I think you are trying to show the connection of an ‘african’ person to the wild, because of the leopard print and that this is what people may see when referring to african people,or maybe to just Africa. Also, i think “The Hit” shows what people consider to be a hit or something worthy of being on a magazine cover,such as the woman. What i wonder about your intentions is about the way you cut up the head shapes. Do you purposely create the cut outs with puckering lips or is this the way you believe the head looks like? I am very intrigued to know.And I hope you are well.

Sincerely,Katia

Blog Post #5/6

TITLE: Miniature Versions of Mexican Kitchen Items
ARTIST(S): Mostly unknown, except for the palm woven fan,which was made by Nemesio Aguirre 
DATE: Unknown
LOCATION: Mexico
MEDIUM: Clay, Stone, wood, Jícaro fruit, palm, and Metal
SOURCE: Mexico

I selected these items because i believe they wouldn't be found in a museum,mostly because they are miniature replicas of  the ones that are used. But also,they hold cultural, aesthetic, and personal value. These represent what would be found in traditional Mexican households. Granted neither I nor my family dress in traditional Mexican clothes but other than that my grandmother and mother's house is pretty traditional. So I've interacted with all of the life size versions of these,for example the grinder (molinillo) is the long wooden wish used to stir and create froth in hot beverages by holding it in between your palms and rubbing the palms together to get it to rotate. There can also be seen a rectangular looking stone with a cylindrical stone right beneath it at the right of these pictures that are referred as a milling stone and hand held stone (metate and mano) which is used to grind things such as corn mostly. Also there is a mini version of a  stone mortar and pestle (molcajete and tejolote) also used to grind spices but in our case, mostly salsa making. Another,older version of a mortar can be seen to the left of the stone one and it is made out of clay. There is also a metal tortilla press (tortillera) which as the name suggests helps make tortillas. And lastly the remaining clay items are a pot and a casserole (cazuela). The reason i decided to add the mexican spanish names of these is because that is also what helps show the culture behind these better,since many other places have things similar to these but are named differently. The way these items can hold aesthetic value is better shown in the jícara and the pitcher because of the designs. These also hold personal value because they were gifted to me,for example the jícara, which is the red bowl, was from my grandmother and the hand woven palm fan was made by my mom's uncle,Nemesio. And the rest were brought from Mexico by my mom years ago. What I believe is important for the viewers to know is that even though these seem very cute and simple trinkets or souvenirs for outsiders,they are actually filled with history and purpose and maybe even sentimental value if they are hand made and gifted. And that these would not be found in the museum since they are seen as recent and not from decades or centuries ago. But that they hold as much value and cultural value as other forms of art

Museum Essay

Unknown Artist                                                  Franz Marc
Marble Statue of a Lion,ca.400-390 B.C          Fighting Cows,1911
Marble,Parian 2                                                 Oil on Canvas

      In the Metropolitan museum of Art I saw many forms of art that I thought to be very beautiful and intriguing but these two,the Marble Statue of a Lion and Fighting cows captivated me the most. They both depict animals as their subjects,which I love, and they also show the animals in a way that makes it better and maybe even refreshing to see. The way the artist re-creates the animal in their artwork is what makes it even more special than the ways the other artists around the museum because it is in their point of view. Although the two pieces of art I choose seem polar opposites, one being a painting while the other being a sculpture and one being really colorful while the other simply being one color,they both share something in common. And I believe that that is the way they were depicted. For example when I saw the lion for the first time, I got the impression of it being more like a playful dog than it being in an attack stance. I get this feeling by the way it seems to be happy and smiling and it raising its rear in the air which can't be an attacking stance since lions crouch to hide from their prey and it helps them sprint faster and higher. Plus dogs raise their rears in such a way that shows they are in a playful mood. And showing that the artist creates this in an out of the box view of a lion and in his own way.
       Also, just like in the sculpture,the painting seems to show the animal doing something out of the ordinary. And I'm not referring to fact that cows are fighting,because that is very normal since they do so for territorial reasons and was even made into a Swiss event in the
1920s.But as i said the artist re-creates the image of the animal in a way they see it, and Franz did just that using colors to represent emotions such as spirituality and maleness to blue, femininity and sensuality to yellow, and terrestrial materiality to red. So in a way it can be said that the fact that the cows are depicted as an unrealistic color would make it an out of the box work of art but it is also the fact that he gives it meaning and creates something that seems fantasy such as the sculptor for the lion which also made the lion seem fictional by giving it a dog like look. And overall both seem to represent stylized forms of artwork which I believe they are in the museum for, as well as the emotions they invoke and the way they were made and the ideas behind them. Whenever I see such artworks in the museums that have huge gaps in time I feel amazed and at the same time surprised at how many differences and similarities they all seem to have no matter what,because they are forms of art and ways of expression.

Blog Post #4

This 10 3/8 x 13 3/4 in. oil on canvas by Eliphalet Fraser Andrews portrays a Woman Seated in a  Garden as the title says, and it can be found in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. I believe this artwork is realistic but i also think it has a hint of being stylized, because although it makes actual reference to the human form such as including the slouching while she sits,and the appearance of not being aware of the painter therefore meaning the female isn't portrayed in an extravagant or intricate pose such as women would be in idealized works. But it also doesn't show her face or the rest in much detail,just shapes,colors and shading. Meaning it is also stylized. But the work of art mostly shows the reality of it by depicting a woman that seems to have been working in her garden and is sitting to contemplate and to rest. This is obvious by the apron she seems to be wearing and the slouching in her way of sitting representing fatigue. Also her hairdo shows that she was working because of the way she picked it up so it wouldn't be in her way. Unlike many idealized artworks of women depicting them with long loose flowing hair and clothes or occasionally no clothes to define the feminine figure this woman has her hair tight in a bun and loose fitting clothes that doesn't really define her body further demonstrating the realism in this painting.

Blog Post #3

     Art is everywhere we look mostly because many see art in different ways, hence what we see as expressive and/or beautiful others may simply not. But I'd like to share what i saw just this Sunday while standing outside the church i go to, eating my bagel i look up and see what i think to be the most beautiful and artistic view. 

I title this 'sunshine'. In this i see a lot of complementary colors for example the blue and yellow so close together and the red dividing the green trees. As well as analogous colors such as the light blue and dark green. This scene just created an impressive image in my head and left me in awe. This picture couldn't fully capture the image i had witnessed because it isn't as bright as i had seen it and the resolution isn't quite as clear. Also the arrow the building has seems to create a better guidance to directing the eye upwards toward the sky. The reason i named it sunshine even though there wasn't much sun light was because of the yellow building making it feel sunny and cheery. The way i can describe it is as if we are imprisioned between buildings as if they were the walls keeping us from nature and looking up gives is a way of remembering the beauty hidden by the walls the buildings create. And lastly the idea that slowly we can see less of it because of the industries and corporations wanting to expand plus of the human waste we create and carelessly throw about gives this picture an even deeper and sense of beauty to me.

Blog Post #2

  I decided to search the Met website for a french revolution type of artwork i had seen about 2 years ago at the Met but i came across one that kind of revolved around the same theme but it caught my attention because i thought it has beautiful lighting. The oil on canvas is titled 'Louis-Marie, Vicomte de Noailles' by american artist Gilbert Stuart. In this artwork the one can plainly see the element of value. The artist chooses to create a frame around Noaillies by having the edges of the artwork be darker and therefore guiding the on looker to start of by seeing whats' on the middle ground of the scene and then having the eyes go from the lower right all around towards the upper right where it gets lighter so it can allow the viewer to drift off easily off the canvas. Also using the light areas the artist draws even more attention. For example the area around Noaillies feet is a much lighter color than the rest of the ground where they stand giving Noaillies a literal spotlight and therefore exalting and proving him to be the main subject. Also the white horse help direct the attention of the dark which mostly surrounds Noaillies. My interpretation of the artwork is that Noailles is a powerful war leader with class and finesse and very intellectual. It also appears as if he had recently finished or is begining some sort of battle and he stands brave,triumphant and unscathed.

Blog Post #1

I see art around me when i go to Socrates Sculpture park. When I'm there i see sculptures done by various artists that can freely express their ideas and it's a free exhibition for anyone that passes by. The sizes can vary, but usually larger than 5 feet. A couple of the sculptures are interact able such as bridges planted in the middle of the park or such as a sculpture containing jungle bars, an obstacle with tires, a crawl under nets and hurdles made to resemble an obstacle race. The size of this sculpture as stated by the picture next to the picture of the sculpture , is 30' x 30' x 30'. The color is Green because of the pyramid and the plants used to create "The Living Pyramid". I think the artists created this to demonstrate the extra-ordinary version of the ordinary in everyday life. And to exalt the beauty of nature and its importance as seen through the idea of placing it on a pyramid

Intro

     Hi my name is Katia Guerrero, I am 18 years old,and a freshman at LaGuardia community college. I was born and raised in New York and even though my Father is naturalized and my mother is a resident they are both from Mexico. 2 or out many things i like to do, is to listen to music and to draw. I have many favorite foods and one of many would be Okonomiyaki, (this is a Japanese pancake that consists of a variety of ingredients with seafood. The word derives from okonomi that means "what you like" or "what you want" and yaki meaning "cooked" or "grilled".) Which can be partly seen at the lower right of the picture.