Month: September 2017

Diane Arbus
Albino Sword Swallower at a Carnival

A Young Waitress at a Nudist Camp

Fat Man at Carnival

Stripper with bare breasts sitting in her dressing room

Diane Arbus is absolutely phenomenal. She had such a beautiful way of looking into the lives of people that we never get to see. She did so much work with people in the circus, people with abnormalities, and people in the nude. She was able to get in and photograph people when they were in such vulnerable states which I highly admire. This must have taken her being vulnerable as well. Her photographs provoke such emotion and are known to be very provocative, possibly scaring off some people who look at her photographs. She started off in fashion photography with her husband in New York and ended up finding her way to the work she did later on which is far outside of those realms. I also love her work with the twins and other photographs of people being their true selves. Having found myself drawn to more unique people and this type of photography, I really look up to Diane Arbus. However, her work eventually caught up with her when she ended her life.

McGrain_slideshow-2a4ntbv

When analyzing my schedule, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really get a lot of sleep. I never stay up past 12am and I usually get up around 7:30am or 8:30am. This means I spend a good majority of my time on sleep which keeps me rested and able to carry on the next day. I am in 16 hours of classes which is a heavy load but I end up doing only about 10 hours of homework with a few hours of lab time or shooting time for my artsy-fartsy classes. I spend an hour or two a day unwinding with TV but that all depends on how much homework I have done. I try to keep a balanced life to where I am never stressed out at school. Getting ahead and doing homework early is also another way I get ahead.

Here are some pictures from when I first started documenting my travels with a camera. The first set of pictures is from a trip I took to Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Kenya. I was taken away by the beautiful people and animals I saw on the trip. The second group of pictures was from when I went to Peru again with my dad’s charity. Some of the pictures are of my siblings. Other pictures are of some children at a school that my dad was going to rebuild. Throughout them all, we had no common language but I managed to see part of their lives and connect with them through a photograph.

 

 

 

 

1. What are the main points of each article?
   1. Article 1 is about what makes up an artist and how they are entrepreneurs and inventors and think about things in a different way than non-artists do.
   2. Article 2 is about the similarities between entrepreneurs and artist and ow they learn and share in the same way.
2. What can artists learn from their “entrepreneurial cousins”?
   1. How to build a network around them of supportive people who help their career and motivate them.
3. Do you agree that artists are entrepreneurs? why?
   1. I do because they are always trying to sell their art and get people to believe in it. Creative ideas are able to make a lot of money too if people are willing to sell it.
4. Which of the 12 characteristics of artists do you agree with?
   1. Artist are humans, artists are craftspeople, artist are like children, artists are comfortable with their ambiguity, artists thrive under constraints, artists are passionate about their work
5. What others would you add to the list?
   1. Artist are weird
6. Additional thoughts.

GRIT: 3.25 out of 5

1. Do you have grit, or is this something you need to work on?
   1. I need to work on it. I have a hard time staying with things that last a long time.
2. List a couple of things you could do to increase your level of grit.
   1. Work on my patience, following through, set more goals to work towards.

Are these images or is there any video? Are these forms in nature? Are the pictures of chemicals? What was the reason behind there being no audio? What are the white dots? Why did it not keep a steady pace and drag out certain photos? What does it represent? How did he create this?

What was the creative inspiration behind this video? I had a constant flow of questions throughout Stellar. I think I feel more confused that I did before the video. I wonder how he made these colorful images and at what pace he thought it would be a good idea to show it. Is it actually trying to represent something “stellar” or is it a representation of something unrelated to space? Could it be a video about space and time? All I have is questions and more questions.

Kiwanuka’s break down of his experience writing his music is very interesting. He talks about how he didn’t think people would like the content and how he didn’t think he had it in him to create more after his first album. I found his lack of full confidence in himself to be probably quite normal.

I think for Kiwanuka, the possibilities were endless. He was motivated and patient by letting things sit on the backburner until he was ready to come back to them. By putting himself on the line and pushing the boundaries of what he believed was going to be accepted, he ended up extremely successful. With his song Black Man in a White World, he felt creatively stumped for about a year. He kept bringing in people to give ideas and one professional lady gave him a chance. This possibility to grow his song and finish it gave him much attention. For him, these possibilities that he took hold of were a chance for him to grow and become successful.

Creativity. I think some of this comes from your background. This shapes who you are and what you do. Some of it can be inherent like Amy Tan talked about. She talked about her creativity as a child. How her art abilities were advanced for her age. However, I found her circumstances to be the most interesting way it shaped her life. Her brother’s and father’s death seemed to have shaped her outlook on creativity and chance. It made her see things more as having a purpose than trying to figure out exactly why things happened, like her mother (who never found the answer).

She talked extensively about her inspiration for books and how she found creativity. I found it to be very interesting how she something would happen in her life and something so coincidental would follow. It was almost like it was her grandmother’s ghost, like she said. I think creativity comes from a deep place of knowledge and interest of the unknown at the same time. I think with Amy’s TED Talk she encompassed both of those things.

 

Design is about something changing or having a new perspective. This first took on form with the club as a weapon and the hands being used as a vessel. This was the first example of design taking its form. Could is really be that simple when it comes down to it? I always thought design was this grand and sensual thing. I had seen so many TED talks on design and what it means that I feel like my head might explode. However, with the beginning of today’s modern society, it moved from being something that was complex to something that was free to take whatever form. Economics has had a huge impact on design around the world. One example that was brought up was Japan after the war. They used design to pull themselves out of a terrible situation.

Design has no bounds. It take no specific form. It can be what you make it out to be. Design is not about big elaborate pieces but instead about the everyday objects around us that were birthed from design. Design is about asking questions.

 

 

Meaning is the new money. That was my favorite part of this reading. I had always been taught that I should follow my dreams and do big things and do what will make me happy one day! But as my parents also taught me, I needed to find a job that makes me money too. How is it that they made it would like money and my happiness were going to be in two separate boats? But I had to choose the one that made me money or I was going to be a struggling artist like my older sister, said my dad. It was drilled into my head that “artist” or “artistic career” and “money” were not correlated. It has brought much fear into my life, this belief. I swore I would not get a degree in something artsy like my sister. Look at me now.

This reading realy brought together the fact that creatives are everywhere and they ARE successful. They don’t always fit into this box of who I paint them out to be: painters, photographers, drawers. They are in many different career positions and ones that make money at that! Who knew? I surely didn’t. Can I follow my passion and have a job that brings me joy and helps me grow creatively? Yes. And those types of people are actually being sought after by different industries. Design and creativity are essential ways of making a product or industry unique in an age where things are faster, more technological, and cheaper.