Month: October 2016

Part 1:  Alumni presentation

Matt Lankes has forged an enviable professional business for himself in Austin and portrays what life can be like after graduation. His portfolio is impressive and his portraits are very well executed. How he uses a non-traditional camera and utilizes polaroids is very intriguing and I admire his work. His portraits that explore photography throughout the decades and his portraits from Peru were very powerful.

Part 2:

3 potential internships that I am interested in

http://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=e21e54144ce968d3&qd=RBZuPfoFxIcXlVcIhIcmZYGmp8hyLeAz2bxWWBOHzFFXiZXUB3_XuF2Nikcz2SjyhKlxWyYzcRCkMD3wQdUFACPZA5urJxzG9P0NNPWkKgI40X9RqMmoWy146cYiCabl&atk=1b0e66rfdagf8bv2&jsa=8074&inchal=apiresults&utm_source=publisher&utm_medium=organic_listings&utm_campaign=affiliate

http://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=b6370defb46bf1fc&qd=RBZuPfoFxIcXlVcIhIcmZYGmp8hyLeAz2bxWWBOHzFFXiZXUB3_XuF2Nikcz2SjyhKlxWyYzcRCkMD3wQdUFACPZA5urJxzG9P0NNPWkKgI40X9RqMmoWy146cYiCabl&atk=1b0e66rfdagf8bv2&jsa=8074&inchal=apiresults&utm_source=publisher&utm_medium=organic_listings&utm_campaign=affiliate

http://www.internships.com/fashion/Brandon-Maxwell-Fall-2016-Internship

 

My sequence sketches are very rough and are meant as drafting for what I might want to compose as my sequence book. The idea I have is to pick a location, in this case I would pick St Edwards or another location, and then I would take pictures if the same location or aspects if the location at different times of the day. After this I want to put them into a sequence as the time progresses and then cut out the sky/backgrounds in the pictures to reveal the sky from a different time of day contrasting with the cut picture of the previous time. In my book of sketches I used the skyline seen from St Edwards as an example of the progressions of time during the day, and I cut out a real picture of the skyline in the day to contrast with the sky of a sunset. In my mock book I displayed ideas of the sequence I would like to portray. I want to utilize time and backgrounds and foregrounds in my sequence book.

Roel Martinez was very helpful in presenting how registration functions and how advising will help students determine where they want to go in their school and future career.

Meghan Ryan discussed study abroad options and was very persuasive in influencing students to try studying abroad. She displayed how St Edwards makes it easy for students to study abroad and her presentation was helpful.

Ysenia Valdez’s presentation for Cabra showed how many jobs of artistic expression are produced by this school magazine. I liked the fact that Cabra allows students to express themselves no matter their major.

The Command G presentation was intriguing. I think it is awesome how they use graphic design to help the school and they participate digital design activities.

Although Brittany Fucik didn’t have a visual presentation I was still intrigued to join Art Club. I am a visual art major and would love to help the art club get started again.

1. My future is not very planned but I know I would like to incorporate art into my career and into the rest of my life. My future is it customized to to me in terms of how I would like to use my skills in design within my career in the future. My college career is pretty much pans due to my major requirements and meting with my advisor.
2. If I could travel abroad I would either go to France or Italy because I think the locations are beautiful and they have good art communities. I would probably take general education courses in those countries though.
3. I am not part of a student group yet, but I would like to join Cabra and Art Club. I would like to see more artistically expressive extra-curricular activities.

The film, Momento, was a very interesting movie that you definitely have to pay attention to because it consistently jumps around through the time of the story. The movie shows a man, named Leonard, who has extreme short term memory loss and is looking for the man/men who raped and killed his wife.  Leonard wants to get revenge for what they did to his brain and to his wife. Leonard can’t make new memories so he writes down and tattoos himself with notes that are important to his memory. On his journey for revenge people take advantage of his memory loss, such as the hotel manager and Natalie. The movie starts out with Leonard killing Teddy, the man in the movie who is trying to help him find the men who killed his wife and we later find out the truth as to why he killed Teddy in a plot to just satisfy his need to get revenge on a never ending chase within false memories. I became shocked when it was revealed that, in reality, Leonard’s wife survived the attack and was actually the woman he recalled to be the wife of another man who, due to his lack of memory, ended up killing his wife with excess dosages of insulin. Leonard kept recalling on this story thinking it was a man named Sammy who did this, but in reality it was him all along.  This movie kept me on my toes, but also began to confuse me, as even at the end I didn’t know who to trust or believe. I felt as if I was putting together a puzzle but I pieces of the puzzle were arranged in a different order than normal. The sequence of this movie enhanced the stories mystery and created an underlying sense of discontinuity that would be resolved at the end. The transitions and aesthetic choices of this film were interesting and made the film unique in the way the story was portrayed. The sequence of this film makes you make assumptions about the characters that you don’t really know the background about and your opinion on each character changes throughout the movie. This movie makes one think about justice and revenge in a new way, as Leonard is not able to even remember the crime to its full extent. As Leonard struggles to piece his life back together you don’t know who to believe and that is the beauty to this movie. The movie puts you into the shoes of Leonard and you never know where loyalties lie. Overall this movie and its mind teasing sequence were very intriguing and I appreciated the cinematography.

Alumni Presentations Review

Abbas Deidehban: The presentation was a little hard to understand at points due to the Skype, but viewing his work and how he got to where he was intrigued me. How he marketed himself to make it to New York was interesting. His current success was stimulated by his past hard work and determination, which I admire.

Camille Dollins: The presentation was well done and I got a good view of her work throughout the years and what she currently does. I admired her senior project and thought it was very innovative and immensely well crafted. It was a well developed idea to form all of those non-medical products that help alleviate stress and anxiety. How she correlated her art pieces into the coloring books she made was very unique and also how she produced every aspect of the box was impressive.

1. I related to both Abbas Deidehban and Camille Dollins because they both have a passion for design and to expand there skills and where there skills are applied?
2. Camille surprised me in terms of her current profession because I was impressed by how she took her senior project and made it into a business that led her to apply for the company she currently works for.
3. The most valuable piece of advice I heard was to market yourself as much as you can to build your portfolio, and be open minded about what comes your way.

Hybrid Collages:

With these collages I played with  aspects of color inversion, layering, and selection in photoshop. I love mixing elements of a facial structure along side many different elements that contrast with it. I like to experiment with the integration of different aspects of the photographs to create a unique composition. I am happy with the aesthetic of these collages and how I have learned to let go of perfection and make a composition that is disorganized but functional.

Scans:

Skills Inventory

1. My greatest strengths in Clay include: Pre-designing and Rolling Coils.
2. For greater success in this course, I need to: Learn how to work with clay and enjoy it more. I am not very good at the building process of clay.

1. My greatest strengths in Disability Studies include: Listening to the lectures and discussions and analyzing the readings.
2. For greater success in this course, I need to: Get better at reading the material the way the professor wants me to and studying for the quizzes.

1. My greatest strengths in Visual Studies include: Using my surroundings to build on the assignments given and formulate art pieces that represent my exploration as an artist.
2. For greater success in this course, I need to: Explore more unifying themes in my art series and try and use the gestalt principles better.

Computer skills:

1. My computer skills include: Navigating the Web, Photoshop, Illustrator, Microsoft Word, Prezi, Microsoft Power Point, and all of Google computer apps (docs, slides, etc.)
2. I still need to learn: all of the computer shortcuts and how to navigate certain softwares properly.

Research & writing skills:

1. My greatest strengths as a researcher/writer include: Using my resources to better inform myself about my subject and having a good flow when writing papers.
2. I need to work on these aspects of research and writing: I  need to work on my grammar skills and my usage of words when writing. I must expand my vocabulary and research sources.
3. I learn best & accomplish most when: I communicate with a group and my professor and research my topic before I begin to transfer my thoughts onto the paper.

ACTION PLAN

Struggling with: Disabled Bodies at the Edge of Justice
10 ways I could improve my performance in this class:

1. Come accustom to how the professor prepares his quizzes
2. Highlight while reading
3. Take notes while reading
4. Read sections in advance
5. Do extra credit
6. Form study groups
7. Make sample questions for tests and quizzes
8. Go to office hours
9. Re-read sections of readings
10. Email when I have questions and ask professor questions

These digital collages are composed of photographs I took on South Congress along with portraits I took of my friend who was visiting from Dallas. I wanted to compose collages that contrast with each other and experiment with form and layering. There are themes of nature and mechanics within these collages and I continuously digitally cut into these images to layer them in a way that formulates a sense of complex unity. I was intrigued by how a full composition can be composed from fragments of a myriad of other images. I used similar color tones and subject matter to create my collages and even though they seem chaotic there is an underlying sense of balance.

In my Clay 1 studio class, we have yet to fully finish a project, since clay is very intricate and requires tedious work.

Although, in my Visual Studies course we recently finished a photography project pertaining to Gestalt principles. This was apart of my series of photos:

Part 1

1. The goal of the assignment was to harness Gestalt Principles and develop a main subject matter when taking pictures on South Congress.
2. I went about reaching this goal by first taking an abundance of pictures of things that intrigued me, then narrowing down my focus. I was interested in the mechanics of South Congress and ended up taking close up shots of different auto parts at different angles to highlight on the Gestalt principle of closure.

Part 2

1. The strongest aspect of this work is the structure and movement of the images. With a myriad of lines, curvature, form, and repetition, the photos create an intricate balance that is unified within the mechanical complexity of the pieces.
2. The weakest aspect of this work is its lack of a focal subject point. The images lead your eye in all different directions and do not specifically lead the viewer to observe the subject matter as a whole with a focused viewpoint.
3. The project could be strengthened conceptually by depicting a stronger meaning behind the photos. The photos seem more formalist than conceptual, but I wanted to depict man’s creation of mechanics and our dependence on the innovative complex mechanisms of society.
4. The project could have been strengthened technically through using a better camera than my iPhone to catch more detail of the structure of the mechanisms.
5. These photos exemplify the gestalt principle of closure through the photos being incomplete and the necessity for the viewer to perceive what the image is based on filling in missing information.

These hand made collages are composed of aspects of south congress. The first collage was formulated from the cool tones of the sky and reflections from south congress windows. The second collage was created with a photographical combination of mechanical aspects of south congress. The last collage is made of pictures of nature on south congress. Each one of these depicts color schemes and forms that appeal to me within the inspiration of south congress’s local color.