Make-Up Blog Post: Blog Post #10

“Marchesa designers Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig like to filter their vision of femininity through a rose-tinted lens,” writes Chioma Nnadi for Vogue. “Their brand of unapologetically frothy, more-is-more eveningwear is planted in the realm of Disney princess fantasy…”

Women’s Wear Daily writes, “[Chapman and Craig] have successfully mixed a potion of fluffy, ultrafeminine confections,” and NOWFASHION described the show as “a fairytale-like daydream.”

“The overarching inspiration for the [Spring 2017] collection started with sunrise, and the colors that appear in the sky from dusk to dawn; a paint box of lilac, light blue, and blush pink that was touched at times with an iridescent finish,” Nnadi explains. Women’s Wear Daily describes it as “a palette that celebrates light – from sunrise to midnight.”

Because of the spectral nature of this collection, I’ve included my thoughts at the end, so that the pieces can be viewed in sequence.
























I think this collection is just incredible. When looked at as slices of the sky, each dress instantly transports you to a certain time of day. The gentle pink hues of dawn. The pure, powdery blue of the early morning. Iridescent, ethereal, baby-soft colors of the sunrise you wake up hours early to witness. Bright, shimmering silver of the middle of the day; rich purples, pinks, and golds of magic hour; and the blinding brightness of the sun that hits you in the face when you’re trying to drive home (you know what I’m talking about). Deep black mixing with gold as the sun is setting. The dusty blue shades of late evening. Mystical, shimmery colors of twilight. Pure, velvet night. The beautiful, silvery pastels the moon casts on the clouds it hides behind. Chapman and Craig have beautifully captured light and woven it into magical gowns. There’s a short story I love, “The Color Master” by Aimee Bender. In it, the Color Master is a woman who is able to put the essence of natural elements into clothing. A princess asks her studio to make her dresses the color of the moon, the sun, and finally, the sky: an arduous, almost impossible task. If you told me that Marchesa had managed to do just that, I would almost believe it.

All images from Marchesa Spring 2017.

Make-up Blog Post: Blog Post #9

In my last post, I talked about digital artist Carl Burton. This time I’m talking about another artist who also works with gifs, but with a completely different feel.

Keep Going 2.0 (start again)

Robertson is an Australian pixel artist whose work is not limited to one medium. He has worked on projects such as Scott Pilgrim vs. the WorldGravity Falls, and an opening sequence for The Simpsons. He’s also done the art for a huge number of video games, most recently Mercenary Kings.

“Whenever I make a piece I always try to make something that I’d want to look at,” he told an interviewer for The Verge. “I just like ridiculous and extreme things, so that’s what I try to create. I always try to push my art as far as it can go.”

He also admitted that “I don’t think I have a particularly special style, there are loads of pixel artists more skilled than me. My stuff is largely inspired by video games and pop culture so there’s already a big crossover audience that can relate to it.”

ghostbusters

pokemon tower

He self-describes his work on his Patreon page: “Sometime’s it’s cute, sometimes cosmic and psychedelic, and sometimes weird nightmareish stuff. Whatever it is I always try to make it as awesome as I can.”

God Bug

together

nightmare friends

the forever city

All images by Paul Robertson.

Make-up Blog Post: Blog Post #8

Digital artist Carl Burton works in a somewhat unconventional medium: gifs. His work can be political, surreal, mundane – but no matter what, they are always monochromatic, perfectly looped works of art.

“Carl Burton’s beautiful sci-fi GIFs are from another world,” writes The Verge.

In addition to personal work, Burton has contributed illustrations for various other projects, including the second season of the podcast Serial.

Whitney Dangerfield, who worked with Burton to produce the artwork for the podcast, writes “his illustrations [evoke] mystery and ambiguity…”

According to Colossal, Burton uses Cinema 4D, Photoshop, and After Effects to produce his animated pieces of art.

Dangerfield explains that Burton casts his gifs in a variety of different colors before deciding on the final product. Sometimes he recolors and reposts them later.

Burton’s work has an incredible ability to transport the viewer into a different time and space, sometimes real and sometimes fictional. To me, his gifs feel peaceful and serene, even while they are slightly unsettling.

All images by Carl Burton.

Blog Post #7

I can really only comment on Camille’s presentation, as Abbas’ was impossible to understand due to technical problems.

Here are what I thought were her most valuable pieces of advice:

  • Do not double-major in two arts.
    • She was double-majoring in GDES and ARTS for two years and said it is WAY too much studio time to handle.
  • Don’t ever take an unpaid internship if you can help it.
    • She explained that as an unpaid intern, you feel like your work isn’t valued – even though it definitely is.
  • The Student Life office has a lot of graphic design opportunities.
    • Self-explanatory really, but good to take note of.
  • “Don’t ever tell anyone that you can do something in 48 hours.”
    • I loved this. It’s super practical, and really good advice. It can be tempting to say ‘yes’ to everything someone asks of you when you’re starting out, because you want to build a good reputation for yourself, but it’s important not to make impossible promises.
  • “Don’t let clients into your creative process.”
    • They will nitpick and try to control everything, and probably change their minds every five minutes.
  • “If somebody reaches out to you, you should probably take something else [because] they’re probably really desperate.”
    • I thought this was really interesting. It’s not something I would have realized on my own, but is probably really valuable advice and worth listening to.

Blog Post #6

Classes

ENGW 1302
Strengths: writing, commenting in class, research skills
Weaknesses: deadlines

PHCO 1318
Strengths: I like to think I’m pretty good with composition and such
Weaknesses: time management with shooting & photo lab

MATH 2312
Strengths: staying ahead on homework, spending time in the math lab, test-taking
Weaknesses: listening in class

SPAN 1311
Strengths: staying ahead on homework, studying, quizzes
Weaknesses: attendance

VISU 1100
Strengths: active listening
Weaknesses: procrastinating on blog posts
 

Computer skills

  1. My computer skills include: Microsoft Office, Google Documents & Sheets, Dropbox, Mac OS, Lightroom, and a bunch of other stuff…
  2. I still need to learn: more Photoshop & InDesign skills, and I’d like to learn some programming (HTML, CSS, and other languages such as Java or Python)

 

Research & writing skills

  1. My greatest strengths as a researcher/writer include: strong writing skills; excellent grammar; knowledge of how to write a “college-level” paper; good research skills, etc…
  2. I need to work on these aspects of research and writing: planning ahead of time in order to meet deadlines, such as planning extra steps like writing an outline
  3. I learn best & accomplish most when: I’m interested in what I’m studying

 

Action plan

PHCO 1318:

  1. firmly schedule times to shoot
  2. firmly schedule times to develop film & print
  3. do more (Pinterest) research before starting projects
  4. be on time to class every day
  5. somehow get my professor to lay out his accommodations policy
  6. and/or start a conversation with my professor and disabilities advisor
  7. do work well ahead of time
  8. stop having a disability? (jk)
  9. experiment more with the Leica
  10. spend more overall time in the photo lab

 

Make-up Post – Blog Post #5

In my PHCO class, we are required to give a presentation on a photographer in a few weeks. Out of a long list of allowed artists, I ended up choosing David Hilliard, and quickly fell in love with his work.

David Hilliard, Perennial. 2006.

 

He received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1992, where he actually began as a film student. Of his time in film school, he says in an interview for Slate, “My films were very static. I realized my favorite parts were the most mundane, when I would linger on an object, because I liked to stare at something rather than move through it. It was politely suggested that I was in the wrong department.”

Though he went on to study photography, rather than film, his works are often referred to as cinematic. In an article for A&U, he cites three influences: television, theater, and movies by directors such as Hitchcock and the Coen brothers. “Photography has a ‘magic’ related to but unique from that of cinema and stage,” he explains to The Harvard Crimson.

David Hilliard, Hope. 2008.

 

Hilliard uses large-format, 4×5 film cameras in creating his work. Though at first glance it may look as if he physically cuts his negatives to create his panoramic photographs, that’s not at all what’s going on. Each piece is actually made up of two or more separate photographs of the same scene, taken moments apart. This allows him to play with elements such as perspective, time, and subject matter. “When I was in college I made a triptych of my parents, the three of us having dinner together,” he says to Slate. “But my parents had been divorced for years and they would never be in the same room. … And in the end it was a truth, in that I wish it could’ve been that way, but it wasn’t.”

Jake Naughton writes for The New York Times‘ photography blog Lens, “Mr. Hilliard’s tableaux use the mechanics of his view camera to shift time, focus and viewing planes into sometimes jarring, yet strangely gratifying, combinations. ‘Depending on what the psychological moment is or how I feel about something, I want a lot of shifting,’ [Hilliard says]. ‘Boom, in your face. Boom, suddenly I’m back.'”

David Hilliard, Lather. 2010.

 

There are many recurring themes obvious in Hilliard’s work: aging, intimacy, family, adolescence, masculinity. However, what was most interesting to me is how I could tell almost immediately that Hilliard was not straight. This was confirmed by several articles about him, including the one in The Crimson, in which he said “it isn’t important that my work always be about that, but it is important that the audience knows that these images were made by the lenses of a gay man.”

David Hilliard, Game of Go. 2002.

 

What I did not realize outright was how influential the AIDS epidemic was on his work, about which the article in A&U goes into detail:

 

David Hilliard, Afterglow. 2014.

“I came of age pretty much smack dab in the epicenter of some of the darkest years of the AIDS epidemic,” he said in the interview. “I lost many friends to the virus, and I often think it’s a miracle I’m here today. The early 1980s are so polarized in my mind: the joy of freeing myself from an oppressive town, a cruel, homophobic step-father, and troubling societal expectations I didn’t fit into. Also, the sheer exhilaration of discovering my own queer identity and the often uncontrollable joy of sex with another man. All this empowering and wonderfully formative stuff colliding head-on with the AIDS epidemic and an often narrow-minded world. It was bad, and I know for a fact it had a profound impact on shaping my identity.”

 

David Hilliard, Never the Last Endeavor, detail. 1999.

He continued: “I consider myself a strong, openly gay man. I pride myself in making work about it. I’m also a teacher of photography, and am proud to tell my LGBT students to do the same, if that’s what they want to explore in their own work. Anyway, for all my personal empowerment, my identity in some ways is shaky, its foundation dug, poured, and set in the sad and uncertain, sandy soil of AIDS. It’s a kind of fear that will never go away. I wonder if young people today fully understand the feeling of holding someone in the fit of passion on the brink of orgasmic pleasure and at the same time wondering, fearing, what lies pumping beneath the skin that you’re holding. A person’s mind undergoes some intense compartmentalizing in those moments.” …

Moreover, Hilliard maintains the disease is always with him, stating in the interview: “AIDS is in my work, my life, my history.”

 


 

David Hilliard, Daybooks. 2009.

David Hilliard, Into Another Skin. 2012.

David Hilliard, Susie Floating. 2003.

David Hilliard, Lucky Coin. 1995.

 

 

Blog Post #4

Part 1

Faith – PHCO

Faith Robbins

Faith Robbins

The Good
I absolutely loved Faith’s work and found her really inspiring. I’ve also talked to her in the photo lab and know that she’s a kind and wonderful person. Her portfolio is cleanly and efficiently presented. The landing page is really beautiful and immediately gives you a feel for her work, and the navigation is just right. My favorite takeaway from her presentation was what she said about following her dreams – “whatever I want to do is okay, as long as I’m happy.”

第 7 。 ド い ッ を 要 を ゞ ( 一 イ ' を 養 、 ス

The Bad
Horizontal scrolling on portfolio websites isn’t my favorite thing (I used to have it on my own). It’s also looks the same as pretty much any other photography portfolio site, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but with so many photographers out there it can be good to stand out and show your personality a little.

 

Mary – GDES

The Good
Between her presentation and now, Mary seems to have overhauled her website. I have to say that it looks much better – it’s cleaner and more responsive. I liked her advice, such as to apply for internships early and join command-G.

The Bad
The website definitely still has faults, but this is just my personal opinion. The navigation menu only has two options, Resume and Portfolio, and could use more organization. It also bothers me that on the page for her piece Rules, she talks about the back of the poster, but only shows the front. Other than that, I think it would look much more professional if she bought a domain name, instead of using myportfolio.com.

 

Diana Martinez – ARTS

The Good
I really liked hearing from Diana, being a transfer student myself. She had some great insight into how to be a successful student, and I’m definitely taking her advice to heart.

screen-shot-2016-09-26-at-3-59-19-pm

Diana Martinez

The Bad
Her website is definitely not my favorite, but it’s also not meant to be a portfolio in the way that the previous two are. The only thing in the navigation is Sample Page. However, I’m certainly guilty of the same type of thing on this website (though I have an external online portfolio that is much better organized). In addition, the formatting is sometimes awkward, like in the example to the right.

 

John & Omar – IGST

The Good
I really enjoyed this presentation, even though it wasn’t relevant to my studies or interests. They seemed very passionate and friendly, and really wanted to share their experiences and advice with other IGST students. However…

The Bad
I was extremely distracted during their presentation, because the IGST students sitting around me were all playing games on Steam instead of paying any attention. This really frustrated me, because several IGST students have complained in class about it not being relevant to their major, and then they didn’t take advantage of the great resource that you guys brought in for them. It was really disrespectful and disappointing.

 

Part 2

Sean Klassen

screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-1-22-03-pm

Sean Klassen

I really like this portfolio site. It’s 100% responsive to any width, which is extremely important; it looks great in every size. I like that, in showing off app design, the mobile devices are subtly implied by simple shapes, rather than the usual realistic mockup frames. The site manages to be minimalistic and clean while still containing all necessary information. The nav bar is also very well done: it’s sticky, so you can’t lose it, uet it doesn’t overwhelm the content.

 

Femme Fatale

screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-1-22-48-pm

Femme Fatale

I wanted to love this site, which has won numerous design awards – but I couldn’t. It’s trying too hard with animation, which runs extremely slowly on any computer that isn’t very high-powered (I’m on a MacBook Pro, and it was very laggy). The projects overview page is nice-looking, but fails to provide any information about any individual project. In my opinion, you should know a bit about a project without having to go to its specific page. In addition, the page attempts to be responsive, but glitches and becomes completely illegible when made even a little bit smaller.

 

Jess and Russ

screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-1-29-45-pm

by Neil Swaab

This one isn’t a portfolio, but it’s one of the most beautiful websites I have ever seen. You know that design is good when it sticks with you for literally years. At the time, parallax scrolling was much less common. Even though it’s now used all over the internet, I think that this is a great example of parallax.

The website tells their story in a compelling and beautiful way, with the aid of absolutely gorgeous illustrations. The site manages to feel very intimate and personal, because Jessica and Russ commissioned their friends to create the art. Although each piece is done in a different style, they all flow together nicely due to a cohesive and limited color scheme. It also gives the viewer a good idea of both Jessica and Russ’ personalities, particularly by incorporating Jessica’s signature delicate flourishes.

 

Robby Leonardi

screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-1-20-15-pm

Robby Leonardi

I would guess that this site might be polarizing – some might think it’s over-the-top, or maybe too childish. A case could definitely be made against it, but it’s still one of the coolest and most effective resumes I have seen. It gives you an idea of Leonardi’s personality and shows off some of his skills through the site design, while including all the necessary information as well as a contact form and social media links at the end. It’s also just plain fun to look at and play with!

Blog Post #3

What defines an artist? What defines art? Can nail art be considered an art form? I think so, especially considering incredibly talented artists like Lady CrappoMTV lauds her as “not only a super talented artist, but a total badass. Her designs are equal parts smart and funny as they are breathtaking and stunning.”

Sometimes, her work makes a social statement, like this self-described “flock of vaginas,”

March 2016 – Lady Crappo – “A flock of vaginas”

this foodborne illness manicure for Thanksgiving,

from right to left - Staphylococcus aureus, Campylobacter, Clostridicum perfringens, Salmonella, and norovirus

November 2013 – Lady Crappo

or these STD-themed nails for Valentine’s day.

from left to right - HPV, syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV, and chlamydia

February 2014 – Lady Crappo

 

Sometimes, her designs are clever and cheeky, like these secret garden nails:

June 2014 – Lady Crappo

June 2014 – Lady Crappo

these weaponry-themed ones,

December 2015 – Lady Crappo

December 2015 – Lady Crappo

or this BDSM manicure.

October 2014 – Lady Crappo

She uses nail art as a way not only to express herself, but also to find a break from her day-to-day life as a psychiatric nurse. “Thinking about designs and painting on myself is a nice way to do a little self-care,” she says in an interview with BUST. She manages to create her beautiful and intricate designs despite suffering from a familial tremor, and explains that “I love how impermanent nail art is as an art form–it frees me up from worrying too much or overthinking what it is I’m painting. It’s helped me get back into enjoying art after years of not creating much of anything, because the whole process felt exhausting.”

Sometimes funny, sometimes cheeky, most of the time, her nail art is just plain beautiful.

August 2015 – Lady Crappo – “Overgrown”

August 2015 – Lady Crappo – “Overgrown”

I wholeheartedly agree with Erin Chambers, who writes in beauty blog Industrie, “Her work is truly museum-worthy. Her teeny canvases are jaw-dropping, varied in textiles and inspired by fantastic sources, anything and everything is fair game. … Everything Lady Crappo creates is beautiful and unique down to the smallest, most minute detail. She’s on another level both artistically and personally.” In my opinion, she’s an incredibly diverse artist; her work succeeds because of color, pattern, texture, line – but it depends entirely on the manicure.

I love Lady Crappo because she’s taking something not usually seen as art, elevating it to an impressive art form, and enjoying herself along the way.

Below, I’ve included way too many examples of her artwork.

March 2016 – Lady Crappo – “Cracked glaze”

January 2016 – Lady Crappo

October 2015 – Lady Crappo – “Blink”

December 2015 – Lady Crappo – “Our Lady of Guadalupe”

September 2014 – Lady Crappo – “Goddess of the seven seas”

June 2014 – Lady Crappo – “Topographic nails”

October 2015 – Lady Crappo – “Back to the garden”

March 2014 – Lady Crappo

January 2015 – Lady Crappo

August 2015 – Lady Crappo

February 2015 – Lady Crappo

Blog Post #2

Time Management

This isn’t the first time that I’ve been asked to map out how I spend my time for a week, but it’s always useful to go back and re-analyze how effective my time management is.

As I said in my previous post, it’s been a few years now since I’ve been in school, so it’s hugely important that I balance my time between classes, homework, and everything else in my life. So far this semester, I’ve been trying to stay ahead of my syllabi and do my homework ahead of time. This has proven useful when something difficult and time-consuming comes up, like a photography project. However, I am still struggling with stress sometimes when it feels like there are too many ‘big’ assignments on my plate. I’m currently working on planning these more stressful assignments out in advance, and carving out specific blocks of time to work on specific things (e.g. to spend time shooting, or to spend a few hours in the photo lab).

On Thursday, I also blocked out some time on my schedule to treat myself to something (in this case, a free makeover at Sephora). Doing something nice for myself definitely helped ease some of the stress of school and everything else going on in my life, and I think I should regularly build something like that into my schedule.

Other than that, it would be nice to have more of a social life, but it’s difficult to balance that with school and everything else.

 

My Work

Digital Photography © 2013 Mariah Sager

I took this photograph on a trip to Rome the summer of my junior year of high school. There are two main components of the photograph: the frame, including the wall, the window, and the bar; and the view of Rome, with its trees, buildings, and, of course, St. Peter’s Basilica in the distance. I took this from inside of Castel Sant’Angelo, also known as the Mausoleum of the emperor Hadrian.

To me, this represents a conflict I’ve been struggling with for years – what do I want to do with my life? On the one hand, I love photography. I’ve been doing it for about six years now, and I really enjoy it as a hobby, but can also see myself going into it as a career. On the other hand, Classics has been my deepest passion since high school, when I got involved in Latin Club and the National Junior Classical League. I’m facing a decision regarding this conflict right now – do I want to ramp up to transferring schools (again) so that I can study what I love most? Further complicating the matter, I don’t want to go into a field directly related to Classics (e.g. teacher, professor, etc.), but I can’t seem to pull myself away from my love of the subject.

Blog Post #1

The article “What entrepreneurs can learn from artists” posits that art has become an “integral part of business.” Leberecht claims that with the ease and availability of technology for use in the business world, the only thing separating competing businesses today is creativity. He argues that entrepreneurs should be more like artists. Conversely, in the article “Are Artists Entrepreneurs?”, Gupta argues that artists should be more like businessmen. He claims that both artists and entrepreneurs are guided by the same force – their passion for what they do – but that both groups must follow market trends and demands. Basically, Leberecht thinks that businessmen should take a page from artists; Gupta thinks that artists should take a page from businessmen.

What I gathered from Gupta’s article as far as how artists may borrow from an entrepreneur’s toolbox is as follows. First of all, the business world is built on networking. Artists can also benefit from seeking out connections and utilizing resources available to them, instead of thinking that they must work all on their own. In addition, Gupta says that both groups of people “must learn to balance what to do to live today so they can survive to do what they really want to do tomorrow.” Just like the dream of starting a hugely successful company, an ambitious artistic vision is likely not feasible at the start – one must start small and work to achieve their aspirations. Lastly, both authors think that intuition is hugely important for an entrepreneur, and one of the only advantages that one might have over another. For artists, too, listening to your gut can be very important. Starting small doesn’t mean failing to follow your passion.

I’m not sure if I agree that artists are also entrepreneurs. It’s hard to say what defines an artist, or even what defines an entrepreneur. I do think that both can learn from one another.

As far as Leberecht’s list of characteristics of artists… I agree that, generally, artists seek novelty; that they “think by making”; that they retain a childlike sense of wonder; that they are intuitive; that they are interdisciplinary; that they are passionate; and that many artists are contrarians. Again, I find this difficult because it’s difficult to define who would be classified as an artist, and I feel that this is over-generalizing a huge group of people. For instance, it’s certainly not true that all artists feel okay with ambiguity, or that all artists do well with constraints. I would, however, add that artists tend to be deep thinkers.


 

I first took the grit test before I listened to Angela Lee Duckworth’s TED talk. I thought, based on my opinion of myself and my answers, that I was going to get a score very close to 1 – not gritty at all. I was surprised when I got a 3.63, making me apparently grittier than 60% of the US population. It was only after I watched the TED talk that I better understood. Duckworth says that you “have to be willing to fail, to be wrong, to start over again with lessons learned,” and that really resonated with my own journey.

In January of my senior year of high school, I was voluntarily admitted to the Menninger Clinic, a mental hospital in Houston. I missed seven weeks of school, but with a lot of perseverance and hard work, managed to graduate on time with the rest of my class. In fall of 2014, I started as a freshman at Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia, where I was planning to study Classics. Though I know I can’t change the past, it remains difficult for me not to regret my decision to go off to college right away, not to wonder if things would have been different had I chosen a different school. The semester went very badly for me – I fell very deeply back into depression and self-harm, and withdrew at the end of the semester. In March of 2015, I returned to Menninger, and spent another eight weeks there. When I left, I went to a step-down residential program in Los Angeles, and spent nine months developing emotional and independent living skills.

Now, almost two years since I was last in school, I’m living on my own in an apartment, I have my own driver’s license, and I’m restarting the long journey through college. It’s scary – having failed the last time, the threat of failure seems to be constantly hanging over me. But, like Duckworth said, it’s important to remember that failure is not a permanent condition. It’s exciting and fulfilling to be back on the track towards my future, and I’ve realized that I do, actually, have grit. As Duckworth said:

Grit is passion and perseverance, for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future. Day-in, day-out. Not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Grit is the cliche of “fall seven times, stand up eight,” or the Thomas Edison quote, “I have not failed. I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.” Grit is knowing that failure is a part of life, and being able to pick up and carry on.

Though I am determined to continue in school, to get a degree, to do something that I love… At this point in my life, there are several different areas of study that I find myself passionate about, and a dozen career paths I could see myself taking. It’s definitely harder to persevere when you don’t know why you’re doing it, what exactly it is that you’re aiming for. Finding more concrete direction in my life, I think, would increase my level of grit.

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