Part 1:

Tuan:

Most of the work Tuan showed us were designs he has created for family, friends, and St. Edward’s. He made menu and product box designs for his father. He has designed posters for events on campus. Tuan tends to design gifts for his friends and family rather than buying them. He has upcycled moving boxes by putting creative designs on them and giving them to friends. He created coloring books for the children of his friends. He also helps friends with designs for their work, like the photographer friend who he helped create his photo book.

I appreciate how Tuan utilizes his design skills in order to create gifts for his friends and family or help them out with their work. I love how instead of simply giving away his moving boxes, he instead put cool designs on them and gave them to friends.

Hollis:

Hollis’s work mostly derives from her interest in memory, story telling, and natural disasters. She tends to flip back and forth between references and imagination in her work. Overtime she has changed from using actual artifacts from her experiences in her work to using found objects that bring up memories. She believes that drawing is the most truthful medium, because you cannot hide your imperfections. In one of her drawings she reconstructed her memory of her house burning down. When creating a new work she will expand on the last one she created.

I really enjoyed Hollis’s natural disaster/landfill drawings, especially the one where she erased a hole in the middle and the objects fell threw it. I find it interesting that she says drawing is the most truthful medium, and I understand why she says this. I love how she creates a memorial through a collection of objects which are either artifacts or objects that bring up memories.

Bill:

Bill has evolved his photography overtime and has done work in various types of photography. He started in photojournalism, then portraits, then landscapes, then commercial work, then photographing moving water, and then to his work today which cannot be easily described. The photographs he creates today are derived from tantric paintings. He takes photos of ordinary objects and turns them into something completely different by separating them into layers in photoshop and manipulating them. These abstract images he creates are meant to resonate with himself. He advised us to start in one place and follow our ideas. He also advised to find a way to love what we do.

I thought it was very helpful to hear how Bill’s work has evolved immensely overtime, because he found a way to do something he loves. My goal is to have a career doing something I love and I feel Bill is a great example of that. I thought his images were extremely creative and a very unique process that I would have never thought to do. I appreciate that he now wants to create images that mean something to him rather than his commercial work. I think everyone should strive to create things that mean something to them.

Part 2:

5 Year Plan

Personal:

(2015)   adjust to college, deal with stress/anxiety better

(2016) make more friends in major, go to Portland/Seattle

(2017) adopt a cat

(2018) be happy with self

(2019) go to New Zealand

Career:

(2015) keep part time job

(2016) look for internship

(2017) have an internship

(2018) have another internship

(2019) have a plan for career

Financial:

(2015)  pay for clothes, grocery/food, entertainment, gas, books, supplies etc.

(2016) pay for clothes, grocery/food, entertainment, gas, books, supplies etc.

(2017) have an apartment and pay some of the bills

(2018) pay for apartment by myself, possibly phone/cable/wifi

(2019) start to pay off loans

My long term goals beyond college are to find a career doing something I love and/or enjoy. Right now my ideal career would be photographing concerts/music festivals. I feel the thing I need to do most in order to get a job like that would be to network and make the right connections.