Part 1:

Tammie Rubin:

Tammie is a “ceramic sculptor” or in other words she create works that are a mixture of ceramics and sculpting. Her work lies on the thread between reality and imagination. Tammie grew up in Chicago, so her relationship with the outdoors was a “managed” one, or rather she grew up in an urban settings. Her work derives on this “managed” relationship with the outdoors she had growing up, because she creates pieces that are “manufactured nature” through imagined contraptions. She makes sure her pieces are not easily identifiable or else people will not want to interact with them.

Tammie’s presentation made me realize how different people experience the world depending on where they live. I’ve grown up in mostly suburban areas, but I have experienced rural areas due to my grandparents. I would have never thought that someone may have never seen a forest or a lush field of grass. I feel her work addresses something that most people normally would never have thought about.

Kim Garza:

Kim is an assistant graphic design professor here at St. Edward’s University. Kim said that there is always design opportunities abound and that design is liberal arts for life. For her work, she created a prototype for an app called “Eventurist” which helps its’ users decided their next vacation based on personality and events at a certain location. As a more creative pursuit, her and her husband have been working on a short film that recreates an older film.

The works Kim presented were just two examples of the many possibilities you have with design, which she emphasized to us. I feel that creating work aside from your job as she did is important to keeping you job more enjoyable. I thought her short film was very interesting in that they took footage from an old film and replaced the sound, change the words they were speaking, and also changed the visuals somewhat. This gave the old film a whole new meaning and interpretation, which I thought was really interesting. I think re-creating old works is a great way to fix a “creative block”.

James Shurin:

James is an assistant photo-communications major at St. Edward’s University. James tends to photograph things that are done/created by accident, inconscient, and have no aesthetic. He captures things that people are just willing to live with such as his friends’ trashcan overflowing with tissues or the painted over glow in the dark stars on his apartment ceiling. One of his other images used a slow shutter and a black-light to reveal the markings on a wall from where someone did hand stands on it.

I appreciate how James’ photographs capture something you would normally would pay no attention to or may have not realized it was there. His works calls attention to our inconscient habits, which I find really interesting. He essentially creates his own photography aesthetic by capturing things that people “create” with no intentional aesthetic which I find ironic and meaningful.

Part 2:

I honestly was not quite sure of the purpose of this class, but I did find it helpful in some ways. I thought it was helpful in that we could get ideas and advice for what to do after college from the presentations given by the alumni, students, and professors. I thought the presentations were the most interesting and helpful part of the class. I also enjoyed when we did the group activity of creating those “frankenstein” drawings. I didn’t find the more lecture type classes to be as interesting or as helpful.