Author Archives: Brittany Fucik

Portfolio Review

Brittany Fucik: Artist’s Statement

I hold a firm belief that visual work can say and express what words do not. In my work, I try to express feelings and ideas that I believe are not adequately described in words. This is usually a specific feeling or the emotions generated by experiencing a series of events. Growing up, I was always someone people came to in order to discuss their problems and feelings because they felt no one else could understand. I try to branch my personal experience as a listener and problem solver with my belief in the visual as a means to express human experiences. I am most interested in feelings and experiences that are not talked about openly or are aspects of private life. Although most people believe their experiences are their own, I feel that there are universal aspects in them that can be explored and understood through art.

I tend to make two-dimensional work because I want my audience to read my work head-on as opposed to experiencing an entire space. Due to my ideological interests and beliefs, I also like to work with the figure. The figure is universal and is easily understood as a means to demonstrate expressions that an audience can easily identify with. Because my work starts with the basis of my and other’s personal experiences and build upon itself as a means to express how it feels being in said experience, I tend to add expressionist elements to my work. Over the years, I have experimented with using abstraction as a means of expression, found it only sometimes successful, and believe that for my needs it is best used in three-dimensional works.

What resources do you use for your ideas?

I save images and works I like through different tumblr pages that I can browse through for inspiration. These include historical art works, illustrations, photographs and tattoos. I also spend a lot of time watching dance videos for ideas and inspiration, such as Kate Jablonski’s mid-2000s choreography. I also keep a quote book and document that I flip/scroll through to get ideas.

What motivates you to make art?

I make art because I feel a need to express personal ideas and experiences that are not best explained in words. I always found verbal communication limited when explaining my or other’s experiences and look to art as a way to explain the past and make it relatable and/or understandable.

How do you use color, space, form, and other dynamics in your work?

In my work I utilize line and shape to emphasize texture. I like including an aspect of texture in my work as I am interested in the idea of creating physical feelings without needing touch. When it comes to color, I typically use it as a point of emphasis. In general, I care little about meaning-making through color, but, rather, prefer using color as a tool to create emphasis and effect the composition.

How do you view your craftsmanship?

I consider myself to have good craftsmanship due to me being a slight perfectionist, especially when it comes to my art. I also recognize that it can use some improvement, due to being a messy working and having trouble keeping works clean and in good shape.

What do you consider to be your strengths?

My biggest strength is my work ethic and ability to put in large amounts of studio time at once. When I have an idea, I am  capable of following through and keeping up with tasks.

Are there skills you feel need further development?

I feel like I am lacking in general craft skills, and need to spend time specializing in a skill and spending more time experimenting with media. I find myself making preliminary sketches for ideas and not following through due to not knowing what media to use or how best to utilize the media I know to create the image I want.

How does your work relate to art historical precedents and contemporary trends?

I am drawn to expressionist art, specifically German Expressionism when looking historically. Much of my work uses contemporary expressionist artists, such as Adrian Ghenie, as inspiration or artists who experiment with their media such as how Ivan Alifan uses icing bags and plastic to manipulate oil paint.

What are your expectations/goals for yourself over the next five years?

Artwise, I want to create large scale drawings and paintings that combine media and focus on the figurative. Realistically, I hope to have a job and to be able to afford a place to live. If I am lucky, my job will somehow relate to the artworld.

Blog Post #12

I enjoyed the overall class. I am taking the class as a junior, because I took freshman seminar for non-majors during my first semester at St. Edwards. I definitely liked this class better and got more out of it than the non-major version. In the non-major freshman seminar we just do lectures over study habits, the college transition, some on campus resources, and do a few activities to help choose majors. Those lectures end up being similar to other topics discussed in other classes or by RAs and gets repetitive. I like how our class puts more emphasis on careers and has lots of relevant guest speakers. I think the class did a good job of trying to touch on all majors. The only things I would consider including that we did not talk about was post-graduate opportunities such as graduate school or opportunities that allow you to do relevant work. I have received a lot of conflicting information about graduate opportunities in visual studies and think other people could be in the same boat.

Visu 1100 Extra Blog Post: Jeremy Mann

The contemporary artist I chose to research is Jeremy Mann. He received a BFA from Ohio University and an MFA from Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Mann is 37 years old and currently resides in California.

He is a painter known for his painterly, impressionist-inspired style, cityscapes, and figurative works. Although his figurative works get less media attention compared to his cities, I still find that his style translates in an interesting way when it comes to the figure. He is strong in areas where I am weak, such as uses looser styles to convey form and feeling. Therefore, I find that his work really helps me think through problems I have while creating works. I also am drawn to the color palettes he chooses to work with in each image. I mentally group his images by color.

Oil on Panel

Jeremy Mann. Fawn. Oil on Panel.

In his cityscapes, he tries to capture the city, in many cases San Francisco, as dramatic and moody. He puts an emphasis on wet pavement in his city images. In a documentary about him, he talks about how the number of cars on wet pavement he painted is sickening, but that all those years of training led him to be able to make the right mark for each painting now. I always get attached to artists that openly talk about the time spend training and learning when it comes to their craft.

Jeremy Mann. Oil on panel. 48x48 inches.

Jeremy Mann. New York no. 11. Oil on panel. 48×48 inches.

I find his techniques interesting. He uses loose brushstrokes, will wipe off materials, and also will roll paint onto the canvas. He does things with paint that I would not think to do and did not think would yield the results that it does. I think his style is great, although one person has gone through YouTube videos involving him and claimed that he just copies everything from images edited with a specific Photoshop tool. Mann also works slightly large with most works (in regards to his cities) being around four and five feet wide.

Oil on panel. 60x43 inches.

Jeremy Mann. Evening Storm on Market Street. Oil on panel. 60×43 inches.

Creativity Blog #7

The RadioLab podcast episode and David Blaine Ted Talk were very interesting. It is popular among social media figures I follow and friends to joke about the nonexistence of time or time as a human construct. This experience made hearing about alternative views of time in the RadioLab episode intriguing. Terry, the artist trying to use time as an aspect of his art piece, reminds me of the pendulum installation at the Museum of Natural Science in Houston. The amount of time it takes to knock down a wooden piece does not nearly equate the years it will take for the aluminum and magnesium to diffuse in Terry’s piece, but I feel like I understand the feeling of being part of a piece over time and how the presence of time can contribute to a piece. I loved the entire David Mcderman segment of the podcast. He definitely was strange, especially with the pee thing being part of his introduction, but I oddly felt that learning about his lifestyle was helpful to me. Being able to understand ways to create time, approach time, use time as our own constructs is monumental when it comes to creating art and finding ways to represent ideas and themes. I also felt oddly connected to him. He mentioned that at 13 he decided he would never be able to compete in the modern world, and that is a feeling I have often felt too.

I got more out of the RadioLab episode than the David Blaine Ted Talk. I was really excited when I saw we would be listening to David Blaine – I watch his specials religiously when I was younger and am very familiar with his work. Sadly, I forgot that he isn’t the best speaker. I had to re-watch his talk and re-watch specific segments multiple times, because I kept getting distracted. He did this thing where he would take this loud sip of water and the mic would pick up the sound of him swallowing. I found it annoying and would be stuck thinking about that and how could the sound engineers let that stand and was it intentional? Then, I realized I missed minutes of his talk and would have to go back. I mention this, because it made me think of David McDerman. If his omnipresent view of time was real (or if I believed it) I would not be spending so much time rewinding David Blaine or stressing about wasting time by being distracted by David’s strange water noises. Despite my distractions, I did get something out of the TedxTalk. David gave me ideas about how to be successful in unorthodox fields, how you have to push for your ideas and what you want, and the incredible work ethic and time spent needed to perfect yourself and how you spend your time.

Blog Post #10

I enjoyed the presentation from Spacetime Studios. I was previously educated about the gaming industry, so much of the basic information (long hours, dealing with demographics, collaborations and team environment, etc.) I already knew. I was most interested in Eva Tran’s presentation since she focused on the art aspect. I definitely feel like I could never easily break into the industry due to the emphasis on 3D programing and graphic design, two things I will not have much experience in post-graduation, especially to the extend needed for the positions Eva talked about. It was nice to hear that some of the 3D programs, such as Maya, are free for students, so I can spend time over breaks learning the basics of them.

For the faculty presentations, I am most interested in knowing how they got their first positions in their field, and if they went straight to graduate school after undergrad.

Blog Post #9

I got a lot out of Matt’s presentation. It was nice to hear from an alumni who chose not to go to New York to pursue work. I am planning on staying nearby for family reasons, and hearing from a successful alumni who stayed close makes me feel less stressed about post-grad prospects.

The internships question is very annoying. I’ve been trying to get an internship for a long time now. My main problem is that for the summer I have to intern in Houston, and many of those internships are not advertised or I am not qualified for them. When I ask others how they got their art-based or studio internships, they always say it is because they knew someone. I do not have family or family friends involved in the arts at all. I’ve been trying to do some networking while at St. Edward’s, but it hasn’t worked out too well for me. I feel like I have fallen behind on the professional front.

The Contemporary in Austin has a few internships I am interested in. Online it requires more hours than possible for me to go during the week due to classes, but I talked with the director. She said they are flexible on time and that the website needed to be edited.

Internships

The second internship I looked at was the Development Internship for the Zach Theater. The intership involves working with fundraising and the non-profit aspects of the theater. I think this could be a beneficial program in that it would teach me non-profit managing skills and special event management experience for the visual/performing arts. I feel like an internship such as this one could give me practical skills and networking opportunities needed for me to find a job post graduation.

http://www.zachtheatre.org/about/internships

The third internship I looked at was the Development Internship for the Long Center. This internship is similar to that of the Zach theater, but requires more technical ability and has the opportunity to do some basic design work. I chose this location, because I talked to the volunteer and internship director when she can to St. Edwards. She told me that the job descriptions for internships are not completely set in stone, and that if you have other skills or interests, they will try to utilize them. I enjoyed my time talking with her, and think I could get something out of the opportunity.

Careers

 

VISU1311: Creativity Blog #6

The movie I chose to watch was Run Lola Run. The film itself did a lot of interesting things with time by repeating the same events but changing small things each time. This is a trope in media I really enjoy and a way of handling time and repetition that I find interesting. It demonstrates the importance of ordering events and details.

The film also combined some styles of story-telling. There is the main story where Lola is running through town to get the money, which, as stated before, utilizes repetition. There is also the snapshot stories that break up the main timeline. These are the flashes of images the audience gets of when happens to other character Lola runs into. For example, the man on the bike is shown getting mugged, meeting a girl, and then getting married during the first telling of the day.

The film included a choppy editing style at some points. This is something that was heavily utilized in film during the late 90s and early 2000s. To break up the speed and fast movement, the film cut to calmer, slowly scenes such as Lola’s father speaking to his mistress. Doing this allowed for the viewer to now be overwhelmed and created some balance. In media, having balance can be important in order to get a message across.

Overall, all these methods combined created harmony in the film so that it could be enjoyed by the viewer and best utilize filming methods to get various points across.

Blog Post #8

This week’s presentations were fun. I did not get much out of the academic presentation, but that is because I’m an upper classes who has signed up for classes multiple times. I liked the study abroad presentation. I am planning on going abroad in the summer, and any information I can get on scholarships and what to expect is helpful. I’ve been having trouble navigating the scholarship stuff online, so her comments really helped. Ysenia’s presentation for Cabra was good. I did not know they had a website. I just knew they were relatively popular on Instagram. Learning about how they go about electing officer positions in their organization was helpful, because I am trying to figure out how other organizations go about that process. The Command G presentation was good. I’ve been meaning to go to some of their workshops but haven’t had the chance to yet. I have always had scheduling conflicts. The best presentation may have been mine (I’m lying. I only had one slide and basic information). Since I did not have as many cool images, stories, or a website to share, I tried to give some basic information on why it’s important to get involved. I have no idea if anything I said came across – I think one person may have been sleeping – but I hope everyone learned something from it.

Blog Post #7

I really enjoyed the presentations despite our technical issues. I loved Camille’s presentation, because I was able to see her senior show. The Graphic show from last year was the only show I could bring my parents too, and her piece was one of the ones that made them impressed by our visual program. I thought she gave some great advice, particularly about campus opportunities and working at student life. A lot of it couldn’t exactly be applied to me just due to the fact that most opportunities are for graphic student only and that I have found art internships hard to find/receive. Other than that, I liked hearing about the process to how she got her current job and found that helpful. I could relate to her more, I think, because she has a strong traditional art background as a designer. Something she didn’t say but alluded to was the benefits of networking and collaborating with other people in the department. It seemed like that was a huge help in her successes.

When it comes to Abbas, I like the presentation that could have been. I did get some things out of his presentation, particularly about the process to getting where he is today and the kind of work he does not. There are some gaps in the story, but nothing too significant. I can’t relate to his experiences as much as past presenters. He knew what he wanted to do from his start at St. Eds and was able to benefit from that certainty. I did not join visual studies until my sophomore year, so hearing from people who benefited from always having it together tends to freak me out.

Blog Post #6

For each class ask yourself the following:

  1. My greatest strengths in Visu 1 include: My organization
  2. For greater success in this course, I need to: Spend more time on the class. Because I am in upper division classes, Visu 1 work is low on my totem pole, and I often put off the projects/studio time
  1. My greatest strengths in Modern Art History include: My note-taking abilities, study guides, and attentiveness in class.
  2. For greater success in this course, I need to: Start studying identifications much earlier to give me time to go over big concepts and terms.
  1. My greatest strengths in Sculpture 1 include: My work ethic/studio time and my attempts to push myself
  2. For greater success in this course, I need to: Be more intentional in my work and ideas
  1. My greatest strengths in CULF 3330 include: My scheduling, attending of class, ability to get work done
  2. For greater success in this course, I need to: Spend more time doing my honors contract project for the class
  1. My greatest strengths in Painting 1 include: Technical ability, time spent in studio
  2. For greater success in this course, I need to: Spend less time focusing on tiny details and work on big picture things instead, such as overall values

Computer skills:

  1. My computer skills include: basic photoshop, microsoft word
  2. I still need to learn: Basic coding, various adobe programs

Research & writing skills:

  1. My greatest strengths as a researcher/writer include: Grammar/Organization skills, the ability to use library and internet resources successfully, organization of research, able to figure out which aspects of research is important to the paper/project.
  2. I need to work on these aspects of research and writing: My work ethic. Because I am good at researching, I often will put it off. I also procrastinate between the researching process and writing process.
  3. I learn best & accomplish most when: I get choice in what I am doing/writing/researching and when I have a decent amount of allotted time at the beginning in order to schedule myself. If I feel there isn’t going to be a decent amount of time to work on a project, I will choose an easier/less interesting topic or rush myself to finish.

ACTION PLAN

Choose one class that you are struggling with or are not doing as well as you could: Modern Art History
Now make a list of 10 ways you could improve your performance in this class:

  1. Make flashcards in the first week after getting ID packet
  2. Type class notes and synthesize with book notes after each class (or at least during the week of the class)
  3. Learn ID cards as we do each chapter in class
  4. Review old cards as I learn new ones
  5. When synthesizing new class notes, read the old ones
  6. Print the chapter identification sheets and keep the relevant chapter out and in class
  7. Fill out terms for each chapter while reading the book. Highlight the ones that do not have adequate definitions  in order to use them for class notes
  8. Create timelines to organize evolution of artists and to group all the images together.
  9. Find at least one important fact about each image, separate from how the image is its style
  10. Keep style list updated with examples