#theartassignment

The Art Assignment on YouTube challenged us to make a book out of atypical materials, so here is my mini book of curios. Materials: nature items, packing tape, thread.

Emo Goodwill Signage

This was emotional, because work is a second home to me. My co-workers are my family, and to not see them for so long has been hard. Not only was I returning after so long being away, but I was returning to a family that was missing a member. One of my co-workers passed away this week, so this walk was one filled with emotion. It was the first step I had to take to start a new chapter.

For my final project, I decided to follow the art assignment “Off”. The concept was to use the blackness of a screen to reflect what it sees. To me, I thought this assignment was very current with everything that is happening. Now more than ever we have to use the technology that we have with us and it can leave us being stuck indoors and stuck succumbed to learning about everything happening around us. This assignment allowed for me to just go outside and quite literally turn off everything happening in this world and just focus on the here and now. It gave me the peace I needed and allowed for me to just focus on the plants flowing and the clouds moving. I hope this can give everyone peace as well. 

I think JooYoung’s art is really fun and intriguing. I enjoyed learning about The Cosmic Womb and seeing how JooYoung brings her friends to life and interacts with them. I love that the mention of Henry Darger and his world he created for The Vivian Girls comes up in the art assignment video. I discovered him a while ago and was fascinated by his work and story. I think it’s really amazing how vivid people’s imagination can be and I think we could all benefit from opening that up more so and allowing our minds to find new realms within our imaginations such as how JooYoung and Henry Darger have.

I have always liked to take pictures, regardless if I am in the pictures or if I’m not in the pictures. Since I have gone on many trips and I have been to all of the major cities across the US, I have taken many pictures of all the places I have been to. I also have a lot of pictures of myself since I have done a few photo shoots. When I take pictures and I am in them, I always like to have a nice background. When I go somewhere or when I go on a trip, I always take pictures of the top attractions in the city I am in. This time around when I wanted someone to take pictures of me, I wanted my dog to be in the pictures with me. For this project I chose the Landscape Archaeology since I like nice backgrounds of landscapes in my pictures. In these pictures of my dog and I, I chose to have a nice landscaping background as we are walking. 

While scrolling through all the possible assignments of what I could do for project 4, I found many that seemed interesting and fun to do. But this one stuck out to me. For this one, called Exquisite Corpse, we had to get a group of people (though in these times not too many people) and work on one drawing surface. The only catch is that we had to hide our drawings without the others knowing what it was. They were supposed to add on to yours. This was an interesting concept to go at and the idea of seeing where a persons mind goes when you ask them to add on to your work is very interesting. The artist, Hugo Crosthwaite, has an awesome idea in collaborating others into his work. I decided to do mine with my family. My brother did his based off of light fractals. My mom did hers on her favorite character from Bambi, Thumper. My dad did his on a plant box he plans to make. It was interesting to see where their minds went to add on to the covered drawings. Their minds went to completely different routes. All in all, this was really fun to do and it was nice getting my parents and brother to collaborate with me on this.

I was really excited to do this #artassignment because after being cooped up in my tiny house for the past 2 months, it felt nice to get out, walk around, and soak up the sunshine. Unfortunately, my neighborhood is filled with barking dogs and street traffic, but by following the quietest path, it lead me to a beautiful park/pond. I completely agree with Jace Clayton’s advice to us all that we need to find time in our busy lives to be quiet and take advantage of the beauty that surrounds us. The quarantine didn’t necessarily make this project more or less complicated, but it definitely helped me appreciate the fact that the world has not been destroyed throughout all of this chaos - we are able to still find peace and have moments of no stress or anxiety. My walk almost felt normal, and normal is nice during a time like this. I would highly recommend to each and every one of you to step outside of your homes (while maintaining social distance, of course) and breathe in the fresh air and take a moment to exhale all of the uncertainties and worries that may be burdening you. We will get through this!