Final Project: Food Art

For our last project we had to use food to convey meaning. For my project I used vegetables to make a human body. The idea behind my art is you are what you eat. In this case, it is literally what we eat since all of the vegetables are from the Great Room. While eating the body you could pick up any of the "bones" or body parts and dip it in the head (a dish of ranch dressing). I think the idea of using food to make art is interesting and relates well to our theme of time because this type of art cannot last forever. This was one of the challenges when creating this piece because I could not do it too far ahead of time. If I were to do this project again I would make it bigger, more intricate. I think it would be interesting to make just a skeleton and then to also make a model of what a human looks like from the outside.

The Challenges of Seeing

            In the excerpt of The Object Stares Back that we read, James Elkins describes the challenges we face when we see. He describes many things that I have never considered before and makes you notice things about seeing that you would not have thought about before. He considers the idea that you can see something without really seeing it. He discusses how seeing to draw is different that just looking and that we must combine the thought of drawing and the thought of seeing together. In order to draw we must see with a purpose and have a sort of “mental sketch pad.” This seeing is much different than how we usually see to just recognize objects. Elkins gives the idea of looking at a landscape. We may “see the grass and the trees” but we are not really seeing it. We are really looking at patches of blurred colors and using our assumptions to guess the rest. It is good that we are able to use our past experiences to see the world around us, because you can never fully inventory a landscape in the same way that we do not have time to inventory everything around us. We must be able to recognize that a pencil is a pencil without having to spend time studying it.

            Elkins also talks about other ways in which we do not really see. He talks about the example of how we are not really able to see the sun. This got me thinking about light in general. Light is an object that is all around us, but it is not something that we can see, not because it is painful to see like the sun but just because it is not possible. Light allows us to see but is not something we can see in itself.

Sometimes we think we are seeing something, but are not actually seeing it clearly. Elkins describes how we have a distorted view of objects that are in our peripheral vision. This surprised me because I have never been aware of this fact before. I think we have enough awareness of what the objects around us should look like, that we do not notice that objects to the side of us actually look higher and skinnier. 

            I also thought Elkins’ idea about how we are not able to always have control of how we look at things is interesting. Often objects that have a sexual connotation are difficult for us to see because they are “forbidden images.” Elkins describes that our vision is either deflected or drawn in to these objects. It seems as though we will never be able to be neutral. We have to find a balance in our lives about seeing what we need to see, seeing what we want to see, and avoiding seeing what we don’t want to see. We have the ability to choose what we look at and we have the ability think about how we are seeing effects our perception of the world. We must note that “vision is not a simple act of volition” and there are outside sources, such as the idea of “forbidden images,” that influence how we see.

Most of the time we don’t think about seeing. It is almost like we have an “optical unconsciousness.” Seeing is just something we just do. We usually only see enough to get by and don’t spend time looking at every leaf or blade of grass around us. Elkins inspires the reader to consciously think about how they are seeing and to think about one’s seeing effects their perception of the world around them.

Response Artwork: Ellsworth Kelly

My last project was a piece I made inspired by the work of Ellsworth Kelly. Kelly’s work is characterized mainly by two different styles: images of nature drawn with simple contour lines in black and white and abstract images featuring simple geometric shapes in bold colors. Here are two example of his work.
               

 For my project, I decided to combine these ideas. I drew a sunflower with a simple black line and had the background filled with small yellow, orange, green and brown squares. I thought of a sunflower because I was just in Kansas visiting family and the sunflower is their state flower. I originally was thinking of doing a rose or daisy, but I liked how sunflowers are more uncommon and are only made up by a few colors. During the class critique, I feel that people thought my idea was interesting and creative. They liked the colors in the background and noticed that the colors of the squares are the colors that make up the sunflower. People thought it was interesting how I left no color in the flower, but then added the color to a completely filled background instead. One student made the comment that my design made the background equally as important as the flower. The background is not really a usual background because it grabs your attention just as much as the flower does. If I redid this project I would consider making the outline of the flower a little more bold, per one student’s suggestion. Others liked the idea that the colors for each square were chosen randomly by a program on my calculator. It would be cool to expand this project. One idea was to make a series of these pieces and put them next to each other. I was also thinking that it would be interesting to experiment with size and to make a larger version of this piece.

  

Reading: Kubler’s The Shape of Time

This reading discussed a relationship between time and art that we have not covered yet. Instead of looking at how an artist incorporates time as a theme in their art, Kubler explains how the time an artist creates a piece effects what we think of it. The time period in which a piece is created effects how famous the piece becomes and what people think of it. In other words, the position of art in history may be more important than the degree of talent that it took to create the piece. The time period in which an artist makes a piece is also important because an artist may be following a predecessor’s ideas or they may be rebelling from tradition.

Time Passing in 2D Images

Our reading, Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud, discussed how time is represented in comics through sound and motion. It is important for an artist to effectively display sound and motion because the reader needs to know how time is passing in order to fully understand and enjoy the comic. When an artist uses words in a comic the reader knows time is passing because speaking or sound takes a certain amount of time. The longer the word or sound or the more people that are speaking can lengthen the time that passes in one panel. When the artist displays motion in a panel, this also signals to the reader that time is passing because time cannot be frozen if someone or something is moving. One interesting example that McCloud gives is showing how some artists draw multiple images in one panel to display motion. This reminds me of some of the work that the Futurists did, like the piece Dog on a Leash.

I thought it was interesting when McCloud describes how the panels or frames of a comic can also depict time passing. I would have never thought about how making a panel longer can portray that more time is passing. Also, if a panel runs off the side of the page, this can suggest endless time.

When we think of time, we usually think of it as linear. So, when reading comics, we usually read from left to right. In the reading, there was a circular comic that reminded me of the Mayan calendar. There is no start or finish, but the story keeps moving in a circle. Comics like this are often difficult for us to read because we are used to thinking of time as simply linear.

I was thinking how comics are like photographs in that they are still 2-D images, but unlike photographs, comics have the ability to portray the passing of time. For our next project I am going to be making a flip book. I am going to incorporate some of the ideas from the comic book reading to think about how I am going to show motion with a set of photographs. Even though the photographs are each a frozen moment in time, when they are put in order in the flip book they portray motion and tell a story. I am going to think about how the shape of my photos and the way I bind the flip book could bring out different themes are ideas about the story I am telling, like how the shape of the panel in a comic can effect what a reader thinks.

For our research project, I think it would be interesting to look at an artist that represents the passing of time in a 2D work of art like a drawing or painting, like the futurist drawing above. I also think Eadweard Muybridge’s photographs are very interesting, like his piece Animal Locomotion. There is not one specific person that I want to do, and am interested in exploring some more options. 

Using Art to Express the Nature of Time

 We have continued to examine how various artists use time as a material in their works. Through the artistic process, artists display their perception of time and help us expand our understanding of the subject. Time is something that we are involved with everyday, but is still very difficult to define.

In class we watched the movie Momento, directed by Christopher Nolan. The film is a story about a man named Leonard who suffers from short-term memory loss and uses photos and tattoos to try and hunt down the man who he thinks raped and killed his wife. The movie shows how important our sense of time is and displays the relationship between time and memory. Leonard can remember everything up until the accident with his wife, and then can only recall the last couple of minutes. Leonard can’t do anything to prevent this memory loss and has to use pictures with notes and tattoos to save the information that he needs to know. The movie shows how if we had no memory, we would have no sense of time. When Leonard’s mind goes blank, he does not know where he is, what he is doing, or how much time has passed. This loss of memory-and sense of time-is a truly frightening idea.

I think it is really interesting to think about how photographs reflect time. In a podcast on RadioLab, Unlocking the Secrets of Time, they discuss how Leland Stanford owned a horse and had a photographer take photos of the horse running to see if all four of its legs ever left the ground at the same time. I think these photos are really interesting because the men needed to use a camera to slow down time and take a precise image. Even though the horse runs right in front of their eyes, it is only with the use of the camera that they can really see exactly what is happening.

In Ways of Seeing, by John Berger, he also discusses photographs but in a different way. He talks about how photos reflect the photographer’s way of seeing or his/her perspective the photographer’s subject. Berger also discusses how photos are used to reproduce images of paintings. He says when paintings are reproduced it destroys the uniqueness of the image and the meaning of the original painting changes. I am curious about whether Berger believes that both paintings and photographs have the same ability to reflect the artist’s way of seeing and give a view of the past? Also, even if there were no reproduction of paintings through photographs, would it be possible for the meaning of a painting to stay the same?

We have also been doing more art exercises lately and have practiced moving our thinking from the left hemisphere of our brain to the right. When we shift from our left to right brain we transition from logical thinking to our spacial thinking. This crossing over allows us to more accurately draw what is in front of us because we focus on drawing what we actually see and not how our left brain tells us a nose, hand, or object should look. When artists use their right brain, they feel absorbed in the work and can loose their sense of time completely. This feeling is very similar to what I experience playing soccer. When I am “in the zone” everything around me seems to disappear. I am so focused on the game that I am not thinking about anything else. I am not aware of how much time is left in the game or what the fans are saying. It is almost like I move without even really thinking. It is during these moments that I play my best soccer.

We also did a project in which we were to show on a note card a place that is lost. I printed out images on the computer and recreated a memory from when I was little. In my old house, we had a window seat that I remember sitting in watching the rain fall. This place is lost because we no longer live there and it is unlikely that I will ever return to it. But I can always imagine myself sitting there, experiencing the passing of time with every raindrop that glided down the window.  

Time and its relationship to memory

Memory is what allows us to have a sense of time. If we did not have any memory of the past then we would be living continuously in the present with no understanding of what is a day an hour or a minute. Think about your first memory, the first thing you can remember. I am standing at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning, deciding when to come down to see what Santa brought. Usually people don’t remember anything before the age of three or four, and even when we do remember events from those early years it is hard to place them in chronological order. It is also amazing that we cannot remember anything from when we were newborns. This is partially due to the development of the hypothalamus and its ability to store memory. In JG Whitrow’s “What is Time?,” he points out that we develop a sense of time by learning, meaning having an understanding of linear time is not a purely automatic process. This idea reminds me of the times when I have babysat my neighbors. When their parents left, Alec and Andy, ages 3 and 5, would not have an understanding of how much time would pass before their Mom and Dad would come back home. Saying “just two more hours” would only result in them asking five minutes later if two hours had passed. It takes years to be able to develop a sense of time and what two hours passing feels like.

The speed in which time passes never changes, however, at times we feel like it does. An hour in a gly boring class seems like an eternity, while time spent doing something fun goes by in a flash. Even though that one hour in class seems like forever, the hours all blend together, and weeks later I can’t distinguish that one slow moving hour from all the others. The speed in which time passes also changes as you get older. In “What is Time?,” Whitrow includes a poem by Guy Pentreath, which represents the feeling that time goes faster as you get older.

For when I was a babe and wept and slept,

Time crept;

When I was a boy and laughed and talked,

Time walked;

Then when the years saw me a man,

Time ran,

But as I older grew, Time flew.

Another interesting topic the reading discussed was déjà vu. Moments of déjà vu are surreal and confusing. They always seem to come at random times and I am left at a loss as to what moment in time I am remembering. In Beyonce’s song, she describes having constant moments of déjà vu that cause her to feel like she is seeing something that she isn’t. She describes the feeling like being in a dream and seeing things she knows can’t be really happening. I wonder what causes déjà vu and why some people experience it while others don’t.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ9BWndKEgs

What is Time?

In the first excerpt of GJ Whitrow's "What is Time," he focused on the origin of the idea of time as we understand it today. His summary begins with the description of how various cultures, such as the Maya and Egyptians, and religions, like Christianity and Hebrew, influenced the development of the idea of time. One of the most interesting ideas presented was whether time is cyclic or linear. The Maya predicted that history would repeat itself in cycles of 260 years. However, Christians believe that time was linear because the crucifixion of Christ was an event that can never be repeated. I think it is interesting how each culture has its own understanding of time. This difference became apparent to me when I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold. His novel that features a circular story, is contrasted by most American literature that I have read that tells a story from A to Z.

Another interesting idea that Whitrow proposed was that “all animals except man live in a continual present.” He believes that it is through our “conscious reflection on the human situation” that allows us to distinguish the past from the present from the future. I began to think about how although I am always living the present, but I constantly think about the past and the present. All the pictures on my dorm room wall remind me of things that I’ve already done and people I’ve already met. I also think about the future constantly. Having a plan for the future allows me to not feel aimless. Having an understanding of the future allows me to set goals for myself.

One thing I have begun to think about is whether or not our society is too focused on time. Whitrow notes that “we tend to eat and sleep, not when we feel hungry or tired, but when prompted by the clock.” The mechanical clock guides our lives. If we did not have clocks, society would not be able to function as it does today.

Will time ever stop? And what does that mean exactly? Would everything just freeze? This idea of time ceasing seems far fetched for me, but I guess some believe it is possible. Does the end of time correspond to the end of the universe?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/101027-science-space-universe-end-of-time-multiverse-inflation/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=could-time-end

Visual Analysis

In class last Wednesday we began to discuss visual analysis-or interpreting art through looking at its colors, lines, texture, etc. We practiced this new skill by examining paintings such as the Allegory of the Art of Painting by Vermeer (1675). We also spent some time admiring the pieces in the SMCM gallery. By using visual analysis we are able to break down a work of art and look at it simply. This method allows us to plainly state what we are seeing before we try to evaluate the deeper significances in the pieces.

We have also spent some time watching videos that are focused on the theme time. Because the footage was very complex, we first tried to break down what exactly happened in each video. Drawing out a storyboard of the video helped tremendously. We then were able to talk about how the directors used time in their pieces.

In sum, break down what exactly you are seeing first (colors, lines, texture, storyline) and then analyze more in depth (themes, context of when/why piece was made). 

What is art?

Art is the expression of ideas, beliefs, opinions, or feelings. Art can be expressed in many forms and is taken in by the observer through at least one of the five senses.