Introduction Activity: Automatic Drawing I Am an Artist by Lowery Collins August 20, 2013
Studio 1: Mini-Compositions: Collage Artist: Henri Matisse August 29, 2013
Studio 2: Artist: Chuck Close Self Portraiture: Marks, Multiples, and Materials "Disney's Rapunzel and Flynn Rider" - Artwork by: Kate Morgan September 5, 2013
Studio 3: Artist: William Wegman Artful Personifications: Mixed Meia "Alice in Wonderland" - Artwork by: Kate Morgan September 12, 2013
Unit 1: Reflection
All three of these studio lessons related really well to the Unit 1 Big Idea, which was "Identity". These studios dealt with either your own identity or what happens when redefine the identity of something to make a new one for it. The first studio we learned about Henri Matisse and his artwork that utilized the art of collage. We were given the opportunity to create our own collage after brainstorming 3 ideas of what to do for our collage that reflected something that was important to us. I learned that my identity is majorly influenced by my home in Dallas, TX, and just being a teacher. In the article by Elliot Eisner (2009) titled Learn from the Arts, he states, "the limits of language are not the limits of cognition," which I believe to be true and this artwork portrays his statement (p. 6). Sometimes just by looking at art we can make our own inferences about a person or the artist without reading or hearing about the work. Through this piece you can clearly get an insight into my life and without me telling you why this applies to my identity you can visualize it for yourself.
In the second studio we learned about Chuck Close and the portraits that he painted of himself and other people. He saw the subjects in his paintings in a completely different way than what they are normally seen as for face value and his paintings were extraordinary in their precision and unique way of being portrayed. It was so much fun exploring our identity through finding the characteristics of Disney characters. I was surprised to find out that I align very well with Rapunzel, but also the minor character in the movie, Flynn Rider. The assessment to what character's traits we reflected were interesting because it reflected the way that people are imperfect and make mistakes. People are imperfect and don't get it right all the time. I thought it was neat that we got to print out the characters, and I made Rapunzel the prominent character in my artwork and then put Flynn almost blending into the tree to show that I am not completely Flynn by any means, but I still hold some of his characteristics. In Molly Bang's (2000) book Picture This, she states that there is "some basic connection between emotions and how we see pictures," and I believe that to be true (7). This artwork conveys the connection that my identity has to Rapunzel. When one looks at the Rapunzel in my artwork there is an emotional spark of joy, adventure, and charm in the way that I made her bright and full of color, as compared to the lesser important of my work, which was the tree. All those qualities that evoke the emotion that we have when we see my Rapunzel in my drawing directly reflects the qualities that characterize Rapunzel and my own identities because we are both bright, joyful, and adventurous characters.
The last studio that we worked was based on the creative artwork of William Wegman, who photographs his weimaraner dogs. He personifies his dogs to take on human characteristics in his drawing or different "identities". It was fun to give something a different identity with our third studio because we got to chose a fairytale and make a picture of it out of collage materials and other mediums, and give the characteristics of the subject to an animal. I loved making this one. I made my artwork depict "Alice in Wonderland" with the oversized Alice, who just ate the bread that was given by the caterpillar that made her grow as tall as a tree. Instead of Alice being a human or Sarah Jessica Parker, who is the human body in the picture, it is a dog that has human characteristics and body parts. This created a new identity to Alice and the story in general. In Daniel Pink's (2005) book A Whole New Mind, he states that "[what] begins to matter more is the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact" (103). That is exactly what I did with my artwork. I changed the subject, Alice, into a dog, which did not harm the context of the story and did add to the emotional impact because the dog in the picture looks a little confused and humbled by the experience of getting big, which could have added another emotional dimension that a human Alice could have had.
References: Bang. Molly. (2000). Picture This: How Pictures Work. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
Eisner, E. (2009). What education can learn from the arts. Art Education, 62(2), 22-25.
Pink, D. (2005). A whole new mind. New York: Riverhead Books.