Painting Assignment 2 (Picasso)

I decided that for my second assignment I would focus on Picasso. I picked this piece (Nude, half-length 1907) because it is simple so it showcases the Cubist elements that set Picasso apart and changed the face of art. I will recreate this painting.

For my second piece, I have created a sketch that includes all the girls I live with, just their faces, and combined them into one composition. They are done in a Cubist style that matches this painting. I will focus on bold lines, geometric shapes and bold colour.

Video project

Making videos is infinitely more difficult than one would expect!
My idea was simple - let's not "bite off more than we can chew" and do a simple technique! I'm not particularily technologically gifted so from the get-go I had challenges, plus computers shutting down on me unexpectedly, files mixing up or disappearing, and what not...
But let's go back to the beginning...
Originally when we were introduced to this project, I had the immediated idea to do an AIDS theme. AIDS has been something I've been focussing on a lot lately, especially around World AIDS Day (December 1) and looking forward to Stephen Lewis' visit here at Redeemer on January 22. AIDS is also incredibly significant, since it affects the lives of over 33.4 million people in our world...how can we not pay attention to it?
I wanted a simple yet poignant way to express the scope and size of this disease so I decided I would fill up a map of the world with red (the official 'colour' of AIDS) dots. Glancing through tutorial after tutorial on making animated movies, I decided that a simple enough method, would be to take an outline of the world, get rid of all the colour (black background, white outline) and then add one dot at a time, saving the file as a new one after each dot. This way, when all the files were lined up and set in motion, it would created the illusion that the world was filling up with red dots! Well, 500 jpeg. files later and I was done!
What a tedious process! It looked very effective, though...
I chose to have a black background because I wanted everything else that went on top of it to stand out. The text is white as well, which I was unhappy about, but there were no better alternatives available that I could find.
The fun did not end there. Importing the pictures to iMovie proved a lot more difficult than I expected, the files would not transfer in order and a actually had to go through file by file with only red dots as my guide, to put the stills in order.
Once the stills were in place, I had to add music and text. The song I chose is called "Ur" and it is done by DJ Tiesto featuring Aqualung. The words are very applicable to the theme and I love the way the music sounds and how it rises and falls. I tried to capture the best parts of the song by imserting the clip three times and trimming it to get the good parts. The transitions are a bit rough but it is close. I learned a lot about iMovie, watching tutorial after tutorial, but many were not specific enough and I was getting frustrated.
Over all I am fairly happy with the end result. I wanted people to be aware of AIDS, of how many and how far it reaches. As the dots fill up the screen more and more. I hope the viewer feels a sense of urgency, because the time to act is NOW...we've been sitting around too long, people continue to get infected and die at alarming rates - adults and children from every country and continent. Now is the time we must act if any difference is going to be made.
I hope you enjoy the video!

text-based art

The scope of text-based art is pretty incredible. On one hand, this is great! On the other hand, there are just so many things that you could DO! I started thinking about words - how and where they are used - and two things popped up: crossword and word search puzzles. I love both of these things; looking for words, patterns, trying to solve puzzles, trying to “win the game,” and this made me think of Redeemer's theme for the 2009/2010 school year: The Truth Will Set You Free.
Putting two and two together, I thought of searching for the truth and how finding it will set you free, and this is why I decided to create a wordsearch. Wordsearches are like multiple choice tests: all your answers are there you just need to look hard for them to find them, and once you do, you will have great success. The same is true for our lives, God has given us the means to live lives that are honouring to him, lives that will warrant us a place in Heaven with him forever, yet sometimes it is not so clear what we must do or things get in the way and we are distracted. I wanted my wordsearch to express this struggle between the voice of truth and all the other voices that distract us.
To show this, I have hidden the words of John 3:16 in the puzzle at random. I kept the letters of the verse simple and unembellished to portray how the message does not disguise itself in any way but simply is what it is. But, I have embellished all the letters around the words of the verse with bold and dramatic fonts. These other letters represent the distractions that get in the way of our search for the truth. I chose John 3:16 because it is a basic yet profound truth for Christians. This is also a very familiar verse for many Christians - from memory work as a child or what not. And it is such a beautiful verse.
The simple letters of the verse font speaks to me of rigidity and unshakability. The message, the Word of Truth, is like this; it never changes or pretends it is something else, it just stares you in the face until you take it as it is on faith or you push it away and run the other direction. Our lives are filled with metaphorical ‘fun fonts’ – so many cool and crazy things that do a much better job of catching our attention than something like the stuffy, ancient words of the Bible. But all this is part of our calling to search for the Truth. It really comes down to this: if this worsearch was a visual representation of your life, it is absolutely imperative that you find all the words because this will earn you the prize of eternal life. But, if you get distracted by the other fonts, the more exciting and varied fonts and fail to complete the puzzle on time, you will spend eternity in Hell. So this is one wordsearch you want to get right!
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3: 16 NIV)

Text-Based Piece 1

The scope of text-based art is pretty incredible. On one hand, this is great! On the other hand, there are just so many things that you could DO!
I started thinking about words - how and where they are used - and two things popped up: crosswords and word searches. I love both of these things; looking for words, patterns, trying to solve puzzles...and this made me think of Redeemer's theme this year: The Truth Will Set You Free.
Putting two and two together, I thought of searching for the truth and how finding it will set you free = wordsearch.
I wanted to hide a Bible passage in the wordsearch as well - and finally settled on John 3:16. I chose this verse because it is a basic yet profound truth for Christians. This is also a very familiar verse for many Christians - from memory work as a child or what not. It's such a beautiful verse.
So I plan on having it printed at about 20" x 30" or something large-sized like that and mounting it on foamcore. Size will depend on printing constraints
Questions:
1) Should I highlight the letters for the words hidden in the crossword puzzle?
2) Or should I mention John 3:16 in my artist's statement and leave it to the viewer to hunt the words for themselves?
So that's the plan.

Change of plans:

Here's the thing: I lost the courage to do my initial time-based piece. I feel like I would not be able to capture what I'm trying to express and I would be horrified if my piece were more like kitch than a statement. As well, I haven't been able to shake the idea of incorporating my family history into a project.
I have been interested in the history of my family for a long, long time and this was heightened by my visit to Holland this past April. I had the chance to stay with various family members and they took me around to see where my grandparents/great-grandparents and so on, came from. I had an incredible time and I feel an even deeper connection to my whole family which is a real blessing to me. As well, my family is an immigrant one - my grandparents immigrated here to Canada after WWII and began new lives here. But there is still family in Holland - not all the siblings moved, and in some cases, some moved back. The thing that struck me was the fact that I could show up in an airport terminal and I could almost immediately spot my relative sent to pick me up. It did not matter that I may never have seen this person or hadn't seen them since I was very little, but I could STILL tell they were my family!
This got me thinking about the fact that no matter the amount of time that has passed or the number of kilometres that separate us, there is an even greater thing that unites us - blood.

TimePiece

Three things really get me: art, history, and social justice issues.

Put them together and what do you get? Well for me, I get a great idea for an art project!

HIV/AIDS. You know about it, you hear the stories, see the pictures, read the stats, donate the cash, it all over! It's an epidemic, millions have died from it, many more might, but there is medication so what's the deal!?

Why is HIV/AIDS STILL here!?

The way I see it, the hands of time trudge onward dragging the burden of AIDS victims with it: pain, agony, despair, hopelessness. It's heartbreaking to watch and yet, the hands of the world are not reaching out to lift the burden. This is not to say that the answer lies within humanity, but so much change can happen that we are able to deliver!

So basically I want this piece to express the tragic disconnect between the issue and the action.

HIV/AIDS is not going to stop moving so we need to catch up!

I've found a clock that I am going to turn into a model of this. One hand will represent HIV/AIDS with the red ribbon while the other will represent what we've done.

Of course, amazing work has been done to combat this virus and I thank the Lord every day for those working hard to bring hope and a future to victims and their loved ones, but we can do more!

Let's make up for lost time!

Time, time time...

What can I say!? I don't have enough of it!
Time is a funky thing - you know it's there -you record it or just acknowledge it, try to speed it up or slow it down, re-wind, fast-forward...time, time, time.
Our first project is all about paying attention to something specific at a specific moment of time for 7 days. Wow - could be anything!
I initially wanted to take pictures outside of my room on the balconey in the early morning - you know, sunrise, construction work, mist...would have been great except I could never wake up that early and my roomate would have killed me for all the noise I made. So Plan B.
There is one thing that changes constantly depending on how busy I am, what time of day it is, so many things - that thing is my bed. My bed becomes my dumping ground during the day - clothes, books, bags, it all ends up on my bed. So at 4pm every day for 7 days, I took a photo of my bed as it was.
It was a pretty humbling experience: I seem to be a pretty messy person! After doing this project I'm kindof convicted to make some lifestyle changes!
Fascinating thing time is. This project was a good reminder that every moment is significant. No matter what is going on, how hectic things are, what you can't wait for or what you wish you could take back, every moment is special because you'll never get that moment back!
The pictures of my bed show that no two 4pm moments were ever the same - some days worse than others:), but each one unique.
So there - make every moment count!
(and try to keep your room clean...)