Navigation Guide October 8, 2008

Hello. I’m Megan Cohen-Doyle and welcome to my art blog. This blog is intended for my teachers and classmates in Art 115-001.

Readers should notice that I don’t categorize my assignments by name. I use four different categories in my blog: Blog Assignments, Artwork Self-Critique, Altered Book, and Rants and Blabbering. For those of you in my art class, the Altered Book category is self explanatory. I will file non-classwork posts under the Rants and Blabbering category. Both Blog Assignments and Artwork Self-critique are categories meant for classwork. Artwork Self-Critique will contain written reviews of my projects, while Blog assignments pertain to posts that are part of the assignment itself.

Assignment names are tagged but not categorized. They will not show up on the sidebar, but you should be able to find them if you use the search feature.

Altered Book: Final Statement December 9, 2008

My altered book summarizes the reason why people censor different forms of media, and what this censorship does to the artist. Censorship reveals a larger instinct of human nature to shut out whatever they don’t agree with. The censors merely act on this instinct. In the process, they assign their own ethic to others, assuming these people share the exact same values they do.
The book has three different “pages”, which I have created by gluing dozens of pages from the source material together. One design is printed on each page with black and brown relief prints, adding small amounts of gouache for color and emotion. Cutouts of short phrases from the book decorate each page, enforcing the idea. I describe the thoughts and actions of the censors using a modified version of the three wise monkeys as a metaphor. The events on each page use the monkeys to describe the process that leads to media censorship. The surroundings these monkeys react to are offensive, just as the majority of censored art rubs people the wrong way.

First Thursday Scavenger Hunt December 8, 2008

Symmetrical Artwork (Steve Klein, Bullseye Gallery)

Tetrad Harmonic Color Scheme, Yellow, Blue-Green, Red Orange, and Violet (Adam Sorensen, PDX Contemporary Art)

Curvilinear Shapes (Adam Sorenson, PDX)

Stranger's favorite shape: Square (Sylvia Levenson, Bullseye Gallery)

Art that uses tints, tones, and shades (Adam Sorensen, PDX contemporary art)

Artwork with Rhythm (G. Lewis Clevenger, Pulliam Deffenbaugh gallery)

Subtle shifts in value and distortion. (Klaus Moje, Bullseye Gallery)

Something funny -  Ken Shores, Feather Fetish totem, Pulliam Deffenbaugh gallery.
Sorry, Pulliam Deffenbaugh’s gallery owner wouldn’t let me take any pictures, and this particular work isn’t on the website. It looks like a chestnut with feathers, hence the hilarity.

Example of pattern and repetition (Adam Sorensen, PDX Contemporary Art)

Art that tells a story (Robert Nielson, Beppu Wiarda)

Most interesting balance at PDX Contemporary Art (Adam Sorenson)

Gestalt Theory (Giles Bettison, Bullseye Gallery)

Dynamic lines, (Linda Geary, Lava, Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery)

Robert Nelson, Beppu Wiarda. Beppu Wiarda is currently hosting many of Nelson's works, and Nelson's works are dominated by contor lines. In this drawing, the width of the lines is uniform, although different lines have a different width. The lines give this picture give it incredible detail.

Jonnel Covault, Beppu Wiarda. Unbelievably, this is linocut. I love this picture, because I want to learn these techniques someday.

Relief Print Review November 15, 2008

Block prints seem a lot easier to work with than paper and pencil.  Pressure from using the cutting tools kept my hands from shaking, letting me create clear precise shapes and add a greater amount of detail than normal. I should focus on drawing more dynamic curvilinear lines. Another student also assumed that all three pigeon illustrations from my print represented different pigeons, so I did a bad job portraying the same pidgeon in different increments of time.

Final Altered Book Proposal November 14, 2008

My book is a 29-essay pamphlet assembled by my Freshman Inquiry professor Jamie Ross. Jamie named the pamphlet with our class name, UNST 192/193G- The Work of Art. As this was never an official title, I will refer to the book as “Jamie’s Pamphlet” instead. The essays from Jamie’s Pamphlet examine the external issues surrounding art, like censorship, racism, and conformity. Each one has a different topic and contains enough information to function as a stand-alone document. Most examine the external issues surrounding a specific art medium. It is impossible to condense these essays into a single concept without neglecting important details from each one. Therefore, I will only evaluate a narrow selection of essays concerning censorship.

I find censorship particularly compelling because I strongly object to its use. Yet I also want to explore why societies find it necessary to censor art. Both communities and governments have restricted artistic content in the past, and may continue to do so in the future. Even if the artwork is controversial, banning or restricting it is a blatant violation of freedom of expression. Limiting information available to the public or punishing artists that preach an unpopular opinion can be just as harmful. Society should develop a greater tolerance to content they find offensive or objectionable.

I will address one censorship-related concept per essay by illustrating the concept through iconography, and supporting my illustrations by highlighting selections from the text. If possible, I want to make the iconography ironic and slightly humorous. There is also a slight chance that I might revise the motifs of a few essays before I begin illustrating the book.

I will analyze and illustrate five of the 29 essays. I will start the book by evaluating the ideas George Moss has presented throughout his essay, Beauty without Sensuality. I will particularly focus on Moss’s insightful theory that societies often regard immoral artworks as a direct attack on their moral values and harmonious lifestyle. On the first page, I will paint a nude man emerging from a large picture frame while cocking a rifle. A 1950’s-esque group of young women in front of the picture frame will gasp in shock at the sight. The interaction between the man and the group of women illustrates the perceived assault that immoral artwork is making on society.

Using the next essay, Culture Shock: Hollywood censored, I will illustrate how morality-based organizations censor objectionable artwork to prevent it from negatively influencing society. They do everything necessary to keep “harmful” artwork out of the public sphere, unable to accept art that blatantly violates their moral values. I will illustrate this chapter with a modified version of the three wise monkeys. The blind and deaf monkeys will remain unchanged, but the third monkey will “repel evil” instead of “speaking no evil” or “doing no evil.” It creates a crucifix with its index fingers to repel the perceived evil, imitating the church’s desire to restrict offensive art. Additionally, while they believe these artworks will have a negative impact, there are no official statistics proving it. I will expand these ideas through Jeff Chang’s essay, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop.

Dudziak’s essay about Josephine Baker’s musical career and Piotr Gwiazda’s essay about Amiri Baraka’s controversial poetry reveal that governments can “censor” artists by silencing them. Artists that promote unpopular, controversial, or unpatriotic views risk being silenced. American artists are no exception, despite their supposed “protection” under the constitution. Worse yet, both Amiri Baraka and Josephine Baker were American artists. I want to emphasize that silencing ANY American (including American artists) is unconstitutional, which I achieve through an illustration of the constitution getting consumed by flames, revealing the word “forbidden” and a chained silhouette behind it.

I will paint all of my illustrations with gouache. The pamphlet’s paper is too thin and fragile to hold water-based paint, so I will create a sturdier canvas by gluing unneeded sections of pages together. Once I finish creating the altered book, the reader will be able to browse through it like a picture book. I will also need to design a new cover, if possible. Jamie’s pamphlet is presently stored in a three ring binder, which is both ugly and impossible to modify.

Before I start the project, I will read the censorship-related essays a final time to ensure perfect comprehension. Then I will revise and expand my approach with external research, because I made several assumptions during the design stage to match the concepts in my text. For what reasons will people censor artwork? How do these reasons change from incident to incident? Who decides to censor an art piece, and does the censor also change? Are there common themes among censored or banned art? How often do censors punish artists because of the opinions they have expressed through their work? Are situations like Josephine Baker’s and Amiri Baraka’s common? Depending on the answers I find, I may need to revise the details of my altered book.

Tesselate blog reflection November 4, 2008

I had a really hard time picking a motif for this tesselate. Making a scheme with two different shapes fit together AND clearly represent a real-life object is needlessly complicated. I went through several themes, both simple and complicated, before I finally decided on the fish/turtle theme. Defining the balance between positive and negative space was challenging and a good learning experience. I painted a lot steadier and slower than usual. Yet it’s still messy, not for lack of trying. My hands are really shaky. I can’t draw a straight line without turning it into a fine squiggle. Drawing precise contours with either a paintbrush or a pencil is beyond my ability until I can make the shaking stop. The tesselate is actually the closest I have ever reached to drawing a GOOD contor, especially compared to the projects I’ve made prior to this class.

The fish’s light blue fins were meant to evoke a peaceful temperment, as if the picture were bathed in water. But the shade ended up too dark. I’m really unsatisfied with the darker blues, because they take away from the picture’s contrast and draw too much attention away from the turtle.

I REALLY REALLY need to work on keeping my work clean. I know that. I just … forget where my hand is sometimes. And I often forget that I’m holding a brush in that hand, and that brush will make unwanted marks if I get too close to the paper. Hence the paint outside of the inner boundary. I really, REALLY don’t want to start over once I make a mistake, so I try to blot it out. I also need more practice with using opaque goache. I started using more effectively with the fins (Thanks to Vanessa), but I had already painted most of the project by then.

Altered Book Proposal #3 November 4, 2008

My book is a 29-essay pamphlet created by my Freshman Inquiry professor Jamie Ross. It has no title aside from the class name, UNST 192/193G- The Work of Art. The essays cover a variety of artistic disciplines, including photojournalism, photography, movies, music, tattooing, traditional paint-based artwork, billboard design, and poetry. However, it does not teach the reader how to create art with different artistic mediums. It discusses art’s influence on culture, society, and politics, and vice versa. Racism, personal worldviews, cultural morality, and bias will affect artistic expression. A few essays, such as Carlos Castaneda’s Journey to Ixlan, explain this mentality directly instead of analyzing a specific medium. However, I have only presented a generalized description of the pamphlet. I have summarized it to match the overarching theme of my Freshman Inquiry class only so I could describe it in one sentence. These essays would have nothing in common if I did not link them to my class philosophy. I believe it is appropriate to treat each essay as a stand-alone document. It makes the subject matter easier to analyze, and I don’t need to bother cramming a large amount of information into one project. If I were to summarize the entire pamphlet and condense it into a single idea, I would need to write an essay longer than this proposal.

I chose to alter this pamphlet simply because I don’t need it. Since I don’t want to regret altering a book I could possibly read again, I picked the book I was least likely to re-use. I haven’t read it since Jamie’s class ended, and I will definitely not re-read it again. It consumes shelf-space and collects dust. The pamphlet has an additional advantage of multiple books in one; I can generate a greater variety of altered book ideas by responding to a few essays about a certain subject, or analyzing the pamphlet as a whole. I can also remove unwanted material easily.

I intend to convey my personal reaction to individual essay from the pamphlet. I will examine how I felt after reading each essay, and communicate that feeling through design elements I have learned in class. Since the subject matter changes with the essay, my personal reaction will change accordingly. Sometimes my reaction is raw emotion, such as apathy, surprise, disgust, anger, or confusion. At other times, I may want to express a more complex idea, such as pity, acknowledgement, agreement, or disagreement. I will not analyze the subject of any essay beyond my personal feelings.

Since my altered book relies on expressing emotion, designing a piece that visually expresses these reactions will be my biggest challenge. I will use the inherent moods of various hues as a base for developing each design. Dark gray would represent boredom, while light gray would represent apathy. A red color would indicate I responded to the essay with either anger or discomfort. A full black shade symbolizes depression. However, I will use multiple colors for most of my reactions, which are often more complex than red “anger” or black “depression.” This is where my piece becomes complicated, because there are no universally accepted color harmony schemes to represent complex emotions like pity or admiration. Visualizations of a complex emotion require careful consideration of both the individual colors and the overall color composition. The overall scheme needs to convey the emotion successfully. In order to do this, I must successfully manipulate the distribution and proportional amount of color, interactions between color, and color balance. The individual colors are a key part of that; I must purposely decide the intensity, value, and inherent mood. While I could initially decide to express “admiration” with pink, orange, and a small amount of gray, I would need to arrange these colors in a composition that actually conveys this feeling. These compositions should also incorporate line and shape into the design. I could turn the gray sections into a line, but how I choose to draw that line will affect the entire mood of the piece. Should the line be rectilinear or curvilinear? Thick or thin? Composed of a single paintbrush stroke, or several? I must make many of these design decisions before I start creating my final project, while making sure each decision leads to a satisfactory result. This project will be a test of how well I can convey emotion using various elements of design.

As I plan my book, I will also need to practice designing with color and working with the color design techniques introduced in class. I can always review class texts to improve in this area, study my previous art projects to improve mistakes, research color-theory tips and tricks on the web, and analyze color schemes from other art pieces as examples of possible techniques I could use. I can also approach my research by studying the emotional impact of different techniques used in non-representational art pieces. These pieces make the best study materials; I can easily analyze how the elements of line, shape, value, and color work together to create emotional impact. ArtStor, an online artwork database, has an expansive supply of art pieces I can analyze.

Altered Book Proposal #2 – Politics in Art October 31, 2008

My book is an essay collection that covers a variety of artistic disciplines. It includes essays on photojournalism, photography, movies, music, censorship, tattooing, traditional paint-based art pieces, conformity, billboards, and poetry. Eugene Smith writes about his experiences documenting the mercury-poisoning incident in Minamata, Japan. Susan Sontag writes about the numbing effect of various kinds of photography. Robin Greely writes about the works and motivation of Frieda Kalho. Michael Meyer and George Mosse write about Hitler’s censorship of art. Jeff Chang wrote about the origins of hip-hop, the cultural war that started once it developed roots, and how it struggled to become the most popular form of music among youth. The examples noted above are only a small portion of the many essays contained in the book. Most of these essays describe how political and cultural surroundings can influence artists and their artwork, which was a prevalent theme in my Freshman Inquiry course, The Work of Art. The physical book is a combination of two paperback pamphlets our professor put together, with material covering two terms of the class. No one ever published it, and it has no title aside from the course name. I have placed the two pamphlets in a three-ring binder to ensure durability, because the original covers were flimsy pieces of colored paper, and the increased page number would give me more material to create my altered book design.

Since the pamphlet covers a broad range of artists, art mediums, and ideas, I will only focus on essays related to art censorship. As the text describes “art” in an vague sense, I will refer to “art censorship” in an equally vague manner. Censorship of movies, music, literature, and entertainment all count as “art.” These include writings by Michael Meyer and George Moss about the censorship of music and art during the Third Reich, as well as a written record of part of Hitler’s inauguration speech. I will also cover essays about American censorship, including the 1920-1930 era movie censorship guidelines imposed by rising accusations of immoral content, government measures taken against the singer Josephine Baker and her outspoken criticism of racism and discrimination, and Jeff Chang’s essay about the heated debate over rap lyrics and album censorship.

Censorship is still a relevant political issue. Both communities and governments have restricted artistic content in the past, and may continue to do so in the future. Even if the artwork is controversial, banning or restricting it is a blatant violation of freedom of expression. Censorship explicitly contradicts our country’s first constitutional amendment. Even so, people try to avoid anything that disturbs or offends them. They try to eliminate any concept or art piece that will have a negative impact on their children or their community, as was the case with pre-depression era movies and hip-hop lyrics. Censorship is often more complicated than it initially appears, because its supporters often have a reasonable motivation to censor the “offensive” piece, regardless of its medium. However, there are also people who would like to view the piece, and censorship robs people of that opportunity.

My altered book will address different issues of art censorship on separate pages, and will communicate my ideas through iconography and selections from the text. The entire altered book will be two-dimensional, more like a scrapbook than a three-dimensional paper construct. If possible, I want to make the iconography ironic and slightly humorous, so I might change things around. On one page, I will use the three wise monkeys to hint at society’s unwillingness to face objectionable or controversial content, which includes ideas presented by artwork or artists. If public controversy surrounding artwork is strong enough, community or government figures from various positions will ban it to “protect the public from indecency or bad influences.” I can communicate this by either modifying the third monkey to represent a group that stereotypically favors censorship, or communicating the “banned art” concept through a new icon. If I find new motivations for censorship during my research, I will also represent them here. After I research common motivations to censor artwork, I will dispute them all. To counter the ideas I wrote above, I will argue that censorship supporters should develop a greater tolerance to “objectionable” art, because other audience members may not share that repulsion, and deserve better than losing out because of a vocal few. It also asserts that censorship violates freedom of expression and the American Constitution, which I can express through an illustration of the constitution getting consumed by fire and revealing the word “forbidden” behind it.

Before I start the project, I will read the censorship-related essays a final time to ensure perfect comprehension. Then I will revise and expand my approach with external research, because I made several assumptions during the design stage to match the concepts in my text. For what reasons will people censor artwork? How do these reasons change from incident to incident? Who decides to censor an art piece, and does the censor also change? How can local ethics affect art censorship? Are there common themes among censored or banned art? Are there any situations similar to Josephine Baker’s where the artist incites controversy instead of the artwork? Depending on the answers I find, I may need to revise the details of my altered book.

Megan and Cristin’s Vote Poster October 25, 2008

Color Wheel and Fabric Swatches October 19, 2008

Well, this was my second time working with Goache, and my first time using it seriously. I’ve never created a color wheel in my life, so this was a new experience.

I dedicated a good amount of time to mixing colors, but I still can’t get them exactly right. I guess that will take practice. While I was mixing color, I noticed red tends to take over the color completely, even when I add a small amount. Is that due to my paints, or because red is a strong color? Black is even worse, it turns EVERYTHING into puke green. Whenever I add it to a warm color, it has a greenish tint. I don’t know if that’s natural either.

I had a few setbacks while setting up my color wheel, mainly because I spilled a huge amount of glue over my project, and had to rip a couple things off. I accidentally threw a couple complimentary color hues away, so I had to find the color, AGAIN, and re-paint, which took a while. I have no problem with painting, but finding the right color was really hard, especially since I had already painted 8 of 10 swatches and they weren’t in order. Did I mention my complimentary colors were green and red, which (according to the FM test) I’m weakest in?

I had trouble finding the correct opposite colors, so I just guessed, with the assistance of my color wheel. I hope I did well enough…

Altered Book Proposal 1 October 15, 2008

Many people spend their careers analyzing artwork. When they view a piece, they theorize the artist’s motives and inspiration. My Freshman Inquiry class discussed dozens of essays written by these theorists, and my altered book is a compilation of the writings we discussed in class. These writings discuss “works of art” in the loosest sense possible, spanning everything from traditional paint-on-paper artists (such as Frieda Kalho and Chuck Close), to photographers (W. Eugene Smith, Walker Evans), and music artists (Souljah, Ice T). However, I will primarily analyze this book through the pretext of visual art.

Almost all the artists discussed by this packet are motivated by external environment to complete their work. The artwork is always a subtle statement. The artists turn their artwork into a code for theorists and analyzers to decipher. Or they choose to communicate messages, which are often critical of society’s flaws, through their artwork. The packet implies hidden messages have become as integral to professional artwork as canvas and brushes, and I want to dig deeper into this assertion. How prevalent is motivated art, as opposed to non-motivated art? Which demographic does motivated art attract, and is it more popular across a wide range of demographics than non-motivated artwork? I want to become an artist, but this that book implies that the audience, or at least the demographic of intellectuals and art critics, expects “artists” to express relevant, motivated ideas with their work.

I am an artist because I like creating art. The process of drawing is equally as entertaining as the result. I draw if a random event inspires me. Drawings are one of my many pastimes. I like designing art, nothing more or less. I am NOT an intellectual, and my artwork does not try to communicate anything besides aesthetics. The world of motivated artwork is extremely alien to me. As an artist of the general sense, I want to paint, draw and design without being expected to express avant-garde statements. If I were to design my art without being motivated by these things, would I still be an artist? Even if I eventually decided to create my art with a greater purpose, would I have as much fun with it? It is not my intention to dismiss the work of true avant-garde artists, I just want to question if that’s necessary to be a good artist. My background might also be involved, since I have heard very little about professional artists before college, and my experiences here indicate that this college is very enthusiastic about the analysis of art. Or that’s probably because I spent a year discussing the avant-garde in Freshman Inquiry, and I haven’t researched any “non-motivated” artists.

My initial idea was to cut out a little boy carrying paintbrushes in the center of my altered book, surrounded by several adult artists focusing intently on their work. The little boy represents an artist that enjoys his work, but draws with no purpose. Likewise, the adults are representations of motivated artists. They draw to express their viewpoints, and their work contains forms of social inquiry, political criticism, or propaganda. I will cut this design straight from the book using an Xacto-knife, using as much of the book as necessary to complete the design. I will also use glue to attach various sheets together to form a design. As I have never created an altered book, I do not know if my current concept is too ambitious. If the first idea proves to be too complicated, I could replace the adults with several pictures from the book, and use the extra paper to mount these pictures on top of canvases. The ideas expressed through my work will be subtle when the audience views the work by itself. The viewer could interpret the work in a variety of ways if I do not provide them with an explanation.

Of course, this project is currently in the hypothesis stages. I will study the works and motivations for a large number of different artists, both motivated and non-motivated. Perhaps I will need a list of artists that both do and don’t adhere to my hypothesis. Artist biographies will be very helpful, as will more information on how each group of viewers perceives the fine arts. To research a variety of individual artist, I will study some of their works at the art museum, and research a few artists I found in the museum with more detail. I could also visit PSU’s Monday Night Lectures and meet a few artists face-to-face. While I can’t predict what these artists will talk about, I might learn something relevant to my topic.

I will also need to read books about motivated vs. non-motivated artworks. These books will help me examine the nature of motivated art itself. I will learn about the amount of motivated art as opposed to non-motivated art, and I would like to learn how different demographics of art viewers receive both motivated and non-motivated art. Perhaps I will understand motivated art better, and correct my misguided assumptions.

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