FiNAL PAPER

I feel art plays a pretty significant role in my life.  I know it may sound cliché but for me art is something that kind of takes me away from all of the problems that I have to deal with. It allows me to get away but also not to completely forget. Which probably sounds confusing to you but it makes sense to me.  Art makes people go beyond clichés and allows people to expand their mind and kind of think out of the box. Literal media keeps you inside that box while art usually doesn’t.

 

Here are some examples of what I feel is art:

 

This is called lowrider art. The reason why I feel lowrider art is real art is because it has a special place in my heart. I connect to this kind of art because it’s also referred to as Chicano art and no Chicano art isn’t always on lowriders. (I could only find lowrider art on yahoo.) I am a Chicana so I identify with this type of art. For others this may not come anywhere near their definition of art but for me lowrider/Chicano art is art because of the style, the colors, the blending, it has a glow to it. For me this type of art is beautiful, I mean not all of the drawings are supposed to be considered beautiful but for me it is J. Just for the simple fact of the way it’s drawn. That has to do with what I feel is art. 

 

Here is an example of what I feel iSN’t art:

 

I don’t feel this drawing is art. I’d never consider this as art. I don’t see how in any way this could be art. It’s a drawing by someone who’s apparently confused BUT I don’t see this as art.  And it’s not because it’s drawn on binder paper that makes me consider this not art. Art can be drawn on binder paper, you don’t need anything fancy to draw on so it could be considered art. It’s also not the fact that it’s just one color…red either. It’s just I can’t really put my finger on it but it’s probably the way it’s drawn. I don’t think it it’s drawn very nice. It almost kind of bothers me looking at it. The eye is all weird. I don’t know but if I would see this on a big, fancy museum I would still not consider it art even if it was  in a museum. This just doesn’t do anything for me. I don’t get anything out of it. I don’t and can’t connect to it and I don’t know if I really want to. Harsh but true.

 

I’m not trying to say art can’t be abstract. Art can be abstract and in most cases usually is and that’s something nice about art. That it doesn’t always have to be so literal. Sometimes you have to really stop and just think for a second or a minute or two. Art should be metaphoric. But art can also be simple. For me Art just has to be something I can connect to. Something that isn’t like an eyesore though. I mean art can be about death and it doesn’t have to be beautiful or anything it can look destructive or something like that but I feel art has to just have some skill to it. Like it has to be drawn very well, or at least have good blending of color, something of that sort.  

 

Before this project I felt like art could be just about anything, it just depended on the person. Now I’ve realized that for ME art isn’t anything and everything. What I consider art has to directly connect to ME and not everything directly or even a just a little bit connects to me. Like not all big fancy museum art connects to me or has to do anything with me. So I don’t consider that art.

 

When I started to think seriously about what I think is art I though about Chicano art. It’s a part of my culture it’s a part of me so I feel this is art.  Then I just kind of compared other images to the images I thought were 100% art and realized kind of a pattern on what I thought was art and what wasn’t.

 

Art: lowrider arte, Chicano art. Can be simple, complicated, metaphorical, abstract, creative, destructive, beautiful. But No eyesores puhleez!

 

Not Art: Not drawn very well. No connection to me.

 

 

ARt & BEAUty

                                   "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

Art and Beauty basically talked about how we automatically categorize anything that's beautiful to us as art. We may not realize that we do this but it's true. Researchers as the University of Texas and elsewhere found that babies look longer at people who are generally considered beautiful, regardless of ethnicity. Visually we find things such as luminosity, color, and symmetry to be "pleasing." That said we all will never agree about what certain characteristics make something beautiful and may never agree on what is beauty. 

After I read the the blog post Art and Beauty by Writing Queen I felt like what she had to say was very, very true. We may not realize it but sometimes when we see something beautiful we think of it as art. And maybe that's not completely a bad thing just because art can be beautiful, I mean don't get me wrong art doesn't always have to be beautiful but it can be it's just whatever the artist decides or is feeling. As long as that beauty stirs up some creativity.

At this point my definition of art is still the same but I have realized that many people out there don't realize that just because something is beautiful doesn't mean it's art. Art doesn't have to be beautiful, it can be but it doesn't have to be.

THiS iSN't ARt!

                                      THiS iSN't ARt! 

Just because this piece is probably in a BiG, FANCy museum doesn't mean this is art. And just because this is probably really expensive doesn't make it art either.

When I look at this I don't see nothing I don't feel nothing. It doesn't do nothing.  

WHAt iS ARt??

                                          I feel art has to be MEANiNGfUL. 

  I don't think just anything should be considered art. I don't think like an apple that's been cut open is art. I also don't think a line drawn across a piece of paper is art either. I feel like it has to touch people in a certain way or at least get a message out to people. 

Like the image above, I know many might argue that this isn't really art but for me it is. This is nail art. This may not be sending any particular message out to people BUt it is meaningful for those who like nail art. Someone obviously spent A LOt of time into creating this. And even though it's not on a big canvas or on a building it's still art. To me this is something beautiful. And I'm not saying all art had to be beautiful but in this case this piece of at is.  

 

My TROy DAViS iMAGE.

Troy Davis.

           

RESPONSE.

I wanted to make my campaign ads not to look cheesy but I also wanted my audience to get the point that i was trying to send. I also didn't want to make my ads look like yours because then I'd just be copying and that's no good. Sooo for my Obama ads i wanted to make him appear friendly, wise, and some one who's very patriotic and wants what's best for this country.

For my 1st ad i took a picture from yahoo and it was just his head and his hands and it looks like he's in deep thought. Soi decided to make the background white and make him glow! So in the end he looked very wise and wordly. I didn't want the end to be overwhelmed with words or anything so in the upper right hand corner i just put Obama 2008 in red and blue since it would stand out because of the white background. And then i just put a small picture of cartoon kids who look very happy and jumping under the Obama 2008. I did that because i felt like the ad looked a little too plain.

For the 2nd ad i took another picture from yahoo and it was just him looking like he's making a speech. He already looked pretty epic but i wanted to appear even MORE epic. So i got rid of his background. And painted his background red, white and blue. I wanted the colors to look faded kind of and then after i added some white stars in the red and blue parts for a more patriotic effect.

For the 3rd pic i decided to not do a Obama ad. Instead i did a McCain ad. But an ad AGAiNSt him not for him. So i just took a picture from yahoo. He was smiling. It was a head shot. Then in photoshop i made his picture smaller and made it turn sideways a little. I put horns on his head with pain and i outlined his picture with black paint. on his picture in red bold words i wrote republican't.

I would say i liked my 2nd ad the best just because i feel like i's not plain looking but it doesn't have too much going on. My 1st one sucked because it was my first one and my third one was just made to be funny but still prove a point.

The End.

My 2nd image. sorry i didn't put my first image first. 

--Nataly

WHAt iS A BLOG?

Nothing in this article really stood out to me. 

According to Jarrett, blogs are personally published documents on the web, with attribution and date, collected in a single place, generally published with a static structure to facilitate incoming links from other sources & updated with some regularity.

What differentiates a blog from a regular web page is in frequency, intent, and practice. Instead of claiming authority, blogs let readers make up his/her own mind. 

Blogging is like an alternative outlet for publishing commentary on other materials on the web and for relating first-hand experiences. Blogs allow individuals to publish their opinions and other material.

The reason why it's significant that your work gets collected over time in a blog is because by keeping a permanent record of the bloggers' writings in a central place, a blog implies a certain amount of accountability for the author's words & opinions. 

By providing voices to the powerless and by giving a voice in the same sphere to individuals inside institutions, greater understanding between the two parties can be reached, opinions can be formed and shaped, and change can be effected.