AP Art and Ellsworth High School

The school's mission statement is vague enough that I could fulfill most of the expectations by going to the supermarket or checking my email, or sitting outside a café in... Lisbon. If this is really why I sat through 12 years of school, I'm really upset about not simply being sent to Lisbon instead. 

The fact that a relatively standardized and measured system like that of a public school would even use such a general and multi-interpretable method of evaluating goals is an example, ready at hand, of why art is ever important even in the most structured of settings. It's easy enough to tell people where you want them to go, what you want them to do, and how you want them to do it, but to tell them what you want them to think? Here the line of repression looms, and those wishing (wisely, thankfully) not to cross it are forced into producing the vaguest semblance of direction, concepts so broad and applicable they almost seem absurd from a practical standpoint. 

Yet, someone must know how to interpret these messages, the ideas that fall into that category of the infinite and the perceptive. There must be people ready and willing to navigate the part of the mind that is not governed by the superficial or the arbitrary.

If anyone dares doubt the importance of art in schools, they have only their mission statement to look at. Without art, these words would mean nothing. 

Well, I'm not sure what this weeks blog post is supposed to be about, but from looking around it seems like it's a retrospective on our portfolios so far. 

I think my portfolio is coming along fine, there seems to be plenty of diversity in it. However, lately I've been frustrated. I'm not sure why, it just seems like my last few pieces haven't really pleased me. I feel like I'm doing work because I have to do something and not because I'm actually fulfilling interesting ideas. The ideas that I have are too big for weekly projects or just seem inappropriate for a college portfolio. 

Despite this, the portfolio that I have so far is certainly headed in the right direction. I have some good observationals, a figure, a balance of pencil/charcoal and pastel/paint. I guess now what I really need is more developed stuff.

AP Art.

Action

One of my categories was "verb", like, "action": things taking place, focus on the taking place. It was difficult to find an artist whose work focused on action, but eventually I came upon Li Wei. A surrealist photographer from China, his recent work has featured shots of himself in seemingly impossible moments of action, to the point of appearing extremely dangerous to himself. 

Simulated through complex assemblies of wires and cranes and the POV of the camera, yet capturing reality and connecting with the viewer, these are less like pictures snapped in the moment and more like the work of a medium artist, "staging" a show as opposed to "capturing" it. 

Li Wei says that his work carries a message about the security of the human state as we progress. Quoted here, he says: 

“There is a feeling of losing a grip on things, an uncertainty about the morrow. It’s a feeling of hanging in the air, of having nothing firm under the feet. And even if the family is my priority and thus a key part of my performances, I wonder: How much are we able to put up with?”

Although not in painting or sculpture, Wei uses the same concepts that I would like to use in my work exploring action.

My favorite piece that I've created is probably my faces, crowd piece. It's hard to decide, and maybe it's more out of fondness than actual taste, but I guess I'd have to choose that one. 

Here is one of my favorite art pieces:

Created by Damien Hirst, it is a shark preserved and suspended in turquoise formaldehyde. It is entitled, "the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living." It is probably one of the most hated pieces of contemporary art, and it often comes up in the debate of the validity of conceptual art. Personally, I love it. Perhaps I don't respect it so much, or aspire to it, but I certainly love that it exists, and I most of all love the fight to understand it. I can long sit thinking about its implications. 

And there is a connection between my "people piece" and this. They both are the product of intention, and they both happily fail to convey that intention. However, despite, or maybe because of this casual failure, the intention becomes much more. The stronger I think about this piece, the deeper it slices into my consciousness. I feel like it has wormed its way in, tunneling a cold, wandering path through my frosty apple mind. It imbeds itself in a fresh core of now. It rears, taps on a frozen hard seed of my existence. 

I'd like to think that my pieces could do that. But of course, those who fear being seen as pretentious, who wouldn't dare "pretend" that anything they think or feel is exceptional—word worthy, metaphor worthy, art worthy—those people will say, "This is worthless. Anyone can do this."

Birth Month Artist

This was incredibly frustrating, as apparently, artists born in May do not far well. Finally, I decided that the most well known artist I could find was a french woman named Orlan. Like many eccentrics before her, she has chosen to refer to herself by one short name. However, unlike people like Prince or Moby, finding her last name is nearly impossible. She was born on May 30th, 1947. I'm going to make a very friendly suggestion to you right now, and warn you not research Orlan any further, for the fame she has was won through three primary means: one, actually being a thought provoking artist, two, being obsessed with sexuality and including it, deliberately grotesque, in her pieces, and three, subjecting herself to numerous plastic surgeries in order to turn herself into her own ultimate work of art. She calls this process "self hybridization". 

Becoming interested? Well, stop. Or at least, don't point fingers at me when you take a peak at her work. To finalize my point, here is a delightful quote for you:

"I can observe my own body cut open, without suffering!... I see myself all the way down to my entrails; a new mirror stage. "I can see to the heart of my lover; his splendid design has nothing to do with sickly sentimentalities"- Darling, I love your spleen; I love your liver; I adore your pancreas, and the line of your femur excites me." (Orlan from Carnal Art Manifesto)

Honestly, I find it all very interesting—but you won't catch me admitting to being excited by stuff like this, oh no, you won't! Disgusting. Horrible, horrible. Don't look at it.