Work Day (Thomas Hart Benton Speech)/Practice Speech I

I spent this day finishing some more research on Benton and create a simple outline to follow for my speech.  While I knew memorizing an entire speech wouldn’t go well, I needed some way to keep my train of thought from scattering all over the place.  I wanted to start with a small quote from Benton’s writing and talk about his early career from abstract artist to a Regionalist.  Then I wanted to point out certain points in the piece that related to the progress of Benton’s career, and then I wanted to end with a note to how the piece served as a transition into Benton’s later work that he created until he passed away.  I want to try to throw in a visual analysis of the piece throughout, so that I can relate it back to Benton’s career.

After actually giving this version of the speech, I received some very nice insight in how I should change it.  While I was told my presence and conversational manner was adequate, my information was a bit scattered.  It was suggested that I drop the quote entirely and start out with a visual analysis.  This way I can drag the audience straight to the piece, and they don’t get lost in the beginning.  Other than that, the info I provided for Benton’s career was deemed appropriate for the five minute presentation.

Sarah Emerson Artist Visit

I was really excited to go to the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and speak to Sarah in her own studio space.  She is currently my professor for Painting II, and I admire her work.  Her process was very inspiring.  I liked the importance that she placed in her research, and that many of her paintings she creates have elements of many places that she has looked into.  Especially her use of eyes as representatives of witness trees on battlefields.  I do find it interesting the working conditions that she uses.  She is very neat and doesn’t really listen to music, but she has some white noise going on in the background.

I sometimes have a hard time finding things that inspire me, but I’ve recently been trying to put importance on my own research to influence some of my own art.  It has really helped me get a grasp on some ideas and formulate a world of my very own.  This visit really helped me get a good idea on how to continue these ideas and place them in my world.

Process Talks

As a class, we each got the chance to discuss how our research for both the Visual Analysis Project and Curator Project was going.  While most of my process for the Visual Analysis was pretty simple, there was very small feedback for it, but I had a few artists and their pieces for my Curator Project that I brought up.  I definitely wanted to keep my theme of motion, so I felt that these artists encapsulates what I want to show.

Daniel Wurtzel. Magic Carpet. Nov 9, 2009. Video.

Beth Cavener Stichter. Bloom. 12’x12’x12″. 2010. Stoneware and lace.

And Nick Cave (I couldn’t decide what costume to choose as they are all beautifully fluid).  I was made aware that all of my artist are contemporary so finding background info on him would be a bit difficult, and that I probably shouldn’t be too afraid to look at a few historical pieces.  I was also given a few books suggestions to browse through to better understand modern sculpture, and maybe why I was drawn to it.

Introduction to Public Speaking

A class something a lot of us could benefit from.  I really disliked public speaking especially when it comes to talking to people I probably have never spoken to before.  The CWS tutor really stressed the importance of practice because our speeches will be given on the site of our pieces with no notes.  This might be beneficial to us in that we won’t get distracted by large bodies of text written for speeches which I tend to do.  We were also given the suggestion by the professors of having ourselves recorded during our practice sessions, so we can view our performance later and notice any nervous twitches.

While this may seem daunting and cringe worthy, this is probably something we should all attempt at least once.  When a friend of mine performed on stage, I would record her each night for each performance.  She would then watch how she moved, her body language, and her speech delivery, so each night, she would be more confident and surer of her body movements.  I really felt this improved her performance, and while I’ll only have one shot at this instead of several nights of performance, a little confidence in myself will probably go a long way when delivering a speech such as this in front of a crowd.

Art Papers

Going into this trip, I had no idea who they were and what they did.  I decided to just blindly go in and absorb what they had to say about their project.  I came to find out that they are a small non-profit organization that publishes an art magazine that started in the mid-70’s, and the first publication was full of a lot of typos according to them.  Call me impressed, because I was and still am.

Not only did we learn about the beginnings, but we learned of how the Executive Director Saskia and the Editor/Artistic Director Victoria got their jobs at Art Papers by the serendipity of life.  Through hard work, many internships, taking jobs where they could, and a lot of connections/networking, they managed to be placed in positions that use all the skills that they have acquired through their many experiences.

Elements and Principles of Design (and Short WordPress Workshop)

It really wouldn’t be any type of art class if this wasn’t at least mentioned once during the semester.  It was really nice to get a refresher.  As I have had class with both of the professors that presented for this day, I knew basically what they were going to be discussing and what examples they would be using.  I was pleasantly surprised that they both went a bit more in depth with their examples and discussions.  They really spent a good amount of time making sure we understood the basics and gave beautiful examples to compare to get us to open up about what they were teaching us.

We also had a short workshop in the workings of WordPress.  What started out as Nell, our professor for that day, teaching us the fundamentals and answering questions, it slowly turned into a group learning/teaching session.  Almost all of us contributed something about the mechanics of running a blog.  I contributed on how to work the categories function for our class WordPress blogs.

Collection/Curation Project

As a senior studio art major, I am trying to come up with a senior project for my capstone year.  With this in mind, I would really love to create and curate a gallery show that involves motion.  I originally became inspired with the idea of motion when I participated in the collaborative performance class last semester and with two performance pieces I found on YouTube:

Daniel Wurtzel. Magic Carpet. Nov 9, 2009. Video.

Ben Shirinian. Lost in Motion II. Dec 2, 2013. Video.

I really enjoy movement in any art piece (and the color red apparently).  Especially when it is displayed by the human body as shown in the second video.  Hopefully, I can convey my love and passion for such performances and artworks through this project.

Introduction to Methods in Art and Art History

Initial thoughts on this class has me nervous about what I can contribute to class discussions and our projects.  For the first day, we discussed the upcoming projects and the syllabus and expectations of the class.  We also went around and introduced our selves and our respected majors and our first impressions of the class.  I’m excited to see the skills and ideas of our class applied to our different projects.