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Espresso Shots & Artful Thoughts
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3D to 2D
The end of this class has taught me many things. I can excel through perseverance and planning. I have learned more about the way I do art than I thought I would. I have become so reliant on the computer and have lost feeling for the physical, untamed, and natural. Laura Mongiovi has been more than an excellent teacher in showing me the essence of art in it’s purest form. And thankfully everything I have learned will help me not only do but feel art as it should be.
[Flash 10 is required to watch video]
Sound Confession.
Sound Confession.
I hate painting.
It is the most difficult of techniques, my worst proficiency, and the artistic thorn to my side. So what better to illustrate this than a box covered in paintings? I tortured myself on this project. Doing what I’m worst at and for a long period of time is borderline masochism. It is meant to symbolize how painting is to me: I dislike the practice and I’m not good at it, but I’m told that I should be the opposite. I praise order and the beauty of flow, but painting is to lose the one thing that my art has always loved- control.
Ironic because it is torturous.
Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot…
Poem project. A work of art that reflects a poem.
Guy Fawkes was burned at the stake for treason against a country that no longer supported his religion. His condemnation that day and for all time has forever defined the United Kingdom. The memory of the famous rebel will always be burned into the history of one of the greatest and oldest nations of all time.
Sound Confessions
I hate painting.
It is the most difficult of techniques, my worst proficiency, and the artistic thorn to my side. So what better to illustrate this than a box covered in paintings? I tortured myself on this project. Doing what I’m worst at and for a long period of time is borderline masochism. It is meant to symbolize how painting is to me: I dislike the practice and I’m not good at it, but I’m told that I should be the opposite. I praise order and the beauty of flow, but painting is to lose the one thing that my art has always loved- control.
Ironic because it is torturous.
Masked Identity
Masked Identity
My Masked Identity project led me to a direction that I did not expect. I love to fish so the form took the shape of a distorted fish as it represents something that I enjoy. In college, schoolwork consumes most of my time and it never seems to go away- no matter what I do. It creates a sort of “elephant in the room” scenario. The use of a fish is to exhibit the idea of being “eaten alive” by my work and, no matter what I do throughout my day-to-day schedule, it never seems to not be on my mind.
The presence of homework, money, and worry in my life is present at all times- a terrifying idea I have come to terms with. We all in some way are coping with the insurmountable circumstances that surround us. However depressing this piece of artwork may be, I find hope in the idea; that despite all the fear, worry, and struggle we still go on. We keep pushing on in spite of the opposition, to what ends? That we only have hope for them. By what means? Perseverance.
I know this concept may appear torturous? Exhausting? Agonizing? Welcome to college.
Momento
This is a carved apple. Enough said.
The reason for this piece is because of a memory I had as a child. Laying under an apple tree in a park in England, where we were vacationing at the time. The smell of fallen apples and new flowers of those growing on the tree filled the air, while the harsh grass and sharp leaves pressed into my arms and legs. This piece is not a visual object, but rather a physical memory. The smell, the feel, the delicacy of the tranquility of laying under a huge tree in an English field in the mid summer was indescribable. If you close your eyes and wrap your fingers around the apple, you suddenly feel the form, rough, sharp, and delicate. As your palms hold the fruit the weight, shape, and intricacies become apparent. The smell rolls over your hands and the sweet apple gives the memory body, it is no longer a visual or mental piece but rather of physical memory.
Like all memories, the smell, the shape, and the feel will always be remembered, but the physical look will disappear and wither. Our bodies remember better than our mind, they are purer, more true, and retain emotion that is unseen or undesired.
Paper Stacking Project. Orange and a claymation model mushroom.
The use of touch is the guiding idea behind this project. The shape, texture, imperfections of the orange are all translated through the medium of paper, stacked so that the object may be made. The second object is a part of my childhood. Working with clay and making little figures, combined with single photo animation, was a fun past time of mine. This stacked figure is a part of who I am, it is a fun, comedic, and interesting. Originally, when I was planning to make the object, I was just going to make a ball of clay, out of stacked paper; however I wanted it to be more personal, similar to the touch and feel of who I was and of what make me the way I am. Much of my art is a parody, or a satire on what is around me. This little piece gives me a much more personal take on my usual expression. It is, to me, a representation of a personal part of who I am, expressed through touch.
The Hand
The intimacy of touching with our hands is almost uncommunicable. Why is it that something handmade is more valuable than a mass-produced object? The feel of our hands, and of other peoples’ hands, is comforting, calming, and natural. There is complexity in the movements of the human hand that only another human hand can understand.
Thoughts on
The Hand, Diane Ackerman
The Skin Has Eyes
To see something, visually, only lets us see and understand one angle or side of an object. Through the use of touch, alone, we not only understand, but we comprehend the shape, texture, sides, size, and weight of the object, realized attributes that can only be achieved through touch. Touch allows us to move in the dark, sight communicates the outside or the perspective, but touch teaches us the essence.
Thoughts on
The Skin Has Eyes, Diane Ackerman
First Touches
Nature, the innate sense and development that all humans have, is relative. The development of this understanding is began first through touch, all other means of communication are made useful after the establishment of the only sense we can’t turn off or stop. Humans find the innate attribute of experience very valuable, this is first found through touch. Mother to child, mouth to food, skin to warmth, it is the experience that makes us understand.
Thoughts on
First Touches, Diane Ackerman
Speaking of Touch
Language is steeped in metaphors of touch.
To understand, perceive, and realize is to be human. How humans understand themselves is by defining who we are by what is around us, a sort of lining that makes us personal. Not unlike all people, we communicate; but the words we use to relate out thoughts and feelings to other people are only of the most innate and personal language. Touch defines, it is personal, and cannot be misunderstood.
Thoughts on
Speaking of Touch, Diane Ackerman
About Espresso Shots & Artful Thoughts
A collection of artwork, thoughts, and the study of design by Justin Sooter. JSooter471@flagler.edu
