Building your blog

Last semester a student included his notes for creating his blog-what a fantastic way to gather your thoughts!! I couldn't include all of the pages but you get the idea!

An Artist's Book Example

I have created this blog for you so that you can have some idea how to make it look. I used other students words and images and mixed and altered them a bit to protect identities. You can see that it is basically a visual journal. Of course you will create a first page with your name, class number, Date, and title if you have one.

You should create your pieces first in powerpoint and then upload them in a backwards order. In other words, upload your last self-generated piece first and your first assignment last so that they are in order from 1-15 and then the self-generated ones last. Just like this blog your blog should have extensive notes of explanation.

#1 Parameters

I enjoyed Annette Messager’s use of pantyhose in her sculpture. When considering my artist book I could not keep the idea of pantyhose out of my mind. The basis for my book is the idea of family: the difficulties, problems, love, hate, death, etc. Pantyhose are made to help hide any imperfections like blemishes, bruises, and even scars. I thought about my family and other families and how we all try to hide the imperfections within our family from the rest of the world. Therefore, I covered my book with pantyhose, included a doll (innocence, growth), and then I painted it with white acrylic paint. A viewer would have to cut open the pantyhose to view the inside, personal pages.

#2 Self Exploration

Line is the record of a movement. The lines on a map are a record of the cartographer’s exploration.

Coffee cups, receipts, wristbands and ticket stubs are records of my movement. When examining the residue of my life, the things I leave behind as I move forward, it is clear where I have been.

#3 Notions of Home

1. Michael Raedecker’s work was truly inspiring and one that I enjoyed out of the lectures. Playing on his ideas of home and its comforts and then making them eerie, I thought of family photographs. Every family has their photographs that act as mementos to remember certain times, moments, or those we have lost. We all have these photographs and put our own memories to them. So I took photographs and cropped the heads off. While this may seem eerie it shows how anyone can associate a memory with these photographs.

2. I have always had a somewhat rocky relationship with my home environment. To me it is a puzzle based on stress and anxiety. I have always been extremely independent from my parents and have chosen to lead my path separately from my family. This image explores this idea. From my first step, I have always been somewhat on my own. To me, home is only a state of mind – something that I consider negative and almost haunting. My childhood is something that I have always explored within my art.

This is a drawing of a baby shoe.

#4 Where do We Come From and Where do We Land?

Women in America are forced to deal with their bodies imperfections. Everyone wants to be skinny, have big boobs, big lips, and etc. The sad thing is that when a person makes these changes (and some do go too far) they are changing their traits that have been passed down from their parents.

Also, you see an image of an ideal woman in heels. Her head is replaced by a television, and she is laying eggs. This is a direct quote to the body wars in America. Because there are so many social issues concerning body images and media expectations, we have lost touch with reality. Instead, television, celebrities, and reality shows consume our brains. Even our kids understand that there are rules and taboos of which to live by – and most are scared to stray. We have brain washed our generation and have fried their brains like eggs. Speak out against conformity, and instead leave us alone that are trying to survive.

#5 Art and Life

Facebook has entered the homes of young teens to elderly adults. The new ability to keep in touch with friends or people (you do not even know) is just a click away. In fact I feel that people are all too willing to share personal information. Going through other people’s Facebook pages I see a lot of posts about what a person is doing each second of the day to inappropriate photos. I think that people do not see that just by revealing this information they are allowing other people to judge their character (sometimes this can lead to wrong judgments). More importantly they could lead sex offenders or murderers to them. For me my Facebook is simply a way to keep in touch with friends and a way to sell artwork. However, following the concepts of Sophie Calle I could see combining art and life through my Facebook page. I could make viewers my “detective” by bringing them into my life, showing them what I want them to see, and see what they interpret.

Extending the idea of art and life through a person’s Facebook page I could play on the idea of too much information. I think it would be important to display a person’s pictures (blocking faces) as well as their posts. Then viewers would be given the opportunity to sketch out their idea of what this person looks like. I would hope that this work would show people how the information they share on Facebook would lead other people to draw wrong conclusions about them