Do The Creep

Is it weird that I have an entire folder on my laptop called "Manson Photos?" And by Manson, I mean the deranged serial killer version.

Sorry, bro

Granted, those pictures are research, experimentation and inspiration for an assignment. But still: you say "important person," I say "Charles Manson?" But that's the thing--inspiration can come from literally anything, whether it's rainbows and unicorns, or serial killers, or...dust or something.

My personal inspiration for this first piece (a portrait of an important figure crafted out of other pictures and textures) really came from the word "important" itself. We often think of "important" with the connotation of "good," but it's not necessarily the only interpretation. And who can deny that Charles Manson was an extremely important figure? He was certainly a directly important figure in the lives of both his victims and his followers, he was important in media and the popular imagination, and he is the center of an important incident in American history.

...hi there

And SO we have Portrait #1. I went for an extremely narrow frame of the face, but still included some of Manson's most recognizable traits--the swastika on his forehead, the Helter Skelter reference and those crazy, crazy eyes. The entire thing is composed of layers and layers (and layers) of pictures I took of random textures, as well as overlapping colors and exposures. I constructed the "Helter Skelter" image like a ransom note from different signs around campus and used it as a kind of foundation to ground the rest of the piece.

As an Adobe newbie, this finished portrait is the result of much experimentation, and I hope that it conveys the ambiguity, confusion and uncertainty that I associate with Manson and his story.

BUT the murderous fun doesn't end there! Part 2 of the assignment had us create a companion piece out of text. And what word better sums up the influence and importance of Charles Manson than "infamy?"

A more traditional portrait in composition, but this one still maintains the layers and visual impact of the first. Text is such a fascinating medium and I absolutely loved playing around with all the tools Illustrator has to offer! On the docket for next semester: a typography class! More text adventures to follow...

So IS it too weird to have a "Manson Photos" folder? Maybe...but it inspired some pretty rad art-ing, and I'd say that's worth a pretty large quantity of weird (and sometimes even requires it). A more apt question is maybe "Did I feel completely sketch carrying two full-size portraits of Charles Manson on a public bus?" (to which the answer is a hearty YES). Or "So NOW what do I do with my serial killer art?" Luckily, I have a pretty fantastic, pretty serial-killer-obsessed sister who says she can find some space on her walls for a little bit of creepy inspiration.

Collagepalooza!

WOW it's been a long time! But I think you'll forgive me because it's time for...(drum roll please)...an Art Update! I finally got back some of my first pieces from my art class, so why not put up some pictures to balance out all those words of the last post? So without further ado...collages!

The concept of doing a collage was really weird to me at first. I mean, isn't that what I did in like third grade? But after getting that skepticism out of my system, I realized that it was actually a very cool opportunity to re-examine the elements of art. And some of my favorite elements at that! I'm a very texture oriented person in everything I do (clothes, food, you name it), and art is no different. I'm also a big fan of lines. Pretty ground-breaking, I know.

Anyway, the process was pretty cool. We started by just making pages and pages of shapes, lines and textures out of a variety of different media. Then we cut them up and created two compositions: one with a defined figure-ground relationship, and the other undefined.

Funky!

This is my defined piece! As you can see, the figures kind of have a flow to them--the heaviest, darkest and roughest figures create the foreground and the rest kind of fades off. I really dig this one, because while it's defined, it still has a little ambiguity. And for me, ambiguity = more visual interest = more fun to create AND view!

Funkier?

And now the undefined! This one took much longer to do; as artists we really tend to take for granted the ingrained tendency to create some definition and order even in a piece with abstract subject matter. And at first this collage does look like it's relatively ordered. It's only when you continue to look at it that you notice that certain elements just don't add up: a kind of subtle ambiguity, I guess.

I also had to make another collage that was based on recreating the emotion of a single color. It actually turned out really well, but unfortunately the coloring in the pics I took is kind of terrible, so I'll have to upload it some other time. (Maybe I should invest more time in developing some photography skills).

So that was my first college art assignment! Overall a very surprising experience in both the assignment itself and the time it took to place the elements exactly right. And of course, an inspiring one in its re-evaluation of certain elements and artistic tendencies. Inspiration that has led to some more pretty cool pieces (at least for me to create!), so stay tuned for more art updates!

Tokyo

As I mentioned in my first post, this semester I leapt into my first college-level art class! It's been a really great experience so far, and a source of A LOT of inspiration. So you can expect to hear about it A LOT.

Hopefully I'll have pics of some of my earlier projects up soon if I ever get them back. But for now let's focus on my current project, which is very exciting to me right now! My assignment is to use various print techniques to explore spatial qualities with a foreign land as the subject matter. My subject? Tokyo.

So the girl who loves cities picks the biggest city in the world. SHOCKING. But I just can't get over how amazing it is. Since the biggest city I've ever lived in is Milwaukee, all of those people occupying one space is pretty much impossible for me to imagine. But when I try, it's absolutely mind-blowing. I'm an absolute freak for cityscapes and architecture and people and lights, so Tokyo naturally gets my creative juices flowing. It's everything I love about Milwaukee and cities, but on steroids. Really, really powerful steroids.

The current layout and progress so far...pay no attention to the blank rectangle.

One of the most interesting aspects of Tokyo is the duality of its culture. This contradiction between modernism and tradition, energy and structure, urban architecture and nature is the main focus of my print series. I'm exploring this theme through color, symbols and line quality. The bright neon golds, violets, and greens of the city at night find their counterparts in the softer browns, pinks, and greens. My main symbols for the urban life are the Tokyo Tower, the Metropolitan Government building, and the metro system, while cherry blossoms, the gateway to the Meiji Jingu shrine, and the kanji characters for "Tokyo" represent the opposite.

Most of the shapes thus far were created with a matte medium/acrylic paint combination and stencils I created. The metro map and the kanji characters, however, are the products of Xerox transfers. It's a really cool process that I've never used before, but that I'd definitely use in my work again. In fact, this whole print-making thing is pretty new for me, as my only previous experience with print-making was basically torture. It's awesome to re-discover and explore techniques that you maybe only half-new before, if at all.

I'm seriously digging the interplay of the different textures and layers right now, so although I've got some work to do before I'm done (hello, white space!) I'm pretty pumped to see the final result. Here's to experimentation, new techniques and, of course, Tokyo!