Simplicity.

This week’s reading was an excerpt from “The Vocabulary of Comics.” It went over things like icons, cartoons, and how the reader perceives those cartoons. I found it to be an interesting read. I had never thought of cartoons in that aspect. At one point, he talks about how a face is really just a circle, two dots, and a line (31). I had never realized this before. When I read it, I just sat and stared at the face, wondering how that ever came about. It is barely defined, yet everyone recognizes it as a face. The reading goes on to talk about how people can identify more with simpler cartoons. They may even see themselves as a cartoon character. It isn’t until the cartoon acquires more detail that people distance themselves from it. I would have to agree with this. I have related to characters many times until they do something so specific that I don’t see myself as that character anymore. I’m sure everyone else has done this as well.

The reading goes on to say that our face is just a mask (34). I found this particularly interesting. It says how faces are just masks that do exactly what they are told to do and that people don’t really have a view of what their “masks” look like. We only imagine definitions of faces. After reading about this, I stopped and really thought about it. There have been times where I have gone to smile and thought, “What if I’m not actually smiling? What if I’m just sitting here with a stupid expression on my face?” And by that time, my face has probably actually changed from a smile to a stupid expression. The thought of not actually knowing what is on my face is fascinating.

The last portion of the reading that I would like to talk about is one portion where there is a panel of blobs (32). The author goes on to say that these blobs can “be made into a face with one simple addition.” In the next panel, all the faces have one eye. It is amazing that we can give anything a personality with the addition of one eye. The next panel shows a bull’s eye target, which is what was used for the blob eyes. A little later, I was watching tv and a Target commercial came on. I found it interesting that if their logo was put on something, it could be turned into a character.

This somewhat leads me into our guest speaker, Michael Salter. During one portion of his presentation, he showed a sequence of slides that were ordinary objects with faces. This brings me back to the fact that anything can be turned into a character with the addition of a face. They are frequently used for advertisements, like the refrigerator that Michael showed us.

I really enjoyed listening to Michael. He came across as very relatable and down to earth. This is probably due to the fact that he talked about his life and his work. Listening to him talk about his transformation from commercial art to freelance work was very interesting. When he brought up that people’s brains react the same to a bottle of coke as to a picture of their mother, it made me think about how surrounded we really are by advertisements. I had never really realized it before then. I liked all of Salter’s work. I found it to be engaging. I liked when he said he liked his work to be “brief, concise, and confusing” and that he “finds comfort in discomfort.” Both of those phrases stuck with me and I could see both of these ideas come to life in his work. I enjoyed how all of his work was very simplistic, yet also made me think about what was happening. I particularly liked his Styrofoam robots. It kind of reminded me of the reading, in relation to everything being able to be a character with the addition of a face.

We also looked at work by Chris Coleman, who has done work with Salter. I was a little confused by his artwork. Even after reading the descriptions of them, I didn’t understand what he was trying to get across. However, there was one video that stuck with me.  The video was “Scape.” The description says, “Here the balance between predator and prey is essential. We are drawn to the light in the distance, but one cannot avoid the dangers of the never-ending exploration and expansion.” I extremely understand this description. While watching the video, even though it is quite simple, I was overcome with an eerie feeling, yet I couldn’t stop watching. I was curious about what was going to happen next.

This week, there seemed to be an overall sense of simplicity. This sense of simplicity reminded me of a blog that I read called “Hyperbole and a Half.” It is by Allie Brosh, who tells stories and animates them through the paint program on her computer. The animations are very simple, but it is very easy to tell what is happening, and the simplicity makes it more fun and relatable. 

 

She created a character by adding a face.

 

Ally created a creature off of her hatred of spelling/grammar errors.

Blog Number One!

I would like to start off by saying I’m quite excited for this class. Hearing about many different art styles and learning about different artists is interesting for me. The reading for this week was about all different art styles. I felt this was appropriate for the first week since we theoretically don’t know much about art (or at least I don’t). The reading was an excerpt from the book “Art Theory for Beginners.” I thought it was interesting reading about all the different kinds of art. However, it was difficult to imagine what the reading was talking about. It would mention a lot of different artists and works that they did, but I couldn’t really imagine what it was talking about since it didn’t show the art that was being referenced. I would have much preferred having the cartoon drawings replaced with the artwork being referenced. I did enjoy learning about Duchamp’s readymade collection. I knew about Fountain, but I didn’t know there was a whole collection. I also thought it was funny that he was a judge in the contest that he entered Fountain in.

At one point during “Art Theory for Beginners,” the “museum without walls” is discussed. The idea, presented by Andre Malraux, was that museums affected the way that people saw art and through recreation and circulation of prints a sort of museum without walls was created. I’m not quite sure if I’m taking this in the way it should be taken, but what I got from it was that some art is not meant to be viewed in a museum. For instance, viewing Banksy’s street art in a museum would not be nearly as moving as seeing it on a building.

This idea ties in with the view of artist Margaret Kilgallen. In one of her interviews she talks about shop signs and how she prefers to see handmade signs rather than neon signs. Seeing a street sign in a museum would totally change the perspective on how it was viewed. In a museum, it would be seen purely as a work of art and everyone viewing it would know that’s what its purpose was. On the street, the sign is only seen as art for those looking for it, which makes it special and more appreciated for those who see it.

Kilgallen also talks about how she prefers handmade signs because of the personality it has. She says you can see the artist’s hand in their work. She also likes the imperfection of handmade work. No matter how hard someone tries to make handmade work perfect, there will always be something askew with it, which shows its beauty. This is why all her work is handmade. All her work has imperfections and her hand is shown in every piece.

Our guest speaker this week, Laura Vandenburgh, talked about drawing. She talked about how each artist has their own specific signature shown within their artwork, which ties back into what Kilgallen said. Laura discussed how drawing doesn’t necessarily have to be done with paper and pencil. She showed one artist who uses wires as a sort of art. You could walk around this kind of art and see it in so many different ways. You can’t do this with something drawn on paper. I would have never thought that this could be considered drawing. One of my favorite pieces was by Tim Noble and Sue Webster. They created a shadow of two people sitting back to back by shining a light on piled up garbage. I would have never thought of something like this. It is incredible that people can do things like this, create art out of garbage and shadows. Another piece that I liked was the walls that were covered in ballpoint pen drawings. I was in awe seeing this because I can appreciate the time that was put into covering walls with a tiny pen.

When Laura was talking about each artist showing their signature in their work, I thought of my friend Anthony. Sometimes, in his spare time, he likes to draw and I can definitely see his signature in each of the drawings he has done. So for this week’s visual response, I’m posting one of his drawings.