Blog #1

On Tuesday, January 10, 2011 a guest speaker named Laura Vandenburgh spoke to our class, Art 101. She opened her lecture talking about drawing. She talked about how a medium is important and also a mark is important when it comes to drawing. She then showed us as a class slides of drawings from various artists. There were many drawings that really caught my eye. In particular was a drawing of open water in the ocean. It was so spectacular because at first glance it looked like a photograph. It wasn't until Ms. Vandenburgh explained it was a drawing by an artist I did not write the name of down, that I realized it was not a photograph. Such detail and precision in the drawing really captured my attention. I also enjoyed the work of art that was done completely with colored ballpoint pens that covered an entire room. I appreciated this piece of work because it was clear how much time and effort was put into it and the fact that the simplicity of it created something more really interested me. The most creative piece that I enjoyed was the piece where a bunch of trash was piled in a specific formation and then the artists' shadows were projected on the screen in the same formation. I could connect the words Ms. Vandenburgh was talking about like mark and medium with the pieces of art work that she showed the class. I thought the presentation as a whole was very interesting and I enjoyed it very much. 

The reading we were assigned to read is about Modern art and all different specific types of art that fall under that category. For instance, there is futurism, surrealism, abstract, formalism, high and low, structuralism, semiotics, and more. I found it interesting in the reading that Sigmund Freud's idea of the unconscious and how good art could be created from that (page 3). This idea influenced many people in the modern art world and some artist began to draw from their dreams which I think would create amazing art because in dreams things can be obtained that cannot be in real life. However, the reading also talked about abstract art and I can't say that I like abstract art very much (page 7).There is something about it that causes me to lose interest even though for most people it creates interest because you are not being told immediately what you are supposed to be looking at. It was interesting to see all the pictures of the different types of modern art in the reading though. 

There is a connection between the lecture and the reading. As I read the reading and it introduced certain types of modern art I was able to connect it back to the slides Ms. Vandenburgh showed us in class of all the different drawings. The artists who drew the drawings we viewed in class had signs of the types of modern art from the reading, There was some abstract art, there was some drawings that had intrinsic and extrinsic meaning, there was formal drawings, and informal drawings, surreal drawings, and even futuristic. It all came together when what I was reading was also what I was seeing on the slides. For example, back to Sigmund Freud's idea of unconscious art from dreams that reminded me of Paul Nobles drawings that we saw in the slide show. His drawings were of his own made up world. It was very captivating and the reason I am connecting to Freud to it is because both had the idea to create things from places that aren't exactly reality and real life. Others may not make this connection or agree but it is what came to mind and I thought was interesting. Overall I enjoyed both the lecture and the reading. 

http://warhol-art.blogspot.com/2007/12/warhol-wallpapers-wednesday-sigmund.html

(For some reason my computer will not let me add any images, so I put the link)