Blog #5

"If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface: of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it." I feel Warhol is saying that you take his art at face value; it's not to be read into.

I must say, I love Andy Warhol. He was such an odd character, but got so much attention from everyone in society. He changed how a lot of people view art. He even said, "what's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest." It's as if everyone is equal in his eyes when it came to viewing and appreciating his art.

I really like when Andy spoke about driving the California and everything looked Pop on the highways. "Once you 'got' Pop, you could never see a sign the same again." It's as if everything turned into Pop art once you knew what it was and understood it. Nothing was just an object, it was Pop. "The moment you label somthing, you take a step -- I mean, you can never go back again to see it unlabeled." This can apply to life, not just art. I have noticed in almost everything we've read each week, an artist says something about labels, and I feel I can really identify with this, even though I am not an artist. It makes me feel connected to the artist, without ever being an actual artist.

Talking about movies being more realistic than real life...I can see truth in that. The movies are this hour and a half perfection on screen. It brings you in and makes you feel as if life is actually like that, so once you are in the real world again, it doesn't feel as vivid. "The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television -- you don't feel anything."

My favorite thing Andy said in this article is when he talked about being alive is working. "I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of 'work,' because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do." I think this is so incredibly true, that is takes much more work to keep on living than to just lay down, give up, and die. Being alive is hard and exhausting, but the moments of bliss are worth it all.

Blog #4

"...I don't think any honest artist sets out to make art. You love art. You live art. You are art. You do art. But you're just doing something. You're doing what no one can stop you from doing." This statement really drew me in. It's as if being an artist is not just a job or chore, it's a way of living, it's who you are. It's as if the artist and the art are one, there is no separation. I really like how Robert spoke about the way he produced his art, without thinking. It reminded me of Pollock, letting your mind wander and seeing what comes out.

Rauschenberg's Note on Painting honestly made no sense to me. I couldn't understand what message he was trying to convey. It's as if he was using certain words to reference something, but I couldn't figure out what.

The opening paragraph is very interesting as well. "Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made." I feel he is saying art is like life, it just is. No one can make it, it is just there. I think my favorite thing Rauschenberg said was, "painting is always strongest when in spite of composition, color, etc., it appears as a fact, or an inevitability, as opposed to a souvenir or arrangement," because I feel he is saying that paintings are at their best when they just happen, not when they are forced as means of trophies. I think he feels that paintings are better when they are made with feeling from the artist's core as opposed to something that was produced for means of making money.

blog on "jasper johns interview with G. R. swenson"

             I honestly don't feel like paraphrasing this interview. So, instead i'm going to talk about one part of the interview that got my attention. Nearing the end of the interview jasper johns said "If you make chewing gum and everybody ends up using it as glue, whoever made it is given the responsibility of making glue, even if what he really intends to make is chewing gum." And this is true for art. when an idea gets misinterpreted i don't necessarily feel as though its wrong or that the artist did a bad job. I welcome this  at times. as far as visual art goes i think at times the subconscious influences the art more.

Blog #3, Part 2: Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon's portraits are quite unappealing to me, as they seem to be to others as well. The way he takes photographs of people and then distorts them is not what I am drawn to. I am drawn to the fact that he does this using his friends' portraits instead of having them sit for him. He said in interview 3, 1971-1973, "We nearly always live through screens -- a screened existence. And I sometimes think, when people say my work looks violent, that perhaps I have from time to time been able to clear away one or two of the veils or screens." I really like that statement, that maybe by distorting these images of humans, he has removed their veils and revealed their true nature.

I found it surprising and enlightening when he spoke about criticism. He said he wished he had someone to criticize his work, because it makes you think, even if you don't agree with what someone said, you still sat down and mulled over it. With praise, you just accept it and move on. I think that can be taken far beyond the spectrum of art, into day-to-day life. When people critcize us, we think about it. Maybe it helps us change, maybe not, but they still caught our attention, if just for a moment. "...people are less vain of their personalities than they are of their work. They feel in an odd way, I thnk, that they are not irrevocably commited to their personality, that they can work on it and change it, whereas the work that has gone out -- nothing can be done about it." This statement was quite entertaining to me, causing me to chuckle a bit, but I feel it is true. People's personalities are always morphing, but it's like once their art goes out, it's concrete; nothing can be done to change it now.

Blog #3, Part 1: Chuck Close

I found Chuck Close's portraits fascinating when I first saw them. They seem so life-like, so close the photograph that inspired the portrait. I found his process completely different than what I expected. The way he said, "...I work very close and seldom step back as I'm not interested in the gestalt of the whole head but rather in getting involved in the process...," threw me for a loop. I expected him, as I would, to step away every couple of strokes to make sure the portrait as a whole was coming together.

"I feel a kinship with those artists who have rid themselves of painterly language, who have taken the sculpture off its pedestal, and who have allowed material to flop around on the floor." I like how Chuck is more concerned with the actual process of making the painting and transmitting an idea, than "a check list of the ingredients a portrait painting is supposed to contain."

Also the fact that he chose to do portraits of his friends, because he knows their faces was very intriguing to me. I would expect an artist to prefer strangers, for fear of offending friends. "That's one of the reasons I paint my friends' faces. They are yardsticks which help me to measure how well my marks read."

blog on CHUCK CLOSE interview with Cindy Nemser

     when i first saw chuck close's super-realist portraits i was instantly drawn in. i saw all the detail in it and thought, "man this man must have been obsessed with these people."i hate doing portraits, i feel myself slowly becoming obsessed with the subjects i draw. but as he talked about his process it seemed that he had successfully made them so large and so detailed that all that was lost. he was not drawing a person but rather just pores, wrinkle, lines, and value. he said he only backed away from them a few times.

blog on Willem De Kooning content is a glimpse: interview with david sylvester

        This interview has me really questioning the way i think about my art, the way i go about it, and the importance of some particular things in art.

         William de kooning talks about how silly ideas in art really are. He use cubism for an example he says "i don't think artist have particularly good ideas..... cubists, when you think about it now, it is so silly to look at an object from many angles." and its true its very silly to think that a whole group of artist explored this style. so, what does this say about me. i have a lot of trouble when it comes to ideas, not that they are hard to come by, but their importance gets to me. i think that every little thing matters. and i feel like i must remember this. no matter how important an idea is it's silly. otherwise i'll just lose sight of what i'm trying to say. i'll feel like the idea is above me. i'm not sure this is what he meant but this is what i got.

     fermin jimenez

blog on "For the Discovery of a Zone of Images"

 I'm really intrigued with this article, essay, paper or whatever it is by Piero Manzoni called "For the Discovery of a Zone of Images". He reminds me of how i use to go about art, very ignorant of what i could say. I've read a lot that reminds me of how I've been trying to come up with something to say in my art recently.          he starts off by stating that a common mistakes among bad artist  is that they are to afraid to take a stand, and  have a very vague idea of what art is. because of this vagueness the artist ends up making vague art that means nothing, not to the artist nor the viewer. i hated reading this part, reminded me too much of a not so younger self, maybe about less then a year ago and a few friends i know that are struggling in art, right now. i'm not so sure if this is only a problem for bad artist but rather new artists as well. so i started thinking how does one get past this, so i kept on reading. 
           he presided to try to explain what he meant by "art". this part kinda went over my head a few times, but the more i read it the more i think i got it. in a nut shell art should have "universal values common among all men". meaning that good art should be able to be appreciated by all peoples. but how, we're all to different from our physical way down to our culture that can have deep deep roots in us? however, i know this can happen. how could i a proud Chicano end up having a common ground with some white supremacist skin head? the answer in this case is punk rock, needless to say he still hates my very existence. we still share a common ground. the people of the world have many different cultures but we all share something and thats our humanity and art should be fed by this. we must remove all things to personal in our art so that we can successfully communicate with all people. but how do we find this common ground these "universal values".
          the answer i think is when he wrote "the key point today is to establish the universal validity of individual mythology." what i think he means by this is that we must look in ourselves to find these  value. we must look in ourselves and explore the things that separate us, then look deeper and find the things we all share through our individual philosophies. my favorite part of this is when he said "so it is obvious that at first glance there would seem to be a paradox: the more we immerse ourselves in ourselves, the more open we become, since the closer we get to the germ of our totality the closer we are to the totality to all men."  in simpler terms the closer we are to ourselves the closer we are to all people. 
       this is how i will soon try to communicate to people through art!
       fermin jimenez

Blog #2

So, here is attempt number two at this blogging business.

Charles Biederman definitely caught my attention with his article about Mondrian and nature. What I gathered from his writing was that art and science do intertwine. He wrote that artists may try to stray away from nature, but it is seemingly impossible to completely separate art from nature. "Yet one can say, without risk of reasonable contradiction, that no artist has ever been able to cease abstracting from nature, it being impossible...Nature remains the genetic source for all forms of the abstractions of art, whatever the artist may do." He also stated, "...then, and only then, can all aspects of nature be finally excluded, but then art has disappeared too..." It's as if the more Mondrian tried to pull away from nature, he limited himself that much more. I feel nature should be embraced in all art forms and used as an influence.

When I read Ad Reinhardt's article, I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about it. I immediately took it as a satirical piece. I enjoyed it, but it didn't really stick with me. It just seemed to slide right through the cracks in my mind. I did find the quote "a picture is finished when all traces of the means used to bring about the end have disappeared" quite interesting. It's as if to say there should be no evidence of an artist at all in the picture; that the picture has no creator, it just is. I really liked the 25 Lines of Words on Art: Statement too. Most of the statements are contradictory, or oxymorons, and statements like that always intrigued me. "The extremely impersonal way for the truly personal." "The most universal path to the most unique. And vice-versa." "The most common mean to the most uncommon end." "The completest control for the purest spontaneity." The last statement I quoted is probably my favorite, because I am such a control freak but can be spontaneous. (I'm not sure how much that really has to do with anything, but I just thought that I should mention it! hah)

So I still don't think I'm doing so hot at this blog thing, but at least I'm trying, right?