I've bought my supplies and starting writing my compliments to people! I also have a partner to help me arrange them around the city but I think I'm going to wait until spring break because there should be more people walking around then. But I still want to have it technically finished by next friday!
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Well he's done it again. He has proposed to eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. These endowments were created way back in 1965 by LBJ who valued the arts and thought that the americanpublic should too. In total, these adds up to about $300 million that ais no longer being given to arts and humanities. On the bright side, none of this is final and it still has to go through Congress before any changes can be made. The chairmen of these agencies are very upset and speaking out expressing their dissapointment with the things that are going on. This lead to a meeting at the arts endowment where the chairwoman, Jane Chu told the staff to keep on keeping on and work with what they can until they can't anymore. Many people had expected for Trump to decrease funding for programs such as arts and humanities but it wasn't predicted for him to cut them entirely.
This truly deeply saddens me that he would want to take arts and humanities from the people (at least decrease), there are people who greatly benefit from that money and I think it's very important. I imagine that a lot of agencies will cease to exist although I don't know all of the workings or the money. There will also be less money given to artists, which reminds me of artists that do work like murals and other public arts that apply for grants and are able to make our world more beautiful in places where we've begun to lose touch. More specifically, the lady I mentioned earlier (in terms of reading I guess it will come later?), but Susan Worsham spoke about how she wouldn't have been able to keep photographing and doing what she loved if it wasn't for this great grant she was given to keep going. I sincerely hope that things turn out for the better, I don't think that there will be any immediate change that's felt worldwide if he manages to close the agencies. That being said, many people will lose out on their opportunity to get such a grant and make art and although the public can't feel that loss of seeing the artists work, the losses will be large. Although sad for the art world, I'm also greatly anticipating the response. As we've already seen in a lot of places, artists use their ability to get their opinion out into the world. Throughout the past election season and since the inauguration, we've seen many artists strike out against Trump and I feel as though this decision will have a large affect on the art world that can survive and will likely lash out in aggravation. I think that this is a really sad bit of news, I understand perfectly well that the budget needs to be balanced as much as possible but I don't think taking all of the funding from these agencies was the right way to do that. In a larger sense, I don't think this will end well for him either because these artists are going to lash out and I surely hope it doesn't turn into a censorship case. If anyone can get through this, its us smARtists but I hope his lack of respect for the arts doesn't spread and become a bigger issue than it already is. Gaku does pretty cool stuff. I haven't been able to find his personal website or bio because I think there's another Japanese artist named Gaku, but I did find his instagram profile and some of his work in an article. Gaku works in an art formed called Mukimono, a form of very intricate food carving. In Japan apparently it isn't uncommon for you to receive food that is carved into carious shapes, on his profile (instagram), Gaku says that he would like to spread food carving to the world.
In my photojournalism class, we went on a field trip to hear a Richmond based photography speak about her photography. She says that she's driven by nostalgia and natural feeling; giving the show its name: "By the Grace of God." The title was originally "Southern By the Grace of God" but she changed it because the photographs weren't all from the south. She alluded to religion and a supreme guidance that led her to the right place at the right time. Susan didn't claim that she created these photographs, moreso that she found them. She said that the hardest part of being a photographer was getting the motivation to get out of bed and start photographing, to go out in the cold and the rain with a chance of not catching anything, but also with a small chance of catching something beautiful. I absolutely adore listening to photographers talk because every picture has so many stories within it, the story of how she got to that place and the stories of the people within the picture; how she convinced them to let her take their picture and etc. Although photography and other visual arts are similar, they're still very different, I feel like other visual arts are able to catch more emotion and are subject to the will of the artist, but photography is more direct and more about what's in the picture than necessarily the feeling behind it, especially in photojournalism and historical photography, which was mainly for documentation. The size of these photographs were also quite large, which had a very large added effect and made them much more apparent and easier to get lost in all of the little details. I absolutely loved this exhibition and hearing Susan talk, it was like being a kid again and listening to stories from your parents. Her photographs had amazing uses of color and were so well crafted and composed. Most interestingly, though, was a coffin looking thing in the floor. She told the story about how her brother committed suicide, it was a very tragic story and a lot of photographs death with memories of her brother's death. Most helpful, however, was her talk about placement of art. She talked about how the way you place your art and what's next to what can greatly change the meaning. She started to point out how we were trapped within little bits of red drawing our eyes from piece to piece and it was very enlightening to realize just how much control you have over your art just by deciding where each piece is going to be placed in relation to each other. Public art is one of the broadest categories of art that I can imagine, it includes everything that is not public art. As I have been led to understand it, public art includes everything from trimming hedges into animals, to monuments and murals. The two articles that we were assigned to read were very similar in topic, in that they both dealt with public art and just how public it should be. The "Art in Public Spaces" reading dealt more generally, with lots of examples, with when what type of public art is supported or not supported, while the other reading was much more personally and was a singular argument for, rather than against, public art. The "Art in Public Spaces" reading brought up very many good points that I agree with, including "Public art is a communal activity, its reach can be powerful for communities and neighborhoods." I think that public art is generally a very good thing and can really turn a neighborhood or city around. However, I mostly agreed with the argument for temporary vs. permanent. I think that a lot of art can be controversial even if that was not its primary purpose, and that a temporary life helps avoid this. Temporary art is a way to have the artist's voice heard, whether from a political standpoint or some other issue that they're advocating for; maybe they just want to beautify the city. If the art somehow interferes with the everyday people, being temporary helps alleviate the confrontation that could follow, because then they can just deal with the art until it's taken down. That being said, I don't think that the public should be able to force an artist to deconstruct their art just because they don't particularly like it or find it "pretty." In my seminar group today, we discussed who should have the final say on what can and can't be placed where, because there are definitely limits, including things such as a provocative piece in a child's park. We discovered that some states have an agency of department that was created for the regulation of art in public and other such things that fit under that category. In contrast to this article, the other article, "Public art is powerful [...] to be saved," was written with a much more personal tone. The shorter article, "Public art is powerful [...] to be saved," was written in first perspective by Rachel Cooke, speaking of her experiences through her life as a child and through adulthood. Her experiences and examples of encounters with public art, I think are better arguments for, rather than against, public art, than even in the other reading. Although she talks about a lot of different public art pieces that she's seen, two really stood out to me. Firstly, the Vulcan statue that she mentioned, just because she claims that it "seemed totemic; nothing bad, you felt, could happen while it was there." Having the ability, as an artist, to make someone feel more comfortable in a public space or area has to be one of the greatest achievements possible. Secondly, at the very end of the reading, she talks about remembering the art at the doctor's office where she had her appendix removed as a child, and 40 years later, she still remembers and associates that work with that period of her life. This is an amazing but intimidating story, every piece of public art has the potential of staying in someone's mind forever. When these artists create their work, I imagine that they don't ever think about it having this major effect on someone and that a piece of their work could live on forever in the mind of another human. This story wasn't necessarily the most surprising piece of the reading, but it lead to extreme insight and a new realization of the everlasting effect that public art can have. The only lasting question that I have about public art is one that can't be answered. The article provided that argument that some people put forth, that they appreciate art that further advances the beauty of the space, but not art that takes it away. I'm a firm believer in the beauty of nature and public space, but also a believer in public art, and I don't necessarily think that public art should have the ability to lessen the beauty of a park. That being said, I also think that obstructing the beauty or functionality of a park temporarily can have a major effect and could be very useful for an artist and his/her purpose. In conclusion, my opinion on public art is most largely shaped by the "Art in Public Spaces" section that spoke of the person(s) who were upset about the public art and then went on to claim that if the work was in a gallery, as they thought it should be, that they never would have seen it. Although this person probably thought he was helping his case, I see it as a strong argument for public art, not against. It's very important that people have some experience with contemporary art in their area, and no one should be able to take that away. If the way to get the American public to see a piece of artwork is to throw it in their way, then so be it.
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May 2017
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