I don't know if at one point turnitin.com would make me count as plagiarizing myself for submitting articles that are assigned to my grad project course but I wanna share them so FUCK IT.
anyway I'll start with the latest since I like it and I don't want to do the older ones cause in hindsight they suck (that doesn't nullify the possibility of me posting them later)
anyway so to cut things short turns out it will be harder than I think to convince the professor's leading the grad project course to do a graphic novel that easily, I have to go through a process of priming (one I have gone through on my own since the winter). But I'm not complaining this guiding process is helping me enhance my work so I'm all for it YAY.
So this is a reflection piece on this article. posting this on a blog reminds me of a previous assignment blog that I used to do for Anne-Marie Schleiner's class history and theory of digital art, one which looking at now I don't know if it was really me writing, that was actually coherent thought that had a purpose (something I usually am not known for most of the time)
anyway I guess I'll be rereading it to try and grasp the state of mind I was in then, because I feel that is the closest I was to an artist (probably).
without further ado here is the article:
Why do you need to draw a cube a sphere a cone and a cylinder?
Luis Camnitzer’s article on art and literacy went on and on in describing the need for alphabetization. It also talked about how the current educational system is hurting education rather than helping in progressing it. Teaching a person how to read and write without teaching them what to read and write or why to do so is essentially the main problem, or so she states.
Now from her perspective, those basics of reading and writing (in that order) are preparing future generations to become perfect parrots, machines not capable of sentient thought. It is the same with art, you learn by copying the model in-front of you, or drawing the basic shapes art schools are so fond of. Sure one is entitled to certain hours of still life, figure and landscape drawing to pass within this system that has been put forth as education. But this formulaic process of learning in which one is spoon fed the basics till the brain is saturated with this information, to the point that it is second nature yet of no real use, is hurting the people within this system. One could learn the alphabet and read as good as the next guy. They would also be incredibly capable of putting letters together to form words, sentences, paragraphs, and in the end, essentially, what would be considered as writing. Yet this writing based on purely learning the alphabet would be as valuable as a single ski ball ticket. Writing words doesn’t make you a writer as much as drawing a cube to pin point precision, arguably, doesn’t make you an artist. You would be considered a great draftsman, maybe, but not an artist. Same with all disciplines, not anyone who can work a camera is a filmmaker, or anyone who can play an instrument a musician.
To be truly capable to create work on your own based on what you learned, that is probably a step in the right direction. The one thing missing when learning the basics is to learn function and application. I can learn figure drawing over and over but if I have no purpose or function to use it. So what is the point of that? When does one cross the line from learning the tools to applying them? To actually going out and discovering things, thinking for one-self and creating original work. I agree with Camnitzer that doing just that, going out, discovering and creating purely without instruction, is essentially amateurish, and learning the tools too well without trying to think or apply those tools for a certain function is just “empty professionalism”. The trick lies within finding a balance between both aspects of it.
One must seek and pursue the tools and skills needed to create a work of art but it is equally important to work as hard, if not more, to acquire that idea, that thought, that would be turned into a piece of work worthy of display and appreciation. Which brings us to the point of the importance of research, like learning to draw research is still a tool, the application of that in a work of art mixed with expertise in other tools in creation of that art results in the end in a piece that stands out. The functionality that we give to the tools is what makes any work respectable and worthy of attention. A screw driver is a piece of metal with a plastic handle, but when you need to remove screws to open a box it is a life saver. A paintbrush is exactly the same for anyone who learned how to use it, it is one way to put a paste of pigments on canvas, yet in the hands of an “artist” it is an extension to his thoughts and expressions, a magic wand that creates a window into the artist’s mind.
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