Introduction to Art Final

This is Beth and myself at the Bodies Exhibit. It was very cold that day!

This is Beth and I again, but this time, we're watching "Footloose" at the Anderson Theater.

This is me right outside the Fabulous Fox Theater to see "Twilight". I LOVED the Fox!!!

Here I am again at the James C Bonner Lecture Hall for Eve Ensier's "The Vagina Monologues"!

And here is one more of me at the Fox, but this time, I'm with Mr. Anthony, the greeter! He's been doing this job for over two decades!!!! WHOA!

Diorama Drama

My diorama was centered on how women in Islamic nations are treated. I took a box and painted it an oppressing black. I then located a photo of an Islamic man facing away from the camera and transferred it into a negative... sort of a sterile xray. I then super imposed the rules of the High Court of the Islamic State of Afghanistan that I soaked in tea to stain as the years have stained mankind. I also made a burka out of broad cloth and created a stitching of mesh to cover the eyes... the burka then in turn covered the diorama itself. As my classmates passed by, they were encouraged to put the burka on so that they could see what many women see everyday: a trapped life.

Our class was also encouraged to make a list of other dioramas that caught our eye. We were asked to answer the following five questions:

• Which diorama evoked a strong emotion in me (anger, sadness, etc.)?
• It sadden me to think how many potential great thinkers have been aborted, but it also gave me some hope that perhaps the next Hitler was aborted as well.
  


• Which diorama taught me something I did not know?
• It's not that I didn't know anything about pollution, I just never thought to think of the good and the bad, side by side. It's like when your doctor tells you that you're overweight, but it's not until he/she hands you a three pound can of Crisco and explains to you that's what fat weighs that you start to worry about that little pooch upfront..
  


• Which diorama was very creative?
• I thought this was a great piece! I fully support the rights of Gays and Lesbians. My God teaches me to love one another, but it's funny how people hate in His name. I think the creator of this blog hit the nail on the head.
  

• What did I have to say about this diorama?
• I loved Ashley's diorama. She asked me my input because she knows how strongly I feel we have a need to be over there in Iraq. She strongly believes that it's being fought over bad blood and oil... I gave her my full support and I even prompted her to show the flag in a distressed mode... we each heard people muttering their dislike of her display, but it doesn't matter. My family has shed its blood so that Ashley may have her opinion.
  


• Could the message in this diorama be considered propaganda?
• To me, it did scream propaganda because it was put together poorly; they focused on the Troops, which is quite important, but nothing more is shown... other than little plastic Soldiers. I am a HUGE supporter of our military; in fact, I volunteer with six military organizations and I come from a military family. I currently support six complete strangers who are deployed overseas because I feel it's my duty. Those who just say it's about the Troops don't help us garner support; it's also for the civilians over there who need us.
  

Art and the Human Psyche

"The intriguing Human psyche - more complex than the metamorphosing cocoon, and more phenomenal than the human brain could ever imagine.

Deep within the realm of your subconscious is the centrifuge, or cerebral core of all Human possibilities. Therein, lies the key to the supernatural, heightened spirituality and the unique potential of overcoming obstacles, large and small.

Human psyche is one of life's most bizarre and unparalleled traits within the physical being. It enables our extrasensory perception, encourages drive and motivation, feeds our emotional balance and at times, permits us to undertake feats that our conscious being would never allow.

It controls impulses in our brains that activate our dreams, instills our fears and is the driving force of our physical stamina. The deity within of which all life transforms into the wakened being - thus is the Human psyche.

Interestingly, we never notice its presence, as it is always with us. Spiritual and emotional awareness are the elaborate, invisible compounds of it. As we wake each morning, oblivious to the ensuing day, it is the psyche that jump starts our will to conquer the light, to tempt our nerves and even directs our hopes and dreams.

Stories of the impossible made possible through incredible feats of strength and psychic-kinetic energies released through channels of our internal beings; the mysterious force that empowers mind over matter .

Through our psyche, boundaries are nonexistent between the parallel planes of all inter-human, spiritual connections. By means of meditation, we permit our bodies to become one with our multifaceted world. When we absorb the spiritual energy around us, molecular transformations incur within. Self-healing, radical phenomenon, and psychic interactions are all aspects of this wonderful charge.

If we incorporate our psyche within the realm of our conscious, we can attain a higher level of spirituality, peace and enable our mentality to overcome physical & mental weaknesses. Practicing trance concentration through our psyche, we capacitance ourselves with unimaginable forces of nature.
In closing, Henry Ford once stated, "If you think you can, you will.if you think you can't, you won't." Within his profound words, we uncover incredible human spirit at its finest - therein lies the Human Psyche, and the impossible - possible."


I've always loved "Labyrinth"; ever since I was child.. it wasn't until I was older did I pick up on the psyche undertones... how MC Escher played a part and how it truly invoked in me to never rest until I find whatever it is I am looking for...

Art and Human Behavior

Human behavior is the collection of behaviors exhibited by human beings and influenced by culture, attitudes, emotions, values, ethics, authority, rapport, hypnosis, persuasion, coercion and/or genetics.

When some people think of human behavior, they think warm, happy thoughts. Well, life isn't always happy. This photo proves that point. It proves that sometimes, human behavior is fairly shitty.

Art and Human Nature

human nature –noun 1. the psychological and social qualities that characterize humankind, esp. in contrast with other living things. 2. Sociology. the character of human conduct, generally regarded as produced by living in primary groups.


I feel that Human Nature is definitely the first definition; we as a peoples give and give- especially in times of crisis. We open our homes to strangers and ours becomes theirs.

Art and the Human Condition

human condition -noun 1. the positive and negative aspects of existence as a human being, esp. the inevitable events such as birth, childhood, adolescence, love, sex, reproduction, aging, and death.


"In this new proposal, Azofeifa talks about the human condition in times of globalization and over-information, with recognizable but anonymous subjects.

The use of painted playing cards (each one of the squares you see in the paintings is a playing card, see below for a detail or here to see upper left work in development) to create the bigger artworks, the same way the pieces are ordered, show the immediacy and precise situation of our times.

And who better to give testimony that someone immersed in information: an e-marketing and e-commerce consultant for Latin American and Fortune-500 companies, Azofeifa must receive, assimilate, and synthesize information about new technologies and trends, every day of his life.

In his art technique, Azofeifa paints each playing card using spray painting and letter molds, he paints groups of several hundreds at a time, making them cover and blocking areas of the ones below. After that he orders them according to their chromatic weight, like a puzzle. Cards are glued or stapled to the canvas. Each piece takes months to complete.

The figures (both the final ones and the individual pieces) are product of globalization. Each piece (card) has a weight of it's own separately, there's no central point and there's no piece more important than other. But every single one of them loses it's individual importance, and the result is just the sum of the apparent indifference of all of them. This can be seen since Seurat, Pollock or Chuck Close. Although there's a resemblance to Close at a first glance, anyone who knows Close's work will not only see that besides a sense of grid and the use of faces in some of the works, there's no relationship in the reading of the work. In the newest pieces of Azofeifa (web site under construction) the grid disappears completely.

The infinite amount of lectures that a contemporary man can do of this work shows us just how accurate this exposition is."

*Life isn't always easy; I had thought to use two different photos depicting birth: one of a 24 week old premie and the other of a 24 week old aborted fetus. It was too hard for me to crop and create a slideshow with either of the photos, so I looked harded and I found this article. I think it really explains what human condition can look like through the eyes of the art world.*

Art and the Human Struggle

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/45056

We all have seen the late night commercials featuring old sitcom stars asking for us to look into our wallets and adopt a child for the month. Hardly any of us ever do it though... in fact, many people crack jokes. Well, try cracking a joke to the little one in the photo above; his tummy isn't bloated from being full; it's bloated from being empty- swollen with gases that cannot escape because he's not ingesting anything to counteract it. While we gorge ourselves for every holiday and get together, there are men, women and yes, children going hungry in the countries of Africa; all over the world in fact. As my first piece says, the struggle to combat it and other issues continues.