Vector Self Portrait

Artist Response #2 Andy Goldsworthy: Natural Art

This week I decided to look at the work of an environmental artist. Not only is Andy Goldsworthy an actual environmentalist but the majority of his artwork is also based on the natural world around us. His home is located in Scotland but Andy will travel all around the world to complete his site-specific land sculptures. He insists upon working at the location where he comes across his raw, natural materials because he claims that this is the only way he can gain a better understanding of how these materials work and what their purpose is in the natural energy cycle of life. Very similar to Julian Beever’s work below, his creations do not last very long in the arms of the Mother Nature but takes photographs of all his final designs to remember that specific moment in the landscape. For Andy it is more about being able to capture the renewed vitality of a piece of land in that particular moment.

His philosophy seems nothing short of those urban society would call “tree-huggers” but Andy Goldsworthy believes in more of an “Eywa” kind of attitude, if you have seen Avatar. Everything is constantly moving around us with naturally occurring energy and is in an unbroken state of change of life and death. In the words of Jake Sully, “All energy is borrowed, and one day you have to give it back”, but according to Andy Goldsworthy, “"Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source.” The materials that he is referring to includes flowers, leaves, snow, ice, grass, sand, twigs, and anything else he comes across in wildlife. The natural process of birth, growth, decay and renewal are all central themes in his artwork. His goal is not to destroy the earth around him, rather to use what is given coupled with his bare hands to recreate a perception of life that has not yet been seen.

This belief of everything being in a constant state of change is very reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s artistically animated movies A Scanner Darkly, which we just recently watched in class, and his earlier film Waking Life which is centered on the concept of dreaming but also deals with a lot of fundamental ideas regarding the world and how it operates. Andy Goldsworthy once stated that, “At its most successful, my ‘touch’ looks into the heart of nature; most days I don’t even get close.” His artwork is part of a transient process and in the end his works that are no longer visible in their original form but are still alive, they have simply taken a different shape; the artwork he creates is the moment where nature reaches its maximum potential and when it becomes “most alive”.

Getting beyond the surface of the scenery is very important to Andy; he wants to invoke a part of life that has not been noticed and often recreates this interpretation with a “black hole” in his artwork: a window to what lies below. It is clear-cut from the photographs of his artwork that Andy Goldsworthy has a very personal relationship with Mother Nature and even greater understanding of how she functions. His artwork is very representative of the natural beauty that occurs every day in our lives and puts a unique twist on the conceptual idea of nature. His efforts as an artist also peak creatively as he rarely ever uses traditional artist tools like brushes, paints, molds, or pencils. The earth gives him his materials, and he gives back by adding a little bit of beauty to what was most likely an ordinarily dull scene. Here are some of my favorite works of his...

Large fallen oak tree used leaves with branches still attached for supporting structure inside ball

Jenny Nobles-Gill Dumriesshire
15 September 1985

Leaves polished, greased made in the shadow of the tree from which they fell, pinned to the ground with thorns.

Le jardin Massey, Tarbes, France,
22 August 1989

Rowan Leaves & Hole



Icicle Star, joined with saliva

All Photos credited to
http://www.rwc.uc.edu/artcomm/web/w2005_2006/maria_Goldsworthy/TEST/index.html and http://www.morning-earth.org/artistnaturalists/an_goldsworthy.html

Other credited sites include
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Goldsworthy
http://www.goldsworthy.cc.gla.ac.uk/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBcdL8uO71E&feature=related
here is a video of Andy Goldsworthy working on one of his projects with some commentary

Final Project Thoughts

Gathering some ideas on how to make this final project a cool way to end the class...I was thinking of doing a play on the Assassins Game that has become popular in recent years. The game is very intriguing; it is mostly a senior or upper-class tradition but for the sake of describing the game, everybody antes up $2. The money is then collected to one big pot that will be split 50/50. Half going to the student with most kills, and half going to the last standing student. The goal of the game is to "kill" your opponent by gently stroking them with a plastic knife that can be easily acquired via the Upper Deck. Each person is given a "target student" at the beginning of the game, but at the same time you yourself are a target. If you manage to take out your first target, you immediately get another: your most recent kill's target, and the game plays out until there is one assassin left alive.

I plan on expanding upon the aim of the game, and giving brief history of how the game came about and if there is anyway to get a list of past winners. Visually though, I want to recreate a famous video game character from Assassin's Creed in his decked out assassin cloaks on route 5 with the river in the background. I haven't decided if I am going to use Photoshop or maybe do another vector image for this yet. I also want to recreate an image or series of images of an actual in progress pursuit on campus; the Campus Center would definitely be a good spot to do something like this because it's familiar to the majority of the student body. This was the first picture that came up on Google when I searched SMCM Campus. Pretty cool...this will almost definitely be a Photoshopped image. So that's what I have so far. I will be posting whatever preliminary works and sketches I come up with.

Touch Up Numero Dos

After



Before

Vector Lines

Digital Remix Project: Revision

Digital Remix Project

What is going on?

Continuing along with the magical theme of my first artist post, this project rendered very similar outcomes. This is the first serious project I have ever attempted using Photoshop, and only one of few serious projects surrounding art itself. In all honesty, I did not have a clue on what my theme was going to be when I started this digital remix. Our class was told to make a surreal photograph and that’s it; not inspiring a lot confidence given such a broad topic. But the more I thought about it, the more I become absorbed in the idea. It’s surreal, which means it does not have to look real. It can be a picture of anything. The way I approached this topic was still to maintain some semblance of reality, while incorporating the more obvious surreal objects with a touch of subtlety.

The original sketch that I have drawn in my notebook is relatively the same as this finished product despite the amount of alterations and revising that I have accrued over the past week. The title of the sketch is called “Nature’s Beauty”, which gave me the basis for this project. I knew it was going to be centered on some sort of scenery or landscape but I was still lacking the aesthetic creativity that I knew would be displayed in other students’ pictures. A couple of mountains layered over a river were not going to suffice. I needed to draw upon what I knew would really stand out as bizarre, and that is when I came up with the idea to turn the road leading from the house on the mountain into the river stream as well.

For the longest time I could not decide how to finish the road; it kind of just ended without any purpose. I wanted to try and layer the road over the water as to create a feeling of the road coming towards the viewer, but I was never satisfied. Then it hit me that I should just make the road the river. The only beef I have with this part of the picture is the transition from the road to river. I am still unsatisfied with the overall unrealistic look; I wanted this part to appear the most realistic out of everything to bewilder the viewer into wondering if that were really possible, which is what brings me back to Julian Beever’s theme of misdirection. Most of the images in my picture are of real things and it was my intention to make the picture look as genuine as possible. The misdirection comes into play with the detail.

As I keep studying the photograph I realize how much activity is going on inside of it and how easily someone can get lost. Although I do not believe I am on the same level as Julian Beever, this is what he does so brilliantly in all of his sidewalk art. He includes so much detail that you convince yourself that what you are looking at is real. I have been working on this project and looking at the same picture for so long that I am beginning to convince myself that this picture looks terrible and I will never be happy with it, but one thing I know for certain is that is lacking some major depth. However, I am not exactly sure where.

From a far everything looks fine but when you look closer you can tell that there are some tricks I just am not familiar with yet in Photoshop. The transition from the bottom of the mountains to the beginning of the water keeps catching my eye, so I really need to work on making those transitions smoother. People can assess pretty easily what is real and what is not, and when a piece of land comes to a sudden end, it raises some questions. Then again, that could also appeal to the surreal nature of this project. Still, my focus on the surrealist aspect of the assignment is highlighted in subtleness. Though there is nothing subtle about an alien, his size is not overpowering and he does not immediately steal your attention. The sniper waiting behind the big rock is being sneaky per usual; nothing out of the ordinary there, but it is not every day you see one using a house-key as his firearm, nor do you typically see aliens with batteries. These images not only add a dimension of surrealism to the picture, but also add a story to what is being viewed, which is why I titled this, “What is going on?”

Other than being more technically gifted with the Photoshop software, I wish I had a more interesting theme to build off of from my original design. It was not very well thought-out and could have been even better if I had an actual idea of where I was going with it. Where you gather inspiration and develop your aesthetic understanding is crucial to your final product, and in this picture it is not hard to tell that I was a little undecided. Not taking away from the effort I put forth, but I hope I can be more precise in my next projects. All in all, it was a fun assignment with a decent turnout.

Deception in Art

Art is a subject that is cultured around the fundamental idea of perspective. It requires an abundance of imagination as well as the open-mindedness to spot someone else’s. When the depths of this element are explored far enough it grants an opportunity for a magic trick of sorts, even with the product of a simple drawing. Well maybe not so simple, but with a bucket of colored chalk and a few laborious days in the office Julian Beever is able to create 3-Dimensional art on the most unlikely of surfaces: the sidewalk; and has been doing so for the past fifteen years.

It does not seem possible at first thought, but makes complete sense once you see the pictures. The Trompe-l'œil style that Julian brilliantly demonstrates in his street drawings creates an optical illusion that even Houdini would have been proud of. Pictures like these truly stimulate the aesthetic intellect and provide a look at how easily the human mind can be manipulated from the right point of view.

Julian Beever specializes in chalk drawings but is not limited to just this one technique. He has also been known to work on intricate murals as well as detailed oil paintings. His work on the sidewalk is of a unique fashion and can often receive criticism despite his obvious artistic talents. The root of the problem does not lie in his finished illustration; rather, it stems from the use of such an unorthodox platform. Other than the occasional hater who qualms the ethical standards of someone who defaces public property, the only real dilemma is the exposed and unprotected nature of a sidewalk. The projects he spends days working on are at constant risk of being ruined by rain, by the unruly passerby, or really by anything that comes in contact with it. Plus, there is something sentimentally unappealing about never being able to keep your original work.

Julian takes pictures of each of his drawings, which is actually half of the “trick”, being able to find the perfect angle to capture the image; but in the end the chalk is too weak of a substance against Mother Nature. Regardless of this unfortunate hiccup for the artist, once finished, the audience is able to enjoy his work through a simple photograph, which is what Julian stated, in a BCC interview, that his main goal is to “build a photograph.” So really the trick is that much more convincing with no evidence of the original artwork, only something that appears to defy the laws of reality. He explained, “Once I realized you could make things go down, I realized you could make them appear to go up and I began experimenting.”

Julian’s unconventional methods are puzzling to say the least, but his attention to detail is clear-cut and this is what makes him a master of his craft. Granted it makes it way cooler that Julian gets to be in most of his pictures and can essentially transcend to a number of fantasy worlds through a single picture.

Yet, in the eyes of the wrong person a 3-dimensional object loses all clarity and can appear distorted. Subsequently, like most magic tricks, there is a reasonable solution and it lies with misdirection. If you are like me, and could not figure it out until now, it really is amazing. His work speaks for itself and really gets you wondering. Julian Beaver took an unpopular style of art and put a unique twist on it that deserves some creative respect.

All pictures courtesy of http://www.julianbeever.net/

Other Sources: Firefly Books
BCC Interview
Trompe Wiki