Tuesday, January 15, 2013

A Gallery I Visited


A Gallery I Visited

I went to Lawndale with Art Appreciation earlier this school year. The first impression was spectacular with the entire side of the building covered in graffiti of everything ranging from a giant man eating squid monster to a blonde damsel in distress. There was a wise owl with spectacles and some other random (but very cool) stuff spray painted on large scales. After gaping at the wall for 10 minutes our tour began. But before entering the building we were introduced to a human sized functional hamster wheel. Unfortunately it was locked so we couldn’t test it for ourselves but looking at it was awe inspiring. The creator of the structure wanted to let his audience be able to interact with the “sculpture” to add a new level to the experience of appreciating art.
Next we entered the building and just as we entered we came upon some walls that were floor to ceiling with scrapbook style artwork. From one angle, the viewer could vaguely make out a scene or landscape. I felt like I was playing “I Spy” on a much larger scale. The goal for this particular artist was to explore the process of converting a small scale plan, which she made prior to constructing the walls, into an exact large scale replica. We did not get to see the small scale form but according to the tour guide it was a perfect duplication.
Moving on, we went into the main gallery space. We worked out way around the room looking at all the displays and listening to the guide explain the purpose or story behind each work. I especially loved a collection of small pen drawings of simple everyday objects/things a person may see such as some carpet or the corner of a room. Drawing them added emphasize to their otherwise forgotten existence. After climbing some very noisy stairs we came to a room filled with crochet artwork. It was beautiful but gave me a sense of exhaustion as I thought about all the hours spent knitting/crocheting every coil and doily.
On the third floor, there were studios for artists to work. We met with two of them. The first was a very friendly eccentric man that used punk, rock, and experimental music as his inspiration. I was impressed by some of the posters and graphic work he had splayed across the room . We learned that in order to have a studio at Lawndale, an artist must apply to be chosen. Then they have that space for a given amount of time in which they are paid to make artwork. Sounds like a great deal to me!
The next artist we talked to was very impressive. His artwork consisted of elaborate scenes and/or patterns of cut out pictures. He would cut the pictures out of books and paste them on a canvas, layers upon layers of cut out objects. And when the viewer backs up, it turns into well balanced and interesting piece of work. I also grew tired thinking of all the hours it must have taken to cut out every single image. But it made me appreciate the artwork even more. 

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Copyright Paper


            

Copyright Issues and Plagiarism Paper


           When it comes to using other’s work, I believe it is okay as long as their work is no longer recognizable to the original version or if they give permission for it to be used. There are some personal guidelines that I follow when I use work from other people. For one, I always check to see if they’ve set up rules or asked for it to not be used. Then, if it’s free to use or if there isn’t any information regarding the work at all, I go ahead and use it.  At this point, I always make sure to change the image enough so that it is completely different than before. I think this is okay because it doesn’t look like the artist’s work any longer. In a way, it’s the same thing as using an artist’s work of art as inspiration for your own. If someone paints an impressionist painting, they aren’t said to be copying Monet or Dali because they are only using an idea or a part of their work and making it their own.
            For the Cy-Fair Independent School District, it states that, “You cannot use copyrighted material without written permission from the creator of the material (or from its copyright holder).” The website also mentions the specific types of work that cannot be copied which include photos, written documents, recordings, videos. It says, “Copyright is protection for intellectual property. Intellectual property consists of anything an individual has written or created. It might be music, text, pictures, photographs, sounds, and so on. “ Click Here for source
            The Scholastics Art Competition takes copyright very seriously. They do not want anyone to copy any else’s material without providing substantial citation and credit. If even a small part is copied, the submission can be disqualified from the contest. It also states on the website, that “Copyrights to a work arise as soon as the work is fixed to a tangible form. For example, an idea for a painting is not protected until the idea is actually expressed on a canvas or in another tangible form. An artist or writer need not file anything in order for his/her work to be protected.” They hope contestants will be honest and ethical when submitting their work.
            The VASE Competition has written in its rules, “Abstain from any practice which allows plagiarism to violate the ethical standards of quality art education and the VASE program.” So overall this competition is just like all the others which prohibit any copying and making sure students use ethical decisions when submitting their artwork.      
            Culture Shapers has the same kind of rules as the other competitions. It is stated on the website, “Directly copying or using any portion of a published image, photograph, album cover, magazine, website, or any other source is considered plagiarism and will result in disqualification.” But unlike the other competitions, there is also a part that says if the teacher or parents that instruct the student did not see the student making the work, it should not be submitted. I think this is silly especially since I work alone all the time. There is also a rule that a photo taken by someone other than the participant can only be used as a secondary reference photo.

            For the AP College Board Art test, there is a section under each category of art that mentions rules about “Ethics, Artist Integrity, and Plagiarism.” It also says, It is unethical, constitutes plagiarism, and often violates copyright law simply to copy an image (even in another medium) that was made by someone else and represent it as one’s own.This is true for every contest that I’ve mentioned above but what is unique about the college board rules is that is does allow some copying as long as the individual changes it to make it clearly their own work., “Any work that makes use of (appropriates) photographs, published images and/or other artists’ work must show substantial and significant development beyond duplication. This is demonstrated through manipulation of the formal qualities, design and/or concept of the source. The student’s individual “voice” should be clearly evident.” I completely agree with these rules because this is what I’ve done in my own work in the past. It should be fine to use other art to help you achieve what you’re trying to make as long as you change it enough that it cannot be identified as the original artist’s work.
            This year at Harvard University, 125 students were caught cheating on a final exam. The professor noticed similarities between several papers turned in and sure enough, almost half the class had used work from each other. There is not any information whether the students received punishment for their actions but the administration has decided to try and focus on reminding the students about academic integrity for the future. I think the school should have issued consequences for cheating such as failing grades for the assignment. Otherwise, they may continue to cheat off one another. It wasn’t fair for them to cheat because the students were told not to work with one another yet they decided to take short cuts and use others’ work. This is similar to taking from artists and using their work as your own which is wrong according to the law.
            At the 2012 Comic-Con, Josh Wattles an expert on copyright laws gave a long lecture about the laws regarding fan art. He mentioned that the copyright rules fan artists deal with are called Intellectual Property rights. He also talked about his three major rules of the trade. The first one he called “playground rules”, which are the basic rules parents teach their kids about not taking from others.  The next one was the “rules of life” which included the moral laws about not taking from original creators and artists. The final law was what he called the “black law” which is the laws the government has set up and enforced. His lecture went on for another 45 minutes where he went into detail and specifics about the rules behind fan art and copying the original works of art or artist’s ideas.

           There is an artist on DeviantArt named David Kawen who makes his own versions of Disney princes. He recreates the princes by painting them in Photoshop wearing little or nothing but underwear….He’s never said why he does it. On the surface, he most likely does it because he enjoys it and its funny but maybe he does it to create a fantasy of the innocent Disney characters we love as kids. He takes them to a new level by twisting them from kid friendly into extremely inappropriate for kids, the main audience for the movies from which the characters originated. The images are ironic and make a statement. I think it is fine for people to do this because they should have the freedom to manipulate and change the original work, in this case the Disney princes. They are not harming or slandering anyone by making the artwork so who cares? And even though they can be described as inappropriate, no one is forced to look at them.    




Sunday, October 28, 2012

Artist Research: Bev Doolittle


Bev Doolittle

             I was first introduced to this artist when I was explaining my AP art concentration idea to my mom. She said I should look up Bev Doolittle and see if I can get some inspiration from her artwork since her work was similar in that she painted animals. In addition, when I researched her, I found out she was an art director at an ad agency which is the direction I want to pursue.    She grew up in California and graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles in 1968 and worked professionally ever since with her husband, Jay Doolittle.  

  She and her husband traveled around the country painting nature and landscapes. Native Americans playing a major role in her artwork as well as camouflaging the animals into the nature. Some words that are associated with her work would include: nature, native American, camouflage, earth, dirt, trees, mountains, wildlife, snow, wild, Spanish, travel, west, birds, horses, freedom, fighting, mystery, wolf, dead, dry, white, black, contrast, hidden, and searching. All these words can be seen in her artwork because she was fascinated with nature and the wild.




                               

                                                                                 Sacred Ground

Two Indian Horses
4)     



She was creating realistic paintings of the west along with many other artists late in the 1900s. But unlike the others, her preferred medium was watercolor while most others used oil paints. She helped bring watercolor realism into the spectrum with paintings such as Pintos and Season of the Eagle



Pintos

Season of the Eagle


      In these paintings, she camouflaged the animals into their natural habitat. Although many others did do realism painting, she was the first to incorporate blending the animals into their surroundings. Her reason for painting animals and landscapes was because she loved the beauty of nature and wanted to capture it in her artwork.


Hide and Seek
Woodland Encounter
Many museums, galleries, websites, and professionals have praised and displayed her work throughout the years. Some of these include Kemper Galleries, the president of the Greenwich Workshop, Wenaha Gallery, and MutualArt.com. Like all other traditional artists, her work began as physical paintings only duplicated through making canvas copies but as she grew more popular, websites began to display her work and more of the public was able to enjoy and buy her paintings.  When it comes to analyzing why she painted nature, the only conclusion can be that she loved it so much she wanted to capture it and make a sort of tribute to nature’s natural beauty. She never tried to establish a statement in her work, only attempted to paint what was already there and add some personal touches to it. People loved this about her work because she successfully recreated the danger and solemn characteristics of nature.    It is evident people liked her work because she sold hundreds and even thousands of copies of her work.
 Doubled Back
Fox Haven
                              

 

After researching about Bev Doolittle, I’v decided I’d like to try and camouflage animals I paint into their surroundings using patterns, textures, and colors they share in common. 

 
 


Work Cited

Angelsmist, . "Bev Doolittle." oocities.org. N.p.. Web. 28 Oct 2012. <http://www.oocities.org/moondarlin/artdoolittle2.html>.
"Bev Doolittle." riverwindgallery.com. Yahoo. Web. 28 Oct 2012. <http://www.riverwindgallery.com/DOOLITTLE/biography doolittle.htm>.
"Bev DoolittleArtist Biography." print.com. Print.com. Web. 28 Oct 2012. <http://www.prints.com/art.php/Bev_Doolittle/?artist_id=1&type=6>.
Edberg, Professor Jane. "Painting." Gavilan.edu. N.p., 23 2007. Web. 28 Oct 2012. <http://hhh.gavilan.edu/jedberg/5.html>.