Daily Notes

Today in class we received our final project, yes! We must curate an exhibition with the theme of our choice. We must include three artist from our studies this semester and 1 or 2 of our own personal favorites. I think this is a cool idea and should be fun. I'm not as nervous about this one like I have been on the previous 5 projects. Now I must come up with a theme for my exhibit and I already have ideas on the artist, good luck to all.

Poster presentation

My PSA Poster is the one that addresses "Tipping your server". I have worked in the hospitality industry for over 10 yrs. I've managed restaurants, bars and even a ski lodge in Colorado. I started off bar-tending and waiting tables and there is nothing more frustrating than not receiving a tip for your hard work. Waiters only receive $2.10 an hour from their employer and that is for taxes so they receive no check at all basically (tips are how they get paid). While minimum wage has gone up drastically in the last 30 yrs, it has remained the same for servers in the last 30 yrs, its never gone up and there are laws setup by congress so these wages can remain the same and never go up. I don't want to get started on how this pisses me off because I can go on forever on this topic. My poster was not created to increase server tips but just make aware to the people who don't tip to tip. The average a person should tip is 15%-20%.  I have one friend who works for "Bad Daddy's Burger Bar" and he told me that they also have to tip out the bus boys from their own tips, he said when a table does not tip it effects him and the bussers. So tips are what keep the restaurant moving in all respects. While doing this project I learned a lot about Photoshop which I had never used before but I learned so much. I first drew the donkey and the server, then I scanned them to my flash and uploaded into Photoshop. Once in Photoshop I began sizing my words, putting on a border, changing colors and finally saving and taking to Repros at school. They had my posteer ready in 30 minutes with a nice Gloss finish. Throughout the process I learned a little about other restaurants (I knew most of the info on tips), but I learned the most about the process of making a poster which was very cool. Thank you.

daily notes

Today we had our second critique of our poster layouts. Everyone has done a good job and there are a lot of great causes being represented. Everyone's needed tweaking and their was good feedback from everyone. I did three different things to my poster after the crit. Have learned a lot about Photoshop the past couple of weeks. Can't wait to see everyone's final posters hung throughout campus. Good luck to all.

daily notes

this past week i did not have a class meeting. I was out of town for Mondays class and Wednesdays class was a out of class work day. The whole week i was trying to figure out what my topic was for our PSA posters. I originally  was thinking of lobbyist who payout for big business in Washington but I don't like politics, it all seems corrupt at some level and only money makes things happen. I love my country, but nothing is perfect, our government being one. Either way something finally hit home when I was talking to a friend who was bitching about getting stiffed by a customer (he waits tables). So I'm standing up for all who have waited tables and reminding people to tip because thats how they make money. thanks

Reading: Choosing a mission/ Daniel J Martinez

Artist of the past had missions assigned to them by a church or the higher powers that be, government, monarchies, wealthy. Even artist who "free-lanced" still found their mission or (inspiration to explore via art), bending towards these same ideas. Artist were few and far between, it was still a profession just limited to painting, drawing, sculpture, and a little in dance and theater. in the past 100 years it has grown to encompass almost every aspect of life. Art is expressed through endless outlets and media, plus the number of artist has spread to the point that everyone now thinks they have a little artist in them. Their are tons of artist and tons of ways they have grown to express themselves in all fields (cooking, fashion, marketing, architecture, sports- boxing is an art, teaching, performance). All this makes it more difficult for an artist to find their mission, everything has been done, the church buys prints now. The world has changed and so have our attention spans, we want something new every 15 minutes, ohh the pressure on an Artist to keep up. So the Artist has to choose his/her mission wisely, it has to strike a cord, it has to be worth while, you have to put deep thought and time into it. Choosing the mission has now become the most important part of the artist process now. Its not the 14th century anymore where someone tells you what to paint, you paint it and it is celebrated for generations. You now have to think for that "celebration for generations". It has in many ways actually become the art, the process of choosing a mission.

Martinez is an example of how the "artist label" has spilled over into everything, He is a"tactical media strategist" and that "is" his art, he is an artist. In the past he would either be a sculpture or a painter or he was not an artist. Today he is a "Artist-tactical-artist-media-artist-strategist". This is where the craziness of the mission has taken us. A serious political/issues artist, he is passionate about his mission. We as artist must do this if we want our work to make an impact.

Art 21 Holzer/Jaar "protest"

I took a look at some of these artist projects and I have to say that they are both extremely serious about their work. I'm not that serious but maybe I haven't had a big inspiration yet. Jenny Holzer says she has to believe in her work so she really takes all of the subject matter in and she says after words its physically exhausting sometimes to put yourself in a project so much. Alfredo Jaar is also very serious, in his interview he even said there is nothing funny about his work. I saw the piece on "100 Acres" I thought it was a great idea to have a park that artist can create in. It can touch on multiple subjects and really get the public to notice in an active way. I would like to visit this place sometime. Over all I think these two artist have a depressing feel to them and kind of take the fun out of art.

Art 21 Krzysztof Wodiczko/Laylah Ali "power"

I watched the videos of these two artist and they are very different. Ali finds her inspiration or mission in heer community and draws from her child hood love of superheroes. Her work with the cartoon like skinny superheroes is interesting but plain and simple in my eyes. I'm sure that's whats she is going for. She seemed to get very anal about her colors and I didn't see what all the fuss was about. Some people work differently than others. I did think Wodiczko's exhibition on the side of buildings was very cool. Just walking up to a special piece of architecture that has a human face talking is pretty cool. It reminded me of the wizard of oz. He is very serious about his work and I watched a little about his peace project and understand where his inspirations come from. Both the artist used art as "power" to draw attention to matters which they feel strongly.