Self-Visualization Triptych

In the top panel, my past is represented by my walking down a path that is dimly lit, showing uncertainty and unhappiness, as I look back at the "ugly duckling", who looks different, being teased by the other ducklings, who look the same. The first book I read was "The Ugly Duckling", and as a child, I watched the movie "Hans Christian Andersen" many times, learning the song "The Ugly Duckling" from the movie. When I began early on to be made fun of due to my looks, I identified with the character of the ugly duckling, and fervently hoped that some day I would turn into a swan, and that a man would cone along and see the swan inside, regardless of how the outside turned out. In the left picture I am holding a mask of myself at age 12-13, before acne, but with wandering eyes and large crooked front teeth. I am dressed in monochromatic colors as I tried to be inconspicuous, so as not to gain negative attention. Farther down the path is a bright hopeful light, where there waits my handsome prince in my brighter future. The picture is of my husband who did see the swan inside and outside from the moment he saw me. He helped me see her too.
In the center panel, is my current life, with me no longer afraid to dress how I like, in bright colors, juggling my responsibilities, loves, and interests while trying to balance it all while standing on a board that is balanced on a ball ( welcome to my world). The objects juggled include husband, children, house, college student, religious school teacher, friends, singing, and chanting Torah. I could also have included cooking, creating art, creative writing, exercising, but I ran out of room in the picture, and no one would have believed me. Actually, I can't get to everything all of the time, hence the juggling.
In the last panel, on the bottom, my path takes me to the places that nourish my soul, bring me peace and contentment, and have been a part of who I am for most of my life. Loving the beach and hunting for shells, creating art (starting with drawing), dancing, and music. I have found through the years that when I leave no time for these things in my life, I am not a happy person, and not fun to live with. When I make time for them, I am at peace. Through all three panels music runs in a continuous stream. My father is a music teacher, and plays many instruments, my sister also plays three instruments, and my mother plays the organ and loves show tunes, so I grew up surrounded by instrumental and vocal music. Consequently I have a stream of music in my head all of the time, love to sing and dance, and listen to music a lot. However, I do not play an instrument, due to sheer stubbornness on my part, I think.

Word Visualization Exercise in Illustrator

Dia:Beacon Field Trip

I really liked the sculptures of Michael Heizer, which were "negative sculptures" that explored negative space, or the absence of a piece rather than it's presence. His pieces were holes in the ground cut in different shapes: a cylinder, rectangular solid, cone, and cube. They showed a very alternate, original view of sculpture.
Fritz Sandback's works were very deceptively simple. They were colored strings attached to the walls and floors in different areas. they created visual barriers simply by outlining with string, a rectangle, or triangle, or other shape. It gave a strong impression that there was a sheet of glass there, that you were compelled to avoid.
Sol LeWitt's mathematically precise drawings left me speechless as they looked as if they had been drawn directly on the wall, by pencil, by hand. The size of them, the time they must have taken, and the care with which they were done was inconceivable to me. When you stand back from them, you can hardly see the lines, but up close it is all too clear. When he combined them with huge circles, the sense of visual motion increases. When he uses more organic lines repeated, the whole wall literally comes to life. The effect in one work appeared as an intricate wood grain, and in another, as an ant's-eye view, at ground level, of a field of grass.
John Chamberlain made one of my favorite pieces of the day. He is an assemblage artist who uses car parts. His "Privet Hedge" consisted of a long row of twisting, metal, 10 foot tall spears. They were colored in many bright colors and patterns-often re-creating tie-dye effects.
The size of the piece made you want to stand back to take it all in, but the attention to detail, and the variety in the colors and patterns made you want to come in close to study each spear.
One of the last artists I saw, was Richard Serra's huge metal sculptures that look like smokestacks on ships. The room they are in is chilly, and the large shapes crowd into it. You can walk into them, and explore their interior. In one, you walk around a circular maze, with the walls leaning in towards you, making it a bit claustrophobic.

Book-Poetry Visualization Project

Woman Work
Maya Angelou
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/woman-work/
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My initial concept is to make a book where the first page is like an open box holding a long strip of paper folded accordian style, with pictures of the woman's chores on each page. It would have a tab to pull to open it up. Then the following pages would have other images of sun and rain falling on a woman, wind blowing a woman across the sky, snowflakes with lips in the middle falling on a face with eyes closed, and the last page would have another open box with a long accordian paper that would open to show images of sun, rain, sky, mountains, oceans, leaf, and stone, stars, and moon, with two arms holding the pile shut. The arms would open with velcro. Maybe there should be arms holding the first pile of chores also.

Project 2 -Self-visualization

For this project I will use a figure of myself in each of three panels, exploring each environment in some way. Each panel will have elements of either personal history and influences, present life situation, or elements of my personality, respectively. Running through all three, there will be certain interests/influences that have not changed(music, art, dancing, writing) and important physical characteristics that have had a lasting effect on my self-image or self-esteem. However, I will focus on simplifying, combining, and deleting images and ideas to create a simpler, more powerful overall impact.

Frida Kahlo, Cindy Sherman, and Cui Xuiwen

While these three women artists used different media (paint, photographs, digital imaging), they expressed some similar themes regarding women in their work.
First, in Cindy Sherman’s work, in her untitled film series, we see glamorous women exposed in their private moments. The use of black and white film and sharp contrasts lends drama to otherwise everyday scenes. The expressions on the women’s faces are either carefully emotionless, fearful(as if they are being pursued), or despairing. The are crowded into the frame of the picture if the scene is set indoors, as if they are trapped in a situation or role that they did not choose, and are not happy with. In the scenes set outdoors, there is an element of danger, as the space around them seems large and empty, yet a threat seems to lurk nearby. This feeling comes from emptiness of the space and dark shadows in some picture, and fearful eyes of the model gazing around in others.
In Cindy Sherman’s fairytale series, she works in color, but instead of beautiful women, we see Beauty turn into The Beast. The colors are garish, the lighting full of contrast and shadows, giving them a feeling of horror movie stills. In her historical portrait series, Cindy Sherman uses traditional demure poses, colors, and at least a century-old period era clothing, yet injects partial nudity of the female figures calmly staring at us. Lastly, in her centerfold series, Cindy Sherman unexpectedly shows us cropped figures, dressed in rumpled clothes hastily put on, sleeping , or looking fearful, but definitely not sexy.
Cindy Sherman takes commonly-held expectations and stereotypes, and shows us another, less attractive side. For example, women are expected to dress fashionable, wear make-up, and always look their best, fit into a role that they are expected to fill, and to be brave and hide pain behind a mask of calm. In her portraits, we see women whose elegant masks sometimes slip to show their vulnerability and unhappiness with their role or situation, whose idea of sexy might be a good night’s sleep, or whose fairytales turn into horror stories. Also, in the historical portraits, I see the objectification of a popularly ogled women’s body parts, a feeling of being visually stripped bare that many women have encountered. In her portraits women are alone, isolated, and vulnerable. Cindy Sherman uses herself as the only model in her work, yet these do not feel like self-portraits, they seem to represent women as a group. Through her disguises she represents many different types of women, but also exposes feelings that all women share. So, in that way, perhaps she is also exposing herself to us, as well.

When we look at Cui Xuiwen’s digital images, we see some similarities to Cindy Sherman. In Xuiwen’s Angel Series, we see young women who are lonely, isolated, and fearful, as they are in Sherman’s work, though here it is probably due to their being young, alone, and pregnant. Again focusing on their appearances, as modern young women have been taught, they wear bright garish make-up, to emphasize their attributes, and are dressed in a fashionably modern, revealing white dresses. Xuiwen also uses herself, and possibly one other young girl as a model, making many copies of the one girl in her images. As with Cindy Sherman, it seems to me that Xuiwen uses herself not to give insight into her own feelings alone, but to also give voice to the feelings of all women. There is a sense of large, open, outdoor spaces around the figures, again showing their isolation, and their faces are often mask-like, except in one where they look fearful. Like Cindy Sherman’s work the contrasts are sharp, and the colors are bright, and there is a feeling of vulnerability in the poses. The girls also seem trapped both in the situation they find themselves in (pregnant and alone), and the role of a young, modern women. I find it interesting that in most of the portraits where there are many girls together, they seem lonely in a crowd, as if they do not know how to reach out to each other for strength and support. Yet in one portrait alone, they are leaning against each other, as if to support one another, and stand stronger together.
The use of color in Xuiwen’s images suggests contrasts. The inclusion of red in some images brings to mind strong emotion, the blood of childbirth, and the color brides wear for luck in China. Since these girls are young and alone, this contrasts with their status. The red color also seems reserved for traditional architectural elements, which contrasts with their modern dress and situation. The blue sets a calm mood, yet the girls
are not calm, they are exhausted, fearful, and dejected. The white dresses suggest purity and angels, yet the girls are hardly pure or angelic, in their state. And finally, though this presents no contrast, Xuiwen uses red and blue, primary colors, which are used in children’s toys, and to decorate baby’s rooms, which seems very apropos.
There is an element of hope in Xuiwen’s images, that is lacking in Cindy Sherman’s. In Angel #1, the girl is standing in water, under dark clouds, but there are bright white clouds on the horizon, on the way. Furthermore, in a couple of the images, the women are on a roadway or street that they continue to travel though they are frightened of the journey, showing their strength and determination.