Wk 14 – Artist Conversation -Katie Bickerstaff

For this week’s art gallery’s artist conversations, I felt as if I were very limited on artists that I could speak with. From what I remember, I only saw one artist out speaking with students. So rather than feeling the need to speak with that artist because she was the only one out, I decided to take matters into my own hands and write about an artist that wasn’t present at the galleries. I wanted to write about art that I chose because I enjoyed it and wanted to talk about it, not choose a gallery just because that’s the only artist that was available to speak with us at the time. So with that being said, I decided to write about Katie Bickerstaff’s presentation in the Werby Gallery.

Upon entering the gallery I noticed a sign that read something along the lines of, “Warning: Contains adult content such as nudity” and with that forewarning, I was a little nervous as of what I might see when I enter the doors. However, all I saw was a bed covered in sheets and blankets that displayed a continuous print of nipples. After seeing that the nipples is what the sign was warning us about, I couldn’t help but think, “that’s it?” And after some thought, I realized that this is exactly the point that the artist, Katie, is referring to; and I completely agree.

Nipples are just nipples. Nipples are played out to be such a bigger deal than they should be; and more specifically, women’s nipples. When looking at the room display covered in prints of nipples, viewers can’t even tell if they belong to a woman or a man. Nipples are merely a simple body part that both genders have and for whatever reason, one is sexualized and the other is not.

Wk 14 – Classmate Conversation – Judy Phan, Jacob Kim, Milton Coreas

For this week’s group classmate conversation, I got to speak with Judy Phan, Jacob Kim, and Milton Coreas. I already previously knew Judy and Jacob, and Milton was the new classmate that I met this week.

Milton was initially a biochem major until he decided that that wasn’t the right major for him and switched it out to another. He is currently undeclared but wants to be a film major and become a director. Some of his interests include playing soccer and spending his time trying to learn how to play the guitar. Milton thinks art is different for everyone because paintings can be viewed in a different perspective by every person.

Judy is a health science major and wants to become a doctor. She likes going to the beach and taking her dog to the dog park. She keeps herself busy by interning at a hospital and going to a youth group. Judy views art as a new hobby, something she enjoys doing to occupy her time. She enjoys going to art museums to see the new displays of artwork.

Jacob wants to be a cop because he wants the action that comes with it. He’s also very against ending up at an office job. He likes to play instruments such as the guitar, violin, piano, and the ukulele. Jacob views art as an instrument to express himself in different forms, and same goes with other people. He believes art is a form of expression.

Wk 13 – Artist Conversation -Shahrzad Ahrar

Shahrzad Ahrar’s art gallery was unlike any other I have viewed so far. Shahrzad’s gallery reminded me of a museum type experience. It had multiple different displays of art that consisted of interactive kaleidoscopes, printed pictures hung down from the ceiling, and a wall in which you could press certain pieces of it and it would play a voice recording back to you.

Shahrzad’s gallery was especially interesting because every piece had a different story behind it. She stated that her gallery was actually based around four individuals that she interviewed specifically for her gallery. She interviewed individuals who had immigrated to the United States from a different country and asked them questions about how they felt when they came here and why they decided to move here. The interview consisted of thirty questions and with these answers, she used them to make her designs. Many of the subjects had similar responses. All of the subjects stated that they moved to the United States to escape from war in their homeland.

The wall that had the graphic design covering the entire side had four patches that contained voice recordings from each subject. Each patch had specific designs that represented how the subjects answered to the questions. Shahrzad discussed one patch and stated that that particular design consisted of pictures of soldiers, the subject’s family trying to escape their homeland in the middle of the night, different war symbols, maps of the countries, and rockets and fires.

Shahrzad’s art gallery has been the only gallery throughout the entire semester that actually appealed to my emotions. All the other galleries sort of just felt like a for fun viewing type thing, Shahrzad’s gallery really made me feel emotions towards the subjects that she interviewed, for any other person in the world who has had to immigrate to another country, and for her art work. I like that it felt like Shahrzad used her art to spread awareness about a certain topic.

Wk 13 – Classmate Conversation -Edwyn Reyes

This week I got to meet Edwyn Reyes. Edwin is currently a second year and commutes to school. He is a biology major and wants to become a dentist in the future. In his free time, Edwyn likes to play video games, go out to eat, or draw. He also likes to listen to all sorts of music such as Korean music or jazz. Another cool fact is that he’s a really big fan of anything science fiction. Somehow we got into the topic of Star Wars and I can tell that Edwyn is a huge Star Wars fan. He said that he’s seen all the movies, read all the books, and is very excited for the newest Star Wars movie to come out. When asked the question of the week, Edwyn’s response was that he enjoys the more recent galleries compared to the ones in the beginning of the semester. He actually pointed out that week 13’s gallery in Gatov West was his favorite because in his opinion, it displayed more of actual artwork and a lot of drawing pieces, which he finds a lot of interest in.

Wk 12 – Activity – ePortfolio

Trying to think of what I wanted to revolve my ePortfolio about was a little challenging. The options were either to make my website something related to my major and how it could help me develop my career, or something that I was interested in on more of a personal level. Since I’m still undeclared and not fully positive and what I want to do with my major or what I’m going to follow through with for my career, I decided to make my website about something that I’m interested in as a pass time. With that I decided to make an ePortfolio about make up and fashion.

I’ve always been into make up and fashion and enjoy following other fashion bloggers on social media sites. I love watching tutorials on new techniques of how to do different make up looks or reviews about new products. I also love seeing my favorite fashion bloggers post pictures of their outfits of the day and getting to view where they purchased their pieces from. Being a fashion blogger seems like such a fun thing to do because not only is it something that I personally get a lot of joy from, but it can allow me to also share that joy with other people who share the same interests as me. I figured that with this blog I can follow the foot steps of the fashion bloggers that I love to follow and do posts such as make up looks that I like to do or my outfits of the day.

Wk 12 – Artist Conversation – Christopher Linquata

When I stumbled into the Gatov West gallery I was fascinated by the immense detail in each painting. Each painting had such dimension and displayed obvious talent from the artist. The paintings had so much individual character that really gave the pieces that extra touch. Initially, I wasn’t sure of what the meaning or story was behind each painting, all I knew was that I thought each painting was a beautiful piece of work.

After listening to the artist speak about his paintings I learned that each painting actually represents a different Greek mythology. As if the paintings weren’t already cool in itself, knowing the background behind the paintings made it ten times better. Christopher stated that he used to live in Greece, south of Venice. He also used to paint murals at Caesar’s palace in Las Vegas.

Christopher’s inspiration behind the paintings is the sunken city, which is also where the scenes in the paintings take place at. Christopher states that he usually draws at every place he visits. He captures places and moments by either drawing it or sketching it on the spot or taking a photo of it. However, he says that he never uses a picture to directly paint from because he believes that causes his paintings to look flat. He typically only uses a photo to use as reference to freshen his memory in order to continue on with the painting.

I have to admit that Christopher’s gallery has been my favorite of all the other galleries I’ve seen since the beginning of the semester. I really enjoy the detail and aesthetics of each of his paintings and realizing that he recreated a different Greek mythology for each painting made me appreciate it even more. I also thought it was really sweet that he incorporated his own family and friends into his paintings and used them as the characters.

Wk 12 – Classmate Conversation – Judy Phan

For this week’s classmate conversation I got to speak with Judy Phan. She is a currently a second year and is a health science major. She is the youngest child in her family with two older sisters and one older brother. She has a very close relationship with her whole family and is a very family orientated person. She also has a niece named Kaitlyn whom she adores very much. She spends a lot of time with her niece by baby sitting her or taking her to Disneyland. Another member of Judy’s family is her adorable dog Bane. Judy is a huge dog person and loves to treat her dog, or any other animal in that case, as if they were her own child (which I would totally do the same). Judy enjoys doing outdoor activities such as going on hikes, going to the beach, or also girly things such as going shopping and getting her nails done.

Wk 11 – Activity – Fiber Arts

This week’s activity had me a little stumped. It was hard for me to try and come up with something that I could make and hang up in my room. First off, I’m not all that creative and second of all, I didn’t want to go out to buy materials because I felt like that would be a waste of money so I searched around my house for materials that I might be able to use. Luckily, when I was younger I used to do a lot of scrap booking with my mom and different sorts of arts and crafts so I found a lot of leftover materials that I could possibly use. But the hard part was trying to figure out how I could piece them together to create something.

To be completely honest all the materials seemed very scattered and I couldn’t come up with a creative way to tie them all together. So I sort of just smacked some things together that I could tie and hang. I found some large flower beads and these straps of leather that had little holders already attached to the top so this made it easy to connect everything with the use of string and a tiny metal bar. It was sort of hard to balance out the metal bar on the bottom that held the straps of leather together because the straps of leather kept sliding around in different directions.

Overall this activity was slightly difficult but I still managed to pull something together. I like that this activity forced me to use some creativity and forced me to try and take what I had in front of me and somehow relate them together.

Wk 11 – Artist Conversation – Kathy Yoon

Kathy Yoon is a ceramics major at Cal State Long Beach and is currently a third year. She’s been in the ceramics department for three years. Kathy made her artworks out of clay and from the process of ceramics. Each individual piece took about 2 weeks to make. She states that she’s always enjoyed drawing as a kid but was never really introduced to ceramics until college.

Kathy states that the inspiration behind this art gallery was from a character that she came up with and has been doodling about for the past year. The different sculptures are an array of different emotions and little people that each represent something different. According to Kathy, the sculpture that is holding the heart balloon is the best representation of herself.

In my opinion, this art gallery was particularly unique and intriguing because of how each sculpture seemed to represent a different emotion or feeling. Each sculpture seems to have its own personality and its own life and is showcasing whatever situation it’s going through by how it’s portraying its actions. Some sculptures seem happier and more carefree than others, whereas some sculptures seem to have just given up on life. The gallery contains such a variety of emotions as if the artist is trying to subtly show different events in her life.

My own personal favorite of the whole gallery was the one leaning its head against the wall. I liked that sculpture because as soon as I noticed it it made me laugh because that is an emotion I always feel whenever I’m fed up. Whenever I’m fed up with something or just feeling overwhelmed in general, one of the thoughts that goes through my head is always something like “I just want to bang my head against a wall.” It seems like such a depressing thought at first, but it’s really a half-joking thought. Although I do feel like that a lot, I don’t ever literally hit my head against a wall. Although sometimes I do punch walls.

Wk 11 – Classmate Conversation – Filimon Soltero

For this week’s classmate conversation I chose to get to know Filimon Soltero. Filimon is currently a third year and is majoring in healthcare administration. He commutes to school from Compton. In his free time he enjoys hanging out with his friends and family, going out to eat, and playing sports, especially soccer. His favorite food is carne asada and says that he has a special appreciation for home made Mexican food. When asked the question of the week, Filimon answered by stating the he does believe tattoos are a form of art, however, he personally wouldn’t get one because he isn’t really a huge fan of tattoos. He says that he doesn’t really like the appearance of tattoos and probably wouldn’t get one on his own body. But he does believe that tattoos are a form of art in which people express themselves and show what they like on their own skin. On the topic of art, he started talking about how he actually really enjoys this class because he never really saw himself as the artistic type, but this class forces him to be more creative and helps him express himself in different ways that he never has before. He also likes this class because he feels like it helps him build his communication skills by having to meet and converse with new people every week.