BEFORE: This is my everyday look. I’m always wearing legging with either a long sleeve or a t-shirt. Dressing comfy is a must for me.
AFTER: I usually never curl my hair or wear makeup, unless I’m going to a fancy event. Even when I do wear makeup it is never this full glam.
AFTER: I got this fancy shirt for my head shots for my high school senior pictures and I never wore it again until this day.
My go to look is a very casual and comfy look. My friends will find me wearing leggings and a t-shirt I probably got from a vacation I have went on or jeans and a shirt. I also rarely do my makeup. However when I do, its very light with some concealer and some light eyeshadow. For this activity I wanted to go outside my comfort zone and glam up a bit before I went out with my friends this week. In the before picture you can get a sense of my daily casual look.
My plan was to dress up fancy and have a full glam makeup look before I met up to hang out with my friends. I had one of my friends who is very good at makeup help me do mine since I have no idea what I am doing. I wore a fancy blouse my mom bought me for my senior photos in high school, a nice pair of blue jeans, and one of my nice sandals I usually wear when I go to fancy events. I felt like a business women wearing the outfit I was wearing. I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of my friends reactions to my look.
When I eventually met up with them, they were shocked at my appearance. They were hyping me up and joking around by saying things like “dang! who is she”, “you acting brand new!”, “you look fire”, etc. They told my I looked amazing and that it was weird to see me dressed up since I am always in casual clothes. My friends treated me the same as always after the initial shock since they know I am still the same person. Changing your appearance does not change who you are. I realized that there is defiantly a stereotype for the way certain people dress. For example, when I was finished getting dresses I associated my fancy blouse with a business women. My friends also agreed that I could pass as a business major if they were to see me walking around campus like I was dresses.
Dozens of jelly fish encaged in a small tank for display
My friend volunteers at an aquarium and invited me to come see all the different animals. I was thrilled to see all the beautiful fish. Once I got there I began to realize that there was so many fish put into one tank that was defiantly not big enough for them. These marine animals are pulled from their homes and put into tiny boxes that will never compare to the size of the ocean. I learned that the life expectancy of some of the marine animals in the aquariums is generally shorter than the ones in the ocean.
I believe that these animals should not be held captive just for entertainment. Places like Sea World take these animals out of their homes, away from their mothers, and force them to do tricks for food. However, since some of these aquariums contain animals that aquarium contains animals that were permanently injured due to human activity it should be human responsibility to take care of that animal and then later release it. That only should be the soul reason to have aquariums, nurse, educate, and release.
If I were to do this again I would do a few things differently. Instead of getting close to the tank and just photographing the fish I will step back and take a picture of the small tanks they keep them in.
Sharks and other sea animals displayed in a large tank with a tunnel so people can view them.
Ricardo Corona is an undergraduate student at the California State University of Long Beach. He is in his fourth year and her last semester at Long Beach. He is working toward finishing his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in the School of Art’s Pre-Production program and is focusing on background art, visual development and building his own worlds. Corona enjoys going on hikes, listening to music, people watching, and creating cartography. Corona hopes to find himself working in working in visual development and creating background designs for films, television, or video games.
Corona had two pieces in the group exhibit. For one the pieces he used a cool color palette. It was a mixture of blues, purple, black and white. Many colors were overlapping and blended between one another. All of his work was done by digital illustration although it looked like it could have been painted. The white splatter looked as if it could have only came from paint. There was a recurring theme of the wild west and fantasy throughout all of the work. There was a rugged look in the room which the western decorations.
Corona decided to do a group exhibition with some friends that had very similar in style and context in their art. In his exhibition he wanted to do something that was rarely explored realm. This was the idea of bringing the wild west and fantasy together. Their story was set in a desert where all beings came to seek riches and glory. The artist wanted to transform the place into a pod of inspiration where they could utilize their Pre-Production insight into stages of new stories. The story itself is a western tale about greed. However, there is a fantasy twist on it with a magical crystal that everyone is trying to get their hands on. If the people from the corporation get to it first then they will threaten to break the balance on the Enchanted Borderlands. Corona is exploring ideas of greed, power, and creativity.
Corona did an amazing job conveying his message, and had beautiful artwork. I really enjoyed the take on a western fantasy since I have not seen it done before. I thought it was very clever of them to have the idea of the cooperation needing to be stopped from having power, because if they didn’t it would destroy balance in the world. This was a perfect example of not letting the government take advantage of our rights. I also thought the art itself was incredible with how it looked like a real painting even though it was all done digitally.
This is my grandmother, Dahiben. She was born and raised in India. She loves to serve her family. I call her Dadi, which is grandma in Gujarati. Here you can she is preparing to make one of her favorite Indian foods called Rotla. Rotla is essentially a millet flatbread.
My grandmother only speaks Gujarati. She is very traditional and wanted to teach me some of her traditional Indian recipes. Here she is adding salt water to the millet flour a little at a time. She says she does this so it doesn’t clump up.
The only tools she uses while making the rotla’s are her hands. She says that utensils do not really get anything done and in India people do not really use utensils.
Here she is grabbing a piece of the dough and begins forming it into a ball by swirling it between her palms.
Here my grandma is flattening the same piece of dough with into a round, thin rotlo (flatbread). This is also only done by hand.
My grandma is putting the rotlo on the thavi (a clay rounded pan) until it gets crisp on one side.
Here you can see that she has flipped it over. She told me that you are not to press down on it even if it doesn’t touch the pan. This is because the heat will cook it through and crisp it on its own.
My grandma poses for a picture showing the rotlo she showed me how to make. She said that these are best to eat with pickled chilies, daikon, or some curry.
I choose to show my grandmother cooking because I love spending time with her and want to cherish all the moments we have together. She is always telling me to watch her cook so I can learn all of her Indian recipes. My grandmother does most of the cooking at my house so I thought it would be a great way to show that I appreciate what she does for me. I also wanted to show a little bit of my culture by showing traditional Indian food.
I think I did a great job showing the different steps of making a traditional Indian food item. It also captures my grandmother’s love for serving her family. The best image of my story is the last image where my grandmother is smiling and showing off the finished product. It encapsulates her love for cooking and her caring personality through her smile.
I love all the images in my photostory and I think each of them add onto the story in their own way. However, if I were to do this activity again I would incorporate more of the surroundings instead of being so close up. I would also like to include my family members at the end by showing everyone enjoying the meal. Lastly, if I were to do another photostory I would like to do it on, life as a college student. I would follow a friend around and capture moments throughout their day.
When I found out that this week’s art experience was a drawing experience I was excited. That was until I realized that I had to post my drawings and that I had to draw people. I really enjoy drawing because it’s very therapeutic and helps me take my mind of the stressful things I have going on in my life but I am not very good at drawing. That aside, I had a great time drawing with my classmates, Sofia and Aaron. It was fun getting to know them and talking about things we relate to as college students. We all agreed that we were not the best at drawing so we had so much fun showing our drawings of each other and laughing at the fact that they looked terrible. There will definitely be days where I just want to draw and relax as it is not something I do because I am good at it, but I will continue to do it because it is fun and makes me happy.
If I were to practice drawing for 100 or 1,000 hours I would definitely get better at drawing. I believe that practice makes progress and without it you can’t get better.
I am currently a kinesiology major with an option in exercise science. Sketches can be very useful in my major in portraying the kinematics of a movement, and drawing out different parts of the body. They are used to show a series of movements all the time. I always sketch out body parts and the body articulations to help myself and others visualize different motions. It is sometimes easier to show someone a drawing for a visualization than it is to understand what someone is saying.
Sketch used to illustrate movement
Language does not need to be verbal. It is simply a method of communication. Drawing is another form of language. Sometimes drawing can speak more than words. It can be hard to convey a message or speak what’s on your mind so things like drawing, painting, and even dancing can make it so one can communicate what they are trying to say in a different way.
Artist: Marissa Espiritu Exhibition:The Chase Media: Mixed-Media, Digital Animation, Comic Book, Digital Illustration Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Dr. Maxine Merlino Gallery Website: https://miespiritu.com/ Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/mie_doods/
Marissa Espiritu is an undergraduate student at the California State University of Long Beach. She is in her fourth year and her last semester at Long Beach. She is working toward finishing her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in the School of Art’s Illustration program. Espiritu is a member of the 22 West Magazine illustration team on campus. She enjoys creating comics, graphics, and is also interested in animation production. She loves to wear hats and draw in her free time. Espiritu hopes to find herself producing animation and in the meantime she will continue doing what she loves.
Espiritu had many forms to her artwork as she had created multiple pieces. She used a warm and smokey color palette for all of her pieces. It was a mixture of colors from a sunset and black. Many colors were overlapping and blended between one another. She had enlarged pieces of her comic book to put on display. The comic book itself was a bit larger than any ordinary comic book. All of her work was done by digital illustration. There was a recurring theme of darkness throughout all of her work. Each page included many overlapped shapes that included different images in each one. The shapes consisted of rectangles, squares and many other unconventional shapes. There were no perfectly straight lines, only jagged ones. Any lines she used to create an outline around something was much thicker than the others. Each character Espiritu had digitally drawn had a cartoonish and rough look to them.
Espiritu decided to do a group exhibition with a friend who was doing something very similar in style and context. They both had a vigilante story for their work. Espiritu’s comic illustration story was called The Chase. It is about a girl who grew up a vigilante with her vigilante uncle. She is going through a mental dilemma of what constitutes as good and what constitutes as bad. She needs to figure out how to safely get herself out of that situation. Espiritu also explained that the character is on a journey of trying to find herself as a person. The themes challenged in her art were: loyalty, familial obligation, and morality. Espiritu wanted to show how society modifies their morality when it comes to family.
Espiritu did an amazing job conveying her message, and have beautiful artwork. I really related with the theme of familial obligation and morality that she conveyed through her art. I sometimes find myself making life choices based off of my family’s opinions rather than listening to my gut. I want to please them because of the amazing things they have done for me and the sacrifices they have made for me, but I know I need to make my own choices in life for what I want. This experience helped me realise that it’s ok to make your own decisions and mistakes as that is the only way I will learn to grow as an individual.
My group and I came to the conclusion that the form of our art was a mixture of both organic and inorganic materials. The entire piece itself was small compared to the world around it. The plant coming through the cement was bright, soft, and the leaves were a bit fuzzy as they had some hair life features on them. Both the cement and the plant were highly textured as there were many cracks in the rough cement and many bumps and lines all over the plant. There was a very minimalistic aesthetic to it as it only focused on one thing and had a small color pallet. It has a calming and inspiring effect on viewers as it is something that is living coming from cement with no other life in sight. My group and I named the piece “Persevere”. It is symbolic that not matter what happens life will persevere anywhere, so no matter where you are in life even you can thrive through all odds.
For my group and I, our art piece was art before we decided to put a frame around it and will continue to be art once the frame is removed. Others may not view it as art, because as we discussed in class art resides in the experience of the viewer. I view it as art because I saw power through it. It caught my eye because it was screaming “I will rise up”. My group and I all had a moment to discuss the beauty of nature and how amazing it is that it will find its way through cement.
Art does not necessarily need to be an object. Some might preserve dancing, cooking, swimming, or anything they do to express themselves as art as well.
Art resides in the experience of the viewer. Looking at a palm tree can be a completely different experience than how someone else chooses to view it. I see the leaves of palm trees as relaxing as they sway through the wind and the vibrant colors that radiate from the tree are calming and always make me think about all the fun summer memories I’ve had. Someone else may simply just see it as an ordinary tree and nothing else. It is one’s choice to accept something as art and take the time to create a moment with the piece.
For this week’s art experience I got the chance to do a finger painting activity. I did not want to do it alone so I asked a friend of mine to join me. My friend did not want to finger paint, but he said he would keep me company. I laid out my paint and I felt like I was missing something because I did not have paint brushes. It was hard for me to start painting because I wanted to paint something non representational and I like having order and directions in everything I do. I began by pouring different colors of paint onto my paper. I looked at my paper and then my friend started laughing because I felt like I was in kindergarten with no care or goal with what I was painting. I found myself moving my finger in a circular motion all over the paper. My friend looked and me and saw that I was actually enjoying myself so he decided to join me.
Was it easier, harder, or different than you expected?
Believe it or not, this experience was actually hard for me. I tend to overthink things and am a fan of having instructions. I like to have things very organized and this finger painting activity had no order or instructions. However, it did feel liberating to not have a care in my mind about making something perfect. It was worried about getting dirty, but I found myself enjoying the mess and the feeling of the cool paint between my fingers.
How was the experience of making a painting with no subject?
This was my first time creating abstract art since I was a kid. Making a painting with no subject initially gave me a bit of anxiety because there was no sense of direction or representation. However, once I got into the painting I really enjoyed myself and found it relaxing to take my mind off all the stress that’s coming from everything else in my life. My friend and I both decided that we would do this activity more often because we had a great time catching up with each other, and felt liberated.
How does this compare to other paintings you have seen?
The two types of paintings I have seen are representational paintings and abstract paintings. Representational paintings are painting of the represent or mimic something or someone. The painting I did was abstract as there was no true meaning or representation to the painting. I just did what I was feeling at the moment with the painting. There was no true end goal with what I wanted to create. This painting is different from every painting I have seen because no two peoples minds are the same thus creating different brain processes.
Performing the Maintenance Art around the USU was an eye opening experience. I initially went into the day thinking it was going to be an awkward thing to do since I was going to be cleaning an art sculpture in the middle of a busy walkway on campus. However, I put my social insecurities aside and realized it was actually a great opportunity to appreciate and learn about the sculpture along side my classmates. I found it very intriguing the techniques Piotr Kowalski used as he used dynamite underwater to get the shapes he got for each piece. Standing inside the center of the sculpture made me feel like I was there for the underwater explosion and was able to envision it.
I found it heartwarming when I saw students helping each other clean the sculpture. For example I saw a student get on another students shoulders so they could reach the dirty parts that were hard to reach. I enjoyed getting to know my classmates during the experience and will be more open to experiences like this the next time they come up.
Mierle Laderman Ukeles cleaning the steps of an art museum was quite different from Richard Serra flinging molten lead against the walls of an art museum. They both symbolized something very different. Richard Serra flinging molten lead against the walls of an art museum symbolized destruction and chaos, where as Mierle Laderman Ukeles cleaning the steps was a symbol of orderliness. Art is an expression and it is anything that evokes emotion in someone. Therefore both of their pieces are art. Richards piece is art with no order or no real structure, it is something you create your own meaning for based off of your emotional reaction to it. When I first saw it I felt a sense of disorder and chaos and when I saw Ukeles maintenance art I felt a sense of order and freedom.
Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Maintenance Art performance at the Wadsworth Atheneum was art as she was simply expressing herself and how she felt. The fact that her performance was at an Art Museum did not make it art. It does not matter where she performed the act, what matters is the intent behind her actions. It is art because she perceived it as art. Putting things in museums does not make them art. For something to be classified as art the creator or the audience member must decide that for themselves, just like I did with Richard and Ukeles. Like I said earlier, I classify something as art when it invokes my emotions and I feel that it is expressive.
Art is based off of the intention of the person performing it. For example, paintings on canvas in my opinion are always art no matter where they are displayed because I always create a meaning for the painting and view it as art where as some may not view the same piece as art and it might not mean anything to them.
Ukeles and Jennifer Lopez have made me think differently about “Women’s Work”. I never thought about that term until I heard it on the first day of class. Women’s work is art based off of the inventions of the viewer and the artist. Ukele helped me realize that any work that a woman does is an expression of character and emotion. Jennifer Lopez showed me that ones work does not need to benefit someone else in order for it to be important, it only needs to mean something to yourself.
In class a photograph of a woman on her hands and knees cleaning Donald Trump’s star on Hollywood Blvd was discussed. Although I respect that some may take their time to clean their idols star on Hollywood, I would not get down to clean anyones star. I respect many people who have a star and the work they put out but I don’t feel the need to clean something that is constantly going to be walked over. Not having a clean star does not belittle any of the artists and the work that they put out because they are not defined by a star on the ground.
Shivani Patel 