EXERCISE #2
Writing a journal
Name: Charles Jofel S. Embiado
Course, year & section: BSAccountancy/3/A
Score:
Instruction: Choose one or more of the following prompts. Try to write roughly a page
on each prompt you select. Write your answer on the space provided.
Journal Prompt #1: Who Makes Art?
Who makes art? Do you think artists have innate ability or acquired skill (or both)?
How do artist’s roles change with different cultural considerations? Support your
answers with examples, and provide any images that help in your explanations.
Journal Prompt #2: Art21
View at least five short videos from ART21. You can search for artist’s names by
alphabet at the top middle of Art: 21’s homepage. Watch how they work and what
they say about their process. Then place one artist in each of the following
categories:
1. Artist most concerned with the process of making the work.
2. Artist most concerned with creativity in the idea for their art or the work
itself.
3. Artist most concerned with materials
4. Who surprised you the most?
5. List the artists you viewed.
Link: [Link]
Journal Prompt #3: Social Art vs. Creative Art
Instructions: Compare and contrast art created as a social activity and as a singular
creative act.
• What are the differences?
• Why are they important?
• Do their functions ever overlap? How?
Journal Prompt #1
According to [Link], Art is a highly diverse range of
human activities engaged in creating visual, auditory, or performed artifacts
— artworks—that expresses the author’s imaginative or technical skill, and is
intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power. However, this
is a limited definition of art. Everyone makes art but in general people who
make art are artists. It is part of our mental well-being. It may not be a
sculpture or a painting and it may not even be considered beautiful, but
everyone makes art. Art is made by humans who use skill and imagination to
communicate beauty and emotion. However, to do this the human also requires
some life experience if they are trying to
express specific emotions.
Even at dinner time, we’re creating art,
especially when we experiment a little. We
consider the ingredients to use and how we
arranged the food
on a plate – that’s
art.
Give a child a pencil and paper and they may scribble
something unconsciously, but kids love to draw,
paint and create.
Artists have higher levels of innate ability to
create art, but it takes skill and practice to become a great artist. Skill is
something we need to work on to achieve. The raw talent and potential can be
there, but if there is no practice, it will only just be potential. I think both are
necessary to enable the artist to communicate the cultural content and express
the message of the artwork to its viewers.
Artist’s roles change in different cultural considerations. No two artists
are alike but they share a connection since both of them are artist. An
impressionist artist and an abstract artist will make an artwork different from
each other. Impressionist Claude Monet will have a certain message about
naturalism. Yet, a similar message about nature can be evident to an abstract
work by Georgia O’Keefe. Art is connected through all cultures and facets of
thought. It is what connects people together, even if the art is from two entirely
different cultures.
Journal Prompt #2
Cai Guo-Qiang, who harnesses the explosive power of gunpowder, fits
the artist who is most concerned with the process of making his works. He says
“My work is sometimes like the poppy flower. It has this almost romantic side,
but yet it also represents a poison”. He began using gunpowder in his work to
foster spontaneity. However, gunpowder possesses a physical danger for
anyone who is near it. Then, Cai Gou explored the properties of gunpowder in
his drawings to create epic works that are born in violent on-site acts of
performance.
Choreographer Stephen Petronio captures my interest with his
collaboration to Janine Antoni in the making of “Honey Baby”. The creativity of
a choreographer, a performer, and a sculptor was integrated as one and
remove the boundaries between their respective fields to create works for the
stage as well as for the camera. In this artwork, Petronio choreograph the
movement of the performer in the honey-coated sculptural space. With the
integration of dance, sculptures, and a performer, the creativity in the idea for
their art is superb.
Hiwa K is most concerned with the materials he used because he
doesn’t like expensive artworks. Inspired by the fact that the church bells were
often melted down to make cannons during war times, Hiwa was thinking about
the circulation of materials and desires in swapping this process by making the
Bell Project. With the help of Nazhad, they melt the weapons and make bricks.
Then, analyze it to determine the percentage of impurity and to verify if it is
radioactive or not because it is a war weapon. Hiwa says “these melted
weapons took on new life and became possibilities of transformation”
Landscape Photographer An-My Lê surprises me the most with her
photos. Her photographs and films examine the impact, consequences, and
representation of war. Whether in color or black-and-white, her pictures frame
a tension between the natural landscape and its violent transformation into
battlefields. She even wanted to capture photos during war in Iraq, if possible
and her eagerness to capture such situations also surprises me. She says
“Scale is also important to me because it shows how insignificant we are”. In
art, the size relationship with an object to another object is significant in
producing a meaningful photo. Her desire to photograph people’s activities and
to let her audience revisit memories inspires a more creative world.
List of Artists I had viewed.
1. Theaster Gates
2. Robert Adams
3. David Brooks
4. Cai Guo–Qiang
5. Marcel Dzama
6. Olafur Eliasson
7. LaToya Ruby Frazier
8. Guan Xiao
9. Dan Herschlein
10. Graciela Iturbide
11. Yun-Fei Ji
12. Hiwa K
13. An-My Lê
14. Tala Madani
15. Ernesto Neto
16. Pepón Osorio
17. Stephen Petronio
Journal Prompt #3
Many artworks were made not only by an artist alone but also a result
of collaboration of a group of individuals. An example of a singular creative
artwork is Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory and AIDS Memorial Quilt
Project is an art created as a social activity.
There are few differences between these two artworks. The first
difference is the size of the artwork. While the Persistence of Memory is not
much larger than a sheet of notebook paper, the AIDS Memorial Quilt Project
measures 1.2 million square feet. Collective artworks tend to be larger in form,
better allowing several artists to contribute. The second different is the
Persistence of Memory was created by Salvador Dali alone, which means he
had a sole vision to create such art and he was able to express thoughts and
paint what he wanted on an individualistic level. The Quilt Project was done on
a collaborative level, bringing the visions and memorializes the thousands of
live lost to the virus through creation of quilts by families and friends.
Art created as a social activity and as a singular creative art are both
important in enhancing our community, and to helping the public come
together as a whole. Art created on a collaborative level can help strengthen
communities, bring awareness to timely issues in the community, or help heal
the people from a tragic event. Mostly, it perpetuates a positive message and
brings many people together. Art created as a singular creative art can be just
as powerful as art creative through group or community effort. A singular artist
can bring new perspective and insight to one’s thinking, challenge or push the
boundaries of traditional art, create something new and innovative, and
convey a unique feeling, mood, thought, or emotion of a single individual.
Socially engaged art can ignite outrage and demands for change,
and/or provide a platform for reflection, collaboration, and building
community
The functions of art created as a social activity and singular creative
acts can overlap because both things feed our desire for visual experiences.
Hopefully both things are engaging and make you think. Sometimes both
things beautify a space, or enhance it. The message can be the same, the
appeal can be broad for both, they can both convey social and political
messages and they can both bring communities together. Generally, many
artists are deeply committed to creating work that addresses
pressing social issues and changes the way we perceive the world.
