Wk 13 – Artist Conversation – Shahrzad Ahrar

Shahrzad Ahrar is currently a graduate student who is going to be obtaining her Master of Arts in graphic design. She originally came from Iran to the United States seven years ago. 

  
She debuted her gallery “Wake” on November 19, 2015 at the Dutzi Gallery. Her gallery and it’s art piece were inspired by her experience in coming to the United States. Her art pieces retells the story of other immigrants and their story coming to the U.S.. Based on each story, Ahrar created a unique piece to represent the individuals experiences. The end result displays a variety of heavily different backgrounds in many and uniquely different pieces. 

  
First one emblem retells the story of Omar and his family who came from Afghanistan and went to America as an asylum. The government was changing too much no stable government. Code of arm is displayed in the center and the bird represents freedom. The theme of war is very dominant through the middles and airplanes. 

  
Second is the escape of Omar and his family to go to Pakistan then to New York through the two characters at the bottom. Middle bottom are war symbol which is where the theme of war is dominant again. Afghan map in flower mosque on fire which may represent the current state of the war or country. 

  
The third is the experience of being in a new and completely different area. The planes, the city towers, and various sceneries represents the travel to the area. The emblem mostly signifies the experience of traveling himself

  
Fourth is the current life in America like. The interest of Disneyland in California being a focal point of the states before he came represents the center. Him entering the U.S. was different, he want to see California for how it is. He got lost in free way and realized how fast food was different from his homeland. Even rules and regulations were heavily different compared to native home. 
The art gallery was insanely interesting. The idea of representing stories of other people in heavily unique styles makes the significance of each individual more special and unique. The art gallery was both up for viewing while having interactive pieces through either objects or a listening station. 

Wk 13 – Classmate Conversation – Millie Herrera

  
At the moment she is currently majoring in marketing, but plans to swap to education. The reason is because she wants to mentor kids and actually make an impact with her past and previous experience. She chose marketing as a plea to get serious about school, but she wasn’t passionate about it so she planned on changing her major. She currently likes to play soccer, dance, and watch movies. She is currently in the Alpha Phi Omega coed fraternity which is known for their community service. She sees art the same from the beginning and end. She knew how it would be in terms of interpretation and what is considered art even construction. Open minded and open to other perspective which makes art generally easier to get. She is an only child who is close to her big family. Her name stands for miracle in Spanish. 

Here’s a link to her blog to see more about her. 

Wk 12 – Activity – ePortfolio

Honestly, I could not come with a relevant idea on what to make a new blog about since my major is relatively limited for blog posting with the exception of some really poor Accounting or Financing related jokes. I did not feel like creating a news outlet and an opinionated post about those topics as well. The before is on the right side and the after is on the left side. The idea of the ePortfolio will most likely be about a foodie blog. I do enjoy  going outside of my comfort zone in terms of what I eat, so this would probably be the only best option there is for me.

The goals of the website is to show what I eat around me locally and demonstrate how the difference dishes there are around a very small area. The audience will most likely be those who are interested in foreign dishes or are interested in trying them out for themselves, but want some opinions before hand. I want to let them know whether my good experiences will influence them and through detailed post and well thought out images of food, they should understand me. I have nothing at the moment, since I haven’t really gone anywhere.

Wk 12 – Artist Conversation – Christopher Linquata

   
 Christopher Linquata exhibited his gallery for partial fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts degree and to reassure his idea of paintings being meant to be displayed and not hidden. His current major is presentation of drawing and painting. Although he is not for sure with his future, he has displayed interest in teaching. 

  
He debuted his gallery at Gatov East on November 12, 2015. His gallery was called: “Sacred & Profane” with another artist by the names with Mike Kent. Through his art, he wishes to inspire others to push themselves for art. Aspiring others to either paint similarly or differently from what he feels about his art. His progression of his sketches and the paintings allowed himself to actually put his art into verbiage and discuss it with others. The pieces all took about ten weeks total with pieces being worked on multiples at a time. 

   
 His painting style is very unique. One of the most attractive pieces to me involved unique colored layers and his shadowig with shading. The mix of color reminds me of real graffiti, the color smears as if the grafitti is actually worn down by something like weather. I found very interesting that he would paint over areas that he no longer was apart of his vision and how it contributed to the layer of color. 

Follow him on Instagram at: @icon5350

Wk 12 – Classmate Conversation – Natalie Marquez

  
Today I interviewed Natalie Marquez (Link to her site). At the moment, she is in her third year as a child development major. In the near future, she wishes to work at a hospital and be there to comfort kids. Their job is to help manage the younger crowds at hospital and mentally prepare the kids for the hospital environment. She would make it understanding for them. She is interested exploring different places either going out to a new restaurant or generally anywhere new and outdoors. Some favorite tv shows are Grey’s Anatomy and the 70’s Show. This weeks question of the week asked: what color calms you and what color activates you? The color blue and white calms her and red makes her pumped up.

Wk 11 – Artist Conversation – Kathy Yoon

Kathy Yoon is currently a senior in her last semester at California State University Long Beach. If you’d like to more of her art, you can check out her Instagram here. Originally she majored in math, but after some experience with ceramics, she decided to switch. She originally worked with animal like figure and stayed with her comfort zone, until she decided to disregard realism and focus on her artwork based on her own emotions and feelings. Even with a Bachelor of Arts in Ceramics, she wishes to continue on with character design.

Yoon debuted one of her final galleries, “So Many Me’s” on November 5th, 2015 at CSULB. The ceramic pieces depicted are specifically made out of various types of clay, under glaze, and some yarn. The inspiration can easily be interpreted based on her interest with yarn making and button eyed dolls. Each individual piece is a representation of Yoon’s personal emotions. The various types of emotions ranges from gloominess, uncertainty, to curiosity and many others.

Personally, I do enjoy how easily comparable her art pieces are. The designs of the doll like figures are very simple and straight to the point. But with the different alterations to the doll’s expression and position, I could understand how the artist was putting her own emotions or generally any emotions into the design themselves. Even though a lot of artist don’t have the message of the piece to be easily deciphered or specific, I feel its easier to relate to the artist when the pieces are a direct reflection of how they felt when making it originally. There are some areas for interpretation, but I could easily express a similar opinion to other students around me about the pieces themselves.

Wk 11 – Activity – Fiber Art

   
 
When I thought of fiber art, I believed it was just creating projects that are basically made out of yarn or some sort of string. I didn’t really have any ideas that would save me money, since those types of material are not really easily accessible. But the assignment did mention adding dyes to clothes or fabric, so that is what I followed. I remember that melting crayon drip art actually works to make a very nice looking piece, but there wasn’t much info about its transition on fibers. I used variations of my favorite colors which are spectrums of blues.  Not knowing how the crayon reacted to fibers is where the mistake comes up, instead of dripping it just made a dark blob onto my shirt instead. Because of this, I just slowly move the crayons across the shirt as I use a blow dryer to melt the crayon. I didn’t expect the outcome that I got which is nice. There is no possibility of wearing the shirt and which is why I used a very old shirt for the assignment. Very interesting on what a person can use to dye a material. There are so many objects that oddly works well. Prepping the crayon was more of a struggle than getting the crayons onto the shirt. The wrapping on them consumed 80% of the time in completing the whole assignment. 

Wk 11 – Classmate Conversation – Marisol Gonzalez

  
This week for the classmate conversation, I interviewed Marisol Gonzalez (Here’s a link to her site) at the moment she is a sophomore who wishes to major in child development in order to either be a teacher or child specialist. She likes working and helping kids in order to actually make an impact on them. Her hobbies includes playing soccer, hanging out with friends and family, and going out to stores. She currently works for an after school program for a middle school and wishes to transfer to an elementary school. Favorite foods are lasagna and enchiladas and her favorite dessert are rocky road and cookies and cream ice cream. This week question of the week asked whether tattoos are considered art and what would the best get if possible. Tattoo is considered a form of art regardless of where it comes from. Even though she doesn’t want one, she would get a sun to represent good and positive vibes and also because Sol means sun in Spanish.

Wk 10 – Artist Conversation – Matthew Dumpit

Matthew Dumpit is currently a senior who originated from the bay area. His inspiration for arts came from the people in his environment who pushed him through art like his teachers. He currently has a Bachelors of Arts in Metal. In terms of his future, he wishes to be in designing and wants to expand his knowledge through graduate school for industrial design. He notes that metal is a great foundation for other art platforms even if it is something small.

He debuted his first gallery on October 29, 2015 at the Werby Gallery.The art pieces took 5 months to finish that displayed an emphasis on minimalism and on impact of shadows through welding wires and steel. The appearance of the shadow was intentional which led to the use of LED lights. The LED lights allowed a crisp and clear shadow effect that resembles to a drawing that is well defined and precise. In contrast, the reasoning for not using lighting like halogen is that it would cause the shadows to be more blurred and mix rather than precise. So placing of the objects themselves against the lighting also required precision and planning.

His art pieces are actually intended to be interacted with, noted by his interpretation of the gallery “motions and emotions.” To give the art piece a better feeling of interactions rather than a feeling of something to just look at. The designs themselves were spontaneous through the idea of finding the placement and degree to shine the light on. The lack of title is intended for the minimalist designs to represent themselves. The purpose of giving titles would defeat the purpose of the minimalist designs if dictated by labels.

In my opinion, I see the shadows as the contrast of physical object bounded to the floor.The shadows represents the emotions and the physical object would be the motions. The feel of the object is skewed when reflected by the shadow. The view of an object can be interpreted generally and consistently the same, but the shadow is more open and can not be generalized as there is more interpretations up for grabs. This is what makes the concept of shadows so interesting personally. Something simple as lighting creates a more contemplative environment when backed up by a unique and perceptually different art piece.

Wk 10 – Activity – Alternate Reality Gaming

  
When I first heard about this assignment, I actually had a brief experience with Geocaching. The experience was actually really difficult especially if you had a bad sense of your environment. When I started the assignment, the intention was to go as a group because of my poor experience with a very small group. I knew it would be difficult to actually find regardless of the rating. 

  
The gps feature is neat, it gives you a brief idea of where to go. The easy scale is personally hard to get, we looked up a geocache that had the ratings of 2 stars, but after over 40 minutes we all gave up trying to find it. The one was at the Walter Pyramid. Looked through all the tubes and edging of every corner and no luck. The inability to get a result was pretty frustrating since we had a group of 5. It was nice being able to be creative with the placement of the geocache. I decided to hide mine within a tube by the pyramids, but apparently my geocache has an error with its listing so I have to go and refund a new spot for it to pop up again. Overall the results of the assignment were disappointing, there was no success in the listing and actually finding the geocache. But then again the outcome pretty much determined how I would have felt at the end in the first place. I wouldn’t go for it again since I have quit before.