art map

-born in daytona beach, florida. -moved to texas at a very young age - older brother was bossy and demand attention. - I was quiet and played alone alot - Brother was good at sports and school. got praise and attention from that - I was decided since he was better at those things, those were 'his things' and i should find my own thing. -because i played along alot, i liked telling stories with my action figures. -i liked comic books. this liked art and storytelling through images for me. -i started drawing these comic book characters. -i started getting attention for the drawings, as they were above average quality for a kid my age. I enjoyed the praise, as i did not get it often. -major setback when i attended an art class. teacher was harsh and restrictive. -stopped trying to improve, though continued to doodle on occasion. - because i was quite and didn't get attention, i felt like the only way to get it or stand up for myself was to have outbursts or get violent. -grew rebellious and angry as a teen. -my art grew darker, bloodier and more gruesome. usually involved fighting or death. - Mrs.Rhoden's class in the 10th grade. revived confidence and drive to learn. -Me and some friends broke into a home. It turned out to be Mrs. Rhoden's parents' home, and she learned of my involvement. She confronted me and told me that i was better than that. -confrontation caused me to reevaluate my life and who i was. - became close with a fellow artist. we talked about God and she ended up getting me to go to church, later becoming a Christian (i was athiest/skeptic/relgion-hater). - I became happier. my art became less violent and started adoption christian themes. -became intrested in creating images; snapshots of events telling a story, often with some religious hidden meaning. -My interest was more in my own feeling on it, and i did not reorally look to have others understand it. I began enjoying watching them try to make it out though. -Began focusing more on adapting hidden messages into metaphors: so people could make it out better. - this was a sign of my growing awareness on other's intrest in my art. - I was known as 'the art guy' in high school. I always carried a clipboard with an drawing/watercolor on it that intrested people. - Art officially became part of how myself and other viewed me. i got attention and praise for it. - i became mildly competitive with art because it was how i viewed myself and valued. - won alot of awards at art shows. two best in shows. a could runner ups. -i lost to liliana, who was the only student in the school i felt was more talented than me. -i sought to out do her, get better than her. i got better as a result -i graduated. ended art classes, lost art peers. -taught myself how to oil paint. - worked on a lot of stuff on my own, without any guidance for the first time in several years. -considered going to the art institute of houston. decided not to because i wanted to do studio art, which art institute of houston did not offer. - i did art for my church: xmas play sets, props ect. -started at shsu. took mostly basics for awhile. -took Visor's drawing 1 class. i loved it. i haven't learned that much in such a short period since high shcool (grad 07). suprised at how much advice helped my end product. -i was concerned about how good i would be compared to others. i was releaved to find i was probably the best in the class. -started wash. -frustrated with such a basic lessons. with the 3d aspect, which i do not like doing. with the video.

3 photos

pick 1
a. The first pic of is of me and my girlfriend, Mandy. I took it so me and her would have a picture of us together, one that would make us look as attractive as possible. We are both in it so we would both care about the picture. if only i were in it, i wouldn't care and vice versa. also it shows our relationship this way, not just us as individuals, which isn't the point really. I keep it for the sentimental attachment i have toward Mandy. The picture is only significant in how it makes me think and feel about her or us as a couple.
b. I was the photographer. The subject is my relationship with my girlfriend. Because it represented our relationship, I decided it needed to be positive, as i hope that our relationship would be a positive thing for us both. we both had to be in it because otherwise it would only have value to one of us, and i intended for it to depict us as a couple, not us as individuals. I have other photos of just Mandy, and i feel a different way about them. those are more about admiring her and thinking about her as a person. This image is more about us as a couple. It invokes feelings and memories from me about dates and conversations we've had, which creates a strong sense of nastalgia. the attitude toward the subject and toward the photographer is friendly.
c. this photo was intended primarily for the subject and the photographer (though friends and family may have a emotional reaction to it as well). It's meant to be kept by mandy and myself for quite some time. I probably won't remember this photo in ten years though. if me and mandy are still together we will have had taken probably hundreds of other photos like it by that point; some better, some worse. some earlier in our relationship, some later. i don't think that will be a special emotional attachment to the photo and the photo quality is not good enough to make it irreplacable. If we are not still together we won't care about the photo at all anymore. the success and value of the photo totally hinges on the emotional attachement me and mandy have toward each other.

photo 2
a. this is a photo taken by my girlfriend mandy of me toward the end of our date. She took it trying to be playful; trying to catch a suprise shot of me. i thought it was interesting because while it's still about our relationship, the goal is no longer to look 'pretty' or intentional.
b. I think she partcially wanted to capture an image of me the way i look when i'm not expecting me image to be captured: not smiling, not looking at the camera. She was interested in this because she has a emotional connection to me. If she did not it would just be a very bad, unflattering photo of me. but her interest in me is not totally visual. she wanted to capture something about my personality on camera. The photo was not successful in an artistic view, but the process behind it was appealing to me.
c. I will not remember it in ten years. I'm suprised I did not delete it then, as i normally do to bad photos of me. but i kept it for purely sentimental reasons. however as mandy is not in the image, i will forget who took it and why it ever appealed to me.

photo 3
a. a stranger photographer a group of young women walking through the park. The purpose was to capture a image of people enjoying the park. The photographer wanted to encourage a certain emotional reaction out of the viewer. however i do not think the image was very successful and the image does not mean much of anything to me. I chose the image because i realized my other two images were both connected to emotional feelings involved in relationships i had. I wanted to investigate the total opposite end of the spectrum.
b. There is not emotional connection between the subject and the photographer. Therefore the photographer has no interest in the women's faces, or representing them as people. He only cares about them as forms to help him capture an image with the effect he desired. you can kinda feel the emotional seperation between them: the subjects are not looking at the photographer. In fact i don't even think they know he's shooting a photo of them. They are walking away with there backs to the photographer, which gives off a certain familiar feeling of strangers walking by, each having their own plans and goals for the day, that you have no way of knowing about in detail because you don't know the person.
c. This image was intended only for the photographer. The photographer found the image interesting, but i wouln't imagine has a particular connection to the image. I supposed he/she would only care about and remember the image if he/she thought the photo had a high artistic value, which i don't see that it does. More likely the person will taken a couple dozen more and forget the image within the month, as it is a very forgetable image.

module madness critque

so i thought the critque went pretty well; no one seemed to hate my piece. the day of, i broke off the tope half foot. i still don't know if that was good or bad. it made the tower sway less and lost a little of the omg factor, but i felt it was more of a tower that way and presented the can stack idea better. i think it would have went better inside, if i could have glued it to the floor, which was my original idea. also, i was suprised to hear one person say they would have liked a coke can city, which was my first idea. i don't know if i agree, but it was intresting.

word as image

my first one, the harmony pic, i chose to do over the media and how we're bombarded with stories and 'news' that does not affect us personally or that we should care about. for example charlie sheen is back in rehab. why do i care? the actors guild awards. why do i care what movies and actors other people liked? so i tried to make the composition looke really muddled and crammed and have cut the bs really stark in the middle. i think now that cut the bs should have been a little bigger or bolder to offset the effect of the rest of the pic so its more in contrast. the second image of conflict i chose to do between genuninly good religion and bad religion. my point was that alot of things are done in God's name, some good, some bad. but everything good that people do for God and people come from love for someone outside of themselves and inspire love. while other'a actions stem from hate and only create more hate. so i had first put down alot of 'bad things' in dark lettering, then put the word love at the top. form love all the good things in bright lettering resonated out, bo make it look like light was shining in the darkness and Love was the source

module madness

I chose to use coke cans because i knew i had alot of them. my originial idea was a little more complicated, as i thought about doing kind of a coke tower city. then i thought about linking those towers together with fishingline and hanging the taps from the tops from the line, making it look like a shower of silvery little taps. i made the towers but drilling holes in the cans and sticking a very long skewer through it. i talked to mr. davenport and he felt like it wouldn't add much and i should keep going with one tower. so i added an extra foot to the tower. i ran into an installation problem, as we could not agree on how to install it without hurting the building. so i took it outside and chose to put it on the hill so it would look as tall as possible from the bottom of the hill.