Let’s Go Plaster Casting!

Hi Guys! Nice meeting you yesterday! I hope to see many of you at the Seal Beach Pier tomorrow.

Here’s some info on a few topics:
• Due This Week
• Plaster Casting
• International Students
• Tout
• Lock Art110 Talk Registrations
• Library Books

Due This Week

I’ve added some Green “Due This Week” Boxes for each week on our Activities & Schedule page. I hope that makes it easy to be on top of things. Remember that “due” means Sunday night by 11:59pm and it is for Activities and your visits to the School of Art, Student Galleries.
• beacharts.ca/art110/fall-13-activities

We also have Readings, Video Lectures & Video Artist of the Week, which will be by iClicker questions in UT-108 on Tuesdays.

Plaster Casting

The only thing “Due THIS Week” is 1 Tout on your plaster casting project. You can go to any beach any day. There’s plenty of materials here to show you how to do it. But if you can come tomorrow, it’d be great to have a little time to chat about art & life and hang out at the beach. The project takes about 2 hours. If you have class before or after Art110 you could come early & leave early or come late & leave late. Whatever fits your schedule. Full project info and carpool info are at these links. Please ask your classmates for a ride if you need one! Please offer a ride if you can! When I went to the University of Hawaii, it was pretty much the only time in my life that I haven’t had a car. Guess what? I made more friends then than at any other time in my life! Needing a ride rocks! 😀 Don’t be afraid to ask for help! And please offer rides if you can. Yes, pitch in for parking.
• Plaster Casting Info: http://talk.beacharts.ca/plaster/
• Carpool Info: http://talk.beacharts.ca/carpool/

International Students

At the end of class yesterday I met 2 freshmen from Europe. A CSULB Tennis Player from France, Julie Gerard, and I’m embarrassed to say in the rush at the end I’ve forgotten the name of our exchange student from The Netherlands. Any other students from Europe? Although I didn’t meet anyone yesterday, we often have students from Asia also. Most often from Hong Kong or China. There’s no doubt about it, these international students are really lucky to be studying with us here at The Beach! But you know who’s even luckier than them? All of us Californians!

When you flip over your iPhone or iPad you see the now familiar phrase,

Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.

What does that mean? I think there’s a bit of a racism there. And a bit of other chauvinisms. But in positive terms I think it means that California is a creative place. If that’s true, and I absolutely think it is, then why? “American Exceptionalism?” Does god shine more light on North America than on other continents? She wouldn’t be much of a god if she did, would she? Is there something about the geography or climate or water of the Santa Monica Bay that makes people more creative than the geography or climate or water of the Pearl River Delta? Seems unlikely.

What then?

For me the answer is diversity. Think of the East-meets-West energy of San Francisco. Or the halocline of one of the richest cities in the world slamming up against one of the poorest cities in the world at the San Diego – Tijuana border. Or the incredible sprawl and diversity of so many world cultures finding a home in the unending lattice of Los Angeles.

In 2 weeks we’re going to the Venice Beach Legal Art Walls. We’re going partly because they’re the only legal art walls I know of. But also partly to experience the extraordinary diversity of Venice Beach. On the boardwalk you’ll see artists with paintings or other art objects spread out on a blanket and for sale for 5 or 10 dollars. A couple of blocks from that blanket some of the richest, most successful painters, sculptors, filmmakers, architects, and ad agency peeps live and work. Venice is electric with clashing cultures, contrasts, and innovation.

I said in my welcome video that we have a tendency toward homophily. There’s tons of research showing that. When we made groups yesterday, did you want to be in a group with the friend that came to class with you? That’s understandable. It’s a crazy big class. A lot of us are a little shy. Still, YOU ALREADY KNOW YOUR FRIEND! How many friends do you have that grew up on some continent that isn’t North America?

So be sure to jump on that Carpool page and be sure that Julie gets a ride. And Netherlands’ student, I apologize for forgetting your name, but please be sure that she gets a ride too! Or just help everybody get a ride! 😀

Tout

We have 2 tools for earning points for your class experience:
1. Tout – Activities & Student Gallery Visits
2. iClickers – Readings, Video Lectures & Video Artist of the Week

You can use Tout on your Phone, Tablet, Laptop, or any Desktop with a webcam. For Phone or Tablet, you’ll download the Tout app. For Laptop or Desktop you’ll visit the Tout website. On mobile you’ll find me at:
@gzucman

Or on the web at:
tout.com/u/gzucman

You don’t need to follow me on Tout. But if you’d like to, I’ll follow you back. That might make it a bit quicker to find everyone’s work. But we’ll still have your hash tags, so it’s all good either way. Remember, 2 hashtags / tout (plus any other hashtags you like)
#art110f13 – this hashtag that lets us find ALL the touts for our class!
#art110f13IDxxxx – where “xxxx” = the last 4 digits of your CSULB Student ID

Lock Art110 Talk Registrations

Have you visited Art110 Talk yet? We currently have “open registration” which means that in addition to all your cool classmates, any sucky spambot that wanders by can also register (and they do!) So after class next Tuesday I’ll turn off open registration. Try to visit the site and type something before then. After that you can still register, you’ll just have to ask me to “invite” you first.

Library Books

One of you asked me to put our textbooks on reserve in the library. Unfortunately I don’t have a spare copy of The Body in Contemporary Art by Sally O’Reilly. But I do have copies of Internet Art by Rachel Greene, and Graffiti and Street Art by Anna Waclawek. So next Tuesday I’ll place them on 3-hour reserve in the library. The books are pretty low cost compared to most textbooks (when you’re in the bookstore take a look at the price of the book for the other section of Art110! And if you scour the web you might find used ones really cheap. But for at least 2/3 of the books you can now also use the library. Don”t wait till the last minute when many peeps might want them. I hope you’ll enjoy these books. I tried to pick books that talk about the world you live in here in the 21st century.