All points through Week 12 are now up on BeachBoard. We’ve had 696 points possible so far, and here’s what you should have by now to be on track for each grade level:
A pace = 626 points – 98 peeps
B pace = 556 points – 22 peeps
C pace = 486 points – 8 peeps
D pace = 416 points – 6 peeps
F pace = 415 points – 7 peeps
Overall class GPA (so far) = 3.4
DIY Constellation Pin- Wk 12 Activity from Anna Joy on Vimeo.
Top 10
- Anna Joy Floresca – 909
- Diana Martinez – 903
- Evan Huang – 874
- Marlyn Castillo – 844
- Bowas Yang – 801
- Allison Wendell – 801
- Antonio Lavermon – 788
- Nicole Ilagan – 785
- Conny Ramirez – 778
- Yesenia Chavez – 763
- Dominic Erich – 763
ePortfolio Presentations
On Tuesdays so far we’ve used our time to talk about the week’s Activity, and to look at some of the strong Activities from the week before. Now that we’ve completed our Activities for Fall ’14 we can use the last Tuesdays to let you optionally present your ePortfolio for extra credit. A strong presentation of your ePortfolio is worth up to +30 EC.
NOTE: You can only present YOUR EPORTFOLIO — that is, you CAN NOT show a website of Art110 work. We want to see your Aerospace Engineering or Nursing or Marine Biology or Fashion Merchandising website. And yes, you can show ePortfolios for things other than your major, like your Band, your Zine, your Classic Car Restoration, your Cosplay, your Sports Blog, etc etc. Most of the time these “hobbies” are just that, extra things in life that aren’t your “career.” But sometimes they can overlap. Maybe that hiring manager at that awesome Aerospace Engineering Firm likes you because they’re impressed with the detail of your Car Website. And even though an activity like Cosplay is mostly lighthearted fun, people like Yaya Han have turned it into a full-time income.
Signups will be open through 1pm this Thursday, Nov 20th.
[ninja_forms_display_form id=2]
Activity “Grades”
74 of you chose to do the optional evaluation of our 12 Activities for Fall 2014. Here’s your Up Votes, Down Votes, and Totals for our 12 Activities:
- Painting +47 -13 = 34
- Plaster Casting +37 – 14 = 23
- Your Turn +21 -0 = 21
- Instagram +26 -10 = 16
- Corpse +24 -11 = 13
- Web Design +5 -0 = 5
- Teach One +6 -6 = 0
- ePortfolio +10 -16 = -6
- Drawing +15 -26 = -11
- Kickstarter +12 -32 = -20
- CFID +9 -31 = -22
- vLog +4 -26 = -22
You really liked Painting, Plaster Casting, and Your Own Choice. You really disliked Kickstarter, CFID, and vlogging. I can’t promise I’ll cancel all 3 of those projects for next semester, but I do promise to cancel at least 1 of them, maybe more. We’ll discuss it in class today.
Galleries This Week
Drawing and Painting, BFA Exhibition- Gatov East & West
The Drawing and Painting BFA Exhibition features work from graduating Drawing and Painting BFA students.
Nora Ayala, Printmaking – Merlino Gallery
Nora Ayala depicts body image and objectification through printmaking techniques.
Brittnee Forline, BFA Metals – Dutzi Gallery
Brittnee Forline’s BFA exhibition features metal works referencing a personal desire for a life of fantasy.
Kelsey Zwarka, BFA Ceramics – Werby Gallery
Kelly Zwarka’s BFA exhibition showcases abstracted biomorphic forms that range from small to large-scale.
Gallery Tags
Don’t forget our new, easier tags for your artist conversations! Instead of tagging a different artist each week, let’s just tag the gallery it was in. This way you can already know the 6 tags to cover all the work you’ll look at:
Allison Wendell
Evan Huang
Justin Toguchi
Spray Paint Art with Justin Toguchi
Diana Martinez
HOW TO MAKE A STENCIL from Diana Martinez on Vimeo.
Denzel Belleza
Chris Espinoza
Antonio Lavermon
]]>Let It All Go- Dominic Erich from Connor Bailey on Vimeo.
Activity: Your Turn
We’ve been saying a bit about this last activity in class for a few weeks now, so hopefully you’ve started thinking a little about it. The best way to learn anything is to teach it to someone else. After doing activities for the past 11 weeks, now it’s your turn to teach! Full details on the Teach One activity page!
I give a bunch of examples of Art Ideas and Art Techniques that you could teach on that page. And remember, it’d also be really cool if you taught something about one of the SOA artists you really liked from the galleries this semester.
EC: Post #4
As I’m sure you know, this week, week 12, is our last week of Activities and our last week of 3 posts. Starting next week you’ll still have 2 conversation posts due, but that’s it, just 2 posts a week for the last3 weeks. So since it’s the last week of 3 posts, why don’t you do 4 posts!?
Extra Credit: Activity Feedback!
Now that you’ve done, or will have done, all 12 activities, I’d really like to get your feedback on them. If you’d be willing to do a 4th post this week, Week 12 – Activity Feedback and tell me:
- Your 3 favorite activities this semester, and a few words about why
- Your 3 least favorite activities this semester, and a few words about why
- Any other feedback on the class – fun? boring? easy? hard? relevant? irrelevant? useful? useless? etc
- What could make the class better?
I’ll be grateful for your feedback, you’ll help design a better class for next semester, and I’ll give you 12 points of EC for the extra post.
Scaffold Thingy, SOA Gallery Courtyard
Jack & Corinne!
OMG how awesome is this! You know that scaffoldy thing in the SOA Gallery Courtyard? Jack & Corinne have volunteered to do a dance piece on or around it for us next Thursday, Nov 20, at 11:30am! And they need your help too! They might be able to use a few more cast members. If you have dance experience that’d be cool, but they might be able to work with a few “pedestrian” movers or extras also.
And documentation of course. Photography. Video. Maybe a writer? Illustrator? Zineographer? Oh, and probably some audio too. (talk to me about volume level!)
Not only can you help them create this awesome piece, but you can even get paid for participating! I’ve given Jack & Corinne a “budget” of 200 points for their production. They can “pay” themselves, and anyone they take on to participate out of that. After the performance they’ll give me a list of how they’d like the 200 points distributed.
Interested? Chat them up!
Points
All points through Week 11 are now up on BeachBoard. We’ve had 638 points posted so far, and here’s what you should have to be on track for each grade level:
574 points = A pace = 98 peeps
510 points = B pace = 18 peeps
446 points = C pace = 10 peeps
382 points = D pace = 8 peeps
381 points = F pace = 7 peeps
In spite of the enormous number of “A’s”, the class GPA is “only” 3.3 – those D’s & F’s can really drag the GPA down. BTW the A’s, B’s & C’s are almost identical to last week, but unfortunately 3 peeps have slid from D pace to F pace this week. It’s really the home stretch now and I urge you to turn work in and maintain or improve your grade. For a few of you with extremely low points it’s probably too late now. If the SOA will still let you, you might be better served by dropping at this point. For all of you at the top of the grading alphabet – congratulations! Awesome work!
Top 10
Project 757: A Modern Haiku Adventure from Anna Joy on Vimeo.
Everyone who’s doing their best in Art110 is a “superstar,” but in terms of points, it seems fair to say that Anna & Diana are our “points superstars.” Last week our superstars both made very personal videos that expressed a range of feelings. They were both complex, but you might say that Anna’s tended a bit more to the light, and Diana’s tended a bit more toward darkness. And hmm… aren’t those the colors they each mostly wear?
PARADOXICAL SENTIMENTS from Diana Martinez on Vimeo.
- Anna Joy Floresca – 827
- Diana Martinez – 822
- Evan Huang – 795
- Marlyn Castillo – 774
- Allison Wendell – 736
- Bowas Yang – 726
- Celine Phan – 716
- Nicole Ilagan – 715
- Antonio Lavermon – 706
- Connor Bailey – 698
Being Generous?
Some of you were kind of nervous about asking classmates or artists for conversations the first week or two. A few of you might still be, but I think after all these weeks many of you have gotten past that initial fear. The great thing about asking classmates to have a conversation is that everyone’s in the same boat – they already know what your needs are, and they also have that need themselves – so I think we’re pretty sympathetic to each other. The artists too, know you’re coming and actually they really look forward to conversations with you. So the good news is, it’s mostly easy to startup these conversations.
But I’ve also heard that some of you are less generous with your classmates. Maybe you already did a conversation and someone else wants to talk to you. It’s already 11:30, and really, how much time are you supposed to put in on one class!
Oh, wait, this isn’t even “homework,” it’s class time! When-how-why did leaving class at least 30 – 45 minutes before it’s over become a requirement? Here’s the crazy thing: you are paying a lot of money to be there… I’m not paying anything, I’m getting paid to be there. So, shouldn’t it me me who wants to leave and you who wants to get every minute of you’re money’s worth?
Of course I know life is busy and the demands on your time are many, but with a courtyard filled with artists, art, and 100+ classmates, it should be a really engaging place. And it is, BTW! This isn’t meant to be a big rant, just a small request to remember to be generous with your classmates. You don’t have to talk for half hour, but give them 10 real minutes. Be there. Be invested in the conversation. Look at some of the art together and discuss is. And if this is your 2nd or 3rd classmate conversation of the day – lucky you! – you get to have a richer CSULB experience with your peers. You can get facts from online courses and online resources, but you can only meet the people you’ll share the future of California and the world with by showing up and being engaged.
Thanks for your generosity to each other everyone!
Minyon Spencer & Shannon Choi
Whisper Challenge from minyon spencer on Vimeo.
Conny Ramirez
Galleries This Week
Timothy Cooper, BFA Ceramics – Gatov West
Timothy Cooper presents large-scale slip cast ceramic objects juxtaposed with multiple cast concrete objects in his BFA exhibition.
Michelle Thompkins, MFA Illustration – Gatov East
Michelle Thompkins’s MFA exhibition features a progression of images that express the evolution of one girl’s perceptions of the world throughout the course of a day.
Kiyomi Fukui, Printmaking – Merlino Gallery
Kiyomi Fukui exhibits an installation depicting the process of decomposition in the greater life cycle.
Lacy McCune & Angie Samblotte, Illustration – Dutzi Gallery
Lacy McCune and Angie Samblotte display drawings informed by subtle visual events of everyday routines as well as the undeniable significance of banality.
Cynthia Herrera, MFA Photography – Werby Gallery
Cynthia Herrera’s MFA exhibition features a sculptural installation and archived media from a project that had engaged the community of Riverside, CA.
Gallery Tags
I know I keep bugging you guys to tag your artists. It’s really important. It’s the only way we have to thank them for sharing months and years of their work with us. PLEASE TAG YOUR ARTIST POSTS!!!
I also know it can be a little confusing keeping track of which tag to use, so starting this week, Wk12, and for the rest of the semester let’s try a new tagging scheme for your artist conversations. Instead of tagging a different artist each week, let’s just tag the gallery it was in. This way you can already know the 6 tags to cover all the work you’ll look at:
Talk To The Artists!
Some of you are not bothering to have a conversation with the artist. It’s true we have had a lot of group shows and shows where the artist is unfortunately not there this semester. But I’m also seeing posts where you didn’t talk to the artist even though s/he was sitting right there. Seeing the art is great, but I’ve asked you to take advantage of this special opportunity and have a conversation with the artist. These artists are mostly about your age, live in your city, and go to your school – it’s a priceless chance to learn about the many ways your peers are perceiving your world. TALK TO THE ARTISTS!
Yesenia Chavez
Evan Huang
Corinne Sampson
Tony Lavermon
Sims 2 Demo – My Body, Your Body from Antonio Lavermon on Vimeo.
Steven Lozano
David Aceves
Connor & Dominic
Landscapes with a Corpse, Izima Kaoru.
Koike Kiko wears Gianni Versace, 2004.
Week 10 Activity: Landscapes with a Corpse
This is the last week that Glenn picks the activities. Starting next week, You pick what you’re going to do. For our last “Glenn” project we return to photography. We looked at Photography in Week 2 with our Instagram Activity. That was Social Photography or Relational Aesthetics. This week we’ll try somewhat more traditional photography. But there’s still a twist. We’re imagining our own demise. Landscapes with a Corpse is Izima Kaoru’s twenty-year-long photography project. This week we’ll try a photograph of our own earthly departure in his style. Full detail on the Landscapes with a Corpse page
Galleries, Wk 10
See our Gallery Page!
Points
All points through the end of Week 9 are now up on BeachBoard. Here’s what you should have to be on track for each grade level:
A pace – 454 – 104 peeps
B pace – 403 – 17 peeps
C pace – 353 – 9 peeps
D pace – 302 – 6 peeps
F pace – 301 – 7 peeps
Wk 9 Activity: V-log/ About Me Video from Anna Joy on Vimeo.
Top 10
- Anna Joy Floresca – 694
- Diana Martinez – 693
- Evan Huang – 668
- Marlyn Castillo – 652
- Allison Wendell – 615
- Bowas Yang – 610
- Nicole Ilagan – 597
- Quynh Ong – 574
- Conny Ramirez – 572
- Connor Bailey – 572
Amir Kiani
Alonzo Urita
Jack Taylor
About Me ART 110 from Jack Taylor on Vimeo.
Conny Ramirez
Welcome to My Website from Conny Ramirez on Vimeo.
Aubrey Delos Reyes
Dominic Erich
Jake Mercadante
Jake Mercadante
Intro to my blog tho from jake mercadante on Vimeo.
Emily Bondoc
Welcome to the #emilystravels blog! from Emily Bondoc on Vimeo.
Diana Martinez
INTRO from Diana Martinez on Vimeo.
Amber Reyes
Angelica Camacho
Allison Wendell
]]>
ePortfolios!
Yes, it’s that week I’ve been going on about since day 1. It’s time to make “our” websites really OURS! Details on the ePortfolio Activity Page!
SOA Galleries
Visit our Gallery Page for info on this week’s artists and the TAGS you should BE SURE to use with your Artist Conversation post!
Points
We’ve got 7 weeks up on BeachBoard now and the total possible is 406. Here’s how many points you should have to be on track for each grade level:
A pace = 365 points – 105 peeps
B pace = 324 points – 15 peeps
C pace = 283 points – 7 peeps
D pace = 242 points – 7 peeps
F pace = 241 points – 9 peeps
Top 10
- Diana Martinez – 566
- Anna Joy Floresca – 560
- Evan Huang – 533
- Marlyn Castillo – 530
- Alison Wendell – 492
- Mimi Ly – 490
- Bowas Yang – 488
- Celine Phan – 481
- Nicole Ilagan – 470
- Connor Bailey – 469
The Homies: Stephanie Mejia, C-Dawg, Diana Martinez, Allison Wendell & Anna Joy Floresca
Painting at Venice Beach!
Diana Martinez
VB from Diana Martinez on Vimeo.
Anna Joy Floresca
Venice Beach Week 7 from Anna Joy on Vimeo.
Bowas Yang
Kiara Kensie
Venice Beach from Kiara Kensie on Vimeo.
Conny Ramirez
Venice Art Walls from Conny Ramirez on Vimeo.
My friends and I went to Venice to legally spray paint on the infamous art walls as part of our art class assignment, it was a great experience and here's what I was able to get from it.
Blood Moon
Evan Huang shot the last “Blood Moon” (Lunar Eclipse) of 2014!
Lunar Eclipse, by Evan Huang
Marlyn Castillo
Marlyn Castillo at Venice Beach
Mimi Ly
Mimi Ly
Melanie Coli
Melanie Coli
Savannah Cheung
Savannah Cheung
Andrew Aragon
Andy Aragon
Anthony Diaz
Diaz
Plastic Castle! Photo by Diana Martinez
Plastic Castle @ The Whiskey
We finally got a video of Plastic Castle (Andy ‘n Diaz) at the Whiskey thanks to our intrepid reporter Diana Martinez.
Other Exciting News
In other exciting news this week, Glenn got a new surfski (a fancy kayak)
Glenn’s new Fenn Mako XT surfski
This week Halloween comes early with our “Counterfactual Identity” project. Read the full details on our Counterfactual Identity, Activity Page!
School of Art Galleries
Another full slate of galleries this week. Be sure to add the URL for your Artist & Classmate Conversations. Be sure to use the Correct Tags! Visit the Gallery Page to be sure. Also, here they are:
Wk 5 – Sep 21 – 15
- Photography Symposium – WPcom Tag: csulbphotosymposium
- Mike Lewis, Photography – WPcom Tag: lewis
- Photography Club – WPcom Tag: csulbphotoclub
The Photography Symposium features artwork from local community college faculty and video work from School of Art BFA photography students photography program. Mike Lewis engages with unregulated space in his hometown by displaying it in photographs and found objects. The Photography Club hosts an exhibition thematically centered around connection and disconnection in relation to the internet and internet culture.
Points
Points through the end of Wk4 are now up on BeachBoard. We’ve had 232 possible, and here’s the number of points you should have if you’re on track for each letter grade:
- A pace = 209 – 92 peeps
- B pace = 186 – 28 peeps
- C pace = 163 – 8 peeps
- D pace = 140 – 2 peeps
- F pace = 139 – 13 peeps
Connor Bailey
Top 10
- Connor Bailey – 327
- Diana Martinez – 320
- Marlyn Castillo – 313
- Evan Huang – 313
- Anna Joy Floresca – 306
- Nicole Ilagan – 294
- Rachel Price – 280
- Mimi Ly – 276
- Chris Soerachmat – 272
- Quynh Ong, Dominic Erich & Alonzo Urita – 271
Stylin’ Websites
- April Gilane
-
Evan Huang‘s midnight trip to Joshua Tree!
Artist & Classmate Conversations
Lots of great work by many of you. But others are really pushing the limits of short-and-not-saying-much. You’ll notice I’m starting to deduct points. What does good work look like? Check out:
- Alonzo Urita
- Andrew Aragon
- Anna Joy Floresca
- Anthony Diaz
- Antonio Lavermon
- Chris Espinoza
- Diana Garcia
- Emily Bondoc
- Lia Giordano
- Maeghan McBee
- Marlyn Castillo
- Michelle Morte
- Mimi Ly
- Quynh Ong
- Rachel Peng
- Sergio Melendrez
- Yu-Tung Lin
Sublime Iced Tea Experience!
I cast, therefore I am.
Rachel Peng
Plaster Casting
Chris & Chris
Chris Espinoza takes it to a whole other level! Go Experience It!
Greg Violan & Evan Huang
Anna Joy Floresca
Wk 4 Plaster Casting Activity from Anna Joy on Vimeo.
Music: https://soundcloud.com/jameswalkermusic/seaside-ukulele-instrumental
Aubrey Delos Reyes
Jerome Guzman
Kylie Hazehara
Lyna Salameh
Marie Mendez
Marlyn Castillo
Emily Bondoc, Matthew Savedra & Cheyenne Ochoa
By an amazing coincidence Stephen & his FOUR sisters just happened to show up at the exact same beach & time where a bunch of us were doing Plaster Casting Activities! :)
KS for SFSH (Art 110/Wk 3 Activity) from Anna Joy on Vimeo.
Kickstarter Videos
A lot of great project pitches from so many of you! Here are a few on this page. One small but important detail that a lot of you overlooked is that on group projects you didn’t list your partners full names and give links to their websites. I can’t stress how important this is on so many levels. Please be sure to check these “small” details!
Points on BeachBoard
Your points through Wk 3 are now on BeachBoard. Please be sure to check yours! We’ve had 174 points possible so far. If you have 157 or better, you’re on “A” pace. If you have 103 or less, you’re on “F” pace. Here’s the breakdown so far:
157 points – A – 99 peeps
139 points – B – 23 peeps
122 points – C – 7 peeps
104 points – D – 3 peeps
103 points – F – 11 peeps
14 peeps have a perfect 174 points! And 60 peeps have more than 174! Great job almost everyone! But if you are at the bottom end of the scale, now’s the time to take action. Need help? Ask me! Need to get serious? Just do it! Need to drop? This week is better than next week!
Top 10
- Diana Martinez – 255
- Marlyn Castillo – 249
- Evan Huang – 247
- Connor Bailey – 239
- Anna Joy Floresca – 238
- Nicole Ilagan – 236
- Rachel Price – 222
- Mimi Ly – 215
- Dominic Erich – 210
- Christopher Soerachmat – 210
Connor Bailey
“Couch Potato” – Indiegogo Promo from Studio J on Vimeo.
The pitch video for our short film's crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.
Quynh Ong
Lyna Salameh
Lia Alessandra Giordano
Kim Tang
Jonathan Garcia
Diana Martinez, Conny Ramirez & Allison Wendell
Kickstarter – Golden State Of Mind from diana martinez on Vimeo.
Plaster Casting
Welcome to Week 4 and our Sculpture Experience. In Wk1 we made websites. In Wk2 we played with Instagram. In Wk 3 Kickstarter. It’s already Wk4, and we go to a school called The Beach, and as you might have noticed, it’s a million degrees outside, so it seems like time we should have a project to go to the Actual Beach! Here it is!
Full Details on the Art110 Plaster Casting Page!
PS: It seems like a lot of you are not reading the weekly Activity pages. The have all the details on the project & your blog post. Be sure to visit them! 
Christopher Soerachmat
Marlene Gonzalez
Maeghan McBee
Antonio Lavermon
KickStarter Vid from Antonio Lavermon on Vimeo.
Anthony Diaz & Andrew Aragon
Corinne Sampson & Jack Taylor
Amir Kiani
Adriana Macias
Kickstarter Film Festival @Griffith Park
The Effect of KSFF LA 2014 on My Dad from Anna Joy on Vimeo.
Michelle Morte, Jack Taylor, Diana Martinez
Last Week: Instagram Day (Relational Aesthetics)
Above: a small, sublime moment from IG day by Kari Maehara.
Below: Jack Taylor posts the IG of the day!
Good Post Names
Almost everybody is using great post names! But a few of you are using “bad” post names that make my job really hard. For maximum points, please use good post names. There are examples in the syllabus:
• beacharts.ca/fall14-syllabus/#rubrics
Points on BeachBoard
All Wk1 & Wk2 points are now live on BeachBoard. Note that this isn’t really a “percentage” class, it’s a “points” class. Your goal is to get 900+ points and earn an “A”. There’s no way for me to turn off the percentage stuff on BeachBoard, but please don’t be confused by it. In fact, don’t even look at it! (yes, just like Nigel Tufnel’s guitar, don’t even look at it!)
After Wk2 it might say you have 100 points or 10% or something like that. That’s because it’s calculating your current points out of the entire course 1,000 possible. Mostly you should just be working your way to 900+. We had 58 points for Wk1 & 58 for Wk2 or 116 possible. 90% of 116 is 104, so if you’ve got 104 or better, then you’re on “A” pace. If you’ve got under 104 you either didn’t post some things, or if you did post everything then you probably lost a few points for bad names or missing photos or overly short / simple posts. I talk about all of these elements in the syllabus:
• beacharts.ca/fall14-syllabus/#rubrics
Diana Martinez
Diana Martinez with Conny Ramirez from Conny’s website
Just in case you’re wondering who’s #1 after 2 weeks, it would be that amazing Diana Martinez person with 155 / 116 for a “perfect” 134% Will Diana finish the semester #1 and wind up in the Art110 Hall of Fame? She might. But she’ll have to fend off Marlyn Castillo, Sam Gold, and a whole bunch of other peeps who are right on her tail!
Velveth Alarcon
Speaking of #1 Students, after class on Thursday, like many of you, I wandered around Week of Welcome. OMG so many great groups and activities to participate in! And who should I run into Salsa Dancing in the middle of the sidewalk but Velveth Alarcon. This time last year she was a freshman psychology major on her way to finishing #1 in Art110. Like this semester it was 900 out of 1,000 for an “A,” and Velveth finished with 1,142. Now she’s on the CSULB Salsa Team! She might come visit our class some Tuesday and see if she can recruit a few of you to join the CSULB Salsa Club.
Michelle Morte
I think everyone knows that Michelle Morte was the keeper of the ID card envelope on Thursday. Great job Michelle! Thank You! Who will hold The Envelope this week? Stay tuned!
This Week: Kickstarter (Arts Funding)
From the Medici Family of Florence to America’s National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) we’ve always grappled with ways to fund The Arts. “Popular” artists like Katy Perry or Michael Bay can make bags of money, but we also like to see less “pop” work also be a part of our culture. There’s probably no Craft Beer alive that will ever do even a tiny fraction of the sales that Bud Light does (45 million barrels & 5.3 billion dollars in 2011) yet for many people, drinking a beer that not everybody else drinks is part of what they value in the experience.
What if you don’t have a rich patron like Lorenzo de Medici or Eli Broad or Charles Saatchi? Or an NEA Grant? Or a contract with Universal Studios or Sony Music or Condé Nast publishing? One solution, since April 28, 2009, has been Kickstarter. With Kickstarter you ask for enough money to do your project, say $5,000. When people pledge to your project, Kickstarter takes their credit card number, but it doesn’t charge them anything. When your campaign ends, if you made your goal, Kickstarter charges everyone’s cards and delivers your money to you. If you don’t meet your goal, say you only got $2,500 in support, then your project goes “unfunded” and no one’s credit card is charged anything.
This can make for a little stress on the artist, but it also encourages you to be serious & realistic. Kickstarter doesn’t want to take donor money, give you half of what you need, and then have a half finished project that doesn’t deliver what it promised. Sometimes the deliverables are physical things like an ice chest, or an iPhone accessory. The “deliverables” might also by intangible, like a dance performance. Overall, about 60% Kickstarter projects fail. Of the 40% that do reach their goal and get funded, a few get many times more than they asked for.
Lucky you, we’re not doing full Kickstarter projects for real, so you can skip the stress of meeting your goal. But it’d be pretty cool if sometime before you graduate from CSULB, you did. This week we’re just making hypothetical Kickstarter pitch videos. Even though this one is “only a rehearsal,” I urge you to take it seriously. If you do a “late night infomercial” you might get a couple of laughs out of it, but it’ll pretty much be pointless. If you use this as an opportunity to be in front of a camera and express yourself to people who might be interested in your work, you’ll gain something really valuable.
Full details for this Activity are on our Kickstarter Activity Page. There’s also a few sample Kickstarter Pitch Videos there, as well as many thousands more on the Kickstarter website. I’ll just post 1 here in our Art110 Weekly post to get you rolling. Since we’re all using WordPress, you might find it interesting to hear this pitch from John O’Nolan. He was a WordPress developer for a couple of years and then decided to launch a new blogging platform, Ghost. Here’s how he pitched it:
Kickstarter Film Festival
If you recall, we have 4 Extra Credit opportunities this semester, and the Kickstarter Film Festival this Friday is Opportunity #2. The event is in Griffith Park in LA. It runs from 6-11pm and is free. If you’d like the EC, just:
1. Go to the event
2. Take some pix
3. Do an extra (4th) post this week with a couple of pix and a few paragraphs about your experience
Do a nice job and I’ll add up to +30 of EC on top of your up to 30 points of Regular Activity for this week. 30+30=60!
Group or Solo
You’re welcome to do this project solo if you like. But what a great project to do with someone else in the class! It’d probably be more fun and you might wind up with a more compelling project.
SOA Galleries on Thursday
After 2 weeks of the giant GLAMFA exhibition, this week we begin the “standard” gallery program with 4 or 5 different CSULB SOA student artists showing work in the galleries every week. You’ll see 4 different categories of exhibitions:
1. MFA Thesis Exhibitions
2. BFA Thesis Exhibitions
3. Non-Degree Exhibitions
4. Group Exhibitions, Curatorial Projects & other special Exhibitions
Wk 3 – Sep 7 – 11
- Vav Vavrek, MFA Sculpture – WPcom Tag: vavrek
- Jesse Lubben, Photography – WPcom Tag: lubben
- Chelsea McIntyre, Sculpture – WPcom Tag: mcintyre
- Patricia Rangel, Metals – WPcom Tag: rangel
Vav Vavrek’s MFA Thesis exhibition will consist of an installation utilizing an overlapping of video processes across the spectrum of display technologies to create an experience of an alternate present.
Jesse Lubben will display a series of photographic prints that play with relationships between three-dimensional sculpture and the two-dimensionality of photography.
Chelsea McIntyre presents a performance piece featuring two actors engaged in a heated discourse. Visitors are welcome to engage the situation however they please.
Patricia Rangel integrates dirt, cement, metal, and silk in a series of sculptural works that range in dimension and configuration.
Precision is key.
— Duckliife
Is it just me, or did Duckliife just quote that Jaguar commercial?
Alison Meets Anna
It seems like everyone who talks to future nurse & drawing lover Anna Joy Floresca has a great conversation. Last week it was Diana Martinez, and this week it was Alison Wendell‘s turn!
Ally snapped this cool IG with Anna. Unfortunately then this old creeper swooped in and made her take one with him too! (eww)
BTW, Ally’s really rockin that Giant Eyeball T, isn’t she!?
Psst, check out Anna’s cool website at ajfloresca.wordpress.com
Check out David Ngo’s website – what a great way to draw people in!
I love the way Maeghan McBee’s website has her photo and brief bio right up front.
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Gallery Etiquette
Hi everyone, I hope you enjoyed the CSULB School of Art, Gallery Complex, experience on Thursday. One important thing to mention is how to behave in an Art Gallery or Art Museum. Galleries and Museums or “Cultural Institutions” have some things in common with Libraries, but also some things different. In a Library you’re supposed to be quiet. And touching the books (most of them) is encouraged. It’s the opposite in a Gallery or Museum. You don’t have to be quiet. You can talk, you can laugh, you can interact with your friends and the work.
Don’t Touch
But in most Galleries & Museums most of the time, You NEVER TOUCH the work! It might be a 500 year old masterpiece from Florence painted by one of the geniuses of the ages, and it might be a 5 day old painting from a CSULB student, but either way, it’s tremendously important NOT TO TOUCH the work! Don’t touch it with your hands. Don’t bump into it. Art is a human legacy. Sometimes it’s priceless to our entire culture. But all art is priceless to someone. And with so many people moving through these spaces, we can really damage work in the process of appreciating it. So please by very, very careful. VERY!!
Backpacks
Backpacks are kind of a problem for us. Most galleries and museums won’t allow them in their galleries, you have to check them at reception. However we have an additional problem at CSULB, which is a lot of theft. For sure you should never leave your stuff unattended. An unwatched laptop can literally be gone in 60 seconds. So we have to try to balance the Backpacks don’t belong in the galleries problem with the I don’t want my stuff ripped off problem. If you have a chance to leave a backpack in a locker or dorm on Thursdays, that might be cool. Just bring your mobile or laptop or whatever you need. If you do need your backpack, that’s understandable. But then be EXTRA CAREFUL in the galleries. If you’re taking a photo for somebody, remember a backpack can extend you way back and if you’re backing up to snap the photo you can walk right into a painting, video monitor, sculpture, or other fragile piece of work.
Contacting GLAMFA Artists
Week 2 will be the same plan as last week. We’ll look at the GLAMFA exhibition in the SOA Galleries, have a conversation with a classmate, and write up another work from the show, letting the GLAMFA Website and the Artist’s Website as stand-ins for conversations with the artists. Next week, Week 3, we’ll be on the “normal” track for the rest of the semester with 4-5 different shows each week and the artists will usually be inside or at a table outside the gallery.
The Organizer of the GLAMFA Exhibition, CSULB Grad Student Dawn Ertl has also offered to put you in email contact with any of the artists if you’d like to ask them some questions. You can email the artist’s name and your questions for them to Dawn, and she will forward them to the artist for you. This is optional. You don’t have to do it. If you would like to ask any artist questions, you can email Dawn at: [email protected]
Questions
I received a lot of questions over the weekend for things that were in the syllabus. I don’t really mind, after all, enrollment in Art110 comes with “unlimited questions,” and I’m sure sometimes the syllabus needs a little explaining, but just FYI, you can find a lot there. I’ve expanded the Syllabus Table of Contents to help make more info more easily available:
Syllabus TOC
Subsections of Special Interest
- 2a. What’s Due?
- 2b. Late Policy
- 2c. Attendance
- 3a. Extra Credit
- 3b. Rubrics
- 3c. Artist Tags
This Week
This week we’re doing some Photography. Later in the semester we’ll do a little bit more traditional photography where we try to compose a photograph and think about its aesthetics. This week we are taking pictures, and we’ll no doubt have aesthetic considerations, but the focus of our experience is to use our Mobile Cameras as tools to explore and express social relations.
Our Relational Aesthetics Activity will use Instagram. Most of you already have IG accounts. If you don’t, you can just make one for the day. If you don’t have a smartphone, you can work with someone, or you can use my iPad during class on Thursday. Thursday, Sept 4 is our “Instagram Day.” From when you wake up in the morning till you go to sleep that night, take at least 4 IGs. Or more if you like.
Full details on the Instagram page
NOTE:
Even though we’re Instagramming on Thursday, you still have to do a POST on your website by Sunday night. TO GET CREDIT FOR THE IG ACTIVITY, YOU MUST DO AN ANALYSIS POST ON YOUR WEBSITE! Details on the Instagram page
Your Websites (last week)
You all did great work last week getting your websites launched! Did you realize you could have your own website with the design and content of your choice that fast? In Week 8 we’re going to focus more specifically on making Your Passion be the focus of Your Website. I’ll show you how you can easily put your Art110 work off to the side, and let your website feature your Fashion Merchandising, Dance, Nursing, Business Marketing, Recreation Therapy, Hospitality Management, or any other career focus. Of course, you don’t have to wait till then. You can use your website for anything you want right now. Want to write about Health & Lifestyle? Or Politics? Or Student Life? Just click New Post and start typing on your keyboard or talking into your mobile.
Designing a “You” Website
In school we spend a lot of “head down” time just focusing on requirements, like “what’s due this week?” That’s legit. But in the long run, I believe a compelling ePortfolio will serve you far better than just an “I turned in my homework” website. Sooner than you think you’ll be wanting things like internships and later jobs and careers. Why not start making a place where anyone who wants to know about you can find the work that you’d like to show?
Here’s Stephen Boyer’s website. Just like so many of you Stephen did a great job in Week 1. He got his site up and wrote 2 nice pieces on a Classmate and a GLAMFA Artist. He even bought Stephen S Boyer.com – Awesome!
I’m totally not dissing Stephen or any of you here – gosh, we’re just getting started! – but nice a job as he did with Week 1, what his website doesn’t show me, is what he really cares about, and how strong his work is. Lucky for me, Stephen found me on Twitter last week and that led me over to his Vimeo Channel. Wow. Stephen’s only an incoming freshman, but he’s already done so much remarkable work. Here’s one, a short film called Paradigm:
For a filmmaker like Stephen, an analysis of April Bey’s artwork is great, but a film like Paradigm is really his raison d’être. I hope before this semester is over Stephen has a website that shows his work, talks about his ideas, and chronicles what he’s working on now.
I hope that’s true for all of you.
Others of you also have strong work to show. Some of you might think, well, I don’t really have anything great yet. Or perhaps you think, I’ve done some nice work, but it’s not really visual, like Stephen’s short film is.
Your Best Face Forward
You can find a way to put anything on your website! Words. Images. Graphics. Charts. Audio. Video. The website for a future CIA agent is going to look pretty different from the website for a future Tattoo Artist, but anyone can show their work. And if you don’t think you have much yet, I’d encourage you to put up anything you have. The great thing about the web is how easy it is to revise things or replace them with new, better work.
You Are Creative
Remember that “creativity” is everywhere. It’s easy to look at a film like Stephen’s or a painting or a performance and say, wow, they’re so talented! But what about the Accountant who creatively rearranges a spreadsheet in a way that no one ever has before and discovers how you’re losing a lot of money or ways you could be making a lot more? That’s “creativity”! And it really matters! Looking from lots of angles. Thinking differently.
The Medici Family from Renaissance Florence are easily the greatest art patrons the world has ever known. One family was so influential in fueling and shaping The Renaissance and sponsoring artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo, Botticelli, and many others. But the way the Medici Family rose to power is that they were bankers and they were early inventors of double-entry accounting. You can be “creative” in any field!
More of Your Work
Here’s a few more of your websites from last week.
Here’s Marlyn Castillo’s website. Looks great. Nice posts. I love her choice of the “Visual” theme. Traditional “blog” themes have one post rolling down the homepage. That’s pretty good. But what if I’m not so interested in that one thing? Marlyn’s theme puts a lot of content, a lot of choice right up front on her home page. It’s a great way to feature a lot of the stories you have to tell. It’s also a great way to show off your work in an ePortfolio.
Marlyn also did something small but powerful that many of you haven’t gotten around to yet – but you can at any time! She made an “About” page. That’s a great place to say who you are, what’s up, and perhaps include some contact info.
Diana Martinez / DC Martinez.com
Diana Martinez shows what us what a conversation is all about! Be sure to drop by Diana’s website and read about her “Conversation” with Joy Floresca. It’s wonderful work. It’s the kind of connection we should all try to make more of.
Great site by Samuel Gold. You can really feel his presence. And BAM, there’s his “About” right on the home page. He’s not making the visitor do too much work, he’s got where you are, and who I am, right there.
Check out the interactive rollover effects on Evan Huang’s home page. We all know that we’re engaged when our online actions feel alive and interactive, and Evan’s homepage gives us exactly that. His “Pictorico” theme is a really nice way to design your site and present your work.
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