Week 2 Recap
Lots of nice work in Week 2. Cool plaster hands & feet! Nice group discussions on Cave Art & Ana Mendieta!
For most of you your website, so far, is mainly the place you post your Art110 work. Some of you are starting to make your sites your own. We looked at Sami Unfiltered last week; Amanda‘s starting to shape up what might become an active lifestyle site; Georgie‘s busy on a wrought iron site; DeMiere‘s working on her life and relationship blog; and Jenn‘s been so busy with her health & lifestyle blog! In the video below I use Jenn’s site as an example to talk about:
- The “More” Tag (Full Posts vs Excerpts)
- Themes
- Categories & Menus
Week 3
Activity: vlog
This week’s Activity is to make a vlog. Our vlog isn’t a “real” vlog. Our “fake vlog” is more of a Hi, It’s Me! vlog to welcome visitors to your website. Whether you’re a Health & Lifestyle blogger, The Dean of the College of the Arts at CSULB, or the Sales Guy at a Wrought Iron company, there’s nothing like a short video filled with enthusiasm and eye contact to make peeps feel a personal connection to your website.
AH: Greece, Rome & Woodman
We’re diving into Classical art & culture this week. I’ve broken the videos into 2 parts, one for Ancient Greece, and one for Ancient Rome:
Our Artist OTW is Francesca Woodman:
Discussion Groups
My group with Georgie, Julia & Polly had a very nice video Hangout in Wk 2. Seems like a few of you might have had trouble connecting last week. My best suggestion is not to wait till the end of the week to get in touch with each other. Even if your hangout will be later in the week, get in touch right now. Don’t wait for everyone else to contact you, go ahead and contact them first! The Wk 3 Discussion Groups are now up:
And I show how to get in touch with your groupmates in the Wk1 Welcome video, from 10:45 – 12:25.
Due by Sunday night
What’s due this week?
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Due: 2 Posts: Studio Art (Activity) & Art History (videos & discussion)
When: by 11:59pm on Sunday night.
Rubric: The rubric for what I’d like to see in your posts is here: Rubric for Posts
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Oh, and actually most of your “Posts” are what WordPress calls “Posts.” But your About Me Page is a thing WordPress calls a “Page”! 
Posts and Pages are pretty similar. You just say New > Post or New > Page from the toolbar menu in the upper-left when you’re logged in. Give a shout if you have any questions about it!
Hope your summer’s going well so far!
Upcoming!
Next week we’ll be drawing, and the week after that we’ll be trying our hands at Graffiti Writing. You can spray paint on a piece of cardboard or wood in your backyard. But if you’re in the SoCal vicinity, you’ll have SO much more fun if you go to the Venice Beach Legal Art Walls. I’ll be at the Art Walls on Sat, June 28 from 10am – Noon if you want to say hi. Perhaps you can even carpool with a classmate to share gas, parking, and paint. BTW, the Art Walls are only open Sat & Sun from 10am to 1/2 hour before sunset. For parking there you can either park super-close for $15, or you can park pretty far on the street for free.
Have a nice week everyone!
— Glenn
]]>Looking at Week 1 Websites
I made a video for you. I take a look at some of your websites and give some feedback. I also talk about:
1. Informative Titles for your posts
2. Using SubHeadings
3. Adding Pix
4. Using Categories & Menus
5. Site Title & Site Tag Line
6. Syndication (Sharing)
Your Wk1 Websites from Glenn Zucman on Vimeo.
- Video: Looking @ Your Websites
Shamir Mohideen‘s website
Week 2 Activity – Plaster Casting!
I think this should be a fun project. You get to go to the beach for class credit! You can go to any beach you like on any day you like. For those of you in the Long Beach area, I’ll go to the Seal Beach Pier on Thursday, June 5, from 10am – Noon and help anyone who comes by. It’s optional. And I’ll bring some iced tea in case you’re thirsty. Full details on the Wk 2 Activity Page
Week 2 Art History
The same format as last week: 2 videos & 1 discussion. Then blog your analysis of the ideas.
- New Discussion Group List for Week 2
- Use Doodle.com to help find a 1/2 hour to meetup
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Try to do a Google Hangout on Video, I think they’ll be easier and more fun than the text chats some of you did. LMK if you have any questions or have any problems!
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Art Talk #2: The Mind in the Cave
- Artist OTW #2: Ana Mendieta
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.
I know you posted that whole step-by-step thing on the website, but the truth is I didn’t read it, so can you tell me what we’re doing today?
I did. Mary and her classmates made castings of their hands or feet. And then maybe 20 or so minutes later another batch of students arrived at the beach. They walked over to me and asked what they should do and I gestured over to Mary and replied,
See Mary, she’s your instructor today.
Mary never asked what I was talking about. Or complained that it was a hassle. Or worried that she didn’t really know what she was doing. She just taught the class. For the rest of the day. Students came, did projects, left. Mary stayed the whole day and helped everyone. She explained the concepts and techniques, and then gave them a hand executing the work. To this day she and I have never actually said a word about her helping out or teaching peeps plaster casting. It was just an offhand, probably smartass statement from me. I don’t know what I expected, probably nothing, but Mary took the moment and owned it. Like Sean Penn or Meryl Streep inhabiting a persona, she became the instructor.
Oh, and I think more peeps got amazing results today than when the guy who has the MFA in Sculpture teaches them how to do it! She thinks it might be her technique of putting 4 inches or so of damp sand at the bottom of the hole you dig so that your fingers or toes can “sink in” instead of trying to pour damp sand around all that fine detail. Whatever it was, no kidding, best results ever!
Before today Mary had never done anything with plaster in her life. In addition to an obvious willingness to be present in whatever moment she finds herself in, she also brings a lifetime of love and experience with the ocean, water, and so many living things. From her time on the CSULB Crew, to her study of whaling today, to her design of whale watching expeditions, I think she just has such an intuitive understanding of the ocean, the shore, organic life, and sculptural space that she’s able to help her students produce great work. Anyway, we’re very lucky to have her.
To everyone I got to see at the Seal Beach Pier on Thursday, thanks so much for coming down, it was awesome to spend a little time with you guys. And to everyone else doing this Challenge, have a great time at whatever beach and whatever day you go! And thanks again to our guest instructor Mary Hanson – you were totally awesome!
• Plaster Casting Challenge Details
• Flickr Group / Student Plaster Pix
• Flickr / Glenn’s Pix from Plaster Casting @Seal Beach Pier
Mary Hanson with students & plaster castings of their hands.