Final Project Proposal: Abortion Propaganda

I know that I work the best when the projects I do are inspired or based off of subjects I am already passionate about. For the trimester long project I will be working on I decided I wanted to make art about abortions. It is a subject that I love to learn about and one that I don't think is discussed enough. I believe there is a strong inequity in the access to information about abortions. They don't tend to be covered in health classes and there is an intense amount of anti-abortion propaganda littering the United States.

This is why I have chosen to make a few different forms of pro-abortion propaganda. I will digitally design pro-choice billboards, create portraits that negatively highlight Planned Parenthood protesters, and create a short informational video that outlines some basic facts about abortions.

Visual ppt
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11FxcpIvnKqbh4fCv13HFJNzWtWrUfMZUwJDOoz8fDiM/edit?usp=sharing

Artist Talk: Mary Griep

My friend Genevieve in front of "Ulu Camii, Divirgi, Turkey"

   On March 29th I attended an artist talk at the Wriston Art Center. The artist that was showcasing their work was Mary Griep, a professor of art and Dean of Fine Arts at St. Olaf in Minnesota. The project she spoke about that is also displayed in the gallery is her Anastylosis Project that she has been working on for over a decade. This project is comprised of many drawings of different architectural monuments in fine detail. One thing I didn't realize during her speech and actualized while looking at her work in person was that not only was her work drawings, but it was multimedia. In the case of Griep, multimedia means that she collages many tiny different pieces of paper onto her drawings, creating intricate mosaic details within her work.
   Something I really appreciated about her talk was that she gave a brief outline of her starting process for her project. She mentioned that all good projects must start with a question or problem to explore. She also noted that a good question will not be fully formed at the beginning of the process, rather it will be expanded upon along the way.
   When she spoke about the subjects she chose she said she drew things that "captured [her] imagination." I liked this phrasing because it implies more than catching someone's attention. It means the subject is rich enough that the mind can form other concepts that enrich their understanding of its subject.
   Griep stated that she created her work with the intention of making the viewer come up close and then step back to see the whole thing. While looking at the work in the gallery, I did just that. She includes such an intense amount of detail in each piece she makes, and then on top of that works on a large scale that can only be fully appreciated by looking up close and also from afar.

Spazcore Project

spazcore
To see the work mentioned below, follow the link above.

For my final project for the class "New Media in Art" I decided to use my passion as my inspiration. I revolved my work around my jewelry making and the business I run called Spazcore. I did this because I knew that if I made this project relevant to my life outside of class I would be highly motivated to do a good job. The platform that this work will ultimately end up on is Instagram. I chose Instagram because it is a site that I already use daily and because it is incredibly culturally relevant to the currant era.
For my project I took several studio photographs of models wearing earrings that I crafted myself. I then photoshopped these images so that they looked more visually appealing and formatted them for Instagram. Along with these photographs, I also made three promotional videos that will be posted to Instagram on my page @spazcore.
I am really proud of the work that I have done for this project. I think my pictures turned out well, especially since I don't have much experience with photographing people except for taking candid pictures. There was definitely a large learning curve with the process of directing the models. I also really like how my animations turned out for my Instagram videos. I am not as proud of the electricity one as I am of the others, but I think it is still eye catching and that is what matters.

Something Is Happening Exhibition

Myself in front of the work I had in the show.

The "Something Is Happening" exhibition that we did as a class for New Media in Art Fall term 2018 was my first college art show. I was pretty satisfied with the prints that I chose to include in the exhibition. It was really interesting to see how people moved around the space, especially when they would pause and look at my work. I liked watching people pick up and page through my magazine, looking at the works of mine that weren't hung up on the wall.

Vinyl label that I made for the show.

I had a lot of fun learning how to use the vinyl cutter in the MakerSpace. I had always wanted to learn how to use it and being able to do that through this class was awesome. I was really proud of how it came out, and think it made the space look much more professional.
I would love to be a part of more exhibition shows. In the future I would make it a much bigger deal to my friends, however, because only two people came at the end to specifically see my work and before they came I couldn't get myself to be in a good mood. Maybe by the next show I will learn how to draw strangers into looking at my work and have more conversations with people that I don't already know.

Eckhar(d)t and McLuhan: Yes I Guess It Does Make Sense

For one of my assignments I was required to research German philosopher and mystic, Meister Eckhar(d)t. I was supposed to find the reason why he had been inlcuded in McLuhan's book The Medium is the Massage. I am not going to lie, after finding that he was only referenced by a seemingly random quote, I was ready to give up on this project and just take this as a loss. Luckily, I decided against doing so and found some really interesting connections between McLuhan's ideas and Eckhart's. Summarized below are my findings.

McLuhan included a quote from Eckhar(d)t to support his idea that in order to fully understand a message, one must separate the medium from the programmer. The inclusion of this quote also supports the idea that in terms of absorbing knowledge, there is no “space” or “time.” If one is to learn and theorize in this age of simultaneous happening, they must be able to navigate this environment in ways that allow them to see the ‘truth.’

Soundscape

https://soundcloud.com/julabales/first-attempt


This soundscape project was a good excuse to familiarize myself with GarageBand. I initially created the beat on the GarageBand app on my phone, but quickly realized that the iOS version of the software was pretty limiting for some of the things I wanted to do with my sound. I transferred my project over to a school computer and completed my soundscape from there. Moving to the computer allowed me to control volume points on my sound clips and add new tracks with a midi keyboard which was so fun to mess around with. During this process I thought about the McLuhan quote, "Young people are looking for a formula for putting on the universe—participation mystique. They do not look for detached patterns—for ways of relating themselves to the world, a la nineteenth century." I wasn't considering much how other people would feel when listening to my sound, I was purely making what I thought sounded interesting. I thought about my connection to a fantasy world I was creating through the sounds I chose. I felt like I was maybe in an electronic version of outer-space, or some sort of online dimension.

This is how my soundscape looked on my iPhone.

Something Is Happening

For this project I knew I wanted to focus on photography that didn't involve moving subjects as that is the type of picture I am least likely to take. I decided to go for a walk on Wisconsin Avenue and photograph anything that caught my eye. Wisconsin Avenue, compared to College Avenue, seems like a more accurate depiction of the soul of Appleton.

My favorite corner of Wisconsin Avenue.

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/165111264@N07/

Shelby Rodeffer Lecture

Shelby Rodeffer is a sign painter and artist based out of the city of Chicago. She runs her own business where she paints signs commercially. When Rodefferer started working for money as an artist, she was doing freelance work but she didn’t enjoy it. She didn’t like being forced to create certain things and having creative directors above her. After doing freelance design work for a while she discovered a documentary about sign painting that really turned her on to the craft. Then she started researching all about sign painting, and attended sign painting workshops where she got to actually practice her newfound love for the craft.

            Now, she paints text for all sorts of companies on all sorts of walls, windows, and more. One project that she did that I particularly favor was the tour bus she painted for The Pitchfork Review. This one is specifically interesting to me because it differs from the work she does on walls, she got to be less text based and focus more on imagery.

Link to her page talking about this project:

http://shelbyrodeffer.com/work/the-pitchfork-review/

           Rodeffer supports their personal art through the commercial work that they do. Some of the themes that they like to explore include: femininity, gender roles, opportunity, and feminism. Their work features skills learned from sign painting, carefully and artistically placed words and phrases. They work in different mediums like wood and canvas, but to me the most interesting medium they work on is silk.

Good Spirits

Rodeffer delved into the commercial and business side of art more during the question and answer section of the lecture. One useful piece of advice they offered was to have a dedicated sketchbook practice, having one always open at home to explore less permanent and ideas in a pressure free way. If a person was hoping to get into a specific new craft, she offers the advice of contacting an established artist and offering to pay them their hourly wage to teach their skills.

This lecture made me think about opportunities that I have as an artist, to work commercially and fund my own work at the same time. The reason I enjoyed this lecture the most was the authenticity of Rodeffer and the insight into both their commercial and personal sides of their art.

Link to Rodeffer's website:
http://shelbyrodeffer.com/

Winona "Winnie" Farrell

Winona "Winnie" Farrell

This video I created because I wanted to try to encapsulate the essence of Winnie so that I could show people why I am so obsessed with her. To do this I filmed many different people doing essentially the same thing, petting and showing her love.  This structure relates to the McLuhan quote, "The public consists of separate individuals walking around with separate, fixed points of view. The new technology demands that we abandon the luxury of this posture" (Media is the Massage 69). Although all the humans involved in this film are individuals, my directorial vision strips them of their differences and represents them all in the same way, all with the same opinion of Winnie. Through the technology of filming, purposeful editing, and specific song placement, I influenced the attitude of this video to be solely positive and reflective of my love for Winnie.

Lecture by Xiaohong Zhang: Reimagining Chinese Urbanity

On Friday, September 21st, I attended a visiting artist lecture hosted by Xiaohong Zhang describing her life as an artist and the works in the exhibition that opened that night at Lawrence University.  Ironically, I had also been specifically assigned to attend this lecture as a part of my job at the Lawrentian to photograph the event.
The works of Xiaohong Zhang are heavily influenced by her interest in Soviet realism. Many of her pieces are politically charged, specifically in respects to consumerism, the environment, and work ethics. Her Chinese heritage influences her art in many ways, from using the medium of traditional paper cutting to the political issues she chooses to feature in her work. For example, she made a piece that talks about Chairman Mao as being a communist symbol, and she also me a piece about the conflict between China and the United States. The aspect of her lecture that interested me the most was when she illustrated how she spoke about the environment through her work. She often features tree motifs in her paper cutting work. One thing that really fascinated me was how in her landscapes, she replaced trees with cranes. She did this not only in her paper cutting, but also her digital paintings, and 3D digital works. Zhang spoke about something that heavily relates to what we are learning in “New Media,” which is her viewpoint on the mediums she chooses. She uses new and contemporary tools and skills which keeps her work relevant to today’s audience while still referencing traditional Chinese art forms. She described mediums and tools that enhance her ability to communicate and make her work more modern. Her ability to adapt to the modern era relates to the McLuhan quote, “Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments” (Media is the Massage 26). Her intuition as to which modern mediums to employ shows brilliance on her part as an artist, as a contemporary audience will best receive a contemporary message.

Her website:
http://www.xiaohongzhang.com/index.html

Xiaohong Zhang

Student engaged with her work featured at Wriston 

Example of her paper cutting,
"Brave New World"

Blog Start

I am Julia Balestri, a 19 year old who is currently attending Lawrence University where I study Studio Art and Film. One of my dream jobs would be to direct music videos. I also think it would be cool to work for a company like Vice or Redbull. I like to work with a variety of different mediums ranging from jewelry to photography, painting to videography, clothing to drawing, from body modification to collage. I have found it hard to focus all my energy on one specific medium for a very long time because I am always searching for new ways to represent and build my ideas. I enjoy focusing on the small details of life, and that tends to show through my photography and videography. I am very interested in documentation, which also shows through those mediums and also appears in the collages I compile along with the subjects I chose to draw. I find myself  mostly grounded in reality; different viewpoints on what is "real" tend to intrigue me the most. Something I love most about art is that anybody can do it. As Keith Haring used to say, "Art is for everybody." If I could make any impact on the world I would be satisfied if all I could do is inspire other people to find their voice and create more things for everyone to see. Like Marshall McLuhan has said, "Today, the mass audience can be used as a creative, participating force." I believe that free public pieces are some of the highest forms of artistic expression.

Below I have included some of my more recent works

Sheep candid in Iceland

Purple hand earrings

Card dangle earrings

Crane in Iceland

You can view jewelry that I have made here:https://www.instagram.com/spazcore/

You can view some of my video works here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCM0z31YaD088hKe3yXDOGQ