Artist: Ashely Anderson

Exhibition: Illustration

Media: Watercolors

Gallery: CSULB School of Art, Merlino

Instagram: N/A

Website: N/A

The person or I should say Artist that I interviewed for this essay was Ashely Anderson who was just one of the artists who contributed to the illustration exhibit as the gallery was a group exhibition and she happened to be there the day that I went for the interview. Ashely Anderson is from Santa Monica and transferred from a community college called “ Santa Monica Community College” where she got her AA degree in Liberal Arts. She is an undergraduate student here at Cal State Long Beach that is majoring in Illustration and is trying to focus on working with illustration pieces while she is finishing up at the school of art.  This is Ashely’s fourth year of schooling as she has completed two in Santa Monica and is finishing her last semester while she trying to coop with the fact that her art career for her school will soon be over but she has her mindset on graduating from Cal State Long Beach with a BFA in the School of Art Studio Illustration program.

The piece that Ashely presented to me in the gallery was her very own and the way it came off on me was weird, unique, and very colorful as it had a lot of colors in it and around the object that was on the painting. The painting had a lot of interesting characters in it as it had a group of frogs who looked really funny as it was not the way they were drawn but the way the painter had them arrange in the painting. The characters of the painting came in big and small sizes as it depicts four frogs who are in a circle and have their hands in the middle of the circle doing something with them that is not shown in the painting itself. The other object that caught my attention was the background as I did not know if they were like human frogs who are frogs but are doing human things or if they are regular frogs, since knowing what type it is would help me understand the background better like is it a city background or a pond background at night. Another thing I want to mention about the painting is if the frogs are family or if they know each other since they are all in a group circle together also one more thing that I forgot to mention was the little green dots that the frogs had on the back of them I thought that was pretty interesting.

What the painting about is unclear as it does not have a clear message as to what it is as it just shows some frogs in a circle with their arms in the middle of that circle with a nice blue lighting in the background. The author, on the other hand, had a meaning for her entire exhibition as it was a show about her past as what she had seen and experienced growing up in her town with a little bit of a twist to it as you can see for yourself. Ashely wanted to tell a folktale about her life or most importantly her childhood as she believes these stories tell us who she is and what she went through growing up as a child as it shows her true identity of who she is. Ashely also says that the painting in a way brings a metaphor to the table as she believes that folktales have a metaphor for them so she tried to bring that fact into her painting as we can kind of see from the frogs. Overall the paintings are the story of her life as she wants to give us an incite on how she lived, what she believed in, and what she had to go through as a child growing up and I can see it here in her paintings especially her frog one as maybe the frogs were her go-to when life felt hard.

In my opinion, I loved this gallery it was one of the best ones I have been through as it comes off as welcoming and then just blows your mind away with all the weird and interesting things you have to encounter in the gallery. I really enjoyed the part of her gallery when you really had to make out what it was as it looked to be many things but you knew in your head that it was one thing and you just had to look carefully to find it. The messages I got off from her paintings were good messages or they did not bother me at all as most of the messages were about Ashely’s life and what she went through growing up, which we did not know until I had interviewed her after viewing all the paintings. The main thing that I liked about this gallery was the fun she was having with it as she had the fifties-era or like an old school theme that we do not see as much in today’s world as it is all about the future and modern art. Overall this gallery was fun to be in and to look at plus Ashely was fun to interview as well as she did not hold back while I was interviewing her as she gave me a rundown of all her painting and what they meant.

1. What I tried to do with this experiment is going dressed differently to hang out with a group of buddies at their house who usually see me like once every two weeks maybe even more, and what I wear around them in my head are comfortable clothes like just a pair of vans, some blue jeans, a black or red long sleeve, and a jean or bomber jacket but for this experiment, I went in the full suit that I got for graduation to see how they would react.
2. The reaction was priceless as I knocked on their door to come in and they immediately just gave me a weird look like I had done something wrong but all I was doing was wearing a suit with my hair comb after the glances we proceeded with the night and it finally got to the point where they asked me why I was wearing the suit. At this point, I asked them the question as to what my major was based on my appearance and what did they think of me the majority told me I looked like a pre-law major who had to be at court at some point that night or a business major that had an internship that night. Another thing was that they were treating me the same with a suit which I expected since were all long time friends and appearances do not really matter to them.
3. In conclusion, the reaction was the big factor when they saw me for the first time that night they looked so confused and wondered why I was evening wearing such a thing to a casual event like hanging out at their house but the thing I really wanted to get out of them was them treating me or them acting different but they did not do that. 

Artist: Quang Tran

Exhibition: Afterburn Sculpture

Media: Ceramics, Installation 

Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Gatov West, Gatov East

Website: N/A

Instagram: N/A

The artist that I decided to interview for this essay was Quang Tran who was just one of the artists who contributed to the Afterborn gallery as the gallery was a group exhibition and he happened to be there when I went to go interview him on a Wednesday. Quang is from Santa Ana California and has recently transferred from a community college named “ Santa Ana Community College” where he got his AA degree. He is an undergraduate student here at Cal State Long Beach that is majoring in Sculpture Art and is trying to focus on creating sculptures that represent whats going on in his mind as a reflection of society while he is attending the school of art. This is Quang’s third year of schooling as he has completed two years in Santa Ana and has started her third-year last semester while trying to settle into the new school atmosphere he has his mind set on graduating from CSULB with a BFA in School of Art Sculpture Program

The piece of art that Quang presented to me was his very own and the way it came off on me was strange, unique, meaningful, and very detailed as the girl looked very real with Quang putting much work into the face plus the rags that she wore to make her stand out. The piece had a metal chair that was holding the little girl up as she was standing on it and the chair for some odd reason was bigger than the girl. On the other hand, the girl that Quang was trying to sculpt was a white little girl who had grey hair and gray eyes with a gray raggedy shirt on top of her that reached all the way down to her knees plus the rags were hiding her hands as well. What two things that the sculpture tried saying was if this girl greets you after have died or when you are about to die from the pain and suffering that you are feeling because of the people that are hurting you. The second one was if this girl was the one that was going to get killed, or possibly explain the whole process of how your body feels when you are just in constant pain not being able to feel anything else.

The sculpture that the artist Quang made was for an assignment that the students had to make something resembling pain and discomfort that your body feels when it is stuck inside of your mind. His thought-process for his sculpture was to depict how at a young age there is no pain for young children as kids do not really feel as much pain as adults do so he wanted to create something signified that a child had no pain but only innocents. Quang’s goal since he was going to be at the beginning of the gallery was to show what innocents we have before walking into the cruel world that is full of pain as we grew up to be adults which are constantly shown throughout the entire galley. His other goal was to try to make it normal as possible for the viewer as most sculptures in the gallery were very harsh so his sculpture in a way was to settle the viewer in and to show them what pure innocents is. He successfully does this as he shows a little girl that looks like she knows nothing of the world nor its pain as she just stares into what’s to come into her life.

What I got out of this sculpture was that the world is full of pain and full of hurt people that continue to live with pain that is hurting them but children do not feel nor see this pain as they only stare at it wondering what it is since they only know innocents. Quang assignment was to show something that represented pain or discomfort and in a way, he did that with a sculpture that did not look disturbing at all but with a sculpture that reminded us of all that pain and discomfort, we feel now as an adult compared to when we were just kids. This sculpture really just shows us how lost and how much pain we are as humans since we keep so much of our pain inside instead of addressing it or confronting it as we should do but society says no to that. Quang really got me to think about how much stuff I hold in as an adult in today’s world and how much pain I have been through but in a way reminded me of how great and innocent my childhood a couple of years ago. This is exactly how I felt when I saw this sculpture in the beginning and how I still feel about it now it is just a reminder of how messed up we truly are and how we are in need of some help. 

Annoying Power Lines

1. The reason I choose this topic was to discuss the problem that I have always had with power lines which was them being in the way of a good thing like a picture, they are dangerous, and they just make our cities skies look clutter. Instead of these new developing cities who are putting their power lines underground making their cities safer and clear of any wood or metal power line.
2. The pictures that I have chose to show people like yourself was to depict how ugly it looks to actually show you what the sky looks like when your looking up at it since most of us are in a rush to get somewhere we tend to ignore these power lines but when we take a sec to see the world around us we see these annoying lines.
3. I believe in general that I did a good job in showing or reminding the common person that these power lines do exist in our everyday world and it clearly shows you something that you do not look at often or realized why it is even there.
4. If I had the chance to do this same blog and topic again I would go to downtown Los Angeles to take pictures of all the power lines that are going in every single direction and then go to riverside or a new city that is growing to show the difference between the new and old cities.
5. I know this cheesy but another idea I would love to address or show the audience is the freeway situation in Los Angeles since most of us who drive anywhere will mostly likely get stuck in it. Since people who live in Los Angeles are so used to it or expect it every time they leave somewhere it would be a nice reminder to them plus to people who do not live here how bad our freeways are and how we need to fix them or make them bigger.

1. The reason I choose the story of my daily commute to school is because it is the most thing to do, vital, and what I do and deal with every week it is a story that shows me how a good day can turn to a very bad one in minutes or the desire to get home but stuck in the unforsaken freeway basically something I take for granted can have importance to it.
2. I think if my girlfriend was driving I would have taken better pictures of what I see on the freeway, what indicates where I am at or my halfway point, and interesting things that pop up randomly on the street or freeway like a dog or low fog coming out of the parks that are nearby.
3. My second image I believe is the most important since it shows the beginning of my adventure on the freeway and it shows if the traffic is heavy or not this basically determines if I am going to haul butt to school and have a tense ride or if I am going to have a nice and smooth ride to school.
4. A picture that I think is not great but also important is the exit off the 605 freeway where it is only two lanes and if a bad accident occurs or something happens on it it can make traffic a whole lot worse making it almost impossible to get to school on time
5. What I think I could do better next time is taking the perfect photo on the locations where I can not get a good photo since I am driving too fast or just in general driving if I could stop in the middle of the freeway to take a good photo I would but unfortunately, if I do that I can get a ticket or arrested.
6. There are other photo stories I want to tell but the photo stories I would like to do I think would not interest most people since I would want to do photo stories of the common person doing whatever he or she is doing since we focus so much on other famous people how about we focus on a kid who is Mexican, living in South Gate, and going through a daily life of theirs.

Preparing to take off in my Honda Accord from Downey with my girlfriend in the passenger seat.

Entering the 105 freeway with the meter on a vital entrance to getting to school on time without getting stuck in traffic.

The point where I decide if I need to panic and go fast to get to school on time or the point where I know I can take it easy because there is not a lot of traffic.

The road that leads off of the 605 also informing me if it is going to take forever to get to school or it is going to be empty where it will only take me minutes to get to school.

The turn that every student dreads if they drive to school since the majority of the time it is busy and you get stuck in the middle of the road trying to get in.

Finally arriving at school with a good parking spot where I can easily walk to class but first, we relax until it is time to leave.

Artist: Alyssa Stroud

Exhibition: Metal and Jewelry

Media: glass, metal, copper

Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Gatov West 

Website: N/A

Instagram: N/A

The person or I should say Artist that I interviewed for this essay was Alyssa Globorin who was just one of the artists who contributed to the metal and jewelry gallery as the gallery was a group exhibition and she happened to be there the day that I went for the interview. Alyssa Globorin is from San Diego and has recently transferred from a community college called “San Diego Mesa Community College” where she got her AA degree. She is an undergraduate student here at Cal State Long Beach that is majoring in Studio Art and is trying to focus on working with metals while she is attending the school of art. This is Alyssa’s third year of schooling as she has completed two in San Diego and has started her third-year last semester while she tries to settle into the new school’s atmosphere she has her mindset on graduating from Cal State Long Beach with a BFA in the School of Art Studio Art program.

The piece of art that Alyssa presented to me in the gallery was her very own and the way it came off on me was unique, weird size, weird bumps or lumps, and the color that was all over the piece. The materials that were used to make the piece were just copper which gave it a nice old mysterious look to it that made me wonder was it was and what its purpose was as well as I just saw a circular object. The piece also had some bumps or lumps on it which gave it its’ unique shape as the bumps made it uneven for it to lean flat on the floor which left it to stand on its’ side. Another distinguishing mark that it had all over the place was an “X” now I do not know what it means but it must mean something for the artist for her to place this all over the piece of art that she made. Last but not least the piece of art had a lid to it where you can place it in the hole or leave it out on the side like she did when she was presenting it to me, also one more thing I forgot to mention were that the bumps on the piece of art came in all shapes since some were big and some were small making it uneven for it to stand on its’ own.  

The piece that the artist Alyssa made was for an assignment where they had to make a container. Her thought process was to take the container idea and put a twist on it since she wanted her to stand out more. Her goal was to make the container expand so that it would not look like your average everyday container plus she wanted the piece to not look like it was a container but something else that had a lid to it. The other goal she wanted to achieve in the piece was to freeball it as she wanted to have a little plan to start with but end with a piece that she did not know where it was going to end up as. She successfully did that but the result was not what she had wanted nor hope for since her idea was to have the bumps all around the circular object. Instead, it came out with bumps with a bunch of gaps of open space between each one of them which made it look unique and eye-grabbing.

What I got out of this piece of art was that you need to be unique you gotta be your very own you can not just go agreeing with whatever a person tells you or what someone is expecting of you you just have to do you. Alyssa’s assignment was to make a container she did that but she did it in a way that I would have never thought of the way of doing something different but ending up in the same place or with the same results. You might plan things like how Alyssa planned a certain way to do the container, but you might end up with a different result as not everything will go according to plan which leads you to either go with what you have or leave it all behind. The ability to be unique, take different routes, and either go with the plane or fall behind is all the factors that I got from interviewing Alyssa and by examining the piece of art she showed me. This is what I got from the piece of art that I was shown and from what Alyssa was telling me while interviewing her this is exactly what I kept thinking as I talked to Alyssa about her piece of art and as I walked away from her gallery. 

   

1. This activity was something if I am going to be honest here even though I had fun drawing stuff or what I call drawing it was hard to get every detail I wanted in my drawings as I do not really draw a lot only when I am really bored in class or I just feel like drawing which is rare but if I had a choice to do this again I would do it especially among a group of friends.
2. If I could practice for about 100 or maybe a 1000 hours I think I would get better at drawing things my drawings would be so bad and they would actually make sense to people who are viewing them but if I had the time to practice drawing I would because I know my drawing skills will get better.
3. My major as of right now is Criminal Justice and I think some simple sketching can be helpful in this major especially if someone commits a crime and a witness describes them to you you can do a simple sketch that would be helpful to you and the witnesses.
4. Drawing in my opinion is a language of its own many people use it to express how their feelings, whats on their mind, or to explain how they are as a person drawing can be used in so many ways I consider it to be universal as anyone can depict a drawings meaning from a simple glance, and drawings can say the things that we as people can not bear to say or its hard for us to say out loud its kind of a way to say something without speaking or opening your mouth.

1. The form of this piece of art is the tree, the vines, and the little creatures on it this piece shows us how everything on this tree is working together to support one another whether it be from the vines growing on the side of it or the ants using the tree to harvest or transport their goods. What this tree means is life it shows us how we all need each other to push on and to succeed because without each other we are nothing.
2. I believe the tree itself was art as many people pass by it and examine its beauty but when we put the rectangle around the tree we showed a part of the tree that no one really looks at which was the ants and the vines growing on it. Once we put the tape around those two objects the tree, the vines, and the ants all became art instead of the tree just being art.
3. Our piece of art will be art but the main things that we focused on will not be art because no one will really see it nor care to see it so in the end the giant tree will remain art until the day it is cut down will the vines and the ants will not be see plus ignored as art until someone again notices it.
4. The art that resides in the body of the object we put tape around is art it is something living and showing off its colors to the people that taped it for. Overall the whole tree is art what we put tape around the tree is art but is nothing if we were not to tape anything around the vines or ants, since it is ignored by people who pass by it everyday it is not art but the tree will remain as art as people acknowledge it and notice its beauty.
5. I believe that art does not have to take the shape of an object to be considered art, art can literally be anything you want it to be art is in the beholder of the viewer like our piece of art it was nothing until we as a grouped noticed its beauty and what it had to offer.
6. Art does reside in the viewer as art is what the viewer takes away from the object or whatever he or she is looking or observing at it is what they get out of it whether it be the colors, the shapes, or the message the viewer needs to see the art and examine what they get out of that piece of art.

1. The experience of once again finger painting since the first grade was fun I was able to do with a partner so it made it better than just doing it alone but overall I had fun doing it just going wherever the paint took me on the sheet of paper it was also relaxing in a way it nice to feel calm about something instead of being rush or pressure as most are.
2. It was easy just as I expected it but one hard thing that I tried not doing was drawing or making something which we were told not to do I feel like not drawing something specific made it weird in a sense since we are so used to drawing something while we paint or we are used to seeing a shape or an object in a painting.

3. Making a painting with no object was frustrating and was liberating at the same time if that is even possible to say but it was hard not trying to draw something since we are a species that like to have an object to represent something in the painting but on the other hand it was liberating as I was just able to go with whatever mind felt like doing with paint which was fun as you often do not get the chance to do that.

4. The difference between my finger painting art and the art you see in historical museums is I went with whatever the colors or my mind wanted to do since I had no desire to draw anything specific I was just going with the colors until I completed my painting while artist in the past draw something so specific like a person or a place that has meaning while this might be a good painting it is not what the artist is feeling the artist might to focus on something else but can not since he is stuck painting the object.

1. While cleaning a sculpture at CSULB I felt a little awkward at first but then settled into the activity as more people got involved in cleaning and discussing their ideas on how they see the sculpture and what it looks like in their mind. I also felt proud that I was doing something good at the school other than attending it I felt proud that other people were looking at me confused and weird while I was cleaning the sculpture.
2. The reason as to why we view Mierle Laderman Ukeles cleaning the steps of an art museum and Richard Serra flinging molten lead against the walls as art is because it goes agaisnt what we think is art or what is traditionally art since it is breaking the walls that society has paced. The way these pieces of art are considered the same is that they both break the wall of what we think art and they show this by expressing what they feel in their art whether it was by cleaning some steps or throwing some lead.
3. Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ cleaning of the steps was considered in my opinion to be art since it demonstrates that a woman can do anything regardless of what society thinks of them in today’s world or back in the fifties. The fact that she did at a art museum helps her case a lot since she did it in a open public space where people could view her act and where it requires janitors to clean the steps as it being apart of their job, but if she was to be apart of the janitors workforce it would have been seen as a normal task and would not be considered an act art. Overall her doing something shes not suppose to do makes it an act of art as she is going against what society wants her to do and expects from her.

4. There is a line between something being considered art and something not being art but that line is very vague as the simplest thing can be considered art so I say art is considered art in the eye of the viewer depending on what a person thinks is art. So now we ask ourselves are painting on canvases in an art museum considered art I say yes as any painting done on a canvas or not on a canvas is considered art in my mind. That leads us to ask if house painting are art this is true as any piece of art is art no matter where it is located as the pieces of art shows what someone is thinking or what they are feeling at the moment they made it , so whether the painting was done on a canvas or not in a art museum or at home it is still considered art. Another thing to address is painting a house is considered art as it is showing what type of person or family is living there it shows how happy this person or family is.

5. I believe that women’s work or whatever a women does is art as they demonstrate how they can do their work at the best level they can whether it is office job or being a mom a women just being herself is art as it takes a lot to get through this so called mans world as they are expected to do some many things with so little time.

6. The person that I would clean their Hollywood star for is Vin Scully the Dodgers broadcaster for 63 years as he not only broadcaster the games but he told stories within the game all her ever did was bring joy to those that heard his soft voice during the day and at night plus he was highly respected throughout the game of baseball and throughout the broadcasting world so I would happily clean Vin Scully star.