franciscomirandablog

This week’s class experience was something different than what we usually do.  Instead of the usual classmate conversation, and the artist conversation, this week we went around campus on a tour to see what our campus has to offer and the wonderful places hidden in CSULB.  Our first stop was next to 7th street, the wall that says “CSULB”.  In all honestly it was something I have never seen before and I’ve been there for three years.  Our group was just about to head on over across campus to see the Japanese garden, when our group leader decided to do something different than that of the other groups.  She decided to ask a bus driver if he was willing to take our entire group to the garden, and surprisingly he said yes.  Luckily our entire group barely fit inside the bus, and with the various stops we picked up a couple of people here and there.  We actually saw a couple other groups walking to the Japanese garden in the hot sun, while we were being lazy taking the bus.  What was a little funny was that when we made it to our stop everyone got off the bus except for two random people who were sitting in the front.
It was my first time going inside the Japanese garden and it looked beautiful.  The small lake in the center had humungous fish, and there was one ginormous all white fish that looked to be easily 35 pounds.  I overheard someone say that if you were a freshman and come feed that big fish it was a sign of good luck, but sadly I did not know of this two years ago so I did not have good luck.
After visiting the Japanese garden we decided to head over to the water fountain, there are many water fountains located in CSULB.  This water fountain is the one right next to Brotman Hall.  In my opinion i think this water fountain is one of the most popular ones just because just about everyone who parks in the parking structure walks by this fountain to head over to the center of campus. Our next stop was an art site, that everyone says is a whale. I cannot seem to see this whale that everyone is talking about, but I guess if someone were to explain this to me I think I would be able to see this whale.
Although we did not get to see everything we had planned that evening, it was extremely fun, and I would totally do this again if we could.

 

Artist: Andre Ritter

Exhibition: Fuse: Join to Form A Single Entity

Media: Aluminum

Gallery: Max L. Gatov Gallery East

From this weeks artist conversation I chose to speak to Andre Ritter.  I chose to speak with Andre because he has very intriguing lamps that really caught my attention.  Andre Ritter graduated from the Metals Program in the CSULB School of Art last spring and is now showcasing his art as an alumni. Andre has a lot of hobbies and interests which include reading comic books, watching The Walking Dead and occasionally playing sports with his friends.  He tends to get inspiration from the South Pacific, which explains a lot since he lived in Hawaii for about seven to eight years. He has two sons and is currently working on creating an art program at their school.

The chandelier in the photo shows great detail when it comes to the use of aluminum.  He loves to use aluminum because he loves the permanence of the aluminum. He uses the aluminum to create very sharp, and straight edges.  He said that he did not paint the chandelier, he said that the reason behind the color of the chandelier being a gray color was due to the aluminum he used to create this piece.  Andre said that the designs he used on the chandelier were quite random since he did not know what pattern he wanted to use when making the piece. He says aluminum is the easiest to work with but also has worked with steal that was the hardest because he had to use fire to work with it. Although metal is a hard and can be a sharp metal, his pieces do not reflect anything sharp although there are some sharp pieces on the chandelier.

His art is a reflection upon things he likes. Andre tends to do bigger scale projects. His interest in the culture in south pacific reflects upon his work, especially the head piece with the feathers. For this piece, Ritter was inspired by tropical and exotic places. He also wanted to make the chandelier appear abstract and mysterious. The color in his chandelier show a really calm yet peaceful feeling, which is what he was going for. While talking to Andre, he stated that the chandelier reminds him of a dark and stormy evening. He also said that he uses like tropical antiques and it does reflect upon that idea.

In my opinion, Andre’s art reminds me of a rustic yet homely feeling which is what I like best from his work.  I would enjoy having this piece in my own home if I were to own this. What I also liked from this art piece is that it is the first piece I see that deals with metal, especially aluminum. Although he does say that this piece resembles his experience from Hawaii, in my opinion since there are many dark colors it may seem as if it were from a different place.

This weeks art experience was food cuisine. The experience was pretty fun since I rarely cut fruit, especially making something out of fruit.  I had many ideas when it came to what i wanted to make, but none of these ideas came out good.  At first I tried to make a flower arrangement but when I was trying to make actual flowers everything was falling apart. My second idea which also came out to be a disaster was trying to make a boat out of watermelon.  It looked pretty good at first but when I was trying to add some windows and a sail it was so ugly. Then lastly I decided to go with something tremendously easy, and that was the Spongebob squarepants house, and Patrick’s rock to go along with it. Overall it was a fun experience although everything around me including my clothes became super sticky.

This week I had the pleasure to meet with Bianca Dominguez.  She is currently on her second semester here at Cal State Long Beach. She had graduated from Gahr high school in 2015 and came to this school as undeclared.  Even though she came in as undeclared, she has decided that she would want to become a registered nurse (RN).  She was saying that becoming a registered nurse is really impacted and she needs to get high grades if she wants to become a registered nurse.  So far Bianca is really enjoying her experience at CSULB, and she is mainly taking GE courses this semester.  On her free time Bianca likes to hang out with her friends and go out to eat with them.  She was saying that she has only one sibling, which is her older sister, who recently graduated from College. Bianca was a great person to meet and she is a great person to talk to.

My friend and I, aka Carlos Nava, decided to go and see what this Art Book thing was all about. We spend about thirty minutes just finding a parking spot that was both close and cheap, because we all know that parking in Los Angeles is not free and almost always is more than five dollars for a good spot.  Anyways, we finally mad our way inside and saw about three people trying to sell us some guide for $3 dollars.  The place was pretty interesting, having various sections here and there.  There was one section that stood out to me and that was the place in the photo in the top right.  There was a lot of very different people there, and it was just a different experience for me.  I had no idea that art book fairs could be this different than that of a regular book fair.  There were some people who had books, and on the walls had some art and their own drawings for sale.  It was a great experience.

This weeks art experience was pretty cool, we did something that I have no idea how to do and that is graffiti.  Although I have no idea how to graffiti it was still a pretty cool experience, and it was fun. I went through about two pieces of wood and a bottle of spray paint to actually make may name the way i liked it.  Although my name is really Francisco just about everyone calls me Frank so I decided to do Frank instead of Francisco.  I also decided to do that also because I knew I was not going to be able to fit my entire name on that small piece of wood.  While spray painting the wood would suck in the paint and I would have to constantly go over and over the paint. I painted at my friend Carlos’s house and I do think he was mad that I accidentally painted on his brinks and on his walls, but he forgave me at the end.  I would definitely do this again and of course legally.

Artist: Samuel Jernigan
Exhibition: Weight of Whimsey and Ideals
Media: Ceramics, Sculptures, and Paint
Gallery: CSULB School of Art, Gatov Gallery West
Website: http://http://www.cargocollective.com/samueljernigan
Instagram: @samueljenri

This week in the art gallery there was an interesting artist named Samuel Jernigan.  He is a CSULB graduate who recently graduated in Fall 2015, and is proudly in the CSULB ceramics program.  As far as he can remember he has been sculpting for about fifteen years, but he did mention that he took some years off to focus on other things.  Some things about this artist that really stood out was that he said at some point in his life he was living in his car for about three years.  He said that he would be sculpting to much that he would just sleep in his car and come back to work the next day. One of his favorite hobbies is collecting high end pigment pens, and reading comic books

Almost all of Samuel’s work revolves around ceramics and and ceramic paintings.  In his exhibition Weight of Whimsy and Ideals, he has many sculptures with many vibrant colors all throughout the room.  His artwork gives a very happy feeling, but at the same times its very weird because  there are many items that I have no idea what are their meanings.  One sculpture I over heard his talking about was two that he was saying can be interchangeable.  I thought this was pretty cool because when he gets tired of seeing his artwork for days the same way, he can just go and change just about everything.The theme was very clear, a sense of nostalgia. In addition, his inspiration to create these works of art came from kids toys he would see at real markets. Making it clear that his work consists of bringing different abandoned toys and making them interchangeable.

There was one piece that I really did like, but I still have no idea what it means.  It was the sculpture with the head of a woman and don’t get me wrong it looks nice but I was stuck there wondering why doesn’t she have any eyes you know. You can see that there is a small mold that she does have eyes but then again she doesn’t have any eyes. Another sculpture that I liked just about the same as the one with the woman was the fish that was sitting in the corner.  I liked this one because it gave me a feeling of it being a toy that a child can play with, but at the same time its art.  I also like it because it does look like it can be a real fish but in reality there is no fish that looks like that so it shows a great sense of imagination.  Come to think of it the entire exhibition what just an entire room of someone who has a big imagination, but actually makes that imagination come to life.

Overall, this weeks exhibition was a great one.  Samuel gives his artwork a feeling of loneliness but at the same time the colors change that feeling to a happier tone.  In a way he was able to make the toys look as if they were happy when they were first used, but as the owner grew older and stopped playing with the toys, they changed their look and just look as if they are sad and lonely sitting around.

Name: Alanna Godinez

Website: alannagodinez.wordpress.com

This week I met a classmate named Alanna Godinez. She is a freshman at California State University of Long Beach, and she wants to major in psychology, she decided she wanted to major in psychology when she was in the ninth grade. She is currently working in the Norwalk Regency Theaters and only works in the weekends.  She does enjoy working there but sometimes she has her days when she does not want to be there and would rather be hanging out with her friends. Something that really caught my attention when we were talking is that she works at a theater, but she does not like to watch movies to much, she says she does not have time to sit down for two hours watching a screen.  She is very proud to be attending a four year university because she is the first person in her family to be attending a four year college.  Alanna is very easy to talk to, very friendly, and was a very nice person to meet.

Artist: Josh Vasquez
Exhibition: Vida / Morte
Media: Paint
Gallery: CSULB School of Art, Gatov Gallery West
Website: http://www.joshvasquez.com/
Instagram: @Joshybehr

Josh Vasquez is currently an undergraduate attending California State University Of Long Beach, Long Beach.  Though he was raised in Los Angeles Josh chose to attend Long Beach University because he loved the art experience they have. It may seem as though Josh has always been passionate about art that is certainly not the case, he did love to paint when he was a child but was not as passionate with his artwork as he is now.

Most of his artwork is just plain black and white, however he does have a unique story behind it as to what he says it is. The way he makes his artwork is by no means symmetrical, it tends to be random strokes here and there, but whats unique is that it has a deeper meaning to it only he understands.  Just about all of his work is two colors, that being black and white.  He does however have one piece of work that does have color.  This piece is called “La Flor Muerta” this piece laid out on the floor with different flowers, but mainly roses.  The flowers are all dead but there are some flowers that have color in them, there are some red, some blue, and even some orange flower colors mixed in. This art piece had gave me a dark and sad feeling, but seeing the small amount of color here and there gave me a happy feeling.

Josh’s inspiration to his work was a piece he creating that implemented both life and death, this was a image he mad that had a skull and an upside down flower.  In this artwork he had the words “it doesn’t have to be more than this” meaning that basically everything is life and death at this point.  This was also implemented with the colors, the black and white contrast with each other just as the skull and flower are two completely different things.While this art piece was created, Josh was in a meditative state. Although he was in a frustrated mood, he put his mind to a blank and focused more on what he had to do to his work.

After visiting Josh’s art room, it gave me a sense that art can come from anything, and even though it does not have to be a masterpiece with exquisite colors and extreme precision it can still be art and in a way it can have a great impact on someones life. Also, the only thing that matters in art is what you think about your art work it does not matter what other people think just as long as you put your heart and soul into it. I believe that there are many people who are like Josh and want to become an artist but struggle because they are too focused on what others might think, and to this I would say to just be yourself.