As a fan of films, I was excited to listen to Mr. Ross’s lecture about his journey. In his talk, he shared his background of art and several experiences in his art journey. After that, he talked about how to make comics, and gave us several of his steps and ideas when creating comics. Later on, he introduced how to design characters which are based on actual novels. He demonstrated his sketch designs of some characters that he created in detail. Well, I do not have a background in drawing, and I realized that his talk focused on digital/hand-drawn graphic design. However, personally, I agreed with his idea about the use of storytelling. I think because of his film making background, he has expertise in the use of the storyboard to tell the story visually and statically through comics.
Based on his talk, I want to point out several thoughts that I am interested in exploring. First, when it comes to talk about “art as work”, what do people think about it? What do artists think about it? If I did not listen wrongly, Rick did not find a job after graduating from film school. Since my undergraduate program was filmmaking, I did experience that problem after graduation in China in 2014. As far as I know, it is extremely difficult to find a filmmaking job, especially for females, because this job is stressful with heavy work loads, day and night, so the employers do not like to hire females. Despite this point, it is complicated to respond to “art as work”. I have read an article titled The Paradox of Art as Work. It talks about the relationship between art and money which is fraught with entanglements and complexity. As the author of the article stated, “The idea that everyone can be an artist — making stuff that can be shared, traded or sold to a self-selecting audience of fellow creators — sits awkwardly alongside the self-contradictory dream that everyone can be a star.” That is why I do not treat myself as an artist, while I treat art as a part of my life and my sincere friend, because I can display my ideas through art. It is very safe in the world of art. Second, the lecturer encouraged students to use references. He asserted that he routinely does a lot of research before he designs a character. He felt like it was rewarding to utilize references, and sometimes they give people some inspiring and creative ideas. Certainly, he thought that there is no need to recreate something, instead, use it as you need it. Meanwhile, he recommended to use the mirror as the tool to get new insights about designing characters. He believes that comics come from mirrors. What an encouraging and thought-provoking way! I think I may use this method when I am creating something in the future. Finally, at least, I learned something insightful from him and it is time to search for some information about comics, because I seldom read comics.
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It was meaningful to listen to Gealen McCartney’s talk which was full of enlightening and inspiring ideas about political arts and social justice. In the beginning, he briefly introduced his background including his experience in studying in a diverse school and working in a diverse society. As an artist, he loves to listen to people’s stories. He described the first piece of work which is a black weaving. He claimed that the artwork is a space to remember someone (especially black people) who have lost their lives. He demonstrated the ways in which todays’media is prejudicial. When white people pass away, the media describes how good they have been. While if a person of color dies, the media describes how bad he/she has been . He then continued describing his other works which are four weavings. They are yarn of black and white twining together. I am more interested in another exhibition of his which are Elementary school sixth grade students’ drawings and writings. He asserted that those drawings and writings were students’ responses to the police in their communities and what they thought about the police. Gaelen demonstrated his ideas about students’ works, namely that kids are aware of issues happening in society and have their own thoughts about them. However, do parents ask kids what their thoughts are concerning the issues? When observing the students’ works, the majority of them have positive attitudes towards the police, while a few had different ideas. Gaelen used a drawing of a girl crying to emphasize this idea. He suggested that observers need to think about what was going on in her heart. On the other hand, he pointed out that most of the students’ works reflect what is really currently happening in their lives. It did not come from the social media. Their drawing came from reality as seen by their own eyes. When someone asked Gaelen what was the most difficult thing for him, he then claimed that it is taking his stance, and convincing others to embrace his opinion or ideas. . The artworks are what he believes in and they are what he wants to talk about. Moreover, he stated that he did a lot of research before starting to create the black weaving. Furthermore, he considered that it is a challenge to make political artworks, because he needs to think about the stance and type, however, he did not want to do so in an aggressive way, instead, he wants to have a a healthy open conversation. During the talk, I had several thoughts related to Gaelen’s ideas. First, I am an art education graduate student and of course I want to be an art teacher in the future. However, it is difficult to teach an art class which is portraying race, or racism. It is a very sensitive topic in today’s America. I want to share a recent experience when I was teaching Chinese language in Smithton middle school. It was the beginning class and all students and my co-teacher watched a video talking about China and Chinese people. At the end of the video, the narrator said, “Chinese people, with yellow skin and black eyes, sincerely welcome you to China”. After that a black student asked me why Chinese people described themselves with “yellow skin”. I did not know how to respond to this student. After the class my co-teacher who is a black person was kind and reminded me that race is a subtle issue among the Americans. If I am directed to teach this kind of art interpretation, I should say I am worried about the reaction of students. But all students should know that stereotypes seriously affect American people when they interpret visual images, especially the stereotype of African Americans. As Terry Barrett says, “the black male, even with hair picked and adorned with a necktie, will never outride the connotations of the images with which he has been identified.” Second, I am thinking about students’ drawings and writings, I believe that those works came from their real life experiences. I would prefer to, however, point out that the social media directs and manipulates a number of people. I have been working on a research named The Image Construction Research of “The Mainland Bride” From the Taiwan Media which is talking about how media in Taiwan describes the mainland bride and how the media has directed and changed Taiwanese’s thinking. Actually my ideas were enlightened and gained inspiration from several researchers who were working on the image construction of black people. In 1994, American scholar Robert M Entman made a study of the African-American image in the television news and pointed out that the handling of reports about white Americans were mostly with positive images, while when reports included blacks they tended to be passively negative, including the image of drug use, fights and other stereotypes. Such negative reports also prompted the outbreak of African-American civil rights movement. However, “the US media habitually use binary opposition to construct descriptions of the civil rights movement, copying the standard value of the American press: noble and evil, justice and illegal, North and South”. So in the eyes of American society, the black civil rights movement is a synonym of evil and unlawful. Third, I think that the political artworks are risk-taking, because the artist assumes the risk of becoming embroiled in controversy. I admire Gaelen who is constant in his belief and he has created political artworks which present his own stance towards the world. However, I am hesitant to do some political artworks since I am an international student in the U.S. I think I am not eligible to create some political artworks to reveal my values. I do not want to be involved in a controversial situation. All in all, I learned a lot from Gaelen, certainly, I learned some different ideas from the guests in this talk. I believe everyone has his/her own ideas towards to the world, however, we need people to listen to each one. Get your concerns heard!
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