April 16, 2008
Hats- as influenced by Man Ray
What do hats mean to me?
• I though about this question and determined…….
• They symbolize protection…
From the sun
April 9, 2008
Carrie as influenced by Man Ray
April 3, 2008
Diary of a PhD Student: Semester 2, Week 7
“The Hermit represents the need to distance yourself from the people and events in your life that are causing undue strain on your emotions. There are times in your life when seclusion and isolation are warranted. The Hermit is a card of discovery and enlightenment, which can only develop by spending time alone with your thoughts. Your energy will be depleted quickly in social situations.”
Hildegard of Bingen, and Henry Giroux
This semester taking five PhD courses and working full time is really draining. I find that whenever I have any time off all I want to do catch up on missed rest. Attending my PhD classes and teaching is tiring and very physically demanding. It’s difficult to understand what happens in my head unless you have gone through it as well. When you are not working, you are attending class, or studying. A spare day is usually a homework catch up day. In addition I have extra responsibilities as Secretariat for the 2008 World Creativity Summit which takes up any spare time.
Nonetheless, this is a very intellectually and professionally fulfilling time and I would not trade it for the world. I’ve worked really hard to get to this point and many things that I’ve dreamed of are in process. Last week I found out that I’ll be publishing an article in Taiwan’s Journal of Life Education and this June I am going to apply to go to the National Arts Education Association conference in Minneapolis in 2009. Moreover, I am beginning to see what the focus of my PhD will be: Visual Culture. I’d like to study how the curriculum of Visual Culture is taught in Taiwan and link it to my own research on how images convey meaning at Huafan. I am also interested in the kind of images that visual culture educators choose to teach. Through that angle I would like to link my teaching of visual culture to my photography. Visual culture is about the cultural, emotional, commercial, and aesthetic connections that we all feel with images.
On Tuesday night I viewed the Madonna portfolio on Vanity Fair’s site. As I flipped through the images from the 90’s I all of a sudden was jolted into remembering the time in my life when I first viewed them. It is amazing how images can trigger memory and emotions. I also know that a lot of my photography is influenced by visual culture. Most often I am interested in taking photos of women and displaying my own interpretation of modern femininity. In part of my PhD I would like to chart how the visual culture of my youth influenced my outlook as an educator and photographer. Anyways these are just my current thoughts….
March 30, 2008
Diary of a PhD Student: Semester 2, Week 6
These images are an example of the sort of things that are filtering around in my head at the moment. They are taken from my Power Point presentation for Prof Jo Chen’s Research Methods class. The duality of teaching and learning. Praxis research. Experimental research. Action research. Marxism, Paulo Freire, Feminist research…..
March 30, 2008
Experiencing a brutal Roland Young crit
This semester the world famouse art director Roland Young is a National Taiwan Normal University teaching design on break from his day job at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design. According to an article writen by Colin Berry in the CMYK magazine Young has a reputation for being quite a harsh critic.
How did my crit go of the above photos go last week? Brutal! Brutal! Brutal! The photos were deemed superficial and meaningless. A technically proficient yet boring example of portraiture. “Artists have to have meaning they have to say something that other people can’t” emphasized Young. He asked the class what they thought about my photography. They thought it was crap. He asked me if one photo represented my childhood and told me that the trauma that I have experienced in life must come out through my art. Needless to say I almost cried. He spent a good twenty minutes laying into me. It was the worst art crit that I have ever experienced.
However, Young is right about the photos. They are superficial, meaningless, albeit technically proficient. However, it still stunk to have to stand there take in the lengthy crit.
Over the years, I have gotten emails from photographers sharing their images asking for positive feedback, asking for praise. It is easy to see why. Art is close to the heart and it hurts to have it rejected, especially in a lengthy public fashion.
Yet, I also know that as people and artists we can do the most growth through tough honest criticism. I understand that artists need to be pushed to actualize their vision and potential. Nonetheless, having a Roland Young crit is a tough experience to go through once a week. It is also a lot of pressure to come up with a masterpiece in a matter of days and have it sent to the printer and ready for Thursday morning. What is my next assignment?
Man Ray.
Would anyone like to model?
