Post Semester Post

Originally, when I started the class, I was very pumped to finally learn more about relating art to music. This has always been something I've been interested in. However, I felt that my expectations were quite different from the reality of the class. I think I came into the class expecting more of a studio class, working together with fellow classmates and having longer term projects. Although it was nice that the art making was a personal take, it would have been nice to spend some time learning how other people work -- not just the final product, but the process as well. 

In terms of the music, it is definitely music that I would not listen to on my own, so it was quite interesting. I learned a lot about the history of American music though, some coming from British poets, and some just coming from generation to generation with no one source. I had never thought about how music from the past is shared with us in the present -- the process of cataloging is both interesting and important to our culture. 

The speed at which the class went, I believe, was a bit too fast for me. Cranking out one project per week was difficult, especially since I do not have a studio space to work in. Sometimes I wanted to work with oil, but the drying time just took too long for weekly projects. So I think that slightly long-term projects is how I typically work -- many layers to a piece. But I think it was interesting to see what I could create given little time and little space. It made me think a little more outside the box in terms of what materials and what ideas I could work with. I will definitely use what I learned in my future art making, whether it be working with newspaper or working with glass. 

Week 13-14: Sea Shanties

Sea shanties are sailors songs that they sang while hard at work at sea.

When I think of sailors, I think of these musty colors, a raw canvas color, tans, browns, and muted blues and greens. These colors remind me of something used, something that has been worn down, but is still vibrant in its own way. Water damage, perhaps. I went for quite a literal translation of the sea shanties, as I do appreciate the structure of a ship on top of wild, uncontrollable and loose waters. As for the glass, I really enjoy the image of a ship in a bottle or a message in a bottle. These are both images that come to mind when I heard the songs. A ship in a bottle often contains the ship in its entirety, but I allowed the ship to extend past the glass because I feel as though such a powerful ship cannot be defined by physical limits.