Workshop with Michelle Swinehart

Day 1

     The first day working with Michelle was fun. We did an exercise based on the idea of speed-dating where you would sit across from someone and each person had about a minute to answer a question read by Michelle. While one person was talking, the partner wasn't supposed to say anything and just listen. After each person had answered you would move down a seat and get a new partner. It was cool to hear what everyone had to say, but sometimes it was really hard to hear the actual response because everyone was talking at the same time. It was also hard to not respond or actively participate to create a conversation rather than just listening to the other person.
     The second part of the day we did another exercise where you and one other person went somewhere in the art building and just had a 20 minute conversation about anything, but it had to be recorded. I went with Silverio to a room just around the corner and we had a conversation about school, hanging out, and our opinions about random things. I think that having a camera recording us made a little bit of a difference with what we decided to say because we didn't know if other people would eventually be listening to it. The last part of this exercise was to create a banner that represented how you wanted to remember or commemorate the experience you had with the other person and the conversation. For my banner I wanted to make it so different parts of the conversation were represented all together. I did this by taking random words that were brought up and making a funny sentence.

Day 2

     For the second day with Michelle we had to find someone in the art building and interview them for about 15 minutes while recording the conversation. Our goal was to find out if they liked to make things outside of school or at home. Silverio and I teamed up again and found a student in one of the classrooms who agreed to talk with us. He was very good at being interviewed because he gave extensive answers without Silverio or I having to prod him too much for information. The interesting things I learned about him were that his goal is to design his own comic book and that he likes to hang out with his friends, but he's very focused on the program and schooling he is doing at UW so he ends up working on art a lot of the time. The last step in this exercise is the edit the video and present it as a sound clip in class in an artistic way.

My Sound Clip:
     After editing the clip and listening to it multiple times I came up with the idea of changing the pitch of the voices to sound like a chipmunk. This idea came from the information about the student's desires to do animation and make comic books and I wanted to embody those aspirations in the dialog. It was meant to be kind of funny and not so serious since what he wants to do is slightly whimsical and light hearted. For presenting in class I matched the audio up with a video of a cartoon being speed painted. It looked cool when I was testing it out at home, but once it was in front of a lot of people in a big classroom, the quality was poor and did not work as well as I had hoped. Thinking about other ways to have gone about doing this project I would have changed a few things. First, I would have considered not altering the voices. Second, I would have matched the audio with one of the student's own drawings instead of a video found online, or I would collect copies of some of his cartoon drawings to make my own version of a comic book to be looked at while listening to the audio.

https://soundcloud.com/cbritt29/edited-cartoon-interview

Video Editing Project

Directions:
1. Record audio of 10 complaints (could be anything)
2. Upload audio onto computer
3. Use program to cut video into 10 separate clips
4. Share clips with everyone
5. Edit clips from other people to create a new sequence of complaints

My Complaints:
     I decided for my recording that I did not want to use my own voice or show myself. To solve this problem I used a text to speech program to say my complaints (the robot who reads my text is named Anna). My complaints are very girly complaints that you may hear a "girly-girl" saying, but these don't necessarily represent me.  To compliment the girly theme I found a YouTube video called "How to be a Girly Girl" and recorded my audio with the video playing. It's funny to watch the teenage girls and hear the robot voice (noticing the mouth movement definitely doesn't match the audio).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijGMvmLDV18&feature=plcp

Complaint Mashup:

http://youtu.be/B2-K0TUk75M

100%

Communities Project: New Ideas

     The ever-growing masterpiece idea started to look unrealistic when considering the space and time limitations on this project. It would be necessary to have a space all year long in order to allow all IVA students to display pieces and there would be a constant need of providing information to remind students that this piece existed. However, I think my idea fits well with the idea of having an IVA gallery using room 207 in the art building. This way IVA students are still coming together to display their art and can view it as a community.

Ideas for display:

.I think it'd be nice to display the 2D art in a salon style. This would still create the effect of having all the pieces represent one larger piece because the entire wall would be covered with 2D art. This style of hanging would also prevent the viewer's eyes from focusing on just one piece, but allow them to see all the pieces as a whole.

.3D work can be displayed on pedestals set in front of the display walls as Lauren depicted in her room layout on the go-post

.Any video projections can be displayed against the wall with windows (we can tape a large sheet of white paper in one section to create a solid background)

.Music pieces can be played over speakers using laptops or iPods

*In order for people to get to know the artists better there should be a non formal artist statement with every piece that provides fun and interesting information about the artist. There can also be a guest book where viewers and artists can provide contact information and say which piece was their favorite (possible prize for piece with most votes)

*T-shirt design project may also be in action this evening

Logistics:

.Announcement of this event will be made at the reception on 10/22
.Fliers will be handed out in classrooms and posted
.Art needs to be turned in by IVA students to room 207 on 10/29 or 10/31 from 2:30-6 p.m.
.Gallery opening will be 11/5
     -Food, refreshments, music

Communities Project: First Ideas

Directions:
1. Think of a project that will help build/bring together the IVA community

My Ideas:

General concept - create an ever-growing masterpiece that IVA students add to throughout the year

. Throughout the school year, IVA students who choose to participate will create a work of art (i.e. painting, sculpture, photograph, etc.) out of a tangible medium of choice.

. In the designated space, such as a gallery in the School of Art or a classroom in the building, IVA students will bring in their piece of work and attach it to pieces that have already been created and placed as part of the every-growing masterpiece.

. After adding the piece of art to the collection, each artist would sign the ever-growing masterpiece in a designated area.

. At the end of the year there will be an event for IVA students to come together and view the final masterpiece created by the collaboration of all the works of art brought in through the year. Students can bring home their work or trade with fellow artists.

* Creating a collaborative piece will help create a sense of community in the IVA major because of everyone being able to participate towards a common thing (the growing masterpiece). At the end of the year when the piece is viewed, everyone can see who contributed and meet the fellow artists.

Documentation:
. Photographing the masterpiece monthly and at the end of the year to capture the final piece. 

Preparation:
. Finding a space where IVA students can start placing their art to build the masterpiece
. Designing the space to be able to display all the pieces of art

Logistics:
. Sending out information to IVA students about the project (fliers, emails, class announcements)
. Making sure the space is going to be secure for students to leave their work
. Need people to participate and provide their art

Potential Outcomes:
.It's possible that only a few people will participate and the ever-growing masterpiece will be very small by the end of the year
.Hopefully a lot of people will participate and a giant installation of individual art will showcase the talent in the major
.This project may combine with another project and become something a little different
     -Could combine with Tiran's idea of having a space created for IVA students to hang out and relax
     -Could combine with Lauren's idea of decorating this IVA space with the art made by IVA students
          *This would create a more individual perspective of the art instead of a big collaborated piece, but it would be an easier format of displaying the art and may be more appropriate for the space we are creating for the IVA students

Postcard Project: Parts 1 & 2

Directions:
1. Go around UW campus and take pictures of places you find personal and meaningful to you
2. Choose two best images
3. In your group select one image to be the postcard printed (my group: Blaine, Cassaundra, and myself)
4. Use postcard in selected project (i.e. Send postcard to someone you love, send postcard to art school closing in Greece, etc.)

My two images:


Parnassus Cafe




Bench on walkway by Guggenheim Hall

      I chose these two locations because they are places where I have gone in the past to meet up with friends, catch up on some homework, or grab a bite to eat. Parnassus Cafe provides a cozy environment where you can buy a coffee or snack and sit to do homework or talk with friends. It's fun to hear all of the art students talking about their projects. The bench by Guggenheim Hall has a good view of the fountain, but is just set off the busy pathway so it's usually a peaceful place to sit.

Group selected image:

Tree in UW medicinal Garden (image by Blaine)

    We chose Blaine's image as a group for our postcard because we liked the perspective of looking up the trunk and through the branches. One of the aspects about UW is that there is nature all around campus and sometimes it's nice to find a spot in the grass or under a tree to rest and do homework.

Postcards:
    Each group chose an image to be the front of the postcard. As a class we decided not to have any text on the front and on the back included the text "University of Washington Students of Social Practices in Art" as well as a QR code giving the unique location of each image on campus. As a class we also had to decide how we were going to use the postcards and how we wanted to print them (we decided to have them printed professionally using money from our budget).

After thoughts:
     This project was fun and challenging. It really made the class work together to come up with a single idea of formatting and within the individual groups we had to compromise on one image out of six possible choices. It was fun going around campus to take the pictures and to see where other people felt their personal space was and how they wanted to portray it. I'm looking forward to the last part of the project when we get to use the postcards.

20 Image Autobiography

Description:
1. Choose 20 images from Flickr that you are drawn to
2. Create a PowerPoint autobiography using these 20 images

Autobiography:


I was born in 1992 when shortly after fireworks across the country welcomed me into the world.




I grew up in a medium sized family in West Seattle where I learned the ABCs of growing up from my way cool older sister who taught me that being rebellious was how to get places in life.




Although I appreciated her wise teachings, we proved to be very different and I tended to be more docile growing up.




Some things I have always loved doing are playing soccer, snowboarding, and traveling.




In high school I was lucky enough to travel to Scandinavia where I played soccer for 3 weeks.




The boys over there start caring about their hair at a very young age.




This trip is important to me because I got to learn about new cultures, meet people from all over the world, and appreciate coming home to the states.



This past year I also got to travel to Hawaii for the first time. After recovering from my boyfriend flipping our kayak, I enjoyed the many colorful birds and fish as we journeyed to Captain Cook's monument.



I try to be adventurous in my life, however I've always been envious of how relaxing it must be to be a cat: sleep...get pet...go back to sleep...get pets while sleeping...sleep...sleep...eat...sleep.




Last year a rescued a kitten from Ellensburg and brought him home. He is a great little companion.





Although I've grown up having cats as pets, I always tried to convince my parents to let us have a dog. How can you say no to those puppy eyes? 



I guess in life you can't always have what you want unless it's cotton candy because that is one of my favorites.



I have tried many times to emulate the cotton candy colored sunsets in my paintings, but haven't gotten it quite right yet.




One of my favorite things to paint is representational abstracts.




After watching the show Cake Boss for a whole summer I did consider using my art skills to become a cake decorator.




Right now I'm kind of on the wire about what I want to do after college.



I decided to come to UW because I knew there would be many windows of opportunity for me here.

I love the UW campus because I am inspired by nature in many aspects of my art. I feel fortunate to be able to walk to class and see trees, mountains, and the water.

A funny experience I had while walking to class one time was seeing a bird harassing a squirrel in the bushes for food.

In a couple of years I will have to say goodbye to college, but I am hopeful for what my future holds.

After Thoughts:
      I expected the autobiography to be easier than it was. I figured since the story was about my life and I chose the pictures, I'd have no trouble putting a short bio together. I found myself staring at the pictures trying to decide what I wanted to share with the class. I realized that I began to include a lot of information about art and I'm assuming I did this because it was for an art class. It was enjoyable to see things people had in common and how creative each autobiography was.