Soviet Russia and The Bomb

Tomorrow morning yours truely is going to partake in a debate focused around the question of: "Did the US use the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as intimidation against the USSR during the post-war period." My team's side is the opposition to this point. While it is true that everyone who is on the affirmative side has easy access to this blog, I doubt anyone will read it anyways. Our main points for our argument is going to be that the United States had a clearer and more humanitarian standpoint during the era and would not have wiped out 200,000 citizens to simply gain an upper hand over another country (who we were allied with at the time!) It seems that this is the strongest counter-point against our opponets in this race. Due to the fact that many sites on the internet back our debate topic's claim, it became much more difficult to find reputable sites and sources that would help our team much at all, so what we had to do was simply buckle down and learn alot of background happenings before and during the beginnings of the Cold War. These findings let us draw many conclusions based upon the relations between the two countries during the time of the bombing and after.


I think that our team will do really well tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to Spring Break like crazy, so either way I win.

Making Pigments

Since I am almost ready to start my painting with tempera. I must first prepare myself for the painting process. In doing this I have taken it upon myself to make the pigments from scratch which I thought would be much more enjoyable. This past week I have so far made blue, white, and yellow, yellow being my most recent. In the making of yellow I used a combination of Potassium Iodide (KI) and Lead Nitrate Pb(NO3)2. After mixing the two seemingly clear formulas together we immediately saw the precipitate reaction causing them to turn into a bright yellow liquid that looked like ground up cheese.

As of right now I am still waiting for the yellow to solidify so that we can collect it for the final project. The whole process is really interesting and gives me a more interesting viewpoint on the manufacturing of synthetic pigments.

Interview with Liz Sisco

Earlier today I interviewed San Diego photographer artist and teacher, Liz Sisco. Liz offered me her ideas on the art world and art itself. I found it really cool to be able to go to a local Starbucks, sit down, and ask a seasoned verteran of photographic art (something I have a love for as well) about her thoughts. I was able to get inside her brain and understand where she was coming from in terms of her creative process and her final results. One of the major things that she professed was that there are no bad ideas when it comes to making a piece, any time that you make something that speaks to you and that you find important, don't critisize it, go with it.

By the end of the interview I felt that I had a lot better knowledge on how to begin the creative process and how I can apply this to my painting.

Interview Questions

For my upcoming adventure through making my own masterpiece I have decided that first interviewing a professional artist for his/her feedback and insights on the world "art" may be able to transpire through my final piece, and defiantly through my learnings. Here are some questions that I am playing around with for my interview:

• I noticed that you like to use numerous different mediums in your artwork, what is your favorite?
• What is it that makes art, art?
  
• What is your view on the importance of art in our era?
• What do you think are some of the most interesting contemporary art trends?
• How do you think the overall feeling of today's major art movements compare/contrast to those of old?
• Why do you think it is that art has been something that has survived for the time span of man?
• What is so critical in the connection of art and man?
• How do you make art that speaks to you but also gets sold?
• What is important to impart to new, upcoming artists, such as your students?

My Quest for Art

Pretty soon now I am going to be finalizing up my ideas put forth thus far, and deciding which piece that I want to recreate using the egg tempera art medium. I am a little hesitant about this last part though, due to the fact that most of my roughs included usage of water color (and all of its neat effects) it will be most difficult to recreate the work while doing it justice all the while.

First of all the main hurtle that I am going to need to overcome is putting my mind in the "zone". Understanding that I can and that I will is the most important thing when starting yourself off on a painting. Trying different techniques and practicing with the tempera is going to be a major helper for my project.

While I understand that it will be extremely difficult to perfectly recreate the little water splashes and streaks that I have come to love in my watercolorings, I also know that I can do it and still make it look above par, as long as I get my head in the right place.

The Inter-War Era

Was a stressful and tense period. The first World War had just ended with America's boldening clean-sweep finish that gave them the upper hand in world power. Suddenly our economy crashes sending the rest of the world spiraling downwards. The Great Depression breaks out and not soon after, Hitler is rebuilding Germany and building up a massive army that he plans to use for destruciton.

Obviously this wasn't the most peaceful of times and numerous forms of reflective art began to emerge. One particularly interesting genre of fine art, one highly endowed by my good friend Emlyn, was nothing short of the strange and weird: Dadaism which played on the senses and took your imagination for a ride.

Beginning in 1916, Dada art was a sort of social protest to colonolization (which they believed began the war) and conformity. Dadaism acted as a sort of "anti-art" that rivaled and re-thought the conservative fine art base.

Its popularity spike began to decline around 1920 and never again gained its wide following. I thought that this was the most interesting form of art correlating to social protest, it was even more special due to the fact that these ideaologies came to light during our first World War where most of society was highly conservative and conforming, and didn't appreciate anything outside of normal boudaries.

Source

Photography and Poetry

A dynamic duo if I do say so myself. Recently I had written a particularly touching poem (if I do again say so myself) that I was enticed to intertwine with my recent collection of landscape photography.

It is still a work in progress but felt compelled to share my journey thus far.

By blending my [minimal] skills in Photoshop CS2 and in landscape photography I felt that I was able to bring my words to life in a more emotional sense than with simply just a few choice words. By blending some key phrases and powerful/emotional pictures I feel that I am doing more justice to my favorite [thus far] poem.

What I tried to incorporate into each piece of work that I have done (six so far) is the sense of grandiocity and that my words can be bigger than simple text. Each line has a moment in time, each phrase carries its own weight in power and context.