In Depth: Little Crane Comfort Pack

Container and Text Proposal: Comfort Pack

Response to Miami Book Fair Event #2

     Today, Sunday the 20th, I attended the Child's-Eye View: Memories and Memoirs of Youth panel, where Emil Ferris, Tom Hart, and Meags Fitzgerald discussed this subject and relating it to their most recent works. Towards the beginning of the session, Emil Ferris provided a great response to the opening question "Why kids?"; she responded with, "The perspective of a child is a very pure perspective, they get to see things in the periphery." I highly agree with this statement and can relate to it because I've been spending a lot of time with my two younger cousins lately (one is two and the other one is five) and just being around them and observing how they interact with their surroundings is rather refreshing. They remind me that a lot of these superficial things that we worry about is 100% fiction. I was interested in the the different backstories of the authors' that inspired these memoirs. All three of them approached the task of telling a story differently but they could all agree on one thing when it comes to boiling all of the ideas that they're trying to convey down to one piece, they all agreed that one must keep the hand and mind busy, live in the moment(in the work) and find a way.
     Hearing each of the three of the authors explain their method approach and choices of mediums further informed me about our current topic. They all tailored their mediums to best portray his narrative as effectively as possible. Emil Ferris' story is about a young girl living in 60s Chicago so she chose to use regular paper and a ball point pen to illustrate her whole book to give it a diary-like quality. Tom Hart acknowledged that he was technically not the most talented illustrator so he relied on his strong sense of drive to carry his narrative all the way through, he said that he enjoys letting "the brute attempts work its way out". In her graphic novel "Long Red Hair", Meags Fitzgerald uses duo-tone to color her story; she chose to do so because the her main character deals with two sense of self and the duality of things, that's why I think it's so interesting that she considered the push and pull factor that the duo tone would create.

Response to Miami Book Fair Event #1

     On Saturday the 19th I attended the panel where Art Spiegelman and Charles Kochman discussed and celebrated Si Lewen's work titled "Parade: An Artist’s Odyssey". During this panel I learned that wordless stories quickly gained popularity after World War I and how Frans Mazreel and Lynd Ward were prominent pioneers of this genre; to me, this new piece of knowledge reinforced the belief that great art results from times of turmoil. Spiegelman briefly told Si Lewen's life story and the part that caught my attention was when Spiegelman revealed that Lewen was once a very successful painter but the darkness from his experiences with war caught up; this darkness that returned prompted Si Lewen to turn his back on the commercial galleries to make art that fulfilled his personal goals. An ideology that Si Lewen proposed to Spiegelman is that, "Art is not a commodity, art is priceless"; by following this idea, Lewen was able to paint more prolifically than ever, or as Spiegelman would put it, "better in many ways".
     Upon receiving permission from Si Lewen himself to remaster "Parade: An Artist’s Odyssey", Spiegelman decided to introduce the new version of the book in an accordion fold format. Not only did this format catch my attention because of our recent workshop in class, but the reason behind it helped me further understand relationships between narrative and the structure in which it is presented in. Si Lewen's intention for the book was for the " pictures to talk to each other" and the format does just that. Another thing that stuck to me was the actual gist of the narrative in "Parade: An Artist’s Odyssey"; the images in this book tells a story about "man's perpetual desire to destroy himself, about a generational affair with love and war, eventually people get exhausted and move on, and then it starts up again, a new parade towards destruction and war", said Spiegelman. It's amazing how this story is still so relevant in present day. 

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I got the chance to talk to Art Spiegelman himself on Sunday. We
talked about Si Lewen's idea that "pictures talk to each other" and he
gave me some advice for my art practice.

Small Work #2

The words that I chose from the story-building exercise were: intrigue, significant other, and escape.

A New Article from the New York Magazine by Jerry Saltz

On his recent Instagram post he states: 

read my latest @nymag piece "In the Time of Our Clusterfuck: What of Art Now" 

http://www.vulture.com/2016/11/post-election-pain-is-good-for-art.html

Narrative: Small Works #1

Response to "What is Comics Poetry"

     In this essay, Alexander Rothman gave me a pretty good idea of what comics poetry is. I have become more conscious of this form of work recently and have also began to see it manifest more and more around me; I've also noticed that this form of work has always intrigued me subconsciously but I never really knew how to approach it.  My understanding is that poetry and comics are difficult to comprise on their own; this new form combines both mediums and I now realize how they can seem simple at a glance but are actually "exceptionally difficult" as Rothman stated. Now that I am recalling my encounters with comics poetry, the first thing that comes to my mind is Ida Applebroog's artists' books. I deeply appreciate the exposure to Ida Applebroog's books towards the beginning of WARP because I think it was one of those things that really helped me push my ability to be aware of this "subjective bridging" that occurs in art.

      Alexander Rothman illustrates how one can go about reading comics poetry by proposing questions like "What are the effects of these choices and their repetition?" under some of the examples he gave; we must be aware of the "visual choices" of these works as we would be with any other works of art. Knowing this makes me think of Chris Ware as a true pioneer of this form of work. Chris Ware brought his bountiful knowledge of visual arts into his comics; when creating them he asked questions like "When you have all the tools of visual arts at your disposal, then why put words in balloons?". Ware also choses to avoid using perspective in his comics because to him it doesn't "effectively translates the way we remember physical space into the two-dimensional form of ­comics" (from an interview with The Paris Review). The introduction to this form of work really reinforces how important it is for us to stray from our habit to quickly consume information around us like we were shaped to but instead slow down and really try to understand works of art and as Rothman puts, "walk a mile or two in someone else's brain."

Miss Hokusai (movie)

If anyone wanted to watch the animated movie "Miss Hokusai" that was on the presentation for the Narrative: Telling Stories unit, I highly recommend it. It's a beautiful film, here's a link to watch: http://gogoanime.io/sarusuberi-miss-hokusai-episode-1

screen-cap from the movie

In-Depth: City of Baucis

I chose to depict the city of Baucis from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. The final piece was done in oil, a medium I practiced using in my Street and Garden pieces.

The Garden

For this small work assignment I decided to visit Vizcaya because I've heard many great things about it. It was a windy overcast day and Vizcaya was tranquil space; I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. Towards the back of the garden I saw a piece of reflective mylar hanging among the vines. Its placement seemed intentional and caught my attention so I incorporated it into my final piece (it read more like flowing drapery in critique).

Poetry: "The Garden"

                                                                                                                            Nguyen Vu
                    The Garden

     Winds blowing, pushing the surface
     of the crystal clear pool,
     I went to the renaissance-styled garden,
     where the scent of the ocean
     and the billowing gray clouds
     cloaked the manicured terrain.

     The structures of marble, and stone
     stand sturdy; the sun raises
     the green luscious vines.
     The carved angels frolic about
     in white, loveliness flaunting. Along the paths
     the palms danced--
     ethereal beings, lightening the landscape.
     Through the storms, subsequent delicacies
     will remain.

         

Response to Visionary Metropolis: Tony Garnier's Une Cité Industrielle

     The amount of work that Tony Garnier has produced for Une Cité Industrielle shows how obsessive he is about bringing this idea of a modern city, that was planned to be virtually utopian, to  life. Considering what the citizens of this city would want, Garnier depicted every single intricate detail in the architectural floor plan and also in the specific sketches of different areas of the city (residential zones, industrial zones etc.) I must admit at first glance his renderings do just seem like pretty architectural illustrations but as I looked closer the small texts revealed that in creating this ideal metropolis, Garnier was considering the needs of every individual that would live in this society.
    Not only did Garnier and his peers create proposals for a "greener" society, they also brought to light the flaws of industrialization. In Pierre Paulus' piece The Industrial Region, the portrayal of the smog billowing out of the factory chimneys caused me to almost smell the toxic fumes. I can not begin to imagine what life was like to for people like Tony Garnier during the industrial revolution. Yes everything around you is advancing at a rapid rate and society is improving, but at what cost? Humans were beginning to be less and less considerate of environmental degradation that was also occurring and that drove Garnier (and many other "designers and reformers") to propose a change for the better. To me, Une Cité Industrielle is a fine example of how one person was able to process and synthesize the information around him and turned it into a proposal to revamp society.

Une Cité Industrielle

Plate 123, Habitation [Dwelling], from Une Cité Industrielle, 1917

Poster, Le pays industriel, De nijverheidsstreek
[The Industrial Region], 1911
Pierre Paulus
Chromolithograph

Response to The Discipline of Nature: Architect Alfred Browning Parker in Florida

     Upon finding out that Alfred Browning Parker was an environmentally conscious architect, I immediately thought of Frank Lloyd Wright. I later found out that Parker was indeed inspired by Wright's trailblazing "organic architecture" ideology (I am rather familiar with Wright's work because my high school was very close to Florida Southern College, home of the world's largest single-site collection of Wright's architecture.) From reading a small section in one of Parker's journals that were in display, I could tell that he is very consistent with his practice and it shows in his marvelous architectural feats. In one of his journals he noted, "Efficiency is largely a matter of concentration. Health is an important factor. Keep resiliency and energy. Excess energy". With a mindset like this,  Alfred Parker always stayed conscious about his surroundings and continued to incorporate it into his work throughout his long career.
     When looking at Alfred Parker's work, I noticed that the nature(plants, flowers, bodies of water) and man made buildings in his renderings are always unified in a natural way. In some/most of his drawn models and sketches, Parker illustrates each building in a whole landscape, and gives each of them an environment to coexist with. Even after reaching celebrity status, Parker continued to innovate knowing that he has gotten to a point where he can continue his practice on a national level.

Adobe Villas

Caribbean Projects

Belin Residence #2, Coconut Grove, 2059

World Trade Center Project

The Street/ "a SoFlo afternoon"

During critique my peers identified that my color usage to convey mood was a strength; I plan on using color to convey mood for The Garden as well.

Research of Images for List on Board

*Buckminster Fuller: an American architect, worked from late 1920s to 70s.

* Ha-has: Can be found in formal gardens, grounds of grand estates.

*Parco dei Mostri: Located in Bomarzo in the province of Viterbo, in Northern Lazio, Italy. Created during the 16th century.

*Roman Forum: Originally a market place in Ancient Rome, built by  multiple emperors(from emperor Julian to Trajan), Started being built in 29 BC.

*Boboli Gardens: Located in Florence, Italy. It's construction began in 18th century.

*Jardin du Luxembourg: Located in Paris, France and built in 1612 as a commission for Marie de' Medici.

*Tivoli Garden or Villa de'Este: An Italian Renaissance garden in Tivoli, Italy, made during the 16th century.

*Bernini's Four Rivers: Designed in 1651 by Bernini and Pope Innocent X. This fountain is located in  Piazza Navona, Roma, Italy. 

* Jean Dubuffet's Jardin d'E maille: Made in 1974 and is currently in the Rijksmuseum, Netherlands.

*Stowe Garden: An 18th century garden located in  Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England.

*Stourhead Garden: An 18th century garden located in Mere, Wiltshire, England.

* Lincoln Memorial: This national monument is located in the National Mall, Washington D.C and was in construction from 1914 to 1922.

*Viscaya Museum: Named after early Spaniard " Bel Viscera". This villa belonged to James Deering, a business man, and served as his winter residence. It was in construction from 1914 to 1923.

*Fairchild Tropical Gardens: Established in 1936 by Robert H. Montgomery. He named the garden after his friend, David Fairchild ( who retired in Miami).

Response to “Green Dreams”

    This text is laden with historical references and allusions; I found myself having to look up a lot of what Harbison was referring to as I tried to decipher the reading. All of the extra research was tedious but I was determined to get as much as I can out of the reading and I actually found the new bits of knowledge to be rather rewarding. I've learned that a garden can carry a powerful monologue, it can be an intellectual space that can possess a plethora of symbolism.
     Two things really stuck to me from this passage: Harbison's allusion to Piranesi and Raphael's artwork in context with this "garden" topic. I've actually never heard of Piranesi before and discovering his work through this text was a real treat. There is a certain atmosphere that Piranesi manages to create in each of his elaborately rendered etchings and I can't stop studying the details in them ( I can see MC Escher possible drawing inspiration from Piranesi's Imaginary Prisons.) The comparison between the Stourhead temple and the one in Raphael's Marriage of the Virgin helped me understand how a building can bring "higher meanings" to their surroundings, in this case, a Renaissance painting and an English garden.

Carceri d'invenzione or Imaginary Prisons
Piranesi

Marriage of the Virgin
Raphael

Temple of Apollo, Stourhead

In-Depth: Thriving

As I was sketching out and brainstorming for this project, a specific memory came back to me. When I used to live at home I would always try to grow and nurture small plants and no matter how much I cared for them they would always die; my dad would then scold me and tell me "Trồng cây cột điện cho nó sướng" which roughly translates to "Why don't you just grow a telephone pole so it won't die to save your breath. This little anecdote of mine prompted me to explore with this idea for the metamorphosis project. 

Post-Critique:
I learned that this is more of a representation of transformation and is unresolved in terms of the transformation aspect of the assignment. Needs further exploration.