i know a lot of us have trouble coming up with ideas that we feel (& we feel our professors will feel...) are original. so i wanted to share this site Blaine shared with me that made me feel a whole hell of a lot better...
Constantin Brâncuși Sleeping Muse :: Roy Lichtenstein Sleeping Muse
Jeff Wall A Sudden Gust of Wind :: Katsushika Hokusai Travellers Caught in a Sudden Breeze at Ejiri
a lot of them are directly commenting on the other piece (like the two above) while some appear to be nothing more than coincidence.
a few years ago while in New Orleans we visited the studio of a guy named Steve Martin. he showed us these figurative wire sculptures he had displayed. then a time later, came to find out that Alexander Calder had basically already done that exact same thing years ago. & i decided that i no longer liked Steve Martin. it was all way too derivative of Calder, (& also Picasso in his other work) right? but in reality like Mr. Dickey always says "art is not made in a vacuum". everyones work is influenced by the past, some artists are just a lot more upfront about it.
i also made a playlist of covers i like that surely nobody will ever watch.
I remember when Kanye was just a cool guy making music. I still love him though his ego has grown tremendously. I ran across some of his older videos & decided to post the ones that have illustration & typography.
Then there's this fancy video that's also informative (If you're curious about what it means)
so
we just talked about Bauhaus a bit in 20th century this week. It's
something i was a bit familiar with after a presentation i did in my
literature class (not entirely sure how i got away w/ that topic but
anyways...) it was such an influential school & so many great things
came of it, things that are still so present & relevant today. I
found this cute little video to sum things up for anyone unfamiliar.
the following pieces are just a couple random ones i saw on my tumblr & wanted to share by Josef Albers & Paul Klee respectively. (both of whom taught at Bauhaus) Josef Albers is someone i think i personally could benefit from reading up on. I never really thought his work was "exciting" so i never really sought it out but looking at it now it feels much more important & special than i initially realized.
Albers also went on to teach at Black Mountain College which has always seemed to me this like... mythological playground for talented people.
Albers teaching at Black Mountain College
anyway! all that to say... so many notable artists attended school at Bauhaus & at Black Mountain College & so many have studied together at places like Yale (where Albers ALSO taught). I just find it endlessly fascinating the connections you can draw between successful artists from way back whether it be through their muses (like Joanna Hiffernan w/ Whistler & Courbet), locations (like Provence), educational institutions or through personal relationships (the list goes on).
i think the whole synthesis thing has been a bit of an abrupt challenge for some of us (myself included), trying to figure out what our voice is especially as we're exploring all these different disciplines, but we're lucky to be in a place where we're able to get so much one-on-one feedback from professors & i think these two schools provide a very good, healthy example of how interacting with not only your teachers but your peers can create an environment that just... swirls with artistic energy. like, i know some of us were iffy last semester (again, myself included) about these collaborative projects the newbies are being allowed to execute but i think the faculty may be onto something in getting us to bounce ideas off one another & have a hand in something that's kind of bigger than ourselves. ...if that makes any sense but i also think there has to be a certain amount of freedom in it & willingness and energy on our part to learn & share knowledge, and feed off one another to create things. okay. end rant. sorry.
here's a little playlist i made of a few related videos
i knew anybody scrolling the blog probably won't watch unless they care enough to click this link.
