Patterns

When it comes to pattern work, Islamic art is the best. The architecture from its culture and religion is beautiful, intensified for their sharp eye for simplified yet complex patterns. Arabesque design work is an elaborate use of repeating geometric forms that represent plans and animals. Muslims believe that when these forms are tacken together, they constitute an infinite and uncentralized nature of the creation of Allah. Basically, Arabesque art conveys a definate spirituality without having iconography like in the art of other religions. The ancient Islamic people had five main shapes that they would manipulate to make many styles and designs. From looking at many patterns on tiled floors, wallcoverings, and prints, I think that the Native American and the Muslim are the masters when it comes to patterns in design. Of all art, patterns, simple or complex, makes the strongest and most solid composition.

(Richard Ettinghausen, Oleg Grabar, and Marilyn Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture, 650-1250. (New Haven: Yale UP, 2001), 66.)

Gestalt

(Art by Frederick S. Perls)

A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.

(cited from)
Modern Language Association (MLA):
"gestalt." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 27 Sep. 2007. .

Composition

Eco Jumble

When we come to college, most of us at least have this great idea of being able to jump straight into our dream careers as soon as we get a diploma in our hands. In reality its much more difficult than expected. I would love to use my art to build my career but I know that I have to have a wide range of skills to get up to that point. At the end of the day, I want to be able to spend some time to make what really gets my heart pumping. Sculpture is my dream. Being able to create something solid with my two hands always seems more real to me than using a computer. I'm a strong visual learner and I have to use my sense of smell, touch, and taste to figure out what it is that I want to create. Computers are useful and when it comes to design they are perfect, but they really just aren't for me when it comes to creating art. I'm going to have to use them to broadcast myself, that's for sure and it's something that I'm learning to do.
Many people today, besides material possessions, value a wide scope of knowledge. If a person can be knowledgeable on many different topics, then respect naturally follows. I've gotten to the age where I realize that so I'm starting to expand. Photoshop was tough but once I got into it, it was really enjoyable. I'm sure Illustrator will be the same, although as for my true calling in art, computer's really have no place unless I'm making a piece using found objects. History, writing, politics, world events, and sciences are other things that I'm looking into. Everyone should have at least a vague idea of whats going on in fields besides the ones that interest them. It's tough but we should give it a shot. That way if we need to be employed in a field besides art directly for what ever reason, there are many options. Art is something that will always stay with us and that we can come back to.

String Project :3

Class is always better when you can get up and actaully do something. I've never been big into computers so I really liked that we could make the entire room into the project... plus, string is cool. When I was younger I would often fill me room with string. The room is now a wonderful mess (minus the cleaning part) my only regret is that we didn't get as creative as we could have. The chairs could've been stacked much higher. It would've been really neat to have gotton some string up to the ceiling. Maybe the risk of breaking a light dissuaded most of us from attempting to throw the balls of yarn up. I really liked what Jamie and Emilia did with the pink string, weaving the string like a pink web was cool and it was neat how Emila thought to actually lay the string on the ground to make a picture.
I think that maybe if Brain had waited to tell us we had to clean it all up without cutting after we'd actually put string all over the room, we might have been a bit more crazy with our "lines". We should have encorporated more poeple into the work, like stringing them to the tables and stools. Maybe surrounding them with string so that it would look like they were in a cacoon. If we were allowed to do it again, it would be really neat to see how we adjust our methods. It might be more organized or even more chaotic, either would be interesting to see how it turns out. This definately surpasses an ordinary class setting. How many students can say they did their asignments while surrounded by string? We didn't think about it while we were going string crazy, but many people have string all over the chairs and in front of their computers. It's amusing to look around and watch as people try to bend around the string to type.

Line or Shape

I think that c and b could be considered really thik lines, however if I classified c and b as lines so could a and d. As for shapes, they all can classify as shapes as well. It mainly depends on how their used in an image. A simple line, to me, has to be continuing out on both ends into infinite. A line never ends (mathwise). In order for a shape to be a shape, that line has to actually connect to create a seperate, closed of space. Even then the line never truly ends. just keeps going around in a closed circuit.

Analyzed

At a first glance, Julie Mehretu’s Untitled Dervish (as seen to the left, made in 2005) seems so busy that it’s hard to decide where to look first after the piece first hits you. The swirling black mass of chaos definitely draws attention towards the center of the work because that’s where the black shapes seem the most concentrated. When it’s examined more closely, what at first appears to be a dark swirling cloud is really a mixture of lines and shapes that suggest an intense flurry of movement. It’s a nice contrast to the straight edge, architectural design in the background. Clean, colorful lines tie the foreground into the middle and back ground by weaving in and out of the “cloud” in the middle. A shape on the left hand side looks as though it is caught in middle movement, leaving a red line in its trail. All of the lines and forms in this piece are different and yet fit together to draw the work together.
To me, it looks like a blueprint of an air battle. The mass in the middle looks like an explosion and all the lines are the planned out routes of fighter jets on their way. It makes me think of World War One or Two, perhaps it’s because of the strange shape on the left that looks a bit like an old war plane falling from the sky. The mood of this piece is organization, yet so complicated it’s confusing, like how advanced physics would look like to a third grader. There are all these straight or neat lines that manage to blend in with this great big heap of jumbled shapes and lines. I think that Mehretu may be hinting at the idea of orderly chaos. The world seems organic and unorganized, but really everything follows a certain pattern. Over all I think that this piece is very successful. It’s eye catching but is capable of keeping the viewer entranced for more than a few seconds. A lot of time can go into examining this piece because there is so much, but it’s done in such a tasteful way that its not overwhelming.