Inside the Painters Studio by Joe Fig

How do the workspaces and routines of these artists support the work they do?
It was very interesting to see how different each artist works and what kind of atmosphere they need in to create their best works of art. One artist for example, Ross Bleckner needs complete silence when creating his artwork. He hardly leaves his apartment and cannot listen to the TV or radio. He works 7 days a week because that is the only way he can stay concentrated and stay in the rhythm of creating art work. For Mary Heilmann, the location of her studio really impacts her work. Her studio is in a barn and the wide open fields that surround her cause her to include a lot of green into her work. The barn and the wide open space surrounding the farm influence her to show the difference between deep space and flat space in her paintings. Alexis Rockman travel a lot to the Amazon and Long Island so location definitely influences his art work.

Which artist did you relate to the most and why?
I can relate to the artist Mary Heilmann. For her, the scenery really effects her paintings and I feel the same hold true to me. If I am in a place surrounded by mountains my art work will probably look different than if my studio were on a beach. Heilmann also takes breaks through out her day and is not working on her art work all the time. Similar to Heilmann, I cannot work on my artwork for an entire day. I am able to sit and work for 2 hours but I definitely need to take breaks and remove myself from my art work for a little bit. Lastly, Heilmann listens to the radio or her i pod while she works. I cannot work in a silent room, and I also need to be listening to music while I create my art work.

Looking at Artists Studios

I saw a lot of the same objects in most of the studio spaces. I noticed a lot of i pods, stereos, cluttered desks, sketch pads and coffee cups. All of these objects are very common objects that help people to focus and make art. I would probably have most of these objects in my art studio as well. Music and i pods were probably the most common object that I saw.

Me... The Senior Artist

When thinking about my process as an artist and my strengths I realized that a common theme was collages and mixed media.
When creating artwork, I have had the most success with using paper cutouts and magazine cutouts/pictures. Creating collages and mixed media pieces are definitely my strengths and favorite types of art work to create.
Although it was my hardest and most frustrating piece to create, I think my dice still life drawing stood out. Drawing is not my favorite or strongest medium to work with so it was definitely a struggle to create that piece. When thinking about my ultimate studio space I would like to be in an open spacious room with plenty of windows creating mixed media/collage pieces. I started creating art because I have a lost of fun doing it and it is a nice, relaxing break from a busy schedule. to music or the radio definitely help me when creating art work, but in order to create the most work possible I just need to try and stay very focused!

Symbolic Still Life

Opposite Project

End-of-term reflection

This course had many aspects to it that I enjoyed, but there were also some challenging projects. Although the still life assignment was the most difficult project for me, it taught me the most about myself as an artist. When I first began the project I did not believe in myself and did not think that I could create a good still life. I had some trouble in the beginning with drawing the simple outline of the dice, and was not looking forward to the project. Soon I was learning new techniques on how to draw lines and shade. Throughout this project I learned to push myself and take risks in my drawing. In the end, of was extremely proud of myself for the work I had accomplished. My biggest success this term was the opposites project. I love creating collages so I really enjoyed this project. In addition, I was able to come up with what I wanted the project to represent, and then execute it. Throughout this term I learned to take risks and do artwork in areas that I had previously struggled with, helping to change myself and grow as an artist. I opened up and became more adversed in other types of art that I had not previously been familiar with.

Language Project

My project is going to consist of text from songs covering all of the pages. They will be overlapping each other and will be in different fonts and colors. I will the paste movie covers and other well know images that represent community over the text. I am choosing text because I think I can create a sense of community through words, the pictures will symbolize this as well. Also with words, you can express many different aspects of community.

5/25
After completing one draft of this project, I decided to change my idea around a little. On the first attempt, the piece looked boring and you couldn't read any of the text. I then decided that I wanted to make the paper circular because that was the shape I thought related to community. I then wanted to cut the text so that viewers would be able to read it and I wanted the text the spiral in the same circular shape as the paper. Even though I was unable to finish the project it looks much better, and more interesting than my first attempt.