Questions

Some "home-play" questions that Jimmy assigned for us to write on our blog. These are actually some things I've always had in the back of my mind. It was cool to see the TED talk from the writer of Eat, love, prey. She talked a lot about things that've been in my mind since I gotten serious about myself as a "creative being." and these questions are what she talking about.
I always knew there was a "creative demon" in me.



Questions:
Have you experienced your own or other people's fear-based reactions to your creative education and career choices?

To answer the question is simplest terms, hell yeah. There are so many discouragements I have came across as a
creative being in general. I've gotten so many looks when I would tell everyone what I was majoring in. Like they pity me for choosing such a awfully competitive industry or the less stable job. It was also things like coming up with a generation of Internet that made it harder to be recognize as an artist/photographer. Ive always had a strong feelings about what I'm doing and that I'm doing it for myself. I'm not basing decisions on whether I can become rich or if other people approve. There is a lot to fear in this industry. But then again there's a lot to fear in life to.

How have you successfully overcome these reactions?

I don't think it is possible to fully overcome all those big fears. I just think I've come to realize that the reason why I choose this lifestyle is so I could be happy.
When I was younger I always assumed that you were suppose to choose something that made you happy. That you were suppose to want to wake up and enjoy going to your job. I did realize that life isn't that simple when your bombarded with life and its problems. I'm lucky enough that I started at a young age and that nothing is stopping me to complete goals that I had at 16 years old.

What is your concept of your creative process?

I have yet to develop a strong process to my creative process. So far when I get a great idea it comes from my everyday life. Whether I'm driving to school, listening to a certain album for the millionth time, out with my friends or actually trying to inspire myself by other artist.
I do like to sit down for a couple minutes when I have an idea and write things that I want from the idea. If I have specific choice of color or what I'm trying to convey. For the most part, I learn the best from trial and error. I now see that it is important to put more thought and effort into developing a concept. I hope to find a way that works best for me and have a solid base for my ideas.

How do you approach creating, making?

When I approach the creating process it is most likely something I've been feeling that day or even month. If I've had a bad week, I'll go for a more somber feel in my work. If I've had a weird dream, I'll go for something more surreal and erie like.
Then I like to think about little aspects like colors to convey the emotion and the angle to show different perspective.
I like to keep my love for aesthetics of life in the back of my mind. I think this keeps me true to my meanings of why I'm doing art in the first place.

January 23rd, 2013

Being that Monday was a holiday, the class only met once this week. The usual had happen, Jimmy went off topic the first 20 minutes.. and this happen because he had coin in his hand and it just went from there. As it is useful information, we finally began the exercise of the day. And well I don't know the exact story that was read to us but it went along the lines of:

"Imagine a sunny morning and you get up wanting to take a walk. Your walking down your neighborhood and the houses are small and the trees are big. As you keep walking you start to get closer to the forest. You walk into the forest and you come across a clearing. The clearing is and edge of a cliff. The view is nothing but mountains. As this story is fantasy, a giant white bird flies over to you and tells you to get on it's back. You hop onto the bird and fly over the mountain. The bird takes you to a cave. You get off and go into the cave. You then see a door with your name on it. Draw what you'd see inside."

When I first heard the story, it felt very eerie to me. Maybe it was Jimmy's tone or maybe the mystical feel the story had. I drew a dark room with a single light bulb hanging dead center of the ceiling. Right beneath the light bulb is a Television with a DVD player. Tons of DVDs are scattered along the floor. Each DVD has a different title. These DVDs are your memories starting from the beginning of your life, your future, your dreams. A room where you can reminisce, see the most vivid and meaningful dreams you've ever had or see what is in store for your future.

I think I thought of this because I'm fascinated with the idea that our subconscious has more knowledge than we can ever tap into. That we spend 1/3 of our lives dreaming. Or even though I hardly admit to this, I think the main reason I enjoy taking photographs is to remember the times I've had. I've spent a majority of my summer coming to that conclusion and sort of a thesis statement to my work. I strive to capture the ordinary to make it extraordinary. All with my inspiration for dream like fairy tales of life to the eerie-ness to my dreams.
I believe this exercise was for us to understand where our inspiration comes from. Whether it's from something you seen on your drive to school or something as cheesy as mine inspiration. I feel that if you pay close attention, you'll begin to see more ideas within yourself.

This exercise reminded me of an exercise I did back in high school english. My teacher had put on an instrumental song and told us to write what we thought what was going on in the song. No knowledge of why the song was written or who played it. It was merely the feelings we got from each song that helped us write what we thought what was going on in the song. I'n not quite sure why I remember this exercise so much but it stuck with me. It's these exercises that you get to do in class that can help you broaden your horizon for great ideas.

The second half of class we had went over our ideas for the previous assignment. Our assignment was to pick a magazine photo and come up with 10 different phrases for that one photo. Changing the meanings of the phrase gave the photo a different meaning each time.
It was a difficult assignment to me because I guess I'm not that good with putting words together in a clever way. Or maybe advertising just sucks, either way. But really, I give props to people who work in advertising because it is hard work.

So far this class is helping me understand the amount of ideas we are capable of. I've also never had a class that had to work together a lot. It's refreshing from any other class I've taken at CSULA so far. I am enjoy this class, just ask me if I'm enjoying this class in a couple weeks of homework piled to my shoulders. We'll see.


- Leslie

[ P.S Just a little motivational poster ---> ]

1.16.13

The second class of the week was based on film and discussion. The series TED talks has speeches of designers/artist. We watched Stefan Sagmeister talk about how he works for 6 years and takes 1 year sabbatical to refresh his ideas. He explained these years come from his retirement plan and spreads 5 years throughout his working years. This got me thinking about how good of idea this is and that I would love to be able to do this. As an creative being, there will always be rough patches in your life that you won't be able to produce any ideas. I believe the only way to get over these creative blocks are to step back from the work and redirect your thoughts. If you try and push through your creative blocks it might start to feel like a chore. Designing can be the most fun that a job can be, when it starts become something you dislike or feel tired by it, it would probably be time to step back. 

I've done this with my photographs and art. For the longest time, even now, you won't find me having a camera with me. This happen mainly because my camera is piece of shit but besides that initial let down I found myself trying so hard to produce something I was proud of. It wasn't happening for me. Work, school, friendships and life had gotten in the way of me wanting to produce art. Now I still look at my portfolio and I'm sure I can still produce photos that I really want to. I think when the time is right I'll get back into photographing my life. 

Now the second half of the class was about the 5 photographs we were ask to bring in. These cut outs from magazines were to be a person, place or thing. Jimmy only picked two for the class discussion (i'm pretty sure he thought the rest sucked.) He choose a close up of a coconut half open. All that was shown on a black background was the empty inside and a thin layer of the hard shell. We then were ask to put titles on the photograph. Many were said, "Insert lime here," "Wear a helmet," etc etc.  Each time a different title was said it would change the entire mood of the photograph. One of these sayings was made for happy hour or anything related to drinking and relaxing. The other totally changed from cheerful to dark and eerie, maybe used for drunk driving poster. The next photograph was a picture of a paint brush dipped in white paint. This time everyone had to say at least 3 different sayings for this photograph. Again many were said and he said a lot were terrible. 

It's a lot harder than I thought to come up with words that will say exactly what your trying to say or sell. Every saying has a different meaning and can change it drastically. These words will tell you how to feel, whether its somber, cheerful, hungry or the need to travel. A lot of work goes into advertisement, having so much pressure on just a few words. As apart of our homework is to pick a photograph and come up with 10 good sayings for the photograph. I know this is gonna be tough because a lot of them are going to suck. I think i'm gonna drink a glass of wine before I start this assignment. 

'til next time 

C o m m u n i c a t i o n

Throughout the class, we were ask to communicate between each other. First Jimmy, my professor for 220 concept development, ask us to sit in chronologically order of our birthday days. We all started to ask amongst each other when our birthdays were. This was fairly easy due to the fact that you only had to know what a small amount of information to communicate with. I only communicated with people near my birthday, may and July. Once we sat down, Jimmy ask us who thought we weren't sitting exactly in order. About half the class rose their hands. He ask why and we all thought that we weren't sitting correctly and we all said that there was bound to be one error due to a lack of communication. We eventually said our birthdays and turns that we were sitting correctly the whole time.
We then had to place our comics in the front of the class. Our comics consisted of a 4 panel story of how we ended up at CSULA. The previous class we drew them out and had to add color the next class. We were ask to place the drawings from the best to least best according to what we thought as a class. The timer was set at 20 minutes and we all began to trying to rank the 25 something comics. I had did my comic in bright sharpie colors. I choose to a use a color combinations of complementary colors to attract the eye. I think I was successful at this because my comic got pick up to go to the front of the line for best comic.
As a class we choose 4 different criteria for how we would rank them. Creativity, aesthetic appeal, color, and the clarity content of the comic. As the timer came to about 10 minutes we were still trying to decide how to rank them by being logically. In a panic we choose to have 5 Tally's each and we would mark the ones we liked the most. I chose the ones with clarity of content, most creative and the well colored comics. I knew mine was lacking creativity because it was a simple content.
At the end we all decided that we had picked the best comics because of the aesthetic appeal. Most of the class had said that they really didn't get the chance to read the comics. I think if we would of had more time, we could of properly rank the comics with all the criteria we had wrote on the board. In my opinion mine probably wouldn't of been pick second best if we would of had more time. I believe this because I was lacking 2 out of the 4 criteria.
I think Jimmy did this exercise for us to realize what kind of person we are during group communications. Are you someone who sits there and waits to be told what to do? Or are you someone who takes charge? I notice a lot of people taking charge and a lot of people who said nothing the entire class. I said what I need to say and nothing more. I think the reason for this was because there was already so many people who took charge. Usually, and if I had to, I would of said more input. I do think we all now know what communicating between a large group is pretty difficult.

Photographs

In our second day of class we were shown different photographs. We were ask to explain these photos like if were explaining these photos to someone on the phone. I saw it as dodging any previous knowledge or any sort of assumptions. It got me thinking about what people think or say of my photographs. 

For example this photograph:

Obviously, when I see this I think of the time my friend and I partied with this L.A based group of dj's/producers. Afterwards we went to this bar over on 7th street and this guy had one to many Arrogant Bastard's and this is what had happen. 

But if you didn't read this, what would you think?

Another hooligan tagging in the streets of downtown? a guy who has a crush on a girl tagging their names on the wall? 

Usually my intentions for a photograph is to remember the crazy moments or even the everyday moment in my life. 

I think this exercise was to point out the technical aspects of photograph (hues, contrast, rule of third etc. etc.) Anything other than that is just an assumption of what you think is happening in the photograph. Intentions don't always come clear to other people. If I've learned anything in my art career thus far, it's that when you make something it never really comes out as you planned. Most times it is the mistakes that people notice to be your intentions. 

Towards the end of class we were to draw a graphic novel of how we made it to CSULA in four panels. After we were finished Jimmy laid them out for everyone to view. As we looked through all of the comics, we came to a conclusion that it was harder to draw out the idea rather than the idea itself. As designers, we are expected to do both the idea and to make that idea come to life. I think I'm finally thinking like a designer and it's pretty exciting. 

First week back

First week back at school was brutal for me. I wasn't ready to go back but now that a week went by I'm like, "okay let's rock this." One of the main assignments for my class concept development was this apple. Jimmy Moss, aka my professor, gave us these apples and said do not touch them for the next 10 weeks. We are to render this apple everyday for the next 10 weeks. That is 70 different drawings/paintings of this exact apple. 

I suppose the main idea for this project is to begin to see this apple in a different light when all the tradition ideas are run out of. By tradition, I mean the techniques we already know so well and are use to. The purpose is to break out of these habits we're so use to by now. 

Up until this class I never really thought about how an idea is to be made up. Being a creative being, an idea was always something that came natural to me. Now I can see that to think of a great idea contains many ingredients. Great thought, many sketches, plans and schedules, lots of hard work, many more sketches, and most importantly finding an overall solution to the problem at hand. 

This blog is also something new. I've snap photographs for what seems like years now. So I've always had a photo blog, blogging about a series of photos I've been working on and so on. Being graded on a blog is a whole new game though. I feel it'll be effective for us designers by communicating and learning by the blogs. 

I actually have Jimmy as my professor for another class. Even though it's only been a week, I can see his style of teaching is everything but didactic. (do I get bonus points for using one of the words he used in class?) It is something I am very excited for. It's refreshing not to have a professor who is so set in certain way of teaching. Overall, by the end of the quarter, I hope I can begin to develop better, well thought ideas.