Why did I choose this idea? Ever since I grew up, I always hated mustard because of its distinct taste. Many also agreed with me however, recently I grew the acquired taste for mustard. Thus, those who I talked about my hatred for mustard for, I want them to cringe and question me and ultimately my answer will be along the lines of “Cuz I can”. In a nutshell I chose this to mess with people.

I hope to those who see this post, to realized that trying anything and everything once in your life will ultimately be the greatest decision you’ll make. Humans don’t know what they like until they actually do it so why live in fear?

How successful am I at pushing that motive you asked? Honestly I don’t think people will look at this post and think “wow I should try that”. The shock value I create will push folkx to click on it and read more much like “click bates”

If I did this again I will use more shocking ingredients such as soy sauce or horse radish -anything to get people surprised at me

I want to explore topics that people are scared to talk about such as family abuse or suicidal thoughts

Melvin Kem

Art 110

Glenn Zucman

February 16, 2020

The Cow Lick

Artist: Eris De La Torre
Exhibition: Hands in Gloves
Media: Ceramics, BFA
Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Dennis W. Dutzi Gallery

Art surrounds us and never ceases to amaze me. For this week’s assignment, I had a conversation with the artist of the creator of “Cow Lick” Eris De La Torre. As someone who was new to 3-D art, they were able to incorporate prior knowledge from other art styles into the style he used for “Cow Lick”. As I was speaking to them, they mentioned that they were able to draw a large majority of their inspiration from their memories, whether they were recent or not, as well as from stamps because of the variety they offered. With that being said, they were able to receive their inspiration for this particular piece of work from a stamp of a cow and decided to create this piece. Growing up, De La Torre had many memories of cows in the kitchen because of his mother, so because of that, cows tend to have a special spot in his heart. Although De La Torre is not religious, he also mentions that he believes cows are holy, therefore incorporating cows into several pieces of his art.

            As seen in the 3-D piece, there is the cow with red skin and black features that appears to be jumping over what seems to be a singular star. Surrounding the cow and the star is a black, smooth, and shiny void both on the sides of the cow as well as beneath it. In the middle of this all, there is a clay, donut-like figure contrasting the front portion of the 3-D piece. On the back side of the piece there are tentacle-like objects that are reaching out and covering what seems to be a face (since there are two eyes with eyelashes painted on as well as an opening where a mouth would usually go). 

            When taking a deeper look at the piece De La Torre has created, one might take a look at it and have a harder time understanding the context and meaning of the art. According to the artist, the cow in the front is bright and smooth which is a direct correlation to being beautiful and perfect. This is an allusion to the false perception of life, or as life is often seen in fairy tales. The donut-like formation is actually a portrayal of reality which leaks into the falsely created pretense of life. This represents the truth leaking through to the fairytale lives people chose to live. The back of the piece is rough, tarnished, and not as smooth as the front portion of the piece. The author mentioned that this resembles the truth because it is not as beautiful as one may perceive it to be and is often unappealing to the human eye.

            This exhibit was really able to resonate in me because it made me realize how much of life and truth I have to value. I had personally never been one to see animals as holy, but I really liked the symbolization made through this cow in order to signify the ideal perfect life many want to live. The perception of the artist is definitely what I initially took away from the piece as well, which meant to me that the piece was well-conveyed. My life experiences also tied into the piece and the representation of the piece because I personally understood that at times, it is very hard to front your situation rather than admitting the ugly truth behind closed doors.

Drawing those sketches were very frustrating because I felt like I was doing it wrong. The fact that all my friends were laughing at it reinforces the idea that I suck at drawing. I personally never liked to draw because like mentioned, I suck at it. I have these great images in my head, but this type of hand eye coordination was not on point as seen in this drawing when I attempted to draw me holding a water bottle without looking at the paper.

If I had the time to draw for 100 hours, I would get better, but I do not know about being “Good” at it. I feel like it will be 100x more work I have to put in in order to match a naturally born artist works. My major is applied mathematics and drawing simple sketches could be useful when I’m quickly trying to graph a function and show its properties. But in actual cases, I do not believe that drawing sketches is at all applicable to my major. Since I’m just dealing with numbers, Desmos – the graphing app for equations, is the most useful tool to model graphs. Drawing is a language that people learn to do; I cannot speak this language.

               The form of my Art is Dynamic; always moving and full of surprises. At times it could be hordes of people using it, or very scarce when its later the day. This ties in into my Aesthetic of time management. Let me elaborate, since mt art is dynamic, when there are hordes of students and they’re about to be late, the frantic looks and nonverbal communication creates a very unpleasant feelings of pity and relief, relief as in feeling great that you the viewer are glad that you’re not late. Or how they are very laid back and, on their phones, because they are early to class, you can see those two types of students in the same hoard. The Content is very straight forwards; college students going up and down an escalator. However, it’s the meaning behind it that stood out to me. You see, this dynamic flow of students going up and down can be a metaphor for how some of our mind think. Some of us are so fed up with anxiety and stress; a constant rush of ideas that seems like never ending. Like the crowd however, there are occasional breaks in flow. Sometimes when we stress all day, there are those couple of minutes when our mind is either distractor or at ease. Relating these situations to each other is why I frame this Art. When I didn’t frame it, no one would look at the escalator and saw any bit of metaphors or ideas. Framing it in this case focuses the audience’s attention and made them think, why did they frame this? Like most human beings we want answers thus, because there’s no obvious answers to why I frame this, it leaves them to wonder and interpret my purpose. This is not in all cases though, putting a frame makes the crowd focus attention on it – not directly making it “Art”. It will continue being art to those that were present in the speech that Tauzin gave in class. They will always look at that escalator as something different because we pointed out a metaphor. Those others however, they will once again not think twice about the escalator. I view art as the meaning behind things. So, an individual object can be considered “Art” while a collection of object – if strategically place together and push the other all narrative forwards, are all also considered “Art”. To reemphasis, I interpret Art as the meaning behind said things we relate to, visually, audibly, physically, etc. It does not have to be an object. Art Is how the audience perceive it; whatever the audience wonder about the said thing, is art. Now some art is better because of the way the artist did to it, or part of the artist motivation. The reason is because all those factors also play into the audience mind and influence the audience wonder.

               I got three of my friends each with three different colors to join me in this abstraction. My goal was for us to intersect each other and together we can create an art with multiple perspective. As we started painting, I begin to think to myself “Is this what Glenn Wants? I was worried that the art we are doing is somehow wrong. However, I came to the realization that since this is abstract art, there is no set rules or limits. I begin to ease off my self and let my fingers flow around; started to not care on what it looks like but just the texture of the fast-drying paint and the temperature of the paint itself. I looked at my friends and they started to do different patterns then mine. This experience was hard at first since I had no idea what to expect/ frustrated at not knowing if this was correct. However, as I ease into it, it started to become more fun and as I splatter and trace along my friend’s art, the colors started to intertwine with each other. Like mention since I had no goals or picture, it was very frustrating to just have the freedom to paint; it felt like I was wasting my paint. However, since I kept reminding myself that the painting, we are doing has no set standard or regulation, it became more fun to do it. The Phrase “Abstraction is Freedom” holds in this situation where since I had no clear path or picture, I felt very free and loose. This type of painting is not what I imagine an “Actual painting” would look like. My perspective of what Painting looks like are more Representation pieces. Like what I said in class, I tend to over think thus, when given an abstraction piece, I will stress and become frustrated because I can’t figure out what it looks like – the “answer”. On the other hand, I see that abstraction paintings produce more conversation within the crowd due to others stating what the painting means to them.

I personally do not watch many movies nor listen to many artists but one things I did do when I was little was owning almost all the collection for Winnie the pooh book series. Cleaning the star in-front of people walking past did draw a lot of attention from giggles to people recording me, what I did made me feel like I was doing a performance on stage. As I first started cleaning, I saw it as a joke, but however as time went on, I was getting into cleaning so I can leave a shine to it. There was a lot of dirt and stains on that star too, so much like how that woman felt when she was cleaning the Trump star, I think Winnie the Pooh deserves a bit more respect. Cleaning this star did not felt like cleaning at home -not one bit. Like mentioned, cleaning this star gathered a lot of attention thus unlike cleaning at home, I am putting on a performance to the crowd with a huge message. To the crowd this message is more abstract; Am I cleaning it because I made a mess? Or am I cleaning it because this figure is someone who I hold a lot of respect? So in conclusion I believe that the act of cleaning a star is considered “Art”. My motive of maintenance work is not just because its dirty, but rather I am giving a powerful message to the crowd who can interrupt it in countless of ways.

At first, I was wondering if we were just going to clean the art and dismiss class without any “REAL” learning (i.e. lecture or history of the art)., but as I was cleaning the art, I felt different. Yes, the class was just meeting up and cleaning the sculpture however that simple action I learn more than I would sitting at a classroom for an hour or so. Cleaning the art forced me to be inside of the piece and really get a good look at it, unlike my daily self-walking past it every day. I felt the groves and dents, heard the sound it created, as well as noticed many hidden attributes such as letters and a center piece. Much like how Mierle Laderman Ukeles cleaned the steps of the museum, what our class did gathered a lot of attention and question form those who were passing by. Similarly, Richard Serra got attention from her action of throwing molten lead at the art wall. I believe that any group or individual that is performing an action which causes confusion and wonders created an impactful message. Whether that message is obvious or up to debate, it gets the crowd wondering why are they doing this or what is their motive? Both are considered art due to the abstract reason of their actions. If Mierle wore janitor uniform and performed the same action, no one would second guess her actions. The reason why her performance is Art is due to the mysterious nature of it. My definition of art can be classified by the author’s purpose on the piece. So, if they painted on a canvas, almost all the time their purpose is to display their work and purpose. If a painter painted the house with the intention of adding color to the house, their purpose is not as “beautiful” as a painter painting a mural on the wall.

The Phrase “Woman’s Work is also Art” can be interpreted as the actions of any woman is Art. Society doesn’t respect the actions of women as much as men’s work thus, the phrase is born. Much like how “Black Lives Matters” means that’s the black lives ALSO matters too in society, it’s not saying black people are more superior than all. Similarly, “Women’s work is also Art” means that their actions should be appreciated as much as men’s work like how the act of cleaning should have as much respect as men’s work. Thus, this act of cleaning enforces that idea of art. The women who sat down and cleaned trump star was displaying a message. Unlike how others will verbally state their opinion and support, this lady is instead doing an action that shows her opinion. I would bend my knees for Winnie the Pooh….