Visual Essay

Today, I was a victim of what I might call over planning. I spent hours preparing for the assignment, in addition to the hours I spent wandering around Midtown taking pictures. After editing all of the pictures, I continued to make notes about everything I wanted to say for each slide, which in the end totalled over a page of text. With that text, I timed my speech for every slide, added self-timers, and transferred it all to note cards. Those note cards never left my sight for an entire day - I was determined to nail my presentation. However, when I got in front of the class, I froze.
I am definitely not a fan of speaking in public, however I do not usually have a hard time with presenting in front of a classroom, especially one of a reasonably small size like our class. It was very disappointing when I stalled several times because I had spent so much time preparing. By watching other people, I think I definitely may have gone a bit too far into planning. In the future, I hope I will be able to relax a bit more and verbalize all of my thoughts, because I think they are pretty significant.

Explorations

I went out to search for examples of public art this week, and while wandering around midtown I entered Piedmont Park. I had never been to the park before, even though I have lived locally my entire life. Entering, I was immediately shocked that I had never been there before, observing the beautiful trees, paths, and lake. Everybody there seemed so relaxed and enjoying the gorgeous weather outside with their family. From the entrance, I glanced up and saw large colorful shapes, so of course I made my way up there. I was amazed at the beautiful children's play area that had been constructed. The design was bright, modern, and sleek (which are not typical characteristics of children's play-sets.

And I will definitely be revisiting to take advantage of the fun play attractions!

Homecoming!

For the last week, the entire campus has been able to watch all of the Greek Houses prepare for homecoming week. Each of them proudly display their banners and the results of constant pomping. Thinking about it, all of these definitely could be considered 'public art' even though it's all temporary. The decorations are all about homecoming week and Georgia Tech's history. So, as all of the past alumni visit for the football game, they will get to see all of this art that has been produced just for the occasion. Very cool!

public art

Coming from a family that travels out of the country quite often, I have been exposed to great amounts of public art. However, I definitely notice great differences in the 'public art' that one can see in European cities and the 'public art' that one can see in the United States. I think one main reason for this is simply the amount of history that exists in Europe as compared to here. Off the top of my head, I can't think of numerous examples of public art in Atlanta, all though there is a good amount on campus. However, as a student in the College of Architecture, I am slightly biased in my opinion of buildings and furnishing as the most beautiful forms of art. In particular, my favorite has always been the Bank of America building, or what my friends typically refer to as "The Pencil Building".

Obviously, now that I have moved onto campus, the building is something that I have grown completely used to seeing on a daily basis (and all of my friends are completely jealous). I'm not sure what it is about the building that I love so much. However, the most appealing part is the top that glows with a warm colored light at night. When you actually get very close to building, you can see that it is made of a dark marble. After researching a bit, I learned that the Bank of America building was built in 14 months (record time) in 1992 becoming the 26th tallest building in the world, and costing 150 million dollars to produce. This is by-far a landmark of Atlanta and a beautiful example of public art.

Lunch atop a Skyscraper

My absolute favorite form of art is, and has always been, the gorgeous black and white scenic photographs.

As long as I can remember, my sister has had a large copy of the photo that depicts construction workers eating lunch and dangling off of the edge. It is so appealing to me how you can understand the age and setting, far above the beautiful city scene and the fog. These men are sitting hundreds of feet above the ground, and yet this is their job, and they are composed enough to sit down, eat their bagged lunches, and leisurely pose for the camera.
After looking up the history of the photo, I learned that it was taken in 1932 in New York City. The workers were constructing what would eventually become the GE Building at Rockefeller Center. The photo appeared in a Sunday issue of the New York Herald Tribune.

During the last few months of construction, a second photo was taken from the 69th floor of the GE Building of the same workers sleeping on the beam. I cannot even begin to imagine how much fear I would have to conquer in order to each lunch in that setting, let alone take a nap. Regardless, I find this photo absolutely breathtaking.





OOPS, forgot!

After the first few weeks of 100% attentiveness this semester, I slowly began to forget my responsibilities that went unmentioned. In other words, it would run through my mind on a daily basis 'do your blog posts, do your blog posts...' and of course, it would slip my mind at the end of the night.
So, at this moment, I estimate that I am somewhere around three blog posts behind, and I stopped to think about how blogs came about. After searching around about blogs and their origin, I realize I have zero interest in blogs in computer terms, but I figured there was still some really interesting blogs in cyber space, leading me to http://theartblog.org/.
The Art Blog has been named one of the top American art blogs. It offers some really interesting critiques and links to art displays and programs. The founders' goal is 'to bridge the gap between ordinary people and art', which they definitely accomplish. The blog is the perfect place for completely clueless artist to be exposed to art in the community.

more about Warhol

Although I was slightly familiar with the silkscreen process (mostly in terms of t-shirts) I was interested in the process in regards to just paint on a surface. I found this very poor quality video of somebody observing a festival-type affair where they were demonstrating screen printing on a smaller scale. As you can see, each screen has cut-outs of part of the picture according to where different colors would be designated. In Andy's pieces, there would be several different layers that he would continue to overlay on top of the same canvas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btxouQ-Mzio&feature=related


The second video that I found actually is a Photoshop tutorial to achieve a Warhol-esque effect in photos. However, the first few minutes highlights a major background on Andy Warhol. The host discusses how his works were 'designed to copied' and he directly references the 'Marilyn' piece throughout his discussion of Warhol as an 'evil genius'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LziSflliwA4&feature=related