BILL RILEY

This week we had Bill Riley as our lecture, Bill Riley is a painter and has been painting for over 30 years now. His process varies and depends on how he feels. He stated that it gets boring, at times, which leads him to use different painting tools and experiment.

Bill is also interested in the static nature of a painting. Frequency is an instillation that explores how we perceive colour and movement within painting. Bill used a CMYK mixing system. “The CMYK colour process is a subtracting colour model, used in colour printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. CMYK refers to the four inks used in some colour printing; Cyan, magenta, yellow and black” – Web Definitions. He used the CMYK process to see the way people perceive colour.

Bill talked about the influence of documentary films about famous artists such as Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picasso, and the way the artists seemed to be ‘puppets’ in these films, which were supposed to celebrate and explain their practice. Bill related to this idea of from his bad experience as a commissioner, where the people who fund it take the freedom of the artist away. Bill has since become a socialist. Bill describes a socialist as “not a communist, it is more about treating people equally”. This lead him to his more recent project called The 422 project”

The 422 project is Bills new focus, using recycled and waste materials, rather than expensive fine art materials. He collects left over card from packaging companies, and left over paint. By doing so he touches on conservational Issues such as recycling. Bill paints each individual piece of card and arranges them in stacks. The 422 project is interactive and members of the public are encouraged to come into the gallery and arrange the coloured sheets of card in what ever way they want. By doing so, this portrays painting as a form of sculptural practise in some way. Overall I thought his lecture about was all right could of at least brought in some of his works his did to show our class but allgoods.

Richard Orjis

I got to class late to find out that we had Richard Orjis as our lecture for today, when I got into class, it was already 10 minutes into the lesson, where he was explaining to the class his first pieces of work and so as I soon as I found a spot to sit at next to Katie Lamacraft, he then started taking us through his photography images he took and what was behind his images. I personally think that he took some awesome photographs and I thought that he had some amazing ideas that had a lot to do with beauty and nature, and he even mentioned it numerous times throughout the lecture. So Richard Orji’s blog question for that week was that we all had to choose 3 words from Richard Orjis lecture. The 3 words I choose to describe and relate back to Richard Orji’s practice is beauty, nature and links. So before I start talking about his work, I’d like to take the chance to talk more first about Richard Orji’s background. Orjis was born in Whanganui, New Zealand and studied at the Auckland Uniersity of Technology and Carnegie Mellon Uniresity, Pittsburgh earing a BVA in 2001, and graduating with an MFA from The Elam School of Fine Art, (University of Auckland) in 2006. Richard Orji’s work looked more into beauty/nature, in the lecture he also showed us a video of him making up his own cult.his works were all based around on religion, Richard quoted ‘I really like that idea I am connected with everything around me’, and one thing Orjis mentioned in the lecture is that he said he doesn’t believe in modernism, he also stated that ‘we are always connect to something else’… God, bible, tree huggers, burning tree. By looking at his work I’ve noticed that all of his work all link up in way that it’s a like repetition, his works repeat constantly that it all looking the same to me. Overall his lecture was pretty good.

Steve Rood

Unfortunately I wasn’t there at Steve Rood’s lecture that Tuesday due to being ill, but I had the chance to ask some of my peers like Alli and Brittany about what Steve Roods lecture was all about and how he was really interested in technology and as well as photography. I was told by Brittany to go look on google to search up his work on his website, so I did just that and so I went on his website, saw his images and I thought it was awesome. Listening to what the girls had to say about him, they each said to me the same thing about how that I missed out on a great lecture about Steve Rood’s work, which I have already regretted, they also mention that the lecture he did that Tuesday was funny and that he’s an ideas-man quoted by Brittany. When I viewed his website, I knew his photos and images looked more in the line to do with advertising and marketing for me, I heard a little bit about his background from other students that he started out with a passion for film making, and then he somehow ended up in the photography industry in Milan, but he wanted to study more so he than went to Holland to get educated and he later went on to become a advertiser in photography. But then found out that he wasn’t really interested in doing that, and he also did work as an art director.

Fran Alison

Fran Allison is a contemporary New Zealand jeweler based in here in New Zealand, working and teaching at Manukau School of Visual Arts. Her jewelry has rendered the ideas of re-formatting and past-histories.

The inspirations for her work varies and is influenced by many things including interest within the idea associated with found and discarded objects. She quotes Julian Schnabel: 'I work with things left over from other things' as a reference for her interest in found/discarded objects.
Fran’s works are often made from found items, household material, such as handkerchiefs, doilies, pins, fabric etc.

In regards to Collaboration and collective,

The Audio English dictionary describes Collaboration as the “act of working jointly” Or as Richard Loveless may put it "Collaborations become great only when everyone in them is free to do his or her absolute best — and is committed to seeing other members do their best as well” Collaboration may also give artists the opportunity to take risks or experiment in ways, that they would not be able to achieve working alone. Where as an artist collective is an idea that is the product of a group of artists working together, usually under their individual supervision, but with the same aims. The aims of an artist collective can include almost anything that is significant to the requirements of the artist. This can range from sharing equipment, space or materials purchasing bulk materials, through to following shared philosophies, visual and political views. It appears that a collaboration is a group of people working together and a collective is a group that is somewhat influenced by each other. Fran explained how collaboration raises questions about ‘ownership’ over the finished work. I feel that this could result in a dispute due to several proud artists wanting to claim credit for the handwork they put in. I can recall an example of a successful collaborative piece done by Deborah Crowe and Eldon Booth entitled Cantilever.

Fran is a member of Weeds (a group of New Zealand artists involved in Object or Jewellery making). They were all angry by a 'Bone Stone and Shell' lecture, which suggested these materials and this traditional style as being the definition of New Zealand jewellery practice. As a result Fran got together with Lisa Walker, Shelley Norton and Andrea Daly, to change things. The objects prepared by all four artists involved in Weeds is far from the traditional ‘bone, stone and shell’ jewellery, which they were against, it is more domestic and hand-made due to the ‘craft’ materials, symbols and techniques. Weeds gave Fran the opportunity to move her ideas, for her practice, from the house, into the garden.

Although I’m not much of a jeweler, Allison’s work has encouraged me to be more experimental in my own personal art practice.

Deborah Crowe

14^th of September, if I could remember on that day we had Deborah Crowe come to give us a lecture about her practice. I remembered she showed us a slide show of her pieces of artworks and practices she made well coming up as a young Scottish artist. In her works I noticed that she uses a lot of different types of materials and also notice one thing about her is that she constantly pushes her ideas of concepts in her practice. Well to kick start off this blog about Deborah Crowe’s lecture, I had to back and look at my notices I wrote down about her. Deborah Crowe was originally from Dundee, in Scotland, she immigrated to New Zealand twenty years ago. Going through her photos of her work on emit, I noticed a pattern in her practice in where she uses a lot of bridges, space, containment, architecture, weaving, recycling pieces of her old works. As I checked on Emit to try and remember what Deborah’s work looked like, I remembered this work she had called ‘Beneath the surface’ where it was all to do with “containment of the body” in one of my notices that she quoted in the lecture, she said ‘the idea of how women contain their bodies, and in the way torture themselves. She also looked into torture as a part of her work, putting people in the room with objects, creating space i their mind imaginations.

Another key thing that Deborah uses to show her ideas is that, she does a lot of planning and drafting her work. One of Deborah’s works was held at Te Tuhi. The ideas in her practice how she plans and draft her work become actual drawings. Pretty cool.

Overall I thought her lecture was great but sadly just wish I could of wrote about it, due to my late blog entries I am forced to type them all up at once. Sorry tessa XP

Steve Lovetts

This week I was very delighted to have Steve Lovett to come and show us some his works of art pieces, and also which he goes on to tell us some of the statements and ideas that when on to make and produce of his fantastic pieces.Well for what I have come notice in his work is that he’s basically based his most of his work on the relationship, the relationship between his friends and family and also making a political statement, and at the same time while he’s also doing this kind of work and how he’s approaching it in he’s own way by hitting what he wants to bring to life with he’s type of artwork. What I’ve noticed now with Steve Lovett work is that he always uses different the styles of layers and color tones of an image, which also puts the image out of place.

I really liked one of his exhibitions that Steve showed us the one where the screen prints on the wall are like talking to each other, I really liked that piece, I thought that was very creative in a way that how he managed to capture there voices and also playing them through speakers, making it sound like as if his artwork pieces were talking to each other in the gallery.

I later heard that those images on the wall were good friends with him that have passed away.

I truly think that was really effective, it’s as if the images came to life with the sound of people talking, still can’t manage to think how he would come up with that idea. The other piece of art work that Steve done that I really liked was the one that was called ‘remain’, that work alone shows what Steve’s like (personally wise) and what he must have been feeling. Overall Steve's work was truly jaw-dropping for me, especially from that audio imagery one because it was mainly bringing what he thinks art is to him was.

Frances Hansen: My process

This Tuesday we had my old life drawing teacher France Hansen come into show and tell us about her work and she talks about how she balances being a art lecture and being a mother and how her ideas of her practice all came about. To start off the lecture she showed a slide show presentation of some of her past work and her most recent project. Out of all the pictures on the slide show I only remembered one, which shows that I haven't been paying close attention to France's lecture, damn.. I should of typed it up straight after class, oh well.. I'll explain to you her work from what I remember from tuesday's contextual studies class. From what I remembered about her work on tuesday's class is that her work is very creative and very original, and it also reflects on who she is as a person, because I think Frances is a very smart, creative and also aery intelligent lecture.

One thing she really didn't really mention in the lecture is nature, I like how she applys nature in art practice and it reflects on her work and her transition of being an artist and a mum, and it's also how she arranges the objects in many different ways by 'developing' it before settling on the final design. One the key fatcors in her work is 'gathering'.. gathering materials, ideas, information, collecting organic goods and recycling them by reusing them in her sculpture pieces and paintings etc. One thing that stood out for me in the lecture is that, she said that she likes to go through her neighbours (trash) organics stuff, while walk about with one her little sons, looking for some materials that will help to develop more idea for her work, which I think that is very smart and interesting.

That's another word that was not mention in her list is 'recycling', recycling play a valuable rule in France's work, I mean I would never have thought of that idea, I really like how she's uses those found objects and how she experiments alot with them such as one of her paintings can't remember which one, but I remember she painted a stencil shape of that Ajax spray cleaner in one of her paintings.What I can take from learning about her and how she works? is that I need to be more out their just like Frances, I need to go 'plan' my idea then 'gather' my materials then just develop and experiment with them such as Fances herself.

Eldon booth work and elephant

Tuesday was a very interesting day to attend too, because I actually got school on time, which was good for start to day. We had Eldon Booth an Ex-MSVA student to come /into our class to talk to us and show us two of his short-films that he made in his younger years as a student at MSVA. In lecture I found him very interesting and really fun to listen to, he laughs at his own jokes while talking about some of his works. He also talked to us about how he graduated from Manukau School of Visual Arts (MSVA) back in 1999 and he showed us a two of his short-films focusing mainly on documentary and drama techniques with the intention of blurring the line between illusion and reality for a viewer.

The first film he showed us was called ‘Extract from withdrawal’. He told us that it took him 2 years to make that short-film, where as when you watch the short-film you see time slowly past by and how the actor start to kind of age. I really liked how he used his family members as actors instead of hired actors because it's pretty smart in terms of how he used his brother for example you don't have to like pay him because your like family. Another thing that I thought was pretty interesting about that short film was that, he used a handheld camera that followed his actors (brother and grandfather), he takes us as a viewer in their normal day lives which gets it a reality look inside there. Split screens also played a big part on it, it made a huge different to the film in terms of how it show in their timelines of the day; both characters were in two different places such as the grandfather lying in hospital and the grandson smoking weed with friends and catching trains. I liked how he went for that amature style, quality to his project because it got us as a viewer to get to know the both characters though there actions.

For the second short-film he made I think he went for a drama/ documantary style of filming because I remembered in class he mentioned that he was really inspired by a 20/20 program interview that came once, he said that he really amazed and inspired in how real that interview on 20/20 was because of the camera angles, sound and lighting that was used really contributed to that interview. When Eldon makes works he said that he trys to challenge himself by editing all his short-films etc, less than 5days. To personally I don't like his style of film but I really respect his work and I think think it's cool, just not what I'm into.

Elephant was a true story film directed by Gus Van Sant. To me personally I thought it was just really to see all those innocent students die, sample just a cruel way to die for me really. I like how the director used P.O.V shots on the mass killers and how the camera follow them around, as if you just right their with them at that very movement.

Dion Hitchens

This week I turn up to the lecture 15mintues late, which was embarrassing because, as I walked in I got greeted by Dion (lecture). For my punishment for being late was to either dance or tell a joke to the class, but I was to shy to do either. Dion Hitchens talked to us about his art practices and sculptures in which he made back in his younger days. While listening to him explain to the class about his sculpture pieces, he mentioned one thing to the class about his cultural background and heritage and how it influenced him in most of his sculpture works.

He said being part Asian / Maori really helped him find the base platform to structure his sculpture pieces of his artworks. Seeing Dion apply his cultural heritage into his practice makes him and his work very significant, to me personally I think I can sort of relate to him and his work in a way because, I also come from a cultural background that is quit similar to Dion’s culture being Samoan, we both come from a Polynesian descent.

What I can learn from him and his work is that I can also apply my Samoan cultural background into my art practice, which will also make me, and my work very significant as well. The two distinctive artworks that stood out for me the most was the one he did in manukau called Maumga and the Big Egg looking sculpture he made, which terrified a small boy.

As Dion talked on and on about his interesting sculptures, he mentioned to our whole class that all of his sculpture that he ever made was homemade in his backyard, and he even said that he had to get a crane to get his sculptures from out the back. The Maumga piece was very cool and interesting because Dion was inspired from the mountains of Tahiti. I also liked how he used technology in the egg as well as collaborating it with his cultural heritage.

Failing, falling, flying by Rebecca Ann Hobbs

On Tuesday, my whole class were told to meet up at St Paul’s Street Gallery at AUT to view Rebecca Ann Hobbs Exhibition called failing, falling, flying. The first thing we all did that day was that, we all had to watch a short film video that Rebecca filmed called Ah-round (2008), where she collaborates with her ex-lover Maodu. In her short-film, it shows us how the camera circles around Madu (actor) while Maodu was just standing their hosing down the plants and also listening to some music in the greenhouse. To be honest I didn’t like her that short film video that she made, to me it just looked very boring to be brutally honest, because I couldn’t relate to it in anyway what so ever, I didn’t get the whole meaning behind it.

But later on that day when we were informed to go around and observe Rebecca’s displayed works up on the walls. While I was looking around and also trying to take down notes, I started to take a real interest in her photography work. I really liked how her pictures had a weird, awkward, surreal look to it. I like to think of Rebecca's work, represents 'absurd'. Because behind most of her work I see it all as humor, funny in way that makes me laugh in how the man falling down the stairs etc. I also like one of the photo she had called ‘photoshoot’ where there’s this guy falling on a bed in the middle of a grassy, hill type of area, What would a bed be doing in the middle of no where.

What I still buzz out on, is that how she manages to capture an animated thing in mid-air, as if it was paused with a remote on a high-definition t.v of some sort. Such as the man falling down the stairs for instance called ‘Spin’. I love that photo that she took, it got me already thinking of how painful it most of felt for that guy, and I started asking myself if that image was even real or not. Later on that day she mentioned that guy in her photo didn’t get hurt because lucky enough he was a trained stuntman. When she said that, I amazed in how she hired a stuntman, for her work of art and how she captures things in mid-air, it still flips me out.

For the Walters Prize award, I pick Fiona Connor, because her work is simply just amazing I loved it and how she used up the whole space of the floor, and how she copied the whole top of roof and made like an exact replica of the top roof.

Mary Curtis

Mary Curtis is a contemporary artist who currently has an exhibition at object space in titled “Metadecorative”. There is something unusual that I find about her style or rather her approach to making her works. For me I view her setting and stuff as traditional jewellery, like jewellery that your grandparents wear- that it kind of has that ancient or from another century look. But what really stands out for me about her work is that she combines these old school designs with more contemporary, more modern materials. The type of materials that she uses are wallpaper, acrylic, soldiering and bits of fabric that looks like they come from the 1950s.

Its kind of unusual to see that kind of material used to make jewellery, I mean they have tradition use of silver in some of the pieces that were on display but she took it further by making jewellery that I've never seen anyone wear before. I mean she has created works of art, so I don’t really know if they can be classified as jewellery or rather as works of art themselves.

So in relation to function and decorative, the way I understand it, is that Mary Curtis combines old school design techniques (like traditional jewellery smithing and settings) and combines it. Or rather uses it as a foundation to create pieces of jewellery that are combines bits of the past and bits of the future (contemporary) together. I guess what makes them functional is that they have a tradition design with modern flair. That maybe the title Metadecorative could be interpreted as a statement about Mary herself. That apart of her is the function and the decorative side of her have met halfway and regenerated together to for her exhibition. So there is function in the ability of the public to want to wear and be able to wear the pieces but at the same time they are kind of art that I don’t think I’d wear or adorn myself with.

The Gaze part 1 - Feminism

"My idea of feminism is self-determination and very open-ended: every women has right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do."

Quoted by: Ani Difranco (American singer, song writer)

I personally think that feminism is a social movement that finds equal rights for women. Feminism is also a word that takes power away from women, not letting them speak for themselves and not even allowing them have there own voice. Instead of thinking of them (women) as a normal human beings, us male tend to discriminant them and separate them from us only because of our different agenda. Us males also tend to Objectify women as only objects which I think is clearly wrong. I remember this one time when I was watching Deal or No Deal when it use to be played on air, where The female models in Deal or No Deal, whose function in the show is to look pretty and to remain still until the moment the host allows them to "open the case". But how can women be objectified, some people argue, if they voluntarily portray themselves in sexualized ways? The women in Deal or No Deal aren't being forced to anything. I think through out history the female figure is used a lot. And In the 1950-70s the movement of Feminist carried on and had a a big part of the values of woman in Art.

In my country, Samoa is ruled by high chiefs in each village which are called Matai's of the Nu'u. Matai's (Chiefs) have all the power and the authority to over rule anybody and anyone. I can sort of relate feminism back to my homeland Samoa, where is in my culture; Samoan women have no right to speak over there husbands or even a man high status or matai's etc. Samoan females can only speak for themselves unless there are the daughter of a high chief of a village which is called Taupou. The Taupou female is highly respect amongst the Matai's from other villages because shes the daughter of high chiefs. She also wears a traditional distinctive royal headdress (Tuiga) and holds a knife, where she also part takes in leading the Samoan group.

Tutorial "Vertigo" by Alfred Hitchcock (1958)

March 23, 2010. If I can remember in class we watch a scene in Alfred Hitcock's film "Vertigo", where it takes us straight in his movie about a retired police detective John "Scottie" Ferguson , who is hired by this man (Gavin Elster) as a private investigator to follow his wife (Madeleine Elster) and uncover why shes been acting so strange. While watching that small segment in Hitcock's film we watched as the character John follows Madeleine to many different places around San Francisco, shes goes to visit a flower store, a grave yard then a museum where she stairs at a portrait of her dead great-grandmother. I think Feminism plays a big part in this movie because throughout the whole scene I watched the character Madeleine walk about without even saying a word, as detective John 'Scottie' follows her around. Hitcock: A male director, he clearly takes away the power of speech away from Madeleine's character in that scene I watched. That scene reminded me about the 'Deal or No Deal' models, and how they just stand there to look pretty and remain absolutely still, and which Madeleine's character did that exact same thing.

Narrative, Archetype, Mythology, Science Fiction: oringal Star Wars movie

Star Wars, a film for nerds like myself, i grew up watching this old classic film and i still loved it. I still buzz out on the whole special effect thingy that they used back in 1977 like wow that's still buzzing. Sadly i didn't get to watch this in class with the rest of my other peers due to sickness but lucky im a big fan of the Star Wars troilogy, i have a dvd collection of the Oringal trilogy. My favourite character in the oringal Star Wars troilogy has to be Luke Skywalker, because he's really cool and because his a hero figure and simply because he's just the main man to watch in the movie. In 2008, Empire Magazine selected Luke Skywalker as one of the top 100 Greatest Movie Characteristics of All Time, which is pretty damn awesome if i may add. In the movie Luke fulfills a number of the characteristics that you see, he plays as a young man and that has special powers and abilities that are brought out by a series of teachers. (Jedi Marsters) Ultimately, he was a determined character in all his trainings, he had to know and feel the force iwth emotion inorder to become a Jedi. In every movie there's always a good guy and bad guy, for me i always go for the good guys who always save the world and all, which i think is pretty awesome. In Star Wars Luke Skywalker is protrayed as the 'good guy' in this movie and Darth Vadar is obviously the bad guy in this movie as well, which is predictable in how every movie nowadays, always has the good guy beating the bad at the end. Watching this movie i've learnt that Luke Skywalker constantly faces alot of challenges that would test any mortal. The responsibility for either destroying the Empire's superweapon, the Death Star, or seeing it destroy the backbone of the Rebellion; learning patience at the hands of Jedi Master Yoda, yet having to choose between completing his training or trying to rescue his imperiled friends; facing the horrifying truth of his parentage, and then instantly deciding what path to take; and finally taking the nearly unimaginable risk that there was still some goodness deep within the dark soul of one of the galaxy's most evil warriors (Darth Vadar). Darth Vader's black cloak and helmet, or his estranged conflict with his son certainly fit that description. I certainly like his characteristic in the Star Wars movie as well, i like how as he's a bad ass and and how he's pretty ruthless and scary but at the same time. (use to get me nightmares when i was little lol) Luke Skywalker.. Though originally an immature, superficial youth, Luke is called by a strong sense of duty and a desire to be a part of something larger than himself, which gets him brownie points in the leadership category. Through the help of Yoda, Luke learned how to master his emotions and put the greater good above his personal gain or satisfaction. Another Character from another movie that had some of the same characteristics as Luke Skywalker is Rocky Balboa.
Rocky Balboa's characteristics were kind of similar to Lukes when it came to trainings. Rocky was another determined character in his trainings inorder for him to be the heavyweight champion. And what also made these two distinctive characteristics the same was there ability to become good listeners. Both of them had there ability to listen carefully to there trainers while they were given there task.
Here's a image of Luke Skywalker using the force to slowly put his lightsaber together. i got this image of illustionmundo.com by an artist named Frank Stockton (love his work)

TONGAN STYLE!

Otara's Fresh Gallery held a fine exhibition of five Tongan-born, New Zealand-based women artists. These five distinctive Tongan artist have contributed all there hard work and labour to making a embroidery and crochet pieces all handmade. They helped to bring there unique Tongan style from the small islands of Tonga into the shores of Aotearoa New Zealand. Each piece which was displayed up on the gallery embodiment hard work and effort of labour, and it is within the Tongan background and in there tradition, that they represent their cultural wealth in the form of bed sheets and pollowcases, outfits for church and funerary decortions.
When i was young growing up i always use to see my grandma sew and do crochet, which looked pretty boring to me, but pretty interesting in a way look tongan works of art to view these fine works and also to find that some of the embroidery patterns has their very own meaning to it. if i clearly remember what Ema Tavola (the coordinator at the fresh gallery) quoted that one of the pieces in patterns reperesented an image of a bat taking flight which was also significant to the the Tongan culture, in which thought was pretty cool. As i actually look at some of the piece in the gallery i noticed alot of various kinds of materials used and fabrics seen in there practice, i saw feather, plastic bead and shell. Especially in one of the church outfits i saw "Tefisi Style" which in the women in the Tonga used it to distunguish their position and statue at birthdays, churches and at weddings. Overall i thought this was a great exhibition where we got to acknowledge the tongan artists and all there works of art. I myself also coming from a pacific island heritage from the heart of the pacific known as Samoa, greatfully admire the fine work of my fellow-neighbours Tonga.

response to Justin

In the article My Top Ten by Justin Paton, he points of each of his 10 favourite paintings and then goes on to describe each paint a lot of detail. When I say a lot of detail, I mean he goes into stuff about brush technique, lighting, shadow and stuff like that. The amount of detail that he has put into writing about his 10 favourite paintings really shows how much he is inspired and loves these paintings. It’s like through his descriptions of the paintings; he’s trying to form some kind of bond or trust between the himself, the paintings and the reader.His writing style is kind of like reading a story book, he creates this world in which the reader can visualise without looking at the paintings and kind of get lost in them at the same. Cause when read novels I like it best when you’re able to fully sink into the world in which the writer has created and completely forget that you’re not really a part of the action. So although this guy is talking about his 10 favourite paintings, I liked reading it and his style of writing because it was easy to read. It wasn’t using heaps of overly descriptive words or trying to confuse you by making you think about heaps of different paintings at once. But at the same time he was using enough detail; that when I close my eyes I feel like I can see the paintings right in front of me. He’s created a piece of writing that even if you didn’t like reading articles about art; you can read without feeling like you’re missing out on something. So I really enjoyed this article, I know others in the class who didn’t enjoy it as much as I did, but I think they were missing out if they didn’t like it.

4 things that inspire me and my work in visual art

Hip hop -Since first emerging in the South Bronx, hip hop culture has spread around the world is a cultural movement that started in the working class suburbs of New York City, in the late 1970s. It can be outlined with the five pillars of hip-hop culture: MCing, DJing, Breaking, Graffiti writing, and knowledge. Another part of Hip Hop Culture includes beat boxing, hip hop fashion, hip hop fashion, and slang. I guess I’m drawn to Hip Hop culture cause I’ve grown up with a mixture Samoan, western and popular music. It’s a huge influence on me as a person, because music (for me) is a release. It lets me express myself physically and emotionally. When I’m dancing, it’s like I’m apart of something else. Something that is bigger than me, which I can contribute to and make friends with. Hip Hop culture is a global.

Samoan Tattooing- The Pe'a is the popular name of the traditional male tattoo of Samoa; the Pe’a covers the body from waist to knees. The process for the Pe’a is extremely painful, and undertaken by Tufuga ta tatau (master tattooists), using handmade tools of bone, tusks, turtle shell and wood. The Tufuga ta tatau are revered masters in Samoan society. In Samoan custom, a Pe’a is only done the traditional way, with aspects of cultural ceremony and ritual, and not with European tools or needles. The Pe’a can take less than a week to complete or in some cases, years. The tattoo starts on the back and finishes on the belly button. Overall, the design is symmetrical with a pattern consisting mainly of straight lines and larger blocks of dark cover, usually around the thighs. Samoan males with a Pe’a are called soga'imiti and are respected for their courage. This is my heritage and my culture; I guess I’m drawn to it because it’s like a step into being an adult or like a man in my culture. So it’s something that I see myself doing when I get older, you know like taking the step into being seen as a man by my family.

Michael Joseph Jackson- (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer-songwriter, dancer, actor, choreographer, businessman, philanthropist and record producer. He was known as the King of Pop, he is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time while also being regarded as one of the most influential people in the world. His contributions to music, dance and fashion and a much-publicized personal life made him a global figure in popular culture popular for over four decades. As a dancer, Michael Jackson (for me) is the greatest entertainer of all time; he’s had hundreds of sold out concerts, made a difference and been an influence for millions. He’s gotten to a level that entertainers spend their entire life’s trying to achieve.

Andy Warhol- was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the art movement Pop Art. After a successful career as a illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter,filmmaker, record producer, author and as a public figure. I guess I like Andy Warhol because of his influence on Pop Culture, kinda like Michael jackon’s. Because he was able to change things and his use of colours is great. I like bold and bright colours, i dunno why i just am. Maybe its something thats carried on from being a small child but I like the contrast of the bold black outline against the bright colours in his prints.