Mack Smart
Cohort 1
Seminar II
ART AND THE BODY
How significant is your body to your identity?
My body is quite significant to my identity. All the scars and marks tell a story of what the body has endured. Although the stories they tell may not be significant or important to some people, to others they give a story of hope and perseverance.
What is your comfort level depicting your own body in your artwork?
I am comfortable with photographing my body, but am so much more comfortable with drawing it. I would be more comfortable with people seeing my face and shoulders than I would be comfortable with showing my stomach and thighs. However, in order to get a message across, I would photograph and display images of these areas. As of right now (as I get more comfortable with my body), I would be comfortable with sharing images clad in only a bra and underwear. However, what is off-limits is sharing my nude body as a way of depicting art.
How does the art medium impact your feelings?
What medium I use to depict my body has the biggest impact on the outcome. Some mediums (like photography) have this tendency to convey an air of seriousness while a different medium (like paintings) can give an air of playfulness.
Would you be more willing to push your limits for your own artwork or as a model for someone else's work? Why or why not?
Knowing me, I would push my limits in order to model for someone else's work. People have different visions for what they would want to create and sometimes in order to get the outcome that they very much want, the model has to be on board with the artist.
Iconography
teeth
candles
eyes
insects
Family Tree of
Influences
Dr. Matthew Tayor
Jackie Lamar
Find something "cool" on one these websites.
Exquisitely Cut Paper Sculptures by Rogan Brown Highlight the Effects of Coral Bleaching
Steal Like an
Artist
In your own words, explain what Klenon means when he says artists "steal."
What Klenon means are artists "'steal" by copying and taking inspiration from the artists that influence them. They don't steal the entire piece - they take bits and pieces from the work and incorporate them into their own style.
How do you feel about copying another artist's work? Have you done it before? If so, describe the experience - what did you learn?
Personally, I feel copying somebody else's work helps with figuring out how to do something - as long as you don't throw it out into the world taking all the credit for the piece. I have copied somebody's work before, which belongs to Sunny Jenkins. They drew their Muppetsona (what you would look like as a Muppet) and I decided that I wanted to try that. Before trying to draw me as one, I copied what they had done for theirs. It was a tedious task, as simplifying some of the human body is a bit difficult.
There are seven short essays in this reading along with several quotes and drawings. What content resonates the most with you at the moment? Why does it feel relevant?
Visual Ethnography
On Friday, a few of us fine arts baffoons decided to go on a little trip to the nature reserve before doing some grocery shopping. Danny took us on his normal, albeit difficult (especially in a dress), path throughout the entirety of the forested area. Being shown here is not what you would think: Brandon is not being lectured and Danny is not stressed. They were deciding which path should be taken to give Lily the full Jewel Moore Nature Reserve experience. And boy it was an experience.
Digital Exhibition
(1) I create because I want people to see the beauty in everyday actions.
(2) I am here at UCA Art and Design to further my education in the various methods of art.
(3) Art is important because it tells viewers a visual story.
(4) Art should have the power to inspire others to take action.
(5) I believe that being an artist means coming out of your comfort zone and always trying new things
(6) I like recreating snippets of action, especially within individuals performing in ensembles and orchestras.
(7) Art should include moments of euphoria after finally finishing a piece.
(8) Art teaches us to find beauty everywhere - even in the most confusing places.
(9) Art is having the passion and motivation to do anything you set your mind to.
(10) I am here at UCA Art and Design to make my father proud.
Artist Mantra
Portfolio Visit
Today I spoke with Hannah Jetten and Lindy Cook. Hannah's area of study is sculpture and has mentioned an interest in fiber art. Lindy is also interested in the realm of fiber arts. This is how the conversation went.
Q: What artists are you interested in?
HJ: AJ Fosik
LC: Anna-Lenna Sauer
We were shown their artist statements along with the work that they had attributed it to. The topic quickly turned to how to properly put out a statement for the SMAI.
Q: Could you discuss your process and approach to writing your artist statement?
HJ: When writing for the SMAI, begin by rambling about the stuff you want to include. Open a new Google Doc and begin to piece these things together. Often look at the document and revise.
LC: Talk about how your work is academically driven. Talk about how your work has evolved. For your first draft, simply write an obituary for the piece. I hate having to define myself so I put my work together as a mock exhibition with other willing artists. We hung everything up and wrote what we thought was happening.
Due to time constraints and a lot of what was said during our conversation, we were not able to completely finish the worksheet.
Femme Fatale
Recently, the Baum Gallery, located on the grounds of the University of Central Arkansas, held its Spring of 2022 BA/BFA Senior Exhibition. The fine arts seniors have the opportunity to showcase their work for the public to view. While walking through each room of the exhibition, there was one work that kept me coming back to view. This work is Madison Cox's ceiling to floor work Femme Fatale. The medium of her work is mixed media and graphic design.
While the piece itself screams dive bar wall, I think it has the perfect look for the inside of a Riot Grrrl zine. The graphic design and the lack of men in the piece really solidify this thought for me. The piece reminds me of looking at the bulletin board that's in between Burdick and Torreyson. Especially after it rains. After the rain is when you get the wonderful wet look and gives the peeling paper effect. With the piece, one of the more minor details is that it looks like posters have been torn away from the wall. A major element in the work is color - the heavy usage of pastel pink and purple combined with the black and
small pops of color (lime green and bright blues). The other color brought to the work is the graffiti added by other individuals. In the background is muted female-fronted punk music, heavy on the bass. It also takes up an entire wall, which is what makes it great. The piece is in your face, so Cox's choice to take up the whole wall and have it be a stand-alone in the gallery is a wonderful choice. I would say the theme of the piece is simply femininity in punk. This is something you would totally see on a flyer wall outside any venue, and it's amazing.
BFA Talks - Madison Cox
Madison Cox’s work is a fine mix of installation art, graphic design, and interactive art. The piece gives off a poster wall with a venue-type vibe. It contains pastel pinks and purples with posters containing metal and punk genre imagery, especially within the lettering. Others have also scribbled all throughout the piece, giving the rest of the audience their opinions. The focal point of the graffiti on the wall is ‘TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS’ in bold, black lettering with a thin outline of pastel pink.
I didn’t hear Madison use any formal elements and principles of art. However, she did a wonderful job at explaining her process without using them so I don’t think it actually matters that much.
She does! Cox enjoys creating gig posters so her putting this project together gives her the opportunity to create a little dive bar fall full of posters she made herself.
Cox talks about putting all the posters onto her wall and letting her friends come tear some down and adding their own little twist with graffiti art. She made the mention of enjoying the process of printmaking and then putting it into a computer program to further continue to edit.
She does! Cox talks about how she’s inspired by the Riot Grrl movement of the 90’s along with punk music. The punk music is pretty much obvious (as is the other), but she did make a zine to go with the instialltion.
Cox discussed the fact that sometimes her influences are sometimes memes. She recreates some of her favorites and manages to incorporate them into her art.
I give her overall talk and presentation a five. She is a strong speaker who is well articulated and business her words well. However, she speaks super quietly which made it a bit difficult to understand her.
Final Reflection
The most significant experience I had this semester was the entirety of the identity project. I wanted to do something that was significant to me - like a self-portrait - but Andy wanted us to incorporate what we were doing at the time as our project just so we wouldn’t have to do two. I was very deadset on making a guillotine that we decided that it would be a wonderful idea to incoporate the project into what makes up a small part of my identity. The most significant experience for the entirety of my freshman year is having Dr. Young and Professor Hornbrook for Studio A. They didn’t even cut down an idea to a project we had and they often encouraged us to get as weird and wild as possible when it came to the assignments. Dr. Young especially had a profound impact, as he was often my ‘partner’ when we were showing classmates next to us our work and describing it and the meaning behind it in a mini crit kind of way. He was super nice about it, pointing out portions he enjoyed of the piece and where there could be some improvement. He also heavily advocated my more abstract work as it did stand out from the others just a little bit.
During this year, my mental health became a pretty big deal for me as a whole, which ties into about everything about to be discussed as well as my inability to figure out how to work Wix. Attending class first semester was pretty fine until the end of September hit. Got hit with the news that a family member was dying, which took me out due to all my worry being focused on whether or not I was going to get a call. After receiving that news, I didn’t attend classes for a couple of days, mainly to recuperate and make sure that I wouldn’t burst into tears during class. Then my mental health went to shit. Nothing else there. I started to focus on my mental health during the second half of semester one so I could have a good attendance grade and not look like I’d been through it before each class I went to. I can tell you right now that I most definitely cried during Seminar I, Studio A, and Studio B. Same with this semester. Only this time I started counseling. Then everything hit all at once so we had the same issue again - missing class due to me being so unmotivated to get up and get things accomplished. Hopefully, over the summer I’ll be able to work more on it and never have to miss a class because I feel so low I think that anything I put out for my professors isn’t shit and that they wouldn’t inherently dislike it.
The project I’m most proud of is our final for Studio A with Hornbrook. This work was the first time I decided that if I had to put meaning behind it, I was gonna make it a piece of vent art. Quick rundown: I was assaulted as a child and my mother kept it from the authorities because her prerogative wasn’t to protect her children, but to make sure that she kept the good relationship she had with the assaulter's family. Without any surprise, it was also the hardest piece I’ve ever had to do. Again, as I put the meaning, I was reliving memories that I was trying so hard to simply conceal. However, I believe that child sexual assault with belligerent parents is a good topic because it helps others have a small insight into why I do the things I do (ie, dress the alty-goth way I do). I’m super excited about what could be concocted in Printmaking I. I want to keep the odd theme of childhood trauma as there’s plenty and I could really exploit it because again, vent art is good for the soul.
For the first half of this question, I would love to guide you to the goals completed document. This semester I was hoping to accomplish better time management. My time management is getting better, but it’s not where I would like for it to be. I’ve taken advice from my ever-busy music major friends about simply scheduling every moment until I go to bed so that I have time for breaks (not breakdowns) and have the ability to get things done in a timely manner.
Over the summer I want to complete a series in order to keep myself in a creative mindset. I would also like to visit the SLAM (St. Louis Art Museum). For the fall semester, I would love to gain a basic understanding of printmaking and use the knowledge to create a ‘gig’ poster for the saxophone studio quartet (or really any studio concert within the music department).
I’m a BFA candidate with an emphasis in sculpture, currently printmaking leaning. I started to learn about some different processes professional printmakers use and I think it’s absolutely fascinating. There are so many different methods of printmaking and I’m starting to hit the point where I would love to try them all.
With gaining the knowledge that Professor Hornbrook is the printmaking professor, I was hoping to see some of her areas shine more through with Studio A. She did teach us inking techniques, but it would have been amazing to do just a little with printmaking. WIth Holly in Studio A, I was hoping she would give us more insight on how to create sculptures with recycled media more than what she had covered with the mushroom project.
My advice for the incoming freshmen is simple: it’s okay to step back for a day. Don’t overwork yourself into a panic about any class. If a class is making you panic in a way that you think you shouldn’t, talk to your professor. Mental health always comes first. Communication is key. Talk, talk, talk. Let them know your process and your ideas. And know that it’s okay to not take their advice. The professors are here to guide you and give you their opinions. It’s okay to incorporate that one element. Nine times out of ten, they’ll love it regardless. Make friends with at least one upperclassman, they're a big help (and it doesn't matter if they're a major or a minor). Breathe. You got this.