I am finishing the girl I started painting before my last project. I'm going to add some drips and maybe some lines to this painting after I finished up the basic layout (fixing her mouth which is crooked and makes her face look scary) and colors I want on her face.
Michael Vasquez is an artist who explores the life and the reasons why young children turn to gangs as a replacement for a missing parental figure. The color images he creates showcases the rough but idealized male figure a young boy yearns for when growing up in a single parent household. Through his work, Vasquez also explores a gang as a family with its own set of values and as a ritualistic system with its own right of passage when becoming fully apart of the gang as well as becoming a man. Vasquez's works are insightful, as many never would have understood why someone would turn to a lifestyle typically related to violence. By showcasing these works of his friends he show cases a story that may have never been told and understood with simply words. While this will not stop children and teens from turning to gangs and other actions and groups for support, I feel as though this could help our society if more stories like these were known. We would not simply teach abstinence from something and build another prison, but work harder to give them love and other activities better within their community.
So... it was a great trip, I saw a lot of great stuff, it did not rain this year, but I got to the meeting point early and got hustled by a sweet old lady selling bracelets. Mr. Ritchie's sketchbooks were amazing and although I got a tour of the archives, I felt as if his sketchbooks were some of the most interesting things I saw throughout the trip. It was very interesting to see his planning and how rough sketches stand as their own. I also enjoyed the Richard Serra exhibition Rounds. Although they were just black circles, there was a depth to them that change from one round to the next. Some were simply a round an others were rounds with splatters surrounding them. It was interesting to see how one object can take on so many different shapes. The artist John Baldessari also had an amazing exhibition. The differently (geometric) shaped canvases gave the artwork a new look. His use of photography as well as painting and layering were nicely composed and I loved the look of it coupled with the shape of the canvas. |
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