Sunday, February 13, 2011

Right Brian Use it or Lose it?

1.           Since my last post I believe we finished “Memento” and discussed it. We also made our own pieces of art out of simple shapes and attempted to portray either “calm” or “unnerving.” This was an interesting exercise. It was cool to hear all of the class talk about what they think each individual artwork meant, and explain why they though that.  Hearing what the class thought and what the artists intended was a good exercise and really showed how different people interpret art in many different ways.
2.           There have been several readings since the last blog post. The “Right side of the brain” reading was a concept that I was moderately familiar with. While I am no art major I did take a drawing class last semester. We did several exercises with negative space and even drew the same upside down man drawing in the reading.  What surprised me was how difficult these drawings were a second time. I was thinking “ aw negative space, no look drawing, upside down drawing while not labeling what I am drawing, I’ve done this before this will be a piece of cake.” Not so much. I found that I reverted back to the logical labeling side of my brain much faster than I thought I would. I struggled to not think about what I was drawing as an “arm” or an “eye.” This caught me off guard because I was familiar with the concept.  The no look drawings I did a little better at than my first ones last semester. My hands that I drew I think can be identified as hands, while the same cannot be said for my no look drawing of my girlfriend that I did last semester.
      The other reading, by John Berger I believe, was one that brought up some really great points I think. The part that intrigued me the most was the discussion of art duplication and the advent of photography. I had never really thought of the impact that photography and the ability to reproduce artworks had on art and the way that we think about art. The discussion about how artworks are now judged on their market value was a good one. I enjoyed the way in which the author showed how an artworks worth and how that worth is defined has changed over the years. This was also linked in to the discussion of a particular artist’s works and how critics thought that the paintings showed contempt for its subjects, while the author talked about how the subjects were held in high regard by the painter. This reminded me of the class artworks that we did and how many different opinions people had about them. This really got me thinking about how people all think so differently and how hard it must be to create a piece of artwork that will mean the same thing to everybody. This is probably impossible now that I think about it but that is a discussion for another day.
3.       Do you think it is possible to create a universal artwork (one that means the same thing to everyone)? Why or why not? Do you think it is ever possible to completely block out the logical side of your brain? Explain.
4.         I tried to do research on losing skills or abilities over time, but none of it really applied to what I was hoping. I was hoping to look into how I reverted back to my logical right brain while doing drawings, when I have been trained otherwise. I mean it is totally possible that I have not been trained enough. In fact this is most likely the case, but I just thought it would be interesting to see how long abilities like that last. I wonder if you took a talented artist and made them not make art for 10 years, if they would still make art the same way and think the same way they did before they had to stop. Is the ability to think creatively and block out the label making portion of your brain already there or is it learned, and once it is learned or manifested can it be u

1 comment:

  1. Nice post. I think that art is slippery in the sense that meanings are never fixed and universal. Even if many agree on one meaning, that meaning can alter and change over time as society changes. That is sort of why the right side of the brain is a valuable part to utilize, it slips between the cracks of logic to some extent, which is also what makes it frustrating for many people!

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