POST 3

An artist I looked into was Shantell Martin, the British designer with more than an inkling for comic-driven style, specifically in black and white. She states that, "Everyone is in a rush these days! Take your time, do what you love, be honest with yourself and others around you, educate yourself about all aspects of the business from taxes to contracts to preservation of your works and also do an audit of your strengths and weaknesses and THEN create a plan to focus on those weak points. We no longer live in a day and age where artist can get away with simply making art (unless your extremely privileged). "From feelings of alienation to messages of empowerment, connects with my project. Also, the idea of writing on clothing, I wanted to include in my film. She also focuses on finding self in drawing.

She also mentions for her, this goes back to being a kid who is mixed race, having people trying to say that I had to be this or I had to be that. I was like, “No, I can just be me.” Regardless of the medium, regardless of the industry, I’m going to do what I want. I’m going to collaborate with who I want. I’m going to say yes to projects that interest me.

If you write out “WHO ARE YOU,” you’ll see that the first three letters are W A Y. So essentially it’s about trying to find your way in life. About asking ourselves that question by posing it to the outside world.

“WHO ARE YOU” eventually turned into “YOU ARE YOU,” which is a destination. Then “YOU ARE YOU” became “ARE YOU YOU,” because when you get to that destination and figure out who you are, you have to start all again, in a different way. You’re asking that initial question of “who are you?” or “how are you finding your way?”—but you’re asking it in a new, unique way.

I like that she values with being honest with yourself. Finding yourself in what you do and figuring your sense of self.

Jenny Holzer and her project Truisms is insightful, aggressive, or comic, they express multiple viewpoints that the artist hopes will arouse a wide range of responses.

A small selection of Truisms includes: "A lot of professionals are crackpots"; "Abuse of power comes as no surprise"; "Bad intentions can yield good results"; and "Categorizing fear is calming." The nearly three hundred sayings and slogans utilize a series of modern clichés or commonly held truths. She began simplifying big ideas from her readings into concise statements and phrases and putting up signs around Manhattan. She wrote all of her own clichés, thinking that if people heard something that was a little different than usual that they would remember it more clearly. She liked to keep her statements as short and summarizing and wanting it to able to reach the largest crowd as possible. “You only have a few seconds to catch people, so you can’t do long, reasoned arguments, but I hope they’re not simplistic or idiotic”, Holzer said on the topic. Her goal was for people to see them, read them, laugh at them, and be provoked by them. I She like the aggressiveness and the kind of futuristic beauty of the electronics.

From Truisms, I enjoyed reading about how straightforward and direct the statements she would put out there that she wanted to bring awareness to which is what I’m also doing in my project. Also, that she acknowledges that in order to capture people’s attention has to be short and to the point. You have to create something that will grab people’s attention.

Barbara Kruger - Most of her work consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with captions, stated in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed text. The phrases in her works often include pronouns such as "you", "your", "I", "we", and "they", addressing cultural constructions of power, identity, and sexuality.

She would put together photographs with pithy and assertive text that challenges the viewer. Her method includes developing her ideas on a computer, later transferring the into images. Her most recognizable slogans read "I shop therefore I am," and "Your body is a battleground," appearing in her trademark white letters against a red background. She draws attention to ideas such as feminism, consumerism, and individual autonomy and desire, frequently appropriating images from mainstream magazines and using her bold phrases to frame them in a new context.

Kruger has said that "I work with pictures and words because they have the ability to determine who we are and who we aren't." A larger category that threads through her work is the assumptions and alteration of existing images.

She states that, “Pictures and words seem to become the rallying points for certain assumptions. There are assumptions of truth and falsity and I guess the narratives of falsity are called fictions. I replicate certain words and watch them stray from or coincide with the notions of fact and fiction.”

I think about text and what type of visuals and size for creating the piece.

When it comes to my project these are all connections that relate to it. There’s a common pattern amongst the project and what I want to do. Regarding to how I want to execute it and create. I’m just honestly tired of society. We live in a fucked up world. I just want people to own up to themselves and who they are and stop trying to project to this so called perfect life or wannabe life. It’s interesting to see other artists and what they’ve done. I don’t like being influenced by other people’s work but it’s interesting to see what people have done. That’s me owning up to this is what is important to me to be able to express how I feel and that I feel it’s problematic that there’s so many toxic people out there. If people, make projects or films or whatever related about people creating fake personalities than that’s an issue. Psychological abuse and being messed up by people who don’t really take the time to get to know their own selves. Trying to find people to just fill their void and rely on others to find the answers for them. When in reality, no one can ever really figure you, but yourself.