My idea is that you can find great things in the most random places. These were pictures taken from random streets I was driving around. I choose it because I feel like sometimes people tend to overlook the small things and don’t stop to appreciate what a great place we live in. Although, yeah we have pollution and all this stuff but there’s nice stuff too. Also, the best things can come when you least expect it. We have all these expectations but they don’t always work out. Both of these views came from me driving through random streets of LA. I had just gotten late night donuts with a friend. We didn’t want to drive home just yet so we decided to drive around the city and just catch up. As we were talking and driving by some of the residential areas we found this gem.
I’d like to think I was pretty successful we found a nice spot. I ended up putting a pin there so I can definitely go back anytime. I didn’t think I would go with this idea, it kind of just happened. If I were to do again I wouldn’t know what other way to do it. If I went looking for spots then it wouldn’t have been the same story.
I don’t know what other idea I would explore through shocking art however. Maybe I would do something related to my major since I have a great passion for it. There are tons of shocking things in engineering. You would be surprised. Stuff of the things the industry is working on is pretty insane on multiple levels. From space to military technology.

I choose to do my story on volleyball! I love this sport and I have been playing for about 7 years now. It’s a sport that I have picked up in the beginning of high school and to this day continue to play. It’s done so much for me throughout my life. I think it’s been one of the biggest contributors to my personal development and has definitely helped with disciplining myself. Sometimes, it’s even been a great escape from everything. Overall, it’s just fun. I have met so many great people through the sport who share the same passion. It’s a long term thing that has helped me improve in little ways.

I think I did pretty well. I got to capture some nice moments as well as see the behind the scenes in the training. In my opinion, aesthetically the best picture is the one where I am hitting the ball, just because it is very satisfying. For overall best picture, I think it’s the very first one. It feels just kind of nice looking it. It’s really simple and plain, but it’s a view I see every time before I hop on the court to play. I always bring a pair of indoor shoes. It’s the one thing that hasn’t changed throughout the years. I think that one is the important but not best picture when looking at it. It helps to tell the story of playing or getting ready to do whatever I need to do.

In terms of what I would do different, I want to have more photos with other people in them. Volleyball is a team sport and the people you meet are great from it. In these photos you don’t get to see the emotional parts of the sport just the raw photos you would see going into a gym. That is probably the only change I could think of making. Other photo stories though I don’t know. There isn’t a lot of things that mean a whole lot in my life to make a photo story of besides my girlfriend. I would probably do it just because it’s interesting and a fun personal story.

For this week’s act activity we had to sketch! Above are some of the drawings that I sketched by the lawn near the hall of science. Honestly, the experience was a bit frustrating. I don’t think I’m good at drawing things and it doesn’t come out the way I want it to. The fun experience however was doing it with someone else. It was really fun to compare out creations. I don’t think drawing is very fun for me. I would probably like it if I was a lot better at it. I might try it here and there but maybe it’s just not for me.

I think like anything else I could get a lot better at it if I put in the time. The more hours you put into something the better you get at it. Maybe if I had more fun doing it I would practice more. It can be frustrating when it never comes out the way you want it to. Painting might be something I’d pick up though.

Sketching can have it’s uses in everyday life though and possibly even in my career. I am currently studying aerospace engineering. For the most part, all the “drawing” done in engineering is through 3D CAD software. When you’re drawing through the program, it’s a lot more about visualizing and being creative to make the part fit your needs or specifications. A lot of can be recreation with some minor or major adjustments. It’s a lot less frustrating on the software to me at least, because you can undo your errors and its the one place where I can make a straight line. Outside of the software though, there’s plenty of uses for sketching. A big chunk of engineering is designing and coming up with new ideas where sharing and getting feedback is a big part of it. Often times, in discussions I’m explaining my idea or big picture image of it and it’s hard for the other person to visualize it. Such as, “oh, we should add this part this way or use this mechanism to latch a payload.” Sketching the part out is a really good way to show the people you are working with what you are thinking. It’s also a good way to quickly check proportions of your aircraft and see if everything just looks right.

I think drawing is definitely a language. You can communicate through drawing in so many ways and for some people it’s how they best communicate. Just like in the example I used in the engineering design, sketching or drawing can sometimes be more effective in communicating than actual words. It’s hard to visualize things sometimes through just auditory senses. Visual learners are also a thing as well. You can’t tell me looking at a diagram has never helped you better understand a specific topic. Sometimes a picture is all you need to fully understand something.

Artist: Janet Doan
Exhibition: Magic In the Making
Media: Animation
Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Marilyn Werby Gallery
Instagram: @Jananachips

Janet Doan is currently a student at LBSU pursuing a BFA in the school of art’s animation program. She is currently working with a team to produce a show. They have developed both the story and art. On this team, Janet is a storyteller, animator, and illustrator. Growing up, she always watched a lot of cartoons and read comics which lead her to dream of creating her own one day. She’s interested in fantasy and magic because of Harry Potter.

In her illustrations, you can see that the style is very cartoon-like. It seems like a mix of traditional American cartoons and Japanese animation style. You can tell the colors are very light and muted. The people drawn have more rounded faces and use more curved features. There’s usually very little jagged or straight lines when drawing the people. This gives off a much friendlier vibe when compared to some comics such as DC comics. The muted pastel colors make it seem like it’s geared to have a more light-hearted story.

One of the biggest ideas Janet is trying to explore is the idea of necromancy, reviving the dead. In her story, she wants to put a little more light-hearted spin to it because necromancy is usually something that has negative connotations towards it. It’s looked down upon and is considered a pretty dark topic. She simply just wants to make a fun and cute story to share regardless of necromancy’s dark connotations.

I enjoyed looking at the art and reading the storyboards. I also grew up watching a lot of cartoons and was really into fantasy as a kid which is why the display resonated with me. It felt nostalgic looking at their production. It reminded me of all the shows and books about fantasy when I was a child. I liked the idea of fantasy and making something usually dark not so dark.

One of the best things about art is how you can find it basically anywhere with a little bit of effort. During this week’s activity we were tasked with finding it and putting a frame around what we considered art. For this we choose a tree! Here the tree is a light gray color with some brown vines and green leaves growing out of them. In our art there are some curved lines that run up the tree made of vines. It represents life isn’t always linear and is never one straight path. It will always diverge or turn in unexpected ways. It’s a little hard to see with the lighting in this photo but coming out of those small branches have some green leaves growing out of them. Further showing that within those twists and turns of life some nice things grow out of them.

Personally, I think the art was already there before we put the frame on it. Having the rectangle there only helps to people to focus and appreciate the art more. With or without the rectangle the content of the art I described earlier is still the same. The rectangle only helps to bring attention to it. Same way a painting is still art with or without the frame or if you single out a piece of a mural. The tree will always be there which means the art is always there even if the rectangle is gone.

I think art resides in the person looking at it. Say there’s graffiti on a subway underpass or just on a wall. Depending on who looks at it, it is art. A police officer or someone walking by may think it isn’t art and shouldn’t be considered so. However a different person may stumble across and stare in awe of how beautiful it looks. To the second person, that is art. You’ll know if something is art if you can sit there and appreciate it.

Obviously, since art is decided by the beholder, anything can be art even the non-physical stuff. For example, watching an extremely talented volleyball or basketball player to me is art. I say this because sometimes I can’t help but stare at the beautiful plays and elegant movements. Same way dancing is an art. There’s even a whole section called the performing arts. You can even say there’s art in how a professional chess player can manipulate the other players. Art comes in so many different shapes and forms, it shouldn’t be limited to just objects.

By that logic, art resides in the experience of the viewer. It’s what you, the viewer, makes of it. To one person, Kobe could be an inspiring artist or basketball player, while someone else who did not grow up watching basketball or isn’t into the sport wouldn’t think much of it. It’s the same reason why I don’t have that emotion or same experience looking at a piece of abstract art or painting compared to Professor Zucman. When writing this blog I can’t help but remember all those times I spent watching my favorite professional volleyball player and the experience I had watching him. It’s something someone else may probably not be able to experience!

Visiting the contemporary art museum in Los Angeles was definitely a fun and interesting experience. There I was able to see all the different ways an idea has been used throughout history in different forms. The overall theme of the museum is that “silence is protest” and the power that silence or sound can have. Going into the museum the very first thing you see is some examples of this throughout history. There I saw accounts of refugees who sew their mouth shut in protest, a civil rights protest in the early 1900s in response to lynching, Collin Kaepernick taking the knee, and many more. It showed how all these forms of protest have made a difference today one way or another. Along the walls had pieces of Terrycloth, which is a material that naturally absorbs sound. In another dark room, which was a little creepy, showed an account of where the court used acoustic analysis to find out whether or not soldiers had broken the law by firing live ammunition over rubber bullets. The other rooms had similar things showcasing other forms of sound.

So when I first went into the museum I was really lost. To be fair that was because me and my girlfriend saw the exhibitions out of order, but I think added to the experience. The layout confused us a little. We went into the rooms first and thought it was really creepy. There were some videos playing that was just silent. The whole museum was so quiet it tripped us out a little, since we would go into these closed off rooms with barely any noise besides some static. After going through the end, we realized we missed a whole section of the museum. We backtracked and found out that the theme was silence is a form of protest and that sound has a lot of power. Afterwards everything just clicked. The museum showed how much power sound has through all its accounts and rooms that blocked off the sound. Definitely inspired me a little to use silence for little things.

The LACE and the Hollywood Stars are both forms of art. They express different things, one being the power of sound and the other is like a symbol for some famous people. Hollywood Blvd is definitely the one that gets more visitors, but I think it is because of how hyped it is. The stars are people we personally know of or names we’ve heard thrown around so often. In the museum, I didn’t know anybody in it or much about it at all. They both contribute towards contemporary culture. Both of them showcase something that affects the world today and is a symbol of our culture. I think the LACE shows how we got here, while the Stars show what is here today.

I mainly choose Shrek’s star because I thought it would be funny. I didn’t think he had one but as I was scrolling through the list I ended up finding his name. I didn’t know that fictional characters had stars on Hollywood Blvd. Either way I thought it was interesting because Shrek was one of my favorite movies back in the way. I didn’t feel like I was performing an art when I was doing it though. Thinking about it now, I think I considered cleaning Trump’s star more as a act of art because so many people hate on him and that women did exactly the opposite of what someone that hates him would do. Cleaning it was like going against what the people thought about him. In my case though, everyone likes Shrek. The most I really felt was that I’m indirectly supporting a fictional character that I liked or the overall theme of the movie. It didn’t really feel too different from doing chores at home. The only real difference was that the cleaning the star was in public and people can see that. At the end of the day though, chores are also done for either yourself or another person. Which was the same concept as cleaning a star but just in a different way. Though cleaning your home directly benefits you a lot more and a star would just get dirty again. If I had to choose, I would probably do chores at home. Since it directly benefits someone I know, my mom. I don’t think I would consider my cleaning “art” though. To me it has to help or inspire someone in some way or another, which I didn’t feel like I did.

Finger painting was definitely an interesting experience. It was something I’ve never done before to be honest. At first I was kind of lost. I wasn’t really to sure what to do so I just started to pour some paint on to my fingers and smeared it onto the paper. Eventually it just came together. I started thinking “Oh, I need more of this or more of that”, until finally I was satisfied with what I had. The activity was definitely easier than what I expected it to be. I thought I would end up being a lot more lost since I never really paint nor do I consider myself artistic in the aesthetic sense. I thought I’d end up feeling more like “What am I even doing?”, but it just flowed. It definitely felt super liberating. I have painted a couple times in a past when I would try and recreate an image I saw online. I would try really hard to make sure the image and the details were on point. I spent a lot of time being more methodical and having a mindset of not messing it up. It felt really liberating to just do whatever I felt like. A big difference between other abstract paintings that I’ve seen before is that the other ones I’ve seen which are done by professional artists, the paintings are very deliberate. Even though it is an abstract piece of work and the picture isn’t exactly clear, the colors always mix and mesh well. It looks like the artist has something else in mind, while mine I feel like you can see the fact that I don’t really know what I am doing. The inexperience does show.

On January 29th, our ART 110 class met outside Piotr Kowalski’s NOW and cleaned it. It was a form of maintenance art. Honestly it was a nice change of pace, I’ve walked past it hundreds of times by now, but not once did I really get to appreciate and see how dirty it actually was. The experience gives me a new perspective and makes me want to appreciate our campus a little more.

What is art? Well, that question can is different for everyone. Anything can be art depending on how you interpret it. To me both, Mierle Laderman Ukeles cleaning the steps of an art museum and Richard Serra flinging molten lead against the walls of an art museum, can be considered art. Richard Serra’s work was intended to be put in a museum and seen by others, while Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ was “maintenance art” that invovled cleaning the steps. However they both wanted to “display” their work, just in different ways.

I think Laderman’s work is considered art and not just because it was done in front of an art museum, but more because of what she was trying to do. The little things people do is art. Being hired or paid for it doesn’t change the message she tries to make. It’s about the struggles and how hard women work. Basketball can be considered an art in so many different ways but just because people get paid doesn’t mean it’s no longer art. I think anything could be art. By definition, art is a anything that expresses the author’s imaginative, conceptual, or technical skills. What makes an act art is what the person doing it is trying to express. All paintings in one way or another is art. Even house painting. When you’re house painting you can be expressing a number of different things such as what your favorite color might be or what mood you want the room to have. Canvas art may not be expressing emotion, but it can express the technical skill of the artist when recreating an image or their creativity.

I don’t think Jenifer Lopez or Mierle Laderman Ukeles has really made me think differently of specifically “women’s work”. I’ve always thought that work in general is an art regardless of who is doing it. I think all work is one way or another is art and it’s not subjective to women. It’s just something about hard work that’s inspiring which is why I’d call it art.

During class we walked about the women who cleaned Donald Trump’s star. I thought it was really interesting and could also consider that art because of the message she tried to send. I’m not really too sure about whose star I would want to clean. Famous people that get a star have never made a huge lasting impression. Maybe shrek.

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

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