Let's Pretend We Don't Exist, Let's Pretend We're In Antartica!

Week 7

Well this week was an... interesting work week for our political protest projects. Some new developments regarding the passing of the Collective Bargaining Rights Bill, which is basically the "cheaters" version of the State Budget Bill, Now allows Mr. Scott Walker to strip every state worker of their unions and their bargaining rights that they have worked for for the last 50 years. Makes you just want to jump out of school and join the work force doesn't it?! I know so many people have their opinions of what has transpired, but as hypocritical as I might sound, it all happens for a reason. And whatever that reason is, we'll just have to find ways to work around it. No pun intended for the work force of Wisconsin of course.

So what does this mean in terms of my project?
Well it gave me a sense of direction that's for sure. At first I intended to try and make a statement about how much of a dislike I hold for politics... but now I feel this need to poke some fun at the situation. I guess innately more at Walker then at anything else. But after hearing about the whole situation with the hasty voting and the push to pass this bill under the noses of the democrats who did not vote, I figure that Walker is sitting in Madison feeling pretty good about himself. While the protesters on the other hand are making riots in Madison trying to assemble petitions and beat politicians only seconds after the results of the voting. So in my head this translates to a very stupidly happy grin plastered on Walker and some disapproving frowns gracing the faces of the masses. Yup, the overtly animated faces I'm referring to come in the nicely expressive form of emoticons. So during this week I've started working on the computer to superimpose these faces onto pictures of said politicians.

Here's what I've got so far:

So my job over spring break, is to take this idea and figure out just how to translate it. I'm really unsure if I want to represent these images in photo-realism, creating juxtaposition between the cartoonish faces and the realistic bodies, or translating these ideas into a form of political cartoon. I kind of like the idea of both. In terms of size and representations, I think that a tv or computer screen size would be perfect. But if anybody else has suggestions that would be fabulous. I'm also juggling the idea of a diptych because it would put a nice tension between the "derpy" politicians and the "unamused" protesters.

Well as much work as I seem to have over spring break. I plan to thoroughly enjoy the break. Have a good one everybody.

That's why his blood tastes so good on pancakes...

Week 6

In drawing this week we are starting a new assignment. We are doing a "translation" drawing (which means that we have to take material that has already been produced by a source like the media and use it in an artistic sense. However, the subject of our piece has to revolve around the current protests pertaining to Scott Walker's proposed bill to try and amend the state deficit. Which is going to make this an extremely difficult project for me.

To be perfectly honest. I really don't like the thought of politics. By nature I try to avoid confrontation, conflict, and competition by any means necessary. This of course opens up a whole new "can of worms" per say that I really would not rather discuss because my thought process really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to even me sometimes. But in short, if I could "create" a perfect world, politics would not exist, and everyone would have a comfortable financial situation where there would be no competition for jobs and problems would rectify themselves through some kind of divine intervention. The world would live off of rainbows and unicorn farts.. yeah I get it.. I'm a childish dreamer.

Anyways my recent acquisition Orthomyxoviridae (yay... flu) has rendered me useless for the last week. And it's still somehow managing to kick me to the curb. So after some reading to catch up on the articles and powerpoints assigned on Thursday....

My knowledge of the project so far makes me immediately want to do a project about expressing my disinterest or dislike in politics, or figure out a way to express my confusion over the issue. I'm still trying to think about how I'm going to use already rendered media to express my point, but I did find an article that was a satire on this whole issue called "Protesters Protest Protesting of Protesters Protesting Protest." I'm not sure why, but I really feel like I want to use this as my project title. It's quippy, accurate, and falls right into place with how I'm feeling about this project.

Hit me, knock me out and let me go back to sleep...

Week 5


"Untitled"
Caitlin Bohac
India Ink, fake blood, and conte crayon on Stonehenge

  Well here it is, the final product. I have decided to name it "Untitled", not only because I have a really hard time chosing names for pieces, but I have bounced around several different names in my head and I really think that giving it a specific title could really impact a viewers perspective. My whole goal of this piece was to make a map that had a special meanint to me, but using a medium that makes it intensely personal. So personal that it almost verges on the point of uncomfortable. It lets a viewer inject (sorry for the pun) their own meaning into the piece.

During the critique on Tuesday, I was told that it does give off a very bloody vibe, but almost too much of one. The dripping effects of the india ink and "fake blood" (which if you didn't read my last post was what I ended up using) reall.y express the intentions of blood as the medium. The other critques that I cued most in on was the fact that it doesn't really express ther personal qualities of leaving your trail, or mark, on the map. It makes it more the point of being creepy, small town, homocide, creepy. That was never my intention. I really have no intention of going postal any time soon, especially on anybody that is represented in this map. I really think I got caught up in my own ideas and needed a different approach that I just couldn't find. In retrospect, this project was more thought intensive than I'd imagined. I don't think I fully explored all of the capabilites that cartography as a medium could offer. But it was an excellent learning experience in that it made me think about different mediums and styles and it gave me a chance to try out some more abstract concepts in my work. I notice in a lit of my pieces I like being litteral and drawing piece with a set subject and a very face-value meaning. I think in some ways that's really kind of a weakness, it kind of feels like being a one-hit-wonder.

Otherwise this week was a relaxing end to a project. Spending the week critiquing and looking and discussing everybody elses work was nice. I really loved the diversity in not only styles but subjects. What I think was really kind of interesting about this week was that several people used the map idea to create works with a darker meaning or having a darker feel to a relatively postive subject. I think that a lot of people took this opportunity of mapping to reach down and pull something out of them that wouldn't really come out in their regular work. But now that I know that this is over, I'm ready to see what the next project entails. I really can't believe that the semester is half way over already. It's kind of sad. Somebody told me yesterday that I looked worn out. Funny thing is I completely agree.

It is not slime.... it's mucus!

Week 4

Well this week has beein insane! Not only are almost all of my teachers sick with some kind of dilapadating disease, but the campus has been thrown into an upset state over a supposed goverment takeover through a bill proposed by Governor Walker. Now I really don't like politics. I think it's a bunch of people with big heads not fighting for what may be the good of the state or nation or whatever... but they do what they do just to stop the other side from "winning". It's like a really bad game of capture the flag. But I digress, that's not really what I should be talking about here. This week is going peachy for me as well... I use that term VERY loosely.

In terms of project progress, I've hit ther perverbial brick wall. I have been gathering more maps to add some more layers to my project, but in terms of finding a source for blood I think I have run out of options. I've tried the meat shop in town, and 4 recommended meat lockers in the surrounding area. The best answer I got was somebody told me that they didn't save any blood from the last slaughter and I would have to wait another two weeks. I think I'm creeping people out when I call looking for blood. Oh well. I have spent a good part of my class period looking for acceptable substitutes for a fake blood recipie. Even though I wouldn't get the color completely accurate, I think my best bet would be to use a formulation of corn syrup and india ink.

I was also looking up some blood artists to see how this medium was used by other people. I got a few disgusting yet interesting results. One that was really intriguing was the artist named Vanessa Tiegs. She has a whole series of blood paintings that she has labeled as "Menstrala". From there I suppose you can pretty much infer where her source of blood comes from. But honestly if you look past that the compositions are very interesting and the textures are very diverse. For obvious reasons, she photographs these pieces and sells them as prints.

Watch it spin around into a beautiful oblivion

Week 3

This week was a work week to keep refining out ideas for our mapping project. Sadly my work week hasn't been anywhere near normal. On Tuesday I has to forgo a class period in order to work on a video production assignment that is due next tuesday. We are supposed to create a "music driven short" and I wanted to get down and do some filming in Devil's Punchbowl before the weather warmed up and all of the ice melted. Granted, I wasn't expecting filmfing to take 4 hours, expecially when the movie is only going to be one minute long. Either way, I'm glad to have it done, now I can get back to focusing on real things.

I started thinking about the initial critique of mapping ideas. When we looked at it in groups, I was told that my idea of "burning" my paths into the map needed something more. I started doing some thinking about how I could transform the idea of "burning paths" and my ideas of emotion and expression. I came to the conclusion that since this project is mappiong out the paths of my life, I would do a little experimentation and use blood as a medium in my work. When I looked up blood as an artistic medium, and started thinking about it's properties I realized that I would run into a few problems that I would have to solve in order to make this successful.

1) Where and how am I going to get blood to paint with?
2) How do I combat the coagulating properties of blood? (I'd rather not try to paint with jello)
3) How would blood react with other mediums and surfaces that I'd want to do my work on.

We'll see how this turns out.

You'll never get past Muggshot... my villainous cohort in Utah!

Week 2
This week we started looking over some maps and how cartography is working it's way into art, discussing how cartography is making an impact and how artists are using maps to address social and personal issues. These class discussions really made me think about how much maps are being used and how I never really noticed how much they are being used as an artistic medium. Now I can't NOT see them! I think what really hit this idea home for me was the fact that I was able to relate some of these cartographic ideas to the things I encounter in my everyday life. For example when we were discussing the difference between graphs and maps, and the context between the two. It made more sense to me to relate them to two of my favorite video games.

Harvest Moon: Back to Nature
(grid based game play)

Viva Piñata
(map based game play)

 One game, a farming based RPG ("role playing game" for those dont know gaming acronyms) is very linear. Although you can choose the way to farm your land and make your living, everything is very... geometric. You farm your land in square plots, you encounter certain life events in a particular order and no matter how you live your "life" the end result can happen one of two ways. Predictable, cut-and-dry, a grid based game that is overlayed on top of the environment which gives you a limited amount of interaction with your world and the people around you. The other game however I think is completely "map" based. Alas another "farming" based RPG (I seem to be attracted to games that make light of monotonous daily chores?) you develop your garden to make it more attractive to various species of "wildlife"... okay I use that term loosely... it's a bunch of happy little pinatas... but you get my drift. I see this as more of a map based game because aside from the fact that there is a boundary on your property, you can develop it any way you want. And the construction of trees, houses, ponds, grass etc., or conversely the destruction, is changing but it always has a base effect on the world. Basically you make an impact there whether you intend to or not. Of course some of this always has to do with game plot and other external elements, but I hope you understand my analogy.

Black City - Julie Mehretu

We also discussed in depth and artist named Julie Mehretu. I think that seeing how another artist dealt with the use of cartography in art in "real time" was a great experience. It really stressed all the points of the article we've been reading and discussions we've been having. I think the culmination of thi was a discussion we had about how "all maps are cognitive". We recognized that cognition was defined as thought process and that through maps, these processes are all documented. But it almost seems like a catch 22 in Mehretu's work. You can really see the thought process through her mark-making but her work seems so abstract and ambiguous that you really can't tell what she is thinking at all. Which from the looks of it seems to be her MO. Everything has a different meaning to somebody else and her lack of explanation is her way of portraying her art.

For the homework this week, we are supposed to be whittling our ideas down and trying to potentially come up with a final piece. Our homework was and exercise to take a map and modify it in some way to make it mean something else, as fas as that was another meaning to a person or place was undefined so it really made you think about what maps of different places or things mean to you or to different people. I'm going to do some research on different types of maps and how to incorporate them into my self-defined theme of emotion and expression. I am still unsure if I am going to make these more abstract or literal works and to what degree I am going to individualize them.

Ohhhhhh Kenshin, I found you.....

Hello! I'm Caitlin Bohac, I am 22 years old and a 4th year Multimedia Design student at UW-Stout. Like (hopefully) most people, I'm really unsure of where I might be tomorrow, let alone in the next 10 years. So instead I'll just say that I would one day possibly hope to be working in character concept/development. And over the last 3 years I have developed with an obsession with form, particularly human, and food; not essentially in any order or combination. Also, especially in the last month, I have been working more and more with digital painting. I took Kevin Pontuti's Digital Painting class over Winterm this year and I was just as excited for it at the end as I was at the beginning. It was possibly one of the best classes I've taken here at Stout.

The reason I am taking Drawing 3, is to not only hone my skills with traditional mediums, but to hopefully focus on making this class like an extension of Life Drawing. But also after hearing Amy's overview of the class syllabus, I'm looking at this as an opportunity to develop some really strong portfolio pieces and possibly even help me choose a direction for Senior show that I will eventually have to take in the near future. I'm not entirely sure if I'm approaching this class with the right attitude, but I am looking at this class as more of an exploration.

Now for a little more of a less formal intro, I love animation and find it one of my greatest inspirations. I am absolutely nuts about food, both eating it and making it, which probably doesn't help my obsession with it. Some of my favorites include seafood of the crustacean variety, pierogi, and sushi. I love watching cooking shows too. I occasionally play video games in my spare time as well. Usually either The Sims (2 or 3) and Natsume's Harvest Moon. I love animals too, my newest muse is probably my most recent Christmas present, my little 6 month old grey tabby kitten. She's so sweet and amazing. But I have discovered that it's difficult to draw when she comes flying out of nowhere and steals the pencil out of your hand.

Some of my Life Drawing II/Digital Painting work: 

Character Concept: Mara Purrun

Character Concept: Elizabeth de Farris

Life Size Skeleton

Portrait: Jake Peters