I referred to the call to action number 83, which calls for more funding for Indigenous artists to produce work that contributes to the reconciliation process. For my project, I wanted to create an art installation that includes speakers where the viewer could press a button and listen to the artist talk about their work.
Storytelling plays a big part in First Nations culture, and I wanted this to be a central element for my art installation. It also makes it more interactive this way, and the viewer is more likely to search up the artist afterwards as they feel more connected. Next to the speaker there would be a short bio of the artist and the website would be displayed as well. The website would serve as an archive full of stories from artists of the west coast.
By having the artwork displayed in touristy areas, it would be seen by a larger audience, plus newcomers could learn more about First Nations culture this way.
For my design process, I started with sketching out ideas and creating moodboards. Then I developed those sketches and ideas some more, and added the logo to the site so that it would be more identifiable.
The sound wave design I came up with. It incorporates elements of nature and the west coast. I thought the more stylized, wavy lines looks a bit like First Nations artwork, but made sure to keep it different enough so that I wouldn’t appropriate it. I also kept the colours pretty neutral and chose the colour blue to represent the ocean and mountains on the west coast.
For my project I want to create an interactive art installation that would be placed in tourist hotspots and would be geared towards all ages.
I was thinking it would be cool to have different forms of artwork placed around the city and have a speaker type thing nearby which you could press and listen to the artist talk about their work and personal life and some of the challenges they face as First Nations. This way, the viewer would be more engaged and connected, and would also be more likely to look up the artist as oppose if they were to just see a mural on a wall with no audio.
This would also be a good way to introduce newcomers to First Nations culture and provide them with some background on truth and reconciliation. Also, if people stopped to listen, other people would see that and be interested to check out what it is. I’m not sure exactly what that would look like, but I imagine it being a wood carving of some sort with a speaker inside, and then for the art beside it, it would be a variety of styles and forms.
In addition, I want to create a site landing page that would serve as an archive for all these stories and would contain more information. I originally thought about focusing on a podcast, but after doing some research I saw that there already was quite a few out there and I think that combining storytelling with an art installation would be more impactful.
I’m going to be referring to the call to action number 79 under the commemoration category for my project.
Marian Bantjes (born 1963) is a Canadian designer, artist, illustrator, typographer and writer. She is most famously known for her custom lettering and highly detailed, decorative style.
Her career in visual communication began when she worked as a book typesetter from 1984-1994 for Hartley Marks. She became well known as a graphic designer from 1994-2003, when she was a partner and senior designer at Digitopolis in Vancouver.
Her international success; however, came later when she left her firm and started working with custom type ornaments. She described herself as a graphic artist, and her work is personal, ornamental and obsessive.
I personally prefer simple design and don’t normally gravitate to design that is super ornate, but I do find Bantjes work very interesting and I like reading about her thought process behind each piece.
I’ve included some work I came across her site which resonated more with me.
In the image down below, Bantjes pairs old photographs from the 50s with excerpts from romance novels. I the vintage look it has. Underneath, we see an example of custom type, and I like the way that the type isn’t very distracting or busy even though there is a lot of detail. Finally, I like the typography she created out of flowers, especially when she pairs the image with some of her writing. I think her work becomes more powerful after reading her artist statements for each piece which she includes on her site.
Ettore Sottsass (14 September 1917 – 31 December 2007) was an Italian architect and designer, born in Innsbruck Austria but grew up in Turin. Sottsass’ work included furniture, jewellery, glass, lighting, home objects, office machine design, buildings, and interiors.
His father was also an architect, and belonged to the modernist architect group Movimiento Italiano per l’architecture Razionale (MIAR) led by Giuseppe Pagano. Sottsass (Jr.) graduated in 1939 with a degree of architecture but then served in the Italian military after that. Once he returned home, Sottsass worked as an architect with his father, creating new modernist versions of buildings that were destroyed in the war.
In 1947, Sottsass set up his own architectural and industrial design studio in Milan, and here he created work in all sorts of different media such as ceramic, painting, sculpture, furniture, photography, jewelry, architecture and interior design.
From 1954 to 1957 Sottsass was a member of the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus. He also had an exhibition on his ceramics in 1956.
In 1957, Sottsass joined Poltronova, a semi-industrial producer of contemporary furniture, as a consultant. The furniture he worked on there influenced his layer works with Memphis Milano.
Ettore Sottsass was one of the most influential figures in the postmodernist movement and popularized Italian industrial design.
Personally, I am not a fan of the post modernism movement, as I find it neither functional or aesthetically pleasing. Some furniture from the movement is original and I think it would look cool as an art piece, but as a design movement it is probably my least favourite.
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon is a graphic designer and landscape architect born in 1928, California. She is known for her large scale interior Supergraphics and exterior signage at Sea Ranch in Sonoma County.
When she was young, Solomon trained as a dancer, and studied painting and sculpture at San Fransisco Art institute. She got married in 1948, then later moved to Switzerland after her husband’s death in 1956. She also studied Architecture at Berkeley after this.
Solomon returned to San Fransisco in 1962 and set up an office as a graphic designer and designed guides for the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art. She met landscape architect Lawrence Halprin who got her work to Sea Ranch, where she designed the architectural scale paintings for the building interiors. Solomon also created a logo for the Ranch, and Halprin went on to recommend her to other architects and designers he knew. After building more of a name for herself, she received two American Institute of Architects awards.
She went on to teach at Harvard and Yale and later worked more as a landscape architect.
I chose Barbara Solomon because I find it inspiring to look at the lives of other female designers, especially since the industry was male-dominated during the time. I admire her for pursuing many creative disciplines, going to study design abroad, and for her desire to keep learning later on in her life.
Interestingly enough, Solomon’s famous work at the Sea Ranch was almost cut short as the architects blew the budget. She came up with a solution, though, making a few adjustments and using cost-effective paint, and so the project was a success.
Wes Wilson was an American designer and key figure in the psychedelic design movement.
Robert Wesley Wilson was born on July 15th 1937 in Sacramento, California.
His career as a poster artist started at a San Fransisco print shop, where he did the layout and design for handbills. He then designed posters for dance concerts at The Fillmore Auditorium.
Wilson was one of the earlier pioneers of the movement. His inspiration came from some light shows as well as his own psychedelic experiences and this resonated with the younger audience of the time.
When asked for his design process, Wilson explained that he determined his choice in colours from the hallucinogenic experiences he had and we can see that there was a strong drug influence in his work similarly to many other designers in the 60s.
I like the colour choices in the posters above, I prefer when he sticks to a simpler colour palette as there is a lot going on already with the type. I also like the variation in line weight.
Wilson’s earlier work was very unique but his style soon became copied by other artists. One of the distinctive elements of the 1960s psychedelic style was the appearance of melting letters. The idea for these trippy fonts came to Wilson as he was flipping through a catalogue, when he stumbled on a page about Viennese Secessionist lettering.
We can find resembles between psychedelic art and art nouveau like this painting down below.
An example of his hand lettering, the distorted text gives it a trippy feel and the poster is almost illegible, which makes it look more like a piece of art than a graphic.
Wilson was the quintessential poster artist of the 60s, and his style still influences music posters today.
American designer Saul Bass was born in 1920 in New York city. He was the son of Jewish immigrants and began drawing from a very young age. In college, he attended night classes at Art Students League and was taught by Hungarian artist and key figure of the bauhaus movement Gyorgy Kepes.
Bass left New York for California in 1940 and started working in advertising. When given the opportunity, Bass designed a poster for the 1954 film Carmen Jones, and his work gained the attention from filmmakers who urged him to do the title credits as well.
Down below we can see examples of some of his most famous film posters:
He definitely has a distinctive style, using a fairly minimal colour palette and strong geometric forms. Asides from its vibrance and pleasing composition, His posters are also very conceptual, which is what drew me to his work.
Bass revolutionized film credits, bringing dynamism and originality. I like how his opening credits add to the movie rather than being something we wish to skip over.
I wanted to focus on film as it’s the area of Bass’ career which fascinates me the most, but he also designed many famous logos such as Kleenex and Continental airline.
Bass’ unique style inspires me and also got me more intrigued in the world of motion graphics and film.
This week, I made a zine that explores the history of typography during the Futurism era. I wanted to emulate the Futurism style by using expressive typography, capturing a sense of movement and sound. I also wanted to include some historical background while keeping text fairly minimal and think I was successful at keeping information clear and concise.
There are a few things I would like to change; however, like making some of the type less rounded looking and modern to better suit the time period. Also, I think my lines could be made cleaner and the page that says paintings and poetry is interesting but a bit messy. My writing could be made a little neater and I think using a greater variety of typefaces would have benefited me. I think my title page is strong but the back page could have been worked on some more.
Overall, I think my concept is strong and I was able to demonstrate characteristics of futurist type in a simple and fun manner.
“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”
-Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo was a very important figure in art and best known for her colourful self-portraits which explore themes of identity, the human body, and death. While she never considered herself to be a surrealist, she is often identified as one. She brings a strong cultural element into her work, inspired by nature and artifacts of Mexico, and explores questions of gender, class and race in Mexican society.
Frida Kahlo (full name Frida Kahlo de Rivera) was born on July 6th, 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico and died in the same town on July 13th, 1954. Kahlo’s father was German and of Hungarian descent. Kahlo was closer to him, and would help him in his photography studio, where she developed an eye for detail. As a child, Kahlo suffered from polio which left her with a slight limp and this affected her later in life.
While Kahlo took a few drawing classes at school, Kahlo was more interested in science and in 1922 she entered the National Preparatory School in Mexico City with the hopes in eventually studying medicine. It was there were she met artist Diego Rivera, who was working on a mural for the school’s auditorium.
In 1925, Kahlo was involved in a bus accident, which seriously injured her and as a result had to undergo over 30 medical operations in her life. It was during her slow recovery that Kahlo taught herself to paint, and she studied from the works of the Old Masters. After recuperating, she joined the Mexican Communist Party (PCM), where she met Rivera once again. She showed him some of her work and he encouraged her to keep on painting.
Down below is an example of one of her early works, Self-Portrait Wearing a Velvet Dress (1926). She painted herself against a dark background with stylized waves and while this work is mostly abstract, their is realism in the modelling of her face. Her long neck and fingers is inspired by Mannerist painters and her stoic gaze is also a signature aspect which is present in her other works.
Kahlo later married Rivera in 1929, and she changed both her personal and painting style. She began to wear the traditional Tehuana dress along with a flowered headdress that became part of her trademark. This also showed her new interest in Mexican folk art. Kahlo’s relationship with Rivera was tumultuous and in the mid 1930s there were numerous extramarital affairs that were happening. The same year Kahlo painted some of her most famous works, including The Two Fridas which was painted on a large canvas and shows twin figures holding hands each figure representing an opposing side of Kahlo.
Kahlo later reconciled with Rivera in 1940 and the couple moved into her childhood home, La Casa Azul (The Blue House), in Coyoacan. Kahlo’s health at this point would further continue to decline and she would turn to drugs and alcohol for relief. She still continued to paint, however. She died in La Casa Azul in 1954, the cause being pulmonary embolism.
Kahlo became a female role model for many artists to follow as she made it legitimate for women to outwardly display their pains. I remember reading a book about Frida Kahlo when I was in High School and admired her as an artist. I like the way she isn’t afraid to speak up her mind and the fact that she was so resilient and kept painting despite all the struggles and hardships she faced. I found her biography to be very inspirational.
Edward Hopper was an American painter born on July 22nd, 1882 in Nyack, N.Y. He was the second of two children in a middle-class Baptist family of Dutch descent. His father ran a local shop and loved literature and his mother was an art enthusiast. They both recognized their son’s talent at and early age. As a teenager, Hopper spent a lot of time reading and drawing and pursued the arts after graduating High School in 1899.
Initially trained as an illustrator, Hopper later studied painting under Robert Henri. Hopper travelled to Europe between 1906 and 1910 but wasn’t really influenced by the experimental work that was happening in France at the time and chose to follow his own path instead. He exhibited his paintings in the Armory Show of 1913, but devoted most of his time to advertising art and illustrated etchings until 1924. Afterwards, Hopper moved onto painting with oil and watercolours which is shown in his painting Model Reading (in watercolour) down below.
Like Henri and other painters of the Ashcan School, Hopper painted the commonplaces of urban life. His paintings are recognizable for his anonymous figures and snap-shot compositions, which gives the viewer a sense of loneliness. Hopper uses light in an interesting way whether that be it’s the morning light in Early Sunday Morning, 1930 or the more eerie feel of a coffee stand at night in his famous Nighthawks, 1942.
His realistic depictions of everyday urban scenes are strange yet familiar and his work influenced both Pop art and New Realist painter in the 60s and 70s.
Personally, I love Edward Hopper’s distinct style. I find his work to be comforting yet alienating at the same time. It’s as though you’re looking at a still from a movie, transported into a snapshot of somebody else’s life. I like the way he renders light and the way he mutes his colours. I also like his choice in subject matter, depicting every day scenes. I am also a fan of American mid-century style, so perhaps that is also why his work resonates with me. It’s interesting too, because the atmosphere of his paintings seems to change based on how I am feeling. At times, I see a person comfortable with their own solitude while other times I see a person totally disconnected from the world outside. Finally, I like the way the women in his paintings appear to look like normal people and aren’t idealized in terms of looks. Overall, I am definitely inspired by his work (particualrly his painting Nighthawks and Morning Sun shown down below) and would like to incorporate elements of his style into my own work.
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