Final piece

Jamen Rochester
The sum of many
Mix media

An individual's choice to cope with the hardships of life threw means of self destruction such as drugs, isolations, self mutilation, apathy, denial, and so forth only adds to the greater suffering of humanity as a whole. The sum is only as good as its parts, and as we as a society seem only to care about our individual pursuits and our own pain, we inadvertently bring about more pain to others, ourselves and those to come.

Marissa & Carolina Torres
Cambio de Vida (Life Change)Charcoal Drawings

Andy Tapia
Ahhh... cow shit
Mix media

My sculpture is a representation of a cow. I used found objects to symbolize the problems with the human emotion of greed, but at a higher level that of a CEO and what he or she will do just to make a couple of bucks. The whole sculpture is made out of junk that I found that has been thrown out making it useless for other purposes; they broke nothing better they can do but just to be thrown away. But no, greed comes in and says "hey... you can make some money out of this" so you try and sell it to whatever person can buy it off of you no matter how broke, how much the item has been damaged or how considerably dangerous the item may be. If your making money off of it, who cares right? That's the kind of feeling I get from big CEO's of huge corporate hell holes that do nothing but damage everything that comes into contact with them and they use tactics to cover up the bad things they have done by disguising there products with positive images which really is just a load of cow shit. Let's take for example all the big fast food corporations (which my sculpture is about) like McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell and all the other nasty shit places that serve you nasty shit food on a wrapper. Where dose there meat suppliers come from? Hell we all once in a point thought that it came from a happy farmer from a really huge farm but no that's what they want you to think so they can hide the truth all there meat comes from big industrialized factories that are nothing but dirty disgusting unsanitary place for all the animals and people that work there. The employees have to work fast very fast to keep up with the demand of meat that there working conditions are disgusting and violate OSHA standards but they wont report it to higher authorities because either there immigrant workers or just dirt poor and they need all the money they can get so they cant really do nothing about it. But yeah there has been security measures and all those updates to keep those factories "clean" but really... who pays them? (Bribes anyone?) They treat the animals like shit until they die basically it the big CEO's make the cows eat corn which never in there natural lives have cows eaten corn and while these mega farms are there fatining there animals they don't bother to clean after them. The cows are knee deep in there own shit where do you think that shit goes off to? In your meat, cheap meat where they don't really bother sanitizing the cow so it goes all on your meat that you have purchased. To make sure that the meat is "sanitized" for big corporations like McDonald's it gets washed in ammonia... the main ingredient in Windex well now you can eat shit and wash your window's at the same time; that's so convenient!Each part of the sculpture represents the daily life of a big corporate cow. The head is made out of a toilet its saying that the cow basically eats shit just like a toilet the eyes are suppose to represent how sickly and worn out the cow is how dangerous it is for human consumption. The body is huge and broke down the legs are short and stubby representing how fat and miserable these cows are.There is a way to solve this problem buy meat and all your consumption goods from real farmers doing real farming its great and natural sure it may be a little pricey and sure it may be a little industrialized; but just a little to keep up with demand, they clean there animals and treat them great, there good people doing great things and I promise you that you'll fucking love it its way way waaaay better then cow shit with ammonia.

progession

group pic & some graffiti

week 5

I'm also playing around with the arrangement of the hallway.

In progress work from the boys.

Everything is going well, we are pretty much half way done.
I looked at mural painting for kids is a great concept and is something I’m planning to approach in my neighborhood as part of my research. I’m currently reading about Room 13 a gallery is Scotland run by children and about other projects by Tim Rollins, John Johnston and Gilberto Arriaza among others.

3rd week

My Kids are doing pretty well, the girls are starting their second drawing and the boys continue working on their sculptures.

As far as my project goes I don’t believe in high and low art but many people do especially non artists that is why I want to put it out there, I want them to notice how children drawings can be as powerful and meaningful as “real” art. For the two first panels which represent the children drawings I was going to replicate some drawing that I found in the book Expressive Therapy with troubled children, but now I am thinking about bringing little kids for may be one day and let them draw all over the panels. That way the drawings will be “real”, rather than simulacrum of children drawings.

My part of the project

I’m creating a hallway that leads into a gallery space where I’ll exhibit the students’ work. The hallway consists of 8 panels 4 on each side. It will have drawings in chronological order from children drawings to graffiti art. My idea behind it is to present myself as a low artist by producing “low art”, but at the same time displaying it in a gallery space adding to the idea that everything can be art. At the same time I’m putting the students’ work in a pedestal by exhibiting their work in the gallery space.

First week, their project - planning, materials and getting started

SKETCHES

The two girls are creating a set of 3 drawings these are the sketches for the first one.



The two boys are creating a sculpture these sketches belong to one of the guys. The other guy is having trouble planning, he wants to experiment with materials and then create something.

This is everything they collected for the scuptures.

The boys collecting materials.

The girls working on sketches.

Week #2

I got my kids back, on Monday the project is going to get started. I’m planning my school visits to Boston and continuing my research. I’m visiting the school of the museum of fine arts and meeting with some of the staff members. Also I talk to Meg Meiman the undergraduate Research program coordinator to see if it was possible to curate a show at the end of the summer. The show will present the work of both the undergraduate summer program and the McNair Scholars, she is all for it. Allie push will be organizing the show.

Week #1

I try to contact all of the participants, but 3 out of the 4 haven't answer any of my calls, today is the last day I’ll try to contact them and if I don't heard back from them I'll start my search for new participants. Meanwhile I have been searching for more books and articles related to the topic. So far one of the books is grabbing my attention it is called "Expressive therapy with Troubled Children", Gussie Klorer describes the process she used with several children in art therapy, although my project has nothing to do with art therapy she point out some interesting factors in art for instance she describes how art has the capacity to heal by means of expressive work. She also mentions that play and art tap into primary process thinking allowing a person specially child to process the event without the censorship or inhabitation of secondary process thinking which could be describe as a sublimation moment in art.She also gives tips on how to work with the participants and how to avoid my personal opinions and ideas in the art of the participants.