Week 8 has been a week of revision, theoretical process and narrowing of ideas for me. I have not done any physical progress on my painting this week after comments and feedback were given to me by the professor and my peers. I hope to work on thumbnails and more studio development throughout my project in the week to come to supplement all of the theoretical revision I’ve been given.

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about genre in my own work, and how that fits into the post-modern times we live in. During critique, peers described my in-progress paintings as pop art and landscape, partially due to the fact that the figures I’ve depicted act as the background, instead of having their own relationship with space. I think I can categorize my plans for finalized work as mostly conceptual with hints of ambiguous abstraction, landscape, and still life, but I’m still uncertain.

The idea of following a question instead of a statement within the process has also been a relevant topic of the week. After receiving feedback and revision of my creative essay, I’ve realized that the ideas I have put in place are no longer following a line of inquisition, but instead acting as a statement to support the art I do. This isn’t because they can’t be taken further, but rather because I have subconsciously chosen to end them through my explanation and interpretation of ideas. What I mean by this? Well, instead of leaving my essay open ended, I end it with “there is an infinite amount of ways to interact with animals, and we can’t investigate them all. Here are three concrete ways of doing it.” After reflecting on this, I’ve come to the conclusion that as an artist, I subconsciously feel uneasy when a project or topic doesn’t have an end point or definitive answer. This is a hard realization to come to, but I hope to be more aware of these tendencies, and  be more open to new pathways of thought in the future.

Speaking of new pathways of thought, I’ve also been reading articles given to me by Shaw on the anthropocene, sustainability, and how human-animal interaction relates to it. It’s been hard for me to let go of my already established ideas and bring this into the mix, but I feel that the information I’m being given is too beneficial to my expansion of thought to leave out. I’ve also decided to cut my structured ideas of anthropomorphism as it’s own separate theme out, because I feel that it is not part of my own context and I don’t know enough about it to represent it accurately and in a non-kitschy way. I feel much more connected to the ideas of sustainability, urbanization, domestication through my own experience than that of anthropomorphism. That isn’t to say I will cut it out completely, but rather reference it in terms of symbolism that try to talk about it as its own entity without much cultural or personal background.

Some of the resources that have influenced this shift are: What’s Behind Art’s Current Obsession with Animals? (Article found of ArtNet), The Presence of Animals in Contemporary Art as a Sign of Cultural Change (PDF given to me by Shaw), Late Harvest (Book at the Evergreen Library that documents an Art Exhibition in Nevada), and Making Nature, an exhibition referenced in a few separate articles.

Another question that I hope to examine in my work came from a few of the exhibitions of contemporary animal art I’ve looked at. There seems to be a big boom in Animal depictions of art in the contemporary art work, but most of the critically examined pieces were sculptural or photographic. Why is there not the same abundance in contemporary painting?

To be honest, I feel a little hesitant about my plans for painting in this project. I’ve been struggling to translate the massive body of information that I believe is relevant from writing and words into painting without being too obvious, muddy, or kitschy. I believe that my plan of layering could work, but may not be able to get across everything I need to say. I might need to plan on a third painting, and definitely need to develop thumbnails and sketches before working on finalized work this week. I’m in the process of untangling my newly revised ideas as we speak.

All of the feedback I’ve been given on my paper and concepts has been tremendously helpful. The conversation I had with others about anthropomorphism and how to condense information will help me stay on track without expanding too much, and the editing and annotated side notes I was given by Cambria and Gerri will be extremely beneficial when polishing the final draft of my essay. I was given feedback from a few peers on my paintings, including areas of form that needed to be worked on, expanded and polished.

The feedback on my overall plan of development and composition of my paintings was a bit contradicting. I feel that the professor’s criticism was cautionary about moving forward, but many of my peers were supportive in the advancement of my plans. The only person who can decide the right path to take as I move forward is me though, and a decision needs to be made soon. I do know I want to paint over the Bambi and Coyote regardless, because of viewer’s interpretations of my connections with Disney and Warner Bros, which were not correct. I’m just not sure of what to paint and how many layers are necessary or too much, which hopefully will get worked out through sketches and thumbnails I plan to do over the weekend.

This week, I was proud of myself for accepting the fact that I don’t like not knowing. This was a big accomplishment because of the fact that I seem to trick myself into thinking that I’m out of control and taking risks, when really, I’m still staying in the confines of my own comfortability. I’m not really sure how to proceed into a place of unknowing without simply not knowing, but I’m hoping that the more open, uncomfortable, and risky I feel, the more I will let go of the mental control I try to maintain at all times. By breaking down the three solid categories of depiction I’ve developed, by letting go of my already established plans for a final idea, I’m attempting to take that step, without an obsessive want to know exactly where I’m going with this.

Is this what it feels like to be a genuine artist? I don’t even know anymore.