Me at 40!

At 40 I will probably look a lot like my mom but have personality traits that are much more like those of my grandmother.

When I am forty, I will have a family and live in a city up North. I will own my own Interior Decorating business but since it will already be well established, I will take a lot of time away from it to be there for my family. Creating contemporary artwork will be my personal escape from pleasing customers at work and my family at home. It will be my chance to do what I want and address issues that I feel are important in the way that I want to.

My latest project will be responding to the issues that pollution continues to pose to our environment, and figuratively, how moral pollution affects children and others living in the modern society. Not only is the environment in danger due to the carelessness of many humans, but the way in which children grow up is so affected by the media and the Hollywood image. Television, movies and music are exposing kids to more and more stereotypes and vulgar habits everyday that cause children to grow up too fast and get involved in bad things at an increasingly young age. My artwork will bring these issues to life in the form of a painting/drawing.

Statement About Work:

As a parent, I have faced so many issues on what is the best way to raise a child in today’s world. Today you cannot just walk down the street without feeling insecurity at one time or another. The inspiration for my artwork comes from the questions that I pose to myself as a parent about how much of the cruel world I want my child to see and when is it crossing the line of being too sheltering. What shows should I allow my 10 year old to watch? Should I drop her off to a friend’s house for a birthday party and trust that the other child’s parents will keep a close eye on them? How do I respond when she asks me about topics that are ahead of her time that the kids in school were talking about? All of these issues are confronted in my artwork. I have concluded that when a child is born they are like a river that is pure and has not yet been discovered by man, but as the child grows and the river flows they are tainted by pollution. The things they hear at school, they see on TV and the songs they listen to all affect their personality and shape their moral beliefs. In my artwork I have created an abstract representation of pollution flowing into a river. The colors are intense, reflecting the severity of the issue at hand. Flowing through the work, strains of a disease are drawn in to reflect the harm done when a child is exposed to this type of moral pollution. This work is timeless because the issues of raising a child have and always will be present as long as parents are raising children.

Letter to the Editor:

I have read the awful review that I have received from your magazine about my work. I feel that you did not fully understand the meanings behind my work when you said that it was not trendy. The work is not to be taken literally as it is seen at first glance, such an acclaimed critic as yourself should know that in all artwork there is typically a deeper meaning. The work is not simply about water pollution, a topic that as you stated is “trite and boring.” I feel that you should be enlightened as to what the artwork represents on a deeper level. The artwork represents the degradation of a society through the loss of morals and because it has become popular to place momentary happiness before lifelong happiness. I wanted the work to resemble something familiar so that all viewers could connect with it on some level, but it also leaves plenty of room for speculation. These are issues that all people in a modern society should come face to face with and evaluate where they stand, and my artwork forces you to do just that. As far as the price goes, a painting without a deep meaning and thought process should not be priced as highly as my work, however my painting is the opposite of empty when it comes to symbolism and meaning. My work takes an issue that everyone can relate to and is priced moderately as well considering the immense amount of time and effort I placed into it. I feel that in saying my painting is worthless you made a judgment out of frustration that you did not understand the message in the work. I hope that you now understand better where my thoughts were in creating this work, and maybe next time you will think a little deeper about the different ways that a somewhat literal representation can be interpreted.
Sincerely,
Ashley Harris

This is my section of the painting when it is almost done. I had piece number two.

plans for restaurant project.

For my two artists in the art menu project i am using thomas kinkaid and matthew ritchie. Now that we have decided to use three booths, with a futuristic or minimalist setup each artist has three dishes, one for each booth, as follows:
matthew ritchie:
1) appetizer: God game and working model- the consumer will be given a choice of beads that come with a key, describing the personality traits they represent. They will put these together to create a sculpture that defines their personality.
supplies: wire structure, poster with key, beads
2) entree: Self portrait: The consumer will create their own self portrait using the colors and inspiration of Matthew Ritchie's self portrait.
supplies: paint, canvas, image of ritchie's self portrait
3) dessert:
thomas kinkaid:
1) appetizer: The consumer will create a thomas kinkaid greeting card with their own personal message.
supplies: card, pen
2) entree: The consumer will act as a thomas kinkaid highlighter and highlight 15 of his works within the given time limit. time is money!!
supplies: print outs of kinkaid work, white paint, paint brush, stop watch
3) dessert: The consumer will paint their own work inspired by kinkaid.
supplies: paint, paper, image of kinkaid's work, scissors.

art menu project

For our project, our group is creating a futuristic environment where instead of serving the original works on a plate, the consumer orders an artist and then experiences their artwork through all five senses.
I chose Matthew Ritchie as the artist for my portion of the project:
sight- person will create a self portrait using the colors and inspiration of Matthew Ritchie's self portrait.
touch- using beads and a key similar to Matthew Ritchie's "God game and working model" the person will choose beads that match their personality based on a key to put together.
sound- story of creation will be playing in headphones, because the story of creation inspired Mathew Ritchie
smell- the scents inspired by the color choices in Ritchie's work, turquoise, aqua, orange
taste- palate cleansing mint inspired by his work

Matthew Ritchie




Thomas Kinkade

Opposite project.

I found that by being my opposite for a day, I really had to step outside of my comfort zone and that was uncomfortable. I looked at my process that I always use to start my day, wake up, fix my hair put on makeup and find clothes that match. I found myself to really be what most people would call a girly girl and so my opposite would be an extremely athletic girl who would wear no makeup, throw their hair up and put on gym clothes. So for opposite day that is what I did and when i went to class. I felt that people were looking at me differently, when they probably didn't notice or care what I looked like. It was more of a psychological issue than reality. I learned that I feel more comfortable in my own skin than being someone else. I also saw that people would treat me differently if I talked and acted the way I did when I was opposite. Overall, it was an uncomfortable experience, but I did learn to remember that if I wouldn't want to be treated badly for being different than I should make sure that I don't judge others.

The first image i chose is a watercolor on rice paper and cloth byVarunika Saraf. I feel that this painting shows the principal theme of my fear project, claustrophobia and also it depicts the feeling that I want to display in my project. The way the flower pattern wraps around the girl in the image is inspirational for me because I want the spaces in my project to feel like they are coming in onto you from all sides.

The second image is the new design for the railway station in Belgium by Santiago Calatrava. I think that the way he controls light through other means than just flat walls or planes creates alot of interest within the spaces. I want to play with shadows created by the openings in the roof and walls to create an eerie feeling. Though his structures do not evoke fear, he uses structural forms that play with the way light enters. The bars that make up the structure and leave spaces for light and shadow are inspiring for me in how I will create a dark and uncomfortable feeling through the control of the light that enters my structure.