It has truly been a rollercoaster the past 2.5 weeks: I went from having no idea about art, to making art for the first time in a while, to learning about the sheer diversity of art making, and to make art semi regularly. It does feel like I have learned a lot about the creative process and industry as a whole, as well as the possibilities of art and art making.
In the beginning, art to me is one thing: drawing. If I sit down and think about it then I will probably include things like music and film too, but the default is always drawing. That is why my first 2 making projects were sketches: I simply did not even entertain the possibility that I could make other stuff. What helped me to start branching out were seeing the work of others, learning lateral thinking techniques (especially asking why and challenging default assumptions), as well as meeting the artists.
From the third making I definitely wanted to branch out and set a goal of using a different medium for each making. That is why none of my next making projects were sketches, and I tried to venture away from the default assumptions of art the more I make (started with sketches, then making stuff using Word, then photography, then word collage, then surveys). The professor did encourage me to implement a bit more variety directly, but I also got this sense of adventuring from the various lateral thinking exercises we did (and Aaron kept telling us to think outside the box).
As mentioned above, part of this courage came from seeing my classmates’ work, but I also got inspired the artists that came to us (and ones that we came to). It was pretty eye opening to see that all these people that have made extremely interesting and diverse art stuff are very normal, down-to-earth people. I had this assumption in my head that artists have to be a little cray cray (which especially applied to Mariana when I went to her website), but she was a very chill person. Each artist gave me a little more courage to branch out and try something new, since the barrier between me and art person in my mind was gradually being dispelled.
The classes did help, but it feels like they went by a little too quickly for things to truly sink in. Artist visits are more visceral in the sense that I get to see things first hand, whereas class stuff is more theoretical and takes a bit of application for me to understand. They are still of great help in helping me kick start a making project, just not as much as I have hoped for. Hopefully with a bit more time and a bit of making in my own time these lessons can sink in a bit more.
Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed this class. I have a newfound appreciation for art and art making, as well as artists as a whole (turns out they are not just creature of inspirations, I mean some poured literal years of research into each of their work). I cannot think of anything cool to say so I will end it here. (Also shoutout to Aaron for being awesome!)