Change Can Be An Amazing Thing

It is interesting as the term goes on how much I realize that most people do not know what artist. A lot of people have a general idea of what they consider art but nobody has a definition. This week’s reading and lecture were mostly females, which I find amazing. Female artists are so inspirational to my young mind. There was one thing that particularly stood out to me though.

At the beginning of the guest lecture, Terri Warpinski start off with a story about how she currently reconnected with a student that she had twenty years ago. Her student, a male named Jason, wanted her to start telling all her art students how hard it is to make it in the wart wold. If he was having so much trouble it is unimaginable the struggle for women to be successful. I feel like both readings and Warpinski touched base on challenges in the art world, unintentionally at times. Warpinski, a female photographer, had the most amazing photographs I had ever seen. She takes black and white photos and enhances them digitally or by hand. The different things she did with her photos were timing intensive, creative, and beautiful. She instantly laid out the problems with calling herself a photographer though. When you tell someone that you are a photographer it goes along with stereotypical thoughts. She made it into a joke but at the same time I am sure she did it out of frustration. It would be hard to explain everything she does, and the magnificent feeling you get while looking at it.

The second reading we were assigned was about a dean of an art institute named Carol Becker. She also talks about the stereotypes of artists. “It used to be, when you came to Chicago, that you could recognize an Art Institute student from a mile away, because they were the ones dressed in black; they were the only ones with green hair” (363). She continues talking about how the area has become more urban now and it is harder to spot an art student. Her whole interview was about changes in the art world being made.

Rickard Shusterman, the first assigned reading, believes that there should be more change. He is one of many who are encouraging the feminist act. He believes that we should more or less abolish art galleries because people are only classifying art as what is in a gallery, when are is everywhere and anywhere. Not only is our natural habitat beautiful but the buildings and the streets we live in and walk on are also incredible. I feel that Shusterman thinks that beauty and art should not just be in a segregated place because that separates art and life.

Every artist is searching for change and equality whether they realize it or not. There are so many artists in the world and no two things that have created are identical.