Fireside Chat: Artist's Statement

Fireside Chat: Artist's Statement

Belief is an interesting concept. I have a lot of them, so the process of selecting which belief to publically speak about was the hardest part of the project. In the end, I decided to go with something that was lighter, and hopefully funny, but allowed me to exercise vulnerability.  Thus, Cardi B. I think that stand up is usually better when there’s some sort of point, and to be honest, I didn’t feel completely qualified to perform straight-up stand up, so this was a good balance. I think that one of the many purposes of this assignment was to relay information about yourself to the class, which is why I chose to talk about what I talked about. It was also why I chose to talk about it in the way that I talked about it. Humor is a great icebreaker, at least for me. If I can make people laugh, it makes it easier to speak publically. It’s almost as if the crowd is on my side after they laugh with me. 
I believe that the humor part of the presentation is the most akin to art. I spent a while writing jokes and practicing delivering them. During the actual presentation, some were successful and some were not. This is to be expected and a great learning experience for me. Joke writing is hard, and I don’t claim to be good at it, but I think that it was necessary if the presentation was going to represent something that I believed. The vulnerability was a different thing. For a while, I debated the details that I was going to share. I thought about sharing the entirety of my difficult experience, but in the end I decided to be mostly vague. I think this worked for the quality and time limit of what I had to say and how I said it. I hope that people got the right idea. 
The media was probably the easiest part, but I did put a lot of thought into it. I think that a visual aide should compliment the speaker, but the speaker should be the main feature. Since I displayed lyrics, it was a good alternative to saying them out loud. If I were to do the presentation again, I would give the viewers more time to digest the lyrics. I might have gone too fast during the actual presentation.
The fireside chat was a lovely experience. I was grateful for the opportunity to craft something and then share it. I was also grateful to listen and learn from other people. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Twine Poetry

Play "The Shark" here. Artist's Statement             I picked this poem because it used to scare me. My dad had it memorized and he would occasionally perform a dramatic recitation that included and ominous voice and him grabbing somebody at the end of the poem. The goal of this project is to replicate how I felt listening to this poem as a child.              Twine is a great medium for presenting rhythmic poems like this one. The positioning of the words is intended to mimic the way my father would speak them, as well as the potential tone. Words that are lower on the page reflect a lower tone. The words that are linked were also chosen intentionally. The main linked word on each page is usually the most threatening of the line. The linked word tends to linger in the mind of the audience, creating the intended unsettling feeling. The selection of the...
Read more

Music Mosaic

Image
Artist’s Statement             I often wonder if art really means anything at all. Sometimes, as in the Dada movement, it doesn’t. Sometimes it does; see anything by Leonardo Da Vinci or Jordan Peele. But, more often then not, I think art walks a fine line between nothing and something. I found this to be especially true as I worked through this project. Inspired by Mozart’s Serenade No. 13 in G Major, these painting are simple and abstract. I intentionally chose a classical song that would be familiar to most, because I was curious about what the song would mean to me if I tried to make some meaning out of it, instead of casually listening. I had some feint memories associated with the song that I consciously subverted. I encourage viewers of the art do to the same. As I heard the string instruments play each bubbly note, I noticed that the song was upbeat, but felt perfectly in order. Not...
Read more

Textual Poaching: GC x BC

General Conference x Broad City See the Remix Here Artist's Statement             I identify as a Latter-Day Saint woman. For the most part, I’m proud of this. However, I find that this identity can conflict with ideals I’ve developed as a modern woman. I don’t view this as bad thing, but as something that’s interesting. In order to portray this, I chose to remix a talk from the October General Conference of 1979. This talk is an outlier because, though written by then President of the Church Spencer W. Kimball, it is delivered by his wife, as President Kimball was in the hospital at the time. As a Latter-Day Saint, it’s interesting to hear the words of a prophet come from the mouth of a woman. It’s not something that we see a lot in the church, and I think it adds to the talk, especially given the subject: the role of women. I like this talk because it’s fairly progressive and even more so given the time. I believe that if this talk were gi...
Read more