Milwaukee Girl
Exhibition Text
This piece represents the life of a girl who lives in Milwaukee. Milwaukee is known for it's breweries and for being one of America's most segregated cities. This digital collage makes it appear as if the young girl is carrying the city, her surroundings, or her home on her back. In addition, there are roots on her body that symbolize suffocation and strain from a culture and from another; trying to fit in and realizing that it is okay to be different because America is supposed to be melting pot that combines cultures to be known as one, and not a salad bowl that is segregated from the rest of the cultures.
This piece represents the life of a girl who lives in Milwaukee. Milwaukee is known for it's breweries and for being one of America's most segregated cities. This digital collage makes it appear as if the young girl is carrying the city, her surroundings, or her home on her back. In addition, there are roots on her body that symbolize suffocation and strain from a culture and from another; trying to fit in and realizing that it is okay to be different because America is supposed to be melting pot that combines cultures to be known as one, and not a salad bowl that is segregated from the rest of the cultures.
Critical Investiagtion
I was inspired by a quote from Greys Anatomy, Teddy a heart surgeon told Meredith Grey, a resident, that, "You have to go back to the beginning to understand the end." This ties to this project because I could have easily done a painting since my artistic inspiration did a painting, but I decided to do a digital collage, because my first project was a digital collage and my last project will be a digital collage. My artistic inspiration is Julie Roth, who was also my local artist on my comparative study. Julie Roth was born in Milwaukee, WI. She is inspired by nature, the city and the of dichotomy of man’s persistent influence on the world. Roth’s passion lies in creating visionaries by combining the human form, architecture, and landscapes to produce a basic statement about the impacts of our world. In Julie Roth's website, she stated that she is a professional freelance illustrator and graduate from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), she utilizes a few artistic disciplines with a center on utilizing a traditional 2D media such as oil, ink, and watercolor. I plan on using her as an inspiration and her meaningful messages on my piece by incorporating similar poses and backgrounds on my digital collage. This would illustrate the fact that this piece represents the life of a girl who lives in Milwaukee. This digital collage makes it appear as if the young girl is carrying the city, her surroundings, or her home on her back. In addition, there are roots on her body that symbolize suffocation and strain from a culture and from another; trying to fit in and realizing that it is okay to be different because America is supposed to be melting pot that combines cultures to be known as one, and not a salad bowl that is segregated from the rest of the cultures. On the other hand, City Girl 1 has a different meaning than this piece, even though it is a similar in ways of structure, position and purpose.
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Planning
My planning started off with knowing I should do a piece that is inspired by Julie Roth, because I had been wanting to do a piece tied with one of hers. I had no ideas, so I watched Greys Anatomy promising myself I would come up with an idea after an episode, and that was what I needed! Teddy a heart surgeon told Meredith Grey, a resident, that, "You have to go back to the beginning to understand the end." This sparked an idea and well basically the whole entire project because I decided to do a digital collage, because my first project was a digital collage and my last project was going to be a digital collage. After this, I chose a piece from Julie Roth and started my process.
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Process, ideas and intentions
The process to this project was that I first went through my planning. My planning started off with knowing I should do a piece that is inspired by Julie Roth, because I had been wanting to do a piece tied with one of hers. I had no ideas, so I watched Grey's Anatomy promising myself I would come up with an idea after an episode, and that was what I needed! Teddy, a heart surgeon told Meredith Grey, a surgeon resident that, "You have to go back to the beginning to understand the end." This sparked an idea and well basically the whole entire project because I decided to do a digital collage, because my first project was a digital collage and my last project was going to be a digital collage. After this, I chose a piece from Julie Roth who was my local inspiration in my comparative study and started my process. I was in the art room and decided to take the pictures of myself in the same position the character in City Girl 1 by Julie Roth was in. I went to the back of the art room, and placed my phone in the block print wood holder where you carve your block print. I set my phone to take a picture in thirty seconds, so I placed it in the wooden block and ran back to my seat and posed. I did this a few times, and experimented with a few poses and angles until I found the perfect one. After I found the perfect one, I decided to go out and take a picture of my surroundings every chance I had. This was either in my car while going out, outside when taking my dog out for a stroll or in parking lots where there was some lights and cars. After I gathered the pictures, I chose one background image and one image of myself and uploaded them on Photoshop. I put the sky and outside as my background. On the picture of myself, I cropped it so only my body would be visible. I applied some strains on my arms and placed it on top of the background. After, I played with the contrast and lighting and finished the piece. A few techniques I developed was that I learned how to click and hold a certain part of the piece and increase or decrease the brightness or and contrast of that certain area. A few skills I developed were that I am much faster in doing digital collages. My first project took me around four to five class periods and this piece took me only two. My reflection on this project was that I think this project was successful. It is my last project for Reagan and in a way, I felt somewhat proud that I was able to tie it back to the beginning. This project is like the end of my high school career, but the beginning of something else. This project has given me closure. My critique and evaluations went well due to having my piece done and website done too. The work of others were very well done, very efficient and well created. However, some did not finish. The evaluations between my peers was that I did a good job, but that I should have cropped the image because there was a lot of empty space in the sky, but it was meant to be like that because the sky reflects on my hair in the final product and the pink parts in the sky reflect on me too, and that is supposed to be my sweater. Other ideas I had for this project was to make a painting instead of a digital collage because I only made a painting this semester but I preferred to make a digital collage because I only made one in all of my two years in this art program. Lastly, the difference of my work and process between Julie Roth is that she made a painting and I did a digital collage; therefore, our processes were very different because she used paint, brush, proportioning scales and a canvas while I used the program on my computer, Photoshop and pictures. In conclusion, our processes were very different due to the resources and media we used to create our pieces, however we had the same idea.
Critique
The process against my inspiration was very different. Julie Roth did a piece of fine art, in other words she painted City Girl 1 on a canvas. Her process took a lot longer due to her having to proportion her work, paint and not only is that messy but she did paint intricate, specific details on a very large canvas. On the other hand, I did a digital collage that did not take me as long as a painting would, but it had to do more with technology; a lot of experience with technology had to known in order to do this. In conclusion, In conclusion, our processes were very different due to the resources and media we used to create our pieces, however we had the same idea and intentions.
Experimentation
Some experimentation involved in this project, was that I took a series of photographs of myself to figure out what picture would fit better in the digital collage. Another experimentation was that I had a lot of background images, so I experimented with some of the images to see which would be better through snapchat. Obviously snapchats edits are not good, but it gives you an idea of the potential the image can have.
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Reflection
In conclusion, I think this project was successful. It is my last project for Reagan and in a way, I felt somewhat proud that I was able to tie it back to the beginning. Like Teddy said, "You have to go back to the beginning to understand the end." This project was like the end of my high school career, but the beginning of something else. This project gave me closure. Overall, this project was excellent because I was able to tie everything that Julie Roth did on her painting on City Girl 1. Obviously, she did it on a painting and I did it on a digital collage, and they have different meanings but they're the same because my project was inspired by her. In the end, I think I did a good job imitating her work in a different style and with different meanings.
Connecting to the ACT
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork:
My inspiration, which was Julie as you can see in my artistic inspiration section had a lot of effect in my project due to its meaning and representation. I believe that this project will have an effect on me because it defines the significance of cultured girls in the city of Milwaukee.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The authors overall approach regarding the topic of my inspiration is that it covers Milwaukee, cultured girls by creating a significance and meaning to them.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Some generalizations and conclusions I have discovered about this certain topic is that there are not many projects on Milwaukee and how significant a melting pot or salad bowl is in a segregated city.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme around my inspirational research was culture in a city and girls.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I believe that cultured girls are filled with their culture and inspired by many things but don't have the voice to speak up. Some inferences I made were that there aren't many projects on Milwaukee or the culture in Milwaukee.
Biography
http://www.rothillustration.com
My inspiration, which was Julie as you can see in my artistic inspiration section had a lot of effect in my project due to its meaning and representation. I believe that this project will have an effect on me because it defines the significance of cultured girls in the city of Milwaukee.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The authors overall approach regarding the topic of my inspiration is that it covers Milwaukee, cultured girls by creating a significance and meaning to them.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Some generalizations and conclusions I have discovered about this certain topic is that there are not many projects on Milwaukee and how significant a melting pot or salad bowl is in a segregated city.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme around my inspirational research was culture in a city and girls.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I believe that cultured girls are filled with their culture and inspired by many things but don't have the voice to speak up. Some inferences I made were that there aren't many projects on Milwaukee or the culture in Milwaukee.
Biography
http://www.rothillustration.com