Symbolic Sculpture

For my Symbolic Clay Sculpture I have decided to make an Elephant to represent my mom. An Elephant is an animal that has strong family ties, is extremely smart, has a great memory, and they can show emotions such as grief, joy, anger and play. My mom is one of the smartest people I know who has very strong family ties and a great memory. I think that the Elephant would be a good animal that would represent that type of person my mom is.

Symbolic Portrait- Julia Perez

For my symbolic portrait I have decided to do a piece of my aunt who is a big part of my life. I chose my aunt because she is a person who has always supported me and I know I can always count on her. My aunt is currently facing many health problems that she has to deal with everyday. I am planing to use different objects that describe my aunts life, for example, my aunt came over to the states with my abuela when she was a little girl and and came to live in New York.  For my portrait I want to make the paper the shape of Puerto Rico, where my aunt grew up, and make it kind of like road map of my aunts life. I will add things that are important to her, like her writing, and things from her childhood that got her where she is today.

Visiting artist: Hamlett Dobbins

Hamlett Dobbins is an artist who makes his paintings abstract in a way that works with the materials and style he uses. My favorite piece of his art is a painting he did called 180 Finger Collective, Spring 2009, Memphis, Tennessee. This painting was something that stood out to me because most of the paintings are more colorful with not as clear figures as apposed to this painting that has a clear figure of a dragon and a person. The quote is also something that stood out to me that says, " I am in love with the world (to be whispered without a hint of irony)." I enjoyed the fact the the quote said I am in love with the world, while the dragon is flying over the world with the person on its back.  I also like how he made the background all one color and the dragon and quote are something that my eyes are drawn to. This piece fits in with the rest of his work because he uses his same abstract/fantasy concept when he is using the dragon, as well as the quotes that he has used in a couple other paintings he has done. One question I would like to ask Hamlett Dobbins is why do use tend to go with more abstract work as apposed to more figure or drawing from observation?