Karen Finley

Karen Finley is an american performance artist, author, and playwright. She has a crazy mix of different styles. Some themes I would describe her art would be outrageous, pain, suicide, sexual abuse, humor and female sexuality. She is known for breaking the rules and not giving a damn.

Humor

She wrote a funny play about President Bush and how Martha Stewart found out that Osama Bin Laden was hiding in Bush's rectum. Basically, she was stating that Bush's ideas were up his ass, shitty. 

Issues

Issue in her life. Her bipolar father was the dominate leader in her household. He had the power in every decision. Later, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head and she also got a divorce with her husband. So she has some issue with men, which shows a lot in her work.

Abuse

She had a performance called "We Keep Our Victims Ready"(inspired by Tawana) where she where smeared her body in chocolate because she said that women are treated like shit, then she covered herself in candy hearts because she said that women become more loved when they are belittled, next she covered herself in bean sprouts because she said it smelled like semen and looked like it too(?), and finally she wrapped tinsel around herself to symbolize how no matter how a woman is badly treated, she still has to get dress for dinner. Basically saying that women have to act like nothings happen and it's all just normal.

One of her books that she made for her daughter is new style of Winnie the Pooh, called 

Pooh Unplugged

Winnie has a serious eating disorder.
Tigger is manic depression disorder, where he is a maniac one minute and depressed the next.
Piglett has esteem issues


The book is about sexual fantasies and greed. This women seems kind of crazy for writing this book for her daughter.

Shut up and Love Me

She came up with this idea when her daughter ask to be tucked in for bed and Finley said "Are you ready for bed, honey?" Then she got the idea to do a photo shoot in honey. She was portraying love, sweetness, and affection, but some of the the pictures looked like she was trapped. I'm getting mixed feelings about this art work of hers.

She was portraying love, sweetness, and affection. 

Reasons

Some of the reasons for her 'abused women' artwork are:

• Her father being the dominant leader in the house
• Her favorite childhood TV shows being "I Dream of Genie" and "Bewitched" where women were not allowed to use their powers

This lady has many threats and criticism against her and she likes it. It makes her feel like she is on the edge. 

The Midterm

I was kind of upset during the midterm. I was trying to give my presentation on my artist Turner, and I had written background information before I had written about his paintings and style. So I when I was done reading the first paragraph I started to show some of paintings by Turner, and Mr. Glenn ask me "Well what about the excitement?" And I was confused, I thought The Excitement was a painting or some exhibition or something. So I asked him "What?" And then he said that giving background information was boring and plain and that I needed to discuss what was unique about my artist, and that's when I got upset because I wasn't even a quarter of the way done with my presentation of Turner.

So I continued and read the next paragraph, and then I stopped to show pictures again before I was going to start more discussion on Turner, and then Mr. Glenn started talking about my artist's style, which I was going to do. Maybe not as good as him, but I was going to mention a lot of what he talked about. When he was talking about my artist for me, he said, "And obviously I thought about this more than you did blah blah blah..." So I'm not happy with Mr. Glenn at all. It would have been nice if he had let me finish with my presentation before he threw me under the bus. And what really pissed me off is that he let everyone else talk about their presentation fully, but didn't let me do that.

From the beginning of class, I was so happy to come to this class, it was worth waking up early for and I thought Mr. Glenn was the coolest teacher. I really liked him a lot. I was already telling my friends to take him next fall, but now I really don't know if I'm going to be as eager to go to his classes anymore. I hope the rest of this semester gets better. I really do. :(

Venice Art Wall

I couldn't go to Venice. My parents wouldn't take me, my brother wouldn't take me, and my mother doesn't allow me to bus to far places. I know I'm 18 and I can do what I want, but I don't feel like getting kicked out any time soon from this "No Paying Bills Paradise". So I'll write some interesting about the Venice Art Walls.

Venice Art Walls


Here's a pic from a high school friend modeling on one of the Venice Art walls.

I love this type of graffiti. The color is nice and it's not just some random name or tag. It takes more effort than a one minute scribble.

The one below is the kind of graffiti that bores me. I might take a glance, but I will not be happy. It's so plain. The one is the bottom left corner seems okay because the color is cool, but that's it.

This is the kind of stuff I like. It's cute and gives me a lot to look at. So must is going on in the picture and it's like a show on a wall. And the cupcakes look good. (Below)

Sorry, there's not much for me to say. I really wish I could have gone, but one day I will and I can't wait. It looks amazing.

Norton Simon Museum

I couldn't go just like the Venice Beach story in the post above, so I'll just pick a couple pieces of art work and blog about that. I hope that's okay.

Vase of Lilacs, Roses, and Tulips by Gustave Courbet 1863

This is really nice bathroom or dining room art. Although this may seem like such simple painting, it really isn't. Not only is the artwork hard, but for this painting to be truly beautiful, everything has to be in the right place. The flowers must be put together so that everything looks natural and not too organized, the many different leaves have to go along with the flowers and must be put in the right place so that it doesn't look too disastrous, and the flowers and leaves have to be at the right angle. I'm sure he spent more time finding and arranging the flowers and leaves than actually painting this painting. 

Woodland Scene with Hunters by Michel Bouquet 1865

I love nature based paintings, it's attractive to me. This was great effort, time, and dedication. Every detail is nice, but to the right of the painting seems like it is lacking detail. The left side is excellent, but the right looks like the artist was getting lazy. Just a little. Other than that I like the detail of the trees, especially the ones in the middle. I also like the way he drew the trunk of the falling tree. It is very amazing. The part i like most about this painting is the clouds above. It's the most detailed and realistic piece out of the whole painting. Good job Michel Bouquet.

Vase of Flowers by Paul Cezanne 1880-1881 

Yes another one. Another vase of flowers, but I don't like this one as much. The color is really nice, but the flowers seem kind of dead and limping except for the orange ones at the top. The other painting looked more firm and lively, but these flowers look like they are withering away, as if the painter took too long to paint the vase after picking them. Maybe the artist wanted it to look that way or maybe I'm being too odd, but usually most flowers are upright and not saggy. Though I like the coloring on this painting of flowers more, I like the way the flowers look on the other painting. So i choose the other painting.

Styles of Painting (and Cool Gummy Bear Art)

Yay! Mr Glenn talked about my research artist today, JMW Turner. His paintings are awesome. My favorite style of art was the Renaissance stuff. I really like the Statue of David for all the wrong reasons, it was because Michelangelo made David look all extra manly. MMmmm. ;D

Anyways... while Mr. Glenn was lecturing about the old art, I thought about something. I wonder if that caveman who doodled on a rock, for the hell of it, realized that it was going to be considered art in the future. Like, if I were to go out to the beach, find a shell, carve a dolphin on it and toss it away, will it be famous tens of thousands of years from now. Just a random thought.

I wish we could have talked more about the artist and stuff and not just rush through it, but we only had a little amount of time. So it's understandable, but still sad because we are going to stop talking about paintings now.

Now enjoy some awesome random yummy gummy bear art!!! :D

Sweeeeet!!!!

Absent :O

I missed class today, my brother got in a car accident. :'( Can someone tell me what you did in class today?

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Born: April 23,1775
Death: December 19, 1851
Birth Place: England
JMW Turner was an Englishman known for his beautiful romantic landscape paintings and watercolor art work. Blessed with great talent, Turner started painting at a very young age when he went to live with his uncle due to family issues. He was so talented that at the age of 14, Turner was accepted into an art academy. His artwork first became famous at a Summer Expedition only a year after being accepted into the art academy.

One of his earlier works. "Fisherman at Sea"

Turner traveled around Europe, mostly to France and Switzerland. Some of his favorite places to study were the Louvre in Paris and Venice. His style was mainly watercoloring, natural events like rain, sunlight, fog, and catastrophes.

Dawn after the Wreck, year 1841

I move his style, it's very calmly yet eery at the same time. It makes me feel like I'm in another world. He really took time on his art and he great at setting a cheerful theme. My favorite is the one right below this paragraph. It's very well crafted and this city was beautifully architected. I'm very glad I was giving this man to do research on, because it's definitely my style.

Turner was not famous at all during his time, because he did not paint the modern paintings of his time. Usually people painted the super realistic paintings of men or woman. So when people saw his chicken scratch looking paintings, they didn't consider it art. Turners paintings didn't become famous until the 20th century.