Sarah R. Flores Bachelors in Marine Biology & minor in Art Graduated 2020 Texas A&M Corpus Christi
Blog Post #1
Beginning the new school year with the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic has sadly followed me into my last semester for my senior year. Classes are a bit different now, mostly being online including laboratory work. However, I still want to complete the last of 2020 with a proper graduation from TAMUCC. This also includes three goals I would like to follow through during my last semester.
#1 Allowing myself time to complete projects and assignments on time. I tend to get overwhelmed with the amount of homework I receive as well as working a part time job. I live in two different worlds and I need to pace myself to not get the two mixed up. #2 Breathe. Everything will be okay with time, no need to rush things. When you rush you overlook things and sometimes they can be obvious to other people. Which leads to my last goal. #3 Invite criticism. Sometimes when someone else gives their input it can help you see another point of view, that can also help you grow.
Influential and inspirational art work that has been effecting my work lately has to be the Crazy Horse Memorial done by sculptors Korczak Ziolkowski and Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear. Its an amazing sculpture that has yet to be completed due to it becoming the worlds largest sculptural art piece. Due to Korczak's work at Mt. Rushmore, Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear wrote to the sculptor to create a memorial to American Indians. Korczak accepted and dedicated his life to the Crazy Horse Memorial. Going back to my heritage and native Mexican culture, I've been looking at work done by those who want to preserve their cultural identity. Which has been mixing in with certain projects of my own recently.
My work in 3 dimensional art has not been a main focus in the past few years due to me personally being more interested in drawing and painting canvases. I've taken courses such as sculpture and design, were I have made 3D sculptures but those work also included drawings or painting over it. I am already familiar with several types of sculpture techniques such as paper mache, wood carving, clay work, and metalworking such as welding. Even though I know a good amount of different sculpture techniques, 3-dimensional art is not my strong suit so I still need work on or relearn how to properly use these techniques.
Blog Post #2
This blog will reflect on the Radiolab episode, "Things". Including my response on the subject as well as two videos done on sculptures, Leonardo Drew and Doris Salcedo.
Within each of the videos and podcast there was a similar subject that reflected on the artists towards their art work having a sentimental value by holding a special memory or a personal ancestral emblem that had an affect on the artist. With most art, including my own, there has to be some type of emotional drawn towards creating it. Art to me is an extension towards ones emotion. Many art pieces have meaning or is sending a certain message across its audience. Which is why many would say critique is the best way for an artist to understand why some people may see their art in different forms of limelight than what there message is trying to bring out. While I was listening to Radiolab podcast, there was one story that stood out which had to do with a sugar egg that an artist had for over 40 years. There was an accident and the egg shattered, the artist described feeling muddy for a few days after the incident but after that everything cleared. When it comes to artist and their own art work, many have trouble separating from their artwork due to the value it has after the amount of work put into it. But if you made a piece out of random material or out of something that holds no value, and then add on to it. Does it still hold value even when its upbringing started out with something meaningless? There wasn’t really any sentimental value towards the egg yet the artist held on to this object for so long, it later grew to have some type of memory that once being broken he felt that value shatter. Art can be valuable to certain people, and others may not see the same significance you have towards an item you hold dear. But in the end, they are all objects, and as we grow we soon learn that not everything can last forever. Living organisms die off, buildings and statues start to fall, we live in an ever changing world. Which is why when something of value happens to leave or gets destroyed, there is sadness but there is also relief or clarity. We are no longer holding on to something that we ourselves put as a responsibility to care for, once its gone, that self built obligation also disappears.
Blog Post #3
While reading the bio of Glenn Adamson, I couldn't help but think, "Boomer." Not as a insult but the way he thought of the younger generation being like these new species with brittle bodies, hefty heads known as "Homo Technologicus." Since its well known that the younger generation, growing up with tech are more technology savvy. He then goes on to explain a story about his grandfather childhood on a farm in Kansas, explaining an incident where his older sister had to watch the neighbors' farm while they were away, and how a pig had died in her care. However, instead of leaving the animal to rot she was able to butchered the animal and persevered the meat in latched jars. So resourceful. Of course, he explains growing up in that type of environment there isn't much luxury in having certain store to gather the materials that one would need but instead worked with the material they had. The materials or objects we use today are too much a pleasure items than as a needed necessity, is what Mr. Adamson was trying to get at when writing his biography but instead kind of aimed it at the younger generation not knowing what it was like growing up a certain way due to the advancements in technology. But thanks to technology we are able to see just exactly how to butcher a pig or how to survive a certain situations by just using a smart computer found in everyone's pocket. I believe when older generations complain about how the younger generation are so out of tune with the world around them, its neither false or true. Yes, kids are growing up in a world where they don't have to work as hard to get certain information or items. Everything can be done by a click of a button, and due to this current pandemic, many of the older generation are seeing how exactly everything can be done with ease thanks to technology. Yet, our youth having a device that connects them to the world around them are also able to see the flaws that we adults try to ignore due to it not happening physically in front of us. When Mr. Adamson was trying to explain that that they are material intelligence, something has to be physically there, it gave an idea of why older generations can feel like their more distant from the world compare to latest town gossip. We can't put down our youth on luxury that we helped create for them due to us not wanting our children to live though hardships we faced.
Blog Post #4
First project of the semester I decided to create a sculpture out of marine debris of plastic pollution found within Corpus Christi waterways. I wanted to sculpture a marine organism that is lime-lighted within the fishing community, like game fish, that bring in hundred of tourist to the Gulf of Mexico. The notorious Red Drum fish, Sciaenops ocellatus, is a common fish that many tend to fish for within the gulf coast. Creating this sculpture out of used plastic found within the area where many people fish would hopefully show a message similar to that of artist, Angela Haseltine Pozzi, were due to someones negligence and ignorance can come back to create an even bigger mess. Working with the used plastic made me realize just how hard it can be to work with once it has been worn out by the sun and the environment. Some plastic tend to crumble after being cleaned or once trying to reposition its shape. Trying to find new ideas on how I can create the sculpture I have envisioned with the materials I want to use. I'm still trying to see if I can add some of the plastics I collected to add onto my sculpture but also going a route where thinner plastics such as bags, being easier to manipulate into the desired shape I want.
Blog Post #5
Progress on work and response on listening to THINGS from Planet Money – “The Afterlife of a T-Shirt” and “knockoffs: Articles of Interest”.
One of the video responses we had to listen to hit me in a certain way, I thought how growing up with literally nothing at one point to being able to afford items that I want rather than need is something that came to mind while listening. In the podcast they explained how hand-me-down t-shirts were tossed into donations either go through a process of being reused in various ways or thrown away. Some of the ways that they were able to reuse the t-shirts was either by, using it as stuffing for stuff animals, turning them into cleaning rags, or toss them into a crate to be sold in third world countries. Growing up, there was times where I would spend my summers in Mexico with my aunt. She was from a small village in Nuevo Leon and I would go with her to spend time with my cousins and try to practice my Spanish. Going back there was almost similar to traveling back in time, roads were not paved yet, people had cattle and livestock, growing your own food but still having small market to buy a few items. I remember going to a shop with my cousin and we bought clothes, but they didn’t look new to me. Some had cartoon characters that they liked, and even if they did not fit, they bought them then asked me to sow them to their sizes. I remember thinking to myself, normally my older cousins back home would give me their clothes that they didn’t want or fit into anymore, why would anyone buy used clothes. Going back to the podcast the Knockoffs, which was about Dapper Dan and how he grew up financially struggling and surviving off re-purposing Gucci or luxury fashion clothing. When you grow up having little, I believe it causes a person to appreciate items at bit more compare to a regular, well off individual that may see the same item as abundant or no longer sees value in. Growing up, I was taught that everything had a purpose, for instance an aluminum can that once held corn is now being used to grow herbs, or using old torn pants as a rag for cleaning. Which is why when it comes to my project, I want to create this image/ sculpture that shows all these worthless items that are causing pollution into something that makes you thinks twice about your valueless items and where they’re ending up in.
Blog Post #6
Critiques and Progress
Working on my project there was a lot of bumps on the road, my original idea was to create this marine animal that would be a symbol of value or importance to the community out of marine plastic debris that is found on our shorelines. The hurdle that I had to overcome was designing the skeleton or framework of a red drum fish, I started out with thick wire so that it was flexible enough to move yet sturdy enough to keep its shape. However, it proved to be difficult to add on plastic to the metal rods even with using a rivet gun, thin wire ties, and tape. I wanted to do something similar like artist Angela Haseltine Pozzi with her art project known as, “Washed Ashore”, where she made the giant plastic sculpture out of marine animals and had the frame work made out of metal rods. Yet, her sculptures where larger in size and used welding and screwing large plastic pieces together with metal screws. I had to come up with another way of making my sculpture out of plastic and keeping it all together without falling. This is when my professor assisted me and we came up with the idea of using used empty plastic bottles and hot glue them together in creating a fish. Once, I started creating the fish, the plastic bottles began shaping into another form so now I am no longer focused on creating a fish but just adding pollution debris and creating whatever marine animal comes out of it. As for critiques I know when Juleanna was speaking about her quilts, she mentioned how one with watermelon reminds her of summer and it is one that is in the middle. The two sides of the quilts were different colors, pink, blue, green and brown, also for this reason she mentioned it representing Spumoni ice cream. This was due to a memory she had during her childhood where she would share this ice cream with her grandfather on the porch during the summer months. I believe what could help in completing her quilt is by possibly adding possibly some stitches or small fabric that resembles summer months that way the two can have something in common that leads to the audience knowing its about summer months.
Blog Post #7
I was able to attend the first TAMUCC Oso Bay Biennial XXI: A 2020 where we had three different artists giving a critique on their artwork, as well as the second biennial critique. However, I was not able to attend the third where artist Beili Liu gave a presentation on her sculptures and artwork though her art career. Which happened to be the one I was most fascinated on, including the first biennial presentations due to them talking about certain art techniques or styles that I’ve been interested in and wanted to learn more about. Within the first Oso Bay Biennial both artist Jennifer Ling Datchuk and artist Josephine Durkin, made a interrelation towards myself with my art style tending to be drawn to reusing material or recycling scraps due to me being more of a minimalist and working with art closely relating to my culture. With artist Jennifer Datchuk she mostly talked about her being biracial of having Chinese and white backgrounds. She stated there has been times where she had to face a type of camouflaged racism due to her Asian appearance not being as noticeable. So, most of her work involves her Chinese heritage with materials being that of white and blue porcelain and hair/ fake hair. These materials in China are considered valuable due to the beauty aspect with these two items. She even worked with broken pieces of porcelain to create her sculpture, one sculpture made into a form of a trophy was made up of broken shards of blue and white porcelain encased in a clear plastic frame. Within the top of the trophy was a porcelain figure of a Chinese worker carrying baskets, representing labor work that is normally stereotyping Asian workers. Another artist that presented during the first Oso Bay Biennial was Josephine Durkin who is a professor at Texas A&M working with repetitiveness and abstract art styles. She tends to reuse her scrapes from previous artworks into her new sculptures and collages. She stated she enjoys hyperrealism and working with materials that allow her to “test them out” in order to figure out how to create her sculptures or ideas on new art works. Her pieces have little value towards her, due to her character of reusing or recreating new pieces out of old pieces. There was one sculpture that really fascinated me which was the one that was crated out of wooden boards from her porch that accumulated wood rot and had to be taken out. She created a household chore that many people have to deal with when owning a house of your own. However, she used what would be considered “useless” or no longer good wooden boards to create a new sculpture. Her use for recycling valueless items, really caught my attention and how she was able to recreate those items into something completely unrecognizable is what I would like to go for when creating my own art work. Even with artist Jennifer Datchuk, her incorporating her heritage into her art works is what I would like to do with my sculptures or art pieces, I just don’t feel like I have the right mind set or tools to get started. Yet, once I was able to watch one artist critique, I felt a little more directed on how I can set up my own possible art career. Beili Liu is a Chinese/American professional artist and professor at the University of Texas in Austin. Her sculptures incorporate her childhood in China, environmental impacts, and global impacts that are happening during her time. She mentioned after graduating she went to an art farm where they had this hill full of clay dirt and was told she was able to take as much from the pile to use in her artwork during her time on the farm. Growing up in a village in China, she recalled that the young men in the village would create a home for his future family out of clay, mud and straw. There was no other desire other than working on this project and she enjoyed that this was her beginning project during her art career. She spent two months making her hut and six weeks were dedicated to creating the clay bricks and structure of the hut. All the materials were taken from the surrounding environment, even the fallen tree bark. Her interests on subjects tend to fall in dangerous or possibly fragile situations that can also have a sense of calm or collective moments. Many of her sculptures are created in a space where the audience can interact with her work and get lost in her creations. With one of the questions where why she uses such diverse materials, she stated it triggers ideas and plans on how to plan out her sculptures. The material allows her to see different visual points and working with the hands-on material will allow her to create amazing sculptures that she has created. I really feel like I need to use those words and incorporate that into my own art work, I tend to get lost in the outline of how things should be created but never focus on the tools I am working with and what I can create with it. I really enjoy how she makes use of certain art works into something functional, like creating the flags into working masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. I see these artists as both role models and kind of like mentors of how I should create my sculptures.
Blog Post #8
I wanted to create a sculpture using recycled plastic that was found among the shoreline on my local beach, to help bring awareness to plastic pollution within our oceans and our community. I wanted to bring together two of my interests involving environmental science and art. Looking up artists such as Angela Haseltine Pozzi, a artist that created interactive installations called Washed Ashore, where she collected plastics from beach cleanups and creates these large sculptures of marine life from the plastic. Many of her sculptures help bring awareness to communities on the severity on ocean plastic pollution and the effects it hands on the wildlife. So, I wanted to do something similar with plastic water bottles in creating a marine organism, by using the material provided I was able to determine what creature I was forming from the plastic bottles.
“What is it?” I create a ctenaphore or commonly known as a comb jelly that are commonly known for their habitat being in deeper waters and their bioluminescent. “What was your inspiration?” I came up with the idea after reading an article for Invertebrate Zoology and the sculpture happened to take a similar form to the organisms I was studying on. When making the sculpture I was not sure what I wanted to create so I just added plastic bottles after plastic bottle, I was using the material itself to create a form or shape in order to give me inspiration. “What is the most important area?” To me, I believe the most important area would be its front where you can see the front of the sculpture as well as the two “tentacles” made out of surgical masks. As well as the light within the sculpture to give its appearance for bioluminescent. “Would you like to continue your art work?” Honestly, I would love to continue my work but perhaps on making a different form or shape, so making a different organism with a different material but still using recycled plastic ocean debris. “Why include the facemasks? I included the facemasks because I wanted to incorporate that similarity of pollution that plastic bottles tend to get the limelight of when explaining plastic pollution. Now with the global pandemic happing right now, there appears to be a new type of pollution that is a common reoccurrence within many communities, surgical facemasks. “Would you like to make a larger one or multiple ones?” I do want to make a larger one or perhaps make one in a similar fashion like artist Angela Pozzi. Using metal rods as the skeleton and having all the plastic in order to create a more detailed version of a ctenaphore. As well as making the cilia and the tentacles from different colored plastics. “What message did you want to give across?” I want to inform my audience about the importance of plastic pollution within our oceans, and give them knowledge on how important this issue is where I have studied and learned about after serval years. “With this art piece do, is there something else you would like to add to it or do you believe its your complete piece?” I would like to bring more detail into my sculpture, I believe I could have added more to it to make it seem more faltering to the eye of the audience. “Why write on the masks?” Originally, I wanted to create something similar to Mexican festive flags, papel picado, in order to represent my Mexican heritage and to bring memory to those who have passed in my life. Yet, due to time management I was unable to cut out the drawings made onto some of the masks. “What do you think your audience thinks about your piece?” I know my art piece is confusing to understand so it might be hard to figure out what exactly it might be, especially since not many know what ctenophore are.
Water bottles and plastic pollution come from one in the same hand, being man made that originally where used to be useful, resourceful, reusable, and everlasting. Both are one of the same, water bottle can become plastic pollution. It mostly depends on what the final outcome of it will see what its negative effect towards the environment, thus creating plastic pollution. Definition: Plastic pollution a man-made polymers that is used to benefit human life but without proper waste management, can now be found within our ecosystems including the microscopic ones. Water bottles a man-made polymers that is used to benefit human life by forming a container that is able to hold beverages for consumption.
With both plastic pollution and water bottles, in the end they tend to lead to the same place, within living organisms that lead to problems. Microplastic are known to be found within water systems, marine habitats, and even terrestrial habitats. Microplastic can end up within our food web that have bioaccumulate chemical toxins within the food we eat. Without proper research and knowledge on the hidden dangers that scientist are discovering how are common citizens made aware of why finding an old water bottle on the beach is horrifying.
Within this sculpture I really enjoyed the ideas of creating something that will inform my audience on the problems many marine scientist or environmentalist see much too often. Plastic pollution is a growing concern that many communities are facing globally, this type of pollution can cause chemical toxins to seep into the surrounding environment and effect many living organisms within the area, including humans. With my sculpture I wanted to bring my research and my interest in environmental conservation to my artwork. However, within my second sculpture I do want to possibly shy away from relations towards marine science but continue in relation towards reusing material that would be discarded or considered "trash". My resourcefulness towards certain items always gives me new ideas on re-creating an items function into a new function entirely. Like the plastic bottles being used as materials to help create a sculpture or giving it a new function. Similar to artist Beili Liu, were she used flags that was used to highlight her instillation for a gallery and giving it a new function by turning them into functioning masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Continuing to use recycled materials and possibly leading my artwork into a bigger subject behind it, is what I would like to have for the second half of the semester. I would like to go look for items, like I did with the Ctenophore sculpture, in order to help create my new sculpture or art piece.
Blog Post #9
One of the artist that have given me inspiration to my 2.0 project for the remained of the semester was, Josephine Durkin. Josephine has an installation piece that was create by the use of recycled wood boards from her home project of ridding wood rot from her porch. Instead of tossing the no longer usable wood into the trash, she reused that material into her new art exhibit, "There Within Reach" 2014. This gave me the idea of continuing the idea of reusing recycled material for my new art project with collecting wooden board found along the beaches or that are no longer wanted from peoples possession. I would like to create something new that was considered unusable or unwanted.
Blog Post #10
Trying to think back when my interest in artwork first peaked could have been when I was a child and my older cousin would teach me how to draw my favorite cartoon characters from TV shows, or perhaps back when I was just a toddler I would run around the backyard creating mud pies and creating figures out of twigs and leaves. What I see as an artistic inspiration is a form of learning and understanding the world around us. Which is why art can be so unique, because everyone is different from one another. We all think differently and comprehend ideas or problem solving in dissimilar ways. Which is why I created an interest in science, you are able to observe and comprehend why a certain outcome proceeds in a certain way and we are able to chart down what we see, similar to drawing and art. We tend to desire to have the same outcome in what we view, in both experiments and art works but do to our uniqueness that may not always be the case. Having an attraction towards wildlife and animals has lead me to my studies in environmental sciences and recreating art that will bring earth elements into my artistic inspiration. This has allowed my art style to change from what I fancy to now what messages I would like to tell with my art. Within most of my college career I've assisted and studied research on marine pollution, the increase in fisheries production and its aftermath, ocean acidification, micro-plastic pollution, estuaries ecosystems, and many other studies relating to environmental issues. Even with all these studies that tend to leave one in a state of doom, I still find joy and a sense of relief when creating my artwork. Recently I have been able to bring two interest of mine, and to be able to connect the two together as well as to hopefully bring awareness in environmental issues that are commonly forgotten in a technological world hidden behind screens.
Poetic
Using nature to incorporate into one’s art style either by using colors, textures, lighting, and emotions that are captured by the surrounding world. We create objects that bring interest to us, re-creating a sunrise on a canvas or creating a statue that symbolizes hope and freedom in hopes to connect the audience with the creators idea. In a sense, one would say that art helps reshape the world by showing ones happiness, to bring fear, sorrow, peace, or even just to make a statement towards an artist or individuals’ own fact. We only see our own truths; another persons’ truth may be different than your own but does not make it false or untrue. The example given of a glass of water that is poured half way, one can state that it’s half full and the other can state it’s half empty. Neither of the two are incorrect but it’s more on how we each have different points of views that can collide with one another. With art we can give our own personal perception on how we view our world. What I may consider beautiful things another person can see it as horrendous. Sing can be described in scientific environment especially in biology and ecology, experiments are done to recreate a function that would either be done in a natural or unnatural setting. The findings done on these experiment shows how alike or how different the results are from the scientists hypothesis or other’s hypothesis. Having these different views and results help in mankind progress into something greater. By comparing our pass from what our present looks like we are able to tell where we from and where we need work. This applies in all types of settings, not just art and science.
Blog Post # 11
I decided on creating temporary art style as well as incorporating my original idea of using recycled wood as my material and in creating something that has value and meaning to me. There will be two different projects in the continuation of project 2.0, the Good-bye Puzzle and my mask of my own reflection. With both of these art projects, I would also like to incorporate the process of creating the material within these two sculptures. Before realizing what I wanted to create, my whole idea was just to do something rather than do nothing since at the time it was hard for me to have a creative idea or be inspired. I really enjoyed the process of cutting up boards outside my patio and being alone with the continued cycle of chopping wood into smaller and smaller pieces. This was almost like a therapeutic act that was helping me in not only creating more material to build from but also a way for my mind to become familiar with the material and recharge my mind. I believe thanks to my art instructor Leticia Bajuyo I was able to come up with the interest in creating temporary art.
Blog Post #12
Within the past weeks I've made progress in my work for the 2.0 project, working with recycled wood has given me many ideas on where I would like to progress from my first project, recycled water bottles to create something that was nature intended. However, with this new project I aim towards making multiple series of work rather than one big main project, like in my first. While enjoying the making of materials, wood chopping, I had many materials to work with so thanks to the large quantities of wood chips I was able to make multiple works. As well as experimenting with works that were temporary rather than an actual piece that can be put up for display.
Blog Post #13
Throughout this semester I believed that I have grown from being unsure of my work, to having more ideas of projects and art that I have no clue what to do with. At the beginning of the semester I knew I wanted to work with something that had to do with recycling and making the audience aware of their actions that may be seen as harmless but effect the environment around them. I began with plastic water bottles, because that is usually the go to ideal threat everyone thinks of when thinking about saving the environment or the main man-made pollution. Collecting the materials was difficult to say the least because originally I wanted to collect the material form the environment itself, not to say there wasn't any plastic to be found out on the beaches or public areas, but plastic material that I would be able to manipulate into creating a sculpture. So I had the help of my classmates and friends to provide me with the materials of plastic water bottles. Once I had the materials, it was creating what I originally had in-vision was the hard part because the material would not form into the shape I wanted. So I had to change ideas, over and over again. Until I created my Jelly-fish looking water bottle made of tossed away items that were seen as a pollution within our environment, as well as a new pollution item, face masks. This project was very time consuming and I was only able to focus on that sculpture alone. However, with the 2.0 project I wanted to still incorporate recycled materials but I was done working with plastic. I began thinking about my time down by the beach when I was looking for washed up plastic to use for my first project. I also noticed a lot of washed up wooden boards as well. So with collecting a recycled material that would be easier to manipulate when broken down into smaller pieces, as well as a lot easier to cut down to size. Thanks to me getting carried away with chopping wood, I had more than enough material to create any type of sculpture I wanted. But I still had to figure out what my next project would be. So I decided for it to be a series of sculptures.