First Six Pages

OK, so here's the first 6 pages. Well, technically pages 2-7. Page one is non existent at the moment.

These pages will still need some tweaking. I haven't finished the master pages yet (and when I do, I'll probably have to move some stuff around,) and there are still a lot of things I want to do with the text, like text styles. But this should suffice for the time being.

Test Page Export

Voila. An InDesign page. Probably similar to something that will eventually be in my book, but this exact page won't be there. It's not very good, and I don't like it.

I should probably catch up on my Lynda tutorials :\

Oliver Herring

Again, another experimental artist. He said that his art was about connection. It's very process-oriented.

A lot of times when I make something, I look back and don't remember how I made it. I can guarantee that any photoshop work I've done I couldn't replicate if I was asked to. Maybe I don't pay enough attention to the process. For me, the end result is the payoff. Maybe I have a thing or two to learn about art.

It seems like for Herring, the process is entirely the focus, with the end result just being a side effect, which he then looks at and goes "hmm, isn't that neat, I wonder what this can mean..."

I don't know if either approach to art is necessarily wrong, but his approach is definitely different than mine. Still, the results are really cool.

Reza Abedini & Saed Meshki

Reza Abedini

I think I'm more fascinated by the look of the language than the design. It looks very violent yet very elegant. It doesn't even need to be text at all- the shapes of the letters tell their own stories.

I, too, noticed the abundance of negative space. White space, to me, gives an image a very sanitary, very organized feel. It's almost like a "live in the moment" type of thing. It calls for immediate and extreme focus on whatever is put before you. It's something I'd like to play around with a bit more.

Saed Meshki

A little more contemporary, I thought. They feel like advertisements (I think they are, in fact.) Again, I don't really need to know what the text says, because the patterns and colors bring about a certain feeling. And it's pretty cool.

Arturo Herrera

His process is not something we can do in Photoshop. Despite our best attempts to replicate the look and feel of his photographs using digital imagery, we can only come close at best. For one, he uses film to produce his works. Secondly, he is not really sure what he's after until the pictures are exposed. It's very experimental. That's something that I've always been curious about; how do you say something with your work in experimental art? If it's experimental, and you are unsure of the outcome, how do you know it will get the message across? Maybe there's no message, or maybe a message is assigned afterwards. I know I don't always need a message, sometimes I just do things because I think it will be cool or entertaining. Maybe Herrera is the same way.

Probably not, though.

Tom Scott

The concept of time keeps coming to mind when viewing the color sand photos. To quote the videogame Prince of Persia, "Many believe time to be a river, flowing in one direction. But I have seen time, and I can tell you that it is a vast ocean." I've never thought of time as something that can be traced forwards or backwards, but as something fragile. I believe the slightest change in mind or action can create an entirely different future. Even my train of thought as I write this is determining my future- should I write something else, it may trigger an entirely new thought process in my mind which, in turn, may cause me to think or act different later on, which will provide new consequences. I see this concept represented in the images made by the sand and the water. Single strands branch off into new ones, which branch off into even more, until we see the visual representation of what the timeline of the universe probably looks like. It's also notable that these images are fleeting, soon to be washed away and begin anew, as a victim to time itself.

The black and white images were even more stirring. The one that caught my attention most of all was the flash flood image. I do not mind being told what to see in the image, because it gives me insight into what the artist saw. It may be a bit gimmicky, but I may have missed the connection to a flash flood without the title, and it amazes me that he took this photo and related it to that idea.

Beautiful work.

More Ideas

As a continuation to my last post, I realize that most of the "items" my mind first went to when trying to discover who I am have some kind of connection to events of the last year. I think the time period between now and exactly one year ago has been the most important and life altering year of my life thus far, for reasons I don't care to explain in this blog.

I think that if I should walk away from this class with something I am about to put this much work into., it should be something I truly care about. Last semester, I needed to create a piece of installation art, and I dedicated it to a friend I lost last year- something (or someone) I really cared enough about to dedicate an entire semester's work on.

I guess a year is probably not too bad an idea for a book. Like a "yearbook". Except instead of documenting a calendar year, it would be more a documentation/tribute/reflection on what will probably go down as one of the most significant periods in my life.

The list I made earlier wouldn't be a bad place to start. Anecdotes could easily turn into pages. I would just need to figure out some kind of narrative for the book so that it makes sense to viewers.

Or, maybe not. Who is it for, anyway? Me, and the people in my life. It would be a piece of art, after all. In art, I'm always right. So I guess I can't really fail at this.

Definitely NOT a possible title: A Year in the Life

As much as I want to call it that, I must resist the urge.