Artist Lecture, Wendy Maruyama

What a very inspiring woman. I absolutely love her work. I never realized that even woodworking had such interesting stories behind them and that it is not an art where the artists try to do something new and different. Maruyama says that "place" determines the way that her work will go. She says that the physical and historical place has effected her work. Physical place being the places that she has visited. Historical place being her ethnic background and the histories of Japan and China. She also stated that her color palettes are influenced by where she has been. Maruyama is also influenced by other artists that she admires such as, Betye Saar, Alison Saar, Roger Shimomya, etc. Maruyama has also started a project with the I.D. tags of the Japanese/Americans from the camps. I am very intrigued by this work, since she has requisitioned help from various schools to help with the project. I think it is awesome that she wants the younger generations to be involved in the history of her project. This is also another artist who has merged other medias with her own. Maruyama has used photography and video in conjunction with her woodworking. Will there come a time when there is no differentiation between the medias?

Hank Willis Thomas

I really enjoyed Thomas' lecture. By the way that he talked about his work you could tell that he was very proud of his work and where it has gone. Thomas has taken advertisements and used them to show the stereotypes of the African American community. I thought that his work with the master card was very interesting when it was displayed on the side of a museum. The way that people reacted was what I expected. I think it is weird though that he does not care to know how people react to his work. I would think that with a subject like racial stereotypes that he would want to know how people react. Maybe, he already knows how they will react? I also thought that it was interesting that master card did not push to sue him for using their brand. I wonder if they would have sued a white man for doing the exact same thing? I was very moved by the video he did of his cousin's murder. Knowing the background I think made it even more emotional, but would others who don't know the background be as emotional? I know that Thomas wants people to question, but what does he expect to happen through his work? I don't know if I will ever know the answers to these questions, but I am going to continue to follow Thomas' work in hopes to find out.

Artist Lecture, Paul Pfeiffer

I enjoyed parts of Paul Pfeiffer' but not all of it. I really enjoyed his work but found it very hard to figure out what it is exactly what he was trying to accomplish and how he feels about his current work. I don't know if I consider his work sculpture. I think that a large part is video, but think that the arts are merging together. What I got from his lecture is that he is exploring how iconic images and videos meant one thing when they were first shown and can mean something entirely different today. What these things meant then and what they mean now, I don't know. I also know that he left it up to the viewer on how long they were to engage the videos. I can relate this to traditional sculpture work as that it is entirely up to the viewer on how long they will look at a sculpture. Other than these two things I really didn't get much from his lecture. I find the questions that I came out with very intriguing and wanting me to explore more.