Art: Final Projects

It was my sincerest hope to make the best out of this final quarter and put out the best artwork that the little artist in me could manage. Contrarily, I might have fallen short of that desperate desire by a long shot. I don't know what, even, would validate any hard work that I may have done. An A in the class? Nah, I could care less. An offer for a commission? Getting closer. Thousands of dollars in exchange for my work? Getting legitimately exhibited? Oh, I don't know. I suppose being able to withstand the weight of my own critique would have sufficed, but I didn't even do that.




Cakestands that I threw on the wheel in Ceramics. I made seven in total, but some anonymous klutz broke it into pieces. I am so freaking proud of these, granted they're not very tall or wide and can only fit maybe 3 or 4 cupcakes or a 5-inch cake at most -- they were the first objects I could throw that weren't misshaped bowls or lop-sided cups. :) I was quite happy with the glazing as well.

This really could easily pass as a GAP Ad or an Asian American organization pamphlet ...something like that.

My chosen entry in the Senior Show

My final piece for Senior Studio

"Revelation"
Installation of charcoal drawings on newsprint or drawing paper
Ceramic masks with stuffed stockings

I guess I can't say that these pieces don't resonate somewhere deep inside, so I will say that I am proud of them, and that I hope to continue to make more, and better work when I go into my last painting course in the summer.

What I've been working on. . .

Hah. So, if most of you don't already know . . . I'm not actually a UCLA student. I'm a UCLA: School of Arts & Architecture student. They brainwash teach you to know the difference during your orientation -- where they also show you around campus impressively walking backwards the entire time, but simultaneously looking like idiots. Although honestly, there isn't really a difference, other than the fact that the UCLA school of Arts is 98% female, and it's helpful to know the category if & when you're lost and confused at the wrong graduation ceremony.

I digress. Yes, I'm an art student. And though my major calls for a different kind of introduction -- one of self guidance and confident aptitude, I could really say that I've suffered in my adolescent decision, four years premature. I can't say that I regret it -- I think I've learned so much about myself, about creative dead people, and of cynicism over the last couple of years. I've learned to defend art skeptics like a true expert of art-apologetics. "What are you talking about? Of course Kandinsky did not bribe a four-year old to do his paintings!" "Mondrian was not referencing legos!" "Jackson Pollock was just a jackass in denim."

I came into my first quarter here at UCLA, taking Don Suggs' drawing class not knowing what to expect. I find myself in my second-to-last quarter after four years, still expecting. I'm not quite sure what I'm still expecting. I guess I'm expecting someone to tell me, "Hey Tiffany, your work may have gradually turned to sh*t in the past four years, but nice try. It's not meaningless." There was a confidence I had as a first year that I feel like I've lost -- being an old harsh critique veteran. There's something about this field that's so damn intimidating. I used to have so much faith behind my work, knowing where I stood among my peers -- knowing that I would stand by what I have done. Now I'm unsure. Now I tread lightly between what my instructors desire, and what I myself desire. Then I get so confused I just throw up my hands in defeat because let's face it -- sometimes art is just too f*cking pretentious. What if I want to paint a kitschy flower meadow? Must I be bogged down by an art historical context that never even applied to me in the first place? Must I pour through theoretical art essays that speak of phallic symbols, technological overthrow, and formalist orgies that were probably written while on an acid trip?

I don't know if I buy it. I don't know if I buy it if I'm in the company of people who cut up pixelated Doritos jpegs and stick them on canvases to call it art. Do you?


With that being said, I've decided to post some of what I've been working on, here, for the first time. . . because, well, I really don't care what you think of them . . . or what anyone really thinks.

I'm just creating.

Last Quarter

Last Quarter

"tes paroles"
Last quarter

Close-up

"Portrait of My Grandmother"
This Quarter

Quasi-study in pointillism
Finished this quarter

"Mush Shhhh Rooooooooooms"
Finished this quarter

"SARS"
Last quarter

"You Only Like Me for My Name"
(Made with black pins)
This quarter

"Bevy"
This Quarter

"Rien"
Last Quarter

"Désolée"
Last Quarter

Close-up

Close-up

I don't know if I'm finished with these, but I'm still experimenting.
I made the two towering canvases, and doused them in aromatic oils, and then poured candle wax down them. The other "figure" I made out of old bedsheets and intimates taken from my own and my mother's closets.






More to come, stay tuned.