Front Door

This is my front door. Well maybe not my front door, but the door to my room. To me it's MY front door. Technicalities are always involved when living in the dorms. This photo will be a catalog of time spent here in Jensen.

This dim lighting is what makes my hall and doorway extremely enticing. Its much more calming without the brutality of the industrial top lighting. I am a fan of warm lighting. It keeps me sane and things look better that way.

Someone likes the lights on so we're in a war. Whenever I leave my room I turn off the lights on my end of the hall. Now my secret has been given away.

It seems this blog has been less than revolutionary, for my brains have been fried and sleep has been nonexistent. So I am thankful for for dim lighting and my cozy room. The end.

Do artists have a responsibility to society?

Hmmmmm. Well this is a tricky question. I think it's hard to have a definitive answer from my personal point of view. So perhaps this is more of a tool for me to think aloud, aka "ablog".

I guess artists should have a responsibility to society. Artists as a whole maybe more than each individual artist. But I guess without the individual you wouldn't have the whole. It seems far too obvious. Hmmm.

I guess if I consider myself as an artist in society and my role therein, it will make things easier. I don't think I am doing anything monumental for society personally. But, I think I'm making work that relates to those who see it even if they don't understand my relation to it. And isn't that saying something and upholding a responsibility?

My art is being viewed by human beings; those who are all under the conditions of life today and understand common occurrence while dealing with the day to day struggles and pleasures in life. Herein, maybe it's not my responsibility to society, but instead a default relationship to the human nature that causes me to make what I make. Maybe rather than me upholding some responsibility to society, society is what upholds me.

Stories, past, childhood, present, icons, and identity are all natural to those in society. These are words/ideas I tangle with in my art. While I don't go about it with my mind set on addressing those "big issues", the underlying issues seem to be relevant. My art is extremely personal, my own stories behind each decision within pieces. So maybe artists do uphold a responsibility by default. To represent those lives, interests, trials and tribulations that strike us as universal.

If we didn't have a responsibility to society would there be art museums? Would we have traced the path art has taken over the years? If all artists believed they had no responsibility to society, wouldn't a certain passion for art be lacking? While art is so personal, it is also as I mentioned previously, universal. This contrary statement so very well helps us understand how we must take art and implement it as being so very important. And if it's not my responsibility to do it for some societal reason, than maybe I shouldn't be making it at all. But I can't not make art. That would just be silly. So maybe i'm upholding my responsibility to all those people out there. To the world at large. I like to think not...kinda scary.

Who knows. All I know is I will keep making stuff as long as I can still wonder.

Who is my support system?

Who is my support system? Well that's a good question to pose. I don't have a very strong base of "art friends" outside of GVC that's for sure. I get picky when I want to talk about my art or art in general. I mostly like to chat with people who have some inclination of what good art is today or at least who are educated enough on topics in art to have a justified opinion. I find it really frustrating to be satisfied with chatting about it because I have extremely strong convictions and when they're questioned, I get extremely frustrated. So I must admit it's very hard to find people that don't frustrate the hell out of me and also inspire my art-making. I better work on getting a better support system, for I'll need one to keep me wanting to make art. Another task to add to my list of things to work on.

Who do I talk to about art?

First off, I must say that talking about my art has ALWAYS been an extremely trying thing for me. Because of my ever-looming lack in self-confidence and nervous demeanor, I often find it hard to talk to people about my art. I find it especially hard to talk about these things to people who I'm not familiar with or who don't understand who I am. Especially lately, my art is such a personal thing that explaining it troubles me constantly.

As I totally contradict my previous statement, I have to admit, I feel like I'm figuring things out and talking about my art in class this semester is becoming an easier task. I think I'm starting to find myself understanding more and more about my brains as I make more art and try to explain why I am justified in making it.

Herein, Talking to a certain art professor is what I do daily. This is my rant on how thankful I am to have someone who puts up with me coming to him for any little problem/idea/tangent I have to blab about. It has helped me so much to be in conversations about art and hearing ideas and throwing out ideas. It's definitely what I need right now. Someone to get me thinking more about it and encouraging my artmaking is getting me to understand how much i NEED to make art. Thanks, Tinder.

I also talk to people in my classes about art. It's interesting to get so many different backgrounds and opinions on it. I like to hear them because it helps me solidify my stance on art. While sometimes stressful, I find interest in the conversations in all my art classes.

I also talk to my friends who graduated last year about art. I like to talk to them because they have been out of the college setting for a while now. They know what it's like to have no one constantly inquiring and encouraging. Some of them are still extremely involved in art-making while others have vowed retirement. I want to be one who pursues. I truly don't think I can be content without creating. What that means I don't fully know. I just know that I need to be able to inspire my own creation when the time comes that I am not in the GVC Art Dept anymore.

I guess that's a few of the people I talk to art about.

take photos....explain.

The first image is a view from my bed. I often lie and think in this exact position, these things in my view all the while. It's a mixture of objects from my past as well as things from the present. I cherish these moments lying in bed scrutinizing my walls and the things that hang on them. I yearn to catalog a memory of my life at this point in 2008 by doing so. I want nothing more than to look back with vivid memory of the things happening around me in 2008. I want to remember feelings and events and my ideas on life at this certain point. I also find interest in the patterns made by the objects in the background and they seem reminiscent of those in Zak Smith's work as well as those in Hope Gangloff's. I am working to achieve that sort of interest in my own work, and I often am reminded of those artists and their works as I lay in bed pondering. So I've decided it fitting to add this photo to my blog. Just a reminder of the fact that even the smallest trinkets in my room are important in what makes me, Heather Haukoos.

The second photo is one I've been meaning to take for a long time now and hadn't until just the other day. This is a photo of the shower curtain in a restroom on my floor. Bathrooms are rooms that fascinate me and it seems Jensen Hall has an overabundance of them. Not only an overabundance of bathrooms, but really interesting ones. The objects and shapes often contrast so well with the lighting and herein I'm sold that bathrooms are some of my favorite rooms. Perhaps it's because the bathroom in my house growing up was often the warmest room in the winter or maybe it's because I have fond memories of bath-time as a child. Perhaps I over analyze and there's not much rhyme or reason other than the fact that I really like captivating shapes contrasted with light. All I know is I am glad I finally took this photo.

Past Work

I hadn't posted work from last spring. Well, here it is. This link should take you to it

http://s298.photobucket.com/albums/mm243/heatherhaukoos/

Something that tickles my fancy.

I recently found an artist that caught my eye and after further observation, my interest has been elevated. Hope Gangloff's works often contain figures as subjects and are extremely well done. She has a knack for integrating balance through the stark differences between the figures and objects within the piece. Not only are they technically "good", but I really enjoy the combination of color and style. Her unusual subject matter and situations within the pieces also draw me to them. I like to have a good time when I look at art and these make me giggle but simultaneously say, "Whoa, that's good stuff." It seems the more I look at good art, the more I want to make good art. I guess anyone should know that helps. Yes, Hope Gangloff, you're a good woman.

How do I feel about art-making right now?????

As of late, art-making has me extremely excited. I'm stimulated by all the art-making going on around me and it enhances my desire to create. Not only art-making, but talking about art, reading about it, and looking at it have also gotten me making more and more "stuff".

I get extremely excited by the art that I see in magazines, books, and on websites. It seems that a lot of sweet art is being made right now. I feel that this is a prime time to be making art. Especially art that is "your" art, whatever that may mean. I dig it...ALOT.

And who would have thought that by doing all those things I would actually be even MORE excited. Although I'm frustrated by art on a semi-daily basis, things seem to be getting easier at the same time. I guess it's a never ending struggle between art and my brains and for now I'm quite content with that.

other media

drawings

paintings

prints