Amor & Keisuke

         Amor and Keisuke’s presentation was very interactive and I really enjoyed listening to all the things they had to say. I loved listening to their story it was so inspirational. I think that it was very brave of them to just drop everything despite of all the risk and all of the troubles they had to face. Their story honestly sounded like something off of a movie. Amor always knew that she wanted to go to Art Center and she worked her butt off and took a huge risk to pursue and follow the dreams she had since she was a little nugget. She even found the love of her life while on this journey. I just really had fun listening to all of it.

            The idea that opportunities don’t just jump out in front of you was reinforced in my mind after that lecture. Not to mention their art was incredible. You could see that art just runs in their veins as naturally as blood does. It was beautiful work. They use their talents to try and improve the new world and the future, which I find to be amazing. Most arts just want to express a deep feeling they have to change or inspire the way someone looks at the world; Amor and Keisuke express their feelings, but they use their art to change the world itself, not just the way we look at it.

            I do look forward to maybe getting the chance to work with them or sit down and talk to them more. I would love to get a better feel of what they were going through when they decided to up and move to Germany for their internship. I feel like listening to what they felt in more depth might help me feel a little better about pursuing this field whole heartedly, and more normal for being a little afraid of taking those risks. I have always been one to take risks, but there is always a deep fear stirring within which I am sure everyone feels, but it would be nice to get some reassurance from someone who it worked out well for.

Jim Krause

Jim Krause’s videos were pretty educational. He seemed to repeat himself a lot, but it helped the information stick better. I do wish that it were a little more fun just so I felt more engaged, like the other videos we watched I felt more engaged because the people we watched just gleamed with excitement for the jobs they had and the things they did. Otherwise, it was very educational and I learned a good amount about the way colors work.

He broke it down to 3 simple rules and I feel like that made it a lot easier to wrap your head around, especially since the color palette is such a broad subject. There are so many colors in the world, and it’s easy to get lost in which ones to choose from while working in design, any art for that matter.

I know that personally I have trouble with color combinations a lot of the time while drawing. My favorite medium is pencil. Color pencils and regular pencils. When I am trying to decide on how I should color in my more abstract pieces I recently started referring to the book and thinking back to what I learned from watching the video of Jim. It’s been surprisingly helpful. Turns out all his repetition was useful.

I even learned something about colors that I never knew about. I learned that all colors are just the primary colors, but with different saturations, different tints, different tones, and different values. I always thought it was a series of colors, but now I know it all originated from a set of three simple colors.

 Marian Bantjes

Marian Bantjes is a talented designer of sorts. She is kind of in her own division of graphic design because she plays by her own rules and people respect and love that about her. She is recognizably different in all of the works that she has done. I loved her style because she followed her passions and allowed herself to be guided by just that. She isn’t interested in riches and wealth, she just wants to be brilliant at what she does and let her art speak for itself. She wants her art to touch people.

Allowing oneself to let go and let the art just flow through is a really difficult task. I dabble in just letting my pen flow on the paper and it usually turns out way better than I had ever expected. A lot of artists have trouble doing that because they pay such close attention to detail and Marian managed to accomplish both aspects of that in her work. She has very detailed design, yet her designs were all just passion placed onto paper. At one point in the interview, she mentioned that she was having trouble coming up with designs and then it hit her that she has to draw things close to the heart; things about love.

I find when I draw things that I am more passionate about, I can put forth my best effort and really get down and deep into it. This is not just because of my ADHD, but because as an artist the true talent that lies underneath can really surface when I am one hundred percent into what I am doing. I think I speak for all creative minds when I say that doing something that captures your attention and speaks to you on a more personal level can truly drag something so magnificent and so incredible out of you. Art is literally the expression of ones emotions or thoughts so how could art get any better when it’s derived from the deepest parts of your soul, heart, and mind. 

I deeply respect her choice to step away from everything she built so that she could find her voice in her art again. It was a bold move and it gives me great hope and great joy and reminds me that if you really love something, you will thrive no matter what. You just have to chase it down and pursue it, and sometimes you might have to give up all you have to find yourself again. The best part about that though, is that you will always find yourself in a better and brighter light.

Sean Adams

Sean Adams builds the box and then destroys it. He seems to be a beautiful combination of goofy and very intellectual. It seems like he is a very talented teacher and an even more talented designer. It’s gentlemen like him who think in so many different perspectives and try to test the limits that make the art world so inspiring and, for lack of a better word, fun. After watching that video of him speaking about his upbringing and how he aspired to be different than what was expected of him, I felt truly inspired. I wish I could have the pleasure of working along side him, or under his wing.

Something about people with that amount of creative talent and lack of awareness of their talent is so special. It makes you want to reach and strive for better things. Certain things he said in the video felt like they were directed right at me, and it made me think. He had an interesting way of thinking about the world and looking at things.

There was a part in the video where he mentioned that you only get out what you put up. When you dig in you get results. I forget frequently that I need to be embedded in the things I do because I know I have talent but I have lack of discipline sometimes. I know that I have all this potential and often I forget its there and that it needs to be unlocked. A lot like Sean, I have a father who wasn’t always the most supportive of my decisions and I think that hearing him talk about that clicked and shook something in my head. Art isn’t just a career for Sean, or even for Margo Chase, but it is a way of life. 

Mr. Adams also mentioned that people who design are born designers and it’s just in their blood. I don’t know if “designing”, per say, is in my blood; but art basically makes up my entire genetic code. I don’t know where I would be or what I would be doing if I weren’t deeply invested in the world of art. It’s my life and I hope that I can make these incredible things along side incredible talent such as Sean Adams one day, and share something immensely amazing with the world in one of the few languages everyone can understand.

Margo Chase

Margo Chase was quirky and always resorted back to her roots to find the answers for some of her artistic problems. I enjoyed hearing that her mother was a great inspiration to her. I can relate. My mother has always been the artistic talent I look up to. All my life, my mom was the one pushing me to test my limitations in my creative abilities. I love being able to relate to the two great designers we had the pleasure of watching interviews of. It reminds me that when you use the tools that life has given you, you can do and be whatever it is you want to.

She talked about how she does best in dark and more gothic types of designing and how she sometimes has to step out of that box to widen her horizon. It was interesting for me to find out that even people of such talent and such stability on the ladder of success in the field of art struggle with trying to step away from their comfort zones. She went on to say that she was excited to step out of that comfort zone and experience and create new things to reach a different demographic. I love hearing that, and knowing that it was a journey for her. It just really reminds me that I can do great things when stepping out of that box.

It really grounds the whole idea of making it in the art world when a talent, such as Margo Chase, openly admits to the struggles of being caught in a comfort zone. It lessens the tension and the intimidation of these walls we build in our own heads.

Margo was a little obsessed with the books she has collected over the years, and has stored in the library at her office. She had all these amazing things to show us in the books, and all these wonderful things to say about them and their history. She uses them to help inspire her work, much like Sean did with his knowledge of history. I think what I took away from both of them is that learning something about past creators can help you build something amazing in the future. We will always resort back to our roots as humans, because it is only natural. I like that they both do it in different ways and it still works well for them both. 

Margo Chase is now an inspiration to the way I look at design. She changed something and shook a bolt loose in my head. I am happy I got to watch those videos and listen to her go on about all the wonderful things that design has to offer the world.

Points, Lines, Planes

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