Time Studio

The first class we had i got paired up with viktoriya which was really cool because we realized we work the same artistically, and we are into a lot of the same music, food, clothing, fancy cigarettes...and we both used to live in japan, we've since become good friends, and are thinking
about getting an apartment together next year.

The class itself made me really want to work with time based work more. I love the idea of art thats not static, that moves and changes, and I feel like I really got to explore art in that way. it's weird to make something and have it move, it really makes me think about the personification of objects more, which is something i have always been interested in. Being able to show someone a flipbook i've created, is somehow more gratifying that showing someone a photograph, i'm considering doing mainly time based work when i enter into my major, a mixture of film and art experiments, and most of that stems from being in this class and experimenting with time based mediums and learning about other artists.

Art History

My art history class is three hours long on a thursday night and it ends at ten. So of course its really hard for me to pay attention. really really hard. on top of that i have a terrible memory and i procrastinate, so even though i fight with myself to stay awake and i get all of the notes and make flashcards, i never usually get around to looking at them until an hour before the actual
exam, which of course means my grade in the class is pretty awful.

the worst part is i love art history, i think its really interesting, i actually went to a lecture outside of class...mostly for extra credit, but also because i was genuinely interested in the lecture, i actually tried to discuss it with a few friends but they weren't really into it.

I wish i could just go to art history and not have to worry about taking the exams because that would be amazing.

Photography and Film

This class made me want to not even apply to the photography department. Watching a girl balance on a chair on the back of a truck for four minutes will do that for you.

When i showed up for the class on the first day our professer told us a few things:
-why yes this is a project class but you won't be doing any projects
-why no you will not have any darkroom time
-instead, you'll watch films and look at photographs from other students
-just react to the pieces
-...yea, you'll just have to write on a topic for twenty minutes at the beginning of each class
-...no there's no right or wrong answer

Which i guess is alright, because i got an A just for showing up to take an hour long nap.
I felt like most of the grad students who showed work to our class were very pretentious about work the majority of them didn't seem to apply meaning to, which made me want to rethink the photography program at vcu, i understand the argument of art for art's sake in instances where the art is aesthetically pleasing, but when a work is poorly crafted, boring, and goes nowhere, i feel like it's a cop out to hide behind the idea that the poor craft is intentional, it's boring to passive aggressively attack art that actually does have meaning, and the fact that it has no substance makes it video art and not cinema. I find i now have more respect for the cinema program, even though it's supposed to be more practical, because despite the fact that the work that comes out of it is sometimes less artistic, it's more refined polished and has a point, and frankly, i don't see how those attributes have negative connotations when it comes to creating art.

Surface Research

When I first came into this class i was really worried, i had read all these amazing reviews about meganck on ratemyprofesser.com and i expected him to welcome me with hot cocoa and a pat on the head. instead he was happy to let the class know that the majority of the work just wasn't very good at all...i hated his class for the first couple weeks, but then i realised, i love knowing when i suck. his class was definitely one of the hardest classes i have ever had, and i can recall recently staying up for 42 hours working on a project that i got a B on...but thats what i love about his class. I have to constantly work hard just to scrape by, and as terrible as that sounds i mean it in the best way possible.

I remember him having a conversation with our class about communication that sparked and idea for a theory i'm currently writing a proposal to get a grant for. I actually recommend him to my friends and anyone else who happens to be reading this, he's tough but he's fair, and he's definitely pushed me to make the best work i could this year.

Focused Inquiry

I never understood this class, part of it probably had to do with the fact that i never got the books for the class but i like to think i'm a pretty scrappy little thing and not having a book would not make that much of a difference but i'm not trying to be cocky so i am not going to pretend the meaning of the class didn't just go over my head.


My teacher used to comment on my run on sentences all the time...so you see how much i have changed over the course of the semester.

I did meet really interesting people in this class, and it was weird because a few of them came from my high school, i'm friends with a few people from that class now and we get into some crazy shenanigans together.
My teacher is super nice and i always feel bad because i'm really flaky and i know it bums her out that no one ever took the class seriously...but at the same time, how can you take a class seriously when you have to write an essay on "what is america?"...hello fifth grade...