Introductory Visit

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Upon our introductory visit, I am impressed with what Freedom House is doing. It not only opens up its door for the homeless to live, but has programs that are there to help them get back on their feet. It’s comforting knowing that Freedom House has multiple organizations that are willing to support them.

Freedom House has an overwhelming amount of work that they need to do that is always increasing. They need a lot of help and food for their guests to serve them daily healthy meals. Their laundry system is rather impressive. Their machines are larger than one would presume once walking through their initial entry, and the amount of detergent they have is vast, but will likely be used quickly considering how much laundry they must do. In comparison to other homeless institutions their laundry system, I personally have found to be unique.

Part of our service learning project is to create a piece of artwork for freedom house. What they need does not fit with my ordinary creations. I feel that my artwork is a little bit darker which is not suitable for Freedom House considering they are looking for bright and uplifting work. In some ways my work can be uplifting but in now way is it lighthearted. That being said it will take me awhile to come up with a concept that will fit in with their program. My general knowledge and understanding of woodworking will be helpful in that I’d be able to create more furniture for them such as something that they will be able to set their air hockey table on.

The energy in the physical environment of the facility was and is unsettling. Much of what the place is made of is old, worn down, and just generally not in the best of shape which creates a space of negative energy. If the space was refurbished and revitalized, it would then create a much more positive environment that can bring in some new energy for the freedom house members and create a positive environment that can destress and promote positive energy and thinking. It troubling knowing that even though most of the families are working diligently to support their families, they still can’t get enough to support themselves. They face an incredible amount of adversity, whether it be the minimum requirements for a living space that makes it unaffordable to occupy certain places, or their commute that makes it nearly impossible to get to work on time due to the poor transportation system of Green Bay.

Freedom House 2nd Visit

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Before we visited Freedom House for the second time, I expected that we were going to mostly focus on figuring out what kind of art we were going to create for them, causing me to not really prepare for the visit. While we did look around for different areas we could create art for, we did help with some cleaning in the dining area, hallway and kitchen.

 

After leaving, I felt like I wanted to do much more for Freedom House than just cleaning, as that’s nothing too important or too helpful. For my next steps for making work for Freedom House, I want to scan, vectorize, edit and color a piece I created particularly for the kids there. I also think revising the other piece that I made for Freedom House would be very helpful as well.

My Creative Process

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My creative process, in general, involves remembering past works I’ve seen and thinking about what exactly I liked about them and seeing if there is a way to incorporate that element in a future work. I follow artist of a variety of mediums on social media to get ideas or just to admire. The style I usually look at involves comic art and grotesque illustrations. To refine my ideas what usually helps is bouncing around my thoughts with some friends who can provide some insight I haven’t thought of yet. Picking the right people to talk about whatever medium I’m trying to pursue in the project is important. When I’m doing quick sketches of what I want my work to look like I feel I get the biggest influx of ideas since the layout is right in front of me. I like to try different layout and even see if I can reimagine some things I’ve seen before. Refining these ideas is usually the most difficult part of the process. This involves transferring my rough sketches into something presentable. I usually like to transfer my drawing into Illustrator and cleaning up my lines. This is also a good place to play around with colors since most of my rough sketching is done in only black and white. In the end, I usually pick something that conveys the best story. Whether its an illustration or a logo I like to create things with some sort of narrative in the lines. Depending on what I play around with hiding messages or highlighting an aspect of the piece to make something more obvious. I never really stick to a plan when my work is in progress. I am always open to any changes that would help my work while I’m in the middle of it or if I find a different technique that could enhance the final product.

Freedom House First Impressions

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The Freedom House is resource for homeless families in Green Bay that provides services such as housing, meals, and classes to help those in need get back on their feet. The work that they do looks at the bigger picture of poverty and offers tools to help people break out of the cycle, rather than just temporary aid. My first impressions of the Freedom House were how selfless the employees must be and how much support is needed from the community to keep it up and running. Going in, I really did not know what to expect because I wasn’t previously aware of the different services they offer. I learned that families can stay there for as long as they need; there is no limit to their stay. I was very impressed to learn that families don’t have to feel like time is running out. They can take the time and resources they need to feel secure enough to support themselves. I also learned about how they try to consider every challenging aspect of poverty, such as finding childcare and affording basic supplies. By offering these solutions to their guests, the Freedom House makes it a little easier for people to succeed in their environment.

My initial idea for artwork came from the décor already present. I thought about making something that would give the place a sense of unity through what’s on the walls, whether it be a series of prints or a mural. However, when reflecting further, I thought about what might be more impactful and interact more directly with the guests. Maybe each family would want a family portrait taken and printed out to keep or the kids would want screen-printed backpacks for school. I’m also excited about the idea of making something promotional such as for their gala or website. I’m not uneasy about anything we’ve experienced thus far, but it will be interesting to see how we will be interacting with the guests.

My Process as a Public Artist

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My creative process is more internal than it is external. I tend to brainstorm in my head first and try to think things through what direction I want to go in before I even write anything out or start drawing. I will visualize my piece before it hits the paper. I find most of my inspiration from everyday life, whether it be something ordinary I saw earlier in the week that stuck with me or a phrase I heard in a song. Once I land on an idea, I take it further through thumbnails and try different iterations. Sometimes, I’ll find a different idea along the way.

To be a Public Artist means to be creating art with the intent of being shared or on display. I would consider myself a Public Artist now because I am creating work to be displayed on campus and critiqued by my peers. It is intended to be experienced by others. This also plays a role in my creative process because the audience for whom my piece is intended for can influence the direction my iterations will take. I also think that there are varying degrees of being a Public Artist depending on how widely and/or willingly the piece is shared with the public.

Social media takes the idea of being the Public Artist and pushes it a little further. My relationship with social media differs depending on what platform I am using. I use Facebook primarily to contact others and rarely post. I use Instagram the most because it is also where I personally post the most. I wouldn’t necessarily give it a major role in my creative process because I think of it as separate from my work; I mostly post pictures of my personal life rather than the work I am creating. However, I want to begin to increase my presence as a Public Artist on social media in the future because I think it can be a really useful tool in generating inspirations and bouncing ideas off fellow artists and the works that they post.

My Creative Process

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Usually my creative process starts from getting inspiration of some sort, whether it be from a poster, song, movie or photo. It’s usually whatever is inspiring me at the time that influences my work, since I tend to go through phases of what artists and creators are particularly inspiring me. I also tend to generate ideas from being bored. It’s usually while I am standing around or when I start to zone out during other courses that I come up with ideas of what to work on next. Lastly, I have also found it helpful to write down my dreams, which I find can help me come up with many different ideas for future use.

I believe a public artist is someone who creates work to be openly viewed by others. I suppose in some sense I am a public artist by posting my work on Instagram, Facebook and my portfolio, though my work usually doesn’t get very many views. I would like to become more of a public artist by creating work that can be seen by many in real life and in public settings, such as creating a mural or a piece for a gallery. I also want to get into the habit of documenting my creative processes online, whether that be creating a blog that shows how my work is being made or creating a fast-motion video showing me creating a sketch or linocut.

I use social media generally to promote some of my work or to find new creators to inspire my art and design. For example, I tend to post screenprints, paintings and drawings of mine on Instagram. I am also constantly finding graphic designers, illustrators and artists who influence my work on Pinterest. However, my social media feeds on websites like Facebook or Twitter tend to not inspire me as much. I usually use those accounts to connect with friends and family members.

Freedom House Reflection

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Overall, my impression of Freedom House was that it was a place with friendly workers and a great mission. However, I did recognize some of their needs and struggles pretty quickly, as to it being understaffed and some of the rooms needing renovation or redecoration.

Our visit really helped me to realize how big homelessness is in the Green Bay area, that this isn’t the only shelter in the area and that Freedom House alone has 40 families waiting to live there.

I had a lot of ideas on how to help serve Freedom House. I thought about maybe screenprinting some of my previously made work for the teen room or reprinting some of my digital artwork for the hallways or rooms. While those would be good ideas for the final project, I thought that one potential idea for the time being would be repainting some of the furniture (if they approve) to give off a more welcoming look. This is something that we have done to A LOT of our furniture at home. I also thought that perhaps inviting my mom along to volunteer and finding objects or furniture to redecorate or refinish might be helpful, as she has a very good eye for decoration. Lastly, I also thought that it might be helpful just to visit with some of the families and kids who live here in order to get to know who we are helping.

I suppose I was uncomfortable trying to think and mentally plan ahead when I would visit and how that would work with my schedule, though I found it MUCH more unsettling how sterile some of the rooms felt, knowing that this is the only home that the people who live here have. It really helped me to remember to count my blessings, also inspiring me to want to help assist Freedom House in making it a more welcoming place.

The Reading

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This is our reading for the semester. You can buy it at your local bookseller and other places where books are sold. Please make sure to get this edition with design work by Shepard Fairey.

A different edition of this book is available at the SNC Library.

We’ll be reading the book in these four chunks:

  1. pp 1 – 41
  2. pp. 42-91
  3. pp. 92 – 121
  4. pp. 122 – 159

You may also be interested to see this 1966 cartoon by Alan Dunn from the New Yorker (p. 155-6). Sort of a comics CliffsNote version of the book…and why it’s relevant to our work. In what I hope is funny and relevant meta-presentation of the image, the context of the scanner is included in the image.

The Blog

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One of the questions we’re addressing in this class is what it means to be a public artist. A part of how we’re answering that question is through this blog. The requirement to blog reflects my answer to the question: a part of being a public artist means sharing your work, and in this case, your process.

Here we’ll post reflective writing, artist statements, and images as we go along. You’ll be able to search our posts by category, tag, and by author.

Above is a snapshot of my process: my desk, days before classes start, with a lot of notes and things to do before classes start.