The One With The Final Presentation

Haha! Now with this we recap the year and I am done. Now I just need to not fail art history and I think I'm good. Here is a video of the keynote that shows all the projects.

The Final (countdown)

Last assignment for the semester. It was hard, I don't like the final product, but we were ambitious and did a lot. Oh well, here it is.

Oops I Never Posted About This One

This was my grandma cactus, she is the best. I had to make an organic structure based off of her that i could wear.

This was a rough first prototype, I based it off of the idea of a barbed sword. Barbed like the cactus and a sword wrapped around the arm like an extension of the arm, like those little arms that come out of cactuses

Ya know, like this

Then I made these but they were too sword like (and a lot of fun)

Then I made these so it was kinda like an more full body thing but I was straying too far away from the original idea (and it was hard to get into)

Then cut myself a bunch making the barbs

Finally we have this. It's twisted to move away from the sword idea and the barbs are placed more porously to make it more like the cactuses barbs. I only made the one so I could focus on just that. In total I made 5 swords over the corse of the project. It was a blast but terrible on my hands.

That Last Symposium

It was about finding our voice as an artist, but the two presenters mainly talked about their voice and never related it back to how we can find ours. Sure, they had interesting perspectives and unique lives that lead to good work, but that's all I learned about. I still don't know what my voice is. I don't know how I'll find it. This symposium was going to be really helpful but the only advice I thought was good was good came from a question, don't try too hard to live life. Just let it happen and the important stuff will come. Basically don't be fake af and you'll be good.

Work in progress

Video

Who would have dreamed this? You couldn't mean this

Chapter 24 talks about time and how there’s two versions of it. Time in a mechanical sense that chugs forward at a steady pace and time as we perceive it where it acts as a feeling that flows.

The people that passively perceive it as a feeling have this idea that time is a heavy weight when you’re troubled, or a light breeze when things seem perfect, it’s a constant flow that works against them. When things are rough the days get long and the years pass by in a moment. These people live for moments, and everything in between is pointless. Other people, see time as a strict guideline for how to live. Wake up at 6:30, eat, go to work by 8, eat lunch at 12, leave at 4, and watch the same T.V shows over and over from 5 till you pass out. They are aware of time so much that nothing else is as ever present. Life is lived only for death and every great feeling in life is just a mix of chemicals.

(this kind of writing reminded me of my favorite album Because The Internet)

Hopelessly Devoted to Family

Family is Peachy keen, jellybean. <- click for vid.
It was pretty hard making a video with no story because that's all I've ever done, and fitting the value of family was difficult until I decided to just not think about it. The cloth was easy to put in there honestly.
I put the cloth around the closest thing I have to family here, which is my friends.
I watched Jane the Virgin because it's the best american hispanic T.V show while drinking Jumex. (A hispanic brand of drinks) I love Jane the Virgin because I relate to it so much. Family and heritage are a big thing for it and it's a parody of Mexican telenovelas, so the idea of family is a constant for me whenever I put it on.
Finally I recorded me talking to family on camera. It was all real reactions and words, I just muted it so it wouldn't clash with the audio.
 I put in Chet Bakers Almost Blue and a conversation with my mom I recorded for audio. I talk to my mom every day and talking to her or any family member is almost always the highlight of my day, but right after is when I always feel the worst. When the call ends I'm always left in my room, alone, and I never know what to do next. That's what the song represents, the mixing of the two are the highs and lows of my day.





My family always gives amazing advice right when I need it, it's what I think back to every time I'm in a rough place.
"It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's what you do with your dancin' shoes."

This was the first pattern type thing I drew. The idea is that each planet and it's surrounding objects were families surrounding the center of the family. (Which for me it was always my grandma)

Fighting with my sister has always been a fury of dumb insults that I love.
"Oh, bite the weenie, Riz."

Then I repeated it a lot of times over on a smaller scale to see if it would look like a pattern. I kept the same sun in the middle, made the planets more random to have variation, and had constellations at the top left corner and bottom right that were somehow a story related to family.




My name was supposed to be Daniel but my dad (who was drunk at my birth) wanted my name to be Christopher, so I'm Christopher Daniel Cepeda.
"That's my name, don't wear it out."

After, I cut out 15 small for each planet and consolation. (Which made me pull an all nighter) I had a really hard time getting systems to line up so I made this for class because I needed something for the next day. I really Don't like this.




The only person I'd ever actually fight was my cousin when we were kids and way too into WWE. At one point he pushed me into a wall so hard my butt caved the wall in, I just covered it with a poster and no one found out for years.
"You're cruisin' for a bruisin'"

So after critique someone gave me the super smart and obvious answer to my problems. Put the basic pattern on a block of wood and glue them to make sure it'll always line up, and then fill in the pattern with random planets.




Working at my dads car lot helped my work ethic way more then I'd ever like to admit to him.
"Why, this car is Auto-matic. Its System-matic. Its Hyyyyydro-matic. Why, its Greased Lightning!"

This is what I ended up with. It went wayyyy easier this time around and was actually fun. I watched Friends and listened to Ray Charles the whole time.




No mater what I know My family will always be there for me.
"We'll always be together (Chang chang chanitty chang sha-bop)"