wk13 – Artist Conversation – Tyler Turett

This week I was able to meet a great CSULB artist, Tyler Turett. Tyler is currently in his last semester here in which he will be receiving his bachelor’s degree in Animation. Tyler has big dreams and some big shoes to fill with his degree. I say this because his dream job is to work for pixar, because he said the first time he saw Toy Story he was amazed. Since then, he has always been interested in animation and wanted to make things like Toy Story

Over the years, Tyler has had many people inspire him but he can’t quite pick one individual. Each drawing takes quite a while for Tyler to make because he starts off with a bunch of character designs and tries out different shapes and sizes. He then makes about twenty rough sketches until he likes one. HE said his process is tough but in summary he draws the character once and then make a bunch of mouths for them because a lot of his characters use dialogue. He tries to do something different each time and entertain his audience. He makes an actual skeleton with his characters with joints and stuff and then moves them around. He actually hardly uses paper at all anymore.

One of Tyler’s favorite scenes on his drawings is the one with the carrots. He says that in the scene a man is shown cutting carrots very well and his friends are actually amazed by how well he’s doing it. The next scene is a flashback of giant carrots beating him up. His favorite characters are the basketball devil character, and the tall skinny frog looking guy. He is always making new characters so he can’t pick a favorite. Tyler is now in his last semester and is lined up for an internship in Portland for an animation company who will be making a cartoon show. He will be working for the show until they stop making it.

Tyler is a great artist and also a nice guy. His goal is to make his audience laugh at his work because of the comedy behind it, and personally I can say he achieved this goal because he is very creative and I was laughing at his scenes. I think it’s awesome that he will be making a new cartoon show and that he will be representing CSULB. I could also see some resemblance from his pieces in other Disney pieces like the devil basketball player. He looked like on of the characters  from Space Jam. It was great talking to Tyler and I wish him all the best in his new internship and future in animation.

wk13 – Classmate Conversation – Andrea Casamitjana

This week I had the pleasure of meeting my fellow classmate, Andrea Casamitjana who is in her 2nd year here at CSULB studying Film. She is from Madrid, Spain but living here in Long Beach with her family which includes her younger sister. She loves living in Spain and would much rather be there than here. In fact she just got offered am internship in Madrid and will be studying abroad next year back home where she can reunite with friends and family. Even though she lived in Madrid her favorite soccer team is Barcelona. While coming here full time, she also works at Magic Lamp as a hostess and in her free time away from work she likes to dance but hasn’t been able to in the last month because she pulled her hamstring which can be very painful. She also likes to travel, ski, travel, and play volleyball but claims she sucks at volleyball. When she graduates she would like to become an actress but she knows that will be a tough road. She plans on first becoming a producer and producing her own movie and from there being able to become an actress due to the connections she makes. It was very nice meeting Andrea and I wish her best of luck in her future plans to become an actress.

wk12 – Artist Conversation – Christopher Linquata

This week I had the opportunity to meet Artist Christopher Linquata who likes to be called Christo. Christo is in his last year at CSULB in the masters program. Before entering the masters program, Christopher was teaching art but he wanted to become a better teacher and also a better painter. A lot of his inspiration actually comes from other artists and friends in the Masters program.

A lot of time and preparation go into each one of Christo’s paintings. His largest painting took four months to make with a month and a half of preparation. For each painting Christo prefers to use acrylic paint. His paintings consist of real and mythological stories which he wants the viewer to figure out which story is real. In most of his stories the background is based off of San Pedro Beach and other local areas like Long Beach. When looking at Christo’s instagram where you can find him by his username @icon5350, I noticed he likes to use gold for his framing of paintings. Also on his instagram you can see some of the characters in the paintings actually hanging out with him in the real world.

  
Christo is inspired by a lot of things like the artists in the masters program and also artists from the early renaissance and street art. The artists from the early renaissance that inspire him are Pierre de la francesca and Bien benito solini. A few nights before each show, Christo spends sleepless nights preparing for the show. Finishing his paintings, and making sure everything is in tact and perfect. You could see this on his instagram where he posts pictures using the hash tag #nosleep.

When observing Christo’s paintings I tried to determine which pieces were real stories or if they were fake. It looks like whether they were real or not, they were all based on the good times that he and his friends have had. Maybe the fake ones were dreams he had that he wanted to paint. My favorite piece was the one centered in the back that was titled “Death of Christo”. Death of Christo is comical to me because it’s so real to me. All of the time you see people passed out drunk on the beach with people around them not knowing that they are there. In this painting, he is passed out and there is a family playing around him on the rock just acting like he isn’t there. Why is this the Death of Christo if he isn’t actually dead? Is it because no one notices him? No one actually cares for his well being? If he were actually dead, would anyone care? This is what I think when I look at Death of Christo and why the artist named the painting that. It was a great week at the galleries and even better getting to meet the artist behind the paintings. Christo seems to be a great artist and an even better teacher and I wish him the best in his future endeavors.

 

wk12 – Classmate Conversation – Tommy Lyons

In this week’s classmate conversation I had the opportunity to meet fellow classmate Tommy Lyons. Tommy is from lakewood and his family has always lived in Lakewood. He attended Lakewood high school and played baseball all 4 years there. He is currently is his second year here at CSULB and he is focusing in chemical engineering. He is not sure yet what he wants to do with chemical engineering but he hopes to find out soon. 5 years from now he hopes to be graduated and have a good job somewhere. In his free time away from studying, Tommy likes to play baseball, go hiking, and mountain climb at the rec center. His favorite baseball team is the Angels. His favorite animal is a Labrador dog, and I couldn’t blame him because they are an awesome intelligent dog. When he thinks of the color red, he often thinks back to high school because those are the colors of his Alma matter Lakewood high school.

wk11- Geocache EC

In this week’s Extra Credit opportunity, my roommate, Anthony Simeone and I decided to collect all 50 points of extra credit and find 5 of our classmates geocache’s. The first geocache we found was late at night early in the week. It was hidden by fellow classmate Tony Nguyen in his cache “wintergreen-altoids”.

Our next find came a few days later when we set out on a geocaching adventure on campus! Our first find of the day goes to Jackie Bautista and her cache “Fire Hydrant”. The cache was easy to find because everything gave it away but it was still fun!

Our second find of the day, and third total goes to classmate Emily Snyder for this great cache! This one was more challenging and very clever! Thanks Emily for “Nebraska”

  

My fourth total find comes from my classmate and roommate Anthony Simeone who named his cache “Pipeline” which gave it away. It was somewhere in the neighborhood and once I saw the pipe I knew it had to be in there! Thanks Anthony!

My fifth and final find came late at night on the same day when we saw our classmate, Adrian Caluya hid a cache close to our house. We strapped on our roller blades and the rest was history! Thanks for the “Miniature House” find Adrian.

wk11 – Activity – Fiber Art

In this week’s activity I had to get a little more involved and show off my American pride. In this week’s activity, we were to make Fiber Art to hang on a wall. You can use anything that has fiber in it which I chose to use some old T-shirts. I actually didn’t have any old T-shirts of my own because I couldn’t bring everything I have to Long Beach from my parent’s because there would be no room for it all. I ended up using my roommate’s old T-shirts because he is in this class as well. My objective was to make a Christmas stocking that looks like the American flag. I decided to make it look like an American flag because I love my country and I want to have something that shows my love for it.

I started off by cutting some shirts which were red, white, and blue. Next I had to figure out which end of the stocking I wanted the stars on. I chose to put the stars on the bottom part and have the stripes coming up towards the end of the stocking. It was kind of hard to figure out how I would do this but I just thought of using gorilla glue to bond the strips all together. In trying to bond all the strips together piece by piece I came across my first challenge. They weren’t bonding to each other and it was falling apart. At one point I felt like giving up on it. My next challenge was I then tried using q-tips dipped in glue to bond them together, but that was almost worse than before. After this I just decided to give up on the gorilla glue and I pulled out the old stapler. I stapled all of the strips together multiple times which seemed to work very well. I then connected one end to the other and I finally had something going. I finished it off by stapling the heel to the top piece. In the end, it took forever and it only turned out okay. It wasn’t great but I was able to hang it on the wall. It was a fun activity, I just wish I could be better at stuff like this.

wk11- Classmate Conversation – Serina Khoury

This week, I had the opportunity to meet my fellow classmate Serina Khoury. Serina is 19 years old and is in her second year her at California State University, Long Beach. She is of Middle Eastern origin and likes to watch movies, hang out with friends, play volleyball, and go to the beach. Currently she is studying Human Development and wants to become a PA with her degree. She lives local to Long Beach in the Redondo Beach area and actually has a sister and a cousin that go to school here as well. One of her favorite animals is a dog and she actually owns a dog that she loves very much. When asked if she thought tattoos were art and if she would get one she responded that she did think they were art because it’s a way for someone to express what they love. She said she wouldn’t get a tattoo but if she had to it would be her last name. It was nice meeting Serina and I wish her well in her future endeavors.

wk11 – Artist Conversation – Kathy Yoon

In this week’s Artist conversation, I had the opportunity to meet artist, Kathy Yoon. Kathy is in her 3^rd year at California State University, Long Beach and is 27 years old. When she was younger, Kathy always liked playing and making things out of Play-Do. It wasn’t until she was in college that she was introduced to ceramics. One person who has inspired her is artist, Tim Burton. Tim is a producer who has made movies like; The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetle Juice, Corpse Bride, and Alice in Wonderland. I did not know who Tim was until I researched him but once I saw these movies that he produced, it all made sense. When I was in the Merlino Gallery looking at Kathy’s pieces, her pieces reminded me a lot of characters in his movies. Kathy likes to create these characters and putting her emotions and experiences into them.

Kathy wants people to relate to her pieces on a personal level, and only then will she feel accomplished in that. She uses many materials to make these pieces which include: Porcelain Clay, White Rose Paper Clay, Underglaze, and some yarn. Her whole process is pretty lengthy which involves heat treatment and forming. It actually starts off with coiling the clay and making long strips, she then forms it into shape, supports it on stilts, and lastly fires the clay in the kiln so that the clay hardens. Interestingly enough, her pieces are all hollow, and each piece takes about 2-3 weeks. Considering each piece takes 2-3 weeks and she had so many pieces on display, she worked on it for a while.

Her favorite piece in the gallery was all the way in the back corner under a little spot light because she says it’s the best representation of herself and closest to her heart. She always liked animation and art with characters which is where these characters come from. I would assume her favorite movie would be The Nightmare Before Christmas because of how closely her characters are represented to the movie. The characters also look like they are from a video game called Little Big Planet. My favorite peace was located in the center where the character was laying down face up, resembling a tired person.

Kathy’s pieces are pretty cool and accurate. Many times while I was in the gallery I heard people saying “Oh my gosh, this is so me, every day”. Kathy was able to relate her pieces and experiences with other people on a personal level.  I believe her ultimate goal in “So Many Me’s” was to get on this personal level and help people connect to her characters. Her pieces connected with me because my girlfriend and I love going to Disneyland just about every week, and we both love the haunted mansion ride where characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas can be seen. So seeing these characters brought back some great memories with my girlfriend. It was really great getting to talk to Kathy and I hope she does well in her future because she is doing some great things.