Taylor Coleman

ARE 517

Studio Plan Draft

Memories are funny in the way that you want to share them but you need to share them with the right people. I know I’ve been in situations where I’ve told someone a memory and they just didn’t find it as funny or meaningful. You know, one of those you-had-to-be-there moments. In my work, I’m looking to invite the viewer into my memories visually.

Throughout the spring semester, I will be creating one digital memory drawing based on place and memory. These memories will be based on my relationship that I keep very private and focus on memories that are candid and quiet yet meaningful. They are not memories that would normally be shared but rather unspoken memories that define the relationship. I will upload four in progress drawings per week as well as the final drawing. I will also include feelings, colors and objects associated with these candid moments. I will log these feelings for more accurate portrayals. This log will be the basis of my research for the summer studio session. I will be looking for feedback from my peers and asking myself which five digital paintings are the most successful in terms of colors, feelings and portrayal of a memory.

Eventually over the summer I will choose five of my digital memory paintings to use as inspiration for five large paintings. Originally, my plan for the summer show is to hang the paintings horizontally with the smaller digital painting underneath each painting. These paintings were going to be abstract representations of those memories using only the colors, shapes and feelings that I had logged and used in my digital painting. Now, I have decided to use my digital paintings as sketches and recreate them on a larger scale as oil paintings. I am hoping to finish one painting per week. That means I will have five paintings in total to hang for the summer show.

There are a few mentor artists that I have chosen for inspiration. Fredrick Church was an American Hudson River landscape painter that worked with Thomas Cole in his house. Church created paintings that were very realistic but also emotionally engaging. He took a systematic approach to his paintings, sometimes returning to the landscape over the course of a few years. I really liked the way that he used light and mist in his paintings. They’re very captivating. I’m not sure if I could create paintings like these. He took his time with his paintings, which is one thing that I can not do at this time. His paintings made me feel like traveling to the specific place but it didn’t make me feel like I was there or that I could feel the emotion. That is what I am trying to portray in my digital paintings. I am trying to invite the viewer into a memory in a non-intrusive way, almost like they were walking by. His paintings were also inspiring in the way that they captured light and created space in his paintings. To me its as if he was inviting me into his own memories.