Medium Specificity

For this Medium Specificity assignment I decided to focus on clothing. I believe that clothing is one of the most important art forms because we encounter it on a daily basis. No matter who you are, you still put on clothing everyday. And even if you say that you are not into artistic expression, you are still making a conscience decision to put certain clothes on your body. Everyone has their own sense of style even if they say that they are not stylish. Every time I put clothes in the morning it is direct reflection on how I am feeling that day. If I'm exhausted I'll wear sweatpants and hoodie; if I'm happy I'll wear as many colors and patterns as I can find in my closet; if I'm feeling sad I'll wear all the black I can find. Everyday individual expression is something that is very specific to clothing. By putting on clothes everyday we are expressing how we feel. 

For my piece of art I decided to paint how I am feeling on a sweatshirt while I am painting on the sweatshirt. I really wanted to press the point that clothing is a direct expression of feeling, so I made my sweatshirt as obvious as possible. While I was thinking about what to paint on the sweatshirt I realized that I was hungry, so I decided that would be a good thing to write to prove my point. 

One of the readings that we had was about the controversy of photoshop and retouching models in magazines and other forms of advertisement. The reading showed a before and after shot of a model and the before shot had notes on what should be fixed to make her look more beautiful. While looking at this I thought about how easily photographs can be manipulated to look different and this is the same thing with clothes. We may not be able to change what our faces look like but we can change what we wear everyday. 

While I was doing this assignment I also thought about the film 10 Things I Hate You. There is a part of the film when Joseph Gordon Levitt's character is given a tour of his new school, and during this tour his guide points out different "groups" or "cliques" of students. Each group had their very own sense of style and the other student in the school could tell what group you were a part of by what they were wearing.