Art Progression

I think I’ve mentioned this pretty often, but I’m majoring in Strategic Communications and minoring in Technology, Arts, and Media. This semester my classes are very creative based. 

We’re talking Film, Photography, and Web Design along with a Crime and Society and a branding class. While these classes are at the peak of my interest and they’re the stepping stones to my future, they’re hard. Really, really hard. I don’t know if it’s because art is a tricky thing to get a grade for or if it’s just the idea of learning and honing in on new skill sets, but my grades this year are lower than last year when I was taking mostly core classes. 

I’ve always been the kind of person to make good grades. I’m not saying it came naturally, but I studied and made the grades I wanted to. My school work felt like it was in my control all the way until this year. My photography class is super fun, don’t get me wrong, but I just got a 70% on a project I thought I did well on. 

It was a little heart breaking because I feel like when your art work is graded lower than you think you deserve it’s a personal thing. Math is a yes or no answer, but art is like a yes, no, maybe, sometimes, here and there, up and down, left and right, all around kinda answer. It’s hard to grade and even harder to hear the grade. 

This year especially I feel like I’ve gained a deeper appreciation for art and all of the thought and hard work that go into it. I’ve decided that I’m going to start sharing a few of my projects on here so you guys can see the progression of my artwork and thoughts and feelings. Also so I can look back and see the progression, but I’m trying to not be too selfish. 
Kidding, but not really. 

So for my photography class, the first project we had was to photograph a series of three with the theme of “life, in-between, and death.” I first thought about what represents our lives as humans and then I thought about how each year to celebrate another year of life we celebrate through cake. I then thought it would be cool to photograph the life, in-between, and death of cake itself and this is what I came up with: 

The next project we had was to take an old family picture and put ourselves into it. I decided to take a picture of my great grandmother and her friends and put myself on one of her friends faces. I then placed us into the quad at my school so it was like me in their lives but also them in my life. A weird little project. 

The next one was on the topic of surveillance and how we, as humans, are always being documented even without out knowledge. We had to go out and take pictures of random people and then put them into a snapshot that we took from google images of the same place where we took our “stalker pic.” I then edited mine to look a little more “surveillance-y” and here’s what I came up with: 

Thanks for reading! 
xox
chloe

SoHo Details

This past weekend, my dad and I ventured up to New York for his 30th college reunion. He actually went to college in Connecticut, but I was promised a shopping day in NYC if I joined him. I, of course, couldn’t pass up a shopping trip in NYC with my dad. I mean come on, how could anyone pass that up? 

We were only there for the afternoon and decided to stay in the SoHo area. It was sweltering hot, and my dad isn’t much of a shopper so, under the circumstances, we didn’t do that much shopping. I ended up only buying two tee shirts, but I also ended up with a fun snap story. 

When SnapChat first came out I didn’t really understand what the hype was about. You take pictures and your friends can see them for like five seconds? “Big deal, Instagram is cooler,” I naively thought. But it has since grown on me. I really enjoy the idea of a temporary representation of yourself. A little mini photo diary that can change and evolve and is temporary. There’s something magical about the temporariness of SnapChat that I love. 

So anyway, I decided to take photos of cool or cute little things that I saw throughout the day. It started unplanned, but it evolved into this artsy little photo diary of my day. I got a lot of compliments on the photos so I thought I’d share them with you. Obviously, this takes away form the temporary aspect that I like so much, but they’re pretty pictures so pishposh. 

If you ever find yourself in SoHo I totally recommend the Clare V. store and the Sleepy Jones store. You’ll love them.

Thanks for reading! What are your favorite SoHo spots?
xoxo
chloe

behind the 'gram

Instagram is weird if you think about it. It’s kind of like a life highlight reel, mixed with a diary, mixed with a whole lot of filters and hashtags and captions. It’s weird to think that so much thought can go into one, seemingly, simple picture. It’s also sad how much time I spend on the planning of an Instagram post. I try to think about the color scheme, the framing, the subject matter, the filter, the lighting, the caption, the hashtags, and then if I should or shouldn’t push the photo to Twitter. So much goes into one picture. 

I was recently tagged by Jamie from The Fashion Newcomer to post never posted Instagrams, but I usually delete the pictures that don’t make the cut so that I can make room for new pictures. So I decided that I’d post a behind the ‘gram post. Now, I’ve done this kind of post before, but you all seem to enjoy them for the most part so here goes yet another one. I hope you enjoy.

Dang Clementine 
I had an independent study class second semester this past school year and I basically got to come up with my own projects for the class. One of my projects was to continue working on my calligraphy so I brought all my supplies to school. As I was writing I was also simultaneously eating a clementine that happened to be disgusting. Then, I was stuck with inspiration for what ti write. I initially just posted this picture to my snapchat (it’s chloeg1 if you want to see me embarrass myself) but I decided it was good enough to make the Instagram cut. 

Scotland Skyline
I went on a school trip to Scotland for spring break and it was absolutely amazing. One of the days we visited Edinburgh and my friends and I climbed to the top of the Gothic Rocket. We had to go up hundreds of steps via a seemingly never-ending circle staircase and by the time I got to the top all I wanted to do was sit down. But the view was so beautiful. As I took this picture I was so extremely worried that my phone was going to fly out of my hands because it was so windy, but I managed to capture this photo, keep my phone in my hands, and enjoy the scenery. Props to me for restraining my clumsy self. 

Poolside Lemonade 
My friends and I adventured to the pool a few days ago, and we decided to bring our own lunch (aka buy lunch from Whole Foods). One of my friends and I decided that we were in the mood for a trendy drink and Hubert’s Lemonade caught our eye. Right when we got to the pool, I made my friend take a picture of our Lemonades. I took at least seven pictures at different angles and different ways of holding the bottle before I settled with this one. It then took me forever to figure out which filter to use. 

Instagram is an art form, I’m telling you. I’d love to read your behind the ‘gram post, so feel free to post one of your own and leave a link to it in the comments!
Thanks for reading! 
xox
Chloe