Emily Taigen

INTERNSHIP VC 09!

2009-05-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

This past winter I had the privilege of interning as a creative team with Jen at Mcgarry bowen in New York City. The agency started up in 2002 when three guys at Y&R decided to leave and set up their own shop doing advertising their own way. Since then, it’s grown to house around 200 employees (one of which used to be Ann Lemon!) and opened a second office out in Chicago. The agency represents a pretty long list of clients.. Marriott, Reebok, Disney, Chase, Kraft and Crayola to name a few. Among others, they did the Annie Leibovitz Disney campaign which has been one of my favorite things for a long time, so I was pretty pumped to be hanging around there for a month. The agency is located in the heart of Chelsea in this funky old factory building that borders the Hudson River. I managed to craigslist an apartment 5 blocks away so it ended up being a very sweet deal. We were there working for a woman named Sandy Bell (Ann’s old boss I believe!) who was really sweet to us the entire time. The first day she told us, “I’m not sure why, but I feel excited for you guys too.” We started out working on a Renaissance Marriott rebranding campaign under Creative Director Warren Eakins (who is a bit of an ad legend.. he’s definitely got a whole lot of pencils.) The agency was given the assignment of entirely rebranding the hotel and giving a somewhat characterless chain it own unique identity. The whole idea of it was to make Renaissance the place for the exploring businessman… the kind of guy who’s 5-9 is more important than his 9-5, and the kind of guy who is going to embrace the atmosphere around him even if he did just happen to end up there for a business trip. The assignment included everything from logo redesign to interior decorating, color schemes, copy-writing, ideas about different features the hotel could offer to its clients, the kind of artwork that would go up on the walls... It definitely encompassed many more elements than I thought advertising included. We did all kinds of different mood boards following the words “inspiring, indigenous, independent” and definitely learned how to present ideas in a more professional level. The deadline on this assignment got pushed back a bit after we got there so we only really got to contribute to the brainstorming phase (and ended up spending far more time brainstorming than we thought possible) but it was definitely good experience to learn how to truly work in a team and how to go about presenting your ideas collaboratively. The second project we worked on was an identity assignment for the agency. Because Crayola is one of their primary clients, someone had come up with this idea of making a coloring book that they could give to clients or prospective clients with a page or two for all of their existing clients. We worked on the project for the creative director for Crayola, Tom Pratt, along with another art director Rachel and the other intern, this guy named Paolo who was in for three months with Miami Ad School. Upon leaving we had a pretty finalized version of a 40 page book completed. The project was fun because we basically got to do whatever we wanted for each client and we got to work on/snoop on all of the accounts. I was surprised to see how much they appreciated illustration skills.. and I definitely improved on my Illustrator skills as a result. Tom Pratt was very very sweet to us also and had basically any and all Crayola products in his office so we got to play with those (which included 3-d drawing chalk.. crazy ish.) While it might have been nice to have a UD alumni watching over us, everyone was extremely friendly and welcoming the entire time and we heard some pretty interesting stories about Ann! It was also cool to experience the advertising environment… the agency really made an effort to make it feel like a little creative community with monthly concerts, birthday parties and agency meetings where they introduce new faces and show off the different work that was being released. All in all, it was a very valuable experience. Living in New York definitely got pretty expensive… I ate a whole lot of Raman noodles, the free Cheerios they had for us in the kitchen and whatever scraps were left from amazing catered food for the clients but learning about how an agency really works and how to handle myself in the city was definitely worth it.

Anyway, just a few closing thoughts about what I learned while at Mb:
In the past month I have learned that I consume far more coffee than any person ever should, that I am extremely claustrophobic (thank you morning elevator rides), and that headphones are an absolute necessity in the workplace. I also learned that entire days really can be spent surfing the internet, weeks spent tweaking simple lay-outs and that a month can go by in the blink of an eye. I learned what it takes to build brands, brainstorm until well after the sun goes down and make great ads. While at Mcgarrybowen, I was lucky enough to receive the insights of some extraordinarily talented people, however, for me, the most rewarding aspect came out of insights I was able to discover about myself. Everyone at the agency came from such different backgrounds; no one seemed to have taken a clear-cut route to where they sit today. It really is an agency, and an industry, of explorers. While I have contemplated various wheres and whats of my life for years, I saw that the best thing that I can do for myself is to stop forcing answers to questions. If I’m doing what I love to do, a direction will follow. I’m not afraid of the future anymore. Maybe it was hearing the advice of people who have been where I am today, or hearing how they got from point a to point b; maybe it was proving to myself that I can enter a completely foreign environment and still hold my own, or maybe it was simply getting over my fear of the morning elevator. At any rate, I’ve gained a confidence in the future I have in store for me.

Website is mcgarrybowen.com … check it out!

digiscape

2009-05-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

Landscapes have been portrayed in the fine arts for centuries; and while scenery has changed, society has developed and cities have industrialized, the basic fundamentals have stayed the same. Perspective has repeated itself over and over again regardless of the time or scene depicted. However, in today’s digital world, a new scape has taken the scene that completely changes our literal definition of space. The internet is used to connect millions of people and spread uncountable amounts of data, yet it only exists in some unseen world. It is perhaps the largest space we can imagine and the smallest space we can see. It is a space that is always changing; it is never static and it can’t be contained to a given place or time. With my piece, I wanted to try to inhabit this transitional space and visualize its conversation of information. One notable effect of the internet is how impersonal the world has become. This device that makes such elaborate connections throughout the world seems to have severed our emotional ties to one another. One person can read about another without any interaction at all: news stories become another byline on the news ticker and personal identities blur into a mess of words on a screen available to anyone at any time. I wanted to emphasize this cultural truth in my interpretation of today’s ‘digi-scape.’ A digital print is concrete; it exists within a two-dimensional space at any given time. In complete contrast, a digi-scape can’t be captured in any specific moment. Instead, it has this bizarre collection of time: its present is only evidence of the past and its future can only spawn from the present (once the present becomes the past.) I guess the role we play is lost somewhere in the middle. I started to view this process as a cycle of passing time. My landscape is a sequence, yet it ends where it started. In so much, its path is linear, like time, but nothing really changes. We don’t know how the internet will change in the future, but emotional distance probably won’t.

Olivier Blanc

2009-05-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

illustrator known for incorporating graphics and photography.. some work incorporating landscapes is posted below

a future unfolding

2009-04-07T18:08:00.000-07:00

Infinite motion

2009-04-07T08:27:00.000-07:00

The thought of the infinite print has led me on a bit of a tangent into ideas about infinite motion. I find it interesting how where we are all going is just an infinite continuation of where we have come from, and in a way, becomes the same type of 'circulation of information' that the article we read talked about. I was originally looking at a lot of actual infinite images that circle back again and again (M.C. Esher etc.) and some textile design work, and have decided to try to incorporate the two through the examination of the movement of the body. While I'm not sure how this will translate into an infinite print yet (as of right now it's in a somewhat extensive book format that would not be easy for anyone to print), I'm hoping that by layering each 'strand of motion' some interesting patterning might occur that could be repeated again and again. At any rate, it's led to some different results that I can play with. If that doesn't pan out, I've also been thinking about chain letters, and how I could create a similar means of circulation through a mailer, and was considering reworking a design for a fortune cookie I had been working on a little bit ago.. again sort of speaking to the infinite places we can go.

2009-03-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

With my screenprint, I wanted to make a commentary on society's inverted value of beauty and how much the things we deem beautiful are a manipulation of society and how much of it is predetermined by nature's creation of mathematical perfection (referenced through the screenprint overlay of Golden ratios.) An extension of these thoughts could lead to linking the seemingly unnatural hierarchy of beauty to the natural creations of the world. I am hoping to use this image in some form on an artist's book I've been working on which has turned into something of a 'Best in Show' of the Miss America pageant.

For the second project, I have been thinking about the idea of the infinite in terms of its real existence in the world.. ie space, black holes and other cosmic elements. I've been looking at some of Peter Saville's work, especially his album cover of a black hole..

Manipulation of a beauty queen

2009-03-05T05:24:00.000-08:00

For this project, I want to explore the idea of manipulated beauty. While I started out referencing a lot of advertisements for this project, I realized that manipulated images can do a lot more than sell a product. Manipulation can serve as a medium for the expression of any voice, not just a brand. Here, I wanted to make a statement on how our concept of beauty in the United States is greatly misinterpreted through the glorification of pageant queens and Barbie dolls.. and to maybe suggest a darker side to an image that has come to mean perfection in society today. While I'm not yet set on the above image (and have been planning to incorporate some illustrative elements into the image, particularly in the portrayal of the crown), this is the direction I've been exploring thus far.

10 manipulated images

2009-03-05T05:08:00.000-08:00

Images manipulated in class: exploring transience of human nature

manipulation

2009-02-19T08:19:00.000-08:00

manipulation:

as defined by webster's dictionary, is to treat or operate with or as if with the hands or by mechanical means especially in a skillful manner, to manage or utilize skillfully, to control or play upon by artful, unfair or insidious means especially to one's own advantage, to change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one's purpose...

however, when I first began thinking about this project, I started thinking about time and how so many of the static things around us serve as a manipulation of time itself... photographs, news stories.. they're both a means of stopping something that can never truly be stopped. Time in itself is transient so any image that you see around only utilizes any given moment. While looking at various manipulated images (to be posted at a later time; for whatever reason blogger keeps telling me that I made a bad request.. haven't used this site in a while and I can't figure it out), I drew a lot from various print ad campaigns. In each one, photo manipulation is used as the primary means of communication. The voice of each brand and its benefits are clearly portrayed through the manipulation of realistic situations. While I'm not entirely sold on any specific content yet (alhtough I don't mind the image that I have been working with), I think I would like to try to draw a connection between communication and time to show how communication manipulates our interpretation of the things around us. More on this later.

narrative/anti-narrative

2007-04-02T23:26:00.000-07:00

I’ve always attempted art in order to tell a story: it’s kind of been my motivation. I guess this started at a point when I had a lot of stories to tell and the habit kind of followed through. I’ve honestly never had any real interest in the actual creation of anti-narrative art until I watched other people work in my class this semester. It amazes me mainly because I don’t think that I could ever let go enough to try purely abstract art, although I may have to following the purpose of this next assignment. I know that anti-narrative doesn’t necessarily mean abstraction, so I might try to follow this route instead. My interpretation is that anti-narrative is breaking away from the physical constrains that an artist might feel towards a particular scene/ object/ theme. It’s kind of getting to the base of your intent, but in a way that is so simple (or so complex) that your idea loses the blatant approach towards reality. I’m not really sure if that makes sense, but I’m going to roll with it. For my subject, I want to use a figure who I got to know during Spring Break partly because I think it would be fun and partly because it really did kind of intrigue me aesthetically. In Acapulco, Mexico this man comes out at the night clubs at around 4/4:30 in the morning on certain nights called “The Devil.” He appears center stage and everyone goes crazy as he does a very specific routine to a mixed song about “Sex & Drugs & House.” The most bizarre thing in this scene is that there are literally thousands of people jumping up and down, cheering and praising the Devil as he pulls girls up on stage and takes their tops off etc. It’s definitely pretty raunchy but to everyone there it seems like the most amazing and thrilling experience which I think speaks a lot about our culture. The scene is something that you would have to experience to understand, but I want to take the essence of these nights along with the extreme contradiction of society that is shown through my portrayal of the Devil. Since the Devil is such an icon of society worldwide, I think that I could do a lot with this on the anti-narrative end as well. Plus, my roommate got some crazy close up pictures of the Acapulco Devil that would be fun to try to portray artistically (mind you the guy is coated in silver paint and has glazed over eyes).

to explain my last assignment...

2007-04-02T23:25:00.002-07:00

With my last assignment, I wanted to create a sense of confusion and disassociation to the viewer. With the imagery that I had, I was trying to create the mental scene following the idea of when your world flips upside down. I tried to portray the whirlwind of motion that occurs when dramatic events occur in your life. The depth of the boxes speak to the depths of the inner mind- of hiding places and of the idea of “opening Pandora’s box” and how one event can bring back the memories of other occurrences in your life. In addition to aiding in the effect of directional confusion, the water spoke towards the idea of flow and of bad weather. I also personally associate water with change through my own experiences. I didn’t want my piece to have any sort of negative connotation, I just wanted to portray that initial moment of disbelief. Ha I don’t know how much sense that will make to other people but I swear I did have an idea that I was trying to work towards.

Damian Loeb

2007-04-02T23:25:00.001-07:00

So I picked up this artist’s name from one of Tiffany’s lectures and he is absolutely insane. Known as a “hyper-realist”, his paintings seem clearer than reality.. to the point where the only way that you know that it isn’t in fact a real picture is his combination between blurred and harsh outlines of his subjects. I think he blows me away the most because I look at it and know that I could neverrrr do that. I can’t imagine the amount of constraint and patience each one must take; apparently it takes him about a month to do each one. He used to appropriate different images from the media as his primary reference, but due to legal issues he has recently started taking his own digital pictures to work from. His primary goal is to blend the line between our memories of the media and real life. Tiffany showed “Can’t Take a Joke” in class, but if you want to see some more, here’s an unofficial website. It’s his personal site too, so that’s kind of interesting.

so when did I become a vc kid?

2007-04-02T23:24:00.000-07:00

So I was walking through the grocery store and all that I could see were labels. Everywhere. It kind of bugged me out because my eyes kept flashing from one thing to the next: cringing at generic brands, critiquing everything in front of me and making notes on the things that I would change, the fonts that I would change, the fonts that I liked, the fonts that I recognized… I analyzed different color combinations, packaging and a whole lot of poor designs in the thousand thoughts that went during the time that it took me to scan the aisles of the store.

And something hit me. I used to pray for the days that I was in the painting studio because it meant a break from a world where every single letterform was analyzed. I hated the extensive brainstorming to work out ideas and I hated that I knew exactly how every final project would turn out before I even cut the actual board. I used to hate measuring out illustration board, never had the perfect dimensions and generally always had ink splattered somewhere on the margins (sucks to be a lefty).. but through this haphazardness I managed to hold onto some sort of personal touch that made it ok.

I loved the mystery of what I was about to create; I loved Peter wandering around just letting me be in the zone and I secretly loved having oil paint all over me for the rest of the day because it meant that people would see me and know that I do something different, special.

Now, I get annoyed when I get paint on my hands because I know that it will probably smudge off on something ‘important.’

At first, I was excited that I could see the visual communication world. It’s exhilarating, but now, I kind of feel like I’ve lost something. A big something.. something that made me who I am. And the questions start: Who’s fault is this? My own? The setting that I’ve been placed under? Did I lose a creative passion or has it just been redirected? Am I just all caught up in this right now or did I really change? I used to make art for me that directly related to my life and my experiences. I used to hold my pieces of work so close that I really couldn’t fully explain their deepest layers to anyone- I spilled every inner secret into my work. Now, even if I’m working on a painting I don’t make work that I hold that close. My work doesn’t make me feel vulnerable anymore. I’ve kind of detached myself from everything that I used to love.

So then there’s the question (and sorry for the lengthy ‘dear diary-esque response.. I’m just thinking about art and these are the things on my mind right now) about if what I am doing and how I am doing it is how I want to live the rest of my life. Do I want to lose my relationship with my work? Do I have to? Do I even have the option?

I still haven’t lost my sense of creative individuality, but I’ve lost my individual interaction in creation. I want it back but I’m not really sure how because when I don’t feel close to my work I can’t really feel satisfied by it.

Jan the Man

2007-04-02T23:22:00.000-07:00

I spotted Jan painting a mural on the second floor of Cali Tortilla and I swear that he looked like he was painting the Sistine Chapel or something (minus the nacho/stadium theme). It got me thinking about one of our readings from “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” that talked about how religious based art of the past had no future since it was painted with such a direct purpose. I didn’t understand a whole lot of what the author was trying to say, but I’m not sure if I completely agreed with it. So many people travel with the sole purpose of visiting and seeing the ceilings of the Chapel; the appeal to Michelangelo’s work has held a cultural appeal far longer than any artist who aimed to create with “internal” motives despite Michelangelo’s religious base. His work has become an icon. He suggested this triangle of artistic hierarchy which would place the Chapel at the bottom of the barrel. Since then we have had many great artistic movements, but none that have overthrown this building’s monumental existence. Today we rarely paint on things like ceilings or walls. Seeing someone painting in a location directly intended for all of the public is a rare sight and I wonder why. Typically, the artistic creations that you see in public places are limited to grafitti of words and names that aren’t intended to be there in the first place. At least spiritually based art served a purpose greater than simple existence. It provoked people through an internal belief, and I believe that more than anything, provocation serves as the primary element to artistic future.

Georg Baselitz

2007-04-02T23:20:00.000-07:00

I used to get obsessions over artists, but really random ones that really don’t resemble anything that I’ve ever tried to do. I’ll try to play around in my sketchbook but nothing ever really manifests itself in my work- probably something that I should try to change. Anyway, there’s this guy Georg Baselitz- a German (I really like German work for whatever reason) who I first noticed because of this wall in a Fetishism exhibit at the Tate Modern a couple of years ago. The wall was literally covered with 100+ etchings, each around 4 by 5 inches or so, that depicted the female body in this violent, scribbling manner. It was cool because you would be looking at it as this crudely juvenile form and then realize that you were looking at a vagina. The way that the etchings were set up especially drew you to them because they seemed so insubstantial at first. In the majority of his work, he portrays his figures and images in all kinds of unusual positions- upside down, sideways.. basically any other way than that which would be expected. They’re meant to confuse you and make you physically turn your head to the side to grasp the image. His biggest strength is probably that he makes you look twice. As human beings, we’re not going to pass by an image if we can’t understand what or how it is. It’s also kind of funny that the first work that got his name out there was of an underage boy masterbating in the sixties. He definitely pushes the limits- does a lot of work with anamorphosis (mentally ill) too. Anyway, check it. http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=699&page=3&sole=y&collab=y&attr=y&sort=default&tabview=worklist

I'm a moron..

2007-04-02T23:18:00.000-07:00

..so I'm a moron; my roommate just figured this site out for me.. and apparently my username is my email address not my 'blog name'. Anyway, get ready for a whole bunch..

Old Dog

2007-02-27T07:05:00.000-08:00

So I'm really just updating because I haven't in two weeks, which is really bad. And I haven't been able to figure out my sign in name/ password etc.. which in a way goes along with my art. I don't learn new things well. I don't know what I'm doing on this website and I don't know what I'm doing when I glaze. For a while, same went with oil paint since I'm a little acrylic obsessive. So I get frustrated and give up, and then I don't learn anything new. I wish I didn't have problems with this; I just get confused really easily. And I am sick as anything and the turp doesn't help but whatever. I need to expand my horizons, and in order to do so, I have to force myself into doing things that I don't want to do.

beginnings

2007-02-11T15:22:00.000-08:00

My senior year in high school I went to this gallery opening. I don't remember who the artist was; it was a small show and I vaguely remember the work (it was nice, really big which has always been one of my tendancies.) The work didn't really stay with me but a piece of his artist statement did. He started with this quote, "that luscious look of something becoming something else in front of one.." I really don't remember what he had to say, and I don't know who originally said that, but I still remember the quote. I guess in some sort of sense I felt like it defined me or some aspect of my work. I'm in transition. I haven't become anything yet and my work hasn't become, but I can feel the process. I love the process. And here I am in the process.

So I'm trying to think about the things that Peter told me at the end of last semester. I'm trying to embrace the process with the hopes that eventually my work will become something. My biggest fear as an artist is that it never will. He would start to critique my use of color, suggest a more sophisticated palette. Then he would look a little more and take it back. So what does this mean? If it doesn't come to you when you first look at it, should it? I'm a fan of color schemes, but color schemes mark a boundary between real and decorative art. So I'm going to try and cross that boundary and I bought some new paint colors. It's a start.

Beyond that, this is a link to a piece of work that I've been obsessed with for a while. I don't know who the artist is and I don't know why I like it so much. I think I feel some sense of me in it: maybe a part of my art or my goals as an artist, or maybe I feel a part of its expression in me personally. I should examine this kind of stuff more often.
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/22445398/