studioseminarhaena-blog

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Progress Report #11: Rough Draft + Smith Moore Leatherwood Piece

After taking note of the comments of my peers, I re-edited my video to be a bit slower. I changed the font of the subtitle after researching the ones most documentaries used. I decided not to re-film my interview footage again just yet since the editing of the video was more important and I had the audio and footage from that (that would just be the same if I re-filmed it, for the most part). I also re-arranged the footage I had to flow a bit better. For the Smith Moore Leatherwood show, I decided to take images/stills from my video that could piece together a bit of a story. I decided to take the introductory TV scene that had the map of Korea, the photo of my great grandmother when she was a child in North Korea, and finally the scene of my mother reading the letters of my great grandmother (the interview scene). Piece-by-piece, it tells a story of my video in stills.

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Progress Report #10: Evaluation

During the second evaluation on 11/9, I presented my first rough draft of the video. Though it was two minutes, those two minutes included weeks of work. I included several animations, which took time to render, change, and render again. I re-pitched my topic and proceeded to play the video. I gained helpful feedback since I only really had the perspective of myself as the producer and editor. Since I am constantly editing this video and it’s the story of a family member (along with the Korean aspect), it makes the most sense to me. It was a good time to get feedback from those who are not Korean, and their thoughts as viewers. Some helpful feedback included changing the font of the subtitles and mostly slowing down the piece. I’m used to watching videos that are fast paced with various elements to keep the viewers attention compared to documentaries, which are usually slow in pace. I still want to include some fast edits, but understand the need for it to be slow for the viewer (since it’s the first time they’re watching it). Also, since my interview footage was grainy, I was suggested to perhaps make the rest of the footage have a bit of grain to not only unify each footage, but also make it have the documentary feel. Overall, it seemed that most people enjoyed it and it grabbed their attention/interest.

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Progress Report #9: Editing Rough Draft

Editing the first rough draft, though two minutes, took a significant amount of time. After editing the 2.5D photos and refilming my broll footage, and gathering b-roll footage from the time period, I created a 3D model of the earth using Google Maps. I took the longitude and latitude coordinates from the province my great grandmother was born in and took a screenshot of the area. I edited it to make it look like the viewer was going into that area, to give them a sense of where we were looking at or heading to. In a way, I wanted to immerse the audience. After being satisfied with the earth animation, I worked on the introduction of the video. I wanted it to be interesting and intrigue the viewer. I decided to start off with an old tv with footage from the time along with the voiceover of the infamous North Korean anchor. The dialect of North Koreans is much more powerful and propaganda-like. It also fit in with the narrative “for other people, it is just a part of history lessons in school. However, for me, it is the truth. It was reality and a life that I have lived.” Another important element of the video was the title of the documentary, which I think I will end up changing. Currently it is great grandmother. For the title I wanted to incorporate her passion of sewing and took the last quilt she made and had the text “sew” onto it, in a sense. As for the rest of the process of the video, I naturally thought of different ideas while editing and incorporated them from sound to different b-roll footage I had.

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Artist-I-Admire Blog

(a blog post that identifies artists whom you admire, but that are not related to your work and why they merit your respect. Where/How did you first encounter these artists?)

An artist I stumbled upon social media known as “Artistiq” uses her talent in drawing to recreate realistic and accurate portraitures of celebrities. I admire her accuracy and find her talent fascinating, one, because I can’t draw at all let alone drawing a human so realistically, It amazes me how she can make hair follicles look so realistic. She is also quite good at manipulating images into different forms such as celebs as super heroes, or even an image within an image. Her choice of colors when using colored pencils also morph so seamlessly and helps the image just come to life. She can work in any medium as long as it’s a form of a writing utensil (i.e. pen, colored pencil, ballpoint pen, crayons, etc). Overall, I think she’s pretty amazing for a self-taught artist with a talent that started off as a hobby. I think I admire her more because, in a way, I envy what she’s able to do (wish I could draw like that!). Another artist that I discovered was Chris Burkard. I first was exposed to his photography at Sony Square when I was interning in New York. He shoots various landscape and travel as well as surf photos. The photos he takes are unreal and, though they don’t move or explicitly tell a story like in film, it leaves the viewer amazed and leaves it up for interpretation. I respect his work because of how clean, crisp, and visually pleasing it captures the scene. He definitely uses the rules of thirds and focuses on symmetry at times. The photos are all amazing and I highly recommend giving a look at them.

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Scale Blog

(A blog post that addresses the scale of your work. Why are you working in a particular size? Have you experimented? What are the results?)

From the start of this project, I decided to work with a documentary/short film. Since I was thirteen years old, I’ve made several videos which were mostly three minutes in length. This scale of work to create a documentary/short film is the first I’d ever do or experiment with. I chose this particular size because I wanted to not only challenge myself, but also create a meaningful piece that tells the story of my great grandmother that I can look back on in the future. I love the art of videography and feel that creating a documentary is definitely an appropriate version of a capstone for this medium. My aim is to make this video about twenty minutes based on the length of the story my great grandmother had written out, and because even twenty minutes takes a lot of time to produce, film, and edit. Since I am aiming to make it a bit more modernized, in terms of edits (with various motion graphics etc. not necessarily the traditional documentary format), making these graphics and rendering them will take a significant amount of trial and error time. If it was compared to painting, for example, it’s as if I am working on quite a large canvas.

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Progress Report #8: Interviewing Grandma

Progress Report #7: Interviewing Grandma

I visited my grandma who lives about 30 minutes away in Spartanburg with my mom. I brought my camera equipment, Canon T3i, tripod, camera stabilizer(s) to film the interview. It took us a while to set up since I wanted a bit of an intimate and more serious feel for the documentary interview, to match the vibe of the documentary. I tried to interview and have her read the letters from my great grandmother, but I quickly learned that this was probably not the best option. She was not the best speaker and constantly got emotional when reading her mother’s story; she had to stop after every sentence. It was sad to hear her voice quaver as she read and the process would have taken too long; this would not have been the most efficient approach for the documentary. I had my mom read the letters instead and it went quite smoothly. The only problem on my part was that the room was a bit too dark for my camera. Since it’s not the most advanced camera, the footage was a bit grainy. I will probably end up re-filming my mom with the letters, but I have the current footage to work with (since the story will be the same no matter how she reads the letters).

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Progress Report #7: Filming B-Roll

Progress Report #6: Filming B-Roll

As per suggestion from Professor Bright, I decided to film some b-roll scenes to create a little more HD version for my video since the quality of the documentary videos weren’t all that great. I thought of areas on campus with tall grass to recreate scenes of my great grandmother escaping and hiding. I had my friend re-enact and go through the bushes while I filmed. The footage turned out better than I expected and during the reviews, received positive feedback. Later though, with suggestion from Professor McClain, I am to film someone (or have myself being filmed) to re-do these scenes since the girl’s hair is a lighter brown than the typical dark haired Asian–this is to ensure accuracy throughout the video; to stay true to the facts. Update: after re-filming the scenes with myself, I agree that it was a good call to have me act in the b-roll. I did not think having just darker hair would make a difference, but it matched with the look of the typical Korean and seemed to be more realistic.

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Progress Report #6: Editing & Creating 2.5D Photos

Progress Report #5: Creating 2.5D Photos

Over this week I found photos from the time in Busan, South Korea (where my great grandmother escaped to) and began to photoshop / edit them to be able to create them into the 2.5D photo format. I wanted to have the 2.5D photo element in my video alongside the regular, static photo to create diversity in the video so that the images are more enthralling. I also scanned photos of my great grandmother and have begun creating these 2.5D photos.

I also continued my research on the Korean War era and watched numerous documentaries that I could use footage from. I gathered different time stamps throughout the videos of scenes I could incorporate into the narrative of my video. I created a short edit to show during studio progress reviews with a sample of how I was approaching this process. 

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GALLERY Blog Post #3: Salie Christeson + Eleanor Turner - Gallery Talk “Argent Work”

GALLERY Blog Post #3: Salie Christeson + Eleanor Turner - Gallery Talk “Argent Work”

On October 20, I walked into the gallery and saw just a few articles of clothing displayed in glass frames on the wall; I was not drawn in immediately. When she took the floor, I was impressed by her outfit (side note: and my friends and I thought her shoes were really cool). She started off her talk saying she was hoping that the CLP would be memorable for years on and I did not think it would be when I first went into it. She talked about a lot of the business side of things and mentioned that her partner was the creative brain. She always had the goal of starting her own company in mind. She wanted to create women’s workwear because she noticed that the workwear that was available was boring and bleak. She went on to explain a bit of the process she took towards starting her company and said it’s one of the hardest things to do, but one of the most rewarding things at the same time. She looked at a business plan first and did extensive market research and brainstormed on how she could differentiate herself in the competitive business world. She also had to find a partner to help her do what she could not since she mainly worked with spreadsheets. She met a bunch of different designers and eventually found the perfect cofounder who graduated from SCAD and worked at Tommy Hilfiger, Tori Burch, and JCrew. Her biggest advice was to make sure the service that you wish to create is differentiated enough that it’s worth pursuing. It should provide a unique value to a problem. As for her company, Argent, the thing that makes them different is functionality. Argent focuses on offering functionality without compromising aesthetic. She demonstrated different innovative things in her jacket and showed that the clothing was reversible. She also showed different hidden pockets, sleeve roll clips, and other ideas, which were pretty amazing. The clothing stayed within a certain theme of business and formal, but in a stylish manner. The clothing seemed pretty original in terms of the mixture of style and functionality and her business/creative process was well thought out. Eventually, she started to have bigger customers such as Hillary Clinton and her top aid and her company continues to grow. This was one of my favorite CLPs I have gone to during my four years here. I thought she was a great speaker and a very good presenter. The overall presentation was great, much better than the last few we’ve had, in fact. She seemed very prepared and confident in what she was saying. She also answered questions well and in a professional manner. This CLP was also pretty inspiring, perhaps since I’m a senior about to go into the real world. It was cool to see someone take a goal and make it into their reality.

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KEY ARTIST BLOG & Progress Report #5: Research + Inspirations

(identify key artists who are thematically significant to your current body of work? How are they significant and why?)

Progress Report #5: Research + Inspirations

During this week, I continued to do research on my topic from watching various documentaries to researching the best way to film an interview (along with stylistic approaches I might wish to take when I interview my grandma).

I watched several documentaries created by Ken Burns (by the suggestion of McClain) on the Vietnam War and I picked up several ideas that I’d like to incorporate in my own film. Ken Burns utilizes sound effects in his interviews over his b-roll footage which creates a more, in a way, experiential vibe. The sounds create a war-time vibe/feel and keeps the video within theme. I also watched a few Independent Lens films (as suggested by Bright) on PBS, specifically to get more of a feel for the interview techniques.

Sam Kolder is a filmmaker who started off on YouTube and is known for his various transitions and video style; I have always been intrigued at his way of storytelling and the way he keeps a viewer’s focus. Another video producer whose work is inspiring is Jason Russell who directed the Kony 2012 video. The interviews, footage, storytelling, and video effects are compelling to keep the attention of the audience, which I hope to do with my piece. Each of these three have helped me get a better idea and sense for what matters in a documentary.

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Progress Report #4: Storyboarding

Progress Report #4: Storyboarding

For the first evaluation of the studio seminar class, I created a general storyboard to help put my ideas on paper. This was the first time I’ve storyboarded for a video, and though I didn’t really enjoy it, I feel it has helped to give me a sort of visual for what I had in my mind. I often edit videos in the Premiere Pro program without storyboarding. For the most part, I will continue my personal approach in post-production by creating it as I am editing, forming ideas by seeing what footage I have. For the evaluation I brought all the materials I had from the photos of my great grandmother during the time period to my great grandfather’s stamp collection to the quilting book my great grandmother used to sew the last quilt for me. I also brought the letter journal of her story and told the class what I was to do with that and some of my ideas. I received helpful feedback on how to approach my video and some suggestions on documentaries to watch to help inspire me in my work.

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Progress Report #3: Letter + Translation

Progress Report #3: Letter + Translation

About a week later I received a package from my great grandmother to my grandmas house. I went to visit her with my mom and we spent the day just going through all the different things she had sent. I received 4 folders that were decorated with famous South Korean sites such as Namsan Tower and Gyeongbokgung Palace, 1 journal with her recounts, 1 stamp book collection that belonged to my great grandfather, 1 how-to quilt book that she used to create the last quilt she made of her lifetime, and 1 collection of coins that she collected from different countries she visited. I was so excited and I had my mother just read the story in Korean first before I translated it. It was a fascinating story (despite the fact I couldn’t understand the more advanced words such as history terms in Korean) and later we went sentence-by-sentence translating the piece. Now that I have something to work off of, I have been researching different video ideas I wanted to reproduce for my video, but the next step is to create a storyboard.

In Korean, the writing is much more descriptive, which I will apply in my video but this is the letter with the translation of her story:

Haena,

Before I start, I want to mention that there are some parts of my story that I do not remember specific details of, so please forgive me. I will try my best…

Growing up in North Korea… I was born in Pyongan-namdo Province, North Korea, which is near the capital of Pyongyang, on February 5, 1927. Six years later, my younger sister, Kim Jung Dam (김정담) was born. I grew up quite privileged at the time; I came from a family of wealth. My mother and father owned a department store and we lived in fine conditions with a roof over our heads. They had many connections around our city.

During the time I was born, Korea was not Korea; Japan had ruled and colonized Korea. I remember growing up afraid of the Japanese. I spoke Korean at home sometimes, but very rarely. My parents were always very cautious with what they said in Korean.

I was fortunate enough to attend school. I say this because there are people at my age now who are illiterate or semi-illiterate. However, during class we were forced to learn and read in the Japanese language. I did not know much about my own culture growing up. I remember always wearing my uniform. So now I’m in high school and it’s around the 1940s to 1945s. At this time Japan eased up on the Korean culture and there was a little more freedom for us. However, there had been rumors and talk about high school girls and young women being sold or forced into sexual slavery (1944). They were known as comfort women. If you were poor, you had no choice. It sounded like the best way to make money, and usually recruiters would lie and tell people they would be a nurse or something like that, but it was really licensed prostitution. The Japanese were very cruel and it makes me angry talking about them. When I graduated from 서문 고등학교, I planned to enter college, but my parents had other ideas. I soon met the son of a 묵 factory owner, who was 27 at the time. My parents had arranged us to marry in order to avoid me becoming a comfort woman (위안부). He came from a wealthy family, but he was a little older than me. The country that I knew began to deteriorate. It was becoming corrupt and poor. This was when Kim Il-Sung was coming into power. I remember hearing the songs about Kim Il-Sung. At the age of 19, I had my first child, a son, and at the age of 22, I had my daughter. To avoid fighting in the war with the Japanese, my husband went off to finish his studies in college at 리쿄 대학 일본 and work. I waited for him to return and we communicated in letters.

I was alone taking care of my two children, but now there was upset in Korea. It seemed like a small war at the time, but my mother told me to leave. I did not anticipate how significant or large this war would be at the time. I left within the first few months of this event. I did not feel that I was ready to leave my mother and father, but they told me to move closer to my husband and to find him. They wanted me out of the area and gave me some money to provide for my sister and my two children. I remember begging my parents to come with us, but my mother told me that she would meet us down south once she sold the store and she assured us that she was in the process of doing so.

During the outbreak of the war in 1950, I fled with my son, daughter, and sister; I carried my daughter on my back as my son followed behind. I remember not knowing much of where to go. I just remember my mom telling me to go south. We walked kilometers and kilometers along with hundreds of others fleeing in the same manner. We did get help from some soldiers. I did not sleep much and it was very difficult caring for my babies. We fed on anything we could find and had brought grains of rice and kimbap on our trip. When we ran out of food, we began eating things from nature such as treebark. There were moments where we were starving, but we knew that we had to go as far down south as possible in order to survive now. I will never forget the sound of bullets from afar. My sister and I barely rested and it is difficult for me to remember all the places I have been to, but I somehow made it to Kyungsangnam-do, Daegu.

Daegu in South Korea was the first place I settled in when I left North Korea. It was a refugee camp where I stayed in a hut that was shared with other refugees. My family and I stayed in one room. The houses (피난처) were poorly built, but they were better than anything I had in the past few weeks or so. The government and soldiers fed us refugee food (피난민 식량) and those with children were given milk.

We lived and worked from within Daegu with the other escapees. I began to take up sewing in order to provide more clothing for my children for the weather to come. I learned how to first sew from my mother. Daegu was becoming overcrowded and I later found out that the best option now was to move to Busan. I remember vividly the weather. It was very, very cold that day. On my way to Busan I got lost. I will never forget this: we lived under a bridge for two days. It was so cold and my daughter was always crying; it was as if her body was breaking. I went to warm her and felt her feet. They were so cold; my poor baby. I wrapped her feet tightly to avoid the harsh winds. I messed up/accidentally restricted the blood flow and she could have died. I had to go to Busan and find proper shelter. I was scared. So scared. I panicked and went over the bridge and continued to walk; I had to find some way to save her. There was a boat that took refugees to the camp and soon enough I saw it; my wishes were answered. I finally made it. I finally made it to the Busan refugee camp.

At Busan, I kept quilting and selling my work. Whenever there was light, that’s when I worked. I bought food for my babies and saved any extra in case I had to move to a different camp. I longed to see my parents soon, but after some time/time went by my hope diminished. What we thought would be a small conflict turned to be much bigger than my parents had imagined.

I also remember the disgusting smells. There were people who got sick, there were people dying. There were even more people who were sick. Death was all around, even in camps.

Many years ago I tried to meet them during the 이산가족상봉 program, but I did not hear of them...

I lived in these different camps for years in fear. It was now 1953 and the end of the Korean War. The DMZ was built and my parent’s opportunity to escape was gone… I could not go back and I knew I could never see them again. I don’t know what happened to them to this day, but I always appreciate my parent’s sacrifices they had made.

After the war, I decided to move to Seoul and I moved there with my sister. I started to focus on what I enjoyed doing and continued to use it as a way to make money. I kept sewing, making quilts, blankets, anything I could. We lived in a small house again. During this time, I also continued the search for my husband we met again in 1955. He started boxing in college and later worked as a director at Busan Ferry (부관훼리) when he graduated. He was always traveling, so he wasn’t around the house often. People knew of him which made it easier for me to find him.

Things started to get a little better and my quilts began to sell around. I began selling it in a market known as Insa-Dong (인사동). I had a new, small business and I worked for a long time under a candle light, making many so that I could sell them the next day. My quilts were becoming popular and I saved money to buy a 주끼 미싱 Juki sewing machine. I even sold blankets to the Korean president, Park Chung-Hee’s, wife, Yuk Young-soo. Business was successful and I was finally able to rebuild my life. There was a sense of security in my life. I built my own home at hannam-dong 한남동 with the basement room being used as a small factory. I lived upstairs and my machines lived downstairs. I sold many of my blankets to a company called 현대 침구점 and word spread around and I was featured on MBC talk show with tv announcer 오미희. I ran my business for many years from the 1960s. I was able to travel around to different countries and enjoy the freedom that I didn’t know at the time I wouldn’t have.

My husband passed away in 1998. Now, I’m spending the final years of my life in the same house with my son and his family. My daughter lives in America with her three daughters. Although I may not remember so much now what my parents look like now, what they did for me, their sacrifices are never forgotten. She lives in my heart. If I think about it now, I was lucky to leave when I did. It saddens me to hear what North Korea has become. It’s even worse than what we all could have imagined. I hope one day, the people of North Korea are freed from the regime to live a life of true freedom. I may be living in South Korea, but I am from North Korea. They are my people. I hope one day that Korea becomes one Korea; a united Korea.

Haena, I don’t know if this letter helps you a lot, I hope it helps you a little. If I think about it now, it was hard. Everything was hard. My heart hearts. A past that I did not want to think about again. I am thankful of the life I’ve lived and the one I’m living now every day.

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GALLERY Blog Post #2: Elaine Quave - Gallery Talk

 GALLERY Blog Post #2: Elaine Quave - Gallery Talk

“Anthro-Botanical”

On September 15, the gallery greeted viewers with a beautiful display of sculptures. I instantly admired the set up upon walking in. Before the gallery talk, I walked around carefully analyzing and familiarizing myself with her work. At first it seemed that she thoroughly enjoyed and was fascinated by plants as well as porcelain. Her recreation of the plants were so carefully crafted and detailed.

When she was first speaking, she seemed a bit nervous and unorganized. She began by telling of her interest in biodiversity and nonfiction science. She mentions that she enjoys “working on paintings of the human body and working on a way to abstract with different lighting and form.” She started this art form because of her “interest in the idea of the physicality of our presence and the experience of what it’s like to be human.” Her interest of life and death along with conflicts of body and mind led her to her style of artform today. She worked well with the porcelain medium and put in meticulous work recreating the details of the various plants. She used steel and stoneware as well to create more of a solid base to carry the weight of the porcelain. She recreated variety of plants from Mariposas, to Hostas (which she was inspired by because of the Hostas in her yard), Vulcan Palm, and Costa Plants. She mentioned that she started with the Tropical Milkweed sculptures which were the largest of all the other sculptures. It was the piece that started the show, essentially, and it was interesting how she chose to work on the biggest piece first. She also mentioned that the goal of her work is to “help others start to understand how humans understand nature and our place in nature, as well as the way we interact with our environment.”

I was much more interested in her work than the work of the artist in the last gallery talk. However, during the time she was speaking, she seemed unrehearsed for what she was going to say. She seemed to have become more comfortable towards the end of it and enjoyed answering numerous questions from the audience. My main critique for her presentation would be to practice more beforehand and become confident with what was to be said for the show. She was knowledgeable in answering questions and the topic and subject matter. Her technical skill and handling of the porcelain/stoneware was very detailed and the viewer could see how carefully and thoroughly the artist researched about her topic. This truly enhanced the overall experience for the viewer and she knew background information about the plants that were very interesting. Overall, I really enjoyed this art gallery as well as learning a bit about her creative process.

Tropical Milkweed

Vulcan Palm, 2017 porcelain, stoneware

Swamp Pink II, 2017 porcelain, stoneware, wire

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Progress Report #2: Research + Sending a Letter

Progress Report #2: Research + Sending a Letter

Now that I had a topic to work with, I decided to do some research to get background knowledge on the Korean War and life during my great grandmother’s time. I wanted to be sure to have a good amount of knowledge to know what questions I wanted ask and make sure I received an answer to from my letter. Because of distance, I knew that I needed to ask all the essential questions now to save time and be more efficient in my work. In order to know minor details such as my great grandmother’s birthday and the year she escaped along with hobbies she took up, I had to call my grandmother. I found out my great grandmother was born in 1927 and so I researched the history of Korea during that period. I had learned that Japan had colonized Korea from 1910-1945. I always knew that my great grandmother was fluent in Japanese, but I had thought that she was just from learning out of interest. Turns out, when Japan colonized Korea, they tried to get rid of the Korean culture, thus forcing Koreans to learn their language. Normally, I find history boring, but this topic interested me. I wanted to know more about what my great grandmother went through and I was soon becoming more and more interested in this senior project. Because she cannot read English and I cannot write in Korean, I went home one weekend to visit my mom. I told her all that I wanted her to write in this letter to send to Korea. I understand Korean at a much higher level than reading or writing it so I would say a sentence in English and then she would translate it in Korean. I would then ask her to read it aloud again. I really enjoyed this part of the project because it made me feel closer to my family, culture, and more interested in the language. In short, I asked my great grandmother to recount her life in North Korea, from growing up with her parents, to going to school, as well as anything interesting or very different from life now. I also asked her to thoroughly detail her escape as much as possible with everything she remembered of the war, including years or even minor details. I also wanted her to talk about how she met her husband and how he was living in South Korea as well. While I waited for a letter back, all I could do was to continue researching about my topic and thinking of the different ways to approach this video.

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Materials Blog - Progress Report #1: Pitch + Medium

(address your use of materials: is/are your material choices pertinent to your project? Have you made adjustments in your use of materials based on your progress and faculty feedback? A blog post that addresses your choice of materials. Why are you working in a particular medium? Why does this medium appeal to you?)

Materials Blog - Progress Report #1: Pitch + Medium

I originally had the idea to create a video/documentary based on my internship for the summer 2017. I misinterpreted what a proper senior project was and my original pitch had gotten shot down. My pitch had come off to be more of a promotional piece. I honestly felt a bit defeated and genuinely was not sure of any topic that would keep my attention and excitement for the rest of the year.

I knew, however, that no matter what, I wanted to work with the video medium. I’ve always loved creating and editing videos as a hobby. I had never created a documentary style piece and I thought it would be an interesting and fun creative challenge to take on. I’ve learned more advanced skills in video production as well as post-production with various jobs I have had at Furman (from AVD fellowship with the David E. Shi Center and work with Furman Marketing & PR Department) and I felt comfortable choosing the video medium for my final senior project. I also felt that my concentration in graphic design will help me keep an eye out for certain detailed aspects and possibly incorporate different graphic elements within the video. I will be filming in an interview style and filming b-roll that will properly fit with the story and narrative of this piece. I will also be using videos I find online (for example, any footage of North Korea) that is allowed for non-commercial use. Using a video medium appeals to me because, in my opinion, there is so much one could do with video. Videos can not only tell a story, but show it. It can keep the viewer’s attention and explore several elements in one. There are numerous ways you can tell a story and I’m excited to explore the best way to tell her story.

With more of an idea on what is expected of our senior project, I continuously thought of various topics. I re-pitched a family story of my great-grandmother who escaped North Korea during the breakout of the Korean War. She escaped to Seoul, South Korea, where she lives today. It is a story that I had always found interesting and one that I’ve always admired. I have always looked highly upon my great-grandmother, one reason being the bravery and hardships she had faced and how she overcame those difficult moments to live a life she was meant to live: a life with freedom. It was inspiring to think that without her courage, I probably would not be where I am today. I will be writing letters to her to get a descriptive and detailed recount of her times in North Korea. It is difficult for her to hear and technology is not her strong suit, so I felt having a tangible medium would also be compelling.

My project will focus on the story of my great-grandmother’s escape. I wanted to use this personal aspect of an event and regime that continues on to this day to promote more awareness for the situations people face in North Korea. Talk about North Korea has been a hot topic currently in the U.S. Political elements won’t explicitly be talked about in this video, but they will definitely appear. For example, when she talks about living under a dictatorship. Freedom of speech is important for a place that lacks it so I feel that it is important we utilize our freedom of speech to create more awareness for the situations other people face.

I am still exploring a definite thesis for my project as I continue researching and working.

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GALLERY Blog Post #1: Liz Rundorff Smith - Gallery Talk

GALLERY Blog Post #1: Liz Rundorff Smith - Gallery Talk

On August 25, I walked into the Thompson Art Gallery to be greeted by a variety of colorful paintings with intricate lines and markings. The paintings immediately drew me in and I wanted to know what the meaning behind each were. The artist, Liz Rundorff Smith, shared her works called ‘found paintings’ which focused on “a compelling duality between presence and absence.” Before she spoke, I was trying to figure out the meaning behind each piece and unmask what the painting represented. I really enjoyed the texture of the brushwork and use of oil on the panels, but could not wrap my head around the subject. I was even more curious now for what the artist had to say and her explanations on her work.

She explained that basically she took a photo and simplified it into a painting. She used a slide projector and painted from the image. She chose a realistic image and blurred it. Her creative process was quite interesting as she originally had not enjoyed taking photos. She used this medium to her advantage in order to proceed with her process, and photography started to grow on her a bit. The most significant piece, to me, was “Chaos”. When you first see it, it seems to just be splatters of yellow on green with pink on top. But she went on to say how it actually depicted a field of dandelions behind a picket fence. She created the illusion of the fence using painters tape, stripping back to reveal the paint underneath. She l aid in the tape and used pastel powder and laid it over the wax. I thought this was creative and I was actually in awe of what the painting portrayed. When she revealed the subject of “Chaos,” I couldn’t unsee it, though I hadn’t seen dandelions beforehand. It led back to her description of her work of “familiar spaces that are stripped of detail so that the resulting imagery is an uncanny reminder of a place but serves as a physical representation of loss.” I also enjoyed her other works, “Eclipse” and “Bathtub,” for the same reason.

I could now visualize more details that my eyes hadn’t seen before. However, I wish she had explained the rest of her paintings or even had the original photo next to her painting. I feel there was a lack of clarity on subject and meaning of most of the paintings. She did well explaining her technique and why she chose the medium to paint and use photography as well, though she wasn’t skilled with it. She mentioned how she started to see photography as an art form. I admired how she was open to trying new things. Her form, for the most part, was symmetric, and paintings incorporated a variety of textures with the use of the painters tape and brush strokes. She also went on to explain ‘encostic’ style, which was working with hot wax. The work was quite unique and had the viewer thinking, but again, I wish there were more of an explanation behind each piece. Viewers were left to interpret the artist’s paintings on their own with the only ‘hint’ being the title of the painting, which did not necessarily help. But I suppose it did leave me thinking about her paintings, even after the reception.

“Chaos” - 2017