Drexel

This March marked my second to last quarter here at Drexel. I'll be graduating in mid June with my master's degree in Digital Media. When I applied to Drexel waaay back in 2009, I was in the Everglades spraying plants by day and working on various art projects by night. At the time I was getting interested in creating art on the computer a la digital painting. Could there be art that is only digital and has no physical correlation.

Also I was interested in how digital media and the internet could affect how we looked at art. To me, an art gallery is a weird way of looking at art. For some installation art it is the only way. Place has a huge effect on how we view artwork. If we were to go into Starbucks and get a drink and on the wall there happened to be an original Van Gogh, something one may go to a museum to see, I would say that most people would walk right past. When I go to a gallery or a group of galleries, I end up getting over saturated with art and not really seeing anything. Or I am not comfortable in the gallery so it distracts from the overall viewing experience. Sometimes it seems that the whole gallery system is set up to arbitrarily award value to work. I think art is best viewed when it is something you seek out. And what about work that can't or shouldn't be viewed in a gallery. So much digital art is better viewed on the internet.

These were some of the things I was thinking about when I was applying to Drexel's certificate program. I was hoping to learn more about web design and vector art, ironically the only kind of classes I never got to take. I remember finishing up my Drexel application and moving on to an application to PAFA, I was reapplying to a program that I had got into two years previous. On the application PAFA, it asked how you fit into contemporary art. After thinking about this for a long time, I realized I didn't fit very well at all. Most of the things that inspired me at that point were animators, illustrators, directors and writers. Not very many traditional visual artists. I never completed that application (the second time). Even though I only came to Drexel to get a certificate for web stuff, I have really enjoyed the past year and a half working with computer graphics and animation and I am looking forward to wherever that takes me!