Meet?

hey QC2 East folks,
what is everyone's schedule like next week? We should probably all meet to briefly discuss where we are and what we might want to print and pin up for next term. Also, Stephanie, Ronna, Meghan--you each need to stop by Ann's desk if you want to get your stipend! She needs info from each of you asap.

TWO QUEEN CITIES_WEST_FINAL

QC2westTeamEagle

Wanted more time on this one but was told to move on. Worked with the layers I had, careful to keep the same narrative and not add to many ingredients.
Hope all is well with everyone

central and albemarle

Hey, here's my version of the muerta and diablo dudes, although i still have to print it out and mess with it ala analog. Haven't gotten that far... this week has eaten my SOUL. I'm trying to wrest it back. So let me know if you aren't gonna make it, José, that's totally cool... I'm ashamed to say, I could use a mental health morning before my afternoon meetings... blargh. Anyway, I wanna darken out the devils on the right to better counter-balance the upper left and maybe do a really light wash over some of the white areas to just bright them up a bit more... stuff I'm gonna do in the ol' dirty studio, but I'm thinking un-loving things about my computer lately....

QC9-Jose

hi folks
here are my latest contributions. I may not be able to make our meeting on friday (melissa is going out of town and I will have a monkey with me). but, I am working on day care...

but here are my edits....

QC2 West --

I added texture, contrast, and saturation to give this composition more life. I also attempted to merge the two vanishing points into one to give one central focus point.

There are two images of Downtown LA. I skewed, made transparent, flipped upside down, and/or exhaggerated the saturation of these images to show the texture and space of the city rather than show it as a postcard image.

The city was built by the man in the suit and for the man in the suit, that is why the image of the city landscape envelops this man. The homeless man, however is almost completely lost in this landscape.

the lone cowboy.. Eagle 2

Reminiscent of the struggle to survive through means of hard work and sacrifice, this composition explores the lifestyle the "lone soldier" confronts when leaving his family to find work in a place called Los Angeles. We all know this man. He's your father. He's my grandfather. He might be your neighbor or even our friend.

Regardless of culture, the story is not unusual. A man leaves "home" to find a job so that he can send money back to his loved ones. He travels. He searches and yet he finds no place willing to accept him because he is a foreigner. There is a conflict within to remain true to his morals yet there is the longing for companionship and the need to simply survive. He cannot apply for a loan or license for a business because he is not a citizen. Without a loan, there is no money...and without money, there is no independence.

Consequently, the "Instant Store" is created. With what items the soldier has, be it oranges or bananas, it is covertly exposed to the common people as means for survival.

That's my 2 cents. What's yours?

--emily cheng

QC2 West - Jaguar - Semi-Final Product

Here's a (semi) final look at our last collage. We all felt like this is at a decent spot to stop and start a new composition, and see where it takes us now that we understand the process. This is one that I started just after.

eagle 2

free for all

hey everyone,
so here is the base image that I edited heavily to come up with my previous post. have at it...if someone wants the full psd file in order to turn off layers, then just let me know and I will burn it to a disk for you.

QC2-east

okay, I worked on this one and edited like crazy. I also pushed for a bit more open landscape and abstraction (if you can call it that). the image has more room to breathe now and (I think) if feels more stable.

QC2_WEST

I worked with the perspective that was available and included some urban artwork. TADA.

QC2_WEST

I took the literal people and symbols of LOS ANGELES and included them into the composition.

QueenCity2TeamEagle.

Hello Charlotte

I wanted to create a little depth and leave room for the other members of team eagle to get down. There is an aeronautical theme going on in this rendition, a nod to NC (first in flight).

Clinton Asada

QC2_WEST - JAGUAR

This post is for John Huey.

Last-Swap Meeting

Hey, just a reminder that we're meeting this Friday (10/26) at 11:00 in the computer lab to look at our last swaps and see which ones we want to rework for the big prints. See y'all then!

some new progress

hi folks
here is my first pass after our meeting this morning. I am working this image by simplifying a bit and by trying to pull forward a few things and to merge the idea of a charlotte skylight with an LA map. After that, just plain ole' painterly composition issues are kicking in.....two versions going at the moment

Ramon, these also respond a bit to our recent Chicano abstraction comments.

5th one

I just mesed with the sky a little......mostly the sky and the writing and some trees. I simplified it a little and added a little. I didn't want to mess with it too much because, in my opinion, it is really close to finish.

can we meet?

hi Charlotte crew
can we meet this friday morning....say around 11am? I think that we should have a quick discussion about the state of the various murals we are working on and begin planning to finalize and translate these things to a larger scale. Heather, are you available friday morning?

OK, so right now it looks like a bit of a mess, but I am not too familiar with how to fade things in a bit. I added an image of La Rua, which is Charlotte's "Latino Rock group" and I added the image of a stereotypical city skyline made of La Rua's CD cover title. I did this to express how on the surface Charlotte is aiming to be the typical city, nothing different, and it is only within the image of the stereotypical city that we find the true depth of what it means to be in Charlotte. So... yeah, that's it for now.

Had some technical difficulties...but we're back!

Reflections from a shattered image of Los Angeles. Each shard of glass begins to reflect a different perceived image of LA.

So this is what I came up with after chris's post. I added some of my photography, like the people racing up the stairs into the light. I also made the freeway a little bit more transparent, so the piramid shows through it. And I put a bit more contrast and color to bring it to life.

dialect show

okay folks
I went to the gallery show at Dialect's on Noda and I spoke with one of the folks that runs the office--a former CoA student, now architect--and they may be interested in hosting the work and a reception/discussion of our murals. So, we are on the way to needing multiple copies in various sizes of the work for our increasing potential popularity! at the very least, another venue for the work..and a chance to drink wine in public and call it work.

gallery opportunities

okay everyone
so, we are penciled in for a show here in the college of architecture for the first few weeks of the spring term. Ramon has us penciled in for a show at Woodbury (Burbank, CA) for April. And, I have a scheduled telephone chat with Galeria de la Raza in San Francisco on Tues to talk about submitting the work to their digital mural project. They have a running gallery in their storefront in which they take digital murals and print them out and display them for some set timeframe in SF (so the projects are visible from the public street outside their space). They seem very interested in what we are doing so I think that one of our "murals" has a good shot of getting shown there (I will send them files of each of the completed projects later and let them chose--who knows, maybe more than one will get picked). It looks like we have a chance to get a bi-coastal set of showings for the work......now, we just have to produced high level work deserving of such visibility!

Stephanie, I am not sure if you are traveling or not, but I have the file for you. I always forget which desk is yours so the cd will be on my desk until either you find me or I find you!

thanks~m

Version 4

Okay, Meghan gave me an cool image to work with, so I didn't change this much; just cleaned up some stuff. The text still needs work/feels sloppy, but I'll let that be Ronna's problem. ;)

Technical stuff

Hey folks, some technical advice to keep your files small.

1) When you get a file, do a "Save as:" and change the name. You'll get a dialogue box asking if you want to "maximize efficiency". ALWAYS UNCHECK! This is a weird vestigial feature of photoshop whose soul purpase is to make your file bigger than in needs to be.

2) Go to Image>Mode> and make sure "RGB" is checked. If CMYK is checked, change it to RGB. It'll ask if you want to flatten the layers and say "Don't flatten". Save immediately after this step. Your prints on a laser printer might look a little "truer" when set to CMYK, but most printers translate RGB best since RGB is the native color of the screen. We'll be printing these on an inkjet plotter that basically has 6 or 8 different colors rather than CMYKs 4!! So trust the printer, and leave it in RGB.

3) Use multiple layermodes at 100% opacity of the same image rather than 1 layer at 40%, etc. For some reason, changing the opacity of a layer makes that layer take of WAY more memory. Also, it tends to make an image look "washed out" and low in contrast. Don't be shy of being assertive!

This Friday!!!!

alternate version

hi folks
here is an alternate version of my previous draft...this time borrowing from chris's idea of sampling one of the paintings from the woodbury experiment last spring. let me know if this direction is worth pursuing.

heather, can we swap files tomorrow?

QC2WEST_EAGLE

QC2 West - A First Stab

Hello Charlotte.

This is a collage I put together relating to LA culture. Please comment...

Chris P
Architecture Student
Woodbury University
Burbank, CA

pin-up?

can we print out our 11x17's in about 10 days for a little review of the work to date and for a discussion about how we might refine them? I suggest we do so one evening with some refreshments the week after next.

Jose's newest

hi folks
I cannot meet this friday (were we going to meet this friday?) so here is my contribution to stephanie's version. I also sent heather a disk with this file on it today via intercampus mail so she will have the file for someone to pick up probably thursday.

the images are looking good. I think we should swap more more round and then meet to discuss refining a few and to discuss the next step in getting up to full scale.

Ronna-->Heather v.3

I got stuck kinda early with this one.... ha, somebody else's problem now!

Keeping files for posterity and printing

Hey everybody, José and I have been emailing about just keeping everything going at this small scale and printing some/most/all of them large at the end. Yeah, why the heck not. I was also thinking that the evolution of the smaller prints is pretty interesting and we could print each swap phase out at the 11x17 scale. If you can put your file from the last swap on a CD and put it in my mailbox in Rowe 253, that would rock. Or you can also save it as a JPEG (still at 11x17 and 300dpi) at the highest quality and e-mail it to me. It'll probably be a pretty ginormous file for e-mail (like 6 to14 MB or so), but that would work awesome too! My e-mail is hdfreema@uncc.edu.
Heather

hey meghan! sorry, i have been in and out of studio, but i have forgotten to get it from you everytime! i will be there tomorrow around 6 am so anytime after then is cool!

Jose, i will give you the new file in studio. do you want it on a cd or can i just have it on my jump drive?

okay everyone, let's be sure to touch bases and trade files tomorrow--monday--so we can keep this moving along.

Stephanie I am not sure if you saw my message earlier this weekend, but I have the mural to pass along to you from last week. Sorry it is so late. Let me know when I can meet you to hand it off!
thanks

Who's Swapping with Whom:

Here's the swap order:

Ronna --> Heather --> Meghan --> Stephanie --> Jose --> Ronna

We should probably each just try to remember who we're swapping to and from so that we can contact each other individually for swaps.

Meghan's Original with Stephanie's Add-On

Here is the finished revised sketch for today's meeting! The red looks a bit darker in my original, but it is the basic idea.

missed swap time

I am also not going to be able to attend today. I have a review and am not quite finished with what I wanted to accomplish on the mural. I would be willing to meet somone tomorrow for 5 minutes to swap, or anytime after today. I will be around all weekend and am flexible. I am not sure who I am swapping with, but I apologize to the group and especially whomever is supposed to receive the mural that I am currently working on.

missed meeting

hi folks
I am out sick today so I will miss the image swap but I can have a disk with the images ready for monday.

Sketch V. 2

Here's my updated sketch from Ronna's image.

revised sketch (stephanie's original with jose's mess)

here is an update on the sketch that stephanie created for monday, which was handed off to me.....

monday's sketch

here is my sketch from monday's meeting (stephanie now has it and it is being reworked).

Round One

Here is round one of the image that I put together for our meeting on Monday! It looks very washed up for some reason, I can't quite figure it out, but this gives you an idea!

First Round

I tried to upload all of our first round images as JPEGs but it was taking way to crazy-long. So I recommend each of you save a copy of your first round image as a JPEG [I also shrunk mine to 6 x 7.(some fractional number) to make it less ginormous] and post it to the blog individually. If you have any problems posting an image, let me know and I'll see if I can figure it out!

Swap-Schedule

So we met tonight and looked at each other's pix and set up the swap schedule. Image swapping with happen every Friday, every other Friday we will meet as a group.

Swap Cycle: Ronna --> Heather --> Meghan --> Stephanie --> Jose --> Ronna

Our meetings for the project are as follows:

9/28 - 11:00 meeting and swap. Decide on which image(s) will be up-graded to the large mural? Demo on the path tool?

10/5 - Swap

10/12 - 11:00 meeting and swap.

10/19 - Swap

10/26 - 11:00 meeting and swap.

11/2 - LAST SWAP!

11/9 - 11:00 meeting and wrap-up. Discuss printing and exhibition for spring?

11/16 - Tentative 11:00 meeting and post-wrap-up wrap-up.

Saturday Meeting

The posse (minus 1) met on Saturday and discussed primarily how to proceed. We also have a quick workshop of Photoshop Masking skills. Here are the important dates/items/things:

1) Next meeting, Monday, 9/24 (yes, tomorrow!) at 5:30 in the Macy Lab.
2) Bring with you one 11x17 (300ppi) sketch/draft, also bring the digital file. These can be very rough, don't worry, we just need to get something started.
3) We will walk about these and then swap them and the files. We will also discuss designating one of two of these for the large mural (although we might also do another swap and then see.

Try to keep a list of any photoshop questions you have that you might want a workshop on; we can more mini-workshop workshops anytime you all want. Also, we should probably start posting our source photos/scans to the blog as well, so that others can access them. If these feels too slow for some, I can try to set up an ftp site. Last, I'm going to see if the lab manager will be able/willing to set up a secure server space for us in the Macy Lab for this project.

Thursday Meeting

So Thursday we had the other small group meeting; present were Heather, Stephanie and Leah. So that's our posse!
We looked at each other's photographs and had also discussed some of the ideas that came up at Monday's meeting.

There was a lot of support for the idea of smaller collaborative swaps in conjunction with the large unified collaborative mural. It was also suggested that we even have two large murals going around. (Ah, the beauty of digital!)

There was also a question about whether the focus should be on latina communities in Charlotte or on more broad demographics within Charlotte. There was also a discussion on the nature of the "landscape" and what that really means. One thing I pointed out is that, traditionally, a landscape image is really defined by the strong horizonal of the horizon. (We looked at Ramon's images on the blog, and also, at the digital landscape of Jeff Murphy... www.Muttkingdom.com.) But we also talked about how a landscape can be many interpretations of a physical area (noting the solution the Woodbury students found in their mural) and also taked about how one could create a landscape of a dense jungle that could be completely devoid of the horizon...direct parallel to possibilities in the "urban jungle". So this is something worth still thinking and talking about I think.

Last, we talked a little photoshop shop and if there is interest, I can have a couple of crash courses on techniques that might be useful/brushing up on basic skills, etc. I could do the same for Illustrator if there is interest, but Photoshop's my first baby. :)

Also, if folks have technical questions as they go along working on their images, these could always be posted to the blog and open for anyones answers. VIva la bathroom wall!

See you all soon. H.

saturday meeting time and place

okay folks
again, we will meet as a big group this saturday at 1pm in the computer lab in macy. be there and be square!

oops

I labeled the images incorrectly--the upper image is ramon's piece, the lower image is the student piece.

Up and running

okay folks
the blog is in full swing and I suggest that we use it to upload images for comment. this way the woodbury folks can "listen-in" on our conversations and chime as as they deem necessary. and, we can start sharing our "data"--raw images on the blog for all to react to. I am also going to post the two other paintings that were produced last spring at woodbury, which round out the discussions that they had.

the first image was created as a "sketch" piece that tested student ideas (each student worked on this piece at various times, sometimes in concert). and, then, ideas would migrate from this image to the larger "flatlands" image that heather previously posted.

the second image is one that ramon collaborated on with a graffitt artist called ski; ski tagged the canvas and then ramon did his painterly thing. this painting served as the generator of ideas for the overall discussions that ramon and the woodbury students had.

Okay, slowly learning blogger.

Embarrassing as it is, I've never used blogger before so I finally just figured out how to add everybody as authors. You should be getting an e-mail about that shortly. If you don't get an e-mail indicating you've been added as an author, send me an e-mail and let me know!

Ramon, if the Woodbury peeps want to be added as authors, just have them send their e-mail address to hdfreema@uncc.edu and I'll sign them up!

H.

Hopefully it'll work this time!

Sorry, I've been trying to post an image of the Woodbury Mural through some other methods that just making it a post, and Blogger's been resistance. I will conform.

Next Meeting Dates and Times!

In case you didn't see it under the comments, here's the latest:

We will hold two meetings next week—one on Monday night at 6pm with José in the architecture building in the salon and one on Thursday night at 6:30pm with Heather I think in Macy 106B.

If you are interested in the project you must attend one of these meetings.

Then we will all meet on the Saturday following these meetings as a big group (time and place TBA).

We will use the head count from the Monday and Thursday meetings to determine who is committed to the project and going to participate (and, therefore, who will be eligible for the stipend).

So, do some documenting this weekend/week and come to one of these two meetings with images in hand for a brief discussion.

First Meeting

Image: "Small Scale Turbulence" by Jeff Murphy and Heather Freeman. An example of a Photoshop collaboration, where the artists swapped the file back and forth until they were happy with the result."

Our first meeting was on Friday, September 7th, at noon in Macy 106B. Present were José Gámez, Heather Freeman, Meghan Meyers, Ronna Gardner, Leah Salzyn and Josh Harding.

The rough idea behind this project is as follows:

"A Tale of Two Queen Cities will explore the impacts of Latino immigration upon the cultural landscapes of two distinct but related locations: Charlotte, NC and Los Angeles, CA. This project will organize a group of UNCC students to create set of resources and visual representations a parallel to those of a group at Woodbury College in Los Angeles, California. The UNCC group, along with Professors Heather Freeman (Art and Art History) and José Gámez (Architecture) will develop material for the project (photographs, videos, observational writings), which will culminate in a series of digital murals. The murals will create a dialog between the bi-coastal groups focused upon common themes and potential differences that arise given the distinct urban contexts of Los Angeles and Charlotte. Funding for this project covers student expenses related to the production of both the research data and the visual art. The resulting resources and murals will be exhibited at the College of Architecture Gallery. A panel discussion including all participating faculty and UNCC students will accompany the exhibition opening. This project is funded by the Chancellor’s Diversity Challenge Fund though the Council on University Community."

We determined the following course of action:
Students will start collecting/gathering/taking photographs relevant to our concept of the "cultural landscape" of Charlotte, particularly as it explores the influences of Latino immigration. When we next meet up, will use these photographs to help determine the physical nature of the digital mural(s). Students may also want to start small collages, just to get the wheels turning and to give each other a sense of their own individual design aesthetic.

Outstanding question to keep in mind:
Will this be one, large (tiled) collaborative mural, or a series of smaller collaborative murals?
We plan on exhibiting these works in the College of Architecture Gallery. But where else (outside, public spaces) would we like to see these? How might this define the physical design of the mural(s)?

Summary:
This project should take roughly 10 weeks. Students will work primarily on their own time, but must avail themselves to occasional (biweekly) meetings. Students can, of course, organize meetings themselves, any time they want! The finished digital mural(s) will be printed at the end of the semester and exhibited in the spring. The stipend will be determined by the number of students who commit to the whole project and by how much materials end up costing. Students who are fully on board should make every effort to go to the next meeting with their photographs.

Question for the group:
Realizing we need to meet more often in the beginning, when do we want to meet again? Should be try for Friday 9/14 at noon again? Or would you all prefer another day/time? You all dictate! :)