Venice Arts- Residency- Issa Sharpe- 2 Hours
I was unable to attend the class this week due to a family-oriented trip to Dallas over the weekend. However, I caught up with Angela on how the class went.
Unfortunately, I missed a really awesome class! They had a guest named David Roy. David Roy is a rocket scientist, who recently paired with Forouzan Safari, an Iranian-American poet, to create a social commentary piece. Forouzan painted a poem in Persian script on one of David's rockets and showed up to the launching in traditional Iranian dress: a hijab and trench coat. Many of the predominantly white-spectators of the launch were alarmed by Forouzan's appearance and the appearance of the rocket, and this was the exact issue that they were bringing into conversation. When explained the direction of their art, many of the spectators quickly switched from prejudice to support. Roy made a short film on this event, that was shown in class. It is currently screening at the Echo Park film center.
Since I missed the class and therefore missed the film, I had to do some research on David's work, but luckily there was an LA Weekly article explaining the basis of the film. If you're reading this journal and may be interested in reading the article, here's the link: http://www.laweekly.com/arts/the-explosive-way-a-pair-of-artists-stood-up-to-cultural-stereotyping-in-trumps-america-7659570
After the class viewed the film and took some photos of David, they spent the remainder of class working on LightRoom. Since I don't know much about Lightroom, I spent some time this week going over LightRoom tutorials on Lynda.com. I also have the app on my phone and have been using it to edit photos when I have downtime. Just to get a grasp of the features that LightRoom has to offer.