Is great art great if no one gets it?

I went on a trip to New York about two years ago, and I had an interesting conversation with someone about art.  A fellow classmate asked me, what is art to you?  Talk about a loaded question.  I can't remember what his personal definition was, but I do remember mine.  Over time, I've come to edit and refine my personal definition, and in time I hope it becomes polished to the point where I can explain it and people don't look at me like I'm insane.

What is art [to me]?

I think art is expression that has, does or will resonate with someone at some point in time.


I've never been the type to think that just because someone created something, it becomes art by default.  I also don't believe that anything created as a direct result of a strong emotion becomes art by default.

i.e.

I'm mad so I drew this red line across the wall.  This is my art!!  Self expression in and of itself isn't art to me, it's a journal entry.

I also think art is relative.  Did that just negate everything I said?  Maybe...  Are there holes in this?  Probably.  I can go on and on about this forever, but I won't in this entry.

I said all of that to say this: I'm a huge fan of comics mainly: American, Japanese and Korean (in that order).  I love sequential art so much, and there are so many talented artists out there.  It's so disheartening to see images that are so beautiful and detailed that is becomes impossible to tell what's going on.  I hate reading books that are so full of convoluted symbolism that the book is impossible to understand, much less finish.

Is great art great is no one gets it?

As far as I'm concerned, the jury is out.  Half of me says, "take the meat, leave the bones."  Appreciate what you're able to appreciate and leave the rest alone.  The other half says great art is great only when it's appreciated.  If no one sticks around to observe it, it may as well be that 9th color that the Human eye can't see.  Or this professional blog that no one reads, heh.

What do you think?

~Melissa

My First MEL Script - isn't it cute?!

So apparently it's in my best interest to learn MEL and Python.

Thanks for telling me this with 6 months 'til graduation, folks!  I've been cramming for a while and though I'm still intimidated by MEL, I don't hide in a corner and quiver with fear when I come face to face with it.  At least not all the time.

Anyway, I was watching a rigging tutorial and the guy made a Renaming Script.  I thought it was pretty nifty, but I could never remember what order he selected things in and so I'd make a mistake and rename things in the wrong order.  I thought to myself, "Self, why don't you just make a renaming script where all the fields are labeled 'rename ___ to:'?"  Plus, I wanted to see if I could do it on my own, without looking at the tutorial again.

So, after a lot of trial and error (and help from a guy on CGTalk) I did.  Yay!

Behold, my first MEL Script!

-----

//Renaming Script

//Creates a window

string $RenameWindow = `window -widthHeight 450 200 -rtf true -title "Rename Selected Objects"`;

//Makes the window able to scroll

scrollLayout
            -horizontalScrollBarThickness 16
            -verticalScrollBarThickness   16;

//Makes the window a row column layout
rowColumnLayout
        -numberOfColumns 2 -columnAttach 1 "right" 0
        -columnWidth 1 150 -columnWidth 2 250;

//Queries selections

string $sel[] = `ls -sl`;

//For loop - so we can access and apply the command to each selected object individually

for ($each in $sel) {

    //Name Field Label - Acquires and lists the original name of the selected objects
     text -label ("Rename " + $each + " to:");
    //Renaming Field - Allow the selected object to be renamed
    nameField -o $each;
}

//Button on the window for closing the Renaming Window

button -l "RENAME!" -c "deleteUI -window $RenameWindow";

//This shows the Renaming Window
showWindow $RenameWindow;

-----

Have I done something that hasn't already been done 530950394208539 times before?  Nope.  But I did it, and I understand what it does and I can recreate it if I need to.  That's the fun thing ^^;

~Melissa

Cloth Tutorial... kind of

This was my first run with CamStudio or whatever, and the results are stinky.  The audio starts to lag after about 3 minutes and it just gets worse.  I wonder why.  Anyway, I'm not exactly treading new ground with this one, but I thought I'd test the waters by posting something easy.

I wish I had a nice speaking voice, I really do.  Just ignore it and let your eyes glaze over as you watch this ^^;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRDjTX9N7aM

~Melissa