Her works

'The Bluest Eye'(1970)

Centred around a young African American girl named Pecola, who grows up during the years following 'The Great Depression'. Because of her skin colour, Pecola gets taunted as the members of her community associate beauty with whiteness. She develops an inferiority complex and desires blue eyes.

Because the book raises controversial issues such as racism, incest and child molestation The book got a relatively bad reception and has been numerous attempts to ban it from libraries and schools.

Morrison's intentions

In an interview, Morrison was asked about her motivations for writing the novel: She wanted to remind readers how 'hurtful racism is' and the fact 'people are so apologetic for the fact that their skin is dark.' Morrison wanted people to try and understand what it was like to be treated that way.

Reception

The book only received a modest amount of attention. Morrison was praised for writing a 'series of painfully accurate impressions' and her wide coverage of emotion in the novel. The most critiqued aspect of her writing is her language in the novel as it was often viewed as being made too simple.
Early critics were also seen as being ambivalent about the portrayal of a black person being an object in society rather than a person.

Themes

Breakage and seperation

Effects of white beauty standards

Media and Culture

Religion

Shame


'Beloved' (1987)

African American slave, Margaret Garner escaped slavery in Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio (free state).
Sethe (the protagonist) a slave who also escapes slavery. After 28 days of freedom, she is found and kills her 2 year old daughter so she is not recaptured and taken back to Sweet Home.

The home in Ohio is haunted by the ghost of Sethe's daughter. Because of the haunting (things thrown around the room) Denver (Sethe's youngest daughter) is shy and friendless.

Paul D - one of the slaves - attempts to make the family forget about the past and forces the spirit out.

'Definitions belonged to the definers not the defined'

'Unless care free, mother love is a killer'

You can't let the past strangle you if you're going to go forward. But nevertheless the past is not going anywhere'

Tresspasserds among the human race. Watch dogs without teeth; steer bulls without horns; gelded workhorses whose neigh and and whining could not be translated in a language responsible humans spoke'

'Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all'

'In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hibernate'.

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is the first African-American to win a Nobel prize

She grew up in the American Midwest in a family that possessed an intense love of and appreciation for black culture.

Storytelling, songs and folktales were a deeply formative part of her childhood.

The central themes of Morrison's novels is the black American experience, her characters struggle to find themselves and cultural identity.

Morrison's family were 'intimate with the supernatural'

Storytelling was a huge part of her family when she was growing up - both the children and parents would share stories with one another.

She uses her childhood memories to help her start writing - her real life world is often included in her novels.

'About the Author'

Initial Research


Toni Morrison:

Novelist, editor, teacher
Won the Pulitzer Prize and American book award in 1988 for Beloved
Awarded Nobel prize
When she was 2, the landlord set fire to the family house because they didn't pay rent. Morrison decided to 'laugh at him', she felt that was the best way to keep your integrity.

The 'Beloved' trilogy

The true story of an enslaved African American woman 'Margaret Garner.' After killing her baby, returns as a ghost to taunt her mother and family.

'Song of Solomon'

'The Bluest Eye'  black girl who longed to have blue eyes -  girl she met at school, didn't believe in God, praying for 2 years to have blue eyes.

Politics:

Morrison believed Bill Clinton was 'our first black president' with the whole sex scandal. She felt like he was treated like a black person: already guilty.

'I want to see a cop shoot an unarmed white teenager in the back' - justice.

Does not identify her work as 'feminist' doesn't want to take positions that are closed - 'expand articulation rather than close it'.



Michael Gladwell:

Journalist, author, speaker
His mother (psychotherapist) huge role model as a writer
Started at 'the New Yorker' - gained popularity with his articles (tipping point) - became basis for his novels.
Process behind his writing: 'interested in collecting interesting stories and interesting research'.

'Tipping point' - how little things can make a big difference

His works deal with research in the areas of psychology, social psychology and sociology.



William Burroughs:

American writer and artist
Beat generation  writer - group of young people who rejected conventional society, valuing free self expression and favouring modern jazz.
Drug abuse
Killed his wife in a prank

Naked lunch - disturbing drug culture journey, slicing up words and phrases to create new sentences.
After drug addiction treatment

Themes:  Drugs, homosexuality and death



Margaret Atwood:

Canadian novelist, poet
Feminism - female characters dominated by patriarchy 
Dystopia 
Speculative fiction not science fiction - could actually happen
Animals - relation with humans
Handmaids Tale complex and disturbing futuristic thriller - All the horrible developments take place in U.S near Boston, while Canada is portrayed as the only hope for escape.
Used to read comic books

Reflection

Toni Morrison is an author who really sticks out for me. There is something really interesting about her writing style and her concepts. Her work is quite dark and deep - I like her point of view and how it is translated through her writing. She is definitely someone who i am extremely intrigued by and want to research more intensely.

Evaluation

This module without a doubt has been my favourite. The projects have really allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and produce outcomes I never thought I was capable of. Each project I have tried to take risks and think outside the box when it comes to generating ideas and concepts.

I learnt so much throughout, like creating gifs, using vectors on illustrator and even creating a lino print. Mono printing was an induction I was particularly drawn to – it allowed me to be really experimental with shapes and layering creating real abstract compositions. What I have really learnt throughout is to move away from the literal response to briefs – I have acknowledged that the most successful pieces of art are the ones in which at first, are a struggle to understand, but at a closer examination things start to become more recognizable.

My gifs were probably my strongest outcome because I invested so much time in creating and perfecting them. I think it was a great idea to try something new with my 3D idea by actually dressing up as my character. I enjoyed creating a completely new perspective. I thought my stickers reflected something deeper than just ‘an act of kindness’ – I felt like my concept was so relevant and actually quite a serious concept which everyone can relate to and be inspired by. With my Maya Angelou project, I really enjoyed the progression of my ideas from start to finish. I like how my initial idea changed so much throughout my ‘journey’ through tutorials, group crits and constant reflection on my work. I completely moved away from the literal sense and started to include some metaphorical ways of working. After my mono print session, I felt so motivated and inspired to create further prints because they turned out so successful. I decided to really experiment with this project, using all the skills I have learnt in the previous modules from illustrator to lino print to collage experiments. The introduction to gif making made me incredibly inspired as I didn’t know how easy it was to create. I may have got a bit carried away with this project in producing gif after gif, but I just felt so energized and had so many ideas.

I used a range of artists to help with my inspiration. I used the internet but also some books from the library and an illustrator book I have at home which I occasionally look through. Analyzing shape driven artists really helped me in terms of composition and selecting colour palette. I have learnt so much about composition and the selection of colours through contextual research.

For future modules I aim to be much more conceptual with my ideas – be more metaphorical in my approaches and less literal. I aim to use more workshops, to widen my visual vocabulary and again try things I wouldn’t normally. Perhaps for future projects I could spend more time in the early stages producing roughs and playing around with more ideas, not just developing one design.

Final poster

I found this analogue experiment extremely fun allowing me to use all media to be really expressive. The combinations of pen and paint with collage and newspaper work so well together and conveys the idea of freedom quite well. It also represents music in a way I never would have imagined before. The cage looks as if it is broken which is exactly my intentions and was a struggle for me to portray in parts of my project. I definitely think analogue is the most effective way of portraying my idea as it creates more of a personal response - my literal response to her poem using my own personal hands and brush strokes to get my feelings across. It also creates a real sense of depth - something which is particularly hard to create on Photoshop. It was initially without the white collaged hands but adding them has allowed the composition to become more refined and brings closer attention to the concept - they seemed to be lost within all the shapes and chaos before. 

Group Crit

My final group crit was very useful in terms of making final changes before i went ahead on choosing my final outcomes. People felt that my simplified cage stamps were perhaps too simple and wasn't as successful as my analogue designs. people suggested that i focussed more on the analogue side of things as my collage experiments were so strong. This made me really think about my final poster as I want it to be the strongest image and if analogue seems to be the strongest maybe i should consider producing an analogue poster? This could be quite interesting with combinations of materials and shapes mashed together coming out of the cage creating an explosion of freedom? I will definitely try this on A2 paper as I think it would look really effective blown up - something I haven't actually tried yet for this project.

More stamp ideas

I feel like my previous stamp designs were just replicas of the previous designs and i don't know if I want every single format to be a cage. These are zoomed in aspects of both my post cards and poster. I think the abstract nature of them work so well and there is still that strong link between them and the other formats. I like how there is aspects of both collage and mono print along with digital techniques. They seem represent feeling and emotion when reading the poem - feelings which I get and probably things which Maya is going through when writing the poem. I like how it moves away from the whole cage concept and there is a real sense of intimacy present.