Traditional Before Digital

Just the other day I was speaking to one of my colleges about figure drawing and how important it is for every visual artist to experience drawing from the figure. Some how we got onto the topic of college students learning how to figure draw using tablets. TABLETS!!!! That has to be one of the most ridiculous things I ever heard in my life. Yes tablets are very nifty tools that if you haven’t experienced working with one you should, because it really is amazing what you can do with one. But when a person learns how to draw they don’t go straight to the tablet. No, they use a piece of paper and a pencil.

If your starting to figure draw get the traditional materials that the old master used (well not the exact things, but close enough) a 18″ x 24″ newsprint pad and charcoal.  Using a tablet you don’t get the same feel or understanding of form as you would with the traditional materials. A bigger pad forces the student to think about the composition, the size of their figure and really use their whole arm movement. Charcoal is a great material to work with as well because it’s easily erasable with a needed eraser. You can also get different line weights (how dark the mark is) and different line sizes. Plus if you use the charcoal on its side, the beautiful shadow masses that could be created.

The most important reason why you should start traditionally before digitally is that you always have a basis to refer back to. Every year technology changes and computers and programs get more advanced. That means each year a professional digital artist has to upgrade to the latest software. If they don’t then their images over time would look out of date. Even if you are mainly a digital person your mind is still referring back to a time when you used a sheet of paper as your main/only medium. If you can master the basics then it makes the digital world much much easier to use and understand.

Ian J. F Wagner

This is Ian J. F. Wagner, a good friend of mine and he as been attending PAFA (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) for 10 years. Ian started by attending the FREE High School Program during the week days when he was a freshman, then attended the Undergrad program and is now about to graduate with an MFA degree. Ian doesn’t realize it, but his watercolors are amazing. He does other work as well like writing, drawing, and creating books. Though my favorite is his watercolor’s. There are these layers of colors and pigments that will just take your breath away if you look at them in person. Some of these paintings are 3 feet! When I asked him what his trick was he said “Lots of water and a very thick 8 inch watercolor brush that costs $50”.

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Potential is Beautiful

Potential (adj): having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future.

We see potential everyday, especially in children. This is because everyone even the child knows that they are at the beginning of their life and what they do now can lead to something bigger in the future. For example a boy playing with Legos can create the worlds tallest skyscraper, a girl who plays dress up can be the next star actor, and the boy who reads all day can be the one to end world hunger. Each little act a child does has the potential to change the world.

But when do we stop believing that those little acts are just child’s play? It’s when we are told that these dreams are just dreams and that even if we give it are all, there is still a slim chance of those dreams coming true. So we give up on trying. We go through middle school and high school drama. Then the senior year of high school comes and we are told to choose a college that would put us thousands of dollars in debt and the major we choose will determine the rest of our lives. So then your stuck in a boring job that you dread everyday for 40  to 60 years.

Before or if you are still in that horrible job stop and think about what you really love. What did you love as a child? What skill keeps coming back no matter how fare away you try to get away? It’s OK to be selfish, especially if your young like me and have no kids. Because we only have one life to live, so don’t spend a chunk of it feeling sorry for yourself.

Getting back to the point. Potential is always beautiful when you see a brighter future. When you have the passion to do 50 paintings and there would be only 1 that you feel proud of.

The Mind to Paint

Speaking from an artists perspective, it can be hard focusing on painting for 3 hours or more. For me, to paint I have to be in the right mind set. That means I can’t be a sleepless zombi or a six year old on a sugar rush. Some people don’t know this, but art takes a lot of intense brain power. For example, in one stroke you have to think about the brush your using, the color, the thickness of the paint, the pressure you put on the painting, what color your placing this stroke next to, and the texture of the stroke.

Many times during the morning many students walk into the class half a sleep. One of the reasons is that they were up late making bad decisions and getting less then four hours of sleep. The second reason is that they have not had breakfast. You need to have energy to do art.

I remember a few weeks ago during lunch time, my school was having a pie day. I had three slices of pie, cherry, blue berry, and pecan. Plus two cups of coffee. I was caught red handed by my teacher for my bad lunch. My brain was running a million miles an hour and it wouldn’t stop. The painting that I had worked on for two weeks was ruined by the end of the class and I was curled up on the side having a horrible migraine.

If you don’t have enough energy you can’t paint. If you have to much energy its hard to focus. For me to make art my mind needs enough energy to focus but slow enough that it can be patient.

The Rules For My Mind To Be In The Fine Art Zone:

1) Eat breakfast at home. This allows enough time for my food to turn into energy. Just in time for my morning class.
2) Eat healthy. Junk food doesn’t give the body enough energy it needs to last through the day. I make sure to pack my day with lots of proteins, fruits, veggies, and whole grains. But I always make sure to give myself a little treat, like a cookie or bag of chips.
3) Don’t over eat. Food is very good for you and you should NEVER starve yourself. But over eating can make you feel tired and hut you stomach.
4) Sleep 6-8 hours a night (during the week). You need sleep! I try my best to get 8 hours, but I’m a college student and that barley ever happens. My average is 7 hours a night. Over sleeping can make you feel drowsy for the rest of the day. That means on the weekends I don’t ever go past 9 hours.
5) Get into a good routine. Having a routine is helpful. It’s good for time management and it helps tell your mind when to wake up, when to eat, and when to go to sleep. Remember routines take time to figure out, but when you find a good one make sure to stick to it!
6) Do something fun. I am addicted to doing art all day, but some time during the week I know that I have to do something non art related. This could mean hanging out with my friends, exploring the city, running, or going on long bike trips. But its nice to have those moments where my life doesn’t feel totally consumed by art. (Even though it totally is).

Wood Prints for SALE!

The first semester at PAFA (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) went by so fast. It still feels like the beginning. One class that I really enjoyed this semester is Relief (Woodcut). You can think of it as a big wooden stamp. I loved making the prints so much that I have decided to sell a few.

My process with Woodcut is simple. I use the grain of the wood as inspiration and following the pattern. I love to use all my gouges (woodcut tools) to create unique textures. Then I would test the relief with color. I would spend hours figuring out the perfect color combination. And once I have figured that out I would make multiples of the print. If you have anymore questions about my process please comment.

Want to buy please email me at art@emilyfujiemair.com

Remember these prints are handmade, so each print is unique.

Fib (Orange) – Woodcut – 9″ x 11.5″ – $10

Fib (Green) – Woodcut – 11.5″ x 9″ – $10

Gathered Leading

Tonight I watched the sunset at  Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting House. It was my second time experiencing a SkySpace created by James Turrell (My first time was at Moma PS1). A Turrell Skyspace is a specifically proportioned chamber with an aperture in the ceiling open to the sky. Skyspaces can be autonomous structures or integrated into existing architecture. My experience was much different then the first, because I didn’t know much about James Turrell, I was not in art school at the time and I did not look at it for an hour during sunset. Looking up at the SkySpace I was able to really think about the comparison of the sky to the colorful LED lights surrounding it. I noticed that Turrell at certain times changed the LED lights slow at first, fast in the middle, and then slowly at the end. Sometimes I would have my eye travel along the perimeter of the square and then widen my eyes to enhance the colors. Another thing I did  for a couple of minutes is close my eyes for ten seconds and then reopening them and think about how I could mix the color of the sky on on to my palette. The most interesting color of the sky for me was this bright green that I imagined mixing in my head cadmium yellow deep with cerulean blue and just a touch of mars black.

P.S. I highly suggest visiting at a SkySpace if you haven’t. There are dozes of them all over the world all you have to do is look for the closest one near you. Click here.

 

Aiming for Perfection

Everyone knows that there is no such thing about perfection or being perfect. Heck the most beautiful things in life are imperfect. So why do some of us aim for it?

It has been about 5 weeks since I started my time at PAFA (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). The first few weeks were easy, but I find still find myself continue to struggle in this one class, Cast Drawing. PAFA is known for having one of the largest collections of casts in the country. Reason why PAFA students are taught to be masters at drawing from the cast.

My first cast drawing I thought I had this thing down, turns out my teacher tells me that my drawing of Venus is to thin and that the face needed more life. My opinion at the time was, “It’s one millimeter off, (trust me I measured it with a ruler) and I’m drawing from a statue why does it need to have life?” Thankfully she told me I could just use tracing paper to fix everything instead of redoing it.I have learned my lesson on using tracing paper with cast drawing. Just because your tracing over another drawing doesn’t mean you should stop looking at the cast. So my tracing of my cast drawing turned out worse then my original. My teacher said that I could just erase certain parts to make it easier, because everything was 1/2 millimeter off and somethings needed to be moved a little to the left or a little to the right or a little bit higher or just a tad bit lower. I was so mad that I just decided to do the whole thing over again. And you know what my second time was way better than my first.

During long hard process, I learned how to analyze something and how it takes time to get something right. Perfection isn’t just there to intimidate us, but for us to reach for something. If your always think that everything you do will never be perfect. Then the highest chance of perfection you could ever get is 99.99%. What about that .001%? Wheres that? It’s that little percentage of you giving up and being lazy. It’s you saying “It’s good enough”. You will not survive for very long in this world if you keep saying “It’s good enough”. Aiming for perfection is hard, but you would always learn more by trying to make it.

Learning to Read

Think back to when you were a little kid learning to read. The first thing that you needed to know was the alphabet, then the way each letter sounded, and then how you put those letters together to make words. Words become sentences, sentences become paragraphs, paragraphs become essays, essays become books and books become a library. If you only know how to read a book then books would be your only way of seeing the world. But what about paintings, or poetry, even architecture? How do you read those?

To read a painting, you should try to paint. You don’t start a painting by painting. No, you start a painting by drawing with the paint, mapping an image on to the canvas. The first 10 minutes of a painting are the most crucial, just as important as learning the alphabet. The more advanced you are as a painter the easier it is to read other paintings. Think about looking at the composition, the lighting, color, contrast, and texture. If you can understand all that then you can understand why an artist chose to paint like that. You can now see the world from a painters perspective.

To read a poem, write a poem. To read architecture than I highly suggest watching as many episodes as you can on HG TV or ask an architect.

One of my teachers in middle school said “When your a little kid you learn to read, but as you get older you read to learn.”

“If Life Was Simple, Then We Can Never Be Amazing”

Simple things are done by simple people, who don’t want to struggle through life. A person must learn to accept the struggle and appreciate the challenge. Than one day, they could look upon their achievements and feel on top of the world.

The Queen of Collages

Le Noble Savage – Ink & Collage – 7’6″ x 5’6″, Noble Salvage – A person who has not been corrupted by civilization.

To day I was talking about collages with my co-worker, Victoria. She said that she loved collages and how she loves making hem with her sister. I on the other hand don’t see how people can like collages. I have always saw collages as a 5 year old craft or just taking out colors from magazines and using then to fill in a picture not using the subject from the magazines at all. That in my opinion is known as a stereotypical collage.

I will bow down to the person who can create a collage that can set my mind in aww. And the person I bow down to is Wangechi Mutu. I  call her, Kara Walker: the collage version. The first Time I ever saw her work was it the fall of 2013 taking a tour at the Brooklyn museum ( I apologize for not writing about her sooner). The collages were huge, the one above is around 7.5 feet. First you notice the size, than the people, the fuzzy background, next the magazines, the thin paint lines and final the story.Just the size could scare anyone away. Wangechi Mutu has created giant monsters who’s beauty takes time and thought to see.

Sadly I can not just describe her work to do it justice with such a vague memorie. So if you want to learn more just click here.

 

 

My College Process

This year I just went through the college process. I have never felt so stressed, sad, or pressured in my life. Now the college process is different for everyone, but this is my story.

My mom and I always knew that since I was in fifth grade my career was going to be in art. This is why my very first college tour was my freshman year in High School at Ringling College of Art + Design in Florida. The college was amazing, the studios were beautiful, the rooms were very pretty, the cafeteria looked like it served good food and the school was just a few minutes away from the beach. The perfect college in my eyes back then to a  girl who just turned fifteen. But then I heard about the tuition and I was calculating in my head room, board, books, art supplies, transportation etc. It occurred to me that if I wanted to go to a college like Ringling then I would have to work extra hard in school.

Before senior year my mom and I continued to do college tours all over the country, planning very carefully what would be the cheapest and most convenient time of the year. In four years I was able to take tours at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Rhode Island School of Design, Alfred University, Savannah College of Art + Design, Maryland Institute College of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, SUNY Purchase, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Columbia College Chicago, Massachusetts College of Art + Design, Hampshire College etc. Before College I was also able to do the Pre-College program at Academy Art University before Junior year and the Pre-College program at Rhode Island School of Design. These experiences really helped with my final decision.

During the college process I was getting help prom Options For College, a college counseling service that specializes in helping student get into and get the most out of college. I could not have gotten into 13 out of 13 colleges without their help, plus the scholarship money I received from many of my schools.

The toughest part of the college process for me was choosing which college I should go to, where would I be most successful? In the end I choose Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). I knew going into college that I wanted to be a painting major. I tried web design, graphic design, photography, printmaking, film, sound, set construction, fashion, illustration etc. But  I always came back to painting. PAFA was not big and fancy with their technology, but kept to their fine art roots. The school is very small and with the Undergrad and Graduate students combined there is only a student population of 300. Because of this I knew that the teachers would give me that one on one attention I crave. PAFA is also very close to my family, its in a city so I won’t get bored, there are other colleges in the neighborhood, food is amazing in Philly, everyone there is very nice, housing seems cool and very independent, I can take classes at University of Pennsylvania and I heard that PAFA really helps students with a plan to pay off their loans.

Quick Tips
– Start the college process EARLY even if you feel it might scare your kid, because it will give them a goal to focus on and start thinking about the future.
– Take your tours now, it will help you get the vibe of each campus. Plus the tour process should not be rushed, it would just put more pressure on your kid.
– Make sure your child doesn’t screw up freshman year high school because that can bring their average down by about 10 points.
– Do pre-college programs almost all colleges have them, you get to really know the school, know what college might feel like (independence), and its an amazing experience. (Many pre-college programs do offer scholarship and/or financial aid)
– Options for College is an amazing service and their services are international. Plus they would be doing a talk at the Yale Club September 10th for FREE. (Just saying the food is amazing). For more
information click here

 

James Turrell

Over the past few months I have been working on an art history paper for the Metropolitans Dedalus Art Histroy Reaserch Paper; Its a scholarship competition for New York City public High School seniors where the five winners get $2,000 each. I didn’t win, but I’m still very proud of my presentation using Zeega. Hope you enjoy.

James Turrell Zeega

What is Your Life Purpose?

Who are you?
What do you do?
Who do you do it for?
What those people wanted or needed?
What they got out of it?

Who are you?
I am Emily Fujie Mair

What do you do?
I am an artist.

Who do you do it for?
I do it for anyone who is willing to learn more about what if really means to be an artist.

What those people wanted or needed?
I teach people to see differently, how to take a rock and make it a gem. To not just master something, but to learn it’s secrets.

What they got out of it?
To learn what makes me happy and apply it to themselves.

Dream Big

Dream Big by Emily Fujie Mair is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

A copy of “Dream Big” was given to Sarah Jessica Parker at the ArtsConnection Gala April 26th

The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-By Robert Frost

“I wish, I wish, with all my heart, that is me and this is just the start”.

Doug Wheeler

Something that everyone must do really soon, is see the Doug Wheeler exhibit at the David Zwirner Gallery is Chelsea. It is a once in a lifetime exhibition that would change anyone’s perception on art. I felt as if I was in another universe where spaces is endless and time stops. Its an experience that everyone should live, so go see it. Please comment if you have seen it though I would love to know your interpretation of it.

For a better explenation of Doug Wheeler and one of his earlier works click the this link – http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/arts/design/doug-wheeler-builds-infinity-environment-at-david-zwirner.html?_r=0

The David Zwirner Gallery, one of my favorite galleries in New York City – http://www.davidzwirner.com/

NYC Public High School Cover Design Competition

This is my design for the Directory of NYC Public High Schools Cover Competition. Although I am not a finalist, I am extremely proud of my hard work and my design, and I hope to share it with as many people as possible. My idea was that NYC has many special public high schools and that students have the unique opportunity to choose the high school that is right for them. There is every single NYC Public HS on this Design. Each borough is color coded; Brooklyn – Red, Manhattan – Green, Bronx – Purple, Queens – Orange, Staten Island – Blue. I would really appreciate you sharing or liking this so that my desire to have the public see my work can happen. Thank you!

How to look find a school:
1. Find the school name on either the Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Manhattan or Staten Island picture of the HS list.
2. Find the hand written # near the name.
3. Use that # to find which part of the grid the HS is in.

Also please like on Facebook!!!!!! Please!!!!!

https://www.facebook.com/emily.f.mair/media_set?set=a.10203289393418387&type=1

Try Hard

No one can stop you

No one can push you

If you want it, go get it

If you didn’t get it, you didn’t want it bad enough

Stop complaining about life

Because the time that you’ve stop

I have already reached the top

ZEEGA

Last fall I was in this program called TRaC ( teen reviewing and critics) for high school students. I this program teen have the chance to go all over the city and see are shows like film, dance, photography, theater and more for free. I was in the new TRaC, the Media TRaC, where the idea was to understand how the public sees art and how they know about it. One thing that my teacher was really into was this thing called Zeega. Now at first I didn’t know what a Zeega was and still don’t know exactly how to explain it. So here I go, a Zeega is a series of over laying gifts with music and text that try to portray a message. Click here for the Zeega I created with my TRaC team. The second one and then the Mandel Zeega that is just so so good!!! (It’s my favorite)

Just Experience

Just the other day I was hanging out with a few of my really close friends on the High Line one night. Now I have been to the High Line but never at night. The sky was so pretty, and the air was so warm for a winters night. As the wind blew, my shirt pushed back against the front of my body and lifted the back of my shirt so all I could feel was the rush of air. I would put my arms out and lift my head to the sky. Thinking about what would happen if the wind lifted me up off the ground and into the sky. My friends looked at me like I was crazy, but I didn’t care, I was in my dream world. Who cares what other think? They would never be able to experience what I felt that night.

Tim McHenry

This week I met Tim McHenry the programmer of the Rubin museum. In my opinion he is one of the best programmers of today. He created sleep overs at the Rubin, interesting talks between two diffident people, acrobats on a spiral stair case with no net, ice Buddha, telephone on the high line, and many more events. Tim is one of the most exciting people to talk to. He is the kind of person who is not afraid to hide his emotions or thoughts. If he thinks that something is boring or uninteresting then he would share his opinion. He is so unique and his ideas are so bizarre He says don’t do the same thing other people do because that is boring and totally imaginable. Create something that no one has ever thought of because that is interesting.

To crest an amazing program to go to you have to think about why would you care? Why would you care to go to that program? How is it not like something I already been to? What makes it diffident from others? This is what you have to think about when you want the public to come. If you do the same thing as very one ells who would show up? If you want interesting and exciting people to come then this event has to be e extraordinary it has to be a 180 from every one ells.

Now this is harder then you would ever think possible in these modern days. Every thing is practically handed to us and we have no clue how things are created just that they are created for a purpose. I believe if people learn how something is constructed then they would learn how to be unique. Being unique doesn’t come from the sky but from what is normal. You take the normal and twist it into all shapes and forms until you have something you could say is unique.

Time MchHenry – “to create something unique you have to take to opposites and rub them together, it just depends on how you rub them.”

sorry but I can not find anymore picture 😦

Splendid Playground

Till May 8th at the Guggenheim Museum there is this amazing exhibition up called Gutai- Splendid Playground. The word Gutai means concreteness the total opposition to what the work in the exhibition really is. The works are made from Japanese artists around 1954–72, during this time many Japanese artist began to question art and what art really is.  You just really have to see it for yourself because this is an exhibition I just can not explain in my own words.

I have been so inspired about this exhibition that I am right now experimenting any way I can with paint, performance, sound, video, anything.

To find out more click here -http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/gutai-splendid-playground

Meghan Boody

Hey have you guys ever hear of Meghan Boody, I bet that 95% of you haven’t. Well she is a very famous artist who does most of her work on photo shop. So she travels the world taking pictures and then using little bits and pieces from each photo to create an amazing stories. The thing that is really cool is that I got to go into her house. Well its not technically a house more like a really big loft, but whatever I got to go in it and meet her IN PERSON. Meghan Boody is so nice and interesting to be around. It’s like being around the Dalai Lama because she is so wise and looks at life in such a different way that it’s hard for me to explain. She gets most of her inspiration from reading old classic books like Jane Eyre, you know the ones that your teachers tell you to read but you really don’t. Meghan is the kind of artist that I would look up to because  she is so passionate about what she does it’s really marveling to be around someone like that. But hey check it out for yourselves.

This is what her house really looks like but the photo is not taken by me because I don’t feel like putting someone’s home on the internet with out permission.

If you want to know more about Meghan Boody click here- http://www.lookingglasslabs.com/

The Best Christmas Present EVER (sorry mom)

So just last Thursday I had my last day working at the Rubin Museum until the next year, and because the holidays are coming up the Rubin was very generous and bought the teens who work for the museum tickets to see the Ann Hamilton exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory. This is so far the number one best gift I have personally every received. If someone really want to get me the best present ever then they would have a hard time beating this.

Ann Hamilton created this amazing piece of art that you could actually play with. There are these big huge gigantic swings that could fit two or three people and when you are swing you are moving this big white curtain in the middle of the room. Then on one side of the room there is a guy writing about the curtain and on the other side there are two actors reading about the curtain. Plus you could lay under the curtain and watch it move. Hamilton created the most childish dream I have ever had. I just felt like all the stress that I had during the week just floated right out of me. I can’t think of the last time I was truly at peace with myself. I had no clue what Hamilton’s message was but I didn’t really care because I was totally marveled over everything.

Though I did figure out what her message was until I read about it, but I just don’t want to tell you guys because I feel you first have to experience it before you know anything at all.

Just warning, that this is only going on until January 5th 2013, so make shore you get there.

For more information on anything here please click this -http://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/ann_hamilton

Is Bad Art Good Art?

Have you ever thought that theses days in the modern world nothing is interesting, unless it is totally out of the blue? For example when was the last time someone was known for painting a person that is smiling or creating a utopia? Is it just me, but don’t you think that you would look longer at a painting of hell then of heaven? For me that is absolutely without a doubt true. (Right now I’m just going to be speaking about paintings of heaven and hell, so please do not get offended by my language. I do not want to offend anyone who is religious.) For me heaven is boring there is nothing crazy about wanting to be in heaven. I’m just saying who wants to live in a world where everything is perfect nothing ever changes and when nothing changes you don’t see whats good any more. We all know what a heaven would look like, but how long will you stare at a painting of it? I personally would rather look at a picture of hell. I want to see crazy and creepy things happening in a painting. If I see that then my eyes are glued to it. Just seeing all the blood and bad things happening, people eating other people, people being  hung over a fire, people being chased by mythical creators. It’s just so bizarre, it’s interesting. NO?

Sandy Made Her Foot Print

I know that we all heard if on the news, Sandy has destroyed almost the whole east coast. Weather to me is not just destruction, but the art of mother nature  she is the women that decides how things turn out. This storm to me was a test. A test to see how the east coast would react to all this destruction. There have been floods, houses torn apart, trees fallen down, thousands of people without food water, heat, and/or shelter.The entering that I Know firs her is that New York was definitely up to the challenge. I see people volunteering everywhere most places I know that many programs helping with the aftermath of sandy, don’t need anymore volunteers because they have to many and I am very proved to be in a community that cares so much, I know for a fact that two shelters in Brooklyn don’t need any more donations just food and water thoughts. This for me has been a horrible week. But not to horrible mostly horrible for the city this week instead of staying at my house all day I went out and helped at local shelters and organizations that need my help. It wasn’t that hard I just had to get out of my bed and go to the organization. Even though my government is doing this, it’s going to take all of New York to get it back on its feet. So get up, get active and find some place to help. Its not that hard to find a place that needs your help, just look on the internet.

These are some pictures of what my neighborhood looks like.

Saw To Dust

This is one of my favorite pieces I have done so fare in school. So theses days I’m a junior, that means I have two art classes. One of them is painting and the other one is mixed media. But today I’m going to talk about my mixed media project. Three weeks ago my mixed media teacher gave us an assignment where we had to create a sculpture using one thing and one thing only. Now I thought about this project very carefully because I only had three weeks. It needed to be something easy to get, something no one ells would, and won’t cost me a cent. So then I thought of dust because my house is really dusty and I could probably collect it easily, but I wouldn’t be able to make my project as big as I would want itto be. That’s when I thought of saw dust, I could just get it from the technical theater department at my school. Let me give you guys some advise, collecting saw dust is not as easy as it sounds, it’s basically a lot of back breaking work. But it was all worth it.

Saw To Dust by Emily Fujie Mair is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

P.S. If you guys really like this piece and want to see it in person my school is holding and exhibition Tuesday, October 30th 6:30 – 8:30. 1600 avenue L, Brooklyn NY 11230

“The Battle Is With Yourself”

“The Battle Is With Yourself”, what do you think this means?

Today my teacher Mr. Rosado was giving my class our daily inspirational speech about art. The thing that struck me about this particular speech was that he said “The Battle Is With Yourself”. To me this meant a lot. Some people think that artists have the easy life and its easy to be an artist. My mom sometimes says that I “Jolly” off to Spring Street. Yes I do admit I love to go to Spring Street to do my daily figure drawing lessons, but she says it like drawing is the easiest thing in the world. And I hate it when she says that because she doesn’t know the emotional stress drawing is, especially when your trying to push yourself. Now I told her this, I hope she understands me alittle bit better.

Art isn’t just lines on a paper, it’s about how you put those lines together. Drawing doesn’t just come naturally to people not even Pablo Picasso. Picasso started drawing at a very young age with his father, who was an art teacher. Pablo had to work really hard to get to where he became.

Art takes time and practice but if you want to be the best you have to work the hardest. That’s my motto and I will stick to it until I’m dead. The battle isn’t just with the pencil or paint, but with yourself. You have to want to push yourself and not just draw or paint one way. Open your eyes and think about the new possibility you can accomplish, because I can tell you this, not one famous person is famous because they stay the same way all the time. I know that I have to be very divers and think about how I can make my work even better. I might not be like Rembrandt or Picasso but I will have my own flare.

The battle is with yourself, to be better than you already are.

Blond Lady

This is one of my pieces that I painted and it won a silver key in Scholastic’s annual art and writing competition.

NYC Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

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A sweet view in San Fran

This summer I am in San Francisco studying art and expanding my mind in art. Everything here is so beautiful it’s going to be hard for me to leave this place after the summer. Now I just want to share with you one of the most beautiful views I have seen here. It was during the first morning I decided to run with my friends Maddie and Marina a lone the San Francisco’s marina. It was such a georgous day I couldn’t believe my eyes. I wish that every day could be just as beautiful as it was then. The sun was up the birds where singing, everyone who is an early riser was out, and you could see the San Francisco waves move swiftly up and down the shore. This was the day that I realized that I’m not in New York right now and that everyday is going to be a new adventure. Sweet Jesus Lord do I love San Francisco.

“I feel like this view is mother nature and humans working together to create a piece of art like this.”

Golden Gate Bridge by Emily Fujie Mair is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.