Promesa By Wilfredo menendez
Meaning: This piece is meant to provide commentary on the PROMESA bill. PROMESA was a bill passed by congress in an effort to deal with the economic crisis in Puerto Rico. This bill essentially takes all authority from the government, on economic affairs, and gives it to the Fiscal Comittee that this bill assembled. Through this piece, I want to show how the Fiscal Comittee is flawed. The comitte is mainly made up of American government officials with little, to no knowledge on the islands issues, or economic strengths. Through this piece I showed how the PROMESA bill adds a strain on the economic "ceiling" that the citizens of the island are bearly able to hold up. The comittee is represented by the man behind the desk with the top hat. He is in a office that compared to the rest of the building, looks brand new, while below him the citizens and government of Puerto Rico are holding on to the ceiling as best as they can.
Process and Reflection: One of the most difficult aspects of this piece doing the details. Eventhough, drypoints are supposed to be filled with detail, the amount of force needed to carve makes it difficult. Mainly because, the amount of pressure needed sometimes makes your hand slip and carve something wrong. But, the most difficults aspect for sure was the printing process. It seemed that I was rubbing the paper too hard on the inked the stencil, because when I would run it through the printer it would not have enough ink. Another problem that I ran into while making this piece was that, as they do in cartooning I wanted to add the word PROMESA into the building depicted in the piece, but since everything is flipped on a drypoint that would have proved to be especially difficult. A change that I might make to this piece is that, I might add color to the piece, probably by using watercolors, simply to enhance the piece aestethically, and also to add more aspects from my inspiration.
Political Cartoons By Matt Wuerker from Politico
Inspiration: Eventhough, cartooning isn't a form of fine art, I decided to use aspects of it and combine it with a form of fine art, in this case drypoint. Political cartoons are seen as a very effective way to provide commentary on political issues. This is why I decided to use this method to influence my art. One political cartoonist that I oftenly see is Matt Wuerker from Politico. He provides non-partisan commentary on major events happening in politics. In his cartoons Wuerker uses the details on the buildings to represent different thing. Cartoonist usually do it by writing words on them, but since I was doing a drypoint, I did it by adding cracks on the walls. Whenever I see Wuerker's works I always understand what he's trying to say, even if I don't know a lot about the topic he's bringing attention to, I wanted to do this as well, because I'm sure most people in the US have no knowledge of the issue.
ACT Questions:
- My inspiration is clearly reflected on my work. The drypoint clearly reflects aspects of comics.
- The artist is very critical of the government as a body, and provides nonpartisan opinions, and this is something I wanted to show through my piece as well.
- During my research I have found that many aspects of the relationship between Puerto Rico and the US are not well comprehended. Many people think that either Puerto Rico has no relationship with the US or that the island is a state.
- The major theme around my research was mainly unknown elements of the relation ship betwen the US and it's commonweaths, I also wanted aspects that are still visible in modern society in the island.
- While researching I found that Wuerker, finds ways to make people understand what he's saying even if they don't have prior knowledge, and that's something I wanted to do.
Research:
Wuerker, M. (n.d.). Unknown [Cartoon]. In Politico. Retrieved December 11, 2016, from politico.com
Wuerker, M. (n.d.). Unknown [Cartoon]. In Politico. Retrieved December 11, 2016, from politico.com