Art & Animals Timeline Project, 2021.
For my Arts & Animals Timeline Project, I created one miniature painting a week on a hand fan during my multiple three-hour lecture classes. The Arts & Animals Timeline Project is a time capsule of my Spring 2021 semester via zoom. The therapeutic and repetitive action of painting served to motivate me during long lectures online. I chose the 'fan' as a material for painting because it best summarized the two History of Art classes I took this Spring: HA 131B: Painting in China and HA 192D: Art & Animals. The fan as a painting surface in China started around the 5th century. Chinese artists used ink to paint on fans, gifting them to scholars, nobles, and royalty on special occasions. Today, I paint on my store-bought fans in watercolor and gouache to memorialize my Junior year. In the Art and Animals seminar, I learned of the different uses of the animal's body in past decorative arts like metal casting, aigrettes, vellum for manuscripts, and carving of ivory. My store-bought fan served as the best medium as modern functional art. Each week I chose to paint an animal that I interacted with that week or studied in class.