see more pwn and owned pictures

updates!

I have been recruited to help Alpha Phi International with their blogger code! Cool! I pretty much love everything to do with website creating now and am so thankful I jumped into this avenue of creative expression. It is a bit of a relief to get away from analog art for a while. Yay!
I have some tweaking to do on willardesign.com, but it has come a long way so far. I am excited to keep it going, and continue updating it. I am also excited to start working on new sites as well.

DONE!

After hours and hours, my website is up and done (for now)! I am so excited to have a website! I love the look of it and it is exactly what I need to show my work. I hope to make better galleries one day, but for now what Im using serves its purpose. I really love dreamweaver and working with website building as I have gotten more comfortable doing so. I have another domain name that I plan to make a site for soon. I have also been asked to help work on one for a friend's company. Fullyunleashed.com - a running company and website. I'm excited and so glad to have a polished product out of all the work involved.

Interesting Gallery Options from FlashDen

http://flashden.net/item/image-gallery-v1/23752

http://flashden.net/item/image-gallery-v2/12063?page=1

http://flashden.net/item/easy-image-gallery-xml-b1/10711

http://flashden.net/item/easy-image-gallery-vertical/11495

http://www.flashden.net/item/xml-gallery-2/3780

http://flashden.net/item/xml-item-gallery/23256

http://flashden.net/item/rv-dynamic-slideshow-2-menu-item-with-blending-transition/29432

http://flashden.net/item/quick-vertical-resizable-gallery/27155


A couple other cool things I may use in my personal site eventually:
http://www.flashden.net/item/meet-the-team/4558

http://flashden.net/item/drop-menu/148

Website Progress

So, I'm having some issues getting my website to look how I want across all browser options and different computers etc. A very common problem, however it is SO frustrating. Right now I am going to set that aside and focus on finding a good way to establish my photos on my gallery page. I want a horizontal scrolling bar of thumbnails and a large area above it for the image to enlarge in. I am also open to vertical, although I would have to change my website layout for that to work. Overall, I have a lot to work on in the next week.

I'm on a roll...

Here are a few text options I am playing with for my main logo....I want to animate the "d"....I'm thinking color swirls moving around it. I'm trying out flash for that right now, but am finding the tutorials a little hard to follow so it's mostly trial and error thus far. More updates to follow as soon as I can create what I have in my head. agh!

Step 1

I have a domain name!

willardesign.com coming soon!

I narowed it down from quite a list:

willardesign.com

linwillgraphics.com

ldwgraphics.com

Ldesigngraphics.com

willardgraphicdesign.com

thebigWgraphics.com

thebigWdesign.com

bigWgraphics.com

willardL.com

bigWconcepts.com

thebigWconcepts.com

The more domain names I came up with the more I wanted to buy, so if all goes well, I may purchase a few more for future websites.

WOO!

Artist's Statement (in progress)

I love to create and inspire. Through my art, I tend to explore concepts of afterlife, death, and rebirth. Such concepts have always tugged at my attention and can be endlessly explored. I feel as though there is so much out there that the human mind cannot even attempt to comprehend and my art reflects many of those desires to understand what is beyond my reach.

I work mostly with traditional photography methods and digital graphic design. I almost always have a camera with me and have gotten into the habit of photographing things that interest me anytime they appear, whether it is on a crappy cell phone camera or on my professional equipment, that process adds significantly to my process of creating concepts for pieces. I love photographing people in their element. From the comfort of being in a common surrounding, people tend to show so much more depth.

I have been traveling a lot lately, and much of my recent work has been compiled from many different areas. I have been focusing on how earthly beauty and destruction reflects human survival and existence after life. For instance, I am exploring the question, “what would continue to prevail if the human race perished completely?” My current work has developed out of my previous explorations of transcendence.

Matt Sawyer's Memorial Podcast

This Guy Is Funny!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/i-got-2-words-for-ya

Twitter

I got pestered into signing up for a Twitter account. It seems to be a fast-rising networking site, and although I wasn't too into the idea of another website to rule my life, I actually am enjoying it. I can follow people like Lance Armstrong and Britney Spears and read real posts from them. It seems like some people post multiple times a day and others not as much, but it is definitely an interesting dynamic. Like facebook, you are updated on people's lives, yet on twitter you can connect with people that you never would have known in real life (celebs etc) while on facebook you must have some sort of connection to know to friend them. I'm getting into it, and now have another pointless technology to report to.

This is where my mind is this week...

I haven't been keeping up with my blogging...it is a struggle for me to change from writing on an actual piece of paper to publishing thoughts on the internet. Without prompts I am lost, so I guess I will just blog about what I'm thinking about in general for this one...

I am awaiting my trip to Maui next week and my mind is clogged with those thoughts. I have never needed a vacation more than now.


RIP Matthew Sawyer...you were a great friend. Maybe I'll blog about you when I can put in the time you deserve.

ASCII Metaphor Art Image....

Made by Lindsay Willard. 2009.

Response to, "Identity Management in Cyberspace"

This article made me think about my recent experience for this class using the site Second Life. Even the first sentence of the article, "Who are you in cyberspace?" made me stop reading and consider just that. With Second Life you are started with a generic avatar, you can choose from a few options, but they are all pretty basic. I chose one that I though looked most like myself. After entering the game, I was able to chat with a girl in the space that gave me "freebie" clothing, body types, hair, and facial features. I ended up completely changing my avatar's appearance not even ten minutes into playing, which I see as a parallel to my offline personality, a relentless shopper. The article touched on how, "Some people even talk about how we can 'deconstruct' ourseves online," referring to the choice we have not to show all aspects of ourselves through our avatars. As a typical girl does, I have my insecurities, and it's no mistake that my avatar would most likely run circles around me at the gym if it magically sprung out of the computer. It seems to me that places like Second Life allow for anyone to be represented any way they want. I saw not a single person represent themself with an anti-social, lazy, unnatractive avatar while I tested out virtual reality. As said in the article, "People also strive to attain new, idealized ways of being." Though everyone I interacted with seemed to be exercising their socially deemed, "good qualities," online, I have no doubt that there are people out there who use cyberspace as an outlet for their darker characteristics, as mentioned in the article, and act out negatively towards other users. I did not use Second Life enough to establish a solid cyberspace identity that I can recognize, but it seemed as though everyone I came across was completely emersed in their character role. Without knowing who is behind the computer on their end, it is hard to know how true to their real identity they become in cyberspace. Interacting through a computer middle-man created an anonimity that I found comforting. I didn't have to feel exposed in any way, or obligated to interact with anyone I didn't want to. In real life, there are consequences for blowing people off or not acting within society's accepted boundaries, but cyberspace holds no one accountable.
A part of the article I found interesting was when it talked about the level of conscious awareness and control. It noted that our personalities in cyberspace aren't a complete conscious choice. I find it facinating that interacting in cyberspace, without normal societal pressures, without restrictions on who or what you can be, can tell you so much about your identity. It is incredible how cyberspace interaction can bring out facets of peoples' personalities that they may never have been able to explore under normal life conditions.After this article I really wish I could know more about how my personality manifests itself in cyberspace.

Response to, "Finished Work is a Thing of the Past"

Article by Tom Shermann, 1995

In this article, Shermann relates artists as "knowledge-workers" (those who produce information, turn data into information, while "distinguishing key aspects of disorder through the discovery and/or imposition of form." He touches on how a at the end of the past century, material wealth is seen as more valuable than wealth of information. He notes that in order for art to be economically successful, art must be regarded as valuable information. This article provoked my thoughts of how art is a learned creative process and a skill set. Many mediums have been handed down through the ages and have evolved into what they are today and will continue to change with the times. Thinking about the way photography, for example, has changed as an art form from the most basic Camera Obscura to such capabilities as the new digital SLR Nikon D90 model. The need for traditional silver based chemical processing is almost completely obsolete (aside from those of us who take an artistic interest in the medium) which can be applied to Shermann's implication that if an artform process is no longer regarded as valuable information as the years progress, it will be completely lost in time.
Also, Shermann writes of what classifies a piece as "finished." He claims that a living artist's work will always remain unfinished as a work-in-progress. He notes that only death can cross a piece over into classification of complete. He also writes that, "Contemporary works of art are valued most if they appear to be up-to-date." I agree that the most innovative concepts and works are revered as most valued in the contemporary art realm, people are most interested in the new and different. Though, I also think Shermann discounts the value of the Contemporary art that is not focused completely on being new and of the moment. It is important to address that while a valued piece of Contemporary art may be thought of as new and fresh, the age-old processes used to create the work is the root of the piece. Very few, if any, art out there can be 100% fresh and untied to a long past in the processes that lead to its creation. For example, the poshist photograph on digital camera technology should not be considered unnattached to the historic rooted evolution it took to get photography where it is today. I personally see all Contemporary art as not only having value for its cutting-edge impact, but as having value for its extension from obsolete practices as well.

Apparently I'm A Night Owl....

~~I want to be an artist because my creative side dominates all other aspects of my life and personality, and it is something I enjoy embracing instead of trying to fight. For the longest time I was so focused on my assumption that I had to study something in college that would give me immediate earning power and status in the world, but never had I been more wrong. I truly believe that you will only succeed and excel at something that you have the capability to be interested and invested fully into, and thus, I am not going to become an engineer, a lawyer, or anything of the sort. I have always assessed the world more artistically and creatively than the more left-brained people in my life and can't wait to continue to pursue my calling. I find my work to be a tremendous outlet for my curiosities, fears, desires, and general lines of thought and I don't know what I would do without it. My most recent through expressions have been on the darker side, exploring modes of death and afterlife.

***One of my favorite artists is Duane Michaels, I am absolutely in love with this series:









"Things Are Queer" by Duane Michaels
He has influenced my work in so many ways and has inspired my own creation of a few progressive series.

---Personal Biography:
Lindsay Willard is currently a student at the University of Colorado, and is completing a BA in Fine Arts with concentrations in Photography and Digital Art, and a certificate in Advertising. She constantly pursues new art media and the evolving technology supporting its production. While she explores the vast opportunities that lie ahead, Willard has been building her own identity as an artist through compilation of her portfolio. With graduation approaching in 2010, Willard hopes to get a taste of life outside of her native city of Boulder through an art internship or work situation. Willard's largest desire is to continue to gather life experiences to put towards and inspire her art career. With a unique view of the world today, Lindsay Willard is headed for the top on her pathway.

Identity Brainstorm:

5 Nouns describing me: American Dream, family, relationship, exercise, work.

5 Adjectives describing me: caring, descriptive, literal, emotional, hopeful.

5 Metaphors:

I am a rock because sometimes I only get moving when pushed.

I am a tree because I'm strong inside and out.

I am a dictionary because I am honest and to the point.

I am a diamond because I'm beautiful and hard to crush.

I am sunshine because I can thaw any heart.

Lynn Hershman Leeson

To check her out:

www.lynnhershman.com/


She's awesome and so diverse in the media she has explored.

Second Life Avatar

Habbo Avatar

Presence in Cyberspace Article:

The article notes that it takes a certain degree of familiarity with surroundings to identify one's self in an environment. It talks about how Cyberspace lacks both smell and touch but a feeling of environment is created by the visual sensation of the computer screen window and what color and design is within the space. Growing up with computers from a pretty young age, I feel like I have never put thought into the mechanics of the environment created by Cyberspace. The article made me think of certain sites such as Facebook, when it talked about familiarity and interactivity. I tend to check Facebook first when logging onto the Internet, maybe because I am familiar with it and crave the degree of interactivity it provides with people I am familiar with outside of Facebook as well. I found it interesting, because it provoked me to think about why I check the sites that I do so often compared to those I check less often and why I personally crave those Cyberspace environments.