Hi. In this video I'm going to show you
how to get started on your research for
the artist
that you've chosen. For my example
I've chosen Louise Bourgeois.
and i picked her because i like her art
There's even
one of her pieces on the research
guide I'll show you. So I picked her name because I know a
little bit about her.
Maybe you pick someone you don't know
anything about.  How do you quickly
learn a lot about your artist, such as
when she was alive, what she's known for,
so that you can start to do
other research on her.  You have
to start with a basic understanding of
who this artist is.
The first source I'm going to
recommend that you use
is your textbook for your class. This is
what we call background research.
The topics for your class, or the
artists, were chosen
because you're going to study them in
class or they're important to what
you're studying in class.
The first thing you should do is use
your textbook. I don't have a copy of
your textbook at my house but I do have
a copy of this big mama
art history textbook. What I'm
going to do is look in the index in the
back of the book
to see if there's anything in this book
on my artist.
Now women artists are typically under
researched.
Louise Bourgeois is pretty
contemporary like she's been alive
while I've been alive.
The the more recent the artist is the
less
likely they are to have a lot of
research on them, but let's see what we
can find.
When I look in the index I
see that there is she is. In here
she's just got one page but she's in
here so if I turn to that page
I can get a little information about her
and her work and what she's known
for and also how she fits into the rest
of art history.
But I need more information than like a
blurb and a picture.
Let me show you some other resources
we have to conduct this background
research.  I'm on the research guide
and we created for your class and
if I scroll down I see some sources that
are recommended for background research.
Where I'm going to start is Grove Art
Online.
When you try to access a library
research
tool from your house -- a database -- you
usually get stopped and you'll be asked
for your credentials and you just put in
the username and password
you use for Canvas. Grove Art Online
is an online
encyclopedia for art and artists. I'm
just going to type her name in
and it's really important I spell it
correctly or I'll get no results.
Oh! I must have misspelled her name.
Yes.
All right. And Iget a biographical
article about her
which is just what I need.  It's
going to give me
an overview of who she is. It tells me
when she was alive and I'd write this
down so that I have it later. She just
died in 2010,  10 years ago.
It gives some pictures of her work and
this is still really short but at least
it gives me a little more to deal with.
Now that I know who she is,
where she worked, what kind of work she
did, and when she was alive
I still need more research. To do
that where I'm going to go next are
books.
If you click on the next tab
on your research guide you're going to
see a video about how to find
e-books in the Cerritos College Library
Catalog and also
in a research  resource
called the Internet Archive.
