Print Final

I gained some revealing insight into how people perceive my silly art in my printmaking class final crit.
     My classmates told me my work is understated, approachable, always contains unexpected details.
     I'm not really the sort of person to want the limelight, I like being invisible, a background character. My favorite place to be is behind the scenes. I ask myself all the time why I chose to study art. My work isn't flashy, and sometimes contains a dry sense of humor. I'm terrified of becoming self-obsessed and absorbed. This, I feel is a deep problem in the upper-levels of the art world, and to some small extent, in the college art world. I imagine this translates to my work being understated, humble (maybe, although even writing that world makes me feel self-obsessed), honest and sincere.
     One of my classmates said my art equally reaches children and adults, without talking down to one or patronizing the other. My work for that particular class focused on the problem of plastic grocery bags, but everyone felt that I was being informative and encouraged without guilt tripping.
     In one of my designs, I included a little plastic bag hooked onto a edge, as if it had blown by and gotten caught like you will occasionally see in trees. Many of my classmates didn't notice this detail until our final critique. In my perspective, this also translates to the dumb little mistakes I always make in my work and which I've become resigned to. Missing a couple pieces in a background pattern here, forgetting to color that little bit there. It's infuriating and I know for a fact that I have missed on opportunities because of this personal defect, but I try to compare it to the tradition of making intentional mistakes in weaving.
     This critique was one of the most insightful I've had in a very long time, and I felt bad I didn't participate more when we were talking about all of my classmates work. It was definitely nice to know my artwork seems to represent what I want it to.

Making time for motivation as it comes

There are so very many different things I want to learn, but I do not make time for or I grow tired of (If only in learning style, not necessarily of subject.)
I want to learn how to make truly great art, specifically, truly great relief and intaglio prints. Before settling on an image for my current relief patch exchange, I realized that what I needed to do was come up with a visual thesis: a succinct, direct communication of an idea or concept in image form. I am not as good at doing this, creating good art and good visual theses as I would like to be. Both because I generally struggle with this, but also because I struggle to create a curriculum for myself outside of college and my studies to guide my improvement. For this, I am glad to be continuing my education this fall at Utah State University.
My Spanish studies have lost some interest for me, or rather, the medium I have been using, Duolingo, no longer interests me. I still enjoy speaking and learning spanish, and using it to communicate with friends, but I've found myself in a rut as far as improving it.
Writing has been my great true love ever since I learned how to read, even before then, so it is surprising that I decided to major in art. I do not regret that decision one bit, but it is harder to work on my writing whilst studying art, I do not have as much time or motivation for it as I should have.
I feel that my life revolves in a spiral of trying hard, giving up, regaining motivation and trying again. This motivation often comes from my parents because I trust their insight and they are two of the people in this world who know me the best. They encourage me to strive for my best in all of my work; in my art, my language learning, and in my writing. They are the reason I am taking writing up once again and working once again on this silly little orange blog.
We'll see how long this leap-frog game of motivation will last, at least I will be that much closer to my ultimate goal of improvement. 

Love Song to Inertia

The main focus of  “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” is the tension of inertia. Throughout the poem, Prufrock poises upon the edge of taking action or formulating an opinion, but time and time again, he backs down and drifts away on his underwhelming train of thought. This inaction is supported by TS Eliot’s use of repetition, imagery, and a nontraditional rhyming pattern. 

            Repetition in the poem helps to tie the stream of consciousness style of writing together, threading the entire thing together and uniting it with repeating questions and echoing lines.  The protagonist of the poem constantly asks, “Do I dare?” (676) about some unnamed action, and never really states whether he dares or not. Prufrock also asks variations of “How should I presume?” (676), somewhat echoing the thought of “Do I dare?” (676). In addition to these almost direct line repetitions, several lines are referenced or shuffled and rewritten at the ends of stanzas. For example, “If one, settling a pillow by her head,/Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all./That is not it, at all.’” (677) and “If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,/And leaning toward the window, should say:/ ‘That is not it at all,/ That is not what I meant, at all.’” This restructuring of previous lines in the poem is a particularly clever way to retain continuity in an otherwise fractured stream of consciousness piece. 

            The poem’s use of imagery reinforces the theme of stillness and inaction. The first stanza introduces the inaction with the lines “When the evening is spread out against the sky/Like a patient etherized upon a table;” (675) This line, though strange and dissonant if you think about it too hard, immediately conveys a feeling of lethargy and inactivity. The reader is thus prepared for a long, dreamlike collection of images and phrases that slowly build and then contract throughout the poem like the deep, passive breathing of a tranquilized patient. This sleepy image is reinforced throughout the poem, with lines like “And seeing it was a soft October night,/[the fog] curled once about the house and fell asleep” (675), and  “If one, settling a pillow beside her head,” (677). The poem’s theme of inaction is conveyed with sleepy and dreamlike imagery.

           Finally, the use of rhyme in the poem imitates the feeling of thought, bouncing up and down then trailing off. Throughout the poem, the pattern of rhyme bounces from line to line, then falls dead before being picked up again.  There is no constant abab pattern of rhyme; more often than not the pattern is aabbcaa, or aabacdefe. The rhyming flits about at its own discretion, rhyming some lines, then not others, and then rhyming two lines in a row. Both rhyming and non-rhyming lines carry the poem forward and create pauses after stanzas. An erratic thought process, or a state of dreaming are brought to mind by the pattern of rhyming, further conveying a feeling of inaction. 

            The poem “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” seems to mainly focus on a feeling of inertia, while the protagonist leads up to and down from the question of “Do I dare?”. Prufrock never comes to a decision, merely allowing his thoughts to trail off. He avoids taking action, choosing to stay still at the brink of acting. All of the elements of the poem including its use of imagery, repetition, and rhyme, help to convey the tension and release of inaction.

Abcarian, Richard, Marvin Klotz, and Samuel Cohen. Literature: The Human Experience. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. Print. 675-777

Occupying space

Despite the assumption that Rosa parks suddenly decided to keep her seat on the bus and stand up to the tyranny of racism, the actual fact of the matter is that her decision was years in coming, and she had trained in activism for several years. For twelve years she helped to lead a chapter of the NAACP, and she had recently gone to a civil rights workshop.
This very much relates to something I've been thinking about lately. I very much admire people who I see as spontaneous, and public. Those videos of people messing around in airports? I think they look like fun, and I admire the courage and audacity of the people who perform and record them in public.
However, the other day, I realized that such things are not as out of the blue as they may seem. The people who create those videos of random acts of publicly strange behavior spend a lot of time in those places, they are comfortable in them and they understand how they work.
Rosa Parks spent a lot of time in the abstract space of activism and social change, so she felt when the time was right to keep her seat, she felt comfortable in her decision to own the space she was in.

In realizing all of this and linking it up, I realize that in order to inherit or develop the qualities of those I admire, I must first become comfortable in that space of activism, public connection, or private, instantaneous connection. 

Reader's Write Response: Immigrants

(Written for English 1010, Fall Semester.)

Some people think of their grandmothers. Others think of their parents or their friends. Some people even remember their own journeys as emigrants from their home countries. When I think of the word “Immigrant”, I think of the students I work with at my college’s English Skills Center.

They are all bright and quick to laugh, and they are all married, most of them are Mexican women with children to take care of and homes to clean. One is a married man with a job; he often has to leave early so he can go to work. A lady from Saudi Arabia attends as well; her husband is a Business student at the college. In addition to all of these people in my life right now, I also think of the little Mexican girl who lived next door to me when I was four. All we could do together was count, and say hola and adios. 

            To Jodie in the November 2008 issue of SUN Magazine’s Readers Write, Immigrant meant a colleague, Maria, who worked hard and gave back to everyone around her, but wasn’t allowed the same opportunities as many other people because she was living as an undocumented immigrant. Maria spoke Spanish and translated for visitors to a nonprofit associated with AmeriCorps, where Jodi was volunteering. Among the credentials given by Jodie, Maria also worked as a waitress while attending college full time and helping out with her siblings. Maria, had lived in the US for ten years, but she wasn’t a recorded citizen. Because of this, it was challenging to get her on a plane for a convention, but they eventually decided to show Maria’s student ID, and say that she hadn’t gotten her driver’s license yet. The plan worked, and Maria was able to attend and speak at the convention. After Maria graduated from university, she continued working at the same restaurant, getting paid under the table. Because Maria was undocumented, she wasn’t able to move on to Medical School.

            Judy Chow wrote about her experience growing up in Philadelphia after emigrating from Hong Kong with her family. She was two years old at the time, so her identity hadn’t been cemented as Chinese. After becoming accustomed to being surrounded by white people on her block and at school she would forget she was Asian as a child until she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. People would ask where she was from, and she would have to explain to them that she “was originally from China”. After moving to Virginia in her late thirties, she realized “‘Home’ may not be a place but a state of mind”.  She writes that she has begun to speak with a southern accent, and she forgets that she looks different from her Caucasian neighbors. Finally, she says, “There are days when my neighbors forget that I look “foreign, and I become just another person, colleague, friend.”

            Being an immigrant often means struggling with feeling different, possibly learning a new language, and becoming accustomed to a new culture and environment. Sometimes all of this can be very difficult, especially for school age children. Oliver French emigrated from Germany to Switzerland in 1933in the wake of the Nazi takeover of Germany and the boycott of Jewish businesses. At boarding school, Oliver didn’t speak the language, and found the other children’s customs strange. Because of the language barrier, the other children would try to get Oliver and his brother in trouble with dirty words and double entendres. In spite of the difficult period of assimilation, eventually the boys learned the language and became generally accepted by their classmates. As Oliver writes, “Some of the kids would still refer to us using slurs for Germans, but we no longer felt German. We were refugees from the Germans. We were immigrants.”

            The people who exemplify the word “immigrant” are often running away from turmoil or oppression in their home countries, like Oliver and the people involved in our modern Syrian refugee crisis. Just as often though, immigrants are moving toward something, a brighter future for their children or more opportunities than they are afforded in their home country. In doing so, they face a lot of hardship like the peril of traveling across a closed border or a wide ocean, or the difficulty of adjusting to a new culture and language. Most immigrants do their very best to make a living and a life in their new home.

An Insult or a Fact?: Hypocritical

To call a person hypocrite doesn't seem like much of an insult to me.

To be human is to be hypocritical, contradictory by definition. We are constantly growing and changing, and our emotions and outlooks evolve by the moment. When we are angry we think differently from when we're happy. Things that sound great when we're well-rested and well fed sound terrible when we're sleep-deprived and hungry. We say things we mean whole-heartedly when we're depressed and frustrated, but we take them back aghast and ashamed when we've emerged from the tunnel of bad feelings. We are completely vulnerable to so many things that direct, manipulate and persuade us in myriad ways.
Being so changeable isn't necessarily bad, nor does it mean that what we changed from was less desirable than what we are now. We -as humans, as creatures of the world, as denizens of nature- just change; constantly.
I am a hypocrite, dear, and in some ways I am not happy about it, but I also don't think it is a terrible as some would have us think. It's part of life; it's part of learning. We think we want or like something, but when we have it we change our minds because it wasn't what we expected, or we find that it doesn't suit us as well as we thought. We think we'll hate something, but when we try it, we find it isn't as bad as we once thought. My mom encouraged me to take a book binding class at our local college one winter. I was terrified. I convinced her to stay with me for a few minutes during the first class, but it turned out to be not as bad as I'd expected; not as big or scary or intimidating as I'd imagined. I learned a lot in that month-long class; a lot I continue to do, skills that have proved to be very useful to how I live my life. I've created a couple of journals I've since filled up, and many gifts for my friends and family.
The point is, if you're actively learning and growing in your life, you are probably going to do, say, and be some hypocritical things. You may be perfectly sincere and still become "hypocritical" by changing your mind or choosing something new and different for perfectly logical and sound reasons. Even if you are at a standstill as a human being, you're going to be hypocritical. It's okay. Be conscious and aware, and don't let it define you. We're playing this whole life thing by ear, despite what anyone might tell you.

You Don't Understand

As much as it frustrates me when people say "You wouldn't understand", or "you couldn't/can't understand", or even "They can't understand", I understand I'll have to come to terms with this truth sooner or later.
I really believe in the power and beauty of empathy, an ability to understand other people's feelings and viewpoints.
However, empathy can only go so far, and really, it is still hard to truly understand another person's experience if you haven't had that or a similar experience.
My main problem with "You can't understand" is it tends to be a device to push people away and alienate them. It's a way to separate yourself from someone who could benefit from understanding you, or who could benefit you in their understanding, however shallow that understanding could be.
"You can't understand" tends to be a way to get out of explaining yourself or your feelings. I understand that sometimes this is just because a person doesn't want to attempt to explain themselves to another person.
I am attempting to reconcile myself to the fact that sometimes I cannot understand another person's experience or feelings, this is due to things out of my control, and this is okay.

Wide Eyes and a Tender Heart

Idealistic little college student:
Some days are good,
Others are like black holes of time and energy,
All the world hard and jagged,
No desire to interact with other human-persuaded beings.

Pause, redirect-

Now is not the time to dwell on that half of life,
We are happy, and
we mean to speak about the days
that go better than ever expected;
Filled with inspiration,
We feel like God, themself, is leading us by the heart and hand
And all of the world is deserving of our love
and reverence.
On these days, the world is moment-by-moment created for us...
And we understand;
Are somehow understood by all people.
These are the days we meet extraordinary souls,
sometimes only into hour-long-deep conversation mates
and sometimes those extraordinary souls grow into
Life long friends.

This day of Facebook allows you to
Hold onto the strings of possibility,
Whether or not if they hold fast and strong;
More time for them to mature;
the potential to braid our lives together extended.
More often than not, they dissolve,
and we are left with the memory of ties.

We suppose friendship is more than one person pursuing another,
but both running to meet somewhere in the middle.
How does it work?- We found ourselves asking, waiting, watching
All last year.
Still no answers, but butterfly-bright flashes of inspiration all the time.
Still no answers, still waiting and watching,
Eyes wide open and a tender heart.

How can a person only know another person for a week, and feel like they've known them for years?
What is the probability of this happening more than once?
Probably more probable than you might think...

Lost hours of practice

Tripping all over the guitar strings,
notes ringing out in disharmony.

Halting and hesitant,
Dip you toe carefully in and then tumble into the water,
After all, what is life without imperfection,
What is life without enthusiasm?
What is life without trying? 

Winter Morning (A transcript for a Public Speaking Assignment)

I would like to describe a morning spent at the house I watched with my sister last week. The house is studded all around with large windows, allowing an excellent view in all four directions.

Wintery Eastern Mountains slowly lighten from the dark blue of dawn. This is where the horizon is first touched with color, going from deep black to light blue over the course of the morning.

The early light brushes the white top of Mt. Nebo with soft pink, and then tints the deserty West Mountains a dark saffron from top to bottom, going on to illuminate the towns, hills, and ponds below.

Finally, the light slowly creeps across the valley. It’s almost imperceptible when it reaches this house. First the juniper hill at the Western fence line is illuminated, then the closely shorn hayfield, and suddenly there is no line of light, no shadow of the mountain to block out the sun.

After the sun has risen over the mountains ringing this valley, everything is bathed in light, and most people are already going about their short day in this warm winter.

Is this strange, or merely natural? (Written many weeks ago)

I do not feel that I can effectively communicate how I feel after this long day of exposure and new corners of the world and other people's minds.

"If you want a better job," I paraphrase my Business Teacher's advice this afternoon, "Don't take to the streets and protest, better yourself by going to school, getting an education and work hard to climb the ladder of corporate success." Paraphrased, but the meaning is there. Work flipping burgers because you, too, may have the chance (one in a million) of succeeding as Herman Cain did. God forbid you don't want to, god forbid you don't even believe you have that chance. And most of all, God forbid we work to change everything we can for the betterment of our children's children's future, our neighbors lives tomorrow, and our lives next week. 

2,000 men, women, and children, all members of my human family, with their own distinct lives, their own memories of last moments, their own potential in this world, cut short by other people who I am also related to, but can't begin to understand or condone. 

More human beings slaughtered for a purpose, in a war I still do not condone in Mexico. Meals uneaten, beds unmade, children lost in existence for the sake of money and power. Bodies, the building blocks under a tower of corruption. 

People crushed under a yoke of oppression and discontent in Russia, ruled over by a man brave enough to stand up to the megalith of Monsanto (if only in image), but too cowardly to give up his own games of status and wealth. 

Status and wealth, sought after by most of the young adults, just like me, but nothing like me. I wrote that I do not crave wealth and status, those are not my ambitions, but is this strange, or merely natural?

Research paper for my art majors orientation class last semester

Photography as a Flexible Career

9/25/14

Art Orientation

I see photography as a potential link through my many art interests, including land art, painting, and textile art. Photography is definitely an asset in recording and sharing a variety of artworks with other people.

To gain more insight on the field I chose to research, I interviewed Larry O. Campbell, a retiree nature photographer. Photography isn’t a professional career for him, he came upon it after twenty years in the air force, and ten years raising cattle and operating a resort. After he retired, he picked up a camera to document a cross-country trip, and in his own words “…The rest, as you say, is history.”

Larry enjoys photography because it gets him out of doors, something that has kept him in great shape, and keeps him connected to the natural world’s cycles and seasons. He has also connected his photography with his writing, publishing books full of his work along with the work of his friends and colleagues.

I like how photography so easily interfaces with natural world. I enjoy working outside and incorporating nature into my art. As an artistic genre, land art is very connected to the outdoors, even when confined to gallery spaces. Photography is important in the land art process, both in its documentation, and its availability to other people.

The only thing Larry says he doesn’t like about being a photographer is the art’s “Restrictive nature; not being able to get out when I want to sometimes.” Nature and wildlife photography, and by extension, land art and its documentation, are often dependent on fair weather. Many artists in the areas persist right through miserable and harsh conditions, sometimes even embracing them for their unique beauty.

I’m not really interested in photography as a solo or specific career, but I feel it is suitable for me because of its flexibility in subject matter, and its application to many different interests and forms in art. Many artists come upon their chosen styles in a progression or a roundabout exploration of many different fields of art. Brian Usher, for example started as a ceramic artist before discovering glass sculpture. This is why I think the skill of photography would be particularly suitable; an artist trained in photography can more effectively compose images of their work for documentation or distribution purposes. In addition, photography is an elegant and communicative field of art intrinsically.