Street Art

Something which is becoming increasingly prevalent in our culture today is street art. I think it is one of the most pure forms of art because it is not to make a profit, and most street artists hide their identity, so it is not about fame. Street art is more and more about reflecting and putting a light on the downfalls of our society. I am mildly obsessed with Banksy and his recent movie “exit through the gift shop”. This movie illustrates the interaction between money and the art world. Shepard fairey for instance could be labeled a sell out. If you look at his work before and after he got famous, it is so different. Street art takes urban, and sometimes desolate areas and transforms them into works of art. Its kind of like graffitti, but it makes us think, its art that you are forced to look at. Thats something that I don’t like about museums, that you have to choose to go look at the art, and it is mounted on those empty white walls with the same amount of space between each painting. Street art takes the art to the people. It forces these ideas and questions into our heads. I think it is important for everyone in society to interact with contemporary art, and the issues it deals with. Street art has a sense of immediacy to it, a feeling of urgency. It is usually obvious at first glance, what the image is trying to say, so people who are walking by it almost immediately start thinking and asking questions about the issues which are being dealt with. In my experience, street art also has an exciting visual aesthetic to it, the longer I look, the more I enjoy the work. Street art also took graffiti which is negative, and illegal, and turned it around. Rather than tagging territory, it is reflecting society in a creative and innovative way. Although it lies in a legal gray area, I think it is ultimately beneficial to our culture. I think the more we can immerse ourselves in art, the better, and stronger our culture will be.

Digital Narratives.

The story I enjoyed the most was the video “only a dream”. It is about a man whose sons leave for the United States and he follows them there only to return. He realizes that the U.S. is not the same as the movies and he has little value there. His son dies trying to cross the border. It is a sad story, but I enjoyed it because at the end he talks about how he is happy now and he is hopeful for a better future. He has his own business in Mexico, and he is trying to rebuild himself. I like what he had to say about having more value in Mexico than in the U.S., I feel like that is not something people can understand until they experience it.

I want to talk about the Art Institute. I will probably use photography, to photograph different paintings. I’m not quite sure what I want to say about it yet, but it has had a huge impact on me and I think it would be an interesting topic. I really want to use video, but I can’t figure out how I would go about doing that or why, but I’m interested in making movies. I’m not even sure you can video in the museum. Maybe I can ask people about there experience with the art institute, what they liked and why. And I could use photographs of the paintings they liked. Maybe I could paint reproductions. That would take a long time. I could make rough reproductions. I have a painting I made with my dad when I was six or seven and it is a bad reproduction of Van Gogh’s bedroom, which I saw in the Art Institute the other day. I could use that.

Serving in Florida

1. Barbara Einreich chooses a hands on approach to learning about the blue collar experience. After describing the characters who she is working with, and the circumstances they work in, as a reader I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. There is literally nothing good about their situations. These people have little to no opportunity to move up the class ladder. They are bound by what they do not have. I think Einreich is trying to shine a light on the destructive cycle which blue collars workers are so often slaves to. It is easy for people of a higher class to say “just get a better job, or another job, or work harder”. But as we see in this essay, it is nearly impossible to just keep one job, and even then, it weighs on your mental health.

2. Einreich is a wonderful writer! She did an amazing job illustrating the slippery slope that is the waitressing job. After reading this, I feel like in order for a person to escape this dead end, one would have to put forth a lot of effort and take a lot of risks. Einreich has showed us in this essay, that taking risks and putting forth any extra effort is not a realistic option for these people, which is by no means any fault of theirs. If any effort is put forth to improve a person’s economic class, I think it would have to be made at a younger age, before they get stuck working a a Jerry’s, or as a housekeeper. People can use education to learn a trade, and begin to build a career. This probably seems impossible to people who do not have it modeled for them, which is why they blindly enter the cycle of blue collar work, careers which end right where they began.

The Media + Family

1. When I was younger, tv portrayed families as the generic vision of a financially comfortable family with a mother and father, and their cute kids. SHows these days depict different family setups like gay parents and second wives and such. Reality shows have a lot of drama, but it seems sensational and contrived. I feel like the media still isn’t dealing with poverty and conflict within the family.
2. I think society wants to see more of a realistic portrayal of families on tv, but still sugar coated. Since the entertainment industry has gotten so huge, everyone is fighting with each other to have a successful show, and society has more of a say in what it wants to see. Modern family is an excellent example of this because it caters to all different types of families and people. However I noticed that none of these families suffer financially and they don’t have serious fights. Poeple like watching this because it is the change we want to see. The family setups are different from the past, which is progressive, and everyone is happy.
3. I think the tv “family” is going to continue to progress in terms of how we define family. Gay marriage and second marriages and such will become more mainstream and accepted. However I don’t think the media is going to embrace the economic hardship that our society is dealing with any time soon, since we use the media to escape those issues. It is easier to see watch what we want on tv than what we live.
4. 
   
5. Wer getting married...

fam and my identity

Brother:

When I am around my brother, I am very much myself. He knows the best and worst of me because I act more natural around him than anyone else. My brother and I have always been very comfortable which each other which allows us to not have any guards up, and put forth our genuine selfs. Having him around my whole life has allowed me and almost forced me to be genuine and not act in ways which are not honest representations of who I really am. Except at home, we were usually pretty fake at home.

Dad:

When I was younger, I was heavily influenced by my dad, and the culture I was growing up in. My dad is an artist, and he was always talking about his ideas. This made me really comfortable with the idea of being an artist and it made me want to have ideas too. He called himself “un penseur” which means a thinker. He made me want to be a thinker too. Even after I moved away from my dad, I always wanted to be an artist and a thinker just like him. It felt natural to me anyway. Now when I talk to my dad, all we talk about is art because its all we really know about each other, but thats ok because its not fake. Being an artist is a huge part of my identity, and I attribute that to my dad.

Mom:

My mom doesn’t expect much from me academically and she never has. When I was growing up, it was really hard for me to read, so she thought I was slow, and she never expected me to be more than that. Its crazy how easy it is to underachieve when that is what is expected of you. Sometimes I wouldn’t achieve more than what was expected of me because I thought it would come off as fake. This had a negative impact on my identity because I spent a solid 18 years of my life thinking I was stupid, which is stupid. When my mom got remarried, she married a professor which was a big change from my dad. At that point, I was not great at english, and I thought I was stupid. I never said much around my stepdad because I didn't want to embarrass myself or make my mom look bad. This was good and bad because it forced me to figure out who I was and create my own identity separate from what my family expected of me, but it also sucked having to be quite and boring when I was at home.

I just want to be Average

1. Rose was being taught in a sub par educational system. He judged his societal significance based on his level in the educational system. Therefor he thought of himself as a lackluster member of society, not looking for greatness, not enthused about the thought of a future or lack thereof. It’s apparent when Mr.MacFarland takes an interest in Rose’s intellectual capabilities, Rose internalizes the praise. You can almost feel his rapidly expanding enthusiasm and excitement for literature, run parallel to his respect for himself.
2. I can’t find the word “cues” anywhere in the text. But I’m assuming he’s talking about social cues or maybe an academic version of that....academic cues? Cues are signals that are given during a social, or academic interaction in this case which can communicate an expected action. This affected Rose because the cues that were given to him led him to believe that he was expected to achieve a minimum amount. He internalized these cues which negatively impacted his motivation. He saw himslef as less because he was expected to be less, thus causing him to achieve less than his potential.

Response to the Memoir

1. Writing this memoir was very useful for me. It helped me process some things from my past and see them more clearly. I also feel that a grew as a writer while writing this paper. I learned to be a more thoughtful and introspective writer and communicator.
2. I think the second part of my memoir is the best part. I like the language and voice that I used to construct the second part. It took a lot of hard thinking and I am proud of that.
3. I need to rework the first part of the paper. I might even need to take it out completely. I need to think about the piece as a whole, how it flows and how it sounds to the reader. I think I was too busy worrying about keeping certain things for personal reasons but that might not be the best idea from the eyes of a reader.
4. I loved the mixed media piece, it was a catalyst for my creative process. I didn’t start actually writing until I started painting. I basically ended up writing about the painting, so it played a role in my writing process. Once I started painting, I really started thinking and asking questions and that is when the real writing started coming out of me effortlessly.