Paintings... after paintings

It’s true. In this day and age, it’s hard to view an original painting without of course traveling to a museum, gallery, or historic place.

However an image… more specifically a replicated image or even a photograph of a painting can only capture so much. We get color, perspective, and depending on how good of an image we can see texture. But that really doesn’t do us any good. Looking at the Mona Lisa on TV, believe me it has been hyped up to be this rather large painting, with huge meaning behind it for that time period. When you read about it in history books and art book, they too go on and on about how big of an impact this made on society. Even when I saw it in person, it was the real thing but far from the actual setting. It’s behind bullet proof glass, and roped off. A million people are trying to go up to it and take a picture of it. It’s also rather small. The biggest upsetting thing about the Mona Lisa for me was that this little 1x1ft painting was adjacent to this 12ft by about 6ft painting of Christ freshly taken off the cross with the thorn crown still on his head, bleeding out for the world to feel his anguish. I REALLY COULDN’T MISS THAT IF I WANTED TO!!! It was just nuts how intense that painting was. And there we go, back to the little box holding a picture of Mona with her little smirk. I’m sure given the time it wasn’t nice to paint such things, but dammit don’t act like the smirk was created that same day. I don’t care if it's 1500 BC, humans smirk!!!

The biggest thing for me though is seeing the Sistine Chapel in person. For years I had seen blown up images, up close images, and even pictures of the entire ceiling, but seeing it in person is a COMPLETELY different experience. The blow up images are small, in your book, and showing you so much detail, when in actuality, it’s a CEILING, and this painting is gigantic and you can still see virtually the same amount of detail. Literally as I walked through the chapel with my neck cracked all the way back and my jaw dropped to the floor, it gives you a whole new feeling of everything going on. How the hell did this man paint this stuff?! More power to him! Looking at the picture in a book, tells a simple childish story. Being there to experience it, tells a story about what is being depicted, but then you begin to think, wow Michelangelo somehow reached the ceiling and painted this entire thing! I didn’t even know ladders were made that tall, especially back then. You also think about what could have been going on in his mind. I’m convinced he was possessed, because nothing normal would make me want to paint something so vivid at an angle that had to be uncomfortable. Seriously I’ve been trying to figure out how he got up there, and how this dude was sitting/laying/breaking his neck.

Lastly, when thinking about reproduced images and paintings, I think about my two favorite artists; Mark Ryden and Adam Isaac Jackson are amazingly different. Both are painters, but with reproduction, photography, and graphic editing, it’s become hard to tell if that’s how the painting truly is, or if it was photographed and edited in Photoshop… Nonetheless I love their work and plan on investing in original pieces as soon as I can find them and have the funds. [[click on their names in this preceding paragraph, mark and adam, to go to their websites]]

these two are by Ryden

these two are by I.A. Jackson

really? global warming is a myth?!

I don't care if you're republican or democrat, but you can't fucking tell me that global warming isn't real, I don't give a fuck if the Obama administration has renamed it to global climate disruption, it's still effecting us!!! why fox new are you sooo annoyed that global warming name has been changed... and for all you people out there that doesn't think it's real, are u retarded?! clearly the admin has changed the name because too many people in America take the title literally! it doesn't mean the earth is heating up to the point that it's gonna blow, and it also doesn't mean that the entire earth will be effected in the same way (like melting ice caps)... if the extremely cold parts of the world get warm, it fucks up the rest of the world weather... some Americans who have been assuming the America will also heat the hell up are clearly mistaken, and haven't really listened to what global warming is.... they're saying they don't believe it because the east coast got reckless amounts of snow last winter, and California has had record low (cold) temperatures for the summer.... HELLO! THAT'S A FUCKING EFFECT OF GLOBAL WARMING!!!! America is getting cooler summers and inconsistent winters! and I'm sure Asia and europe will soon be feeling more American like weather!!! the fucking locations of weather patterns have and still are shifting!!!! are humans a big effect on it? well yea, because there's wayyyy more people on the earth than ever before at one particular time. and because of all the advances in technology we use up more energy! common fucking sense!!! It's sad to see how ignorant a group of people really are. we really need to fix this! people need to be educated, before we really fuck some shit up...

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

English 101, blog #1

1) How do you think about writing? –Writing is something that has been pounded into my mind for a long time. It’s a way of telling stories, formulating ideas, a way to persuade a reader, and simply a way of informing people. When it comes to writing for a requirement, it is then a process of coming up with a thesis and good content used to fill up however much space is required. In other words it’s a chore for me. However, when it comes to writing in my own free time, I do it and enjoy the use of written word every day. I have a blog, but I haven’t been as up to date with it as I like. I’m on Facebook and even more on twitter narrating my life, fiction or non-fiction, for the world to see. Writing is the easiest way for me to express myself in a way that I would like to be seen.

2) What has your experience with writing been like up until now? (Personal or with school) –Most of my writing has throughout my school career has been focused on grammar. Writing responses to scientific articles, or about how I felt about a particular passage from a novel. All done to see if I have comprehended what was presented, and to see if my nouns, pronouns, and adjectives were being used correctly along with my punctuation. I feel it to be monotonous, and that teachers don’t really pay attention to the diction, but more so to the students actually formulating sentences that are legible, readable, and pertaining to the subject at hand. No extra credit for sounding more intellectual. Personally, I have never kept a journal, but I have always found myself writing about my day or specific people and things in my life on the empty pages of left over notebooks from previous classes. I feel more liberated writing how I’d like, when I’d like, and for that matter, where I’d like to write. I’m not one to sit down and “study” over things for hours, but if I handwrite what I need to know I remember. When I talk about something that really excites me I tend to talk extremely fast and apparently only a small percentage of the world can keep up with the words flying out of my mouth. So I do feel better about being able to type it out so everyone can understand my opinion. Truthfully, I haven’t been required to write as much for scholastic means, so I do feel that my writing as a whole is lacking.

3) What people, events, or experiences have shaped your writing? – My parents are definitely a huge factor to both my reading and writing. They were sticklers on me expressing myself properly and having me expand my vocabulary, so I found myself being forced to read a few books every summer. I have never really enjoyed an English class, but I always performed well. Reading all those books made me realize, that it was not the subject/class of English that I did not enjoy, but the content. Seventy-five percent of the things I had to read and write about would have bored me to sleep had I not been on a permanent sugar high. So I started reading more books that got my imagination going. Books that dealt with subjects, like history, so that I could enjoy reading more and then take pleasure in what I was writing about. More recently, texting and twitter have taken over my life. I do it in my sleep! Even though both forms require a lot of shorthand, (especially twitter) I find myself writing much more than I would have been five years ago. Writing seems to be more important now, than ever before. Especially writing in the most proper way possible. So when we see people shortening a four letter word, such as some down to sum, and there is clearly still space left for more characters (twitter), we cringe.

Fear and Liberation - English blog #2

Can one not go through life ignorant to actual reality, and subconsciously in fear of exploring the world around them, actively engaging their minds to absorb and contain which frees oneself from being stuck in the habit of just accepting something they’ll mostly forget when the subject is no longer in questioning. Sadly, many people do and they’re so set in those ways they probably don’t realize or know how to escape from it. Both Krishnamurti and Paulo Freire talk about how when we are being “educated” we are not truly learning and becoming more intelligent. In actuality we are being told what we need to know and how we are supposed to fit into society, without in fact being tested on what we have learned and without having to use it in our real life. We are more like those tipping bucket fountains, being filled up with a certain amount, and then dumping it once we’ve “fulfilled” what’s needed. Of course the same water comes back around in the fountain, just like how information will once again be presented to us, but we’ll only have some, if any, stored in our minds.
Fear/ignorance, living life/liberation are two main topics that Krishnamurti and Freire touch upon. Krishnamurti insists that fear prevents us from experiencing life which holds one back from learning and being educated. The fear seems to be in teachers deviating from the monotonous ways of teaching to something that relates to our lives. It is also fear from the students to go out and explore everything that surrounds them, ask more questions about how things relate, and of letting things that interest them take over their lives to fill them with passion and substance.
Freire calls it ignorance saying, “The students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic, accept their ignorance as justifying the teacher’s existence—but, unlike the slave, they never discover that they educate the teacher”. According to him, it needs to be acknowledged that the students teach the teacher just as much, if not more, as the teacher teaches the students. In talking about the educator Freire says, “his efforts must coincide with those of the students to engage in critical thinking and the quest for mutual humanization”, which then creates a learning environment for both the educator and student, freeing them of ignorance.
Both Krishnamurti and Freire clearly state that people must be freed/liberated from this ineffective educational system.

Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry men pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other. – Freire
Attention come when you are deeply interested in something, for then you love to find out all about it; then your whole mind, your whole being it there. – Krishnamurti

Both are showing that when one is interested in something, they do whatever they can to learn more about that particular subject, and everything that could possibly relate to that subject. If you like something, you concentrate on it wholly, and formulate new ideas about it. You try to better it, and the things around it.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9