The Special Places in my Home

Both of these pictures are in the first level of my house. When we first moved in, my mother set then up to show all company that entered our house how proud she was of her parents and children. The first picture is dedicated to my grandparents. On our mantle, when have the flag that we got when my grandfather passed. He was a WWII veteran, so they gave him the proper burial complete with a 21-gun salute and flag for the family. Since that day, we’ve kept his flag in its case as a sign of respect and remembrance for my Pop-Pop. In front of the flag is my grandmother’s urn. She died when I was a sophomore in high school. She requested to be cremated and buried in Jamaica with her mother. My mother followed her wishes and took her ashes to be buried in Jamaica next to her mother. But because she didn’t want to let her mother go completely, she kept just a little bit of her and placed it next to her husband’s flag. So while in our home, my Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop will remain next to each other. The mantle also has other touches of remembrance for my grandparents. Gifts, a grandpa and granddaughter in a rocking chair figurine, native Jamaican wood sculptures, etc., that we bought our grandparents for special holidays are up there, as well as grandma and grandpa Chinese figurines that match our Chinese chest in the Family room. To give the feel of being in at my grandparents’ old house in Florida, my mom puts up pictures from special events in our lives like they used to do (hence why my prom picture and my sister’s, Mayne, high school graduation picture are there).

 The second picture is in my Living room. This is the first room you see when you enter my house. My mother changes this special place in the house every time there is a graduation. No matter who graduates, both Mayne and my picture stay up on the sides of the table; they only change if a new picture is taken. My mom decorates the center of the table with our diploma, graduation program, and any other mementos from that day. Usually, there is a vase of flowers and a lot of glitter on the table (both my sister and I like glitter!). She does this primarily for the party that comes after the graduation; the table remains set up this way until the next graduation. This is my mom’s way of celebrating our accomplishments and appreciating our efforts.

These are pictures of Mayne’s and my room. When we first moved, my mom allowed us to set up our own rooms. We both wanted to celebrate the accomplishments that we had achieved throughout our young lives. We asked our mother to get us bookcases that we could fill with our trophies from track & field, cheerleading, dance, and scholastic honors. As the years went on, we added more trophies and medals from high school. Eventually, we were able to put our varsity letters and graduation caps on display. Mayne’s senior year, our poms team won 3^rd place in short pom and 1^st place in hip-hop at state competition. Since Mayne was our captain, she got to take home the trophies so they sit on the floor by her bed since they were so huge. We look at our trophy cases as a way to celebrate ourselves. Something to show our children of all the honors that we have been awarded.  

Nailed it !: Nail Art

One of my favorite hobbies is painting my nails. It all started so long ago; as a child, I always wanted to be just as pretty as Mommy. She was always made up with jewelry, purses, perfume, and freshly painted nails. I always loved how there were so many colors to choose from. It seemed like you could never wear the same color twice, but you could sport every shade of pink that there is for 3 months straight. My fascination grew so much that I turned my 10th birthday party into a nail social. My mom bought about 20 new colors for the party and that marked the start of my collection (which now has expanded to 189). Over the 10 years after my party, I have perfected my nail polishing skill. I look to the internet for inspiration for new designs from people who have created blogs in dedication to nails (this means I'm not alone in my obsession, lol). It takes a lot to execute a perfect manicure, even without designs. Making sure all of the brush strokes are in the same direction and stay within the lines makes me feel like Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I try layering glitter coats on top of creme colors to see the polish in new ways. When I really want to be expressive, I try my hand at designs. It's a way of painting a picture on 10 tiny canvases. Honestly, painting my nails is like a release for me. Just the same as when I paint pictures or pottery, painting my nails is a rush of artistic freedom that puts a smile on my face and others.

My nails

Designs I found on the internet

 

How I Met Your Mother: Season 6

How I Met Your Mother is a sitcom set in 2030 when the main character, Ted Mosby is telling his 2 kids the story of how he met their other. The majority of the show's action takes place from 2005 to the present. The season that I most recently watched from start to finish was season 6. It was set in 2010/2011 and was centered around the gang's, Ted, Barney, Lily, Marshall, and Robin, personal lives. Ted gets in a relationship but for once, chooses work over love. Barney meets his father and considers settling down with one of Robin's co-workers. Lily finally gets pregnant but has to help husband Marshall cope with the loss of his father. Robin quits her on-air job to take on a researcher job at a more respectable news channel. The season ends the way it began, at a wedding, which is revealed to be Barney's wedding, and the best man Ted is needed for assistance.

I like the show How I Met Your Mother because of its plot. It's full of mystery because the main character, Ted, dates so many women so it's a guessing game as to which one he actually ends up with. I love how they weave common elements from the story line into all of the episodes, yet, there is always something new going on. Another reason I like this show is because it is quite allegorical. They always make reference to later episodes so it just keeps me wondering how that part of the story will play out.

I love the way the characters relate to each other in this show. The chemistry on screen, although it is scripted, seems so genuine. My favorite character is Barney, who is played by Neil Patrick Harris. The reason I like him is because he commits to his character. In the show, he portrays a womanizer who is interested in sex and money. Love and marriage do not exist to him, that is at least up until the sixth season. But in real life, Harris is an openly gay man who lives with his domestic partner and their children. I love how he can make his character so believable without losing himself in the show.

my favorite, Andy Warhol.

My favorite artist so far is Andy Warhol. I have always loved his work. I feel like he uses colors to his advantage. One thing I look for in paintings is a nice color scheme. Warhol uses colors and color patterns to interpret the subjects of his paintings. I enjoy how he uses his works to give his very own definition of art. When everyone else doubted whether or not his Brillo box was art, he stood by it. That beef in himself is what aided him in becoming one of the pioneers of an art form, pop art. I watched a movie, Factory Girl, that was based on his studio, The Factory, and it showed me how much of an innovator he really was. He had the courage enough to live as an openly gay man and live by his own rules. I believe the reason I love his work is because most of his subjects are commonly know people or objects that he interprets and paints as he sees fit. It's like he's giving the viewer of his works a first class ticket through the inner machinations of his creative mind. It allows you to see how he views the world that we are all a part of.

Thirteen. Unlucky indeed.

Thirteen. 2003. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke. Written by Catherine Hardwicke and Nikki Reed.

This movie is a story about teenage angst and self-destruction. It takes you into the lives of two teenage girls, Tracy Freeland (Evan Rachel Wood) and Evie Zamora (Nikki Reed), and shows you how tough growing up and fitting in can be. Tracy starts the movie as a honor roll student in middle school who just wants to fit in with the popular kids. Once Evie let's her get a taste of rebellious the cool kids live, Tracy never turns back. The movie follows Tracy and Evie on their path to self destruction through body mutilation, piercings, drugs, and other harmful means. Not only does Tracy shed her good girl shell through her new clothes, she begins to but heads with her mother and all the people who are trying to help her. 

As I stated in class, I like movies that I can feel myself being a part of.When I first saw this movie, I was only in sixth grade and 12 years old. This afforded me the privilege to "grow up" with Tracy and Evie. I was able to put myself in their shoes and contemplate on how I would have handled the situations that they were presented. When I re-watched the movie, I noticed that I have grown to appreciate the camera work. The fact that they did not just use a tripod or a traditional camera set up to shoot this movie made a huge difference. I like that it was shot as if any person from off the street was just video taping what was going on. It made the movie seem more real, their lives and story seemed more believable. It was as if this was a home movie of someone's thirteenth year. Although none of these events happened to me when I was 13, I was able to connect to the sincerity of the movie.

After watching the movie this go round, I googled it to find out some interesting facts. Apparently, the movie was loosely based on the life of it's co-star, Nikki Reed. In real life, she was Tracy's character who was just trying to fit in but ended up taking a wrong turn and spiraling towards disaster. Another fun fact I learned, was that this movie had some parts that were too racy for its underaged actors, Woods and Reed were both 14 during taping, that they had to keep paid social workers on site to make sure everything was appropriate.

If you wish to know more about this movie, visit the Wikipedia website and read the synopsis. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_(film)

Citizen Kane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcDJhXSIesI

I chose Citizen Kane, partly because we just watched it in class. Partly because there was one scene that I found to be executed quite perfectly. I chose the scene where Charles Kane's mother told him that he would be going to Chicago with Mr. Thatcher. The scene is about 4 and a half minutes long and falls toward the beginning of the movie. The scene was a tool that was used to give a little back story on Kane's life. It showed us where he got his start in the newspaper industry and who his mentor was. The reason I was drawn to this scene was because Wells used pathetic irony when filming it. Mary Kane, Charles' mother appeared to be kind of a star-offish mother. She was sending her son away to grow up in a different part of the country, without her, for money. He had no choice in the matter, he was just informed that that was how it was going to be. The pathetic irony comes in because the scene was set in the snow. It kind of gave a visual look at the way the situation was being handled, very cold heartedly. It was also like they were ripping Charles' childhood away from him; he had to grow up and begin to perfect his trade. This is literally evident when his sled, Rosebud, is taken from him and left in the snow to be virtually forgotten. The scene ends with the sled sitting in front of the house getting covered with snow. This is somewhat of an allegory to the mystery of Rosebud that the whole movie is spent trying to uncover.

back in the day when art was POPular. Lichtenstein, Warhol, Fisher.

Crying Girl x Roy Lichtenstein (1963)

I enjoy pop art pieces duet their use of dots. I admire how artists create different figures using countless red dots that blur together to create the illusion of a flesh tone color. What i was able to notice about Lichtenstein when I visited the MoMA was that he arranges the dots on his canvas first, then paints around them to create the outline of the person. In most of Lichtenstein's other works, he utilized caption bubbles in order to give the picture a different meaning. I like this one because there is no caption bubble. He managed to get across the emotion of being either sad, scared, or upset without "cheating" and telling us, point blankly, what the woman was thinking. He used her tears and body language to the best of their ability. The wrinkle by her nose makes it seem as though she is worried about something, which may be the cause for her crying. These inferences allow you to make up a story about the subject's life and that level of interaction is what i most enjoy about Lichtenstein's work.

Jackie Kennedy x Andy Warhol (1964)

Shot Blue x Andy Warhol (1964)

These two prints are from Andy Warhol. What attracted me to him was that he took real pictures of these two famous ladies and put his own spin on the images. I feel as though he painted them the way that he saw them. That speaks volumes because he painted the two drastically different. Marilyn Monroe has kind of a glamorized look. He saw her as kind of a pop icon that lived for the glitz and glamour. Jackie Kennedy is painted with more regal colors. His view of her seemed to be a more serious, political one.

Standard Gauge x Morgan Fisher (1984)

I was attracted to this picture because the caption fits ever so perfect. "Scene Missing" written against an empty square of film strip is just so simple. I like that it is just straight to the point. Simple works are another simple pleasure of mine because every now and again, I like to look at something and just know what I am looking at.

MoMA: Morgan of Modern Art.

The MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, in New York City is a great place to indulge in the arts and culture that our modern civilizations have to offer. It seems as if the curators searched for all things done in the name of beauty dating back to the 1880s. Just to briefly name drop, I caught a glimpse at the works of all the great beauty creators; Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and one of my personal faces, Andy Warhol.
I paid close attention to Van Gogh's and Johns' paintings, since I had already covered their work in previous blogs. I got a real up close look at The Olive Trees and Starry Night by Van Gogh.

I've seen Starry Night in several different mediums: books, pictures, power points, and internet; but being able to see the original in such close proximity was utterly breath taking. Each stroke had life breathed into it. They all came from a place of such passion. The texture was the element of the painting that made it pop. The cool blues and spurts of mellow yellow spoke calmly to me. They put me at ease and allowed me to mentally escape to that little village and enjoy the starry night. 

The Olive Trees is a painting that I am unfamiliar with. However, it elicits the same emotions from me that Starry Night does. I am calmed by the colors and pulled into the landscape. If only I were able to run my fingers through the grooves of the paint strokes, I believe that the texture would massage my hands gently as I envision myself laying at rest beneath the olive trees. Van Gogh's paintings were everything that I hoped that they would be. They were enlightening and embodied the essence of Impressionism.

Jasper Johns is an artist that I knew little about. I still wouldn't consider myself the utmost authority on his works, however, I do appreciate the ones that I have seen. While at the MoMA, I looked at Flag and Green Target by Johns.

What I noticed about Johns is that he likes to add things to his canvas in order to give his paintings some texture. In both of these works, Johns used plywood as his base, then layered it with canvas and strips of newspaper. These elements, distressed and mixed together, give his works the look of being worn and torn. It deepens the colors and gives the appearance of having gone through a struggle. This is why I find it perfect that one of his subjects is the American flag. It portrays the American struggle and the newspaper puts you in the shoes of an everyday American, just trying to make it. Being able to see these element up close gave me a new perspective on how I viewed Johns' other work Three Flags. I am now able to appreciate how he got that distressed look. When I look at Green Target, I find it ironic. A target is supposed to be easy to spot, something you're aiming for. Johns painted the whole target the same one color. The message I get is that everyone is shooting for the same target so no one can see the goal anymore. That work really inspired me, because my eyes were drawn to the small patches of yellow. I hope that means that I still have a fighting chance at achieving my goal because I have a different view from everyone else.

first impression: post impressionism; O'Keeffe, Hopper, Johns

Music, Pink and Blue No. 2 (1918) x Georgia O'Keeffe

This painting, in conjunction with its name, reminds me of one of my favorite Michael Jackson songs, Human Nature. Just like the painting, the song is beautifully complex. The lyrics of the song have no real explanation behind them, but to express the confusion that is human nature. This work is a freeing piece that allows me to gracefully transcend reality and take a peek at a, quite contradictory, tranquil commotion. O'Keeffe utilizes the different shades of blue and pink to add an air of childlike serenity. The warm pink is juxtaposed with the cool blues to make a bold statement amidst the calm.

New York Interior (1921) x Edward Hopper

This piece breathes New York City to me. The space that he has painted for this unknown woman to stay in is quite small. This speaks to the city's limited amount of available space. I find that he alluded to the city's glamor in two ways; the woman's dress and the clock on the mantle. By the looks of her tube top dress with full skirt, she looks as if she is going to a gala of some sort. The clock is a small piece, however, I find that it is crucial to the piece. The gold makes it opulent. Hopper used it as just another hint of the city's glitz. Hopper didn't give a face to his subject, he painted her from behind. That is the most intriguing part of this work for me. I feel like he did this for one of two reasons; to show that no matter who you are, if you are in New York, you can live the glamorous life that it offers. Or to show how easy it is to lose yourself in the razzle-dazzle of New York. Either way, I feel as though I could insert my own face in the painting and live the story. The colors of the piece are deep and warm. I feel that this brings the piece to life.

Three Flags (1958) x Jasper Johns

I see America when I look at this piece. It's so simple because it's just the American flag painted three times. If you look deeper at the colors and the shading, you can see American struggle. Johns could have painted the flag with bright reds, whites, and blues, however, he muted the colors just enough and added the look of wear and tear to give the flag that dingy look. I feel like this was done to signify all of the struggle that the United States of America had been through up until this was painted in 1958. Considering the fact that he still painted solid flags, it shows that through it all, we remained strong, we remains America. Quite possibly, the three flags could stand for growth of our country or the traditional three signifying the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (In God We Trust kinda thing).

my impression of an impressionist. van Gogh, Degas, & Monet.

The Sower x Vincent van Gogh

I see a hard day's work coming to a close. I get the feel of the sower being drained from all the work that he did by the use of the blue tones. The overall feel of the painting is more upbeat; it overcomes the forlorn blues. The yellows, oranges, and burnt reds are prevalent throughout the entire piece. To me, they are conveying triumph over the tedious task. They blend into a crisp gold which could be a symbol for a trophy that the sower has received for his work. The stance of the sower is another connection to the theme of triumph.

Camille Monet on a Garden Bench x Claude Monet

I found 2 opposing themes in this painting. On the left side, there are soft, bright colors. The woman looks to be enjoying the flowers on a sunny day. The right side tells a different story. There is a tree that isn't shown in the painting, however, it is casting a shadow on the 2 characters on the right side. Both figures have black colored clothing which add to the doldrum atmosphere of their side of the painting. The woman's facial expression says a million words. She is looking directly in the face of the viewer with a look that seems to be a plea for help. The male figure's watchful eye on her tells me that he may play the part of an oppressor to her.

Dancer at the Bar x Edgar Degas

This work touches home being that I am a dancer. The number one rule of Ballet is to dance with all your heart and to leave all your problems on the barre. The blue touches that are found all over this painting display all different levels of emotion. I feel her release of emotion as she looks down with her eyes closed. She is concentrating on allowing her emotions to move her in beautiful ways. 

Art by Any Other Name

​Dictionary.com defines art as “the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.”  This leads to believe that whatever someone creates that they, or someone else finds beautiful would be considered art.  That is, of course, so long as it is in accordance with the principles of aesthetics.  So what exactly is aesthetics? Dictionary.com would have the answer to this question as well.  Aesthetics would be considered “the branch of philosophy dealing with such notions as the beautiful, the ugly, the sublime, the comic, etc., as applicable to the fine arts, with a view to establishing the meaning and validity of critical judgments concerning works of art, and the principles underlying or justifying such judgments; the study of the mind and emotions in relation to the sense of beauty.”  So as long as the topic in question can be judged in favor of these philosophical elements, then you have a work of art.   ​In my personal opinion, philosophy can’t be studied accurately.  Not everyone will react the same to the same impulses or urges.  To say that something is art just because it fits a dictionary’s definition of beauty is the same for the world to side with Hitler’s views on the Jews just because he voiced them.  We would rob ourselves of the chance to experience so many beautiful works; dance, paintings, sculptures, architecture, cooking, interior and graphic design, etc. ​My view on art is simple; it’s whatever moves your soul.  It can’t be defined; it has to be lived.  No one person can tell me that the ballet I witness is any less considered art just as I can’t tell someone that their favorite painting is not beautiful. What I may call art, or aesthetically pleasing, can possibly be on the other side of the spectrum of your idea of fine art; but if it sparks something in either of our souls, then it should be held in the regard of art.  In my eyes, art can be anything that makes you appreciate living.