Books I plan on reading

Books I would like to read:

·      -An Intimate Distance: Women, artists, and the body by Rosemary Betterton

·      -Blue Collar White Collar by Sterling Hundley

·      -7 days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton

·      -Art Worlds by Becker

·      -The Problem of Space –Einstein’s Essay

·      -Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord

·      -Works of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, an Essay by Walter Benjamin

·      -1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

·      -All Creatures Great and Small by Kiki Smith

·      -The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby

·      -The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman

·      -The Art of Not Making by Michael Petry

·      -Carrie by Stephen King

News and Media

These days it's hard to separate news from media in the sense that people look at certain sites that agree with their opinions, and they don't consider anything else. I also feel that the news has become very much like social media, such as Facebook, where people blindly scroll through the information and don't actually soak anything in. I have one friend in particular that will be scrolling through Facebook on her phone, but if you ask her what she's looking at she doesn't know and she doesn't even realize she's mindlessly scrolling through. I think the news is a lot like that because people will go right past a lot of important information and latch on to only one quote or photo- usually something negative.

Trump

I don't normally like doing this- finding memes of people (most of which are rude)- even if I don't like them, but I chose this photo because I found it more humorous than other memes I found. I find it strange that our culture during Presidential, or even smaller elections doesn't focus on making themselves look good by making decisions that are good for our country, but they spend a majority of their time trying to make the opponent look so bad. 

Robert Altman Films

I watched movies by the director Robert Altman. I watched MASH, The Player, and Gosford Park. Growing up I watched the movie and show, MASH, frequently with my dad, so even though I didn’t know who the director was at the time, he has had such a big impact on my life.  Because I have always loved MASH I decided to watch more of Altman’s films.

It was interesting seeing the differences and similarities between the films. For instance, MASH is full of heavy situations, because the setting is a medical camp during the war. But in spite of all the dramatic situations and people dying, all the characters are super outgoing and just down right hilarious. I love the movie more than anything, but I am also very pleased with the television show. I think the television show really shows who the characters are in more depth, which makes for even better connections with the audience.

The difference between MASH and Altman’s other films is kind of funny because MASH is very lighthearted in a crazy sad situation, and his other films, like The Player, are more dark. He takes a weird or sad situation and makes it very dramatic. The films sometimes deal with the same level of dramatic situations, but the tone of each are quite different.

My Voice

My voice as an artist has not yet matured completely. I am still exploring different mediums and ideas, and it changes almost every day. In the past I made a lot of work dealing with and questioning elegance, purity, and influence. I think I’d like to pursue some of that in more depth in the future, but as of right now in my career I don’t want to. It’s difficult to describe to you what my voice is, because I don’t yet know. I think in order for me to talk about it I need to have a greater understanding of what I want to pursue. Also, I feel that sometimes my work evokes a certain feeling or causes people to question things that I didn’t necessarily think about while making it. One time Willem De Kooning was listening to someone talk about and ask about his work, and he responded with a great quote that states, “Thank you, now I know what my work is about”. I think sometimes an artist doesn’t fully know what their voice is until they hear the responses from the viewers.