Chapter 6

I liked this chapter a lot, probably my favorite in the whole book. Self portraiture art at any age is really interesting to me. I think self portraits convey a persons inner soul. I believe they have a lot to do with psychology. Having a patient draw a self portrait can help diagnose possible behavioral issues the individual might have. This diagnostic technique is used a lot for children because they show so much personal feeling through drawings. I have attached a self portrait drawn by a young girl. It is apparent in this picture that the girl might feel confused about her race seeing as she has drawn her self split in half with two different skin tones. I also wonder if her parents had been telling her for a long time that she is half this and half that.

Link For The Presentation

http://www.aspectmag.com/issues/movie.cfm?chrome=none&workID=54

Carpenter Museum Trip

The Carpenter Museum: "Two or Three Things I Know About Her"

I was not very impressed by this exhibit. I felt overwhelmed by the tightness of all the pieces, there just wasn't a lot of room to really be able to focus on one piece at a time. It just felt awkward I guess. The piece I enjoyed the most was the K8 Hardy and Wynne Greenwood's video about being news reporters reporting a woman throwing out her paintings. I thought it was interesting how they had to describe to one another what a painting looked like as if they had never seen one before. It seemed strange that the artists would choose to do this since they are trying to convey a message about women not recognized enough in the art world (at least thats what I understood of it). I also was intrigued by the fact that both women news anchors/reporters made both their names Henry. It was if they were trying to come off more manly to be accepted? If that makes sense. It was a little hard to follow sometimes but it was the only piece that really drew me in. It was also the only one that I felt really had a big enough space where I could really focus on that screen and that screen only. 

The Fog Museum

In the fog museum I really enjoyed the photographs of the penny heads. I think I enjoyed this piece a lot because it was the least new media esq. for me. It was interesting to see how each penny had aged in different ways. Sometimes I'll find one penny that is older than another one but yet the younger one is even more aged. Looking at all those photographs made me think of all the many journeys each of those pennies have taken. I bet they have been more places than me.  Pennies are like those forgotten coins. I read a short story once written by the grand daughter of the designer of the penny. She talked about how whenever she sees a lonely penny on the street or in the trash she always picks it up because she feels that not only is it a piece of her history but it is also a work of art. 

Catch Up!

Well since I was sick last week I missed everyone's presentations on different aspect artists. I ended up teaming up with Michaela and we researched CarianaCarianee. We split up and I watched the Aspect DVD. I thought it was really interesting hearing basically the same thing said by the same person but in two separate frames and in either frame the clothes and set were different from one to the next. I enjoyed the seriousness and honesty in her voice. I felt very connected to her especially when she was looking directly at me. 

"Design"

The chapter on design didn't interest me as much as the others have. The part of it I did enjoy was how pink talked about car companies using design as a competitive factor. I feel like since there was ever a car the luxury factor has been huge. The average car buyer does not look for how fast it goes from 0 to 60 mph or it's safety features, but more or less how nice it looks on the outside and in. It's so crazy to think about how much design is involved in everything around us. Like who decided that Mcdonalds should be red and yellow, why not purple and pink? It's all about decisions of personal and consumer taste.

"Story"

This chapter made me want to free write so this is basically my brain pooping thoughts. 

I once took a class in high school about creating a definition for the term History and the word story came up all the time. Before people could read and write we told stories and "histories" by word of mouth, generation to generation. A story can be short or long and carries so much emotion even if we don't realize it. I feel like stories are such a huge part of who we are as people, they make up our past of knowledge. We hear stories everyday all day we just dont think of it that way. I can't imagine a day without hearing one story. That means silence to me.