Annabelle Chong Revelation
I am bad with people, because I assume everyone I meet wants something sexual from me. That has been the majority of situations in my life. I can barely talk to a man unles I know he is gay, or we have already had sex. I'm slightly better with women, but not much. No matter what the situation, no matter who the person… and it's not a conceit thing, it's not that I think they want me or desire me. It's more of a … transaction. Like the awkward moment in which the bellboy/paperboy/waitress/stripper is waiting for their tip and you are oblivious to the fact untilin that second, it dawns on you why this person is still standing there… that second, that knowledge that they are waiting on something that they think I am suppose to give them, something that they are expecting and I am holding out on, for whatever reason… that second is how I spend 95% of my time feeling when I'm around other people. I feel almost like when I meet someone it should go something like this:
HI!
Hey.
I'm John/Jack/Jill/Jesus
I'm JJ, DO you want me to do something sexual to you?
Cause then I would get it out of the way. WHen they said no, I could go on with a normal conversation with this person… of course after that question they would probably run away screaming. I'm not sure if my hesitancy is the fear that when meeting someone they WILL want something sexual and by saying no, I will be alienating this person somehow, or that I will say yes and it willo end up being a horribly bad experience (I've had this happen a couple of times) I don't think I fear them not wanting something sexual, if that was the case, I wouldn't be comfortable around gay guys. The odd thing is though, I always assume that no one would ever want me, but I recognize the moment in which I feel like they are expecting something. It's a very strange contrast at all times. I'm not sure if it's an attraction thing or a replusion thing. Ether way, I belive this is at the core of my issues with being able to meet people.
Essence
I think my essence is that of a gypsy… not to use labels, but it is easier at the moment. But I think, somehow, my parents saw my essence, possibly in my blue eyes as an infant or when I began to walk at an early age, already trying to escape. So they opressed it, with ideals that they thought would drown my true essence. THoughts and beliefs that would make me be more…. stable. So I long to loose my possessions and go. Jusr load up the kids and move. I'm never happy in one area for very long. But I don't do it, not everytime at least, cause I have this other. This seperate that makes me do what the norm says I should do. As I child, Art was not supported in my home. I didn't draw or color, I don't even remember owning crayons. Dolls, paper dolls, barbie dolls. But I would match my clothes like and abstract painting. I was vibrant and alive like a walking work of art, until I got the message that I was suppose to be subdued. Not loud and boisterous. Covered, modest, out of sight. That was me, I became invisible, a shadow creature. I go so good t it I could walk through hoards of people and never be noticed.
Their mistake was teaching me to ride my bike.I never asked permission to do anything, I just did it. if I got in trouble later, oh well, but until I did, I ddn't ask and I did what I wanted. SO as soon as those two wheels could carry me, I was gone. As soon as I got home, as soon as I woke up, I left, and I stayed gone, exploring, as long as I could. Freedom, it is what I crave more than anything, but if I ever actually get it, will I still want it?
First parents, then marriage, then children…. No, I love my kids and I don't see them as hendering my freedom. It is just that other, the seperate that is there telling me I have to stay for them. I can't move because of them. They need stability, they need consistency. I'm sure they do, but beneath those chests beats my heart, and they have a bit of that same essence, the need to move, to be gone to be free. No matter what I don't want to be caged I want to fly free and do what I want, I can't label, cause gypsy isn't right, bird isn't right, but there is an anti-authoritiarn in along with a transient and something else, somethin much more, but the swirling vortex is far to fast at the moment to stare at for long.
realization 130
While writing a response to Lauren on Facebook, I realized that Art is an intimate act to me. How did I not know this already? How did I not realize that was what I was feeling when people would want to look at before it was finished or watch over my shoulder. I want to be alone with my art when I'm working. I don't want someone there, interfering with my art time. The same way most people don't want to be interrupted mid coitus. Art is more sacred to me than sex, it is more intimate. Possibly because I don't share it. The work in which someone helps me always feels less mine, less personal. I think I just foudn another part to my art practice/statement.
realization 129… or something like that
I love lookinig… looking at men and women, I guess I'm something of a voyeur, but I have no desire to meet them. I want to have my own story about them, they become god like, or rather celebrity like in my mind. Wouldn't that be somewhat daunting to know that you are starring in someones personal play in their head? Their stories are far more interesting when I tell them than when they tell them. The beauty of the stranger attracts while the knowledge of them repells.
Realization 128
I started doing video essays five years ago and didn't know what I was doing. Evidently the people I looked to as mentors and experienced film makers/ videographers didn't either. I realize now that my first truly large work, which was never finished was a video essay in the truest form according to Stuff it No one got it, my professor dismissed it, and the person that I really thought would understand, a filmmaker/producer hated every part of it. Said he wanted it to go slower so he could see the sequences and stories, but there really wasn't one. It was meant to flow over the viewer, it was less about intake and more about experience. It really irks me to look back and realize that I may have been on the verge of something great for myself and I let others affect me.
Rhythm
An addendum to "Rhythm"
I have rituals I did not know I had. Maybe their superstitions, maybe something else, but regardless there are other things that are affecting how I do my work other than my "rhythm," which is a big part of it. The painting, this painting that has taken me longer than any other painting I have ever done. This blasted painting that I have worked on for 2 weeks now, is finally finished. It is not what I had in my mind, but I do like it. The problem it seems, was that I didn't adhere to the ritual I had inadvertently created for myself. When I began painting, for three days, THREE DAYS!!! I painted her body over and over and over. Not something I usually do. I feel pretty confident when I paint the body parts, the values, the colors. I have a system for the color mixing and I usually don't have problems. I could not get it right. I could not get past the body, that was suppose to be the easy part for me. So yesterday, out of time and frustrated beyond all belief, I kicked everyone out of the house. I went in my painting area and opened up my palette box. I was wearing one of my favorite shirts, I thought, I need to put on some paint clothes. On the way to the room I passed by Miki's room where music was playing (the new cat can't stand to be alone, so Miki leaves the music on for him.) and I thought, i wanted some music. Once in my room, I grabbed my computer, changed my shirt and then remembered, I've only ever painted in my paint jeans so I pulled them on. I remembered I would be doing some small details if I ever got to that point (I was beginning to doubt) so I grabbed my glasses and put them on top of my head. I set up the computer and made a play list with minimal punk rock (I love my man Johnny Rotten, but he is not conducive to painting.) And within 4 hours I was adding my sign. I was finished. Again, it isn't exactly what I had in my head, but in some ways it is better.
I also believe that one of the reasons I have had such a hard time typing at home is because my room is a disaster. I usually clean and organize before i start doing serious research or typing work, but because I have spent so much time on this painting I felt like taking the time to clean would hurt me more. I think I should have cleaned. I still have ao many things I want to do, but I don't think they are going to get done considering I have 26 hours till all of this is due.
So, I have a painting ritual, I quite possibly have a study ritual that I did not know about and I think my drawing ritual is based on materials. I have found that I can not draw in just any sketch book, it either has to be given to me, or it has to really speak to me in some way. I have to draw with black ink pens, usually micron but there are a couple of others that I will use, and of course sharpies. Sharpies are my favs, they just don't come thin enough for some of my lines. I draw better when I am supose to be doing something else, so my mind is partially occupied with another situation. I don't know why that is… I think it might be because i am more free when I have two things to think about.
I think it will take me all 5 semesters to figure it all out, but I am getting closer to really understanding why I do art, how I do art and what it really means to me.
Rhythm
I live by a rhythm. I think, most people live by a schedule, or a clock, or a to do list. I live by a rhythm and the rhythm changes, sometimes, several times, more than once in a day and I almost always have more than one rhythm going at once.
People with OCD will sometimes have to do something a number of times, or everything will have to be perfectly symmetrical, or in a specific place. They can't help it, it's impulsive. The rhythm I hear effects the way I do everything, from brushing my hair to writing a paper. If I try to do something out of my rhythm, I will have a hard time accomplishing it. Not in an abstract sense either, but in a very realistic way. If I do not have a "typing" rhythm going and I try to type, I will spend more time correcting the typing errors than I will actually typing. In a more abstract sense the words will not flow as easily from me as they may another day or time. painting when I'm not in the right rhythm is possibly the hardest of all to do. The painting comes out disjointed and broken rather than smooth. I don't mean disjointed in a cubist, wow that's cool kinda way. More like an unexperienced artist kind of disjointed.
Sometiems I can hear my rhythm very clearly, other times it's more like a feeling, I just know when the rhythm is right. I want to learn how to control my rhythms and influnce them, through music, meditation or whatever way I can.
I think I was closer to my rhythm when I was dancing, I know that a very short piece I choreographed for a class once was said by the professor to be very powerful. She said that she could hear the rhythm of my movements. Through the dance I could hear the rhythm very loudly in my head.
I've always had a way of fitting the right music, rhythmically, with a piece of video. Someone told me that I have good timing, I think it's the rhythm. Once while teaching a dance that I had choreographed to the sound of waves I realized that my dancers could not hear/feel the rhythm of the waves the way I did. When I dance I allow the rhythm of the music to move me the way it wants me to go. The porblem is I usually forget right after.
Everything I do has a rhythm and a task can not be completed till the rhythm is complete and work can not be done if the rhythm is not right… Well it CAN be done, but I almost always go back and re do it later when I'm in the right rhythm.
Maybe this is why I have so many interests. The different rhythms correlate to different mediums, activities or people. having one rhythm and being forced to do something else or be with someone else who is not of that rhythm messes me up. I think it is part of the reason I will get in such bad moods m being forced out of my rhythm or having to hear/feel two juxtaposing rhythms.
My Process
The painting that I have undertaken has turned out to be a bit more difficult than I originally thought it would be. This has clued me into the a couple of things. First, it's ok to have a project that takes longer than I expected it to take. Usually I have my timeline in my head and if the project is not going according to schedule, I'll put it on a back burner and say that I'm gonna come back to it later. Though I usually don't. I did that with this project in the beginning. The second thing I learned was what my process entails, at least some of it.
I woke up with the image in my head. A girl in a bathroom, there is an open wound on her chest, she is placing a bloody heart on a shelf, the hand is forshortened because she is reaching up toward the shelf. In her other hand, presumably replacing the old heart, she holds a metal heart. The scene is very dark and dirty and bloody.
I waited a couple of day before I began it. I wanted to get the image clear in my mind. I began with a couple of basic sketches for the basic layout. Then I went to refence photo's which is where I had my first problem. I have a mourge of my own, but because so many of the pictures have emotional attachments I never use it. Google images, photobucket and Flickr have become my mourge. First I looked up a female subject in a similar pose. I knew I was unlikely to find the exact pose, but I found a couple I could do sketches from, so I did. Next came the heart. Putting heart into a search engine will get you a lot of things, but hardly any Actual hearts. So I tried "Actual Heart" with not very many more results. I found one that was ok. I did a couple of sketches, but I wasn't happy with it. Next I tried for the chest wound. I was convinced that I would find something with all the horror and demented things on the net. Hours of searching, and getting others to help me search, I think at one time I had three computer going evryone serching for vsriations on "chest wound." I asked online friends and posted bulletings in forums asking for help. I got some good idea but nothing turned up. I never found anything that could be a deep wound of any kind. It didn't even have to be chest. It didn't have to be real, it could have been a painting. I did a couple of sketches on what I thought it would look like, but all of them seemed very cartoonish.
REALIZATION 1, I like my stuff to start off realistic and I will research all day to find a good reference photo. Granted I really didn't realize the entire day had gone by until someone asked me when I was going to make dinner. REALIZATION 2, I will try to draw everything twice, once without reference and once with. I don't know if I'm testing myself or I just like to be thorough, but I seem to always do this, without really thinking about it.
I quit after that. Decided to put it on the back burner and move on. I worked on a video piece for a couple of nights. Then something of a small miracle happened. I was left, ALONE, in the house. This is very important to understand, I am never, EVER alone unless I am in my car. When I am home, there is always someone with me, when I'm at work there is always someone with me, when I go shopping or whatever there is always someone with me. So the rare event of me being home was met at first with confusion then elation. I made a video and took some reference photo's.
REALIZATION 3, I am very self-consciouce of myself when I am creating. I do not like anyone watching me paint, work on the computer, make videos or take photo's. I've gotten over the take photo's one, but I would prefer to be out by myself taking pictures than around people. I wasn't able to do anything but look up reference materials because I couldn't get any time to myself. I have done all the things I've said in front of people before, but usually they were in, out, and not paying me any attention. Everyone has been kinda up my butt lately. Probably cause of the seizures.
So now I am on day two of working on thing for this painting, a painting that I was going to work on for 2 days at the most in my mind. So then I still needed reference photos. "Real Heart" was the phrase I needed to search for, I found one quickly and easily. Next was "metal Heart" Not as easy, really didn't find one, except for a tattoo of one. But I think I can work with the real heart and add metal texture. "Bloody wound" did not bring up any pictures but brought up a pretty good tutorial for photoshop.
REALIZATION 4, I am willing to learn any new techniques that will help my digital art.
So now I had to begin my digital sketch. I took two of the photo's from the shoot the previous night and edited them to get the best photo. I liked the legs on one and the head on the other. Once I had the figure ready I started adding the refence photos. First I did the wound with photoshop. It took a little while, but eventually I got something that was ok. I added the real heart to the hand and realized I needed a shelf. I basically made one in photoshop, but I was/am very unhappy about it.
REALIZATION 5, I want my sketches to look as good as the finished project and therefore my sketches become as intensive as the work itself. I had to back off or I would never get to painting.
Then I needed something to be the metal heart in the other hand. I took one of the metal heart shaped hearts and put it there just for effect. Then I decided I was unhappy with the background. In the vision the girl is sitting on a closed toilet seat in a bathroom with tile in the background. Due to spacial issues I had to take my pictures in the hallway. I subtract out the hallway behind me and start looking for an image online of a dirty bathroom. I find them, but I just can't find one with the right perspective.
REALIZATION 6 I still don't get perspective. I can create it from scratch in a drawing, I can teach it, but I can not take an image and put perspective behind it. I tried to create the background, that was a wasted hour or more and all the images I pulled off the internet didn't work either. Another wasted hour at least. Finally I just left the backgraound black and decided to try to put it in when I painted. I did find a toilet that worked for the image however and put that in.
So I printed it. Once everyone was asleep I went to go paint. I started out with a charcoal sketch. I changed the shelf and made it solid rather than table like. I chaged me some as well. I tried to add tiles to the background. But again the perspective problem got in my way. After drawing, erasing and redrawing the tiles several times, I decided I needed sleep. My head was pounding and I was tired.
So I have learned that my basic process for creating an image from scratch is I pencil and paper sketch the complete image, but in basic shapes. I sketch the individual parts, look for reference photos and sketch from the reference photos. I will get several photos for every one image I want to draw. I photograph the scene as exact as I can. I create a digital sketch that has as many of the parts as I can find. I print it out. I sketch the digital print on the canvas and makes initial changes to the digital sketch.
I know that my next step will be to begin painting. I will block in colors and do some major details. I will then step back hate the paintings and resketch it again using proportional tools to be sure it is correct. I will paint it again. I will put in details large and small, I will work on the value and change it a dozen times. I will then add to the image in whatever way i think would look interesting. With this one I'm pretty sure it's gonna be dirty, bloody smudges and tattoo's on the body.
I look at other peoples work and I love it. I want to create something like what they have created, but whatever I set out to do, never actually gets completed. Instead this other thing emerges, that sometimes I like and sometimes I don't, but I am almost always left unsatisfied cause the image never looks the exact way I want it to.
So the final steps of my process are as follows. I will show it to someone, I might even put it in a show, then I will bring it home and put it in the attic and never look at it again most likely, because of space issues. It may get hung on a wall of the house, if I can find a place somewhere.
Written on the body, and Eleven Minutes, the books that read my soul
Before Mark, I was of the opinion that love was a rather dull thing that started with a time period of sex and wanting to never be apart, and always touch that gradually turned into a cooperative efort to live together under the same room. This was an 'At best' kind of scenario. In my experiences and watchful interpretations, most love stories were simply two people who had given up on finding anyone else and decided they'd rather have anyone than be alone. I didn't want to 'just be' with someone. At the same time however, my marriage was definitely the 'at best' scenario. It was nice enough at first. So I would read, watch or hear love stories full of passion and deep thoughts and interest and unable to live without the other person type feelings, and I would scoff. Love is a chemical reactio in the brain brought on by pheromones in order to help the human population grow. I said this regularly. I didn't believe in true love, in passionate love, in kill yourself Romeo and Juliet kind of love. it just didn't exist. Enter Mark, stage left. He walked into the room and I looked directly at him. Something I don't do very often, and I felt this massive wave wash over me and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would effect my life greatly. 4 months later after we had become friends and spent a lot of time together at work, we went out, just the two of us. He had broken up with his girlfriend and it was suppose to be a fun time to cheer him up. I spent the entire movie stealing glances at him. On the way home we almost wrecked when he grabbed me and kissed me while I was still driving. Over the next six months I took a roller coaster ride that spanned the heights of heaven and the depths of hell. I felt things I didn't think were possible, I did things I never thought I'd do. I gave up everything (except my kids) for him and walked away in the end with nothing but my kids. I watched the movies and thought they have it all wrong, the big screen can not give the true breadth of what happens. I listened to songs and thought they have no idea what it really feels like. Then I read these two books. They got it, they said the things I had been saying, they felt the things that I had been feeling. No one else had come close to the feelings, or they made them pretty, they took out the dirt and the blood and the pain. THey didn't leave the realness in, but these books do. They speak of obsession and the confusion of what the love is doing to you. They talk about death and suicide and pain and the other people. It is not a pretty picture, it is not a happy picture… except that both of these end with the love coming back. That is the only part that is not true. He has not come back to me, and despite what my heart likes to think I know he will not. But I aso know that someone else has felt this real, painful love. Love is not roses and puppy dogs and the thing I thought my marriage was. Love is pain, but you enjoy the pain cause of the love.
Anime and the Odalisque
In 1743 men went to the salons to see the new nude paintings of harem slave girls. This is how they got their orient "kicks." Paintings of seemingly Eastern scenes with nudes reclining amongst Turkish articles and sand colored buildings with intricate patterns adorning walls. These images were not real, they were conceptions by the artist and more times than not were painted with French models in a studio in Paris. Many people new this, but still wanted to believe the lie. They wanted to see the Orient that they had in their heads. The Orient in which men are worshiped and serviced by hundreds of women who lie around half naked all day in the sun.
Fast forward 265 years. Men get their fantasy orient kicks by watching "harem" anime where the male character, usually not the perfect specimen (easier to relate to) is surrounded by beautiful women. They know it is not real, but they watch it anyway, wanting to believe the lie.
The point? Men haven't changed in 265 years.
Why Japanese Anime is better than American Animation
Not all Anime is great, I am not saying that. There are some that should be shelved faster than Scrappy-Doo but the majority are far better for many reasons; Style, story, character development, genres, intellectual quality, just to name a few. The overwhelming reason why anime is so much better is because they have been using animation far more than Americans have used animation. In America, the cartoon is looked at as a childrens medium and is used as such. It is only in the past 5 years that animation for adults has really begun and caught on. Even still most "Adult" cartoons are still based on humor and childish antics resulting in very low-brow humor that usually only garners the attention of the middle-high school age children and adults looking for some gay and fart jokes. This being said, I find nothing wrong with the low-brow humor genre and enjoy many of the "adult" american cartoons. Anime however spans the broad spectrum of the entertainment arena with everything from Drama to love stories to horror and in every age range possible. Due to certain restrictions on live action movies, location, actors, etc. Visual story tellers in Japan turned to animation in the 1930's to tell their stories. Thus making Anime the main conveyor of story telling in Japan. They have had more practice and are more experienced in making anime for all ages and all genres.
Japan has a name for everything and as such they have created names for each and every genre of anime they make. Based on the content, age appropriateness and style. The following list was taken from the Anime Wikipedia page
* Shōjo is Japanese for "young lady" or "little girl". These are generally targeted at girls. Examples: Fruits Basket or Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch.
* Shōnen is Japanese for "young boy". Examples: Dragon Ball Z or Digimon .
* Seinen is Japanese for "young man" and normally includes teenage or young male adults. Examples: Oh My Goddess! or Cowboy Bebop
* Josei is Japanese for "young woman". Examples: Gokusen or Honey and Clover.
* Kodomo is Japanese for "child". All children's series fall into this category. Examples: Hello Kitty or Hamtaro.
* Bishōjo is Japanese for "beautiful girl", and a blanket term that features pretty girl characters. Sometimes conflated with Moè. Examples: Magic Knight Rayearth or Negima.
* Bishōnen is Japanese for "beautiful boy", and a blanket term that can be used to describe any anime that features "pretty" and elegant boys and men. Examples: Fushigi Yūgi or The Wallflower.
* Sentai is literally a "fighting team" in Japanese. It refers to any show that involves a superhero team. Examples: Cyborg 009 or Voltron.
* Robot/Mecha features real robots or super robots. Examples: Mobile Suit Gundam or Mazinger Z respectively.
* Post-Apocalyptic simply deals with a post-apocalyptic world. Examples: Fist of the North Star or Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
* Mahō shōjo is a subgenre of shōjo known for "Magical Girl" stories. Examples: Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura.
* Mahō shōnen is a male equivalent of Mahō Shōjo. Examples: D.N.Angel or Fullmetal Alchemist
* Moé features characters with perky, cute, weak, or naïve behaviors. In some way, they are not overly independent.[29] Examples: A Little Snow Fairy Sugar.
* Expertise specializes with a specific topic in depth. Topics range from sports, the arts, and cooking. Examples: Eyeshield 21 with football, or Yakitate!! Japan with bread-making.
* Lolicon ("Lolita Complex") is the sexualization of under-aged female characters, the name coming from the titular character of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Example: Kodomo no Jikan
* Shotacon ("Shōtarō Complex") is the sexualization of under-aged male characters, the name coming from the lead child actor from Tetsujin-nijūhachi-gō. Example: Papa to Kiss in the Dark
* Harem is a genre which focuses on a male character surrounded by the romance of multiple female characters. Typically, the male cohabits with at least one female.[30] It is usually marketed as a Shōnen or Seinen.[31] Examples: Ranma ½ or Love Hina.
* Reverse Harem reverses the gender balance in harem, where a female character is romantically involved with many male characters. It is more often than not a Shōjo or Josei Anime. Examples: Ouran High School Host Club or Fruits Basket.
* Magical girlfriend is more accurately termed Exotic Girlfriend. This genre focuses on the romantic relationship (and cohabitation) between a man and at least one woman of extraordinary origins such as alien (Tenchi Muyo!, Urusei Yatsura), supernatural (Oh My Goddess!), or technological (Chobits). Often considered a subgenre of Harem.[32][33]
* Ecchi is Japanese for "indecent sexuality", derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the letter "H", (the origin of the term is not well known, even in Japan. See main article for more information.) Sexual humor and fan service are prevalent. Examples: Oruchuban Ebichu or He Is My Master.
* Hentai is Japanese for "abnormal" or "perverted". This term is synonymous to pornography or erotica, as hentai content specifically consists of such. Examples: La Blue Girl or Bible Black.
* Shōjo-ai or Yuri is Japanese for "girl-love". These focus on love and romance between female characters. It is often being replaced by the term "Girls Love" (GL). Yuri is like Shōjo-ai, but sometimes involves older characters or explicit sexual activity. Examples: Revolutionary Girl Utena or Kannazuki no Miko.
* Shōnen-ai is Japanese for 'boy-love'. These focus on love and romance between male characters. The term "Shōnen-ai" is being phased out in Japan due to its other meaning of pederasty, and is being replaced by the term "Boys Love" (BL). Examples: Loveless or Gravitation
* Yaoi is like "Shōnen-ai" but often involving older characters and explicit sexual activity. Examples: Sensitive Pornograph
Not all anime's look the same. The first thing that comes to mind is the big eyed sailor moons, but that is by far, not the only style of art. It is interesting to note that anime is most noted as an art rather than a cartoon. The stylistic approach the artists take to create their characters make them individual and interesting, where as in America I could watch almost and entire episode of speed buggy before I realized it wasn't Sooby doo. The shōjo style (Big eyes) is the most common, but other artists have experimented with other styles. Hayao Miyazaki uses more normal sized eyes and proportions. His art reflects more on traditional Japanese art where as the shōjo style was, oddly enough, inspired by earlier American cartoons like Betty Boop and Bambi. Other artists have experiemnted with other styles as well but one combining factor is the line. Anime is drawn with a calligraphic style where as American cartoons are drawn with a pen, so the line is more flowing and dynamic in anime.
All this pales in comparison to the anime creators abilities to tell a story. The stories and characters are deep and complex. You feel as if you know them, like they are family members you can relate to, people who are real. I believe this is why the love of anime all over the world is so strong. People really feel a connection to the characters. American cartoons are recognizable, iconic and interesting, but we don't relate to them on a personal level the way many relate to anime characters. THe Japanese tradition of story telling carried through in their anime.
Employment essay
Is this just so much bullshit or a real thing?
My statement for a job on my theory on education in an open door comprehensive community college
I meditated a while on the phrase "open door comprehensive community college." That terminology sums up what I consider my own personal pedagogical theories to be. Open door; open to everyone, all are welcome, and everyone possesses the necessary tools they need to succeed when they walk in. If art is not "open door" we loose the great artists, the surprising artists, the "outsider"artists. Everyone deserves to learn about art, it enhances so many different area's of ones life that it is hard to believe there are still area's that do not see it's unique potential. Comprehensive; As an interdisciplinary artist, I invoke the very nature of comprehensive. I think it is important to not limit one's self too much, but to explore the wide variety that is life. Be it in art history, mediums, or styles, a comprehensive learning environment in art is critical to be able to fully develop the discourse that is needed to succeed in the art world, or indeed in any area. Community; What would art be without community. Though critics are thought of in negative terms in the art world many times, if it wasn't for the critical discourse that is implemented from them and their often keen eyes, we wouldn't have any context in which to speak of our art to our community. We create our art for our community, be it the community of home, town, state or the global community, and as such we must have a knowledge of critical discourse in these arena's in order to be able to dialogue. Community is important as a venue and as a learning tool. By educating our community we create a group that is far more aware of everything, not just art. College; Isn't that why we are all here? To be part of the greater institution? To serve those who want to better themselves intellectually? The college setting has always been one of electricity and tension while still melding and strengthening. It is the one of the greatest environments in which I have ever found myself. Within weeks of returning to college for my degree in art, I knew I wanted to one day return as a professor. A person that opens door for a new generation of artists and art lovers, a person that takes it upon themselves to be the critic and the educator, the person who wants to be an artist and a teacher of the arts. "Open Door Comprehensive Community College" is my pedagogical theory all wrapped up in a nice little package.
Mediums
Upon meditating on the tools I choose to use in my artwork I have discovered several things: My camera is my security blanket, I go back to older (Computer, Video Camera) materials in order to implement new knowledge, I learn new mediums in order to be more well versed and well rounded ( and to be able to do everything myself,) I can only work well in certain mediums (Paint, Sculpture) when I am in the right emotional state, being able to move from one thing to another helps me to release my creativity better.
One of the reasons I chose Goddard, and one of the reasons I was told Goddard was perfect for me was because I like to work in so many different mediums. I like to learn new things and go back to my old ways and work on them some more and then move on to something else. It is part of my art practice and I do not intend on changing. When I go out, anywhere, I almost always have one of my cameras with me. I am constantly trying to improve upon what I do. I want to be a better photographer, a better videographer, better drawer, better painter. I can use my photography and much of my video work in every other area of art. I will use a photograph to paint from or manipulate a photograph in photoshop, or add it to a movie I'm working on. Sometimes the photograph is just a photograph, sometimes I set out to create something with the camera. When I was teaching dance regularly I created two series of photographs, "Pheonix" and "Rome". I first choreographed a dance, then I costumed it, lit it, and finally performed it, but only for the still camera. So the dance was caught in blurry still images, I then manipulated the photograph, brightened colors, in the case of "Pheonix" I added words from a poem I wrote over top. With "Rome" I took the initial series of images and used them in a digital painting series that incorporated collage. Later those images were used as well as parts of the dance, other photographs, a painting, and digital music that I created were put together to make one of my first video works, in which I did all the editing, animation, special effects and finishing.
This is how I work, It's works well for me. Just before my life blew up I did a series of photographs which lead to a series of paintings which lead to a dance. I stay with a medium and learn other mediums at the same time. I go back to everything I have learned before and I learn more. I'm not ever static with my knowledge.
Dolls are my newest medium, they are new to me, sewing is not, but dolls are. I have started simply with a found art assemblage using a doll. I have created practice dolls, which were just that, practice, as in learning a new medium, you have to do small practice things all the time. I have already started incorporating video and photography in the assemblage. I do not wish to stay on only one medium or make one more important than the other, they are all part of who I am as an artist. I work in all the mediums, all the time. An idea doesn't enter my head that isn't conceived in at least three different mediums.
Obsessions and Identity
This packet period has been very introspective. I have only externalized a single project really, my first video which is a combination of the odalisque, dolls and pop-culture, as well as a little capitalist, out-sourcing rhetoric. In my piece I have recreated Ingres "La Grande Odalisque" though found art sculpture. Using a barbie doll, some cloth and pins and an old television I conceived an idea in which the tools used to silence children into reverence have been used to create an image that may not be suitable for children. By doing this I hope to create a discourse about the use of High Art to sell products, parents who rely on consumerism and capitalism to raise their children, the dycotymy between high art and television (Which has become the art of the masses,) and the irony involved in recreating an "orientalist" artwork out of pieces "American" paraphernalia, that was all made in China or Japan.
Internally, my pendulum swings from quitting or giving up all together, to wondering why I am doing this. My life is not… correct. Something is just not right, and though, according to Brian, everyone feels like this, I can't help but place a modicum of egocentricity on mine and say, this is different. He assures me (Brian) that some of us are just really, really late bloomers…. But I have to wonder if I missed my potential at an earlier age and it is now gone. My problem, the situation that keeps ruling my life, is that PM (Pre Mark) I wrote wonderfully, my professors used my writing as an example to the class in many cases. My art was breathtaking, I was in several shows and won awards. My thoughts were clear and concise, I could find the thread and not only hold on to it, but also weave wonderful things from a single thought. Now AM (After Mark) I am unable to complete a simple task without having to write everything down and consult three people! I have truly painted only one picture, I have written the story that was suppose to help me, but has really done nothing for me. Somewhere along the lines a door was closed, a faucet was turned off or a road block was put up. I am not lacking in creativity, I have so many ideas I feel as if my head is going to explode (thus the doll with the exploding head.) I just can't seem to get them out. So I think; why am I doing this, why do I continue on when I only feel like a poser, like a sham? I believe it has to do with obsessions and identity. I have my obsessions, and those obsessions align with the obsessions of many artists whom I feel I identify with. It gives me an identity. My obsessions are and have been for quite awhile, as follows (in no particular order):
1-sex (not just doing it but the nature of it, the idea of it, the extent some people will go for it)
2-porn (again, the idea behind it, the people who make it, the purpose it serves)
3-suicide (don't really know how t0 explain this one yet)
4-stalking (the very nature of obsession and the lengths we will go to over obsessions)
5-Quantum Physics (More specifically the ideas of alternate dimensions, alternate realities and the lack of placement in objects)
6-Death (My own, I fantasize about my own death, I find it comforting for some reason, I guess cause I know I'll never see it.)
7-Fairytale/folklore as reality (fairies existing, witches existing, etc)
8-Violence (how people resort to it, how it become a drug, etc)
9-Asian Cultures (no explanation needed, exactly what it says)
10-Horrors paranormal and real (Ghosts, monsters, sociopaths, the movies, the real things, etc. usually when it comes to ghost stories I just wan to disprove them)
11- Art and artists (Their lives, their work)
When I look at artwork that strikes me, really pulls me in, I find that there is usually more than one of these things in it. I do not feel pulled toward landscape works unless they are dark and macabre. I'm not big on the "beautiful" works of art either. I have a lot of respect for Monet, and his work is beautiful, but most of his stuff does not speak to me. Edward Gorey, who I studied last semester, not only worked in ways that interested me, but his life interested me. I found in my studies tat we had many of the same interests, down to the exact same ballet company and choreographer. I have found that the artists who create works that pull me in, Van Gogh, Munch, Schiele, have more in common with me than just aesthetic tastes. Being able to identify with these artists on a different level gives me more of a sense of identity.
I was, for years, a dancer. I took several more for me to be able to not "be" a dancer anymore. I still danced, up until a year ago. I performed less than two years ago, but I know that I was not really a dancer anymore. It is something I love with all my heart, but I am not a dancer anymore. It wasn't until I felt like I could call myself an artist that I was able to not be a dancer anymore. I realize that I shouldn't have to have a label or an identifier, but I do. I just don't feel whole without it, and my other identifier's do not fulfill me. Teacher… don't make me laugh, I have never liked teaching, I've quit twice now. If I could find another profession where I could do the things I do as a teacher and still make enough money to live, I would most likely quit again. Mom is a good title, I enjoy it, but I have seen what happens to mothers who wrap themselves up into their children and that is the only way they identify themselves. When their children move, they have nothing and have to start all over again, and though I seem to be a pro at starting all over again, I don't want to feel pain and loss at my children's inevitable life away from me. I want to be happy that they are moving on with their lives, not like I have just lost myself again. I have considered become a vagabond when the children move out. Selling everything I have and transversing the country, and possibly the world, with no real home to speak of. It's a pipe dream that will never happen, but I like the idea of nothing. I guess my identifier then would be hobo or transient.
So I look at my obsessions, oriental life and art…. Am I a modern day Orientalist? Picking up where Ingres and Manet left off? Or starting a new Orientalist art altogether. I see a direct connection with the odalisque and Japanese pop culture, and it's not in the sex. I see the westerners obsession with all things exotic and how diversely different cultures live and behave. I do not see myself looking down on these other cultures the way I have read that many of the Europeans did all those years ago, but rather looking up to for their sense of originality in some cases and traditionalism in others. In Japan today, if you go to Harajuku, you will see the most elaborate and realistic costumes of the youth cultures obsessions. Characters from Manga's and anime's such as Evangelion and Naruto, the newest fashion fad such as goth lolita, or Ganguru, They may be dressed as members from a band or a style of music; but what I admire, what really grabs me, is their loyalty to their obsession. This is much of what the movie "All About Lilly Chou Chou" was about. I found that the movie however, focused too much on the violence and not the pop culture. So the thread I see here is the obsession. The westerners obsession with the unknown orient, significantly turkey and the new Japanese Culture of obsession.
I also find another thread in identifying with the Odalisque artists of the past. I admire them and their work, their interest in the orient and the artwork that was created due to that interest, and I feel myself in a similar place. I have my own obsessions with the orient and wish to make art that highlights the exotic and unknown. I am not linear, as I think is obvious, and my thinking tend to make leaps. I see a clear path from Odalisques of the 1800's to Harajuku square, but the thread is not easily seen, as the thread is me. I am the link between the two. There is sex or sexuality apparent in both, the odalisque has become synonymous with sex. One of the harajuku styles is the gothic lolita. The very term Lolita brings to mind underage vixens thanks to Nabokov, and maybe this is not what they are aiming for, but odalisques were not meant to be seen as sexual either. Enjo kōsai is another Japanese trend taken up by the youth that is subsidized dating. Most like and escort where young girls spend time with grown men for money. An argument surrounding this practice is whether or not it is prostitution. Many of the girls say that they only spend time with the men, go to Karaoke together and such. Even with this explanation, the girls who practice Enjo kōsai are looked down upon and are considered prostitutes by many. In hind site Enjo kōsai explains "All about Lilly Chou Chou" slightly better.
Odalisques
The main purpose of researching and learning about the odalisque is in order for me to understand why I have such an obsession with it. The obsession though goes deeper than just the Odalisque paintings. it is an obsession with female bodies and sexuality in general. As a child I was raised in a sexually repressed household, where I was told point blank at a very young age that sex was a terrible thing that I should hate. At the same time I discovered porn. Like some adult version of Alice in wonderland… Alice in pornland maybe? The area's that I exploed and had my imaginings in seemed to hold porn fairies that would show up and leave me little presents. I found pictures, pages and sometimes whole magazines in my little world. Here was a world where women were not afraid of their bodies and sex, but I was told I coldn't walk around naked anymore, I didn't understand. The mixed signals I got about sex starting very young created a dichotomy in me. I am the embodiment of the struggle between man and woman and their issues over porn. I have all of them from both sides all of the time. As a young child I once heard an uncle tell a joke that went something like " a man walked into a bar and walked up to a woman and asked if she would sleep with him for 10 dollars. She slapped him and walked away. He changed jackets and hats, Later that night he approached the same woman and asked if she would sleep with him for 100 dollars, again she slapped him a walked away. He changed his jacket and hat again, finally he walked up to the woman and said would you sleep with me for a million dollars and she agreed, he turned to his friends and said see, all women are whores it's just the price that's negotiable." Even as young as I was, the joke made me angry, but the more I've lived the more I understand where some men are coming from. I thought for a long time that my obsession with the female body meant that i was lesbian, but every girl I've ever dated has been either insane or a whore… maybe i just have bad taste in women… granted the men haven't been that much better…. Anyway that joke, the repressed household, the porn fairy and finally an incident in kindergarten gave way to this fountain of questions and theories and ideas about sex and sexuality. I was as bad as a hormonal boy looking for porn, thank god the internet wasn't invented back then. I obsessed over it well into my teens when I went to college and discovered art.
I found it fascinating and hilarious that men used art as their porn. Going to galleries to look at the "tasteful nudes." The sculptures the paintings, abstract, expressionist, all of them floored me. here were people with my obsession, creating art about it and for the purpose of just looking at the image of a naked woman. I learned the term odalisque in a rather embarrassing way. A teacher asked the class if any of us new what it was, i answered in reference to an obelisk… and being that I talk with my hands, here I am describing a phallic shaped object and we are talking about reclining female nudes. This was also the first time that term was used wrongly. We were told that an Odalisque was an image which used a nude prostitute as the central focus.
I have decided to start working with dolls, which seemed perfectly normal when the two ideas popped up at about the same time, then I began to realize (After many comments of the validity of my statement, "it makes perfect sense") that this was just another of my many idea that don't make sense to other people. THe more I tried to explain the less they understood. Reflecting back on the sexually repressed household I realized the only sexual creatures in my house were my Barbies. (Which in turn of course meant me.) My Barbies had jobs as basically strippers. Of course due to my household I didn't exactly understand that that's what they were, and in defense of my parents, a small child really doean't need to know that anyway, but I won't get into that right now. My Barbies had jobs a dancers who danced naked. I have no idea where this idea came from, I wanted to be a dancer since I was three and I always wanted to be naked, so it made perfect sense to me. The doll, of course as all phsychiatrists know and tell us, is an extension of ourselves. We use it to act out things that have happened or how we feel. So my earliest experiences with sex, which are prominant in my mind revolve around barbies. SO the idea to choose dolls and odalisques make perfect sense to em. I mean even now the barbie dolls in my house all lie around naked, headless, but naked.
SO to sum up my brief reflection, the Odalisque has become something of my symbol for the argument always going on in my head over the female body.
Will elaborate more later
Fairytales
This packet period has been spent reading and researching. These are the reflections on those readings.
I have always loved fairy tales. I am one of the few people that I know, that has read the real thing and not depended on Disney for my glucose coated coma inducing stories. My children know the real one too. I read directly from the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson and when I can find another version, hopefully older I'll read that to them. If I can remember one I will recite it and I have been making them up for the kids as long as I've had them. During my dance classes we would even have story time and I would tell the dancers the story of the dance. Story telling has been a big part of my, I jut didn't realize it. It's always been a way to cope with things that happen to me, I use it as a tool to help the kids when they are going through something difficult as well. So I find it more than appropriate that the books I've been reading explain the usefulness and meanings behind fairy tales. Bruno Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantments" and Joan Gould's "Spinning Straw into Gold" have helped me decipher older fairy tales, my own fairytale as well as provided inspiration in some cases.
The fairy tale is a record of the transformation of the heroine from child to adult, not the story of happy endings we have come to expect from Disney. We have to experience transformations to grow and should stop looking for happiness and instead look for growth. Transformations cannot happen without pain, pain makes the world beautiful and makes us appreciate what we have and what we have lost. My fairy tale is more of a growth or transformation from a relationship rather than age. The main ideas still apply, but the changes are not about growing up in the traditional sense rather growing out of a relationship and the pursuit of not happiness but growth.
In a fairy tale the clothing is a sign of the transformation. When the heroine changes clothes, from rags to a ball gown, from peasant clothing to a gown, it is a sign of transformation. In the story, Pauline has not changed clothes in the written part, but she has changed in the illustrations. This will become a written part of the story as well, signifying the changes that she is going through. The final version will also be darker more painful in places, to make Pauline realize what exactly it is that she needs to appreciate.
Pauline's adversaries through the story are people who want to control her or hold her down, who do not want her to see what her inherent nature is and who do not want her to evolve. These people threaten to destroy her or take away her "treasures" in order to keep her under their thumb. In traditional fairy tales the antagonist belittles the heroine as in Cinderella or makes threats to the heroines parental figure as in sleeping beauty. In contrast Pauline is alone, seeming to be he only human in a world of obstacles, much like Alice. Threats are made directly to Alice rather than to a parental figure and belittling does not curtail her adventures. Alice and Pauline are both seen as individuals, not an entity belonging to a parent. I believe this is because they are both seen as sexual beings.
Alice was speculated to have been Lewis Carrols Love interest either from a distance or in actuality. I think that children who are written about with parents are seen as children who must grow and develop like in traditional fairy tales, but children who are written about without parents are seen by the author as a sexual being. Most people do not want to think about their love interests parents and as a love interest you do not want to be seen as someone still tied to the apron string. Sexual maturity means on some level being adult and not having parents. I am only talking in terms of the story, I know from personal experience that children who are far to young to be having sex are already having babies.
So the attempts to control Pauline are unsuccessful because she has already been a sexual creature, and therefore has more independence and maturity. It is this independence and maturity that they want to take away from her in the story. They want to try to make her someone she isn't or possibly someone she once was but isn't any longer. If they can not contain her then they believe she should not be able to have her treasures. Fear that they two will turn out like her. The antagonists want to control Pauline and stifle the treasures keeping them in their original state as long as possible.
Or maybe the antagonists reason is simply to possess something they can not have, much like Rumplestiltskin, to have a soul, which is what the entire story is about and is the purpose of the story to begin with, to retrieve a stolen soul. The soul less adversaries attack her to take the precious cargo which is three human souls, and Pauline whom herself believes does not have a soul is filed with such an intensity as to lure every soul catcher in imagination.
Why is it that Pauline thinks she doesn't have a soul? In traditional fairy tales the antagonists is almost always a mother figure of some kind. The mother as the mirror of the child. An example in Bettelheim's book is a story a girl told of when she was younger and thought her mother was replaces at times by and alien. This was because the mother would change and be angry and the child did not understand where her nice wonderful mother went. The step mother in the stories is the alien mother. In Pauline's story the damage had been done long ago, leaving Pauline uncertain of herself, her evil step mother has ran her off into the woods and Pauline has been there so long she has forgotten how she came to be there. So again we are picking up the story in the middle, as if there is a prequel somewhere. SO Pauline's soulless condition is only because the evil stepmother has already spoiled Pauline's thoughts, making her think it possible that her soul can be taken so easily. She is one of the many that Gould refers to as the unacceptable self. Unable to have their own mirror without the evil stepmother.
Gould speaks of dark spells where we may not be able to remember things that have happened to us in our past. She says that these are times in which we are "asleep" as Snow white and Sleeping Beauty were. These are the times in our lives that our mentality had to catch up with out bodies. I have to wonder if most of my life has been a dark time. Have I been sleeping through my life, my brain unable to catch up to my body? Or is it the opposite, have I been aware of the future and my body is the part that needs to catch up. How does this relate to the story? Pauline is waking up from a dark time, it is yet another reason why we are catching the story as if it is in the middle. She doesn't know what has happened before the raven came. Everything before the Raven seems so unimportant. He defines her. Everything else is useless.
In many fairy tales there is cannibalism or at least reference to it, Snow white, Hansel and Gretal, even Sleeping Beauty, at least the original version. The cannibalism, is performed by the antagonists in order to imbibe the power of the foe, be it their youth, sexuality, or beauty. I've thought of having Pauline use cannibalism to rid herself of one of the adversaries and I've considered having the adversaries attempt to eat her. I think the idea of devouring the enemy, if you are the good guy or the bad guy, is a fitting way to end a story. The question it makes me ask though, does devouring the bad guy make the good guy evil? The Organ meats are eaten much of the time in stories as they saw the organ meats as where the soul lays. If this is true then shouldn't Pauline eat the organ meats of those she believes took her soul from her in order to return her soul to herself. Of course this is all following traditional fairy tale devices and we have already discussed that this is NOT a traditional fairy tale.
Reading Gould's book she talked a lot about the mother/daughter dynamic and although Pauline does not deal directly with the mother figure except in the guise of a peahen, there is the same dynamic there of an evil step mother than has run the daughter away into the woods. Gould relates an experience of her own and it makes me wonder if every daughter has an experience in which her mother was truly nasty to her. My mother, tall and thin (5'7" and 109 lbs) till 40ish was not happy with a short stocky daughter. When I was twelve she dragged me into her room and forced me to try on her wedding dress which would not fit over my arms much less zip up, then proceeded to call in my father, brother and I believe my grandmother to show them how big I was at 12 compared to her at 18. I dressed in large baggy black clothes from then on out. I've only recently been able to wear clothes than are more fitting… since she kicked me out. So I wonder do all mothers do this to their daughters? Will I do it to mine. Gould says that every daughter tries to create a home that is better than their own mothers and I know this is what I have done. I have tried to create an environment for my children that is open and positive and not centered around beauty or looks. But I worry, will I evolve into an evil stepmother that is capable of hurting her daughter so much… or am I suppose to take the position of evil queen in order to force Cinderella to become a princess?
Good mothers want their daughters to always be pure and innocent, this is what Gould has said. Pure and innocent children that live at home forever and never leave the nest. They entice us to come home and stay pure, or in a dark state the same way the queen lures Snow White with pretty combs and laces. My own return home was much like this. Lured home to safety to a mom who promised things would be better. Finding in my time there that things were not and she expected me to be the same person I was when I was younger. The introduction of Mark into my life reminded me that I was capable of bein loved by someone. Much as hat happens in the traditional tales where the heroine can not grow until she realizes that though her stepmother may not love her as a woman, there is someone that will. My own mother turning evil queen on my was the best thing she could have done, though the intensity and venom could have been a little less Grimm and more Disney. This though, in Pauline's world is where the story begins. When the queen has her exiled to the woods never to be seen again. The story begins with Pauline accepting the love of a person who is not a parental figure but has surpassed them and made himself a god figure in her eyes. This is the point where I was thinking of mythology, but I've come to realize that the trickster and the liar are all parts of fairy tales as well and just because the raven has said he is a god does not mean that he deserves a mythology.
Writing
In my story, I am telling of my struggles since my husband left. The time line here does not match up, even a little to real life, but I really liked the way ti flowed together so easily. Oddly enough there is not a single character here based on my ex-husband. The time I was with him feels like something tht happened to someone else, and the same way Pauline doesn't care who she was before Raven came, I don't remember or care who I was when I was with my husband. It is a time that is gone and it doesn't even fit in my life anymore. The characters are all based on real people though. I feel that my story and metaphors are a little thin, I'm not hiding anything really, just rearranging them and hopefully making them a bit more interesting. When I went back and made it a little darker and more mature, I wasn't sure how far too go, there is a part of me that really want to push it and go as far as I can take it, dark and dirty and threatening but another part wants it to be very clean and innocent. I tried or a middle road, I like the dark stuff, but I don't want to create a gore book.
The butterflies are another new addition that I am unsure of. I'm a little worried that they come off as pointless and extraneous. In my case the butterflies are an irritating case of IBS that likes to flare up at the most annoying times (like today.) They can be good butterflies, in my case they usually aren't. I'm fairly certain that the IBS began when I dating Mark, due to the stress and anxiety… and it hasn't went away.
The way That Mudd shows up in my life plays very much into the way Mitchell and my relationship has progressed. When we first met I had no interest in him, he became a friend and stayed that way for awhile. After about a year and a half he started making passes but I was still pining over "raven" and his advances scared me. I pushed him away time and again. it wasn't until almost a year later that we finally came to an understanding and I realized he didn't want to hurt me.
I talk about Pauline wanting to commit suicide twice in the story. Originally in my study plan I mentioned creating rituals and this story was part of it. I wanted to return to a particular place. In the woods, somewhere behind his house I went to die. I had every intention of doing, I didn't tell anyone, I wasn't doing it to get attention, but I didn't want to go on anymore. At the point in which I was going to finish it, the cops showed up. I hid the evidence and Only a few people know. Those woods are where I wanted to go. But the fear of going there is stronger than the need. The realization when Pauline is falling off the cliff is that it doesn't matter how dark it gets she WANTS to be there with her kids. This was my realization. Not that my children NEED me, because honestly, they will do fine with or without, they are children and they will grow up regardless, but the realization that I wanted to be with them is what finally stopped me from considering it. I still have suicidal thoughts, I think it's part of being bipolar, but I don't act on them.
In the story Raven teaches Pauline how to "make people bleed to protect herself and her kami" I realize that probably sounds a little weird, but I came from a house where you rolled over and bowed out and gave up and didn't defend yourself much less anyone else. At least that's how it seemed to me, so When Mark came into my life,he taught me more about what a real family was suppose to be like than anyone else ever had. He and his family would defend each other till the death f need be and be on their side even if they were wrong. He gave me a knife so that when I went on photoshoots without him, I would have a sense of safety. I still carry a knife, almost everywhere I go, I do feel safer, even if it's not going to help me. I just like knowing it's there. He gave me a sense of security that didn't leave when he did.
Brain, my white knight of logic, always saves me when I need saving from mental anguish. He is the encyclopedia friend, if he doesn't already know it he can find itout pretty quickly. He comes running ifyou call usually too.
Brianna, Miranda, is outspoken, loud and agressive. But she would stand up for me no matter what and she taught me to speak out for myself instead of letting people run their mouths, she also taught me it's perfectly ok to say fuck you and walk away from an argument. Most people just want power over you and when you take that away, they have nothing.
The ferret who I have not done a character analyis on, is Woody. I originally had him as a wooden ferret, but realized it was too much. I don't trust woody a whole lot, I know he is two faced, but he has helped me when I needed him and he is quite good at making me laugh. He is a part of my life and a part that has helped me in many ways. He has been here when I needed someone, he's one of the few people that I can relate to. So the ferret, very close cousin to a weasel is his characer cause he can be the cure funny helful person at times, but he still has a weasely quality that is obvious.
In writing this I have had moments of OMG I don't want to do this, I have cried, screamed, it has brought back memories and I blamed it for the re-emrgance of Mark if ever so small, in my life. If I think about it, it happens sometimes. And it felt like one of those moments.
When I initially chose Goddard it was because I have such a multitude of interests and at times skills. Once accepted it became a way for me to find my missing piece. This semester for me has been very self-exploratory and autobiographical in nature, but I feel , in some ways I have failed.
When Mark left me, which was a major turning point in my life, he took part of me with him. I don’t know if it was my drive, my motivation, or my ability to multi task, but I have felt incomplete since he left. Above everything else, this semester, in my mind, was to find… or at least figure out, what it is that’s missing. I have not found it.
I don’t remember anything. I feel like I have great, sometimes brilliant thoughts on many different subjects, but the moment the thought has left my head it is gone forever, unless I write it down somewhere. I have theorized that I repress so many memories that everything that comes into my head now is instantly repressed. People tell me that it’s stress and if I cut out some o the stress in my life I will feel better…. I do feel better, but I don’t remember any better. I read in an article that if you keep learning and exercising your brain that it will get better…. Here I am, still not getting better. An herbalist said Ginkgo Biloba, but I forget to
get it every time I go to the store. So whatever it is that he took, is still gone, because I was able to remember before.
I feel very successful in some ways though. This semester has enlightened me to what an art practice is and I now know that I am the type of person that can’t say no (Something that I am working on.) I recognize more of my strengths and weaknesses and am trying not to beat myself up over the weaknesses. I know that he did not take my creativity, since I feel I have been quite creative, if not a little rusty, this semester. Above all else though, I feel that if Mark reentered my life, I would be able to turn him away and not allow myself to become controlled by him again.
That, I contribute directly to Goddard. The people I have met, and things I have learned, have helped me to understand that I am not the terrible person that I have felt like for years. Mark played upon that weakness and I don't believe he could anymore. The work I have done has helped me to get over the trauma that was him, and that is my biggest success of all. I know I will have relapses and will fall back into old patterns at times, but I also know that I have a way out and that there are people who support me and my art.
I feel more like an artist than I did when I began this, and I feel more over him than I did when I began this and I feel like I know what an art practice is, for me, finally.
An art practice is recognizing that there is no ending, only the journey and growth and creating within in that knowledge, living within that knowledge and living your art. Constantly learning more on your interests, growing with the process and, putting it out there for people to see. It’s like a relationship. You have to nurture and nourish your relationship with your art in order for it to grow through education and experimentation and sometimes criticism, but if you stay together and work through it your art will be stronger in the end.
So maybe it’s a bit long winded, but it’s my theory on art practice. It does not outline dates and times and skills, which is part of what I thought it was in the beginning, saying that I will practice every night. Maybe for some that is what it is, but my life does not work that way. I work on my art whenever I can, a free minute here or there, or stay up late at night to work. Making time, but not taking time away from my inspirations. Without my outside life I would not have anything to create about. I have to go out and be fed up with my students or see my kids do something really silly or get my heartbroken. So I guess part of my art practice is living life to the fullest in order to get inspired to create. That seems really significant for some reason. I can’t stay hidden away. Maybe other artists get all their inspiration from their minds, but mine comes from outside me. Sometimes I only need to open the door to find it, sometimes I must drive and live an experience.
Now that I feel like I know where my creativity lies, not in my head but inspired by things outside, I feel like I will be less likely to not have things to create. I have a tendency to hide in my bedroom on the computer, but I now know I must go out and live life if I want to create art, and I do want to create art. I have learned that creating art can be beneficial toward emotional and mental growth and in some cases stability.
Seeing other artists work helps me to realize I am not alone in my style and likes. learning about their techniques gives me ideas and makes me want to work, leaning about their lives makes me realize I am not alone.
I have also realized that I need some guidelines. I an give them to myself, but I have to have some guidelines in order to finish work. In the future semesters I will be sure to plan out more specifically, but without dates, what I want to do.
Fairy tales and mythology function as more than just a literary release from the burdens of every day life. They are a map to the adolescent life, instructions to some of our first hardships as humans. In all the analytical books on fairy tales the same idea perpetuates throughout…. The fairy tale as a forming agent for youth and the after effects of the adult children who were so influenced. Be it on all youth or females in particular, the same theme is throughout, how the fairy tale influences us or how we have been influenced by it.
In The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim and Spinning Straw into Gold by Joan Gould, both authors break down the fairy tales into their different meanings and how they effect us. Gould categorizes fairy tales into different age groups according to the traditional pagan categories of women, maiden, mother, and crone, thus creating a feminine outlook on fairy tales. Bettleheim breaks down the fairy tales into life lessons, grouping them into categories such as “unifying our dual nature” or “transformations.” This presents a much more open area of discussion but looses intricacies which will bee more readily seen in a more specific book such as Gould's account.
In Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Animus and Anima in Fairy tales, and Archetypal Patterns in Fairy tales, by Marie Louise Von Franz, fairy tales are analyzed in order to expound upon their meaning, but not toward everyday life, or on people, but rather in their own fairy tale voice. How fairy tales relate to each other and what they mean in the terms of “fairy tale.” She goes into detail on what each part of the fairy tale represents, apart from human consciousness. “…the fairy tale is based on certain functions of the psyche without any personal material to bridge it.” (Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Pg. 11) According to Von Franz the fairy tales are not to be interpreted to help us understand our lives, rather they are the interpretation of our psyche, unveiled.
Fairy Tales and Feminism by Donald Haase is a collection of essays that take a more personal note toward fairy tales. The authors go into how fairy tales have helped them, or hurt them, in their lives. How growing up ‘fairy tale’ has effected the decisions or the emotionality of them.
The single theme found in some part in every book is the story of the heroine and how it effects the mental growth of young girls and women. Gould suggests that the heroines signify the sexual awareness of girls and their stories deal with the mental and emotional conception of such. Gould states that fairy tales “illuminate the metamorphosis at each stage of a woman’s life: those shifts in consciousness as well as biology that propel women from one level of being to another.” (Spinning Straw into Gold, Pg. xvi) Gould has a singularly female approach to the stories going so far as to suggest that men do not need the fairy tale because they do not change, only become more well known. Bettelheim is much more invested in the progression of all children in general and believes that both the sexes can learn from fairy tales, even if they are not about their sex in particular. The stories are a way to approach the ever changing mentality and progression toward adulthood and independence in a way that even modern day psychologists can not. Oedipal conflicts, gaining externalization, and general transformations are all brought to light and dealt with through the original fairy tales. His writings that deal with the heroines and young girls however are very similar to Gould’s writings. They both believe in the transformative properties of the stories in relation to girls and their growth. Von Franz goes into the subconscious of the heroines and why they do the things that they do in the stories, what the characters represent in terms of the psyche and how the changes, death and meetings shift the girl internally. Mention is not made as to how this can help people, but rather explains why we do the things we do. The essays in Fairy Tales and Feminism touch on the different viewpoints toward how fairy tales effected each person individually. Bettina von Arnim tales her tale of grief and woe through her account of an autobiographical fairy tale, helping to give a voice to her pain. Bottigheimer takes on the voice of the outraged feminine going as far back as the bible to state the myths and fairy tales from there forward have demoralized the female sex in the eyes of everyone. The female as the sinner and being of evil temptations to all men and her theory that these stories brought down the women that were beginning to rise and become powerful and societies influence to make this happen.
The authors all make strong arguments for their interpretation and meaning behind fairy tales and the fairy tales effect upon the statistic for which they are interpreting. The problem is which opinion to take, which fairy tale to analyze, which interpretation to read. Gould suggests asking the question which fairy tale is your favorite, Van Franz seems to say that the fairy tale is us and therefore we must find the one that fits us at a particular time in our life and many of the essays in Fairy tales and Feminism argue that they are all to blame for whatever ails the female community. In effect, too much information has made it difficult, virtually impossible to know how the fairy tales have affected us.
Have they hurt us, condemning us to a future as rape victims and women who expect to be rescued. This interpretation can been readily seen in middle class America, where female children have often been “Snow White-ed” and believe that their prince will come. Of course this argument could also play heavily into the Disney version of fairy tales rather than the original versions. Another common denominator in every book, essay and story is that the original fairy tales, the ones passed down from generation to generation by the nursemaids and midwives, verbally, are the ones that are powerful and moving and true interpretation of life, the psyche or society, and that the new sugared, male influenced works, the “Disney” fairy tales, are so distorted from the original, feminine stories that they do not hold any key to the underlying layers that the originals hold. Every book refers to the strong female character that is “radical” and “independent,” but makes it a point to note that in the new translations heroines are not the strong women from the original stories.
Thus brining about the number one argument in the books, do the fairy tales truly help anyone in modern day society when children are overwhelmed with the Disney version of the “damsel in distress” and due to lack of parenting, or mass-media marketing, have no clue to the other stories. Could this possibly explain sociological issues that have arisen since the conception of the projector, television, VCR and DVD player?
Surely we could say that Disney was greatly influenced by these stories himself, even if in an effort to make money, he still felt it important to bring these stories to the masses through the newest form of communication, movies. Though distorted into a cleaner, more american idealist version, the stories effected one of America’s best known story tellers. So maybe it is not the fairy tales that have hurt us but the modern versions of such which were strongly influenced by the general public at the time of conception.
Do fairy tales have an inherent learning quality to them, one in which we learn by others mistakes, trials and triumphs? Or are they a look at our inner self, the one in which we unconsciously stop ourselves from making choices that would help us. The fairy tale exists in many different forms throughout the world, but the stories are similar and tell similar stories. If generations and generations of different cultures told the same story, never having met or crossed paths, then these must be life lessons. Maybe the argument that should be made is that fairy tales are a less productive way to teach a lesson in today’s modern society. Or they need to be told in a different way. Considering the cleansing that all fairy tales have taken in the past few hundred years, maybe it’s more a case of needing to reinvestigate the old ones and revamp them. In a society that seems to eat violence and sleep sex, the old stories taught a lesson that the new generations seem to be missing.
All in all these books give an in depth view of the fairy tale from many different view points, but no one viewpoint or opinion is correct. A fairy tale might be extremely helpful to one person but a hindrance to another. It is up to the person reading to decide whether or not a fairy tale can help them, or their children, if it gives them a better understanding of the mind or has held them back from becoming the person they could have been. The one thing that all these books together gives is the ability to look at a fairy tale and interpret it for yourself.
Creating a fairy tale with all this information is a little more daunting. The multitude of meanings inherent in the smallest aspect of a story can give the interpretation of your work and entirely different meaning than you may have planned. This is true of all things and all art of course. Everything is open to personal interpretations.
Bibliography
1. Bettelheim, Bruno. The uses of enchantment : the meaning and importance of fairy tales 1976
2. Gould, Joan. Spinning straw into gold : what fairy tales reveal about the transformations in a woman's life 2005
3. Haase, Donald. Fairy tales and feminism : new approaches 2004
4. von Franz, Marie-Luise, NetLibrary, Inc. Archetypal patterns in fairy tales 1997
5. von Franz, Marie-Luise, Sharp, Daryl. Animus and anima in fairy tales 2002
6. von Franz, Marie-Luise, von Franz, Marie-Luise and Introduction to the interpretation of fairy tales. The interpretation of fairy tales 1996