"If you put it on your plate, you better eat it."
Okay, I'll admit it. My eyes are bigger than my stomach.
At least that's what my mom would say whenever she saw the ten-year-old version of me scarf down a third helping of food at dinnertime. Even if full, I would make sure to let my greedy little tongue taste every morsel on my plate. I was a fat kid and felt obligated to lick that plate clean lest my mom give me the evil eye.
Well, I'm not fat now, but I'm still greedy. Or, at least always hungry. But for what?
I don't know. But it seems like whenever I get the slightest inspiration, I pile things high upon my plate.
What started as a noble quest to start a year with aspirations for growth and new beginnings turned into a confused mutter of manifestos and a huge headache for me. I have started my first semester of grad school this year among other things I've decided to juggle, and it's all culminating into lots of rushing around, lots of different "hat" wearing, lots of swearing, and a very frazzled me. But I'm learning some stuff on the way.
The other weekend, I modeled for a portrait painting workshop at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center. Markissia, the workshop instructor, asked me to wear something bright and “island-y” for the pose, which was to remain the same for the whole 12-hour workshop. I was a Gauguin re-creation in a blue sarong and a flower in my hair. I sat with bright flowers in one hand on my lap and other hand resting lazily on the arm of a chair in front of a brightly patterned pink backdrop. Seven students set up their easels around the room facing me, and Markissia set hers closer to me to enable her students to watch her process of laying down my image in oil paint on her canvas.
On a break during day one of the workshop, I walked out into the gallery of the arts center and stood in front of a painting Markissia was exhibiting called “Renaissance Man.” It is a painting of a man costumed in renaissance attire holding a palette and paint brush, looking heroically towards a spot of light up into the far left hand corner. What that spot of light is--well, that’s up to the viewer.
It is a beautifully done piece with the crisp quality of a Jacques-Louis David painting. I did not think Markissia’s idea was original, but since I saw it that first time, I kept wandering out to stand in front of it during each of my successive breaks. Now the image stays with me.
I like the idea of renaissance. This could be the reason I studied art history for my undergrad degree. I enjoy the idea of rebirth and flourishing ideas.
My www.myspace.com profile status reads, “Ana is emerging from a cocoon”.
I consider myself a renaissance woman. I seek the artist, the teacher, the muse, in me. I fill my days with a stew of artistic aims to achieve some kind of nirvana balance between all disciplines in art.
I get inspired by the renaissance woman in me, and it’s all over:
I’m scooping all of it onto my slate of finely-decorated china. Eat up.
So my initial endeavor as a child of enlightenment has been to eat from the knowledge tree again by getting my graduate degree in English Education, and to get some experience in the education field as a substitute teacher. I adore teaching. For three years now, I’ve also taught reading to children and adults during a summer program through the Institute of Reading development. I am the brand of nerd who thinks it is giggly-fun to find the main idea of a paragraph or to diagram a sentence, so it seemed like a no-brainer to get my teaching certification in the field.
But I have to eat.
I am making money on the side as a fine arts figure model. I have the loveliest exchanges with all of the arts community cohorts as I try to establish myself in that field as both an artists and model. When I’m not gazing off into a noble corner of a room standing nude in a classical, contrapposto stance, I’m toting my box of charcoal and graphite with my sketchbook, proudly creating art next to people who created art of me the week before.
And when I’m not doing all that, plus going to Jazzercise at least twice a week, I’m working on a culmination of my talents in the form of a project that will attempt to incorporate figure modeling, art creation, and a healthy serving of fresh ideas to my plate. My aim is to put together an event called Art School Cabaret, which will be a showcase of models and a bit of a workshop for artists in a relaxed, cabaret-style atmosphere. The event will be held at the venue Studio@620 with which I am interning, and will take some moving and shaking on the part of myself and my colleagues to make into a great idea.
This sounds all like I am trying to receive some kind of recognition for my talents, huh? I don’t know what I’m trying to achieve, but it seems I have the peculiar habit of wanting to prove that I can balance a multitude of tasks at once. Or, I simply get greedy.
I am to write a manifesto at the end of my internship that will sum up my endeavors and where my role as an artist/model/teacher is taking me. Well, right now, I am having trouble finding time to breathe.
The Renaissance Woman in me is overburdened from all the inspiration! So maybe my manifesto will include a survivor’s guide through all my plate-piling.
--For, no matter what, I’m gonna finish my plate. It’s my nature (and possibly, my torture).
Maybe I should consider portion size?
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Bloggity Blog Blog
Bloggity Blog Blog
“Call when you want, but there’s no one home, and you’re not gonna reach my telephone!”
These lyrics are repeating like a broken CD in my head after experiencing a blog on www.mashable.com about Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s collaborative hit music video “Telephone” premiering on Vevo [VIDEO]. I then spent 20 minutes (my computer is slow) watching this video, which is over 9 minutes long. Ah, pop music videos with their elaborately sexy costumes, and androgynous backup dancers. What did I gain from this experience? I gained some dance move ideas and catchy lyrics from the video. I gained nothing from the actual blog that I would consider in the realm of literary inspiration.
So…writing a blog about writing a blog… There has been a lot of resistance towards writing blogs among my fellow colleagues in my creative writing class at The University of South Florida in St. Petersburg. These are who I consider very talented individuals with great writing skills. But assigning blogs is like pulling teeth. Why the resistance? What makes a blog worth writing and ultimately, worth reading?
I got a clue when I read that blog about Lady Gaga, and then again when I read another blog by Eric Deggans (The Feed) about supermodel Heidi Klum’s show “Project Runway.” Contestant Ben Chmura, a designer and resident of Tampa Bay, created a suit for his model that was inspired by sharks. The suit got bad remarks and caused him to be voted off the show. Chmura apparently hadn’t been a very popular or noticeable contestant until he was shown dramatically crying to his boyfriend over the phone when he was told to leave. Deggans commented on how most reality TV shows will stage a dramatic exit for some contestants “so viewers feel a bit more loss when that person is ejected from the show.” I enjoyed that Eric Deggans pointed out how much of a set-up these shows are but was also left with a little literary emptiness when I finished reading his blog post.
The types of blogs I’ve just described remind me of articles found in media magazines or bits done by hosts on entertainment recap shows, and, in my opinion, lack the ability to inspire and to cause deep reflection, which I think are aspects of great literature. The purpose of these blogs seems to be only to inform. The writer does very little self-reflecting and a lot of reporting. I was informed that Lady Gaga and Beyonce hit some good marks with their sex-bombarded collaboration, and was reminded that reality TV is so far away from reality. I think I could have gotten the same from watching MTV or VH1.
I think blog quality really depends on the audience. I suppose if what was happening in the latest reality show was really important to me, I would probably read more of that type. I did read another blog post from a Blog called From the Floor that I thought was worth my reading time. The blogger, Todd Gibson, an art critic writes an entry called “Why We’re called ‘From the Floor.’” He justifies his purpose as an art critic through an anecdote about his experiences attending seminars as a graduate student. Gibson watched professors and other participants rant about the politics of aesthetics through biased viewpoints and no consideration of audience perspective, and was inspired to bring more of a genuine quality to his writing about art. I liked how the blog has structure to it; the blogger introduces a point, embellishes it with a story, reflects on his point, and then he concludes it. The message and the blogger’s point are clear at the end. I connected to the blog personally because I’ve had some experience writing and critiquing art as an Art History undergraduate student and have also sat in on seminars similar to the one Gibson described in his blog. I was also able to reflect on what constitutes quality in an art critique.
I have little experience in the scope of blog writing; in fact, this is the first time I have considered blog writing as a literary style. I wrote a couple of blog entries on www.myspace.com a few years ago that are very much like personal diary/journal entries. I wrote one entry about a dramatic break-up with my boyfriend a few years ago, for example. I wrote about how the experience turned me into a “shaman” because my soul ‘died’ with the breakup and I ‘rose back to life’ with a new sense of awareness and wisdom. I laugh at that now because, though I really did sense a bit of enlightenment at the time and think some my words are wise, I would not proudly declare that blog post as something really worthy of a literary accomplishment. I think only like five people of the two-hundred –and-something “friends” that I have on the site have read that entry. It’s been posted for about four years now. My point is: my impression of blogs is that many blogs are personal—I call them “me, me, me” rants. So, naturally, I can see why a group of students would rather not have to read 10 blog posts about something that they might not be interested in, especially if the blog posts are about day-to-day functions and don’t have an ability to cause connections. If the blog is about experiences, let the experience lead to something.
Reading the above mentioned blogs made me realize that there are different aims in blog writing: to inform, to tell a story, or to produce a lesson or a realization of some sort. Another aim is to reflect on personal experiences. I believe readability really depends on the audience. As for literary quality, I believe that a blog can be considered literature when it achieves most, if not all, of these aims. A blog worth reading is a blog that I will think about for longer than it took me to read it. It should have style in delivery and structure. And it shouldn’t make me want to ‘change the channel.’ Save all the gyrating and dramatic crying for television!
“Call when you want, but there’s no one home, and you’re not gonna reach my telephone!”
These lyrics are repeating like a broken CD in my head after experiencing a blog on www.mashable.com about Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s collaborative hit music video “Telephone” premiering on Vevo [VIDEO]. I then spent 20 minutes (my computer is slow) watching this video, which is over 9 minutes long. Ah, pop music videos with their elaborately sexy costumes, and androgynous backup dancers. What did I gain from this experience? I gained some dance move ideas and catchy lyrics from the video. I gained nothing from the actual blog that I would consider in the realm of literary inspiration.
So…writing a blog about writing a blog… There has been a lot of resistance towards writing blogs among my fellow colleagues in my creative writing class at The University of South Florida in St. Petersburg. These are who I consider very talented individuals with great writing skills. But assigning blogs is like pulling teeth. Why the resistance? What makes a blog worth writing and ultimately, worth reading?
I got a clue when I read that blog about Lady Gaga, and then again when I read another blog by Eric Deggans (The Feed) about supermodel Heidi Klum’s show “Project Runway.” Contestant Ben Chmura, a designer and resident of Tampa Bay, created a suit for his model that was inspired by sharks. The suit got bad remarks and caused him to be voted off the show. Chmura apparently hadn’t been a very popular or noticeable contestant until he was shown dramatically crying to his boyfriend over the phone when he was told to leave. Deggans commented on how most reality TV shows will stage a dramatic exit for some contestants “so viewers feel a bit more loss when that person is ejected from the show.” I enjoyed that Eric Deggans pointed out how much of a set-up these shows are but was also left with a little literary emptiness when I finished reading his blog post.
The types of blogs I’ve just described remind me of articles found in media magazines or bits done by hosts on entertainment recap shows, and, in my opinion, lack the ability to inspire and to cause deep reflection, which I think are aspects of great literature. The purpose of these blogs seems to be only to inform. The writer does very little self-reflecting and a lot of reporting. I was informed that Lady Gaga and Beyonce hit some good marks with their sex-bombarded collaboration, and was reminded that reality TV is so far away from reality. I think I could have gotten the same from watching MTV or VH1.
I think blog quality really depends on the audience. I suppose if what was happening in the latest reality show was really important to me, I would probably read more of that type. I did read another blog post from a Blog called From the Floor that I thought was worth my reading time. The blogger, Todd Gibson, an art critic writes an entry called “Why We’re called ‘From the Floor.’” He justifies his purpose as an art critic through an anecdote about his experiences attending seminars as a graduate student. Gibson watched professors and other participants rant about the politics of aesthetics through biased viewpoints and no consideration of audience perspective, and was inspired to bring more of a genuine quality to his writing about art. I liked how the blog has structure to it; the blogger introduces a point, embellishes it with a story, reflects on his point, and then he concludes it. The message and the blogger’s point are clear at the end. I connected to the blog personally because I’ve had some experience writing and critiquing art as an Art History undergraduate student and have also sat in on seminars similar to the one Gibson described in his blog. I was also able to reflect on what constitutes quality in an art critique.
I have little experience in the scope of blog writing; in fact, this is the first time I have considered blog writing as a literary style. I wrote a couple of blog entries on www.myspace.com a few years ago that are very much like personal diary/journal entries. I wrote one entry about a dramatic break-up with my boyfriend a few years ago, for example. I wrote about how the experience turned me into a “shaman” because my soul ‘died’ with the breakup and I ‘rose back to life’ with a new sense of awareness and wisdom. I laugh at that now because, though I really did sense a bit of enlightenment at the time and think some my words are wise, I would not proudly declare that blog post as something really worthy of a literary accomplishment. I think only like five people of the two-hundred –and-something “friends” that I have on the site have read that entry. It’s been posted for about four years now. My point is: my impression of blogs is that many blogs are personal—I call them “me, me, me” rants. So, naturally, I can see why a group of students would rather not have to read 10 blog posts about something that they might not be interested in, especially if the blog posts are about day-to-day functions and don’t have an ability to cause connections. If the blog is about experiences, let the experience lead to something.
Reading the above mentioned blogs made me realize that there are different aims in blog writing: to inform, to tell a story, or to produce a lesson or a realization of some sort. Another aim is to reflect on personal experiences. I believe readability really depends on the audience. As for literary quality, I believe that a blog can be considered literature when it achieves most, if not all, of these aims. A blog worth reading is a blog that I will think about for longer than it took me to read it. It should have style in delivery and structure. And it shouldn’t make me want to ‘change the channel.’ Save all the gyrating and dramatic crying for television!
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