Friday, March 20, 2009
Art Rant
Perhaps, as the character Sergeant Colon put it in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, art is a bunch of naked fat ladies, a piece of gauze, and an urn. While this seems to be a characteristic of much classic, world-renowned art, it is slightly too exclusive. ;)
Is art an expression of human emotion? Perhaps this one gets closer to the truth, but then what makes Great Art great? What makes a really quite stiff portrait by a great master receive acclaim and a central spot in a museum exhibit, while a 4-year-old’s finger painting, full to bursting with passion and enthusiasm, is relegated to the fridge?
The Webster English dictionary defines art as “The conscious use of skill and creative imagination, especially in the production of aesthetic objects.” This definition, in a way, brings me to my little rant: modern art.
Now, I’m not griping about all modern art--I think some of it is beautiful and challenging and courageous. But tell me--how does a big beige canvas sell for millions? How come if I splash some red paint on a piece of paper and scrape it with a stick, I do not automatically become a great Artist? Perhaps the truth is that I need to glue my hairdryer to a canvas and then explain how I’ve lost the wonder of it as I lost the wonder of my childhood. Looking at it this way, it seems like the creation of ‘art’ doesn’t take much skill, but it sure does take imaginative creativity--in convincing people that my latest piece is full of meaning, and not just a cop-out.
Or maybe what I really have to do is make something that halfway expresses an actual concept or feeling, get lucky and become rich from it, so that when people see my newest piece of expensive blue paper, they’ll struggle to interpret it, and finally give up due to their inferior understanding. Perhaps I’m a bit too cynical, but how much of art is based on reputation? If all art was judged individually and objectively, (on ‘skill’, remember?) instead of by its birthright, would many artists be forced to return to their day jobs?
I’m just sayin’…
And even then, who says all art is human, anyway? Is there not art in a raindrop, a bird’s song, a mountain range, or a sunset? If a flower blooms in a forest, and no one is there to see it, is it art?
Perhaps our definitions of the word need to be reevaluated.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Pattern of Life
I see my time as a bolt of cloth
With a clear pattern
Lengths of dark blue and grey, drab and dull and uninteresting,
though occasionally flecked with reds and purples.
And then every so often there is a patch of vibrant
Rainbow colors
Glowing and shimmering, eclipsing the other sections in their beauty.
These sections are my favourite
But the other parts drag them down.
They are outnumbered, and sometimes they are unravelled or stained.
And so I lose one patch of exquisite design, and must wade
Through more of the grey
In hope that the next section will be perfect.
But then I pause as I study the fabric, and look away from it
And realize that I am the one doing the weaving.
I am choosing to weave the pattern I do.
So why am I mostly using grey?
Surely I can make a better design than that.
I look through my yarns. I know that I can’t weave everything in rainbow
But I choose a gold thread,
And add it to the loom here
In another place I add a skein of crimson,
A dash of violet
A splash of lush, vibrant green.
I weave for a little, then sit back and smile
I can still see the grey, faintly.
The blue peeks through occasionally.
But now it is surrounded, embroidered, wrapped and intertwined .
A bit of silver catches the light and glitters; a liquid aquamarine flows in and out.
And I am happy.
Because now even though they are not rainbow
The patches have a beautiful pattern of their own.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Musings on love ♥
Augh. It seems that every song is about love. Or at least 80% of them. Lately, it also seems that all my thoughts are about love. Or at least 80%.
Ever since last Saturday, it's been the only thing on mjy mind. I see the world through a heart-shaped lens, a pink tinted fog. It's not quite that I'm in love, it's just that I can't stop thinking about it, musing about it, wondering about it.
True love's first kiss. May I have this dance? And, (gulp!) will you marry me?
Boxes of chocolates, buckets of popcorn, plates of spaghetti. Cologne and roses and fresh-cut grass and smoke from a bonfire. The glitter of a charm bracelet, the sparkle of an eye, the shine of a perfect tux. An orchestra tuning, techno music at a bowling alley, laughter, soft comforting words whispered in an ear. Running my my fingers through your hair, holding a rough, large hand. Beinging enfolded in a huge hug. A sweet, tender kiss. Love heightens the senses. It fulfills them.
How can anything truly go wrong when you have a prince who will treat you like the princess that you are and protect you from every danger?
Like every girl and woman, I just want one thing: to love, and be loved in return. Passionately, deeply, intensely, tenderly, strongly, steadfastly, and completely. All you need is love.
From my journal archive-The Last Day of Summer (modified)
How do I feel? Well, for one, disappointed. This is not for a moment the sort of large scale depression I felt at Camp. It's just disappointment. My summer that was supposed to last forever obviously didn't. And I didn't fill near the list of expectations I set for myself. But...I think I'll still do them. In fact, they'll spice up what otherwise might be an uneventful year. Speaking of boredom, I'm a bit apprehensive. I'm afraid this year is going to be boring. Worse, I'm afraid it's going to be...bad[?] What with this new office thing and stuff, and the likely frictions with certain relatives who will remain unnamed? And no recess? Fie, it could be dark indeed!
But I also feel faint hopefulness...and a tiny flame of excitement. No matter who teaches it or how it's taught, history is still glorious history! Biology is still about LIFE. Art is art is art. Latin is classic and heady and soo useful (rolls eyes). Geometry is, well, shapes. Hey, you win some you lose some. And English is where I can always express myself. Hey, I'm sort of looking forward again to learning! Who woulda thought it?
And then there's the hope. In the worst of my depression, my thoughts were: it will always be the same, never changing, never interesting. But I forgot the wild card of life. AS long as there are kumquats and blueprints, and the Office, and weekends and haircuts, and of course wonderful boys (:D), then things will always turn out okay. Sure, I may be bored occasionally (life can't be constant excitement--you'd die from exhaustion), but I don't have to worry about life being boring. After all, we affect our surroundings, and if I was boring, I'd kill myself.
Sometimes life seems like something just to get through (Superchick!). We just have to remember that the journey is half the fun. And to stop, occasionally, and smell the roses and snapdragons and daffodils and skunk cabbages. Blooming in the most unlikely places.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
October 2, 2008
If anyone actually is reading this, thank you. As is obviously clear, I didn't get close to achieving my "70 Things that I would do this summer". I think the final tally rests somewhere around, oh, ten? However, I've come up with this resolve: Most of the things that were on my list were not specifically summer things. Really, they were just living-more-vibrantly-and-adventurously things. So...I'm going to spread them out over the school year and continue to do them. It will spice up a year that might have been otherwise unextroardinary.
I guess I'll just end with another poem, as there seems to be no better way to create blog posts without much thinking than to leach off other people's genius.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Brown Penny
And then, "I am old enough";
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin too soon.
-William Butler Yeats
Abridged, in "Looking at the Moon", by Kit Pearson
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Funny Song
OTTAWA VACATION: SATURDAY (the last full day!)
Saturday was such a change of pace that it was a bit of a shock. We decided to go to Gatineau Provincial Park, only about half an hour away, and I was a bit apprenhensive, having read about black bears and watersnakes and timber wolves, but my dad insisted, so I had no choice.
On the way in, we saw the biggest turtle I've ever seen in the wild before: it had a super long tail, and the poor guy, when he started crawling off the road and down this embankment, he tripped or something and fell, end over end to the bottom. But, he crawled away afterwards, so I guess he was ok.
After stopping at the visitor's center we went to our first real stop: Mackenzie King's estate, now a national historic site. Now, apart from the fact that King was really weird, and had seances with his dog and stuff, he sure did know how to pick a location. We went inside his first cottage, Kingswood, which was right near little Lake Kingsmere, which he chose because it matched his name. The guy must have spent a lot of time napping, because he had a bed in almost every room! Also, the doors were really low (but then, he was only 5'2", so I guess he didn't need huge arches everywhere).
Then my dad, Paul, and I went down to the boathouse by the lake, because my mom, following her tradition, was still up in one of the guest cottages reading everything. We sat by the lake for a while, talking and watching birds and such, until my mom finally found us, somewhat exasperated that we had just taken off like that. It really showed the difference between my dad and mom's logic: my dad's first instinct would be "Here is a lake. It looks nice. That's probably where they went." My mom's is: "Oh no, they left me behind. They're probably back at the car or at the other cottage (which we would visit later...it was a little way away down a path)."
We hiked up the path to the other cottage, Moorside. It was much larger, painted yellow, and surrounded by immaculate lawns, benches, a tent where a trio was playing classical music, and beautifully manicured gardens. Tea was being served on the porch, but we bought drinks at a scalping from this kid who looked no more than twelve running the snack bar. Sitting on a bench sipping a cold drink, and then strolling among beds of flowers...this was my idea of enjoying nature and Victorian-era luxury. We decided against playing croquet, but it was an option. Instead we decided to look at "the ruins", one of the most interesting aspects of the estate. Mackenzie King had an odd penchant for building his own "ruins" on his land, with material from real ruins he had imported, artifical ones he had had carved, and interesting architectural elements that he had taken from homes or banks when they were being demolished. The three ruins were the Arc de Triomphe, which he took mostly from a bank, the Window to the Forest, where three arches separated by pillars gave a picturesque view of the woods beyond, and the "Abbey Ruins", a group of random unrelated ruins from different parts of Europe stuck in one spot, which King fancied looked like a monastary from far away (though no one else agreed with him).
After that, we got in the car and drove along the side of Lake Meech, where the Meech Lake Accord was formed. Then, after stopping at a look-out point where we saw some great views we went to a picnic area and ate our lunch that we had bought from the deli the day before. My dad suggested we hike down to see this waterful, so once again we did, got more pictures of me standing nervously on a rickety, slippery bridge, then got in the car and drove to yet another park, this time a nice city one where there were no horrible blackflies like the ones that had been swarming us all day. We read for much longer than we had meant to, and then drove through a super-expensive neighbourhood, staring at ambassador's homes and consulates for the Catholic Church and just generally massive houses.
Oh yeah, and then we went back to the hotel where I watched Big Fish for the first time and cried.
The next day, we got up really early (buahahaha yeah right, we got up at like 10), thought we had to check out by 11, rushed around packing, eating breakfast in record time, and then found out that checkout time was 12. Boo. We travelled in the car again, ate lunch/supper at Mongolian Grill, and Paul and I watched Pirates 3 on the portable DVD player, performing all the scenes along with the characters to our parents chagrin, and finally got home. I had a great time in Ottawa, but I wasn't sad to leave. Going on a "restful" vacation can be surprisingly tiring. I'm still recovering.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
OTTAWA VACATION, FRIDAY
As soon as we got into downtown, we parked under this mall and walked towards Parliament Hill, hoping to catch the 12:30 tour. Unfortunately, by the time we reached the Ottawa InfoCenter across the street from Parliament Hill (aptly named, believe me...you try hiking up it 4 times and you'll realize too) it was 12:29 so that was sort of out of the question. The Ottawa InfoCenter was pretty boring, just an information booth and a little exhibit on Ottawa, and an interactive map. However, there was a perk: a Mountie band playing outside! Benton Fraser, unfortunately, was not there in all his polite awesome-ness, and all the Mounties looked to be over 50 at least. (I have a theory that these poor Mountie dudes were there, wearing different historic Mountie uniforms and playing for photo ops because they were too old to actually fight crime. I'll bet they resent it, too.)
Dreaming
If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hoper, a prayer, a magic bean buyer,
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire,
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!
I cannot say exactly why I love this poem so much. Maybe it is because it describes every sort of person I am, or want to be. Maybe it is because these people ar the romantics, the ones with the magic, the wondrement, the enchantment. Not to say that others don't have those things, it's just you seem to find it more consistently and abudnantly in the hopers, wishers, pretenders, and such.
If I can't claim to being any other part of this poem, I'd have to say that I'm a dreamer, both literally and figuratively. I have dreams, in terms of imaginings, plans for the future, fantasies, and inventions. I have trouble connecting with reality sometimes. I refuse to accept the world as facts alone dictate. I prefer to float among the clouds. Sure, you may not be very down-to-earth when you've got your head in the clouds, but you still find yourself walking on sunshine. I strain to hear the songs of the stars and the butterflies. I do believe in fairies. And I try to paint with all the colors of the wind. Don't take me to be some sort of New-Agey spiritualist type, or some Mother-Earth-worshipper either. I'm not. But I am a dreamer.
Also, I am a literal dreamer. Sometimes, I have to wonder, what do dreams mean? I'm not talking about weird interpretations full of Freudian overtones and "longings" and stuff, nor visions of the future. (Edgar Cayce, anyone?) I know that dreams are mostly my crazy imagination gone wild, weaving or sewing elements of my thoughts and my life into a tapestry or patchwork quilt. It isn't very warm, but it sure does look cool. Anyway, what I'm saying is, are dreams a barometer that reflects how our lives, our characters, and our priorities change and mature? Silly as it may sound, do our dreams reflect our dreams? Is dancing with different partners a metaphor for life and loves? Is it any wonder that ever since I was little, my happies dreams have been when I soared?
All this drivel and nonsense is likely the cliched musings of a wannabe philosopher and poet.
But still.
I'll just finish by saying: If a dream is a wish your heart makes, and dreams come true, what happens if your heart is out of control?