22B422 Pt. 3: My dream job as Pawnee Muralist

I'm already behind on this project despite the 2-day handicap I gave myself, so let's get at it.
Some people have lofty, respectable goals in life: save lives every day at Seattle Grace Mercy West hospital, run the Boston Marathon, back-up dance with Justin Bieber*, etc.

* Actually, back-up dancing with Justin is my Number 2 Dream Job. I just wrote a really long tangent describing my ideal "Boyfriend" music video, but I'm gonna save it for tomorrow's post.

So anyway, my Number 1 Dream Job is to be the Pawnee Parks and Recreation muralist, and here are 6 reasons why:

1. The 1914 Pawnee Zoo, which housed a Jewish ornithologist.

2. Pawnee's Sunday Boxing matches in the 1880's. 

3. The trial of Chief Wamapo, who was accused "being Indian," a crime punishable by death in 1834. 

4. The Spirit of Pawnee.. there are like 10 scenes going on here. Like a Chinese man eating a hamburger.

5. The progressive wedding between a Wamapoke chief and a white woman which ended in a bloodbath. 

6. The traveling magician who was burned at the stake for being accused of witchcraft in 1973. 

If I've learned anything from being a studio art major, it's that it's a lot easier to paint a joke than to paint something you want to be taken seriously. It's also a lot funner to paint a joke (ZURICH DADA I'M LOOKING AT YOU). So why not get paid $10,000 for each one?! I'm telling you, this job would be the best thing ever, plus I'd get to use up that $20 tube of titanium white oil paint I still haven't finished. 

Like everything else in Parks and Rec, the murals are exaggerations based on truths, and I'd like to argue that while the paintings are mostly for laughs, they also remind the audience of unattractive periods in U.S. history that usually get glossed over. This post isn't going to get into a tangled up argument about whether trivializing those events does more harm than good, I'm sure you can find plenty of those  somewhere else. I just want to say that the murals are more than just jokes, and that their satirical take on politics has the potential to contribute more to our education and understanding of U.S. history than most contemporary art. 

7. BONUS REASON: The McSteamy music box. Are you looking at this?!! It looks photoshopped BUT IT'S NOT. IT'S MARK SLOANE INSIDE OF A MUSIC BOX!!! Probably singing "Let him know that you know best/ cause after all, you do know best."As Pawnee muralist, I would obviously take the reigns for this and other sculpture projects that objectify my favorite TV characters. Ernesto and I just watched this episode today and I about choked on my dinner in utter surprise/glee/adoration when Amy Poehler popped this up. Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, this is the best early birthday present I could have asked for.

seeyuh comps

I should start out by preemptively apologizing for what I am confident will be a ranty, lame fluff post that mostly consists of stolen APPROPRIATED images, non-sequiturs and enough caps lock to feed a third world country (see what I mean? You should probably close this tab now). BUT I am running on very little sleep AND just finished all my work for the term AND just opened the following letter in the mail:

Hogwarts, you can keep your owls at home because this piece of paper has made me happier than any wax-sealed acceptance letters you could send me. In case you can't read the line inside of the appropriately placed color wheel of arrows (yeah SMart major yeah), this letter confirms that I, Paulina Lopez, AM DONE WITH MY COMPS and can now proceed to enjoy the rest of my senior year at Kawlton. COMPS refers to Carleton students' undergrad thesis, which is supposed to represent the culmination of their education blah blah blah. At some point, I thought it was an acronym for something, but maybe I made that up.. Carleton's Ominous Misery Project for Seniors. Chronic Overt Miserable Person Syndrome. Can Only Make People Sob. Chill Out Man Please Son. Don't worry, I'll submit these to the dean. 

The responsible, authorly thing to do at this point would be to show you the professional-quality pictures of my body of work and its accompanying artist statement. For now, suffice it to say that I made and wrote a bunch of things that speak to the processes of my memory. Also, I vaguely remember promising Ernesto that any artwork in my comps would be titled after Nickelback lyrics, so there's that. 

At Carleton, it's really cool for people to martyrize themselves over their comps, which (depending on the major) can consist of super long exams, group research projects, 60 page papers, so on and so forth. There's a widely accepted 'It's not comps if you're not bleeding from every pore' mentality, which gets old pretty quickly for people who aren't compsing. I definitely complained too much about comps, but I felt justified because the entire process basically dunked me face-first in alternate buckets of ice and boiling water while pumping my blood with self-doubt and squeezing out any remaining drops of optimism. I don't even know. There were a lot of moments during this term when I felt like throwing all of my comps work into the Cannon River and Cannonballing (GEDDIT) in right after it. But I should be mature and recognize that comps pushed me to develop personally meaningful work of which I am moderately proud, etc. So.. come see my exhibit in May! Or maybe don't. All I actually want you to see are the following images, which portray what it feels like to have just passed comps and be done with this entire term:

Shameless Copypasta

Courtesy of Randall Munroe. 

NOW INVENT AN IMPOSSIBLE-TO-TRANSLATE LANGUAGE AND USE IT TO TELL US WHERE THE MONEY IS.

This comic just made my day. :) :) :) :) :) <-- can you tell? My art history education has never paid off so much. 

I feel like I have to write other things or this post is going to be too tumblr-y. Saturday night, my family and I ate at Canadian Honker, where the Robert Coats band was playing live music. Just before we left, they played the CatDog theme song (!!), to which Francisco and I sang along flawlessly. My brief exposure to Cartoon Network has never paid off so much. 

There are also few choice words I have to say about Pinterest, but I'll probably hold onto that for next term's non-fiction workshop. sTaY tUnEd!

peace

Adventures in Interviewing Myself

It is a typical February afternoon here in Northfield, MN. The floor of Paulina Lopez's studio in Boliou ( the neglected warehouse that functions as Carleton College's art building) is covered in newsprint, chalk dust, plastic curlies from her relief blocks and the Death Blanket that she made last week for Advanced Sculpture. Much like Bill Watterson's Calvin might spread his peas around his dinner plate to make it seem like he has been eating, Paulina has spent the last 8 weeks of Winter Term spreading her crap around her studio space to give the appearance of passionate art-making. Is it working? Why doesn't she just work on comps instead of writing about comps? Will she ever finish the "It" audiobook she's been listening to since last year? The answers to these questions and more are revealed in this exclusive interview.

Paulina 1: Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet. As I'm sure you're aware, I'm running out of ways to put off my ever-increasing mountain of homework, and this interview has just made that so much easier. 


Paulina 2: I'm happy to oblige.

P1: Let's get down to business, shall we? Tell me, how exactly does it feel to be done with the GRE?

P2: I'm so glad you asked. It feels GREat. .. I've been sitting on that one ever since I walked out of the Prometric place at Edina/Eden Prarie (what's the difference, right?) but I didn't want to say it until I got my scores back and could say with a fair level of surety that I wouldn't be retaking it soon. WHICH I WILL NOT BE DOING. BECAUSE I GOT MY SCORES TODAY AND BOY DOES PASSING BY WITH BARELY ABOVE GROUND COLORS FEEL GOOD.    ..Wouldn't you aGREe?

P1: How many more terrible GRE puns do you have?

P2: I could only think of those two. Forgive me, I was too busy recovering from all the PEMDAS review to go crazy with the wordplay this time. Sooo anyway, I'm done with the GRE. Booyah. .. I bet you're GREen with envy. (Sorry, I just thought of that one now.)

P1: Are there any other recent accomplishments you want to share?


P2: Oh man, YES. I recently found out that Carrie Underwood and Colbie Caillat are two different people. Who'da thought? (not sure whether I spelled that right) But seriously, consider my paradigm shifted. All this time, I'd been skipping over Carrie's tracks in Pandora because I thought she'd be singing about cute bubbly gingerbread dreams or whatever the actual Colbie Caillat sings about. Two weeks ago I was off my game (thank the lord) and "Before He Cheats" started playing before I saw Carrie's name on the computer screen. Have you heard that song?!

P1: Well, it came out in 2007, so.. 

P2: I know, I'm still recovering from the fact that I've gone 5ish years (yeah GRE math!) without knowing this song. It could've come in handy for all those times I wanted to ruin someone's pretty little souped up 4-wheel drive! Which add up to about zero, because Mark Irish's twenty year old Explorer wasn't pretty or souped up, and besides, the only car I've ever envisioned beating to death belonged to the Northgate Driving School during my second (and last) practice driving hour in eleventh grade and wasn't pretty, souped up, or a 4 wheel drive. It was one of those cars built with an extra set of brakes in the shotgun seat, which I'd always assumed were fake and just there to give the student driver a reassuring sense of security. Speaking from personal experience, I can assure you that the extra brakes are actually very, very functional.

 No, but I was actually really impressed with myself for knowing what a Louisville Slugger is when Carrie mentioned it in the chorus. I've gone to the Louisville Slugger museum/factory, so I think I'd know exactly how to use it on a couple of headlights. And I still owe Northgate four practice driving hours, soooooo you know.

P1: I still don't get how you could think Colbie Caillat and Carrie Underwood were the same person.. 


P2: Don't get judgy, anyone could've made the same mistake. They're both blonde. They both play guitar.. I think. Anyway, the good news isn't over yet! Because apart from discovering "Before He Cheats," I also learned that Carrie Underwood is the voice behind "Jesus Take The Wheel," which I have loved half-sarcastically, half-sincerely ever since Karen K. showed it to our seminary class in 9th grade.


P1: Any other music-related accomplishments? 


P2: Duh. Well, no. This next one isn't an accomplishment as much as it is an opinion.. but here goes. The Spanish version of Shakira's "Rabiosa" is way better than the English version with Pitbull. I KNOW, WHAT?


P1: But it has Pitbull!

P2: I knoooow but trust me, the non-Pitbull one is better. It may have something to do with the music video, which is the same for both versions and doesn't show Pitbull at all, so you're just watching Shakira flirt with this guy who is obviously not Pitbull while Pitbull is singing seductively.. it's weird. Like, bad weird, not freakyhawt weird.

P1: Tell a little bit about your position on the Carleton College Memes FB page.

P2: I was totally for this page before it existed, because I was tired of hearing crickets whenever I browsed month-old post after month-old post on r/carletoncollege. I thought, "Oh, a Facebook memes page will be so much more dynamic and colorful and fun." I had envisioned people investing as much energy into the page as they do writing incoherent, unfunny CLAP articles every Friday, only it would be even better because Facebook wouldn't have an 11 pm submission deadline OR pile up on my coffee table each week. I hadn't, however, envisioned 75% of the memes being THE SAME CONDESCENDING WONKA STOLAF JOKE. So.. back to r/carletoncollege it is. Which isn't so bad, really, because that's where this nugget of truth resides.

P1: What has been your most empowering experience in the past few weeks?

P2: You mean other than memorizing the "Before He Cheats" lyrics and singing it for two hours straight while I hammered away at advanced sculpture stuff? It's hard to get more empowering than that. Buuuuut there was that moment last Sunday afternoon during a church potluck when this 6 year-old kid named Connor maniacally piled my fruit salad onto his plate while yelling "This is my favorite thing EVERRR!" Talk about a self-confidence booster. Never mind the fact that 10 minutes later, I saw him telling a cherry pie, "Ooooh, Connor likes what he sees. Connor's gonna eat you all up." First of all, talking to food in third person shouldn't be so stigmatized. Secondly, Connor didn't say Cherry Pie was his favorite thing ever, so I'd like to think I still have that special place in his heart.


P1: This has certainly been enlightening. Any last words before checking out?

P2: You mean something that will bring inspiration, personal growth, love and/or happiness to people's everyday lives? Well, I'd like to second searchquotes.com in saying that you can't go wrong with any Young Money quotes. 16 out of the 29 inspirational Young Money quotes are all from Bed Rock, so you know that's promising. BUT if you're still skeptical, feel free to peruse this other source of inspiration/personal growth/etc. YOU'RE WELCOME.

Sad Timez

Well, February has wasted no time in becoming the most depressing, soul-sucking month of my life since the time my brother RUINED Harry Potter 5 for me when I was a quarter into the book, and I had to go through the next 400 pages knowing that Sirius was just gonna die and that Harry would never have a family. Yes, it was horrible. Yes, I got my revenge by telling him that Dumbledore dies in Book 6. No, I don't regret it for a second.

So February was shaping up to be a fantaaastic time right after the Ebony show, which I will write about later. I was actually planning a whole post about Ebony and dance at Carleton College, which was completely thrown on the back burner when Mike Freaking Kelley killed himself. Of all the art majors at Carleton, I'm probably one of the least informed or passionate about contemporary artists, mainly because I spend my free time having karaoke contests with Ernesto to see which one of us is better at Nickelback's "How You Remind Me" instead of watching Art21 or whatever good art students do. You'll understand, then, that it is a Big Deal for me to go out of my way and fall in love (actually) with someone's work. I was first introduced to Mike Kelley's work when I saw "More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid" at the Walker Art Museum's Spectacular of Vernacular show about a year ago, and later when I came across "Educational Complex."

 Since then, I've written essays and a powerpoint about Kelley because his work largely informed my comps (my senior major thesis project that is currently sucking up all of my time, energy and belief in happiness), so I should be able to write a sentence about why this guy's work impacts me so profoundly, but honestly I just want to wallow in sadness while listening to "I Will Always Love You."

... YOU KNEW THIS WAS COMING. Whitney Houston is gone. Before any of you bring up the fact that Etta James ALSO died and I didn't write an incoherent, whiney blog post about that fantastic black singer whose music I seriously wanted to mashup for Da Wedding, let me point out that unlike Etta James, Whitney Houston has been a part of my family since 1992, when my dad got a some sort of cassette-playing alarm clock that would play "I Will Always Love You" at 6:30 a.m. every morning for an entire year. I loved Whitney Houston before I knew what she was singing about. That song is practically engraved into my eardrum. AND there is the fact that I spent the last two weeks of fall term writing a comparative paper about the role of Whitney Houston's music in the book and film versions of "Waiting to Exhale." Remember? The paper also provided some insightful insight into the steamy relationship between Whitney's character and the guy from Allstate commercials.. this is one of the (many) (MANY) scenes I memorized after watching the movie 4 times (seriously). You know, for academic purposes.

You'll be disappointed to hear that because of Whitney's unexpected death, they've had to cancel the promising Waiting to Exhale sequel.

Let me ask you this. Is it a coincidence that Mike Kelley and Whitney Houston died after the groundbreaking scholarship I produced about them?

I
think
not.

So, this is a public service announcement that the following individuals should consider themselves in danger of death, having recently been the subjects of Paulina's homework: Adam Brody, Rachel Bilson, Katrin Sigurdadottir, Bill Clinton and Lauren DiCioccio.

I Can't Believe It's Not Art

I've never gone to an addiction recovery program, but I've seen enough episodes of The O.C./Grey's Anatomy/Arrested Development/other shows featuring well-to-do alcoholics to know that the first step is admitting you have a problem. 

There are a couple of instances throughout this blog where I hint at my obsession with all things food-related, but even I didn't grasp the extent of my infatuation until recently completing a sculpture assignment that, as it turns out, is the fourth consecutive food-related artwork that I've made in the past 2 months.  Below, I give you the artistic manifestations of my troubled, food-addicted subconscious:

Let Cake Eat Them. Felt, thread, zippers. 

Prompt: Make a piece about connection. 

This guy took me 2 weeks to finish, so I spent a looooong time daydreaming about real desserts during the process. 

Putrescence. Satin, Sequins, Thread. 

Prompt: Make your favorite word.
An excerpt from a future art history textbook that will undoubtedly be written about this work: "Much like Picasso went through a depressive Blue Period (or how Van Gogh went through an entire depressive career), this piece sheds some light on the more painful aspects of being in love with anything: having to say goodbye. The juxtaposition of fine materials with forms that reference a clear state of putrescence manifests the artist's inner struggle at this crossroad; by looking at the piece, the viewer can almost hear the artist whisper to the bowl of fruit, 'You are beautiful, no matter what they say,' before tossing it into the dumpster to avoid yet another fruit fly infestation."

 Concessions at Weitz Cinema. Fake popcorn, fake coke, fake candy bars, fake nachos, fake pretzels. 

Prompt: Make something site-specific. 

I sincerely believe that more people would attend movies at Weitz if they could buy overpriced snacks. I know I'd rather pay $5 for a jumbo box of Sour Patch Kids than for a 2-day old parfait at the Sayles Cafe. (count the rhymes, imma poet)

I Keep On Fallin'. Flannel, Satin.

Prompt: Make something else that's site-specific.  

It was in the making of this piece (at 2 in the morning while watching Arrested Development) that I realized all of my art was about food.

So now, I'm going to follow in the footsteps of Kirsten Cohen, Chief Webber and Lucille Bluth and weasel my way out of any interventions that threaten to separate me from my one true love.

1. It's not really a problem to think about food all of the time if food is my muse. Some people get The Dark Lady, some people get Yoko Ono, and I get the food pyramid. Potato/Potahto. (but no one says 'potahto,' so more like.. Coupon/Kyoopon)

2. This entire dilemma only exists because I initially denied food the condition of Art with a capital A to begin with. Luckily, people like Marcel Duchamp and Laurence Weiner have paved the road for making Non-Art into Art at my very whim. So.. food, I now declare you to be Art. Which makes my food-related sculptures actually art-related sculptures. Which in turn makes my art self-referential and snooty and fit for inclusion in fine institutions like ARTFORUM and the MoMA! Below, I present you just one of many works of art handcrafted by moi that you now have the privilege of admiring:

Enchilovin' It?

Intro to Sculpture

"I can't stop thinking of this as a horcrux." 

        - my art professor during my sculpture critique in class today.

Not what I was going for, but definitely taking the credit anyway. Like an artist.

A Brief History Of Modern Painting

1863 - Manet:

1889- Van Gogh:

1914- Duchamp:

1915 - Malevich:

1921- Rodchenko:

1930- Mondrian:

1945 - Pollock:

Listeria II: Goodbyes

The past week has seen a lot of losses. You might want to find a Kleenex box and scroll to the bottom of the post to refer to my handy list of Top Ten Goodbye Songs before continuing. You could also just pop in a NOW! cd, because most songs I put on the list have been on those compilations .. no surprise there.

1. Goodbye, crappy white Macbook.

After 3.5 years of constant use/abuse, you might think that this computer is totally unusable. That's sort of true, because it was totally unusable until 2 days ago, when it was given a new hard drive, new battery, and sent to Mexico.

This computer has seen me through the thick and think of my adolescence. When I was in France, it was my connection to Seth Cohen and Summer Roberts in Newport Beach. It was also my connection to people I actually knew/ college acceptance emails/lots of music, but most importantly it endured hours upon hours of Californiaaa Here We Coooome.

At Carleton, this computer saw me through my linguistics all-nighter, my Latin American Poetry all-nighter, my Arrested Development all-nighter, my English all-nighters, and my many many many studio art all-nighters. The night I was supposed to spend writing an art history essay, I instead spent in the library trying not to cry as Ernesto did his best to salvage my waterlogged computer. I had walked in the rain for 7 minutes, and 7 minutes was enough to ruin the laptop.

NOT! Because my computer is a FIGHTER and on the third day (or the fifteenthth day) it was risen from the dead in glory and splendor and with minimal screen damage. Not to draw inappropriate comparisons.. but that MacBook could've come straight out of the New Testament.

2. Goodbye, Memory Card

So about 36 hours ago I realized that my camera was missing its memory card. Seeing as how the last place I'd left it was approx. 2 inches away from my trash can, and how I've searched EVERYWHERE, I'm assuming it fell in and is now sitting in a landfill next to a bunch of pizza boxes and old tires. It's unfortunate because the neither the pizza boxes or the tires have any way to enjoy the 594 pictures that were on there, so they'll assume that Mr. Memory Card is just boring and quiet and they won't bother starting a conversation when actually he's got 594 stories to tell if anyone would just say "Hey."

3. Goodbye, Yellow Sunglasses
I'd been waiting 7 LONG MONTHS for there to be enough sun that I needed to wear these. Two weeks into that long-awaited springtime, I found away to drop, step on, and break the sunglasses all in half a second. That makes these the fourth pair of glasses I've stepped on in the past year. Owning glasses = constant heartbreak.

My life won't ever be the same without the three of you. Even if I try to replace each of you with bigger and better products, a little bit of me will always be stuck saying "Goodbye." I hope you'll be saying it back to me.

Top Ten Goodbye Songs (dedicated to Crappy MacBook, Memory Card, Yellow Sunglasses, and all of the other possessions I will someday break or misplace):

10. All I Have (ft. LL Cool J) - J. Lo. For all the times you don't want to say goodbye. For all the times J.Lo is bouncin' and you can't do anything about it but rap to try to convince her to stay. 'Instead of beefin come hold me, I promise I'm not a phony.'

9. Closing Time - Semisonic This song is the kind of thing that everyone pretends to hate, they roll their eyes when it starts playing and shake their heads at the DJ, but they secretly know all of the lyrics and get sort of sad when it's over. Also see The Graduation Song by Vitamin C and Good Riddance by Greenday.

8. Cry Me A River - Justin Timberlake So Justin tries to act very strong and detached during this song, but if you listen hard enough, you can tell that it's hurting him to leave. He's mad, and when people are mad they act detached and cold, but the verses in falsetto give him away. He's crying himself a river, that's how hard it is for him to say goodbye.

7. Won't Go Home Without You - Maroon 5 I guess this is another song that's more about not wanting to say 'Goodbye,' which makes it close enough to a Goodbye song.

6. Bye Bye Bye - N*Sync

It's cliche, but it would be blasphemous to NOT have this song on this list. Besides, I'm pretty sure that the Bye Bye Bye Clap has replaced the Wave Goodbye.

5. Let It Burn - Usher There's a fine line between a regular break-up song and an actual goodbye song. The typical break up song is mostly angry or bitter, and few are as emotionally well-rounded as this one. Or if not well-rounded, it's a little confusing as to who's leaving and who's staying, which automatically makes it DEEP. In a few days when I'm no longer procrastinating for my Modern Art final, maybe I'll do a post about how Let It Burn fits pretty well into the PostModern scheme of things. You're welcome in advance.

That's a joke, I hate postmodern things, postmodernism can push itself off a cliff please and thank you.

4. Ruby Tuesday - Rolling Stones This is the part of the list where things get serious. Like, I hear this song and I actually get sad, and it feels like the louder I sing the chorus the better I'll feel. I'm saving this one for the last Harry Potter movie - the credits will start rolling and I'll go, "GOOOOOODBYE, RUUUBY TUESDAY!"

3. You And I Both - Jason Mraz I have nothing snarky to say about this song, because it's very pretty and a little sad and a lot of fun to sing. It's also what plays inside my head every time I leave Rochester. One time I heard it in the HyVee gas station right before heading back to NoFo (that's right) and it made my whole night, because gas stations usually play more annoying things like "Lucky" or "I'm Yours", not good ones like this. I pretended to consider buying a bag of beef jerky so that I could stick around long enough to hear the whole song play.

2. I'm Gonna Find Another You - John Mayer Recently, I had a conversation with my brother about which John Mayer song he could play for me at the wedding, (since he's the best brother in the world and is willing to something like that for me) and after the third angsty anti-love song I suggested, we concluded that John Mayer songs might not be the most suitable for the event. They ARE, however, very suitable for So Longs and Farewells, and so this one made it onto this list.

1. Danke Schoen - Wayne Newton Remember that one amazing movie where the beautiful Matt Broderick wins over the city of Chicago with little more than a wink and a couple of dance moves? That amazing movie is the first thing I'm going to watch when I'm done with finals, and this amazing song is the first thing I'm gonna sing when I'm driving far far away from the cesspool that is Carleton College in about a year and four days. Because although Carleton is a terrible place, it's a terrible place that I somehow care about, and when I say "Goodbye," I want to do it right.

I've come to some conclusions

I'm Not Sure How I Feel About Art

or about Yves Klein, but I loved this painting.

Yves Klein. People Begin to Fly (1961)

Lately

What My Life Has Looked Like Lately

1. A lot of this:


I'm taking a painting class, which translates into "I constantly have paint all over my arms, hands and face."


2. Some of this:


My campus job is to advertise terrible school events and make them seem not-as-terrible. Liiiike Screw-Your-Roommate (less commonly referred to as Set Up Your Roommate by boring people), where dozens of people go on awkward blind dates. No but sometimes it's not so bad. When I was a freshman, my date and I went to the chapel rooftop and complained about the meal plan.

This poster is actually my proudest achievement of this entire term, solely because Snooki turned out pretty well. If I say so myself.

3. A LOT of this:

Last week all I listened to was "Mine" and "Today Was A Fairytale". Then Brandi Branham showed me this song, and I have been listening to it nonstop. Because it is absolutely beautiful. I wish I could take a time machine, go back to 8th grade and attend a John Adams Middle School dance where THIS was the slow dance of the night (instead of this). I could be arms-length apart from Kellen Anderson and silently thinking about how the two of us would be young forever.

Tuesday's Coming, My Baby

1. TIL that there is such a word as twitterature, which is used to describe my generation's persistent need for constant self-affirmation, defining, declaration, and the overall desire to be watched. It's fun to talk about how dumb Twitter is because EVERYONE hates Twitter (see Fig. 1).

2. Concerning Fig.1. Can we find new things to hate? Because these are getting kind of old. Behold my flawless argument:

- iPad: who cares?

- Taylor Swift: the miracle of true love isn't her fault, so let her sing about it. Also, I'm kind of getting married.. how can I NOT love T-Swift?

- Twitter: yeaaaaaaah it's lame but how else will Justin Timberlake personally wish me a Happy Halloween?

- Hipsters: actually we can keep complaining about hipsters

3. Now I'm gonna be a hipster and tell you what music to listen to because I'm full of feelings and I want you to know it. So.. hey you! Listen to Dareh Meyod with me and think about how much you miss high school. Or how much you don't miss it, I guess.

4. Halloween is over. :(

5. School isn't that much fun anymore. Which is why I'm on here instead of writing an essay about Romanesque and Gothic architecture.

6. I really like painting. I hate stretching the canvas. Stretching the canvas sucks. Stretching the canvas is like eating a bowl of Trix that's been sitting in the milk for way too long and now all the pieces are soggy and gross. Stretching the canvas is like trying to hold my breath under a vat of boiling pus juice. AAAUUUUGHHHH.

You probably don't want to read this post

because I've felt it coming for a while and I can still it's just a big long string of nothing. Like, doing-everything-except-homework-while-listening-to-Juan-Mayer-and-talking-about-myself nothing. It also has too much caps.

THINGS I WANT TO SHOUT REAL LOUD-LIKE:

1. hey YOU: your email made me mad today mainly because it was mean. thanks for ruining what was going to be a non-significant, results-less psychology study. now I can study my own aggression.

Paulina Lopez
Hostile Aggression (she would really like to hit this person)
Relational Aggression (she would really like to say things like "you big fatso, no one could ever love you" to this person)
Frustration-Aggression (she is upset at this person for interfering with her goal of getting an okay grade in her psyc lab)

2. hey YOU: for some strange reason, the aforementioned survey has somehow gotten 415 responses. so you disabled it because the limit is 350. so now I have to pay to get my data. but of course i'm not going to do that, so i'm going to fail this assignment and fail this class and LAKJDLKDJFL. more like qualtrics.con*

*see what I did?
I replaced m with an n
so now it is con instead of com
and it means that qualtrics cheats and steals from people.

THINGS I REALLY REALLY LIKE

1. That being said.. can I just say that I really really liked Mr. Brain Wash throughout the entirety of Banksy's (Bansky)'s movie? Because I did. I thought he was brilliant. When he spilled paint all over his car and when he kept hitting his camera with walls as he walked down the street and when he made Park Amusement into Art Amusement and when he replaced Elvis's guitar with a Fisher Price gun and when he was... when he was... when he was... when he was... when he is... when he is ... what he represents... he is... he is...

I really liked him.

And I really liked the movie. A lot.

Should YOU Watch Exit Through The Gift Shop? Luckily for you, I've designed a sophisticated flowchart that will help you make an informed decision. Answer the question and follow the arrows that go with your answer!

2. Imma be making some posters next yurr. For monaaaaay. With Campus Activities (soon to be known as Student Activities! only not really, because everyone will still call it Campus Actvities). Eee!

And over the SUMMAH:

1. I will NOT be wearing red and khaki because I will NOT be clocking in to work at Rochester North SuperTarget Lanes or Guest Services or 1-Hr PhotoLab.

1 1/2. I WILL see how long it takes for Target to realize that I'm still using my 10% off.

2. I WILL be reading about the history of Mexican printmaking and making prints in a not-crowded studio and getting paid for it. I am so excited. I haven't had a chance to write about this very much, but I am SO SO SO SO EXCITED FOR THIS. Because maybe it will be the only time that anyone pays me to do something that is too fun to be considered work. DEAR ART YOU ARE THE BEST JOB I HAVE EVER HAD.

3. I'm doing an internship? With the Rochester Art Center? Which means I'm kind of an adult?

Okay. Enough.

Life is alright right now.

Listen:

Why take Printmaking?

It's Friday night
And she's all alone.
He's a MILLION miles away!

So I'm dressed to kill in an apron, and I've been in Boliou (carleton's art building) for approx. 10 consecutive hours. And that's not even rounding up by more than 10 minutes. Here's what it looks like to let loose on Friday night:





Sooo fun.




SURPRISE!! TWIST ENDING!!! Because this is really and truly how I'd spend every weekend, no joke. And it doesn't really matter that I don't get a choice, it's still fun. Spending 5 hours prepping the stupid copper plate to do a mezzotint is actually super worth it because then you get THIS:!!!!



And yeah, maybe it would've taken me a lot less time to just draw the stupid chess piece with graphite or something a little less impossible than a copper plate. But get this .. I can print out this thing over and over again! Like, a hundred times! Or a thousand! Over and over again!! Nelly and Tim McGraw would have to write a whole new duet about it!!




OVER AND OVER AGAIN!

My Kid Could Paint That, Too

(as in "two".. hahahahahaha get it?)

Last week, I could've picked between studying for finals or watching My Kid Could Paint That. A High Five Fantastic Time's reaction to Bar-Lev's 2007 doc (though it was mostly a reaction to the reactions from the art majors in her class) had gotten me pretty curious.. Needless to say, I know very little about the French conditional and future perfect tenses, as will undoubtedly show up on my final grade.

It's been a few days since I watched the film, so some of the initial excitement/anger/ frustration provoked by the doc has died down a little bit. But the fact that something other than Glee could have provoked such an explosion of emotion is enough to prove that watching that film was soooooo worth watching my chances at an A in FREN103 poof into oblivion.

My Kid Could Paint That
1. Marla vs Dad. In Courtney's blog, she writes that the film proves that 4-year old Marla was responsible for her paintings. Although the doc includes footage of Marla completing a painting on her own, this footage is used to show how unlikely it is that Marla is the sole artist of her work. Bar-Lev compares the painting Marla completed in front of a camera to those that were previously exhibited in galleries and sold for thousands of dollars, and the message is pretty clear; the former looks nothing like the others in the collection in terms of composition, in terms of color palette, in terms of how the brush was used, in terms of overall aesthetics. By the time the documentary gets to this footage of Marla's 100% pure handiwork, Bar-Lev isn't redeeming the Olmstead's stained reputation by proving that Marla is "the real artist". He's materializing his doubts about the family's honesty and gouging your eyes with them. He also documents the doubts expressed by once-loyal Marla art collectors, who swear over their Hummer and all their grandkids' trust funds that "Ocean" (the redeeming footage painting) looks like it's done by a completely different artist than the one who made "Ode to Pollock" and "Asian Sunrise".

The point is, My Kid doesn't at all prove who was responsible for the all of famous Marla paintings. It proves that when placed in front of a camera and told to act natural, Marla painted "Ocean" without anyone's help. It showed how eager she was to finish the painting and go to some room not filled with documentary equipment, probably to finish a puzzle or make fun of her younger brother (who has these artsy SHENANIGANS* to blame for his inferiority complex). It showed that "Ocean", the only painting we knew to be 100% Marla's handiwork, could be interpreted as being completely different than any of her other paintings.

2. Doc about a Doc. Whether the Marla Vs. Dad question is answered isn't ever the point of the documentary, because Bar-Lev's film is a documentary about documentaries. Half an hour into the film, there's a creepy confessions session during Bar-Lev's car ride back home where he basically spills that:
- He doesn't know whether to believe that Marla's work is genuine anymore
- He wants to believe her family because they've been so nice and whatnot
- Is it bad to pretend he believes them to their faces in order to remain on good terms and finish his film?
-??????????//?/
The story develops around the notion that no one can measure anything without altering the results (PHYSICS FOR POETS**), and that any story is only a compilation of true/false. Should we expect anyone to perform 100% normally in front of a camera, let alone a 4-year-old? Etc.

3. moving on. Going back to a comment from Courtney's post: "[The people in Courtney's class] argued that because the girl was a 4 year old that it wasn't real art and that she shouldn't be selling paintings for thousands of dollars. It mocks what real artists try to achieve and struggle with."

The comment addresses some major points: a. what constitutes Real Art, b. the ethics of art marketing,

b. It's completely reasonable to be outraged by the fact that Marla recieved the recognition she did, because the fact is that all the recognition didn't have as much to do with the quality of the paintings as it did with the fact that she was four years old. If Marla had finished those same paintings when she was 23, she would probably be living off Ramen in a bathroomless studio. And I have the right to be outraged about that because there's no way I can justify that Marla's talent at 4 years old consitutes her as a modern art prodigy. Even when comparing "Ocean" to her "more polished works", the canvases generally look like accidents, some more aesthetically pleasing than others. This ties us back to point a.

a. Another interpretation of My Kid: It isn't just the marketing of oblivious 4-year olds that mocks what 'real artists' try to achieve, but the fact that work done by oblivious 4-year-olds could even pass as art. Because a piece like "Ocean" looks like it could've been done by an oblivious 4-year-old, or a Modern Art major, or a homeless war vet, or a hamster on steroids, or a blender. I'm not yet at a point in my career as an ObsDraw graduate where I can appreciate something like "Ode to Pollock" or Andy Warhol's soup cans as much as I can appreciate Degas' dancers. I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was charged $12 to see Penis Hat at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Is it wrong to be bitter about this? Penis Hat looks like it was inspired and completed by a drunk Jace Rustan. Who cares. It's 2:33 am and I can't fall asleep and I'm bitter. Suck it, 21st century Modern Art. Oh gosh that ties back to Penis Hat, and I'm so mad/tired I'm not even going to hit the backspace key. 12 effing dollars.