Performing Art

I turned my life into art by walking around my neighborhood for three consecutive hours. I took a normal everyday activity that I do and attempted to turn it into art. I walked around my neighborhood with my boyfriend for about three hours. He took a picture of me on my journey, which is uploaded to my webpage. The art that I tried to create was different than normal everyday art because it was done through an action. I did not produce an object, I created a performance. Everyone outside saw me walking around for hours.

Before reading about performance art, I would not have thought of this experiment as art. Performance art is something very different than the art I am used to seeing and most people associate with art. Through the readings online I learned about performing art and that it is not about the creation of an object, but an expression and performance. According to Wikipedia art can be defined as a product of human activity, made with the intention of stimulating the human senses as well as the human mind; by transmitting emotions and/or ideas. Beyond this description, there is no general agreed-upon definition of art. Art is also able to illustrate abstract thought and its expressions can elicit previously hidden emotions in its audience. Keeping this definition in mind life can be thought of as art when expressing an emotion.

Linda Montano’s excerpt on “Art in Everyday Life” explains how her performing art reflects her life and is considered art. She created the chicken woman which reflected her life, but she would use it during her performances. I think my experiment of walking around the neighborhood is art even though it is something that I do every day. During my walk, the audiences of people also enjoying the nice weather this weekend were observing me. They could see the emotion I was giving off during that third hour when my feet were starting to hurt and I did not want to walk any longer. By my tenth lap they started to wonder why I was walking for so long. Emotion was being expressed as I walked lap after lap. I started out very happy to be outside with a smile on my face, enjoying the nice weather. Then I started to get a little hot and sweat. Slowly my feet started to hurt and pain and exhaustion was conveyed. The expression of emotion is why I think my experiment of walking for three hours in my neighborhood was art.

To me the difference between art and life is how you express it. Art is something that you look deeper into and try to interpret. When I take that walk once around my neighborhood, I am not thinking of my emotions or really appreciating the things around me. But when I walked through my neighborhood for three hours, I was expressing all types of emotions and looking at my everyday activity a lot different than I did in the past. Art is looking at something differently than you would have normally in your everyday life.

Self Portrait Five: Film Stills

The still film that I created is called “It’s For the Best.” This film is based on the creations of Cindy Sherman. There are many qualities that are similar between this film and the creations of Cindy Sherman. The film, “It’s For the Best” addresses issues like femininity, the gaze, and spectatorship. On my e-portfolio page there are five pictures that make up my still film, “It’s For the Best.”

The still film, “It’s For the Best,” starts out with a picture of a girl in a car. The girl looks excited to go to the prep school that her parents are driving her to. The girl is looking out the window looking at the building where she will be living alone without her parents for the first time in her life. This picture is much different than Cindy Sherman’s pictures because the girl is not completing an action. She is just sitting and looking out the window. On the other hand, the picture is similar to Sherman’s shots because it has the girl doing something that she is expected to do by men. Women are not suppose to drive and are often criticized by being bad drivers. Therefore, this picture is full-filling the stereotype that women should not drive and should just watch. In this picture the girl is the one that is the spectator looking at other people out the window.

The second picture in the film still is a picture of a girl reading a book. The girl has been sent to the prep school and is forced to read and learn. She is looking in the book trying to see what career path she wants to take. The girl is indecisive and does not know what to do with her life. This picture is similar to Cindy Sherman’s picture of the girl in the library with the book either being taken out or put back on the shelf. This picture also is similar to the gaze because the girl is doing what is expected of her. She is reading a book and being submissive just sitting down, doing what she is supposed to do.

The third picture in the film is of a firefighter girl entering into a house with a fire in it. After the girl figures out what she wants to be from reading books she decides to be a firefighter because it is a very different role from what is expected of her. The girl tries to be a hero and save lives as a volunteer firefighter by entering into this burning building trying to see if anyone is in the house that may need assistance. This picture is much different from Cindy Sherman’s still films because it has a woman doing something that is not expected of her. In all of Sherman’s still films it has beautiful women completing jobs that are categorized as women’s work. The girl in this picture wants to do something different with her life and decides to be a firefighter, which is predominately a male’s occupation. This picture is displaying femininity as being able to do whatever you put your heart to. A female can do a male’s job and does not have to stick to women’s work like the models do in Sherman’s still films.

The fourth picture is of the girl dressed up in a suit looking in the refrigerator for what she wants to use to make dinner. The girl decides that she does not want to be a firefighter and tries another career in the business world. She takes on a job as a secretary and after work proceeds home to make dinner for herself and her boyfriend. This picture is consistent with Sherman’s work because it shows a woman in a dressy, flattering outfit doing women’s work. The girl gets home after working as a secretary in an office and is expected to make dinner for the man. One of Sherman’s pictures is of a woman in the kitchen making something. Preparing dinner is associated with women doing the cooking and cleaning instead of the man. The girl in the picture is taking part in the gaze by dressing up in tight fitting clothes to do work for men. She is being observed by men for their pleasure because she is dressed up nice in flattering clothes. The girl then goes home and is expected to make dinner for her boyfriend where she is again being observed by the man for his pleasure.

The last picture is the girl looking up in the sky thinking about her accomplishments and graduating from prep school. The girl struggles throughout the film stills to find out what she wants to become. She tries to be a firefighter then she tries to work in the business world. She then decides to finish her schooling and graduates prep school. This picture is different from Sherman’s because it shows the woman as successful with the world ahead of her, ready to accomplish anything. The woman is not bound by men’s ideals of what they should be doing. Here the Irigaryian perspective is accomplished because the woman is successful and breaking through stereotypes and achieving success.

I chose to create this still film because it shows women achieving success. I chose the film title, ”It’s For the Best” because the girl in this film still goes to a prep school even though she will be alone away from her parents for the first time. She struggles to find herself, but still graduates and is ready to accomplish anything she puts her mind to. I chose to create pictures that were similar to Cindy Sherman’s film stills, but different in the sense that the girl overcomes stereotypes and is more than just something to look at.

Public Service Announcement

The public service announcement that I created featured two very different looking people. The woman in the right is beautiful and sexy. She is a perfect specimen to look at. The woman in the right is freaky looking. She looks a mess and is not someone that you would want to gaze at for too long, probably the spectator would only want to stop and laugh at her for her obscure appearance. The text on the public service announcement states “Outside” above the beautiful woman and “Inside” above the ugly woman. This wording is supposed to reflect how the woman looks on the outside and how she feels on the inside. At the bottom of the page are the words, “This is how you make her feel….You can make a difference!” This phrase ties the whole picture together stating that it is the gaze that forces the model to desire to look beautiful on the outside when really she does not feel beautiful at all on the inside.

Most people when looking at a beautiful person do not consider her feelings and only think of her as a pretty picture. In this public service announcement the feelings of the woman when gazed upon by a spectator are portrayed to the audience. When women are looked at as objects of pleasure their feelings are not taken into consideration. Laura Mulvey talks about scopophilia in her essay and the affects it has on women. I used Mulvey’s thoughts expressed in her essay as the basis of my public service announcement. Men often observe an object, in this case the woman in the left, and derive a sense of sexual satisfaction. The feelings of the object, the woman on the left, are not considered. This public service announcement is expressing the objects feelings in the picture on the right.

The words on the public service announcement are installed in certain spots in order to make the observer think about what is going on in the picture. When someone reads something they start from the top and read down to the bottom. The words “Inside and Outside” posted on the top of the announcement are very broad terms that could have a few meanings when combined with the two pictures. The generalized wording makes the observer think about what they could mean and how they relate to the announcement. It is not until the reader observes the bottom of the announcement that they understand what “Inside and Outside” are pertaining to. Outside is symbolizing the woman’s appearance that is seen by the spectator. Inside is referring to how the model feels and her self image. Through the wording and placement of the words on the public service announcement the observer becomes aware of people’s inner feeling when they are gazed upon and often degraded in the public eyes. The statement “You can make a difference,” is telling the observer that they can make a difference in this woman’s life by not looking at her as an object.

Self Portrait Four Magical Realism

My creature is a grouper. It is a type of fish that has my eyes, lips, and arms. The fish has human characteristics which makes it unique to other species of fish. The grouper has my eyes so I can see what a fish sees under water. The fish also has my arms so it can pick up things with its hands and move more freely with human arms rather than fins. This special grouper is still able to swim like a normal fish because it still has its fins and tail. I choose to become a fish because I love to be in the water. I love snorkeling and seeing the world that is under the sea and not visible to humans on land. I think the ocean is beautiful and has so many undiscovered things in it that really interest me.

I choose to put the fish in a little bit of a different atmosphere than it is used to. The fish is in the water, but the fish is also in the city. My favorite place to vacation is the beach. I enjoy going in the water and seeing the exotic fish and creatures that live there. I am also going to be working in a city when I graduate college. I will be working in Philadelphia when I start my full time job so the city is going to be a very big part of my life in a couple of months. If I could be a real fish I think it would be neat to live in the water like regular fish do, but also in a city. The habitat that I created reminds me of a lost underwater city from a movie like “Pirates” or “The Little Mermaid.”

Like I said before, the beach and the city are going to play a big part in my life. I hope to spend my vacation time at various beaches throughout the world and the rest of my time in the city. My fish represents an ideal world where I have both my working life and leisure time in one. The habitat that my fish is living in plays a big part of the environment I will be living in very soon.

Magical realism allowed me to create an animal that represents me in an ideal habitat. I was able to put two different worlds together in one and live sufficiently in both worlds by becoming a fish.

Frida’s “Wounded Deer” painting inspired my project because she used an animal and put it in a unique environment. In Frida’s painting her head is placed on the body of a deer in a very mysterious looking wooded environment. In her picture as well as mine you have the view of water and land. On the top of my self-portrait is a city and in the middle and bottom is water. Frida has her painting opposite of mine with water in the distance and land upfront where the animal is standing. The background of her painting has a magical feeling to it that makes you think the deer is somewhere out of a storybook. I tired to utilize this technique by creating an atmosphere that was rare and not of the ordinary. My background looks like something out of a Disney movie. The background is very colorful and busy.

I tried to pick parts of my body that could be placed on the fish to give it a feminine look while not using parts that men and women differ in. To the untrained eye it is very difficult to tell if a fish is male or female. In order to identify more with the fish and make it more like me I wanted to give it a feminine touch. I put my eyes on the fish that are done up with mascara so it is obvious that they are the eyes of a woman. The second body part of mine that is on the fish is my smile. Smiling is a facial expression that is associated with women. Women are often supposed to appear always happy and content while men are to remain expressionless. I wanted to put a smile on my fish not only to apply a gender to the grouper, but show that the environment that it is in is ideal for me. An arm is very hard to express gender with so I used a picture where I have a bracelet on and my finger nails painted to help make the fish more feminine. I specifically picked certain body parts to place on my fish to express my gender on an animal that normally is not identified by its gender. I had a lot of fun cutting and pasting trying to add texture and think about gender while creating a self-portrait of me on the body of a fish.

Gertrude Stein Poem Recreation

The poem that I recreated to mirror Gertrude Stein's poem, "Touch Buttons" helped me to learn a little more about words and poetry. The three topics that I wrote about were a Penny, a Chocolate Kiss, and the Dining Room. I believe these poems turned out well and were very interesting to write. By recreating poems that resembled "Touch Buttons" I was forced to look at simple everyday objects. food, and rooms in a new light. I looked at a penny as more than a monetary unit, I looked at chocolate as more than food, and the dining room as more than a place of gathering. I tried to evaluate how people use pennies and the characteristics of a pennies while deciding how to approach my poem. I also looked at chocolate and who eats it, when it is given to others, and when it is craved. I looked at a dining room as more than a place to eat, but a place where conversation is shared and love is enhanced.
After I was finished writing my poem I decided to do an experiment on it. I choose to combine the poem I created with one of my favorite poems, "Footprints." I alternated each line of my poem into the "Footprints" poem to create one. This created a poem that was very unique. When the reader reads the poem it is obvious that it is two poems put together, but you can grasp the meaning of both. Both poems have very different styles. My poem was about thinking of everyday objects, food, and rooms, where as the "Footprints" poem is about thinking of a greater force than what we see everyday. I think the fact that both requires thought is very obvious, but the subject matter of both being so different makes the combination of the two very inspiring. The poem is challenging you to think about things differently. It is challenging the reader to think about objects, food, and rooms differently, but also your faith.
Through this experiment of combining two poems I did something a little different with language. The alternation of lines of both poems requires the reader to change their reading habits due to the difference in language in each line. For example, the first line of the poem is from the "Footprints" poem. In this line the reader can relax and read the line easily because it is written like a normal sentence. The second and all even numbered lines that the reader reads require a little more thought and concentration. The language in this part of the poem is choppy and fragmented. The words do not flow nicely like they do for all the odd numbered lines in the poem. The difference in language and flow from one sentence to the next keeps the reader aware and awake because every even numbered line is much different from the odd number lines and does not flow nicely.

Impressionist Self-Portrait

The self-portrait that I created of myself was manipulated to display impressionist tenets. I took a plain picture of myself with a blank white background and used different features in Paint to make the self-portrait look more original and impressionistic.

There were four techniques that I used to transform this picture into an impressionist self-portrait. First I created brushstroke lines similar to the ones artist like Vincent Van Gogh uses in his masterpieces. I was able to create this affect by using the paintbrush feature in Paint. I created these brushstroke lines in the clouds above my head to give the picture a harder look. Secondly, I created a multi-dot look by using the spray paint feature in Paint. In many of Claude Monet’s paintings he uses multiple dots that when from a distance form a beautiful view. When you view these paintings close up it looks just like several dots, but when you admire them from a distance the painting comes into focus. This technique helps give the painting texture. The clouds, swirls, and skin on my face are all formed with this technique. I think it helps to give the picture a more abstract, unique look that one can not view in a mirror. The swirls in the background were inspired by Vincent Van Gogh and his famous piece “Starry Night.” Vincent Van Gogh creates similar clouds and swirls in his painting to add feeling to his piece. I tried to achieve a similar effect by adding weather to my picture. The third way I incorporated impressionist techniques into my self-portrait was by adding light, but bright colors. In the background the sky is made up of bright colors that help to add to the picture. Many impressionist artist use light, but bright colors in their works to add definition and emotion into their works. I think the color that I used helps to bring out the picture and make it stand out compared to other pieces of works that were made before the 19^th century. The last technique I used was adding a little texture to the self-portrait. I achieved this technique by, once again, using the spray paint feature in Paint. By using the spray paint feature it makes the background look like it has a rough or bumpy surface if it could be touched. Impressionist artist add texture to their paintings to make it seem more realistic and that is the style I was trying to achieve.

The entire process of creating this self-portrait was done in Paint. I took a picture of myself against a white background so I would have a lot of space to add impressionist style to the picture. I started off drawing thicker brushstrokes in Paint using the paintbrush feature. Then I spray painted around these brushstrokes to add the look of texture to my picture. After I was done with the background I started to experiment with my face. I turned my hair purple and added texture to my face by using the spray paint feature. I experimented cautiously with my face because I still wanted the picture to resemble me, just not how I look when I look in the mirror.

I wanted my self-portrait to show the more adventurous side of me that is not obvious when just looking on the surface and not getting to know me. I think the purple hair symbolizes how I can be unique and try new things. The bright green eyes represent my ambition and creativity. Many people believe you can tell what someone is thinking just by looking into their eyes and I think this is right. Eyes can tell you some ones emotions and feelings. I thought it was important to emphasize the eyes so the viewer could see deeper into who I am. I made the texture on the face because I do not have perfect skin. I have always wanted clear beautiful skin, but unfortunately I always continue to have breakouts and blemishes. I decided to make my imperfections distinctive by enhancing them. I thought it was very beautiful how Frida Kahlo emphasized her uni-brow and with her imperfections made her paintings even more stunning. I wanted to use this technique to try to make my imperfections beautiful to show I am a person with flaws just like every other person on this planet. I think women are portrayed in society as flawless and this is not the reality of the matter. Singer, movie stars, and models all have flaws and those flaws can be beautiful and set that person apart from everyone else.

Comic Strip

The assignment this week was to create a comic strip of my heritage. I decided to go back as far as my grandparents and show what countries they were from. The comic strip also shows a little about me and my future.

My mother’s parents came from Hungary and Russia. My grandmother is 100% Hungarian and my grandfather is mostly Russian with the last name Skalaban. Both of their parents came over to America and had gave birth to them, making them both American citizens. My grandparents have been married for forty-five years. My grandma and grandpa Skalaban had four children all girls, with my mother being the first born.

My father’s parents came from Poland and England. My grandmother was mainly Polish and my grandfather was mostly English. Both of their parents came over to America and had children, making them American citizens. My grandmother gave birth to three children, two boys and one girl. The youngest boy was my dad. Unlike my mother’s parents my dad’s parents went through a divorce. My grandmother remarried and her husband adopted my dad. My dad and my last name is Jennings.

My parents met when in high school and started dating. My mother went to Bloomsburg University and my dad went into the army. After the army and college they got married and shortly after had me. They were married for ten years when they decided to split up. Now I have a step-father and step-mother making my family huge.

This is my last semester at Penn State, but I think my college years will always be in my heart. College is a time when you really mature and grow-up. I have made a ton of friends here and will never forget all of the memories of State College. I am going to be an accountant at Pricewaterhouse Coopers. I see my past being Penn State and my future as an accountant. I have a heritage to contribute to that I will pass down to my children.