Prom Night (Scrapbook 17)

This is probably my favorite picture of all times hence it deserves at least my attention. This photo was actually shot last Saturday, April 18. The beautiful lady kissing me is my girlfriend who I have been dating for 16 months. We are both dressed up for Leonardtown High School’s Prom and we are on Solomon’s boardwalk right outside of DiGiovanni (where we just ate). I have been to three proms before this one and this prom simply bested them all. People say that “your high school years are the best years of your life.” And even though I go to college, the high school prom and being with my wonderful high school sweetheart “made my day,” where certainly “one of those days” make it the best times of your life. So what if it’s a “mushy” photograph, it means a lot to me even though it was not shot to be a work of art. I just think the picture deserves my attention so that I can always reminisce on all the beauty contained in that picture and the wonderful time we had together.

google earth link

Ponded! (Scrapbook 16)

This must have been one of the best “pond-ings” ever; the girl getting “ponded” is my brother’s girlfriend. For those who do not know what “ponding” is, “ponding” is a St. Mary’s tradition where you get thrown in St. John’s Pond on your birthday. However, my brother’s girlfriend’s birthday is on Easter and she would be up with her family that day. So what we decided to do was surprise her a couple days early. I don’t think I have ever seen someone get so much air and distance off of a throw before; she probably was thrown a good five or six feet out into the water, reaching heights of about five feet above the water before plummeting into the water and muck. It was even funnier that she, my brother, and I had crew practice in ten minutes and Allie who is a national ranked rower, coaches us novice members on some days, and on this day she was suppose to coach us. Thus, she was a little late to practice because she had to throw on some dryer clothes.
These pictures weren’t intended to be art, like most of the pictures I have scrapbooked, the pictures are meant to preserve time so that anyone can look back at the photos and savor the moment. And photos like these pictures deserve our attention so that we do not get too caught up in our studies and works to forget about all the good time we had.

google earth link

First Regatta (Scrapbook 15)

This was the first regatta that I have ever gone to. This is a picture of St. Mary’s varsity 4+ boat at Occoquan Regional Park, VA. Sadly, I did not get to race in it, mainly because I am on novice team (people who have rowed less than a year). However, it was an amazing experience to see all the training pay off for the team.
This picture drew my attention primarily because it was my first time viewing a regatta and so it will always be a memory to cherish; the picture is actually of Men’s Varsity 4+ sprints. There were so many people there and everything was hectic but that’s what makes it memorable. And like I just previously mentioned, it is fascinating to see how all those 6:00 a.m. practices and hour long erg workouts reflect our performance. This picture was not designed to be art, just to capture the essence of the race, the posture of the rowers (to critique), and to capture the overall moment. In the picture, the rowers are at the “finish” position at the starting point and each rower has correct posture. In this particular event, St. Mary’s got second place. I just have to hand it to the team and coaches on how well we did.

You can also find results here

google earth link

Rapunzel and LOST

“Rapunzel,” the fairy tale, was first published in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm. Today, there are several versions of the story that exist, most of which were designed for children’s ears. However, William Thompson believes that despite the simplicity of the story, there actually lies subtle, complexities of the story that create different levels of meaning; in totality, there are four levels of a story: literal, structural, anthropological, and cosmological.
The simplest level of the story is the literal level, where everything is denotative. From the literal level you can sense patterns in narration. These patterns form the structural level of the story. For example, in “Rapunzel” one gains the sense that everything comes in sets or pairs. This is implied with the presence of the father and mother, Gothel (sorceress) and Rapunzel, the King and the prince, the twins Rapunzel gives birth to, and finally the complete union of Rapunzel and the prince. On an anthropological level, “Rapunzel” implies how a weak and unstable patriarchal society can be overrun by a matriarchy, but in the end the best relationship is a stable patriarchal society in the realm of Kings; however, for this patriarchal society to be stable you must have a unique balance of power and love between both sexes. Last but not least, there is the cosmological level of “Rapunzel,” were the story sets up order of the planetary systems. A Rapunzel is scientifically known as the Campanula rapunculus, a fivefold flower (five petals). Given the plants appearance, the character, Rapunzel, is portrayed by the planet Venus. If you ever observed Venus drift in the sky and connect the dots, it would make the shape of the Campanula rapunculus petals. Now you could dissect each and every story you have ever heard into these four levels.
Let us dissect “LOST” into these four levels. On the literal level, the story follows the lives of the survivors of a plane crash taking place on an uncanny, supernatural island. Structurally, you see that each person has their own problem, where the problem originated, and yet each problem cannot be completely resolved, just slightly improved. For example, Hurley won $144 million off of a lottery number; however, this number was not exactly randomly generated by Hurley. These numbers were seen by Hurley during his stay at a mental institution of which one of the insane people kept painting on a canvas. Ever since Hurley won the lottery, he has only been brought bad luck and many people involved with or around Hurley start to die. As a result, Hurley blames himself. Once crashed on the island, Hurley is faced with the several curses. In one instance, Hurley initially stashed a lot of food for himself, but feeling guilty for hording food and being so fat, he has his friends help rid him of the food. He comes to find out that there was a food drop from the night before. Hurley breaks away from his friends and restarts his bad eating habits. Again, his friends come to his rescue and help him reason. Even though Hurley solved his eating problem, he is still stuck on the island, which is still full of unwelcomed surprises. “LOST” is such an immense, detailed, and powerful story it is hard to accurately articulate every idea so when it comes down to looking at “LOST” at anthropological and cosmological levels, it probably would be better to generalize several theories. On an anthropological, “LOST” is all about how different people of different races must cooperate to survive and how you cannot have anarchy if anyone wants to survive. You see that order is only obtained when Jack is the leader of the survivors and you see how people like Jin and Michael must cooperate to get off the island together (even though their attempt fails). On a cosmological level there are so many people that groups of people can represent plants. There are the messengers, supporting actors, who represent Mercury (“the busy planet”). There are the main actors, who represent Earth and its fragile state, and the “others” (and other living evils) who represent Earth’s moon. I believe that the evil represents the moon because the moon is always orbiting the Earth and always has affect on the Earth’s systems and no matter what, we cannot not get rid of the moon without completely getting rid of us. Last but not least, the mysterious island represents the Sun which is the center piece of our solar system, and drives both creation and havoc on Earth.

reflection/response for Art21

Some artists’ techniques always fascinate me more than other artist’s techniques. I have always enjoyed creating drawings and making very precise, objective works; and when I view other artists’ works, I usually prefer to see more of the Chuck Close styles than Alberto Giacometti styles. Despite, the fact that some works preserve almost every single detail even if the work is transformed, I do not look for the artists’ reason or objective behind their work. I just simply like to enjoy their work. So why don’t I like abstract art as much? Typically because I feel that more effort is put forth to preserve every lasting detail and impression rather than just slop some paint on a canvas and call it art. I never said it did not take Giacometti hours to create his sculptures or drawings; I just did not enjoy looking at sketches that even I could have created. So now I want to give you an idea what I think about several artists I learned about during the Art21 viewing.
The first artist I viewed was Sally Mann. Her photographs were extremely exquisite in such a way that her photographs persevered almost all the detail in her pictures and yet gave them that old, historic, 1930 glass plated appearance. She was always spontaneous, and her work was like “her bible.” In fact, she had such a strong passion for her children and her work that she used her children as the center piece of her work. I liked her work because she was so dedicated to make her photographs perfect that they pretty much were. The next artist, Mel Chin, can be considered an interdisciplinary artist. His work is very admirable and ingenious. He takes decrepit, ruined houses and transforms them into something of worth and gives value to the city. Mel is also involved in preserving nomadic cultures by incorporating real nomad carpet patterns into a videogame that has you trying to figure out puzzles and you ways out of labyrinths for particular nomad tribes. Last but not least, he works on the revival field, which I think is the coolest art project ever. The revival field was designed so that plants called, “hyperaccumulators,” can take high concentrations of metals out of the soil allowing other plants to survive. The hyperaccumulators actually would absorb the metal into their system and be able to be harvested so that the metals could be recycled. What is cooler than a plant taking metals out of the soil and refining the metals by itself so that it can be harvested and allow the surrounding environment to sprout life in a once toxic wasteland? James Turrel is the third artist I evaluated. He is an environmental artist and an architect. His heart seems to be pure seeing as he designed a meeting house for Quakers and has been working on his Roden Crater Project for years, both which have been created to bring inner peace. With much dismay, the Roden Crater Project has caused Turrel many financial problems and consequently cost him two marriages and a relationship. I would at least wish him the best of luck of finishing the Roden Crater Project which already looks spectacular despite not being finished. Last but not least, I looked at Jabriel Orozco’s work. You could almost say that Jabriel is an inventor or a very abstract artist (except this is the type of abstract I like seeing because he is not the typical abstract artist who only paints or draws). Jabriel takes different mediums into different spaces and invents something total new. For example, he took potatoes and put them on books in a store and he took cat food cans and put them on watermelons (which I find very amusing). Let alone the fact he designed a cool looking car (even though it’s not functional), a clover-shaped ping pong table that four players could play on with a pond in the middle, and a circular billiard table with one ball suspended from the ceiling. The most outstanding concept behind his work is that he uses tools that everyone could use and yet, somehow, he makes masterpieces.

Perspective Students (Scrapbook 14)

Simply, this picture was taken inside my room after I just ate lunch at the Campus Center. On that particular day, there was a ton of perspective students all around campus and at lunch time, they flooded the Great Hall. Consequently, I had to wait in line for fifteen minutes just to get a crape. I was not annoyed that I had to wait fifteen minutes in line, just bored. Oddly enough though, the positioning of my “freshman” lanyard (with my ID) on top of my antique high school sweatshirt reminded me that I too was a perspective student just last spring. (A note about the “freshman” lanyard- only freshmen wear them, and usually, the freshman would stop wearing them by the first week of school so that others would not associate them as freshmen.) This picture is not art, just coincidence; it’s not that unlikely for a messy teenage boy to throw his belongings on top of more of my belongings.

google earth link

Firsts and Lasts-Smoking (Scrapbook 13)

This picture was taken outside of Dorchester. This is a picture of me smoking my first and last cigar; I will not even bother trying a cigarette. The social aspect of smoking such as hanging outside with my friends on a late night was fun, and being able to say that I have smoked once in my life is fine, but for me, once is enough. After smoking I had to brush my teeth for a good five minutes and wash my mouth out with some Listerine before my mouth even felt remotely clean. After that I had to shower for ten minutes before feeling clean. And just as bothering was the fact that my clothes smelt and made my room smell so bad that I had to put my clothes straight into the washer. It was even worse when I could not fall asleep because I was coughing pretty bad and had to take a cough drop. I do not want to rant about all the negative consequences of smoking but simply note that despite being the health freak I am, I actually did smoke a cigar. So now I can check that off my “things-to-do” list.

google earth link