Project 5

For my final project, I made what I wanted to be an incredibly lame wanted poster for myself. So many of the projects that we've/I've done this semester had a more serious approach; with that in mind, I wanted this last one to be light-hearted to reflect on me preferring to be a goofball and enjoy taking the sails out from under myself. So I guess this is a more accurate self-portrait in a meta sense, since most of what you see on the poster is truth-embellishing (eg., Don't have Tinder, never been to strip club. I do sarcastically call myself Papa Bear on occasion though). I used Photoshop for the poster and my handsome mug, and illustrator for everything else. 

Homework 9

The "Copy Rights" article intertwines with Steal Like an Artist because much of what Kleon was talking about in Steal revolved around how it's okay to "steal" from an artist you admire, and that there's a difference between doing that and blatant plagiarism. The article mentions how that frame of reference has begun to butt heads with the notoriously litigious American copyright law system in recent years, specifically art, and how the attempt to find middle ground has come along.

Artists who appropriate are in both an advantageous and disadvantageous position as compared to those from centuries earlier. On one hand, work is easier to discover than ever, and consequently it is easier than ever to appropriate work. On the other hand, artists who have their work appropriated are subsequently more able to provide proof of their work being stolen/taken/sampled/appropriated with digital time stamps, electronic complaints in regards to it, etc.

Marcel Duchamp (Which of course in his native French is translated as "From Champ",) has another famous example of appropriating, which is the L.H.O.O.Q., a recreation of the Mona Lisa with a penciled in vaudevillian moustache and chin strap painter beard penciled in. The title is also a French-based pun, not unlike my hilarious example in the aside at the top of this paragraph.

The difference between "high art" and "low art" seems to be more based on perception than anything else. High art has a greater aesthetic emphasis placed on it, while low art is based more on more widespread accessibility and understanding. I think there are examples of what I would consider to be "low art" being appropriations of high art, in particular the Richard Prince "paintings" we discussed in an earlier homework and that the article mentions as well. I'd consider that low art because it featured deliberately crude additions to someone else's higher art.

For me personally, I find "appropriation" more in line with the term "homage" in modern culture, which tends to see someone replicating or nearly replicating someone else's work under the guise of respect or tribute. Sampling, at least in music where it is used the most often, is more of acknowledging a piece of work that is someone else's, giving proper compensation for it monetary wise, and then incorporating your own work around it.

I'm fine with Walker being a white person commentating on this type of subject matter, because I believe limiting an artist's ability based on their race is a very slippery slope and unnecessarily restricting. I'm also fine with the works themselves. I do think that Walker added enough of his own stamp on the established work, and that they make enough sense with provided context, for it to be labeled as individually creative.

I suppose I agree with Lichtenstein's feelings towards reappropriation, although that's a bit of a cynical/narrow way of viewing it, kind of along the lines of someone who says that everything is art. Perhaps technically everything can be appropriated, but only a few people can appropriate a select few things and make it into worthwhile art.

From the list I chose Sherrie Levine, because I really was interested in how she was borderline parallel to the aforementioned Prince, who I previously described as being akin to a tick on the neck of human life. The biggest difference to me is that unlike Prince, Levine seemed to have somewhat of a sense of human compassion, because after she "appropriated" the Walker Evans photos and was chastised for it by the Evans estate, she at least gave all proceeds from her work to the estate. But even so, I still find myself amazed at the success of artists who take others work and put in (sometimes literally) no effort into their "appropriation" and are still able to become rich beyond my wildest dreams.

Project 4

So for Project 4, with the theme of "Thoughts at 3.a.m", I decided to incorporate journal entries about what would be keeping me up that late. For creative purposes, I decided to gradually make the entries more and more unhinged until the end where it all goes to Hell in a hand basket. There are certainly elements of truth here, especially early on, about what would be going through my head for something like this, but I took creative license with the last two entries, considering, you know, I don't have any murderous or suicidal thoughts or anything.

I handwrote the entries, with the first one being VERY meticulous considering how mediocre my penmanship is. The illustrator element is the "grading" of the work by an unknown entity. It's taunting and unimpressed. Maybe it's my inner voice? Maybe it's God? I left that deliberately open to interpretation. The ending was inspired by the album Encore by Eminem, where he ends by shooting various members of his audience before turning the gun on himself (Spoiler alert!), and even blatantly reference the CD cover at the end, which also helps leave what I/alternate me did open to interpretation. I photoshopped a variety of elements into the pages just to kind of add a visual to certain words, mostly on the first page: Admittedly, this probably makes it too cluttered, but I also didn't want to just half-ass the photoshop requirement, plus I could artistically argue that since my brain's cluttered at that time with a variety of thoughts, having the page reflect that could make sense. The photoshop at the end is the aforementioned Encore CD text under my handwritten version, while also placing a shattered mirror next to it. The tailing of that text actually blends in with the glass, which was a purely happy coincidence.

But yeah, again, for the record, I'm good. I just wanted to take my idea in an interesting direction.

Homework 8

Kleon's suggestions in Chapter 9 actually spoke to me very relatable...ly. I can live a relatively boring lifestyle (Not drinking probably being the chief contributor to that), but I do so in order to benefit myself in the long term. I'm good at saving money while also keeping odd jobs here and there to stow money away until it's needed. And going to GMU was actually part of that plan, because I went to NOVA after high school before I ended up here, and because those were cheap options for my parents, I will have little-to-no student debt once I'm done here.

When I'm gone from GMU and move into the real world, my hope is that I'll be able to keep a level headedness and consistency to my financial planning to make sure that I don't live beyond my means and that I'm always comfortable at home with money.

The most important thing to me in my creative work is making something that I can at least smile about knowing that I put effort into it. If I found something I wrote funny, my hope is that someone else will at least derive a chuckle out of it. If I found something I wrote informative, I'd hope someone could take that information to heart. As far as non-creative work, my biggest goal is always to be reliable. I've never been the best at any job I've had, but I'm always on time (Shoutout to Ashanti) and always do the work required. I can hang my hat on that fact.

I often try to cut out/tone down the amount of odd/irreverent humor in work where it's not expected or required of me, because I find that too much of it can be grating and annoying to the reader. I also try and edit and condense my creative work more than I used to for the same reason. I used to kind of just throw a lot of shit against the wall and see what sticks, while now I try to have a clearer idea of what exactly I want to say and the best way to say it.

I'd say my limitations in any line of work always stem from my lack of drive and determination. Just getting started on work, whether I want to do it or not, is always a major hindrance for me. I'd like to think that as I get older I'll be better at being able to light a fire under my ass, but who knows?

While I would have loved to look at the suggestions Kleon gives at the end and choose "Take a nap", my ADHD medicine makes that a mere pipe dream, so I instead chose to think about my already set-up music reviews (Which is kindasorta a blog) and what I'll write next and when I'll write it. Because while those tend to be more difficult to write now as I find it harder to find fun in the work they provide, I always often occasionally end up enjoying the completed product.

Homework 7

1. My plan to do good work is simply do something I like, make money off of it, and provide entertainment or a solid response from those who come across it. Ideally, I would like to be a sports broadcaster when I'm done at Mason, and there will be an inherent amount of creativity that must go into that if I want to be any sort of success. You have to create your own identity, your own voice. You have to resonate with your audience and know who you are. And that would be good spot to display my inner-voice.

2. I suppose I always wonder at how seemingly so many people have such a determinant drive within that allows them to reach high levels of success. There's a reason I'll be an undergrad here until next year when I'm 24. I often lack that ambition and determination about so many things about life that I need to do, I guess I wonder how those people constantly buck the desire to not go all-out.

3. This is a Reddit post from last month that really helped me gain a new perspective on the stress I often applied to myself in life and how to gain a new perspective from it. It really helped me mentally calm down.

4. Since my goal is to be a broadcaster, there's no real right or wrong place for me to be. Having said that, I love this area. If I'm able to achieve my life goals while remaining in the area I've grown to love, then I'll consider that to be a success.

5. I'll actually give an example of someone I've unfollowed recently on Twitter, and why I felt the need to do it. He's one of my best friends but he's an incredibly, deliberately, rough around the edges kind of guy. His online presence in particular I often found to be loathsome and tiring, acting like a troll, or just generally an asshole. So I unfollowed him because I found it unnecessary to put so much wasted creative energy into getting mad at someone when I'm trying to get to a more positive outlook on life. And I'm definitely not the first person to complain about this to him, and I don't regret it for once second.

6. If I want to disagree with someone or something online, I do so in a relatively cordial manner. I find that adding caveats, emphasizing that something is my opinion and why it might not be right just because I think it is, and providing a well-written out reason as to why is better for everyone involved. People are less defensive, and even if they don't agree with what you say, it's much more likely to be productive than simply responding to a comment with "lol u suk". Or make it humorous. Someone once responded to a seemingly obvious tongue-in-cheek post on Reddit about something music related, I just responded "To be fair, my post was dripping in sarcasm." To me, it didn't insult him or escalate, but I was able to fairly address it.

Project 3

I used Airelle's posting. I originally attempted Karishma's, but was not able to get the results I wanted, so I went with something simpler.

Homework 6

"Write what you know" often leads to terrible stories because it doesn't necessarily mean there's a correlation between how much you know it and how much you like it. If you're not 100% engaged and enthusiastic about the topic at hand, the more you write about it/work on it, the more it will begin to feel like a tedious chore. The best stories are the ones from a place of love, not the ones that are simply the most technically efficient. Being a COMM Major can help lead to good forms of storytelling because many of the required classes have a form of leeway into what you are able to write about. The English classes in particular are good at this.

I'm actually surprised at the fact that I agree to a degree with Kleon about utilizing non-digital mediums to help expedite the creative process. On the surface I didn't find myself aligning with it, but I was able to draw on past experiences and find an example that works in that favor: I've written music review on the side for fun for many years, but over the past few years, the number of them have been far less frequent. I figured out that a large reason for that was because when I sit down to write them in a Word doc, they're so long that they often amount to a five+ page paper equivalent, and subsequently in a Pavlovian manner, my mind began to disassociate the fun aspect of why I did them in the first place and instead mold them in with college essays that I put off and generally dread writing.

Which leads nicely into the subject of procrastination. The Jessica Hische quote at the beginning of chapter 6 is exactly what I've long said about myself: I can do anything in the world as long as I'm avoiding school work. I to this day procrastinate most school work, and it's something that I try to work on but I am rarely able to quell.