Steamy beards

I’ve never been good at showing my love.

People in my life aren’t as prone to come to me in need of letting something out. Is it because of how I present myself to people? Is it my physical appearance that makes some hesitate? As far as I’m concerned, I am an icon that is a break up of social tension. I am a person people can come to for a laugh, hopefully. This is not satisfactory, though. I am, in a way, used as a social scapegoat for people to take their minds off of what is really going on in their life. Does this make sense? Are you even reading this, or did you scroll down to something more interesting, like a picture? 

Why do I have so many questions? I feel that these questions are to be answered by myself, by remain rhetorical to you if you wish to keep them that way. Who’s you? I don’t know because anyone could read this. Will you end up treating me differently by reading this, or will the sensitive and serious side of me remain forgotten? What I really wish is that people could take me seriously (not everyone does this of course), or more seriously. Is not being taken seriously, or taken in a different context other than humor why I am not good at showing my love? 

My love is self-evident. However, I am easily influenced in certain categories. Physical interactions: hugs, gentle attention on pressure points, a kiss, sex. These are ways in which I express MY love. It’s when I try to show love in different ways where it becomes less cohesive, and other ways happen more than my way. What is expressing love in a weird way, and how is that compatible to how I live my life? I look to the ones I gain influence from, but they are all wrong in this personal and emotional sense. I can only do it one way, my way, but I don’t know where that step lies and how I should go about maneuvering that direction while making good progressions. 

It seems I can rely on trying to be a nice guy, but does ‘trying’ take out the real in you? Is ‘trying’ something from the ego? Something I wouldn’t normally do.

-Choosing a Mission

For me, creative responsibility is something that a person is subconsciously obligated to do, until it is recognized. I think it to be comparable to drawing. If you keep drawing everyday, you will build up skills and eventually get better. I want to believe that most of the time artists become aware that if they stop being creative, then their work won’t be as interesting—hopefully resulting in a positive growth to maintain an inner creativity. Creative responsibility, also gives me inspiration; I know that I am part of a whole, trying to grow and further understand how I can be influential through my creativity.

I think that not answering to anyone as an artist is a great way to really be free and express yourself. Having the self-fulfilling expectation of not answering to anyone can truly allow you to translate an idea to the media in which you are working without any pressure. Making art is a mode of expressing, but also a way communicating to an audience— who might have a more or less of a sophisticated mindset. I don’t necessarily think we, as artists, are liberated just because of the freedom to express, but because some ideas call for being liberated, and visually blunt. Liberation can result in both good and bad art, although it’s all based on opinion. One may have the freedom to bring a liberated idea to life, but it could turn out to be a absolutely terrible piece of art, just like anything else could be. Is it art? 

-Yes, this is a phenomenal work of art, let’s put it in a museum. 

-Yes… could’ve been crafted better, though.

-No, this looks like complete shit. Who does this “artist” think they are? 

The problem with liberated art is that if the concept and context doesn’t back the work up, then it is most likely to fall in the category of “bad art”. Nobody wants bad art to exist, but it’s inevitable. No matter what, “we”— artists— are liberated since we have the freedom to do pretty much anything with our visual art. Liberated, or seemingly blunt art can throw a lot of people off at first because of the social standards and values people are conformed to. I guess you could say that artists tend to veer from the norm.

Wenda Gu

Wenda Gu is mainly trying to make universal art. Art lacking culture so an Asian man can approach it in the same way as an elderly woman from Africa as well as a teenager in America. His context also revolves around a global subject, the human. With this, I feel that he successfully can communicate and impact every person in the world. When you have universal art such as Gu, aiming to affect anyone in the world, now that is creative and inspiring.

Tony Oursler 

I thought that Tony’s methods in this section were very clever and a good tactic to really encompass an audience. I thought that the way he chose to capture his audience was a bit too much at first, with all the moans and please and screams, but soon realized they weren’t for an absurd reason. The different aspects of his installation covered a couple important and not often spoken subjects: mania, depression, and delusion. With this, he focused on a woman with MPD (multiple personality disorder), and revealed different sides of her, which tested the empathy of the viewer. Oursler makes a good point on empathy. His installation calls out an grabs attention which makes you curious by the moans and pleas. Once you start understanding the context behind his work and what he has to show you in the space, it is ultimately up to you to simply stop empathizing with the context and walk away. This idea is a nice one to note and include within the central concepts of artwork since simply walking away from displayed art is inevitable. 

As a patiently sat on Badger Bus #4, waiting to embark on a journey to Madison, I was thinking about how lame and slow the day was going to go between the Capitol, MMOCA, and State street, however; I still kept calm and stayed open to what the planned day had to offer. 

The bus ride was enjoyable; A lot of people slept and the silence in the bus was peaceful. I took intervals of silently sitting and small cat naps, as well as messing around in my sketch book. A resonating thought in my head was why we were taking this field trip. What is necessary about going to Madison for a whole day, rather than being at MIAD? Another thing that arose was, “what if I don’t find any sort of relevance or significance?” That was soon to be challenged.

After arriving in Madison, our four buses split into two groups; one group to MMOCA (art museum), and the other to the Capitol (I was in this group). We first started by walking to the Capitol, which was exciting considering all the people, protestors, traffic, etc… All of the stuff going on was really exciting! Once we entered the Capitol, we were told to go explore for roughly twenty minutes while we waited for our tour guide’s availability. Right off the bat, I noticed all of the things that I had recently been taught in art history. This feeling of connectedness between what I am learning in school and what we were observing in the Capitol was overwhelming. I have had this feeling before, but just knowing that your present education is relevant to your life, now, is great. High school did not feel this way. After taking in the different Architecture, we began our tour which included different parts within the capitol. We visited rooms that had pattern and imagery on the ceilings and walls, some even had spectacular oil paintings. We sat in on a meeting of some sort with government officials while they recognized different citizens within the community for various reasons, this was very boring but interesting to see what things happen that I am completely unaware of. 

It was lunch time! A couple of us went to Noodles & Co. on state street because we didn’t want to run around and waste our time trying to find a place that we might’ve enjoyed, so we stayed with what we knew. I think I might have been too clingy to what I knew since I only ordered Wisconsin mac n’ cheese, but it was still nice. After Noodles, we ventured down State street and just took in the different architecture and environment that Milwaukee lacks. We need a state street, a common ground for colleges, good restaurants and bars, and good vibes. 

After a nice break, we headed over to the MMOCA. At this point in the day, I was a little irritated and wanted to be back in Milwaukee, but I still had some composure left in the tank for the rest of the day. I started in the lower gallery that was in the front, then made it to the back gallery and to third floor which was the roof. Up on top of the roof it was beautiful. I made my way down to the second floor where the Houdini exhibit was. I’ve always though that Houdini was interesting, but a repetitive subject. A lot of artists highlight that he could escape a straight jacket which I thought was typical and cliche. I did find out things about Houdini that I never knew. After Houdini witnessed a mentally ill patient try to escape out of a straight jacket, he became fascinated with obstacles of liberation (hence the straight jacket). I believe that the Houdini exhibit was the most beneficial part from the whole art museum. 

Within the trip to Madison I found a lot of things to be genuine, significant and relatively relevant to the education that I am exposed to. I took away, for the most part, that this was not my environment, but the environment of the ones who hold up the other end of the social contract— the government. It was interesting seeing how things happen in the Capitol, and the juxtaposition of State street/ MMOCA with the Capitol.