This. Is. Not. Art.

This is most definitely not art.  This is trash.  It infuriates me that a person can arrange pieces of bent and broken metal and call it art.  Art is deliberate.  You mean to make something.  It doesn't have to be completely planned, but it does have intentional.  You can't haphazardly pile up broken metal and say that it's art.  Art can be trash, but only if it used to create something new.  If we say this is art, we could look inside a Dumpster or go to a landfill and claim that is art, too.  We need to draw the line somewhere.  Piling up trash is not art.

What is art?

This video is from Pointe DVD, and it's the Snow Pas de Deux and the Dance of the Snowflakes.  Ballet is one of the most true art forms to me.  I've never been so passionate about anything as I am about ballet.  I can't count the times I've seen the Nutcracker, and I can hum the musi< Nothing can replace the way I feel when I watch the beautiful dancer make her way across the stage, looking ethereal and weightless.  And when I'm out there on the stage and all eyes are on me, I'm no longer Mara.  I'm as ethereal and beautiful and weightless as all the other dancers, the audience can't even guess the grueling hours I've spent in rehearsal or that my big toe is bleeding or that I can already feel a blister coming on.

Ballet is so amazing because it's one of the most accurate ways to portray emotion.  The love I see in a pas de deux is stronger than I can see in some real life couples.  It also always evokes emotion.  I admit, I've cried at a ballet or two.  Either because the storyline is so heartbreaking, or the dance is so lovely.

Point(e) is, ballet is art.  Plain and simple.  And make sure to watch the video...it's awesome!

Troy Davis Collage

Final Campaign Ad - Powerpuff!

Elements of Design Images

My 3 Campaign Ads, Plus an artist statement.

1. The one style element I took from the sample campaign ads and the one thing that really unifies my ads, besides them all being about band members, is the American flag in the background. My ads are different than the other campaign ads in the way that they have very little words, and also that most campaign ads have a symbol that is associated with the candidate, and mine all just have the person's name and that's it. It might be less effective, but since the people in my ads are very well-known, I didn't think it would hurt me much.

2. In the first and second ads, all I did was layer different layers over each other, and used layer masks to block out the parts of the images that I didn’t want the audience to see, and also to make things a little see-through. The third one is the one I’m most proud of, because instead of choosing an image for my background, I made it myself by getting the picture of Weezer’s Blue Album, and using the Alpha tool to get rid of all the blue. I was left with a white space, which I filled in with rectangles, then I made them white or red with the Inspector. Then I made a blue square and put it in the upper right corner, then I selected the star shape and put them in place on the flag I just made. Finally, I used the same font that Weezer used, and underneath the name, I wrote, “for president(s)”. This is my favorite ad.

3. I like that my first ad is very simple. It is obvious that I was just getting used to using the layer masks, and I experimented very little with it. My second ad is kind of the same as the first, although I used two images instead of one, and I also used a new font I downloaded, which I thought was more effective for my ad than a standard font. What I like about my third ad is that it looks as if I’ve moved on from just trying things out and I used a lot of different tools to get my look. I created my background all by myself and even though I used a standard font, it works because it’s the same as Weezer’s font, and therefore it is more effective.

Troy Davis Article Questions

1. The main players in this story are Troy Davis (obviously), Marc McPhail, and Larry Young.

2. When Davis was arrested, nine witnesses who were also policemen testified against him, saying they saw him kill McPhail. Later, seven of the nine witnesses recanted their testimonies against him, saying they were coerced into testifying against him by "police strongarm tactics". But no local or state courts will rehear the case, and now the Supreme Court is deciding whether to rehear the case, and if they don't, Davis will likely be executed.

3. The Burger King parking lot, homeless people around, most likely with sleepin bags. A jail cell, a lethal injection room.

4. He is still incarcerated because no one, besides maybe the Supreme Court, will rehear his case and he is supposed to be executed soon.

5. This presents the argument that innocent people can be sentenced to death, and nothing is done about it.