What is Art?

     Art is a tough thing to define. When we were asked about its definition in class, everyone had something different to say. Some said that art is something that creates a myth, while others said it reveals a truth. Or some said that art captures an emotion or idea, while others said it creates one. The ideas for its definition were all over the place. My definition for art is a lot more general than any of those.
       I based my definition of art on what John Berger said in "The Whit Bird" that, "art is always a form of prayer." I translated this to be basically that art is communication, because that's what prayer is, communication with God. So if art is prayer, and prayer is communication, then art must be communication. And this makes so much sense to me because John's right, that's exactly what art is!
                                                    
       Art is the artists way to communicate what it is they want to communicate to whoever wants to know it. this makes so much sense as the definition because it puts everything together that was said in class. If the artist wants to tell a myth then the art communicates that myth. If they want to tell a story the art communicates that story. If they want to create an idea or emotion, then their art communicates that idea or emotion. So what is art? well very simply, art is an artists method of communicating what they want to communicate, how they want to communicate it.
       
    

                                              Forbes Mindbook Activity

      I found both parts of the Forbes process to be pretty easy, and actually kind of fun. For the first part, the actual taking of the pictures, I knew right away what I would do. I would walk around my garage and find my abstract pictures in there. Then when i went to take them, I had no trouble at all. There were random cool things all over! Just when I opened my tool box, I found a ton of cool pictures. Like the picture I had of my die grinder, I just opened my drawer and right there was a cool picture. The way the grinding pads look like they kind of shoot out of the grinder just makes the tool look kind of alive. Then I also looked in the autoshop at school for some cool pictures, and came upon this pile of rust by the welder. I thought it looked like some kind of galaxy, with all the rust dust as stars, and the clamps and pieces of metal as planets in the galaxy. 

                                                                                                   

     Making the mindbook entry after taking the pictures was really cool too. It was also pretty easy because I knew what I wanted to do right away. I wanted to make it look basicaly like an abstract garage, with my car as the focal point. So I just set up different mechanical looking pictures to create a backround, and slapped my car in the middle. Then for a kind of cool looking addition I put the picture of chains kind of dangling over my car. The challenge in the assignment came in when I found out I had to put a picture of an animal somewhere on the page. I couldn't figure out how i could still get the animal on there, and still get that garage feel, but then I had an idea. I cut out a gorrilla glue add, and put that in a cool spot on the page. The picture was a perfect fit, finally I had my finished mindbook entry, and it looked pretty good.

                                                   

Made in America      Both this song and it's video strike me personally because I feel it represents my main personal values. It talks about having pride in our country, but I think what the artist, Toby Keith, is really trying to display is that true American value that I hold so close, working hard with your own two hands. I feel the song basically tells a story of this mans dad, who was a true American that served his country in the military, and then worked his ass of everyday on the farm. He worked his hands to the bone to get the job done, so that he could feel good about his life and raise his family right. This the the big value that I hope to live my life, using my own two hands to work hard everyday, so that I can feel accomplished and sleep well at night. My only difference is that I want to work that hard on cars and trucks, rather than farming, but it still requires that same ethic that I find so valuable. The line that best displayed this for me was when he said that, "there ain't nothin that he can't fix, with WD-40 and a Craftsman wrench," (Toby Keith). The message I think this shows just basically sums up everything I just described, and it really makes me feel good hearing these things that I so strongly believe in put in a song like this, it makes it really hit me whenever I listen to it.
       This song can have an effect on our culture also, especially around Glenview and the north shore, because I feel like not a lot of people really have the appreciation for these values that they should, and that this song could potentially serve as an eye-opener to them. For example, the majority of people in my school don't even consider a career like a farmer, or a mechanic, or any other job that is based on working hard with your own two hands. Almost everyone focuses just on getting good grades, going to a good college, and becoming a doctor, or a lawyer, or an engineer, or the CEO of some company. And I'm not knocking any of those jobs at all, they are all great careers, but I feel like no one ever really stops to think of a manual labor based career, and I think this lack of acknowledgement creates sort of a lack of appreciation for the work that these men in these fields do. But I think that if more people listened to songs like this they might get some sort of idea as to the hard work put out by all these men that most people never even think about, and maybe a sense of appreciation for it.

Best of the Weeks
   
     Humanities has been a very different english class so far than I'm used to, in a good way. There are more conversations and arguments, and very different types of assignments. One such assignment that I found to be pretty cool is the mindbook, and I would say it is the highlight of the first two weeks of Humanities.
      Unlike most English assignments, the mindbook entries allow for you to get really creative in the assignment. You can add pictures, objects, backgrounds, and basically whatever you want to make the entry your own, rather than just an altered copy of everyone else's completed assignment. The entries can even become enjoyable to do, rather than just a burden, like most assignments.
     For example, when our first mindbook entry was assigned, I thought it would be hard to even think of what to start with. But then when I sat down to start it, I started having all sorts of ideas! One after another, they just popped in my head. I had ended up getting really caught up in it, and before i knew it, two hours had gone by. It was definitely the highlight of my first two weeks of humanities, and if the mindbook assignments stay as fun as they are, I think I will really enjoy the class.