Beauty in Art

It’s been interesting this semester discussing opinions and philosophies about art. What’s great is that art surrounds all of us each day. While walking to class or even at a store, one can see creations of art everywhere. It’s up to the individual to see and enjoy, or dislike what is artistic in our surroundings. Discussing history and concepts in our world of art in the classroom setting helps us realize that many great minds really shaped and developed the origins and beauty of art that we all enjoy today.

And, each person can have their own opinion on what they view as what is artistically beautiful or unattractive. It comes down to one’s perceptions and experiences which influences a person’s opinions. The more exposure I have to a variety of artistic ideas, the more I enjoy it and look forward to unique experiences. It’s up to all of us to further develop our world of art by continuing to deliver unique ideas to the history and beauty of what artistic expression is all about.

dreaming and reality

Ryan for a moment mentioned the difference between dreams and reality. i thought for a moment that would be a major and interesting part of his argument but its importance was made unclear. anyway, i wanted to comment on how i know that a dream is a dream and not reality because according to the International association for the study of dreams the dreamer cannot interact with a person that they have never had a sense experience with in what we call reality, and that if a person would were to be missing any of there senses such as a blind person they would dream with smell, tastes, and touches. this study has proven to me that we must first experience something awake before we can experience it in the dream state. therefore i can conclude that our experiences in reality effect the dream states when we sleep.

I really enjoyed the metaphor Alex used to illustrate God in her presentation last class. I thought it was very thorough and there were a lot of powerful comparisons. It also made me think about how personal each individual's thoughts of religion are. It is clear that Alex has a personal relationship to the ocean, and since I've lived ten minutes from the beach my whole life, I can understand that. I think humans all share a deep connection with nature, whether it be the ocean, the woods, or whatever. I think people also have a unique connection with their religious views, whether they are Catholic, atheist, or anything else. Both are things only the individual can fully understand for themselves. And even though they might be part of a larger group of people who believe the same things, they are going to have experiences that affect their beliefs, making them uniquely their own. My experiences have formed by religious beliefs, just as all of my experiences with the ocean have created my deeply personal feelings toward it.

#29

I have been thinking a lot about Aurelius' 29th meditation quite a bit. I really enjoy the language he uses, its almost poetic. The first line says to discard your misperceptions which means a lot to me because I feel like so much of how we live our lives is based on snap judgments and assumptions. It's such a hard thing to do though, its so easy to hold onto misperceptions and let them cloud our thinking. That's definitely one thing I want to work on for myself is being more accepting and more forgiving. Next he says, stop being jerked around like a puppet. I guess I've explained before that I see a lot of people living and doing things for all the wrong reasons and all the wrong people. The rest of number 29 says, limit yourself to the present, understand what happens to you-to others, analyze what exists, break it all down, material and cause, anticipate your final hours, other people's mistakes? Leave them to their mistakes. Most of this really sums up how I want to live my life. I want to live in the present and not fret about the future or get caught up on the past and things that can't be changed. This year, especially in my foundations classes I spent a lot of time challenging our perceptions of things and manipulating interpretations with materials so I thought that one particular line fit in really well with my educational goals in life, perfectly really. Everything in art to me in material and meaning, so why not in some ways pull that into my everyday life. Finally, I think this meditation reminds me to let go of the things I can't change, like my mortality or other people's choices. I've really fallen in love with this meditation and I think it was the most valuable reading to me this semester.

Religon

One thing that has always really bothered me is the way people react when they here the word "religon" or "god" or anything related to this. I find it really disrespectful for people to be put off by it so quickly. thats not to say I'm not also put off by people with religous views pushing their thoughts onto others who clearly aren't interested. Another thing I really wish religons did was push the views alittle bit - i realize now in days you can be labeled as "non denominational" but people with other views- why can't they push the boundries alittle bit -actually think about whats out their and experience and learn about other religons? I do respect traditions that are often played in catholic, jewish, muslim etc. religons but they seem so meaningless and overdone. I also really dislike how one sided religous - or athiest people are. I really want people to be more open to the ideas of whats out their and not completely turn different ideas off.

How should you live

I want to live my life by being the best I can be each day. My parents have always emphasized to not put things off until tommorrow, that you can do today.

Acquiring material things like that new release of the iPad doesn't make a person complete or deliver real happiness. One needs to take a step back and understand that a simple act of kindness toward your classmate, a relative, friend or homeless person on the street is an important way to live a fulfilling life. Personal sacrifice should be a priority in our lives as we can lend a hand to help out physically or monetarily, it's really pretty simple. In times of crisis like the devastation of a Tsunami, hurricanes or tornadoes, we can get involved.

Part of living life each day is that we should be aware and respectful of the environment around us. The little things add up, as it's easy to recycle or donate items you no longer need.

Try to discover your own, unique passion in life and follow that path to the best of your ability. It sounds like alot to live up to, but trying to live a well balanced life is something we should all strive for.

The Real World

This is basically a response to both Keller and Chevy's opinions on the nature of reality. They both argued that reality is subjective, and that different people see things in different ways. It's extremely easy to see where they're coming from as artists. Give a classroom of twenty people twenty identical apples to paint and you will get twenty completely different paintings of apples.

Individual perspectives are extremely important to the nature of reality because without human observation, there would be no one to assert that it existed or had a nature at all. I agree that their are discrepancies between the way that individuals relate back reality both to themselves and others. However, that is an error in the communication of the mind and the senses.

There is an objective reality or we would not all be able to point to two apples and observe they look exactly the same. When we look at the apple we are seeing the same apple everyone else in the room is seeing, but it is impossible to copy all the complexities of the apple, even though we are seeing them at once, so we invent or simplify the apple in our painting.

I enjoy speculating that the physical world may very well not exist, that I could be creating a reality all in my own mind and that my memory is the only reality that will ever be. Or that since we can never know what reality is when not faultily relaid through human observation and memory, we can assume that only our differing versions of it exist, each equally true.

Despite this speculation, I am for all intents and purposes, a practical person, and so I will continue to operate as if the material world is real and objective.