Over the past four years of college, I have experienced weaknesses on countless different levels. More than anything else, it has been an enormous struggle for me to learn to acknowledge and accept my weaknesses and limitations. In college, it seems to me like there is such a concrete formula identifying success and failure which correspond respectively with strength and weakness. The value that society places on succeeding in school had overtaken my own autonomy to define my own parameters of success and failure. I have been brainwashed. Accordingly, if I don't perform at what the school evaluation system deems successful, I feel weak. If I am to be honest with you, my past four years have been plagued with feelings of inferiority and loss of self confidence--namely...weakness. For this, I am greatly resent the time I have spent here. If strengths were not so narrowly defined in college, I would probably have more time to focus on my passions and personal strengths instead of being subjected to only what the university deems important for me to learn.

That being said, I think this recognition of my weaknesses has been somewhat beneficial for me as well. It has taught me never to settle when I have the potential to grow. However, I feel that a lot of the time, the expense paid from feeling inferior outweighs the fulfillment gained from improving.

I hope you like it.

Don't forget to break the frame.

Signing out,
Taylor

Snow Safari, p. 148
These beautiful pictures tap into the appreciation of the essence of beauty without further investigation into why it is beautiful or further explanation of why something is…these snowflakes just are…and that’s okay. Their beauty speaks to nature’s beauty by God, and no other explanation. For me, it’s not necessary to probe further. It’s kind of like the stars. There is some unknown mysterious draw that I have to the expanse of the night sky and its majesty and that has always been enough for me. As soon as I tried to complicate that reveled ignorance with what science has found to be reason, the sky lost a bit of its splendor that had once defined its appeal. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m okay without knowing the ins and outs of everything; to an extent, I appreciate instances that remind how small I am in comparison to existence.

Also, despite there being virtually no good reason for snowflakes taking the form of magnificent shapes, if you look closely, there is symmetry. This leads me to believe that in the universe, there is order…order that is bigger than us…order created by God who has a purpose for everything.

Laminar Lightwork, p. 146
This image strikes me, first and foremost, due to its inherent beauty. Out of all the images I’ve so far viewed in Super Vision, I would identify this piece as the one most closely pertaining to my sense of style. The fact that it is not the work of an artist is absolutely mind-boggling to me. It’s amazing to see earth’s materials at work. This displays to me the beauty of the work irrelevant of human influence. Also, as I viewed this microscopic slide as a piece of art, it also sheds light on how art can seek inspiration from nature and how surroundings impact human thought and creativity. Creativity, as I see it, is also a lens into someone’s style which is, more or less, largely influenced by the world and, thereon out, analyzed and understood by those judging it.

Meteorological Composition, p. 200
Similar to the “Snow Safari” image discussed earlier, this image of Hurricane Andrew courtesy of the Air Force Defense Satellite platform is a perfect example of the power of nature that we, as humans, do not understand—are not privileged enough to understand despite what will always be efforts to explain the nature of existence and creation/evolution. Looking at this picture, seemingly a piece of art at the distance from which this photograph was taken, speaks to none of the pain that was consequently suffered from this horrific storm. It hints at the insignificance of human existence within the grander scheme of things.

Hidden Flame, p. 164
I like this picture because, simply, it depicts what power and capability that we as humans do have. This image of a simple birthday candle and its unseen trajectories of its light rays are stunning. This picture defies what the human eye can see and illustrates the beauty that typically in natural settings goes unnoticed. As humans, I think it is most important that we accept our limitations while embracing our capabilities. In this way, we accomplish the most of what has been offered us.

Painting Chromosomes, p. 63
This picture is just absolutely fascinating. For one, just the nature of life and human make-up and science’s ability to pinpoint the 23 pairs of chromosomes that comprise us is so amazing; it’s hard to put in words. Human ability to detect abnormalities on the basis of a device that assigns a color to each specific pair is to me accomplishing an even larger feat. Evaluating and harnessing order out of what we once unknown to humankind with the development of technology is almost as if taking a step towards greater understanding of life---WAIT! I’m contradicting myself again. Oh my gosh; now I’m saying that understanding can equal a greater sense of worth, while in previous posts, I was saying that some things should be accepted and appreciated as they are without further dissecting. I don’t know. I guess there needs to be a balance between respecting one’s own position in a life of larger and incomprehensible things while delving for more information in applicable settings—settings in which information can be gathered, dissected, and understood. This, to me, can be classified as acceptable and encouraged curiosity instead of directionless yearning for information and knowledge incapable of comprehension and explanation in this life.

A SUMMARY IN MUSICAL FORM:

In this drawing, if you are to view the lines as musical rhythms, either suave or frantic, and the heights and depths of the lines as representing tones, a type of style emerges within each line. These lines—or styles—all exist within the constraints of cultural society, represented here by the black shape. Some styles overlap while few challenge the boundaries of what we as humans have the capacity to know and imagine. However, none will ever succeed in transcending them.

DON’T BIFURCATE WITHOUT A REASON! –from Professor Moss’ blog
Omgosh, by golly, I have identified a connection! Create because you want to for your own reasons, not to satisfy the desires of someone else or society, for that matter. Don’t sacrifice your capacity for personal greatness at the expense of what others may say. And also of significance is, don’t wait!! For as Professor Moss has stated, certain “logic-sets” only exist at the moment of creation and however long that epiphany endures until it is again, like many of your previous insight into the workings of the world, lost in transit between your brain and the air…where it is hoped you will come into contact with again. This kind of almost has a religious angle attached to it. I am reminded of (probably due to the Christian significance of this Holy Week) Jesus’ refusal to be swayed by all those who persecute him up until his death. He holds steadfast to his commitment to fulfill the will of God, unfettered by the influences of society. Jesus, I guess you could say, is the utmost example of a FORKER! Who would have ever thought I would ever in a million years make that connection?

I am reminded of some class where we talked about viewing the world as the embodiment of “what it is not,” rather than what it is. That is, we view the loops of the pearl necklace not as just a pearl necklace, but as a necklace not composed of rubies or diamonds, or Cheerios, for that matter. Nothing exists without being something else. By things or thoughts existing as unique creations, they are, by design NOT SOMETHING ELSE!! And the point of this class is to capture our own uniqueness whether in our minds or through tangible creations…just so that thought or that creation is not left without claim or recognition, thereby belittling what we as capable and intuitive people are.

Project relationship: Beauty is limitless, but within the confines of what society deems beautiful or what, for example, U of M deems successful, there are limits instituted on what is inherently supposed to be creatively unbound. If beauty exists otherwise, its qualities that are autonomously derived are forfeited only to remain within the boundaries of society.

TANGENT! Another thing that I think is really weird..weird to the point that I constantly revisit it, but never quite figure out the workings of its mysterious appeal is the significance of a place, or the significance that one assigns a place. For instance, as one figuratively travels through one’s life, he or she is constantly physically moving from place to place, changing relationships, evolving, growing, etc. To remember every single detail of every single experience is ludicrous; we, as humans, are simply not mentally capable of categorizing unique happenings, but the funny thing is, although a lot of these experiences of the past, although not readily accessible in the head at the blink of an eye are still somehow dormant, just waiting to be sparked--to be called upon once again. Okay, this may sound weird, but here goes a real world example. Maybe this whole concept is being made more complex than it actually is, but this is what obliged me to dedicate this section of my blog to it: One day, I was driving to my boyfriend’s house. Inconveniently for me, in order to get to his house, I must pass my ex-boyfriend’s house. ‘So?’ you say. Well, here’s the problem. No matter how hard I try to resist the regurgitation of memories, there they are. It’s like that stretch of road is loudly blaring, representing sentiment that has been rejected. So, even though I’ve moved on, I’m in a new relationship, a different point in my life, the past initiated by a place, shows its colors despite even my unwelcome wishes. Now, how is this connected to the whole ‘you can only travel one way once’ phenomenon that I discussed earlier in my blog? These memories do not define the present time; rather they’re merely influence how I am experiencing real-time. So, in essence, there never can be a re-experience or an identical journey down the same road. Different life experiences, even if seemingly insignificant affect the journey as a whole. It reminds me of a story that I read as a kid in elementary school about the a child that goes back in the past and is warned not to touch anything for fear of changing all of time, so he takes extreme care not to stray off a marked path, but upon returning to the future, realizes that he had smashed a butterfly under his shoe, the evidence remaining still. I think then he realizes that the president is different, that he has different friends, etc. Even if that wasn’t exactly what occurred, that’s the general idea. Any occurrence in time affects the consequential future. Accordingly, just as I seemingly have flashes of “re-living” the past, there are merely a reconstruction of what is occurring in present time.

Okay, I'm done for now. Phew...that was a lot of brain power!

I came to this conclusion by thinking of my own personal style. No—not my sense of fashion, for as we discussed in my English 371 class, fashion is constantly changing whereas style is constant. What struck me as rather interesting is the fact that a certain type of style can’t really be objectively defined. If someone were to ask me, ‘what is your personal style,’ sure, I could rattle off some of my likes and dislikes, a couple of adjectives that I thought were fitting, but the fact is, style is intangible and undeniably subjective. It is incapable of being accurately depicted by words. Style is so abstract a concept that I might even venture to say that is more of a feeling than a definable concept. Only a combination of many influences can truly embody the feeling of personal style.

Last summer, as I was trying to come with a design scheme for my room in Ann Arbor, I decided that whatever I chose, I wanted it to evoke most accurately my own personal sense of style. This is what I came up with:

On the left, you can see six different framed collages. The individual pictures themselves would not even come close to defining my personal style, but from afar, seeing the collages as a whole, I think that they do a pretty accurate job of describing me as a person, my likes and dislikes, my passion for life, etc. On the right is a snapshot I took of a piece of my bulletin board. Even the organization of the pictures hints at my personal style. If those same pictures were given to someone else to arrange, I am willing to bet that no one would arrange them in exactly the same way. These two examples represent the authenticity of style exclusive to each individual.

It is true, yes, that style traditionally acts as a modifier of something else. However, style is powerful enough to stand alone. As my collages demonstrate, there is much to learn about someone or something through the style in which it is created.

Since the beginning of this year, I have been thinking a lot about how my life has been shaped by what society has deemed an appropriate upbringing for a child to achieve future success. In the past couple of weeks, approaching the concept of framing in class, I have more and more begun to harbor a strong resentment towards academia, a frame which I feel has constrained my ability to grow, maybe not in an academic sense, but in a more personal sense in which devoting the past 19 years of my life to school has come at the opportunity cost of what could have been a vastly different personal identity had I had the chance to choose otherwise. As a student, I feel as if I have sacrificed a large percentage of my free will, although that, in practice, I have the ability to change, but being so influenced and herded by society’s acknowledgement of success, I am tied to this lifestyle, one that in so many ways resembles a jail where I am forced to sacrifice my time exploring the arts, philosophy, and free thought for attending class, completing dry academic lessons, and using my “free” time to further be crushed by class requirements. How would my life look differently if I could focus on the things that actually hold a deep significance for me? How am I stuck in a position where I realize the atrocity of my predicament and yet still fail to change my fate? How do society’s values usurp my own? Is this project a first step in challenging custom? And what personally will result from adopting a sincere advocacy against academic institutions? Am I able to seriously set societal values aside in pursuit of my own?

Okay, rapid change of thought. Aman just came over here and started questioning my logic about the whole symmetry deal and I was explaining to him my belief that everything is symmetrical. He went on to say that everything is not initially symmetrical, but can be manipulated to be that way. For example, in “A Geologic Survey of Appetite” in Tokyo Butter, these lines are one after another:
The taste of life in dead meat.
Is what she wanted.
Some rev.
These lines, in themselves, have no symmetry, but if you move “Some rev.” up a line directly after “wanted.” And then move that entire line next to “The taste…,” the 1st sentence and the combination of the next two are approximately the same length separated by a space that acts as the symmetrical divider. That might not have made much sense, but the basic gist is that everything can be made symmetrical. If one has the capability and creativity to approach a structure with an open mind, order can be achieved amongst the jumble that is life.

Before I even begin, the conceptualization of framing is just astounding. Frames are everywhere. The way in which I arrived at my online poam was framed within the words I chose to use in the Google search engine. If you think about it, how many things do we actually do, as people brought up in a civilized society, that are independent of pre-existing frames? I would venture to say not many. We are socialized/cultivated to think the way we do from birth by outside social forces. Very little thought exists without the influencing factors of the civilized world, because thought lies within the constrains of language, a man-made construct.

Wow...I need to stop my rambling and move on to discuss my online poam. In Google, I typed in two seemingly unrelated terms: "orange" and "ice cream man." One of the results that came up was "Hot Wheels Guide - Good Humor Truck/Ice Cream Truck, South Texas Diecast Collectors. Wow, this is weird, I thought, there's gotta be a poam in here somewhere. So, I decided to explore the site a bit and came across this photograph:

Here are some of my thoughts as to how this object has been framed:

• Framed obviously as a product…typical rectangular packaging with a t-hole for hanging on shelves.
• Appealing to boys with tractors and pictures of construction equipment.
• Framed as a model of American consumerism boasting of the well-known brand name: Mattel.
• Expansion of classic Hot Wheels product collection by appealing to the interests of children. Appealing to target audiences’ assumed interests…targeting familiarity within the child cohort.
• Use of colors that are most typically considered either “boy” or “neutral.”
• Framed to evoke emotion that is created resulting from a real encounter with an ice cream man—obviously, an evocative experience of childhood.
• The product aims to transcend the tangibility of the plastic construct and enter into the imagination.

When evaluating a piece of art, each observer approaches the object with different insight, which contributes to how the object is interpreted. In Communication Studies, a product of media is evaluated based on the frame within which the media maker places the product. In this way, the creator has the potential to manipulate the patterns of human thought by discreetly directing the consumers to perceive the product in an artificially manufactured light. For example, television news is a perfect representation of framing at work. Television news in itself is a manufactured construct: a collection of tidbits of information deemed newsworthy by reporters/editors/journalists, etc. all of whom are working under the expectation that the fruits of their labor will deliver an audience. Thus, the stories that are covered are not necessarily news, but information thought to attract the viewer, and thus deliver them to advertisers which will, in turn, guarantee monetary compensation to the news’ organization. In this way, every product including all copyrighted creative works are, first and foremost, framed by the ulterior motives of the creator in order to garner a profit. Within this overarching goal, creators and advertisers present these products as commodities appealing to human desire. The ways in which this goal is accomplished varies with the product and its respective audience demographics. The audience then responds because, from birth, they have been primed to respond in a certain way to media appeals. It’s almost as if, just as poetry is constrained by poems, the agency of human thought is constrained by what society has deemed valuable, one of the top contenders being a capitalistic society based on financial prosperity.

If that wasn't enough of an introduction to my next blog, I don't know what you people are expecting. haha. So...I thought that, with this blog, I would venture to narrow the gap between the world of the classroom and into popular culture which is a lot less philosophical and, dare I say, more pertinent to today's society. But, despite the divider that I initially interposed as a distinct barrier between the two existences, one small epiphany forced me to retrace my steps and further evaluate the distinctions between these two supposed competing cultural variances: AMERICAN IDOL. (I can almost hear Ryan Seacrest uttering those acclaimed words as I type...and I love it!) Alright, enough babble. I'm sure you're saying, 'what the heck is your point, Taylor?' Well, dispose of your impatient suspenseful cravings as I reveal to you one of my tiny steps in better contemplating the world...340 style. I’m sure you’re all very excited.

So, this question is what started it all: “Do you think that the maker of a piece must build specific doors and windows for someone who would encounter the piece?” I was like, gosh---do I even care? But then I started thinking more of the subjectivity of a piece of art and whether or not the reader’s subjectivity is in fact influenced by workings of the author. Surprisingly, what I came up with the inverse response. I feel like the reader is the constructor of either the doors or windows into a piece. If we are to reference the American Idol example, the contestants are the ones showcasing their works of art—their singing auditions. The judges—in this case, highly publicized faces, who before this show were scantly recognizable—are the readers, or observers, if you will. Now, the authors or the singers, arrive at the auditions with a clean slate, desiring only to impress the judges with their performance, having for some, undoubtedly stood in front of the mirror on countless occasions perfecting what they consider to be a performance most reminiscent of their personal style, talents, and artistic message. Despite this preparation, the judges can either objectively approach each contestant as a valid competitor, or subjectively be unfairly swayed by other variables (appearance, dialect, socioeconomic status, religion, likes/dislikes, etc.) irrelevant of the contestants’ singing ability. When the judges deem an entry worthy of their time to listen to, very rarely overlooking characteristics labeling a person outside of what is typically mainstream and profitable, they then build and open the door to really evaluate the art, or in this case, the performance of the singer.

To further elaborate, the door is more sturdily constructed based on the magnitude of the differences between the author and the reader. I believe that at first introduction without any other preconceived notions regarding the author or the work, there is actually not a door or a window, but a wall separating the two forces. From there, the reader is either influenced positively or negatively by third party opinions or facts or if that is not the case, he very quickly judges the material based on its qualifying characteristics. Accordingly, the reader either constructs a door with which he fully immerses himself into the work or a window through which to passively observe the art. On the other hand, in a negative instance, he will uphold the wall as a barrier or construct a door, but not open it, so he only will be faintly submitted to the author’s work.

The irony of the video clip that I posted is, to me, it represents an opening of a door usually ignored by the American Idol judges. When anyone not considered marketable in mainstream culture approaches the show, the judges usually discard them without further thought, unwilling to explore the psyche of the person, their values, culture, etc. I feel like the goodness and the potential rich offerings of people are dismissed before they have the opportunity to convince the judges that they worthy of attention and admiration. With this audition, the original wall as a barrier is transformed into an open door, providing an avenue to the discovery of the altruistic goodness of a man not typically idolized by the powerful media.

Snow falls, and often (more in the past than now outside of constructions in my mind) an impulse to interact, to collaborate with snow is not overcome, and, given a suitable consistency of the snow for the making of snow people, a community of snow people would populate my yard,

Instead of just saying "I don't really have as big of a desire as I used to to make snowmen when it snows," she complicates a simple declaration with ornate language, inappropriate in the context of this discussion.

I agree with your end goal, Professor--to more accurately dissect and understand the surrounding world and thus transmit that understanding to others through the manipulation of words, sounds, pictures, etc. In fact, it seems as if Amado Nervo (a scholar cited in one of my Latin American Poetry class readings), agrees as well when he says that "that to continue singing to the sea, to the mountain, to the sky in that way, in a rough manner, without contemplating their tenuous and infinite marvelous structures, their extremely varied modes of being, their innumerable shades and the miraculous intertwining of their secret affinities, is to offend the sky, the sea and the mountains (Gwen Kirkpatrick, The Dissonant Legacy of Modernismo, p. 46)." That is, to more fully comprehend the complexities of nature and life, it is necessary to participate in an in depth introspection that will allow each person to make external connections and realizations that only can be transmitted to another through words.

To challenge that notion is the whole idea of the concept of language as a barrier in itself:

The poet, by using as his material the world's form of exchange, enters into a problematic and paradoxical relationship to it. The poet deals with worldly materials but seeks to transcend them. On a certain level, this refusal to use words for their practical exchange value, or communicative usage, deprives the poet of an active participatory function in external reality. ~Gwen Kirkpatrick, The Dissonant Legacy of Modernismo, p. 46

This being said, and the challenges of poetry being pronounced, I will agree with both the professor and my Spanish coursepack once again:

One must possess, above all, a rich language, superlatively rich, to such an extreme that no emotion remains without its real and true expression. A rich language, and above all, one's own language. ~Lugones as cited in Kirkpatrick, p. 49

To me, this passage is beautiful. To think that every contour of human understanding and feeling has the ability to be expressed through words is exasperatingly beautiful. I don't know if I can completely agree with it, but in an idealistic sense, it's perfect.

On a side note, if I succeed in transmitting seemingly incommunicable emotions through poetry this semester, I think I have found a subject matter with which to proceed. In the past couple of days, I have been lucky enough to take part in some of my favorite activities, and found myself contemplating the resulting joy that overtakes me when I'm involved in something that I love. It's almost as if I'm transported to another world...an almost heaven-like existence on earth for those few fortunate moments when the ugliness of this world disappears. I want to share that with everyone, or at least to encourage them to revel in that overwhelming feeling of contentment and gratefulness.

ALRIGHT! NEW TOPIC! ...and the winner is: SURFACES!

I don't really have a great deal to say about this, but when considering surfaces as more than just physical entities, I have realized that they do, in fact, yield surprising characteristics. I will have to partially agree with Professor Moss and her passionate Limited Fork advocacy in my analysis. The surface of a sheet of paper on which all former poetry was recorded is rather constrictive. It limits our sense of understanding of the topic at hand to a two-dimensional understanding...UNLESS (here's where the professor might get defensive), of course, the reader of the poem seeks to derive understanding and insight above and beyond what is lent solely from the words written on that surface. When a person exerts a meaningful effort to understand and experience those words as not ink on paper, but as a means of communicating an idea, he/she can supersede the boundaries of written poetry. The beauty of poetry often is not the literal interpretation of words, but the majesty of subjectivity in which each reader transforms the author's words into a personal experience, using the mind to create and relish in individual epiphanies. If we are to examine a graphical poam's surface, I would dare to say that two-dimensional pictures are even more restricting than the written word. Pictures, such as the one of the skull on the website, sometimes lack relative cues, leaving the observer to aimlessly attempt to make sense out of an object without context. For instance, how large is the object, for what is it used, what does it taste like, feel like, etc. With words, a reader can invent properties in his/her mind and since it is of his/her own creation, all characteristics are justified. With a picture, properties can only be assumed, and thus suffer from misunderstanding and finite possibilities as to the physical aesthetic of the object.

WELL, I know this abrupt, but I'm done for now. My brain needs a tiny bit of a rest before class and now I've got to go tackle some Latin American poetry actually written in Spanish for another class. Whoppee!!

Adios!
Taylor

P.S. This went unedited, so I apologize if things are jumbled/incoherent.