The Manifesto

Good art makes uses illusion to present the familiar in a new way.

It takes what you think you know and turns it on it’s side.  
The whole purpose behind this kind of art is to make us tap into our creativity which allows us to invent and create new things.  When we see such common processes in a new light, it helps us to view our whole world at a different angle.  This helps us make unobvious connections that we may not have seen before.
Art that presents the everyday in a new light takes us into new ways of thinking.  It makes us see everything we know (or think we know) in new angles.  It can be created with all types of mediums, as long as it makes us rethink our views of the world.
The main goal of good art is to take what we see as familiar and flip it, mix it, and recreate it.


The story:

Rachel walked down the street of her neighborhood, concealing a package of Girl Scout cookies for her grandma under her sweatshirt.  It was dangerous to be walking around that area with any possession someone might deem worth taking, and Girl Scout cookies are definitely on that list.

            Rachel tried to block out the constant wail of sirens and sad people, sounds that eventually morphed into one strange entity.  Sometimes Rachel wanted to stop and look at the more curious graffiti amongst the sea of it, but she’d been taught not to linger too long anywhere in Pinewood Acres. 

            The sun began to set on the horizon as Rachel finally came to the winding road at the end of the block.  If she could just make it to the end of the road where her grandma lived before dark, she would be okay.  She picked up her pace just to be sure. 

            Rachel had reached the halfway point and everything was going smoothly.  Suddenly the next few streetlights ahead of her went out with a few bangs and flashes of sparks.  Rachel jumped, but quickly collected herself.  She could see the light pass the shadows, and decided to keep moving as quickly as she could.

            After a moment or two, someone spoke to Rachel out of the darkness, “Ya’ know… you shouldn’t be walking around here in the dark at this hour.”

Rachel frantically looked, expecting to see a scary man, but the voice belonged to a calm and normal looking guy, no older than 17.  His face was charming somehow, and Rachel was no longer afraid.  Abandoning her cautious attitude she replied, “You’re probably right. I’m trying to get to my grandma’s house in Paradise Grove.  I know this road will take me to it eventually but is there a faster way?  What with it getting late and all, I’d like to get there as quick as I can.”

            “Yes, I do,” said the boy as he took a step forward. The wail of sirens suddenly got louder and the boy hesitated.  He then spoke, “There’s a trail off the road here that goes through the park and eventually hooks back up with the road right before Paradise.  It’s faster ‘cuz it’s a straight shot.”

            “Thank-you!” said Rachel, and she gave the boy her most dazzling smile.

            “No problem,” he said, “see ya’ ‘round.”

Rachel took the shortcut and made the rest of her journey without any other delays or distractions.  When she got to her grandma’s the house was dark.  Rachel knocked on the front door and it fell open.  She moved inside slowly.  “Grandma?” she called, “Grandma, are you here?”

            Suddenly Rachel felt one hand cover her mouth, while another grabbed her hair.  She struggled to get away, knocking over pots, pans and picture frames.  The hand was removed from her mouth for a moment, and she was able to let out a short scream before it was stifled and she was forced to the ground.  It was then that she saw her attacker to be the boy from the street.  “Shh,” he said.

            Rachel looked past the boy to see her grandmother’s bedroom door open.  Behind it, lay her grandmother on the floor unmoving.  Rachel began to let out stifled sobs.  The next thing she heard was a bang so loud, her ears rang.  She looked up to see a man in a blue uniform standing in the doorway with his gun raised.

            “Ma’am are you alright?” said the officer. 

“Yes, but my grandma...”

Rachel looked to see her grandmother rising from the ground.

“I think she’s okay,” said the officer after tending to Rachel’s grandma. “How’d this guy know to come here? Do you know him?”

“No, but I accidentally told him.”

“Jeez kid…” said the officer, “Didn’t you ever read Little Red Riding Hood?”

the picture:

the artist statement:

            Good art makes us think. That is the purpose of all of our classmate’s manifestos.  But in our specific manifesto, we tried to show how good art should make you think of what you think you know in a different way.  Our goal was to start a movement that has people flipping what they think they know.  We want art to be challenging and creative.  We want it to inspire.  We want it to twist your thoughts.

Our Manifesto’s main objective is to take something most would consider ordinary or commonplace, and to see it in a new light by flipping it on its side.  One of the ways we thought of to do this would be in a story in which your expectations are upset.  I tried to do this with my Little Red Riding Hood story. Whether or not I succeeded is up for debate since it probably wasn’t hard to see what the story was early on.  Nonetheless, the story adheres to the criteria laid out in the manifesto.  Little Red Riding Hood is a story we all know, and for a time, this story is unrecognizable (or at least it was supposed to be) though it is completely based on Red Riding Hood, and follows the same plot line nearly identically.  This could be done in a number of ways through story.  For instance, The Matrix, takes a look at what everyday life might really be. 

Kind of like the piece by DJ flood, while trying to define what we were trying to create, we had to search for other artworks that match our movement.  The interesting thing is that the art we found through research defined our manifesto as much as our manifesto defined the pieces we created.

There were a few ideas I bounced around in my head before settling in on the person dunking a basketball. I considered turning a person leaning back on his/her chair against a wall so that it looked like the person was on the wall and leaning against the ground.  I also thought back often to a piece I was shown in the drawing class I took last semester where a person photo shopped the metal base of a light bulb underneath a hand that was making the shape of the “light bulb” that wasn’t actually there.

The mind is a tricky thing.  Much like the light bulb example mentioned above, my drawing is an illusion.  Not only did I change the way we normally see someone hanging on a rim in preparation to dunk a basketball, but I was also quite particular in the style I used to create the piece.  In the real world, very few things have an actual outline.  Really we see texture, shape, depth and contrast and from there we create assumed lines in our brain.  My piece was based off of contour line drawings where thicker lines suggest minimal shadow.  I did the background using only line, again because of the illusion line drawings are.  I can make things look rather realistic and create textures and portray depth, but in this piece, there is a deliberate lack of such things and yet we accept an image, flat though it may be.

Creative picture

Script

the Lincoln Script

the script

Artist Statement:

Our perception of the situation compared to another can be so different than another. This is true in the reading from Ethan Canin, who tells the story of a photograph to his wife. He describes his perception of what is taking place from his own childhood memories. When his wife finds the actual photograph he had been describing, he recounts what is taking place to his wife. However, his wife points out the he is entirely wrong, in fact the photograph isn’t of his mother at all, it is of his grandmother.

            In the film Lincoln, Daniel Day Lewis portrays Abraham Lincoln in such an incredible way that we drew from his performance as we wrote dialogue for the script. We took his humor and wit and used that in decisions for what President Lincoln would say in this situation.

In the film, we see President Lincoln’s efforts towards abolishing slavery. President Lincoln’s perspective on slavery varied much from his associates. However, despite the odds, President Lincoln fought valiantly to abolish slavery and did succeed. He never gives in to the peer pressure of the doubters around him but stayed true to his dream.

            The script we wrote shows the power that an individual has to change the mind of another. The mother in this script is able to convince The President of The United States of America to pardon her son and spare him from the penalty of death. President Lincoln did not know all of the details about this man who was to be sentenced to death, but because his mother was courageous and pleaded her case before him, she was able to save her son’s life. President Lincoln also was humble and willing to listen to this Mother’s plea and his mercy met the demands of justice. 

Genealogical Artifact

When I was younger, I was small. I mean, I’m still small.  But when I was a little girl, I was extremely small.  So small, in fact, that I use to sleep in laundry baskets.  Now, before I say any more, I want to clear something up.  I did not sleep in laundry baskets out of force.  It was not because we were too poor for a bed or because my older brothers forced me into one.  I did it because I wanted to.

I am not sure how exactly I got into doing this.  For as long as I can remember I use to sneak into the laundry room at night and steal a basket.  Placing it right next to my bed I would stuff it to the brim with pillows and blankets and then wiggle myself into the middle of them for a good night sleep.  This was the perfect bed for me.  This was comfort.

I say, “steal a basket”, like I had to hide it from my parents.  I am pretty sure that they knew I was stealing one every night I did.  In fact, I am positive that they did, as my mom would be the one to wake me up almost every morning.  I am not sure why they let me do this night after night, but they did.  In fact, in later years, if I had a bad day, my parents would even set one up for me.  So when I say, “steal”, I am going back into the childhood memory of a five year old sneaking around in the dark, feeling like they were so sneaky to do things after dark.  But I digress, back to the story.

As I grew older I moved up from the small round baskets to the odd, larger peanut shaped ones.  Remembering the day that I found I could not fit in the basket anymore is a sad memory.  I am sure I was in denial for a few weeks.  Or probably months.  And I am still convinced that somewhere out there, there is a laundry basket I can fit in.  Maybe a giant industrial one.  Or one of those carts for a hotel.

Either way, laundry baskets still remind me of my childhood.  They bring back a warm, comforting memory.  I actually do not own one myself (I have a laundry bag instead).  However, every time I see someone at the laundry mat that brings one in, I still get this same feeling.  It is the exact same feeling I get when I see the old laundry baskets sitting in our washroom at home.  And overwhelming feeling to pile in some blankets and pillows and jump inside.  This feeling that inside that basket, I can go back to being a six-year-old girl without troubles or fears.  A feeling of comfort and joy.  And the feeling of one of the best nights of sleep I have ever, and will ever have in my life.

That is what a laundry basket means to me:  childhood comfort.

Artist Statement:

There were a few things I could have chosen for my genealogical artifact.  I have a carousel necklace from when I was younger because I loved them so much.  Or a soccer ball, seeing as I played since I was about four years old.  Or even an old stuffed animal I use to take with me everywhere.  But I chose laundry baskets because of the odd feeling they give me.  Most people don’t look at a basket that normally holds old, smelly clothes and think, “Wow, that looks so comfy, I have an overwhelming urge to sleep in that!”  but I get that feeling every time I see one.

Our weekly readings for this assignment included a poem by Neruda called the “Ode to Things” which talks of how small things in the narrator’s life hold so much meaning for him.  He talks about bigger things.  Those grand things that everyone would assume to mean something.  But then he also mentions those small things, like “thimbles” and “salt-shakers”, and talks about how they also mean something to him.  I like this poem and the idea behind it, because even the very small things in our lives can hold some great memory if they are in the right place at the right time.  I am not sure how or when or why I started to sleep in laundry baskets, but that one moment changed my attitude towards them as a child and still holds an impact on me today.

This assignment reminded me of a song my friend showed me a while ago called “Colors” by Kira Willey.  In the song Willey talks about how she is a certain color each day, and each color holds both a feeling and a connection to an object.  It reminds me of how the world relates certain things to certain emotions almost instinctively, like a calm blue sea.  It is interesting to look at how we seem to want to draw conclusions between objects.  Like a happy yellow sun.  Or a warm, comfortable laundry basket.