Elle's Blog

essay two

elleswarttouw — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:16:36 +0000

Andy Warhol, Life as Art
Provocative, phantasmagoric, and wild are words that come to mind when describing the sixties. It had an aliveness unachieved in the culture developed by today’s youth. It was a time when the older generation remained conservative, and provincial from their younger years undergoing the great depression, while the new generation was everything but. Days of pleasant-ville and obedience without questioning were coming to an historic end, as young people began breaking free of all that was strictly black and white, speaking their minds, and regarding the world as a horizon of possibility as opposed to a battle field. However, these innovations in consciousness that remain poignant today didn’t arise without a catalyst, and the most powerful of all stimulants was an awkward Czech named Andrew Warhola, or more popularly referred to as Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol and his revolutionary art opened the minds of America to abstract thought, because of the metaphors he put forth, the music scene he founded and inspired, his satirical portrayals of corporate America, and the psychedelic colors that he used to liven the decade, and all to come.
Warhol grew up in a colorless and industrialized world like the rest of his generation, but was always dreaming, and more significantly drawing a dimension far more vibrant on the pages of his notebook. This is to imply that the most creative minds can spur from the most un-stimulating environments. Unfortunately for the millennial generation, we are pivoted and exposed to all ratio’s of creative expression from a young age, which may pose the question; is it still possible to maintain originality in a world where everything has been done?
Warhol jolted the minds of his family members, and teachers with his mere doodles. For as precious as Warhol became to the population of art appreciators later in his life, he was double that during his family life. His mother, father, and two older brothers safe guarded the pale blond boy, seeing him as delicate and invaluable. Warhol’s family was heavily religious, and even after he had moved out and pursued his own life, he visited a confessional weekly. This dedication didn’t necessarily mean that he appreciated growing up Catholic, as Warhol once said, “Being born is like being kidnapped and sold into slavery.” In his career, Warhol proved to be a perfectionist, doing several versions of one art project, and spending interminable hours doing so. His employers over the years enjoyed the array of pieces they received from him, as well as his overall company. With the kind of eccentric charisma he had about him, it was no wonder he made strides in changing the American way of thinking.
People are complex beings, particularly in the realm of how quickly a person can adapt to a new idea. Warhol’s era of art, music, and lifestyle entered the subconscious of the American people, and whether they were aware of it or not, the times were a changing, changes that are still heavily rooted today. Warhol’s style of art engaged multiple senses of those who came across it, the reds, the yellows, oranges, and blues cracked the walls of what was proper so many had built around their psyches.
“A super market before Andy looked one way, and a super market after Andy looked another way.” art critic, David Hickey once said. This quote was inspired by Warhol’s 36 Campbell’s soup can portraits of 1962. The simplicity of Warhol’s art worked as a shock to the public, for instance to see something that is greatly familiarized, in a portrait with greater color, vibrancy, and detail changes ones view of that item forever. One of Warhol’s most castigated series’ of paintings was colorful and highlighted depictions of newspaper clippings of accidents and suicides. At the time this was highly criticized and blunt to the public, but to look at this series now, it appears as child’s play to the amount of exposure the average person has of disturbing images. The line has not yet been crossed for what is publicly appropriate today, or has it? And has society simply missed it. Perhaps Warhol was trying to warn us, and put the drama of death back in our faces, reminding Americans not to take such photographs of dead or dying people so lightly. The repetition of the media’s adoration for blood and guts was being turned around on them through these paintings, which made every mortality life sized, enabling the eye to grasp the unadulterated frontal clarity of the everyday tragedy. “I realized everything I was doing must be death” Warhol said, “…Every time you turned on the radio it was something like, ‘Four million are going to die.’ That started it… When you see a gruesome picture over and over again, it doesn’t have any effect.” This statement endorses why it was so profound he turned such subject matter into art, as if to make death of all proportions special and unique again, literally bringing death to life. Warhol gave culture a silk screened reality- redefining, and making his audience question what was normal. The talent of making something out of nothing, and that nothing touchable, seeable, and memorable was one that Warhol exploited with his various works, such as $9, a piece which pictured 9 dollar signs. Warhol took what was basic, and stretched it to its furthest extent, something so original some saw it as ludicrous.
For a moment, imagine a world without mirrors. Profound a concept as it is, human beings wouldn’t know themselves without reflection, and Warhol’s art was a reflection of a new kind, that of the mind. His work showed us what we bought, wanted, read, and imagined. The way in which Warhol’s art repeated itself, taking on a new life with each variation of hue or angle was hypnotizing, even Warhol once said, “Isn’t life a series of images than change as they repeat themselves?”
Warhol met all natural human deliberations, took them, shaped them, and made them unknown. This adroitness implemented his assemblage to look again. It is the nature of people to be curious, and crave newness, and Warhol saw these characteristics and catered to them; he took cardboard and made it culture. To challenge generations to forever more look again holds power and responsibility. What are we taking a second look at? At advertisements, movies, icons, politicians, and the ridiculousness, even shallowness of America’s way of thinking. To point out these social queues was an awakening, and prompted the population to live, just for the sake of life itself. Andy Warhol’s mission was to prove that everything, even the air we breathe is art. He once wrote a book, just to prove that you didn’t have to be a writer to write, and it didn’t have to be good to be read, it just had to be. Warhol once said, “I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of ‘work,’ because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don’t always want to do. The machinery is always going. Even when you sleep.” This attitude reaffirmed and introduced society to philosophies’ similar to those of Buddhism and other eastern sects.
With Warhol’s exposure of icons in all colors and forms, he thus created icons of his own. Ironically, these icons were the most dull of objects, like a banana, or a high heeled shoe. Warhol’s influence on youth today is unquestionable, because it is completely seeable. His long lasting impression has taken on a new life in fashion, and all things aesthetic. His themes are still all over America , there is not a day that goes by in which a sprouting young girl or boy doesn’t bleach their hair, spray paint their Doc Martin’s silver, or every time we listen to an indie band modeled after The Velvet Underground. But behind all of these influences was a man with an idea, and those ideas morphed art from all it had been before. It was the death of static, and metamorphosis to kinetic.
By far one of Warhol’s most famous and repeated quotes is “In the future, everyone in the world will be famous for 15 minutes.” (43) Such concepts validate Warhol for the visionary he was, and confirm the new brands of thought he doused on America. This idea took the ability to be famous and praised, away from the elite, to be transferred to literally everyone and everything, from skulls to flowers, felons to celebrities.
Warhol wasn’t only a figure of vision and invention, but a philosopher of sorts. Beneath each print or painting he ever made was the theme “Life as art” a notion that infers no standards for what art is and was, with no specifications, or generalizations. Art was enough in itself to simply exist, and to exist was to be art. With all of the worlds most mundane nuts and bolts contextualized to the point of sheer profundity, Warhol illuminated the esoteric to the common man, breaking systems of class and race, and globalizing beauty. Humorously, Warhol did everything in his power to ensure that his art work was completely reproducible, to further validate that art making was meant for everyone, a limitless plethora of all that we see and know, free and disposable. We live on a planet in which, if you look close enough at the face of every person in the world, each feature is distinctly beautiful and remarkable. Warhol made this realization that much clearer.
Andy Warhol never died. In America we live and breath his purpose, and for how subtle a man he was, Warhol’s ascendancy is great and thriving. Warhol gained his fame from truth and what was riotous. A man of Warhol’s stature comes once or never, is impossible to ignore, and is imitated by the masses for years to come. We live our lives not always to the fullest, we see the world not always as much as we’d like, we are loved and hated all the same, and we are all living artists through our thoughts and intentions. A few of us are aware of this human condition, and others prove we are all alive with flying colors.

DIG Reaction

elleswarttouw — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:19:24 +0000

This very grundgy, indie, out of control portrayal of The Dandy Warhol’s and The Brian Jonestown Massacre is actually very appealing to me. I have always had a fascination of the Andy Warhol era, and independently studied it. Ask me anything about old Andy and all of his disciples if you will, and I have answers and opinions. Yet with all of this knowledge I have collected, I have never come across the two bands featured in DIG, so this documentary was particularly appealing to me. Though a number of the characters were unappealing, namely Anton, I think highly of the rock and roll lifestyle. In a sense the stereotype of drugs, sex, and rock and roll is the only way to crank out good music, for this genre anyway. At one point in the film, it was pointed out that, in the old days, these rock bands started using drugs after “making it” and that The Dandy’s and Brian Jonestown began using prior to success, which lead to each bands ultimate downfall, although the Dandy’s did gain a good deal of success. Who knows what they would have been today if there were less drugs involved, as their fame has decreased quite a bit. It’s a tough balance between the novelty of this lifestyle, and the reality and effects of too many drugs too soon.

Shock Music

elleswarttouw — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:04:07 +0000

Let’s assume that music is the ultimate way of expression through sound, and that expression of whatever the artist so chooses is by way of vocals, rhythm, and genre. This idea of “Shock Music” is simply a facet of human emotion expressed, in what sometimes may seem irresponsible. Since the idea is to shock people, than that entails the most vulgar and obscene content being put on a pedestal for the audience to react to. People are either repulsed or feel in some way defined by this vulgarity, it’s everything we are told not to do or think or feel being exemplified, and depending how in touch one is with their anger and resentment for authority applies to their reaction to “Shock Music”.

Personally, I’m not a fan.

Final Draft Essay

elleswarttouw — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:53:50 +0000

Elle Swarttouw

Youth Culture topic 6

elleswarttouw — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:47:58 +0000

Chapter 8 “October” 63-80

elleswarttouw — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:17:20 +0000

1. From the beginning of this chapter Rebecca asserts herself, and has more dialogue than usual. She is initially more disagreeable towards Enid. Then she goes after Josh, after Enid hints that she ought to, despite Enid’s feelings for him. To the readers surprise, Rebecca actually takes Enid’s advice and goes for it with Josh. When Rebecca realizes Enid is going to college, all she can think to do is follow her, but with the slightest hint of rejection from Enid, Rebecca distances herself, gets a job and spends more time with Josh, as if she lets go of a certain high school fantasy of her and Enid going through life side by side. The last direct contact between them is a parting of ways, Enid alone and Rebecca with Josh.

2. Enid is reluctant to have Rebecca come with her because Rebecca cal recall her “every little detail” and Enid wants to start anew, stringless and blank. Her fantasy was to hop on a bus, live in a random town, and remake herself and come back when she was a “new person”.

3. The thematic significance is that Rebecca is literally losing or distancing herself from Enid, Enid is being replaced by Josh. The friendship they once had is blurring, without either of them necessarily noticing it.

4. Again, the thematic significance is, the definite ending ahead, yet ironically it is a beginning as well. Enid is releasing herself from the restraints of life in her town, and going fourth onto something completely unpredictable. The openness express the freedom both E&R are about to come upon without one another.

5. Another Ghost World.

Chapter 6 “The Norman Square” 47-52 Chapter 7 “A Smile and a Ribbon” 53-62

elleswarttouw — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:59:13 +0000

1. E&R are displeased with Angels because Melorra and her crowed have some what taken over. In such a case E&R feel that Angels has lost it’s obscurity, and has become another hang out of the masses, no longer their own.

2. The fact that Enid’s father is drawn in a much less realistic format than the other character tells the reader that Enid doesn’t necessarily take him seriously, he is not an authority figure, but rather someone who bestows their influence in a very ”off-screen” or rather, off-page way. He is encouraging Enid to go to college, he plays for her to take tests, yet don’t see him doing any of these actions.

3. Enid had prank-phone-called Bob Skeetes earlier in the comic, and her doing this was not only a pathetic action itself, but also pointed out to Skeetes how pathetic his career had come to be. Perhaps he saw how trivial his work was. Her phone call was an awakening for him.

Reading Questions: Chapter 7

1. Enid’s focus on childhood may have to do with her decision to attempt to get into college. Such an adult-like step is unfamiliar to her, and to comfort herself, she seeks out memories of childhood as if to slow down time.

2. Enid is genuinely interested in Josh, or at least her actions say so.

3. E&R seem to be in a club for two, with values that consist of doing anything but conform. It makes Rebecca feel a part of something, she has someone to constantly justify her not going the normal route. For Enid to decide to go to college, Rebecca loses that kind of security, and feels for compelled to question her own direction in life.

4. Blackened panels convey, obviously a dark mood. It shows that both E&R rely on one another so fundamentally, that when separated, a gloom resides.

5. Enid fails to carry things through with Josh because she wasn’t actually looking for his affections, or even for him to comfort her, she was seeking something to fill the emotional gap she felt after her and Rebecca’s argument, and when she discovered Josh could not do this for her, she left him.

Chapter 5, “Hubba Hubba” 39-46

elleswarttouw — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:05:49 +0000

1. The fact that Rebecca chirps up a bit here doesn’t really change my view of her. He suggestion of replying to the personal ad was something that Enid would have thought of doing anyway. It wasn’t greatly original, and either it was a cruel joke. When it came down to it, Enid made the actual phone call anyway.

2. E&R think that people involved in political causes are not only “creepy”, but don’t care about humanity in the first place, as if political activity is just another mundane hobby that makes no impact.

3. The man in the windbreaker didn’t really seem real prior to actually seeing him. Before seeing him, his identity was that of a pathetic man putting out a cheesy personal add, but to see him in person E&R realized the childishness in even getting involved, and the fact that he was a human being with expectations. They simply didn’t know what to do in the face of it.

4. Enid, though highly dysfunctional does have a grasp of right and wrong, though she keeps it faraway from herself. I hope that she at least realized how rude she was in many aspects, first making that phone call in response to the personal ad in the first place, then clearly mocking the waiter, who in the end is just trying to make a living. So in some way, her tip was guilt money, a compensation for her wrong doing.

Chapter 3, “Punk Day” 21-32, Chapter 4 “The first time” 33-38

elleswarttouw — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:31:50 +0000

Reading Questions: Chapter 3

1. Johnny Crawley is an ex-crack addict who is now preaching to Enid and Rebecca the lifestyle they ought to be pursuing. This upsets them, particularly Enid, as Johnny not only condescended her by telling her to basically conform, but he also mocked her wardrobe. E&R certainly don’t intend to follow his ways.

2. I couldn’t find any implication of Rebecca’s wealth, so it’s easy to assume that she and Enid are at about the same financial level. Enid, being that she has to pay for her own schooling is obviously not that well off, also judging from her wardrobe and overall attitude, I would not conclude she is rolling in the dough. She even feels guilty later on when her father pays for her to take a certain test, implying that there isn’t that much to spare for her needs.

3. Enid expresses her joy of seeing ugly people in love. Maybe she thinks that only “ugly people” could be in love, because they haven’t been spoiled by good looks, and have little judgement when it comes to appearances, therefore making their affections more altruistic.

4. No E&R don’t simulate this woman’s actions, in fact hey have little reaction to the ridiculousness of someone doing such a thing. They just walk by and barely remark on it. This may project their jadedness the idiocies of society.

5. Enid may not be necessarily seeking a relationship, but I think her claiming not to have to much of an interest in one is a defense mechanism for expressing how she really feels. I imagine the sort of man she would chose would yet another person she could dominate and control on a mental level.

Reading Questions: Chapter 4

1. I like Josh more than Enid, he has an inherent goodness about him that I don’t see in Enid. He is more grounded and less judgmental, yet at the same time, he proves to be easily manipulated by Enid.

2. Rebecca probably knows Enid’s virginity story so well because Enid has told her so many times. The story is also rather remarkable it has comic relief and a decent build up. Rebecca may in a sense live through Enid’s stories, and subconsciously see them as her own. It’s a way of voyeuristically experiences life.

3. There are less speech bubbles and Enid is narrating the whole thing, while the events are chronologically laid out according to the story below the text boxes. There is a clear distinction that this is a memory.

4. People like to be shocked, and often a way of living this out is through bodily vulgarity, and this is something that Enid’s seeks more than the average female. Also, such a thing as going into an adult store is unpredictable for her to do, therefore increasing its appeal to her immensely.

Chapter 1 “Ghost World” Pages 9-15 and Chapter 2, 15-20

elleswarttouw — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:00:05 +0000

Reading Questions: Chapter 1

1. I think Enid dislikes the readers of Sassy because they are not only as she said “Trendy stuck up prep-school Bitches” but a product of society and modern culture; to Enid they are followers, and even robotic.

2. Perhaps Enid and Rebecca view McCobb as quite the opposite of the readers of Sassy, as they are indeed products of society, McCobb as lame as he is, is in fact refreshing to E&R. If Sassy readers are robots, it’s as if McCobb is a robot that fell off of the assembly line.

3. E&R friendship strongly revolves around not only telling stories of what happen to them, but making fun of nearly everything they encounter, or adoring it for its weirdness. Enid obviously is the one telling the most stories and so one, and most often the facilitator of what they do during their time together.

4. Rebecca is a Doppelganger in the sense that she seems to live through Enid. She goes by what Enid does, and seems to barely exist without the direction that Enid gives to her. We, the readers see the graphic novel primarily through Enid’s eyes, perhaps the real ghost is Rebecca.

5. I strongly dislike Enid, she is exactly what her character hates-just another reaction of the culture living out a predictable day to day life. She is vile and overly entitled, she thinks that just because she is “rebellious” or even rude that others should follow her, and she has the right to treat people how she wishes. When instead of being unique or independent, she just lives a narcissistic and infantile existence.

6. Enid dubs the couple at Angels satanists out of pure boredom depending on how you look at it. As clause said, she takes minor details and stretches them out until they are a story worth telling. Enid exaggerates throughout the novel.

Reading Questions: Chapter 2

1. I think Enid is selling her “sacred artifacts” to almost prove a point, that point being, that she is weary of attachments, or more accurately doesn’t identify herself through things of her past. Or maybe she was just broke, and too lazy to get a job.

2. I think she finds it interesting that he two had theories of the details of the Satanist couple, that she was not the only one to notice that they weren’t the average Jack and Jill. Also, she sees him as pathetic.

3. Melorra is not only something that E&R don’t want to become, but as robotic as the readers of Sassy. Melorra is overly social, and has little sense of where she is wanted and not wanted. Her social skills are premature, and overall personality is irritating.

4. The Satanist was purchasing the Lunchables, which is humorous because we often think of Lunchables as something enjoyed by young children, something that loses excitement with age as we realize that the turkey and cheese each have the same plastic taste, and the crackers are only an imitation brand of Ritz.

5. Goofie Gus represents her childhood, perhaps a time before she was so jaded.