Manifesto

Our manifesto grew out of a mutual interest in examining and actively questioning our society. It developed as we discussed as a group our points of interest and perspectives on what is important to social discourse, both aesthetically and as commentary. 

We decided to explore different mediums to create a collection of works that portray the ideas expressed in our manifesto. This mix up of different mediums is reminiscent of the mashup by DJ Food we were assigned to read. That 40 minute piece was built off the exact same thing we were focusing on in our manifesto. It discussed not only the history of a new genre, but many societal problems that came to light as the genre emerged. For example, it started out by reflecting on the technology that helped the genre take root; music files on the internet. With this change came the surge of access to music, but at the cost of the artists. Good and bad accompanied the events, but it was not really picking sides, rather calling attention to the developments in the society surrounding the artist. 

    The main point of our manifesto is that true art exposes different aspects of the artist’s society. Our first thought was to use our art pieces to expose the problems we, as the “artists”, see around us. however, we realized that true art should not just complain about society but also celebrate it. Thus, we chose to base our artwork around the idea of exalting the common man in today’s economy. An example of this that comes to mind is the beloved artwork of Norman Rockwell, who did not choose the most beautiful subjects to draw. In fact, common man would be a very fitting word for most of his characters, and yet the pictures are so lively and strike joy in the viewer. This is a very simple yet effective example of "exalting" the common man. Since Norman Rockwell dealt with plenty of poverty in his time, and his artwork reflected that poverty, his work fit very well with the ideals of our manifesto.

This was a group process piece, which was difficult because I joined my group late. They had already summed up their “what is good art” manifesto into four bullet points:

• Exposes and inquires into the respective contemporary society of the artist.
• Transcends age, gender, and generations.
• Is informed by and conscious of the forms and aesthetics of the past.
• Is intended to be easily accessible. 

Sadly, the scanner cropped off part of my image.

My art piece exalts the common man/woman and also exposes and inquires into my contemporary society. I used common facebook pictures of people I have talked to and used their real stories in my art as I comment on the economic struggle we are facing. I am using an aesthetic of the past, decoupage, and it is easily accessible because it is on my blog. I also tried to make if full of texture to make it tactile and real.

Historical Story

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8EOS_BZOzfUQWFuWDJaQmxPTnc/edit?usp=sharing

Ivy and I worked on a story based on the true events of a family friend of her father’s. Her father’s friend in named Tom Wright and he was the photographer for The Who when they first started out. In fact, Tom was best friends with Pete Townshend-- the lead guitarist and creator of the band. As a great source of research, Ivy had her parents send her their copy of Tom Wright’s autobiographical book titled, “Roadwork: Rock and Roll Turned Inside-out.” Within that book we picked one story and then picked out moments of dialogue that were recorded in that book to use in our screenplay. Of course, at other times we used our own creative license.

For a long while, we wanted to tell the full story of Tom and Pete’s friendship, the creating of the band, and the adventures of The Who and their photographer. We figured it could work well if we did it in the style of My Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts. After all, that story had a great way of telling a story that had plot structure and that helped you get to know the characters. But in the end, we decided that with this story the audience could gain more access to these interesting characters by making the action live-- instead of past tense-- and using their dialogue-- as opposed to voice overs.

During the making of the screenplay, Ivy and I remarked a lot how interesting it was that Ivy’s father has been friends with Tom almost her whole life, and now she is writing a screenplay about him, yet she has actually not seen him very many times, since he works a lot and is often gone. This definitely affects how we write this script. Had Ivy known Tom personally, we may have written the story the way he tells it, or in a way that Ivy retells it-- much more like My Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts-- but instead of basing the story on memories, we based it on the autobiography. However, Ivy’s few interactions with Tom still played a part in the writing. She told me that Tom was the nicest person in the whole world, which is why we kept his dialogue kind, friendly, and free of sarcasm or the like. So in many ways, our story is a fusion work about Tom Wright through they eyes of Ivy Hutchison. 

Genealogical Artifact

Roman mythology states that daisies came to be when Belides, an innocent wood nymph, turned herself into a daisy to avoid the unwanted attraction that Vertumnus had for her. I guess my attraction to daisies began with unrequited love as well.

A few years ago, I was dating a boy named Taylor. He had told me he loved me, but even a month after he had, I couldn’t say it back. I did really care for him a lot, but certain things made me believe that I shouldn’t continue on in the relationship. We were both going to college in Utah and we were going to have a two week break between semesters-- Taylor was going to spend it at his parent’s place in California. As I helped him pack up his things, I told him that I thought his trip was a good chance for us to take a break. He took it with dignity-- but he cried. I felt awful. I knew what this was doing to him, and I wanted so badly for it to not hurt him.  And on that note, we parted.

Daisies are the flower of innocence-- that feeling was furthest from my mind.

After he left, I was surprised to find how quickly I missed him-- pleasantly surprised. We’d had so much turbulence of late that I didn’t expect I’d get back with him, but I was finding myself happy to think that my mind might change. Then, one day I was alone in my apartment when I heard a knock at the door. I opened the door and heard words that I thought only happened in movies, “Flowers for Hannah.” The man handed me a beautifully simple bouquet of white daisies in a sunshine yellow vase. I’d never felt so special before. I opened the note that was attached, it read, “Regardless of what ends up happening between us, you deserve these. -Your boy”

He still cared about me. He was fighting to keep us together. He was humble about it. He was respectful of my feelings. He was still in pain. I missed him. I knew I wanted it to work with him. I felt awful for hurting him. All these thoughts and more culminated into a feeling that I still don’t have a word for. I just sat on my couch and absorbed it all-- looking at my daisies. I decided then, that I was going to fight for this relationship, too.

June 25 2011, the day of our wedding reception, there were daisies everywhere. 

So daisies may have all kinds of origins, meanings, or connotations-- but when my husband and I give each other daisies, it tells us a unique story about a friendship and love that withstands adversity, and reminds us how grateful we are to be together.

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At first this was a very difficult assignment for me. I couldn’t think of any object I had that carried sentimental value, because I loose things way too often or they break and-- well I don’t own anything that I still had five years ago. So nothing had a childhood memory attached. Also, other things in my life have made me separate my life into phases and once I moved on from one phase I didn’t look back much. However, I’ve realized that those phases of my life are still very significant to me-- knowing that I will move on in life and move away and likely not keep in touch with many people doesn’t make me value my friendship and experiences with those people any less. I found that the same is true with some objects, like the daisies. By nature, a daisy will die a week or two after you get it. But each daisy still brings meaning and it strengthens our relationship. 

In a poem called The Daisy-- On Finding One in Bloom on Christmas Day, James Montgomery states, “...The Rose has but a summer reign; The Daisy never dies.” In this poem, Montgomery uses daisies as a metaphor for more withstanding relationships. It is interesting that without knowing that, my own daisy story paralleled this same idea. I appreciated that the daisy has a running theme of these good connotations, because this story kind of solidifies it as a symbol of my relationship. I find that hard to accept because life and relationships have so many layers that boiling them down to a handful of objects means that some things have to be left out. So what objects will survive to represent something so big? I had those same questions as I read the section of the reading about the musician. The objects and their short stories gave me a lot of insight to her character, but they all focused on her as the musician. I expect there is a lot more to her life than that, another collage could be made with only one or two objects that relate to music. But that would be too much to try to represent. So just like anytime we tell a story, we have to pick an angle to focus on and sadly leave out much of the rest.