I'm a Procrastinator

I am a procrastinator. I start projects with a good idea and never finish them. When I am given a project, I wait until the last minute to get it done. Somehow, I get a good grade on it at times. It ends up being not that bad to end up doing it that way all the time. Either way, the reason I don't start it is because I am not neccesarily into what the project is. There are those projects that you get and dread doing. For example, when I was in 8th grade, I had to do a history project about this American inventor I had no interest in at all. We had to write a research panphlet about our inventor. For me, I dread these kind of projects when they are given to us. I'm not into it at all. I would rather write a screen play about a scene about the inventor or making a colorful collage. The fact that I have to write a research paper about something just is not in my style at all. This is just for certain projects that I come across. Other projects like posters and power points I procrastinate about because I get easily distracted. It first starts off with me gathering up all of my ideas like your supposed to. Then, it's me trying to make a decision about which idea I like the most. Personally, I am not the greatest decision maker out there which is why I push it further and further away. I think that by giving two decisions I need to choose over some time to think about, it makes me choose the right one. Thus, it leads to distraction to me never getting it done in the end. Turns out that minutes will turn to hours and I will be up at midnight with out a project because I got easily distracted from not doing it.

Usually, I tell myself that I can watch for half an hour my favorite show. Ya know, relaxing before I get started. Sooner or later, the half an hour is up and up comes a new episode of  one of my other favorite tv shows. So, because I am so comfortable on my couch, I feel the sense to not get up. I convince myself that in another half an hour, I will get started. Basically, this kind of way for me to have some relaxation time does not help at all. This makes me get easily distracted about not getting my work done. This usually ends when something boring comes on the TV. After that, I have no idea what to do nextvwith my project. So instead, I sit on my bed and think of more ideas of how to my project. Usually, this concludes to me passing out. In the morning, no project. I am that kind of person that can't stay on one task to get things done. When I have to get a project done, and this is when I actually want to just get it out of my way, I go into intense isolation. This means that I shall lock myself in a room for hours on end until I get what I need to get done finished. Apparently, it is very hard for me to get anything done with a little sister who bugs you every second she gets home from afterschool. She puts on full fledged interviews wanting to know everything that happened about my day. She instigates everything I do. So, my solution is to lock myself in a tiny room and get it all done. Either way, it always works.

Fear of : Improv

I have always been that kind of person that loves to take risks and try new things. If you told me to jump out of a plane, I would most likely do it.  I would be into the whole feel of being adventurous to try new foods and visit new places. I do not like the feeling of being held down to just one place. I love to explore and to notice the world around me. When it comes to my art however, it turns into a whole other story. I would like to act and I want to pursue it one day as a career. On that note, I have learned that a skill that actresses need to have is improvisation. Improvisation is making up something as you go along. So, in that type of actiing, you would be taking the risk of seeing whether or not a certain scene would work out. For me, I have the fear of this because whenever I take on a cast I haven't been workimg with for a while, I suddenly freeze up. It puts me in a state that I am not used to and scared in fact if I got judged for messing up an improvisation. I kmow that in this kind of industry your going to be judged, but for now I need to be taught on how to take those punches. Now though, I just want to build a sense of trust with the cast that I work with for future shows and hope to get to know them better. This would lead to me being less fearful and more relaxed.

In the high school, I have been easily intimidated by the outstanding actors and actresses to take on the stage there. These fellow cast members have had more experience then me obviously. If I were in an improv scene with one of these members, I would not know what to do. I would fear the fact of messing up in front of them. I would not want to do that in front of talented kids themselves. I would practically look like a joke. The fact that I fear the chance of messing up is insane, but true. It just involves intimidation of a new area I do not have any familiar times with. At the same time, in the middle school I felt free to do anything that came to my mind. I had been working with the cast I loved for the last three years. People would come in and go , but I still got used to having those kind of people around. It made us one big dysfunctional family year after year that I have done the musical. Every single time that I was in a certain improv scene, year after year my confidence grew. I was taking the risks that I has always had imagined of doing. I thought of new material with the snap of my fingers. Last year was one of my greastest years in being the older kids in school. I more freedom to work with what I had. It felt amazing. Yet, when I got to to high school, it all changed. I was at the bottom working my way up with an unfamiliar director and cast. At this point, it was a long road ahead, but I would need to get used to it in order to one day pursue what I would like to do.

So all in all, I fear the fact that I am easily intimidated in a new environment that involves my art. I want to be able to do anything when it comes to an improv scene. I want to not care what anyone thinks.  I want to gain confidence in what I do and how I do it. I am a ristaker. For me, I want to overcome my obstacle in facing the stage with confidence. That this should involve not caring about what others think about what my improv is whether it ir weird or not to an extent. I want to learn how to take the punches one after the other. I want to ready for it. In the article that was given to me I quote, " What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don’t, quit." I care about comtinuing on and pursuing what I would like to do. I need help with learning about how to deal with the road ahead for how to deal with the entertainment business. At this point, I want to be the kind of artist that moves ahead in my art discipline to say ," You know what, it was all worth it."

Chapter 10: My Thoughts

You have to enjoy the simple things in life. Like the author talks about in the book, on how he was just waiting in line, with his son wondering around the store looking at Spider Man balloons and the gumball machines in the supermarket. He had started to talk about how we should enjoy the wonders in life. Since I am very inexperienced with the world around me, it makes me think about what it's gonna be like when I go out in the world alone. I don't really know what is gonna be out there for me, but I have a sure idea of what I want to do with my life. When I went to the city by myself with STAC, I started to notice the world around me more and more. I noticed all the forms of art around me when I was alone. It seems that whenever I am alone and free I always imagine certain things and how they are. When I am controlled,  I can only have those certain moments to myself at random times of the day that seem so small for me to recognize the world around me. I enjoy the small moments that someone would do something for me, or that I would do something for someone else. The world around me is changing rapidly. It's my time to seize it.

Chapter 9: My Thoughts

You must enjoy the journey of travel, for that is also an art that it being taken away from the world today. For many people when they walk around, their faces are always in their phones, looking at a screen for hours on end. What is the good  of looking at a screen instead of looking up at the fellow people's faces around you. This relates to what Walter Benjamin was talking about on what would happen to people if they were to ignore art entirely. It is not that art itself is getting ignored, it is that people would not really need to see the orignals that famous artists made. They would instead see recreations of it or buy them for their own homes. By the twentieth century, people started to see traveling art exhibits at the Metropolitan, etc. It would get packed and packed with people that would  want to see these new exhibits. It was especially good for art lovers that lived in the city to have the advantage to go to all these different art museums at their own fingertips. As much as the art world is improving, I feel when people could just go online to see a painting instead of going to the actual museum to see it. It scares me to know that people will not be able to enjoy the art of the world around them at all. This had all happned because of screens set up in the own comfort of your home in order to do work. Soon enough, it will be to see paintings and works of art. Musuems could go potentially go out of business. I would not want to see the Metropolitan Musuem of Art shut down. At the rate that Americans look at a screen, it's time to sometimes shut down and look at the art around you like old times.

Chapter 8: My Thoughts

Philip Pearlstein ( a day to day artist) reminds me of my cousin who lives in Italy. Her name is Paola and she is a fellow artist herself. She reminds me of Pearlstein because of how they have the same lifestyle. The author, Kimmelman , was basically restating what my cousin Paola does day to day in her studio. She has her own unique style of doing things. Paola has inspired me to trybti jump into making art, but every single time I try to, I could never actually do it. My art that I would create on a canvas could never be as original as hers. She has that certain stroke that wraps the whole piece of artwork together. All of her paintings have stories about them that are from her previous experiences and adventures in Italy. Though she spoke about telling me her adventures, but never got to it. It was all about her artwork. Her artwrok is a always a specific style that she gets inspired from in a mood that she would be feeling that day. Back to how she reminds me of Pearlstein, she always lives day to day with creating her original artworks. If you were to see what she creates, you would be enchanted not knwoing how to explain it. It would be that confusing to try and figure out. It would be a puzzle , just like how I think that Pearlstein's works are like. Working day to day in routine makes you more committed to getting a piece of artwork done. It shows a deep a passion that makes you want you to get it done once you start.Paola I believe has tried to do nudes before , but I have never seen them up close. So, I do not know if she still has them or not. I think that Paola is the next generation of Pearlstein by how close in working the same that they are.

Chapter 7: My Thoughts

I had to keep rereading the second page of the chapter to actually realize what Douglas Mawson ( an Australian explorer) went through on his expedition to Alaska. What he did was so insane to not only go on the most treacherous route on the expedition, but to actually have limited people with you to travel on that route. He had one of his men die with most of the supplies, so him and Xavier Mertz ( an experienced mountaineer) to survive on only so little food. What would be the whole explanation behind all of this? It was all for art. Mawson chose the form of art that he would be remembered for doing by being the most brave to go to Antartica. If he survived the trip that he had all planned out, he would have one heck of a story to tell. One story that would be his own original creation, his own work of art that he wanted remembered. This turned out to be more dangerous than picking up a chisel to make a sculpture or painting on a canvas. A 35 year old man survived in the Antartic for more than a year with struggling to survive and having fellow workers die all for his orginal creation of art. Once he told his story, people had kept him remebered as the one of the greatest explorers that would be remembered forever. The thing that I do not understand is that why would he do this in the first place? To me, he may have done this to keep himself from going insane. Yet again, I could be worng. With other famous artists, they did complete certain pieces of art in order to go on the brink of being nuts. Well, would you look at what art does to you.

Chapter 6: My Reflection

Women have an effect on the art world, such as how Charlotte Salomon,( a young Jewish - German female writer) who taught the world about love before the Holocaust. It makes me so proud to have women finally come to mind instead of men come to mind when it comes to independent modern artists. Women never really got the same respect that men always got during those certain centuries that you lived. However, when women started to get more respected around the world, people undertsood how highly improtant a woman is. We always would remember a man's name for any thing in history such as our Presidents, war heros and people that changed the way America was about slavery, etc. It makes you realize that women never got remembered for any thing like that. Instead they were the average housewife, taking care of the children and waiting for their darling husband to come home so that he can eat her pork roast right out of the oven. Now that I read this chapter, Women have started to make their mark on the world, the art world, one word or one stroke at a time.
Also, the fact that all of these old artist who painted masterpieces can have viewers of these documents see soemthing fresh every time. Every decade that the art world changes, these old time favorite works of art spring back to life to show today's artist the history of art. They connect with a painting that they see and that makes them connect with their work more and more. Artists that have lived many years ago that leave their legacys behind in their work let people have insight of how art once was. Modern artists today take risks in the art world which gives them the ambition to see how people will act when they see a different kind of art. For example, Pollock took the risk to show his original work of art to the world by creating art of dripping it onto the canvas. Suddenly, that sparked a new era of how the art world changed forever. The same thing that happened for women to create an new era of art forever.

Chapter 5: My Thoughts

I can't stop thinking about the museum that they mentioned that is the Mount Vernon Museum of Incandescent Lighting. While I was reading, I started to visualize all of these bright lights illiminating this tiny room in the bottom of his house. It seems a little strange to have about 75,000 lightbulbs in cases all around this tiny room, but I admire the fact that Dr.Hicks( the collector) would have done this. He as an artist, strived to collect as many lightbulbs as he could. Each lightbulb he collected has a story attached to it in some way. In other words, he brought all of these light bulbs together in one tiny room to be shared with the public.This then turned into his story of 'the man who shined the way ' or something like that. Dr.Hicks seems to be the kind of outgoing type that has a loving quirkiness about him. I would have loved to meet this fellow artist, who's art like others may start of small and then end up into something big. 

I always wanted to start my own collection of some kind of object. First , I tried those Dum-Dum wrappers on the lollipops you would get. So, I tried to start to collect them and lost interest soon after a good three weeks. I only had 25 of them, but sooner or later the collection had dissappeared out of sight. Second, I tried to collect Snapple bottle caps. I have a good amount of them now, but I am still working on it. I collect them for the facts underneath. I want to get 723, for that is the highest number fact I ever got. Lastly, I wanted to really see if I could actually collect something because I had to share with the my 1st grade class something I collected.  I started to get stumped on what I could collect, but there was no purpose to collect Qtips or even gum wrappers. It was getting to the point  that I had no idea what I wanted to collect. Until finally, my mom told me why not photos? No wonder we kept photo albums! We collected pictures over the years of me growing up as a child. Every single time we would take a new picture, it was a new addition to our collection. That was my art when I was a child, collecting photographs. 

Chapter 4: My Reflection

Life is a work of art. In my experiences  everything and anything that you do to yourself and others around you in the world is art. It just dawned on me while I was reading it the middle of this chapter, that when Johnson died, he planned it to be the biggest work of art he had ever created. He planned out the exact moment that he died because he realized how people would look out into the waters off of Long Island to find this body floating out there. This appears that people would look at this as an inspiration to create such art as putting their own self in their artwork. By using the world around you, you get the urge to create. Art is a vision that can be carried out without lifting a paintbrush or a chisel to scuplt. For example, if an artist places themselves in a scenic location and then has viewers observe him, that in itself can be perceived as art with little effort. It is sensational way of how to take the world by storm by transforming their minds into thinking in a new way of how to view art. By thinking this way, Johnson wanted to be remembered. He wanted to never be forgotten by anyone on the face of the Earth. By trying to be remembered like Michelangelo or Picasso, he did his greatest piece of artwork yet. He created artwork in how he died by using the world around him to leave an impression on the world to get people to never forget him or what he created.

Chapter 3: My Reflection

What is modern art? I've always thought about how artists would actually just think of anything out of the blue, put it on a canvas and then call it "art". Is it really that easy? I have learned in my  STAC class about Pollock, the abstract artist, is how he made art through apparently random paint drips. Basically, this was a creation of his very original imagination. It looked so easy to do in the movie that I saw in class, but the amount of concentration on the actor's face  proved to me that maybe it wasn't as easy as I thought. It seems to be THAT easy, but at the same time not SO easy because he put so muvh effort into it.
Another artist named George Bellows that I read about asked  if an artist were to put horse manure on a canvas and call it 'modern art', would the art world have to accept it? Of course, there is someone always answers yes. In some way, it seems to me that anyone could create anything original and call it "art". The one thing that I have observed about abstract art is that some people find it absolutely while others find it absolutely repulsive.There are so many different and varied expressions of art that may be beautiful in the eyes of the beholder. It can mean one thing to one person and a different thing for another person. For me, anything can seem beautiful such as nature, my family, the world around me. It just makes me wonder to be in someone else's shoes for a change. If I were to think that something is beautiful and in the view of someone else it wasn't, how would I come to terms with that?

Chapter 2: My Thoughts

As I read in Chapter 2. most people entered the Kodak world as amateurs. Some did not know how to take pictures while others made it seem to be all a joke. It makes me think about what is the actual story behind all of these photograpahs that people take. They are formal curiosities.These kinds of photos make people laugh. Others make people cry. Some people have a personal intake on a certain photo. If I ever lost a photo, the person that saw me in it would wonder who I was and where I came from. All they would know about me is what I look like and the date on the back of it that is was taken. This person would then infer the rest of what happened that day. We would never have any contact, but in their own mind, they could imagine me as the perfect friend. But in the end, they would never actually know me ya know? It seems to be a whole big world out there that is just sitting there waiting for me to explore. And in just a couple of years, I will be there. Off to college. set out on the world.

Chapter 1 of the Accidental Masterpiece: My Thoughts

I admired the Chapter overall for what it tells you about the world around us as a whole. It dawns on me that some people think that art is just a simple thing that could be a hobby for a person that they could do for hours on end, but I find it to be something more than that. Art is a passion. A way of life that can't be ignored and that is all around us everyday of our lives. We seem to run away from it further and further, but it will eventually catch up on us in the end. Some people embrace it. Other tend to ignore it. Many take it into a different view. I take it into the view that it has a certain way of sculpting people into who they are. I can learn a lot from this one quote in the chapter. It says," The beautiful is a promise of happiness." It means to me that any kind of beauty that you would see in the world comes from you being happy with who you are and where you come from. You need to be happy with your life in order to live with yourself everyday. After all, you have only one face to live with for the rest of your life by staring at it in the mirror.

The Accidental Masterpiece: The First Scene

SCENE ONE: BONNARD'S STUDIO
( Bonnard is writing a letter to one of his models. He is hunched over at his writing desk with the windows open. There is a soft breeze. Marthe enters.)

MARTHE:  What are writing there?
( Marthe looks over Bonnard's shoulder. Bonnard tries to block her sight from the letter.)

BONNARD: It is nothing...
( He starts to fold it up, but still is looking down away from Marthe.)
Just some business I need to take care of.
( He looks at Marthe with a sly smile, but Marthe isn't pleased. )

MARTHE: Well, what is the letter about?

BONNARD: Oh, it's nothing.
( Bonnard starts to turn back around to his writing desk, but then is stopped by a Marthe's hand.)

MARTHE: What are you not telling me this time?
( Marthe starts to turn bright red, and her cheeks swell up. Bonnard starts to notice.)

BONNARD: It is nothing that needs to be questioned.

MARTHE: This is what always happens though.
( She starts to sigh after a pause.)
You never tell me what goes on with you anymore.

( Bonnard spins around. He is now in an anger of rage. )

BONNARD: I do tell you what goes on. You just choose to never listen.

MARTHE: I do so listen. You just never actually seem interested when ever you tell me about it. You seem always so, soo, soo....
( In sudden outburst)
UNLIVELY.

BONNARD: I am a man of my word. I AM NEVER A PERSON OF BORE, BUT OF ART.

MARTHE: Well, you make it seem so unlively to me all the time. It is though you never want to love me anymore.
( She rips the crumpled letter out of Bonnard's hand. She starts to rip it open. )

BONNARD: MARTHE, you need to calm down. NOW!!!!
( Bonnard starts to get more angry.

MARTHE: Who is this? ...
( after a pause)
This.....
( starts to tear up)
This... Lucienne Dupuy de Frenelle?!?!?!?!
( starts to scream)
WHY DO YOU NOT LOVE ME?

BONNARD: MARTHE, You are the only woman I will ever love. No one will ever be like you, my sweet Marthe.

( While Bonnard is found out of his chair, kneeling on the ground to Marthe, Marthe starts to cry in her arms. The letter is still held onto. )

BONNARD: Honey, let me explain. You don't understand.

MARTHE: I do understand. I don't need you..
( she rips the letter in halves)
or anyone...
( she rips it in fourths)
to tell me ....
( she rips it into eighths)
" I LOVE YOU!!!"

( The papers fall to the ground, surrounding Bonnard as he kneels on the floor before Marthe.)

BONNARD:  MARTHE COME BACK PLEASE.
( he starts to cry, a single tear falls)

MARTHE: I thought I loved, and instead I was in love with a canvas that was plain and boring, that never got one stroke in at all. Bonnard, I envy you. I really do. None of that matters anyhow, because my heart belongs somewhere else. Not to a lost artist anyhow. Good bye my love.

( Marthe exits the studio, leaving Bonnard kneeling and crying in his studio, in a puddle full of lost love, despair and a broken heart. )

The Accidental Masterpiece: The Art of His Paintings.

I admire the fact that Bonnard has a very beautiful way of showing us how a usual day would be for him when visiting by the shore. It has a sort of acrylic sense with the textures on how he balances both the land and sky. It is a bay with the most iconic boats I have ever seen , but it reminds me of my childhood so much. I would go to Italy and see all the different kinds of boats when I would go to visit Naples. It was such a nice experience for me. It made me feel like I was back in the 1950's when they had this kind of thing that would usually bring people together from all around the world. 

When I look at this painting, it shows me an essence of how life was like back then in Bonnard's time. I could imagine myself sitting beside Bonnard at a nearby coffee shop and watch this scene blossom on the street. It would seem like just a quick picture in my that would slowly fade away, but with Bonnard, he would fully do it to the extent of making it into a story. As he is an artist, he takes what he sees from reality and using art, he creates an image for us that we never looked at closer. The way that this picture shows us united people and how diverse this could be from how other people would see this is such an amazing talent that Bonnard has. 

In this painting, I see a family with a dog sitting near the water having a picnic. The child is holding some type of doll while the father and mother are talking. This shows this happening on one of those late summer nights that you would go out with your family to the park. I admire this painting so much because it brings a sense of happiness and warmth to the viewer of the painting. I think that Bonnard gave the child a striped white dress to show the look of innocence in the corner which makes you have a positive intake on the painting. The father is the darkest color that makes him look more as the protector of the family. The mother is protecting herself from the sun with a parasol which makes her look very down to earth and loving. This is what I think brings the whole painting together all in all. This painting brings love and warmth to anyone that views it. 

The Accidental Masterpiece Introduction: My Thoughts

Where do I even begin? There was so much to say at least about what the introduction was about, but you probably already know. So, I don't really want to talk about that. I want to talk about trying to discover art in your own life. When you read the Accidental Masterpiece, it gave you that view of fellow artists, but it tells you about the art of life basically. Every single thing that goes on in your life has an art to it. You could be eating pancakes and you would discover the art of eating pancakes. It's anything that you do on every single adventure you have in your life every day. I just think that personally, having previous artists before you creating n irresistible passion is literally a work of art. Doesn't it matter now what the art of anything is though? I do admire that fact that Bonnard could have had a different life if he hadn't taken that single route to find his precious Marthe, but still. You need to at least know what is going on around you. Bonnard did and had the art of feeling an emotion towards Marthe that he couldn't just ignore. It's the kind of feeling that I always get when I feel someone is watching me whenever I walk around by myself. It is the craziest emotion, but it sometimes scares me.
It reminds me of how much time we really do have in this world. Even though I know that oblivion will come eventually, I'm not ready to leave yet. I have my whole life ahead of me to have the best adventure of my life because that is what they all say. I want to make the moments that fly by me mine, and not just to make it a distant memory to forget about. I want to enjoy every little art of my life.
It seems silly I know, but I feel as though this is my connection to the book. The way that Bonnard might now have met his wife explains how all of the decisions I made have led me to this moment now. I could have taken another route or path, made another decision or even let something pass me by. I never let anything go though, and nowadays I am very pretty happy with my life. There is always that time that you do wonder what would happen to you if you hadn't made the decision that you ended up making in the end. Where would you be right now at this time? What would your relationships actually be like ?
Bonnard felt a feeling on that day that be found his wife, but how did he ever go through with it? He followed the emotion that you always get when you know that you have to follow it no matter what. When I was younger, if I had never tried to audition up against six boys for a lead part in a musical, I don't know where I would even be today. That was one of the decisions that I made on my own with that same emotion that Bonnard got. It just would not have been the same today that I would have actually learned I love acting. With little decisions here and there, it can effect your life in a humongous ways. Bonnard found his way to his destiny, and I found my way to mine. It was with that same emotion, of determination and courage. It just connected me to how I could relate myself to someone else in the same boat as me.
It just gives me a better sense of what I am doing with what I have in my life . The mistakes that brought me here to this moment that I am today. It came as a quick thought and then emotion transferred into a reality. Where would Bonnard be today if it actually never happened? I have always had the same feelings as Bonnard as a fellow artist. We are all artists in our own individual ways. I just think that some have realized what they have at certain times.
It all goes a certain one way of another. I just think that my life, is my art and creation that I need to create. Over the years, I will transform my creation slowly into reality. Right now, it my life is an art.