Oh dear oh dear oh dear!

Oh what a conundrum! I've just discovered that my intermediate studio class suddenly has another section open with seats left! featuring the AWESOME Laurie Hogin! But Ros KNOWS that I've signed up for her section of studio, so to leave it now would be insulting, right? I don't know. She might not even remember that I signed up for it with her and I might be making a massive deal over nothing. Why did I have to tell Ros that I signed up with her? Oh yeah, because I was sucking up because I wanted a freaking A. Sophie you ninny!

Crap. I really want to take studio with Laurie. She's the coolest thing ever and she loves me. Ros only kind of likes me. I'm pretty much guaranteed an A if I go with Laurie.

Blah!

How to avoid the stigma of the "crazy artist"

So I've been watching this art history series on PBS (first made, of course, by BBC) called Simon Schama's Power of Art. It's on eight artists (Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Rothko) and basically they all suffered a good deal in their lives because of their very intense personalities. Though wholly over dramatic, dark, and unapologetically pretentious, it was a very interesting series. I found some of the artists to be complete assholes (see, Caravaggio, Bernini) some to be mostly assholes with some redeeming qualities (see, David, Picasso) and the rest to just be quite extreme. I think that the one on Van Gogh was the most painful to watch because really, the man was a ruddy genius and yet he was . . . crazy. It was quite sad because he generally seemed to be a good person, if just a little self absorbed. I have been in quite a "Van Gogh" mood this summer. It's funny because I didn't really used to like him, and there are some that I don't prefer as much but now I look at his paintings and drawings and they just floor me.



My drawings need to be polished and refined for hours, even days. My paintings take weeks, even months. Van Gogh plugged out a painting a day! The thing is, I can produce things that look how I want them to look, it just takes a good deal more time. I also think that I need to experiment more with thicker paint because I do everything in thin layers. This works well, but I think that my work could become more visually powerful if I learned how to use thicker paint and where to use it.

At any rate, the whole while I was watching this series, I was thinking, do I have to go through this to be a great artist? Does a great artist have to be so emotionally intense? Because really, I don't want to be. I feel like it's really hard to live like that and that is why all those artists died young. Then I decided that there were loads of artists who were perfectly normal (as normal as an artist can be expected to be) and that ol' Simon Schama decided to focus on these melodramatic blow hards because he enjoyed the drama. Because really, I am very passionate about art. It is the center of my spiritual core, it is my God. I'm just a bit more in touch with my surroundings than these fellows. I hope.

Oh, and also? I learned something which is probably old news to most people: Dali was a fascist. I suppose he had a 50/50 chance, being Spanish and all, but evidently he was a total Franco supporter, even after the horror of Guernica. He even congratulated Franco "at clearing Spain of destructive forces". The painting below (Soft Construction With Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War) has always been unsettling to me for fairly obvious reasons, but now, knowing that Dali was advocating the the rights of a brutal fascist usurper, I can't help but be completely disgusted by it. It is true that I am past my requisite teenage artist phase of loving Dali (his aesthetic isn't really in tune with mine any more) so I don't feel too horrid, but it pains me to say that there was a time when I loved his work and thought that he was really cool. They say that the way an artist behaves shouldn't really affect how you think of his work, but I don't think that that is true. A painting, drawing, or whatever is a reflection of the thoughts and beliefs of the artist. Now really Dali's vivid blue skies and orange desert scenes only depress me. I want something fresher, something which feels less dark. Funny how an artist who came an entire art movement before Dali does seem fresher and more contemporary. I am talking about Van Gogh, by the way.

A week and five days until school starts up again. I'm fairly excited to get started on projects and to move into my apartment. I'm ready.

And now for something entirely political . . .

So I'm feeling kind of politically outraged due to the fact that I've just seen Sicko, that new Michael Moore documentary. Now, it should be noted that I am not the biggest Michael Moore fan and I view his films with some skepticism due to the fact that I know he tends to show what he wants to show and such and sometimes shows things through rosy colored glass. This was apparent in this movie when he got a bit off track talking about socialism in France, but generally the movie had a really very important message: why the FUCK do we have such a horrid health care system?

There were some just tragic stories. Mind you, these were stories about people who had health insurance, but just got screwed over by their companies. People who were denied care because the insurance companies, already bursting with prophets, didn't want to shell out the $500,000 for the bone marrow transplant that could have saved the cancer patient's life or who wouldn't let a mother get care for her child at the hospital closest to her because they wanted her to get care at their specific hospital. The worst and most embarrassing was the way hospitals just dropped people who couldn't pay for their care on the side of the road even if they had broken bones or were completely disoriented. It's just awful and completely goes against the supposed philosophy of our country. When you deny care for someone, when something can be done to save someones life and you refuse to do it, isn't it murder? How do the heads of the insurance company, the heads of our government who get the checks from the insurance companies and the drug companies, sleep at night? I simply don't understand. And really, we're a joke. In the documentary he went to all these other countries where they do have universal health care to speak with them about it and they were just incredulous about the way our system is run. They all laughed when he talked about paying for health care, and every doctor he talked to said they were glad to be a part of a system which allowed them to help and treat without question rather than one that would make them kick people out if their insurance was denied.

And it is embarrassing. We are a country that has so much, and yet we cannot seem to come up with a system that allows everyone a fair chance. There is so much wrong with both education and health care, two things that should be the most important of everything. What kind of country are we if our people don't have their health or their education? This really shouldn't even been a bipartisan issue. It isn't in other countries. It's just so frustrating, especially seeing as the current administration simply doesn't care what anyone thinks and is offended whenever someone suggests that they not rule with unchecked power. It's insulting and I just hope that next election we can make a change and that the next administration manages to make some really positive decisions that don't involve wire tapping and war and money in their pocket. I'm not sure who I really support yet, but definitely not any of the republicans who are all obsessed with terrorism and gay marriage.

Anyway, I guess ultimately on the plus side I've got that British citizenship so I can always go anywhere in the European Union if America starts being too lame.

listening to: Flight of the Conchords--The Humans are Dead

Oh Shit!

I know a lot of people are in a state of existential trauma at the moment. Harry Potter is over! Whatever will you have to look forward to next? What is the next story that will grip you and hold your mind hostage for hours after you have finished it?

Well, the answer is obvious! A couple of years ago, R. Kelly released 12 mind boggling amazing chapters of the epic hip-hopera (like an opera, but for Hip-Hop, obviously) Trapped in the Closet, which began, shockingly enough, with him trapped in a closet where he hides from the husband of a woman he's just slept with. Of course, the tomfoolery doesn't stop there! A twisting plot unravels involving a myriad of unfaithful couples, a gay priest (!), a magical man who is so tough he can bandage his own bullet wounds no problem and who says "bafroom" instead of "bathroom", a plethora of guns wielded by people who really should never even have control of a sharp stick, a phone which should have been put on vibrate, a woman named Bridget and her loving midget.
R. Kelly's masterful storytelling is chock full of mystery, intrigue, and most of all, cliff hangers!

Many have been waiting months and months to find out what would happen after the 12th chapter, and now we have only to wait for a couple more weeks. I found this article at The A.V. Club and apparently there are 10 more chapters coming out August 21st! I must say, this is most exciting news! I don't know about you, but I'm going to be standing in line with the rest of the Closetites, waiting excitedly for the midnight hour on August 20th. I still have to decide which one to dress up as, but so far the only white person is Bridget, so maybe that would be my best bet. Also I have a killer fake sounding southern accent.

Note: I recommend everyone get the DVD, which features a very indepth commentary by R. Kelly. It really shed a whole new light on the film. Also, he's in an leather arm chair smoking a cigar the whole time. Also he says cliff hanger a lot and most of the time he's wrong.

Oh R. Kelly. I really truly believe that you really truly believe that you are a genius.

listening to: Spoon--GaGaGaGaGa