Habits of the Creative Mind: Looking, Seeing and Paying Attention
Left-Handed Portrait
Flash Fiction of Ernest Hemingway’s 6 word narrative
Reflection of Excersises Comparing Queen Elizabeths I and II
Throughout these first two weeks of class, I have gained a lot of insight on the process of looking. I have discovered that every form of visual representation contains purposeful and well thought out reasonings on why it’s laid out and presented in a certain way, even if it may not be obvious to the audience at first glance. It is the job of the audience to discover and analyze these reasonings. That’s what makes visual representation and the process of looking so intriguing, because the interpretation and analyzation of a piece can differ among many different audience members. However, the presenter does have explicit reasoning on why they constructed their piece the way that they did. What I did not initially realize, is that a lot of the time, interpreting a visual work requires a great deal of research on the background and context of the piece. This can give the audience much more insight about how, when and why the piece was created, making it much easier to study and understand. For example, in the two photos of Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Elizabeth II that we worked with, the two queens were portrayed holding the traditional orbs in slightly different ways. This is a very minor difference, however, upon further research we discovered that this slight change was rather significant. Elizabeth had outwardly conformed to the Catholic faith during her half-sister, Mary’s reign. However, she was, in fact, a Protestant, having been raised in that faith, and was committed to it. She greatly believed in tolerating the views of others and believed that Catholics and Protestants were basically of the same faith. Throughout her reign, Elizabeth’s main priority was the peace and stability of her realm. Unfortunately, many of her contemporaries did not share her views on toleration, and she was forced to be harsher towards Catholics than desired. The painting portraying Queen Elizabeth I, showcases her hand over the orb with the giant cross in between her fingers. This symbolizes her taking control of religion in her country and presenting herself as God, rather than His representative on Earth. In contrast, the photo portraying Queen Elizabeth II shows her holding the orb in the palm of her hand, insinuating that she is God’s representative and presenting a very different message than the painting Queen Elizabeth I. This not only proves that research is imperative for analyzing visual works but showcases that minor differences in similar pieces can have big effects on their meaning. Learning the context of a piece can really help you deconstruct the meaning. Thus, exemplifying how each detail of a visual work is thoroughly planned in order to convey its intended message. In closing, I believe visual representation is much more complex than I previously understood. The class activities we performed really helped me grasp how to interpret and research different visual representations a lot more comprehensively.
Organic Observations
Day 1
The object I have chosen to observe and write about is a banana. It still has a fair amount of yellow on it, but a lot of brown. It got very brown very quickly after I took it from the dining hall. I picked it up this morning after breakfast and it’s already much more brown than it was earlier. It’s not quite soft to the touch, but I’m guessing over the five days of observations it will get softer and mushier. The quick browning of the banana makes me think about the G.M.O industry I learned about in both biology and environmental science. In biology we learned about the actual genetic makeup of fruits and the hormones they carry, and in environmental science we learned about the G.M.O industry itself. If the banana was genetically modified, I assume it would take much longer to brown, since fruit is more desirable if it lasts longer. However, I don’t know how long the dining hall has had it. G.M.Os have not yet been proven to have negative effects, but it is unknown currently if we will discover some in the future. Observing the banana also make me wonder where it came from and what it took to get it to me. Foods in our country go through such a journey just to get to our plate and it’s almost unnerving to think about the process. Is all our food perfectly safe and healthy? Is the G.M.O industry unhealthily manipulating our foods with the shere motivation of profit? Everything the food industry does seems to be more about profit than the health and safety of consumers, which I do worry about. I also worry about the fact that food should be more accessible to all people considering it is a basic human necessity. Food insecurity is such a big issue around the world, and I don’t believe we are doing enough to resolve the problem. My goal is to look into the food industry in our country and to analyze whether it’s safe, healthy and accessible to all people.
Day 2
The banana appears to be much more brown and a lot mushier than it was yesterday. Bananas have always had such a strong scent and I never knew why. But my junior year I learned that they release a ripening hormone that makes them smell that way. That brings me back to the whole G.M.O discussion. Companies would want to make bananas ripen faster, so that they would brown quicker and consumers would have to buy new ones more often. Like I previously said, G.M.Os are not proven to be unhealthy. However, in this case the genetic modification of the fruit is not for the good of the consumers, but rather, for the company and their potential profit. I find the peel of the banana particularly interesting because it gives them an extra layer of protection. The sweet, fruity part is always on the inside of a protective layer. This is honestly a metaphor for human life. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to get to the goods and sweet parts of others. Everyone has layers to them, and often it’s hard to see who they really are at first glance. I admittedly have to get better at giving more people a chance to expose their true layers, rather than assuming things about them based on appearance.
Day 3
The banana is even browner today, and is beginning to rot and become inedible. I didn’t expect it to reach this state as quickly as it did. Fruit flies began surrounding it. So, I had to transfer it to a plastic bag, rather than out in the open. It’s honestly crazy to me how the decomposing process works with different foods. It’s such a natural process that is extremely interesting and intriguing to think about. It honestly inspires me to compost on campus more often because it leads to less trash in our garbage cans, and ultimately our landfills. If foods can naturally decompose, why throw them out when we already have too much trash to begin with? Overstuffed landfills are a huge problem in our country, so it is vital that we all work towards composting more and creating less trash. By observing the banana and fruit flies, it showed me the natural process of decomposition first hand. Yes, I definitely thought that the flies were gross an extremely annoying, but the process is just part of our ecosystem and the circle of life. It’s what allows all species on Earth to coexist together. Every organism has a specific niche that makes our planet run and operate smoothly and we, as humans, must be careful not to mess with and destroy this system.
Day 4
Today I can confirm that the banana is officially rotten. I’m almost positive that there are tiny worms crawling around on it. As disgusting and vile as this may be, I know it is part of the decomposition process. I still find it so fascinating that fruits and vegetables can naturally decompose without human interference. The entire top half of the banana is completely brown and the peel is virtually sliding off. I’m still utterly shocked at how fast the banana rotted. I’ve only had it for four days. I don’t know exactly how long the dining hall had it though, it could have been for quite a while. A while back on Halloween, I opened up one of my candy bars and it was completely full of maggots. It quite honestly scarred me for life and I can never eat that specific type of candy ever again. Now I am very cautious about checking expiration dates on all the foods that I buy. It has made me very paranoid about the quality of food that I am consuming. However, I know fruits are different from packaged goods, and that packaged foods contain a lot of preservatives, but I am still very careful about the foods I buy and ultimately consume.
Day 5
This is the last day of writing observations about our roganic object, and quite honestly I’m really struggling to get words on paper. The banana is so rotten and gross at this point, that I am too scared to take it apart or alter it. I wish I had done that sooner since right now my writing is kind of at a halt. I can confirm that there are tiny little maggots crawling all over the top half of the banana. I really cannot wait to dispose of it at this point. I wonder if other people who decided to write about fruits had the same issue with it rotting so quickly. I look forward to seeing other people’s writing and seeing how each person approached this project. I’m sure each person had a very different interpretation of the task, which is what will make the writings so interesting and enjoyable. At the end of the day, this banana is part of the huge circle of life that occurs on our planet and it is interesting to ponder it’s story, including how it got here and where it came from. This project really helped me understand the impact of visual analysis. Although we were supposed to be writing our observations of an object, it ended up leading us to wright about bigger and broader issues that are associated with that object. It allowed me to make connections in order to get a grasp at the bigger picture.