Paris Collage

For this collage project, I chose a quote from the book “Perks of Being a Wallflower”. The quote reads, “I don’t even remember the season. I just remember walking between them and feeling for the first time that I belonged somewhere.” I chose this because I sort of reminded me of the time that I had experienced in Paris. The trip was fast and it barely even feels like I was there, but I remember the feeling I had a sense of belonging within the French culture. So for this collage I chose a bunch of different images that reflected my memories and experience in Paris.

We Were Horses

1.                   The venue was held at seemed to be a large horse stable arena where they hold a lot of different kinds of events. Upon entering the venue, I felt this sort of anticipation for the show. Everything was dark on the stage and the only thing that was lit was both stands. Each stand rose up as if it were a grandstand at a sport venue. The darkness added a sense of greatness was to be presented before us and made me feel anxious for it to begin. Also having the stage so dark created a weird optical illusion to me, because the other grandstand was lit on the other side of the venue, the contrast caused the other stand to appear as if it was floating is space to me. I think this set the tone for the strangeness that was about to begin.

                  During the performance, the venue became quite different for me. The grandstands were now dark and the lights were on the stage. This opposite contrast from before the show drew all of my attention onto the stage. I was able to focus in on everything that was going on without being distracted and really felt like I was on top of the stage.

 

2.                   The unifying vision for the world of the play seemed to me to be in a time where civilation was not as structured as it is today. The performance opened up with dancers running with each other as if there were in a pack or a heard, while being chased by a man on a horse. The contrast in size of the horse compared to the dancers seems to show some sort of power and authority. The Horses were all very pristine compared to the dress of the dancers. This seemed to be a main theme to the plot, a sort of battle of authority and sexes. Since there were no spoken words, the diction was purely from the movements of the characters on the stage. A lot of it seemed to be about man versus woman. The music really confused me for this performance. The repetition was really emphasized and it was complimented the repetitious movements of the dancers, but over all it was lost in my minds. I struggled to find the connection.

 

3.                  Other than the feeling of almost having a seizure during this performance, it made me feel very on edge. I wasn’t sure if that’s because of the music or because of the movements of the dancers. There seemed to be this constant battle on stage between powers. There were two types of power struggles I could notice on the stage. This was between the dancers and the equestrian dancers. This made me think of a power struggle between classes in society. Since horses meant wealth a lot of the time, this gave me the idea that it could possibly be the battle between the classes. The other thought I had been the battle of sexes. This was emphasized on the dancers choreography. It had a lot of movements where the men seemed to be going after the women dancers, all in a synchronized movements, while the women were fighting them off and taking control some of the times. This made me think of the feminist movement and how the role of the woman in society has changed dramatically over the last century.

Paris Reflection

 

In today’s globalized world we live in, different cultures around the world are closer than ever. With the click of a mouse we can read about anything going on globally than we were once able to. This causes a lot of friction between different cultures that have very different understandings of the world. Being an American sort of gives you asterisks next to our names to other portions of the world. Whether that’s in a negative way or a positive, it seems that everyone has his or her own opinions about us as citizens of this world. Before going abroad I understood this and really didn’t want to get on too many nerves as possible. We do have our own stereotypes as well for other cultures. For example, people say the French are mean, closed off, and rude and smell. I was skeptic about these assumptions and was excited to prove them wrong.

                  There is a difference that I’ve noticed from this study abroad program when compared to the last one that I have done. During my first trip over it was structured much differently. Always moving from place to place at a constant sprint, I never had much time to sit and reflect on the things that were there in front of me. The appreciation of my surroundings was lost due to the sprint to the finish type of trip that we were on. This trip however opened my eyes to a whole new Europe that I had never expected to find and it was quite exciting.

                  The cultures shock wasn’t as intense as I thought it was going to be when I first arrived. Having done this once before helps but so does having an open mind. The café’s, the narrow streets, and the people bustling from place to place, it was all too exciting for me. I had this strange feeling of comfort in this situation. The feeling of being able to go out get lost and just discover a city and in turn discover yourself; felt like freedom. Exploring by myself really gave me an opportunity to take in everything around me and fully experience the culture. I found myself seeing things that I wouldn’t normally have noticed if I were just in a city back home. Something that I had really never put much thought into was architecture and the landscape surrounding it. The connections that they hold between each other never clicked in my mind until this trip. I was beginning to notice a mutual connection between the two parts; the organic correlating perfectly around the manufactured. The first time I had noticed this connection was at the Rodin Museum. The gardens surrounding the building flowed so well and just took my breath away. I sat on a bench and just admired everything around me, despite the rain. The principles of art could be seen throughout both works of art and just brought everything together. Unity in the shapes of the trees connected to similar shapes on the building façade, variety in sizes of forms, the connections were endless. It was quite an epiphany for me.

                  Seeing these types of connections at the Rodin showed me how this type of overlapping could be done throughout the different fields of art. I began to notice more connections in the principles of art throughout Paris from the design of posters to the music being played throughout its streets even to the city layout itself. Since I have returned I believe I look at things differently than I once did; nothing goes unseen. Whether its good use of the principles or poor usage, I seem to be critiquing everything I see. From my observations, it seems to me that the French seem to have not so much a better understanding of bringing the beauty of art into our everyday lives, but seem to have a careful selective process that helps to yield a more delicately formed end result than just trying to get say a building up as quick as possible. This reflects a lot on the French culture. Their belief that “time is precious” compared to our “time is money” phrase is seen a lot within the French life. We rush to get a building up as cheap and fast as possible in order to get tenants in there to start making money while they seem to put everything into consideration so that a work of art is produced, making the everyday life more beautiful and enjoyable. I envy this and it seems to have the greatest impact on me, to create work of art for life’s sake.

                  My understanding of the French is much different now since before this trip. They aren’t rude or mean people (but the smelly is actually accurate) at all; just different ways of being raised causes these differences in our cultural standards. You can really appreciate this culture from just sitting at a café; having a café and watching the people go by. This is a norm in their culture and it is one to be jealous of. They sit and take in the life around them, talking to friends and family really getting to know each other and just using the time they have to its full potential. We are to busy in our American lives running from place to place in order to appreciate time like the French. Ernest Hemingway wrote, “Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.” Hemingway here is talking about how summing up a man’s life is all about the way he lived it. Reflecting on our lives so far, is there anything that we have taken for granite? Some of you might have. If we mindlessly float through this life, I guarantee we all will have a list of things taken for granite. The idea is to have nothing on that list, and to take in as much of this life as you can. For it’s those details, as Hemingway puts it, which create the life we lead. 

Paris Reflection

Paris Reflection

Paris Final

Paris Final

The Hero’s Journey

Weekend Assignment

1) For my weekend assignment I chose to go to the Luxembourg Gardens. The gardens seemed like a good place to go for this cultural event assignment because they seem to be such a symbol of Paris. I went on a Thursday afternoon and there was more going on there than I had expected.

 

2) A dominant art principal I would use to describe the gardens is unity and variety. Everything in the gardens was unified because of the style, but when you looked at different parts individually you notice all the variety. In the picture I attached to this assignment you can see how the grass and trees are unified with the building in the background because of their shape. The tree’s shape frames the building well so I would say these two aspects of the gardens are unified. But when you actually look at the building and then take a separate look at the trees and grass you notice how different they are, one is natural looking and the other is very symmetrical and sharp.

 

3) Being in the gardens made me feel like a Parisian. Everyone around me was speaking French and I was just there listening. I took a six minute recording of the chatter I heard around me so if I wanted I could relive being there while in the states. The atmosphere at the gardens made me feel relaxed. Everyone was relaxing in any way they could, and the best part was everyone minding their own business. People were running, smoking, talking, walking, drinking, bike riding, playing, and eating. Everyone was there to just do whatever he or she wanted, which made the atmosphere very relaxing, because I was just there to people watch. While at the gardens I learned that parks seem to play a larger roll in French culture opposed to American. When I was sitting at the park observing people it seemed like this was the place to be; the gardens are a place where people meet up and hang out for something to do. Something that surprised me and affected my experience at the gardens was this man that came up to us talking about hypnotism. He was part of a group that hypnotizes people. He came up to us and explained what he did then preformed a simple hypnotism that included us pushing our fingers together so when we released the tension we could feel them pulling back together, like they were magnetic. After he left I thought about how something like this can be called normal here. As he was going through his performance I thought about how if this happened at a park in America the experience would not feel the same. 

Master’s Copies

Edgar Degas, Frau in der Badewanne, 1886

 

 

Pablo Picasso

 

Felix Vallotton,  La roumaine à la robe rouge, 1925

Flea Market

Since I have been here in Paris, all I kept hearing about was this flea market that I “have to go to”. Wasn’t sure what all the commotion was about. To me it just seemed like a bunch of street vendors selling old, used clothing and to me a coat that still smells like its past owner and that is not appealing (especially in a country that doesn’t wear deodorant). But I put my pessimistic thoughts behind me and headed to the ghetto to check it out. 

Upon arrival I was bombarded with guys selling fake knock off designer sunglasses holding handfuls of them in my face; “No mercy” I replied. The tents were lined up in rows along the street. Everything seemed to be the same over and over again; Leather jackets, shoes, hats, jewelry, african wooden sculptures, and this repeated in this fashion without much variety.  It was interesting to me the rhythm that was in this place. The first glance the rhythm was created by the tents in a row. They were all the same size and next to each other causing a constant pattern down the line. Then as we looked around for stuff our interaction with the vendors was like a rhythm as well. He would start at a high price, I would start at a low price and this would continue back and forth as we inched towards the middle point. The thing with bartering is that you need to have a high contrast in your starting point in order to get it down to a lower price, or so I have learned. This was very stressful on us with people constantly yelling in your face and music playing everywhere. It was not enjoyable but very interesting part of the culture. A friend of mine gave me some inside scoop though and told me that there was a fake flea market in front of the “real” one. I forged on seeking for the one they call the “real” flea market. 

I came to a calmer side of the flea market. These streets were not as packed and the stores were not filled with cheap knock offs. In fact they were filled with fine furniture and chandeliers where and the prices were not negotiable ranging in the thousands. The rhythm here was much slower and the contrast from this flea market to the other was so high that it was sort of relaxing walking through these quiet streets peering into the beautiful furniture that was on the other side of the glass. We were able to look at everything and not be hounded by vendors trying to negotiate prices and constantly being bumped into by passer by’s. I had found the “real” flea market and was certainly pleased I went out of my comfort zone to find this little gem of Paris.

Butterfly’s Wings

Quote: “His talent was as natural as the pattern that made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.” A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway

Artist statement: We thought that our quote explained a loss of innocence. In childhood, there is an effortlessness of life. Through different hardships, innocence is lost. But with these hardships also comes learning, which gives a person the ability to reflect on their life and the changes that occurred.

We started off with softer, more calming sounds in combination with our found sounds of children playing and laughing in a park. The volume begins to get louder and the sound of strings and an argument to show the hardship and pain associated with the loss of innocence. After the crescendo, we break to silence and then move in to a slow, sad melody reminiscent of the beginning of our sound composition to represent a reflection on earlier, easier years.

Tapestry Project

Tapestry Project