Week 13.2

Comparison to Literacy Autoethnography traits:
Although some of the blog prompts were based upon creative writing, which I normally despise, I didn't completely hate writing them. I might even go as far as to say I almost enjoyed a few. Perhaps my hatred of creative writing stems from my past experiences, writing for teachers or peers. I am a creative person, but writing just isn't my medium of choice, especially in the creative/fiction sense.

Audience has always been a huge block (or sometimes advantage) for me in writing, and that is shown clearly in the pieces I chose to analyze for my Autoethnography essay. I suppose it was easy for me to write the previous posts because of the "invisible" audience. Writing when I know barely anyone will read, or take time to look at makes it enjoyable, as if I am writing only for myself.

Comparison to Graffiti Art:
This blog could be compared to graffiti. I think most blogs could be. Graffiti is public art, created in public places/on public surfaces, for the public to view. Blogs are almost virtual graffiti. One could paint a word or image on a wall, or create a post just like this one on a cyber-wall for the world to see, if they happen to stumble upon it.

Week 13

Exit Through the Gift Shop and Literacy

Literacy is commonly referred to in the context of reading and writing. When someone is illiterate, they are unable to do these things. However, literacy can be used in referral to many things. A deep knowledge of sports, for example, could be called sport literacy. One who is musically proficient could be called musically literate. Essentially, the word 'literate' means a solid comprehension and/or skill in a specific area.

The filmmaker, Thierry Guetta is inspired by street artists to begin creating his own artwork. He uses propaganda to promote himself and his debut show. Shortly, he is on the cover of magazines and newspapers announcing himself as "the next big thing" in the art world. It is clear that his show is a train wreck, with factory-made art and sculptures cramming the exhibition space. Somehow, though, he manages to sell nearly one million dollars worth of art on the opening night. His inspirations, however, Sheperd Fairey, Banksy, and other well-known street artists are almost embarrassed by his exuberant debut into the art scene. Banksy, who had encouraged his creativity previously, finds that he "used to tell everyone to make art. I don't say that very much anymore". 

The notion that "everyone is an artist" has been quite present in my life, growing up with two artist parents and attending art-centric schools. I have noticed that while some are proficient and "art-literate", others are stumbling along behind them, making watered-down replicas of their work. I have found this in students and professionals alike. Art literacy is difficult to judge, as it is largely an objective subject. one might think that Thomas Kinkade is art-literate because of his lifelike, photorealistic paintings of cozy cabins in the snow. I would disagree, and comment that you can find motel art that is far more impressive. Kinkade's art-literacy is no more than a commercialized Vermeer replica.

Guetta uses a high-volume, in-your-face tactic in showing and creating his work. It is somewhat reminiscent of a toddler given a few cups of paint and a sheet of poster paper. You end up with the cups tipped over and a muddy-looking puddle of paint dripping off the page. Destruction was a common theme of his work.

While one might argue that street artists are not art-literate because of their chosen mediums and canvasses, I would argue otherwise. They consistently create art that expresses their opinions and feelings effectively and in an appealing manner. Their work is pleasant and/or interesting and clever, and displays a clear understanding of how to get people to stop, look, and think. Guetta took it too far by creating almost meaningless, abrasive pieces of work.

Week 5

Short brown hair. Hands stained black. Equally stained jeans and a plain white t-shirt. Or sometimes black, or even a BMW-themed one, depending on what's in the drawer. Dark eyes. Distracted by compression ratios, calculations of weight-to-power, how many foot-pounds of torque for this bolt? Thinks the 928 is one of the better looking Porsches ever made. He's wrong about that. Terrified of spiders, reaches for the propane torch when encountered.

Week 4

Lately I have been having a sort of recurring dream. The events are mostly different, but the location is the same in each one. They have been set in very extreme looking landscape, with familiar cities and towns. I am not sure why this specific place has continued to appear in my dreams, and I am very intrigued by it.

There are hills with a dirt road wrapping around them, leading to different places. There is “Ojai” and its neighborhoods, “Moorpark”, “Ventura”, etc. The strange thing about the landscape is that the earth is bright orange. Reminiscent of the hills and mountains in some of Utah’s national parks I visited as a kid. Occasionally, in this alien landscape, I come across other scenery. I traveled to “Moorpark” and saw that it was right along the bluest water I could imagine. “Ojai” looked like the deserts of Arizona, with light colored dust covering the ground, and Joshua trees dotting front yards

            Aside from the names of places, their locations are completely skewed from reality. A fifteen-minute stroll would find me in a place that in reality is over an hour away. Towns are smaller, and seemingly empty.

            The first time I found myself in this alternate reality I was visiting someone in a fancy gated community. I have no recollection of who it was, now or then. I strolled with this mystery person Eastward along the neon orange dirt road, talking the whole way. At some point we stopped and turned around. I recall feeling thirsty, which fit the dry desert scenery well. We walked back, and past our starting point farther into Ojai, the earth changing along a gradient of orange to beige. We wound through neighborhoods on their dirt roads. Each house was similar and each yard was almost identical. A four-foot chain-link fence, an average sized front yard, and a dark wood-paneled single story house. At some point the person left and I was standing in front of a house looking over an empty field of dust, toward the orange hills.

             I have mostly forgotten the second “day” in the surreal environment. I vaguely recall wandering down the road to another city along side the water. Against the orange hills, the blue water seemed just as vivid, almost turquoise. I walked along the docks, with restaurants and shops, and boats. At the end of the dock there was a large paddleboat, similar to the ones I‘ve seen in history books. Every building was beautifully crafted, with ornate woodwork painted gold and red.

            The third time I walked along the dirt road, a city had sprung up in a valley that had previously been sparsely inhabited. Every house was the same. It seemed as though I was in an airplane flying over a housing development the size of Ventura. Every house was the same. Beige, two stories, terracotta roof. Rows and rows, with paved asphalt roads winding through. Only a few trees peeked out from the black streets. I recall being shocked by the instant materialization of this mega-neighborhood and wondering what it was. I looked out at it for a few moments before heading back along the road.

            

Week 3

*This week's prompt was unclear and uninteresting, so I am going to adapt this week's I Ching idea and substitute the previous week's story*

                                      
The photographer quickly snapped a few more photos before the man grew tired of posing for him. He got into the car carefully, making sure he didn't track in any dirt. He excitedly turned the key and it sprang to life. He put the car into gear and slowly lifted off the clutch, feeling the car pull forward. Coasting out of the lot toward the main road, he became more and more anxious to drive.

            As he pulled out onto the street, he realized that he had no idea where he was going, what direction was north, or what any of the street signs said. In the rush and excitement to get to Stuttgart to pick the car up, he had neglected to study road maps or learn a few basic words in German. After a brief moment of panic, he decided to embrace the feeling of being lost and just wander. Through the streets, cities, towns, farms, neighborhoods. He let the German countryside and quaint fairytale towns set the background to his journey.

            Shifting gears had never felt quite the same. Apart from the obvious differences of his previous car (a Ford station wagon), this new vehicle somehow moved with the road. Every change in terrain, every corner, every hill, no matter how small, immediately prompted the car to change with it. It seemed alive. The man was enthralled by this phenomenon, so foreign and inexplicable to him. Countless towns passed, going unnoticed at first, but became detected as the shock of driving such an exotic machine slowly wore.

            Now, coupled with the experience of the car, the picturesque churches, shops, houses, and cobblestone streets seemed like a dream playing out in the man’s head. Had anything changed since the 17 or 1800’s? Anything at all? Each stone in each building looked like it had been there since the beginning of time, completely at home, and in its rightful and natural place.

            A quick glace at the dashboard clock read 3:30 in the afternoon. Seven hours ago the man had just barely laid eyes on the car for the very first time. Three hundred and fifteen kilometers on the odometer. He could have easily added another couple hundred to that without stopping, but he decided that this was as good a place as any to take a rest and explore this small town on foot, refuel the car, and refuel himself. Coincidentally, the town he happened to be in was home to one of the most well known racetracks in Europe. He was unbeknownst to this until he was perusing aging photographs and news clippings on a pub’s wall, telling stories of victories and records set at the track.

            Through a brief conversation with the pub’s owner in broken English and sloppy German, he learned that the track was open to everyone with a driver’s license and safe car for a few days of the week. It happened to be one of those days, so the man quickly ate and got directions from the owner.

At the track, he paid a small fee and had brief inspection of the car performed. Never had he expected to find himself in the German countryside, in his own car, just moments away from experiencing the car in its natural habitat. Without thinking, he was off, wrapping around the turns, sweeping into straightaways, and braking into hairpins, just like the race drivers he had admired as a boy. The five laps were over all too soon, but he happily went on his way, a souvenir beer mug in hand printed with the track’s logo and the date.

It was now 5:30. After an exhilarating day full of unfamiliar places and experiences, he decided to do one last thing: drive the autobahn. He found the closest on-ramp and got up to speed. He lingered in the right lane for a bit to get his bearings and grow accustomed to the rules and etiquette of the road. Then flicked the left turn signal and moved over. The car did not hesitate to deliver power to the wheels, accelerating, past 90, past 100, past 150, to nearly 200 kilometers per hour. He gently let off the throttle and let the car slow itself, moving over to the right. He coasted off the empty autobahn into another small town that looked like it had jumped from the pages of a fantastical storybook.

By this time it was dusk, and the cottages and shops looked as though Thomas Kinkade had taken a paintbrush to a city-sized canvas. A medieval sign hanging out into the street advertised a vacancy at an Inn. The man coasted the car into the lot in back, removed his bags, and locked it for the night, looking back at it as he walked toward the Inn's door.

Week 2

The photographer quickly snapped a few more photos before the man grew tired of posing for him. He got into the car carefully, making sure his shoes tracked in no dirt. He turned the key and it sprang to life. He put the car into gear and slowly lifted off the clutch, feeling the car pull forward. Coasting out of the lot toward the main road, he became more and more anxious to drive.

            As he pulled out onto the street, he realized that he had no idea where he was going, where north was, or what any of the signs said. In the rush and excitement to get to Stuttgart to pick the car up, he had neglected to study road maps or learn a few basic words in German. After a brief moment of panic, he decided to embrace the feeling of being lost and just wander. Through the streets, cities, towns, farms, neighborhoods. He let the German countryside and quaint fairytale towns set the background to his journey.

            Shifting gears had never felt quite the same. Apart from the obvious differences of his previous car (a Ford station wagon), this new vehicle somehow moved with the road. Every change in terrain, every corner, every hill, no matter how small, immediately prompted the car to change with it. It felt alive. The man was enthralled by this phenomenon, so foreign and inexplicable to him. Countless towns passed, going unnoticed at first, but became detected as the shock of driving such an exotic machine slowly wore.

            Now, coupled with the experience of the car, the picturesque churches, shops, houses, and cobblestone streets seemed like a dream playing out in the man’s head. Had anything changed since the 17 or 1800’s? Anything at all? Each stone in each building looked like it had been there since the beginning of time, completely at home, and in its rightful and natural place.

            A quick glace at the dashboard clock read 3:30 in the afternoon. Seven hours ago the man had just barely laid eyes on the car for the very first time. Three hundred and fifteen kilometers on the odometer. He could have easily added another couple hundred to that without stopping, but he decided that this was as good a place as any to take a rest and explore this small town on foot, refuel the car, and refuel himself. Coincidentally, the town he happened to be in was home to one of the most well known racetracks in Europe. He was unbeknownst to this until he was perusing aging photographs and news clippings on a pub’s wall, telling stories of victories and records set at the track.

            Through a brief conversation with the pub’s owner in broken English and sloppy German, he learned that the track was open to everyone with a driver’s license and safe car for a few days of the week. It happened to be one of those days, so the man quickly ate and got directions from the owner.

At the track, he paid a small fee and had brief inspection of the car performed. Never had he expected to find himself in the German countryside, in his own car, just moments away from experiencing the car in its natural habitat. Without thinking, he was off, wrapping around the turns, sweeping into straightaways, and braking into hairpins, just like the race drivers he had admired as a boy. The five laps were over all too soon, but he happily went on his way, a souvenir beer mug in hand printed with the track’s logo and the date.

It was now 5:30. After an exhilarating day full of unfamiliar places and experiences, he decided to do one last thing: drive the autobahn. He found the closest on-ramp and got up to speed. He lingered in the right lane for a bit to get his bearings and grow accustomed to the rules and etiquette of the road. Then flicked the left turn signal and moved over. The car did not hesitate to deliver power to the wheels, accelerating, past 90, past 100, past 150, to nearly 200 kilometers per hour. He gently let off the throttle and let the car slow itself, moving over to the right. He coasted off the empty autobahn into another small town that looked like it had jumped from the pages of a fantastical storybook.

Biographical Info

-Born/raised in Ojai, CA
-Attended Oak Grove School for ten years, graduated in 2013

-Coxswain on Lake Casitas Varsity Boys rowing team for four years (freshman-senior years in HS)
       -Coached Adult/HS/Middle School age rowers after graduating high school


-Currently restoring a 1986 Porsche 944 Turbo, and building a BMW e36 M3 track car

-Pursuing degree in transportation design (Specifically automotive exterior)
-Also taking courses at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA
       -Hopefully transferring to their degree program within 2-3 years