Best of Week: [Creating Art]

From class we've read articles and talked about art and creativity but something really stuck out to me in  "Sea of Information". The authors writing really got into my soul. It showed me how art takes time to be formed. The energy that comes from literature doesn't just flow out all the time. It takes diligence. There is a driving force behind it. Sometimes I feel like life is like this. It is this constant push that keeps us moving but we have to put so much effort into making it worth wild. If we just live the art of our life is meaning less, but as Andrea Barrett illustrates through her writing art take constant studying and revision to make great. You can be a good artist/singer/performer/whatever but it takes studying and practice to make a masterpiece. Sometimes, I feel that art is overlooked. It is seen as something it was not supposed to be. In writing the sounds of words are so great. The first time listening to poetry can be the most beautiful thing. However, there are works that the more you look into the more they mean. A good song, for example, is something that on the hundredth listening can be so much more than it was the first time. I feel that is what makes art.

Our MindBooks are a vast exploration into what this world of art is. From just sitting and looking at others I have seen such creative ideas that come out of single thought. This thought, however, was more than just an instantaneous post. It was cultivated. The idea of bring in outside information and refining it to fit exactly, or as close as possible, in the form of which the creator wanted. Sometimes, I look at these MindBooks and wish they can hold more than just the physical. I wish that sounds could be captured. That the actual emotion could be locked up in that book. But then again that is what art is. The capturing of emotions and feelings without explanation.

I think that this week, as many weeks have been and most likely will be, was an exploration into the world of creating art. We read how difficult ideas can be in  "Sea of Information" by Andrea Barrett and we acted on that by trying to do something new in out MindBooks. This is were our best conversations and discussions came from during this week.

Captured Thought: What Makes Something Interesting?

In life we experience so much. We see beauty, we hear humor, and we feel love. But what causes us to feel these things? In what aspect does life do we choose between good and great. As a person who wants to do well in life I have always compared myself to the great. Good enough, usually isn't enough. However, I've seen people try so hard to be good at something and they've missed the point. They missed the reason why they did it in the first place.

Art is the best way to explain this. Some people are so amazing at drawing, or painting, or dancing, or whatever but no matter how good they are they don't stand out. What makes someone who is technically perfect so much less than someone who may be flawed in their skills but you feel them? Is it because we as humans know perfection isn't real? And when we experience it we are bored by it or we ignore it?

This occurs so much in school. The student who spends their life working on their textbooks and pushing to be that perfect five point o always seems to be the one that misses out. Well that or they are the most miraculous person in the world. It seems that the student who work for the grade and the end result miss out on why they are their in the first place.

I have many friends who are so upset with school. "It's so much work! Why am I here," said by many of my friends, even myself at times. It can sometimes be hard to see the end result when your in the midst of construction but we wouldn't be in school if it was useless. The classes I do the best in are the classes I like the most. I can't tell if I like them because I do well, or I do well because I like them but I know that in both cases they are the classes I learn the most from. The hardest part is understanding that when it gets hard and things turn for the worst we need to put the most effort in staying afloat. It could be that we find things interest  because they fit within what we are good at.

But does that explain for why we enjoy art? Music, dance, paintings they are all something that people pay huge amounts of money on yet many don't excel in those areas. Could interesting things be caused by passion? By their creation? Is something interesting because we don't have all of it? These questions I don't know the answers to. But I have the rest of my life to search because in the end I want my life to be interesting. I want to be remembered. Things that are boring never get remembered.

It Matters: United States Growth Of A Creative Nation

In class we have discussed the importance how how being creative has lead people to create wondrous things. However, we have noticed that this form of creative thinking has been slowly declining from American society. The once impressive nation of inventors and innovators has become the arrogant and overpowering nation; filled with egotistical brutes and uneducated citizens. In exploring the world around us we have noticed that we have slipped in the ranking of prestige. This video from the new HBO show The Newsroom, I feel, hits deeply the message that needs to be spread to Americans.

The main speaker in this clip longs for the times when we used to view America as what it could be rather than who it was or who it is. He wants to have a better nation; a place were justice is the forefront of our decisions. In discussion with our relation to China's education system that we talked about in class the ironic nature is that we think we are the greatest nation in the world but, like any great competitor, the focus should be on how can we better. 

I find that it does matter in how we live our lives. Creativity comes from the want to be more. To explore the world and find new things. Our education system has declined on the focus for more and now is focused on the what was. There is always room for improvement. And seeing that there is more to life than what just is is creativity. Seeing life in its full is creativity. This looking, this wanting, is the bases in which we must form our education system. The basis in which we should form our society. Instead of praising those who have money and fame we should be praising those with talent and ingenuity. We are the deciders of this world. We are the parents of the future. It is our place to lead. "America is not the greatest country in the world anymore," but it has all the potential to be more than this.