Idea post #4: Play

sorry this is late; I was hit by a car.

Play

I need more play in my work. I am dealing with children and childhood memories. I am figuring out how to set up scenes for my work but I need to silliness of play to show through as well.

Oppenheimer, Frank. "Adult Play." Exploratorium Feb.-Mar. 1980. Print.

This short article is about how to be playful as an adult. Oppenheimer talks about how he works in a gallery and everyday he is able to play at work. Oppenheimer asks a UC Berkeley professor, “Are there any things which a young person must learn before it is too late to learn them?” and Bob Karplus, the professor responds: “Maybe people have to learn how to play before it’s too late.” (Oppenheimer). I believe as art students we are forced to play every day. Then slowly our play becomes our work. We must use our imaginations to create the work we must turn in and be graded on. But then there are still releases we must have for our personal play. Dr. Stuart Brown, on The Take Away radio show says that as humans we must find our “pleasurable state of play” everyday. In some way that we are there must be playfulness in what we do. It allows our minds to grow even as adults. Humans are built for play. Dr. Brown says that play is the fertilizer for the brain.

So play is important for every type of person no matter how old. I feel that sometimes I as an artist get too serious. I feel that I need to be more playful and loose when I create new work. I am dealing with children and childhood as a theme so I need to not be as serious when creating this work. I need to reflect how a child’s mind works or at least have a childlike view when making this work. When dealing with adults I feel that there is a need for silliness. I want to capture my everyday silliness and put it into my work.

Oppenheimer, Frank. "Adult Play." Exploratorium Feb.-Mar. 1980. Print.

The Science of P-L-A-Y | PRI.ORG. John Hockenberry, Celeste Headlee, and Stuart Brown. PRI: Public Radio International: National and World News, Talk, Arts, Entertainment and Music. The Take Away, 17 Mar. 2009. Web. 30 Sept. 2010. .

Idea Post #3: Child/Parent relationship

picture from: http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/men/assets/marilyns_childhood_picture.jpg

Parent/child relationship

Pelusi, Nando. "Parents and Children in Conflict | Psychology Today." Psychology Today. Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness Find a Therapist. 01 Jan. 2007. Web. 23 Sept. 2010. .

This article talks about the fact that “unconditional love” isn't necessarily present in all child/parent relationships. That a parent may find that they don't unconditionally love their child everyday. Many parents feel that they are compromising their life in some way after they have children. The article goes on to describe different ways that child and parent relationships don't always work out to be the best. It says in one paragraph that children and parents views of what they want in this family, this team are much different. Our parents hopefully want what is right for the child and the child just wants the love; all of the love. So when you have more than one child, there becomes a pull from each sibling to receive the most love. The article goes on to say that the middle child is usually cared for less by the parents even without the parents realizing it. So the suicide-death rates in middle children is higher. Scientist see teen suicide attempts as a way for deep attention from their parent that they need. (I believe there are other factors and the article notes at that but doesn't go into them). And middle children are more likely to succeed in committing suicide rather than the youngest/oldest counterparts because their need for attention is much higher. They will go to more extreme risks for love from their parents.

This is interesting to me but not really relevant to my project. There were two things that did resonant for me though. “Mark Twain noted, 'When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned.'” - Pelusi

This quote from Mark Twain about how as a child he thought his father didn't understand him, as most teenagers do. Then as an adult at twenty-one could see that his father had always loved him and Twain realizes that his father really does know him. The author of the article also feels that after becoming an adult he had the courage to ask his father why all those years he felt neglected from him. His father tells him that he felt that his new opportunities were over after having him. This sentiment from his father is not unconditional love. It is something that as children we might have some understanding of but do not fully comprehend until adulthood. This misinformation, or confusion as children is interesting to me. And then the complete thought that you then understand the ways of your world as an adult is interesting. Its the constant learning and reinterpreting that your brain does everyday that changes how you felt about everything. Childhood is perceived in many different ways because of the reevaluation we do as adults. Like I've posted before, memories are constantly changing and they are never real. Our childhoods are now much different from when they originated. I want to make work on this change. This “awakened” understanding of our own past. The way we might be able to see our old child self as something more scary or sad than we might have experienced it.

The queen of daddy issues:

“And I said I do, I do.

So daddy, I'm finally through. “

-Sylvia Plath

Plath realizes the harshness of her father and learns to throw him out. I want to incorporate issues with parents in the work. I also don't want to the parents to have a solidified role in the work, just outside players to the children in the work.

Pelusi, Nando. "Parents and Children in Conflict | Psychology Today." Psychology Today. Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness Find a Therapist. 01 Jan. 2007. Web. 23 Sept. 2010. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200612/parents-and-children-in-conflict?page=2.

Plath, Sylvia. "Daddy - Sylvia Plath." Internal.org Poets. Web. 23 Sept. 2010. http://www.internal.org/Sylvia_Plath/Daddy

Idea Post #2: Memory

photo credit: http://www.cinepremiere.com.mx/files/images/eternalsunshine.jpg

from the movie, Eternal Sunshine and the Spotless Mind

Memories. Many of us believe that memories make us who we are. That because something happened to us and we remember it that this is what shapes us. However, this is not true. Memories aren't really anything. Once the reality is over and we start to remember certain events as truths, our brains immediately start to change and distort what really happened. When you are looking back on things that happened when you were young, like say a birthday party, you are stringing together many different emotions and faces and things you did. With each string of memory that you place together is like putting together a bunch of fake realities. You are painting a picture of what used to be true. And each time that you look back on this same birthday, you remember it slightly differently than you did the last time you remembered it. Your emotions affect the way you remember something. So every memory isn't the same as the last and it is always changing the way you perceive it.

(the ideas and research from this paragraph is taken from Radiolab: Episode #304: memory and forgetting)

Howard, Jan, and Laurie Simmons. "Picturing Memories." Laurie Simmons: the Music of Regret. Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1997. 15-16. Print.

We as photographers deal very much with memory. Think of photo albums either on facebook or in reality, that someone has taken many photos of an event, (ie wedding, graduation, party) in hopes to never forget that moment. People believe that recording the event in the form of pictures solidifies the moment. Many photographers build projects based on memory. Laurie Simmons does this in a different way. Laurie Simmons draws from her childhood and the memories that she has from then. "Rather than records of events, memories are constructions that record our interpretations of events. Emotions determine how we experience daily routine happening..."(Howard, pg. 15) This is how Jan Howard describes Laurie Simmons's work. The memory that drives the work and records how she feels about the memory. This lines up perfectly with the idea that every time you think of something, your emotion has influence on that memory.

Memory relates to my work and work I'd like to make in different ways. I am interested in memory in the way that Simmons is interested in memory. I have created memories of my mother and my grandmother together in a place that doesn't exist. Like Simmons I am creating my own memory of this event. It in some way is based on true events but is distorted in my mind and in my creation. And I'd like to continue making work in this fashion. I think I want to do childhood, or growing up for themes of new work.

Howard, Jan, and Laurie Simmons. "Picturing Memories." Laurie Simmons: the Music of Regret. Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1997. 15-16. Print.

"Radiolab: Episode #304: Memory and Forgetting." RadioLab. WNYC, New York, New York. Radio.