These last two weeks, I was really inspired by the artwork
we had been reading about. The Alcatraz artwork and the maps were all about
remembrance and resistance. I was surprised by how interested I was in the
maps. I have said in earlier discussions that poems are not my thing, but art
is also not one of my interests. My mother even took me to London and we went
to all the famous places and looked at artwork and I was bored out of my mind.
Granted, I was 16 at the time and hadn’t really given it another shot since.
The artwork this past week has been more about resistance, but I found I could
truly appreciate what it was saying. I enjoyed being able to interpret the art
in whatever way I wanted. I knew there was a message behind it, but I enjoyed
looking at it from several different angles. Yes, some of the art was supposed to
be about oppression and negative, but I could also look at it in a positive
way. Anyway, I was truly inspired to try painting on my own so I trekked over
to Hobby Lobby and bought some canvases and acrylic paint and brushes. I hadn’t
painted since probably art class in Middle School, so I was actually kind of
nervous because I wasn’t sure how to begin. I suppose that’s the cool thing
about art, you can begin wherever you feel like it. So that’s what I did. With
no particular idea in mind, I let my mind wander and painted some random
abstract cool looking stuff. No specific purpose, unlike the art in our
books-but I found it very enjoyable. It really lets you free your mind when you
are able to just let the paintbrush do the talking. I think it would be easier
for me to paint a picture of a story (not a good one) than to write about it
because it allows you to be as abstract as you want-and your intended audience
as subjective as they want.