Artistic Tributes to Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was one of the most influential figures of our time. His peaceful and nonviolent defiance against the South African government during times of racist policies exhibited behavior that was inspiring to the world. Becoming South Africa’s first black president in 1994 and destroying the apartheid system within the country were great feats within World History. In light of Mandela’s passing, many artistic tributes (some made before and after) have been revealed to commemorate the life of a man who taught the world the true meaning of global peace.

nelson mandela artwork

This piece was made by sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik at the Golden Sea Beach in Puri. This tribute stood out to me because of its utilization of sand, and the way the artist shaped Mandela’s face into the flag of South Africa. The attention to detail is remarkable, and the feeling of joy one gets from Mandela’s smiling face amidst the bright colors of his country’s flag, is immediately felt.

artist creates nelson mandela portrait from 27,000 punches

Phil Akashi paid tribute to Mandela in his own unique way, taking 27,000 punches with the chinese letters for freedom, Akashi painted a monument to pay tribute to the great leader. Akashi told Designboom.com that “[Mandela] sacrificed his own freedom to fight for the freedom of others and therefore represents a fantastic source of inspiration for the entire world.”

Twitter Art Tribute Shows the Reach of Nelson Mandela's Influence| Nelson Mandela

Social media was a frenzy sharing thoughts after Mandela’s death and photographer Miguel Rios made a visualization of some of the tweets sent out in regards to Mandela. The media is such an influential aspect of the youth today, and I thought it was very interesting to merge the voices, opinions, and thoughts from today’s society into a piece of an influential leader within history.

nelson mandela artwork

This is a mural painting of Nelson Mandela that can be found in Cape Town. The overlapping blues of the sky, the building, and the head of Mandela flow into each other, depicting Mandela in a way that almost makes him a part of the sky and a part of the atmosphere that will forever surround South Africa.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.        

                  -Nelson Mandela

5 Songs To Get You Through Finals

We’ve all reached that point now; the pile of missed readings has stretched into something that more closely resembles a mountain; powerpoint slides of past lectures clutter our desktops and the library becomes a room to eat, drink, study, sleep, youtube, repeat. The stress, or perhaps more accurately, the familiar regret at not having paid better attention the first time around in discussion section, can be enough to warrant unhealthy amounts of caffeine intakes and a diet of vending machine snacks. However, once the initial panic disappears, the routine of studying for finals becomes comforting, a pattern of checking off to-do lists, exercise, cooking and note taking. There’s something fulfilling in reaching, albeit potentially minimal, clarity at the end of a course. Something liberating about walking out of each final, ticking them off one by one.

At the time when we are most often alone, most often operating on our own studying-based schedules, there is no greater need for a quality playlist. Enjoy these few tracks while you settle into your ziplocked granola and highlighters; the sounds of studying.

1) It’s cold out. You’ve been sitting next to this window long enough to see the sun begin and end its descent out of sight. Before you rush through the frost-covered sidewalks, spend the last final minutes of studying against this unfailingly reassuring song. Jose Gonzalez will help the deep, calming breaths do their job. Long live bouncy balls. Heartbeats

2) This one’s for the intermediary moments of studying. The flash-card making. The notebook organizing. The productive tasks that gracefully don’t require much deliberate effort or attention. Allow Solange’s repetitive and soothing vocals apply gentle massage-like pressure to your overworked synapses. If you’re at all a Solange skeptic, still wondering whether she’s talented or just Beyonce’s younger sister, I’m right with you. But this track should definitely help sway your allegiance onto team Solange. Groovetown: Stillness Is The Move

3) You’ve earned a break. Put the pen down. Close powerpoint or your coding software. Throw on some headphones, lean back and imagine the ultimate dance party in your kitchen. I want to sing dance eat exercise sleep work and drive to this song all at once. I want to take it everywhere and play it as I walk through empty hallways. If you need to stretch a little, upper-body chair dancing is perfectly allowed. You can even get a little weird with it. Who the heck are Wookie and Eliza Doolittle, you ask? No F’ing idea. Get hype: The Hype

4) Time to ease back into the grind. As you make minor seat adjustments to make sure your legs will last another hour in this same chair, let the relaxing vibes and perfect harmonizing of BenZel and Jessie Ware guide you back into focus. If this is the first time listening, throw this one on repeat. You won’t get bored for at least a half dozen plays, and the consistency will save you from other distracting tunes. If You Love Me

5) Finally, for the long haul. Sometimes you just have to buckle down, throw away the headphones and start memorizing. But we haven’t gotten there yet. Before you forego all ties to human contact and socializing, finish the playlist off with a lovely little acoustic jaunt that will make even Virgina Woolf’s writing more pleasurable. Xavier Rudd has it figured out. Messages

Best of luck y’all. Head down until the finish line.

Methods and Madness at the Monster Drawing Rally

Last night, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit brought more than 90 artists to the exhibitions space to make art in a ‘part performance, part laboratory, part art bazaar’ called the Monster Drawing Rally. The live event and fundraiser started at 8pm and was divided into three hour-long shifts, each featuring 30 artists drawing simultaneously. As the drawings were completed, staff and volunteers picked them up, packaged them at a drying station, and hung them on the wall for exhibition and purchase at a uniform price of $40 each.

While the audience talked, mingled, and drank, the artists sat together at long tables set up in the open exhibitions room, practically bumping elbows as they developed their pieces. The sizes of paper provided by MOCAD were standardized, but the materials the artists brought varied widely– I noticed artists using pastels, charcoal, sharpie, micron pens, markers, stamps, collage materials, rubber cement, and the occasional ipod or laptop for reference. It felt oddly intimate to see the artists’ materials set out on their tables – the weathered pencil case, the folder of cut outs, the personal tub of rubber cement, so well known to the artists’ hands, minds and frustrations. Over the hour-long shifts, the audience watched the development of particular pieces. One artist used grids of tape to paint a perfectly geometric toilet plunger, another blew on globules of ink to create organic patterns, and another studiously sketched while glued to the eyepiece of his own personal microscope, which he was using to examine pieces of tape imprinted with what looked like tiny blue fingerprints.

The crowd favorite during the first shift was a blind contour artist named Hamilton, who was making sketches of people in the crowd. Blind contour is a method usually used to practice coordination between the eyes and the hands, so it requires the artist to keep his eyes off of the paper, forcing trust in the translation of visual perception to development on the page. Hamilton kept his subjects engaged, talking and laughing with them as his marker moved on the paper. The results were distorted, deliberately grotesque, but seeing the method added to my understanding – the lines were accurate, the placement deliberately wrong. During the second shift, the crowds gathered around Jonathan, who was making a piece out of chewed gum. “This is the clean bag,” he said, gesturing towards a plastic bag full of gumballs and chiclets. Audience members were encouraged to take a couple pieces, chew, and then spit into Jonathan’s gloved hands. A couple of children were at the front of the crowd, chewing athletically and looking a little bewildered. Jonathan held out his hand to receive a glob of chewed gum from a small girl, who looked slightly mistrustful of this manipulation of material, and he reassured her, “This is good. Look, it’s almost white. We need that color.” The air smelled sickly sweet in Jonathan’s vicinity; Ty, the pen and ink artist sitting next to him, looked less than thrilled.

Although a few artists engaged actively with their audience, most kept their eyes on the paper. One woman’s pen moved wildly as she glanced up and down from the faces of her audience to her paper, but she appeared to be drawing a minute, angled system of scaffolding.

Pieces changed quickly, and sometimes drastically, before our eyes. The black and white sketch of a man’s face – slightly mournful, classically handsome– was suddenly subtitled, in all capitals, ‘SAUSAGE FACTORY;’ a black and white sketch of an aggressively monstrous-looking bird was transformed as it was colored in with pastel markers, and titled in sloppy pen, ‘Compassion + Love are the seeds of hope!’ Many artist seemed to have a calculated plan for their hour – Tavi Veraldi, an artist and friend of my sister’s, confided in me that she was planning to draw an old man. “I’m super good at drawing old men,” she said, adding that she was hoping to dupe the crowd into thinking she was that good at drawing everything. It was a self-deprecating joke – Tavi is that good at drawing everything – but most artists did seem to be using the techniques or concepts that they were most comfortable with to create something coherent within the time constraint.

Even so, I enjoyed watching them at work. Observing a man labor on his sharpie drawing of an owl, I appreciated how his bold lines began as tentative marks – permanent and dark, but easily erased by incorporation. The bold line is presumptive, scary, and enduring, much like the piece of artwork declared, after an hour, ‘finished.’

One Direction, Beauty, and Feminism

Confession: I like One Direction more than any adult is probably willing to admit. Even when I was a camp counselor the summer that they hit it big and crazed tweenagers were screaming the chansons into my ears, I held strong in my adoration of the British boy band.

There is one song of theirs, however, which has always irked me whenever it comes on the radio (or out of the mouth of a love-struck adolescent). It is, the ever-popular: “What Makes You Beautiful.”

In my opinion, the especially problematic lyrics are as follows:

1. “Don’t need make-up to cover up, being the way that you are is enough.”

2. “You don’t know you’re beautiful. That’s what makes you beautiful.”

With regards to this first line I’ve listed, it reminds me of a very passive aggressive roommate I had my freshman year of college. Almost every morning, I would wake up early to apply make-up and one time, she told me: “I don’t wear make-up, because I’m not trying to impress anyone.” My response: “Neither am I. I’m just trying to blend in.” No pun intended, but it’s true. In order to look the way I am expected to as a woman, I need to “cover up” the cystic acne that I have struggled with since I was eleven.

I do not have the appearance of what society deems as “natural beauty” in the morning. My hair looks like I was struck by lightning during the night and my skin’s “imperfections” do not consist of a few freckles. In fact, the year I was on hard-core medication that shut down all oil production in my skin (clearing my complexion, yet also giving me massive headaches and perpetually dry lips), the friends and family members I reconnected with after having not seen them since before swallowing that first intense pill would almost always say something along the lines of: “Oh my God! Your face looks so nice!” And I know they were trying to be kind, but I couldn’t help thinking — It’s great to know that you believe I looked hideous before. Now that the drugs didn’t completely work, I wear make-up, but not because I am vain or want to get laid. I wear it because I want to look “normal”. I wear it because I don’t want people averting their eyes when speaking with me or worse — staring pitifully into mine.

The issue that I find with the second lyric I’ve posted is similar, more general, and a well-discussed concern birthed from the feminist movement — why is a woman measured by her beauty in the first place? And why, in this instance, do a woman’s insecurities make her beautiful? It’s almost like my favorite five-member British boy band is trying to keep my confidence level fairly low if it’s saying that the type of beauty I should be striving for is derived from that special something with which femininity has always been associated: hyper-humility. Why am I not allowed to apply my foundation and lipstick, then look in the mirror and say: “damn, I look good today,” without being pegged as a fake, vain, bitch?

Why is it unacceptable for women to “know [they’re] beautiful” without being told so?

America’s Next Top Artists

While even at a young age the feminist in me spurned America’s Next Top Model for its blatant perpetuation of social beauty standards and stereotypes of female behavior, the prevailing artsy side of me left me planted in front of the TV for hours on end as the Fashion Network replayed entire cycles back to back. Sure, the fights were entertaining and the judging scenes were always oozing with dramatic tension, but my favorite part was always the photo shoots. With at least a dozen episodes in every season and now 20 total seasons, how could they possibly come up with so many drastically different brilliant ideas for these shoots? For some reason the models get all the credit for “working it” (or not) when really the part that I’m stunned by is the product of an incredible makeup team, photographer, and the person who comes up with all of the themes. The art of storytelling is such a crucial part to each photograph that I could never change the channel, knowing I had to find out what they would do next. Some of my favorite shoots include ones where the models were entirely submerged under water, had paint splattered across their faces, and of course the crazy range of modeling with animals from crocodiles to elephants. Despite my initial hesitation toward the values the show  promotes, within a few seasons they began accepting one to two “plus size” models. It truly was so kind of them to let one or two girls into the competition that, like the majority of the female population, are bigger than a size 2. However, this doesn’t stop the judges from their ruthless comments about women looking “too old” “too commercial” “too sexy” or just too flawed to win the competition. All in all, I say it’s the behind the scenes crew that should win every season. So, without further ado (or ranting), I present some of my top favorite photo shoots from America’s Next Top Model:

Exotic Birds Photo Shoot
Crocodile Photo Shoot
Under Water Photo Shoot
Bull Photo Shoot
In this photo shoot the models had to lay on a transparent water covered tarp as the photographer shot from beneath.
America’s Next Top Model’s first and only plus size winner

Okay, I had to throw that one in there. She doesn’t look very plus sized to me. But, I believe the other photos have illustrated my point on the artistic brilliance of very creative minds that create this beauty, and because of this, I’ll continue to bite my tongue and throw away hours on this show that is so artistically stimulating.

 

The Art of Getting Through

Art has a “so-what” element to it. Does it make me feel special? Does it make me feel alive? Do I learn something? Does it give me a different perspective? Does it make me question hidden assumptions about the world?

OR. Does it surprise me?

My life is currently dominated by a couple things: a horrendous cough, my thesis, and extreme amounts of existential dread.

Every life is art, though–the best ones are. Mine is like Guernica. Mine is like being in Fight Club and not having any idea what’s going on. Mine is like Azealia Banks chanting that she’s going to ruin me. Terrifying. Surprising. Wonderful?

What is the “so-what” element to things these days? My self-esteem was squashed about 3 months ago when my advisor asked me where my thesis’s argument is and 3 months later . . . my argument is like the groundhog hiding from its shadow. Now I am the groundhog and my thesis is the sun. I’m hiding.

Rather, not hiding but just avoiding–my cold let’s me do this. Napping, chewing raw ginger, swallowing a pharmacy of vitamins and medicine, sitting 5 inches away from my humidifier. My thesis is over there while I’m over here.

But I guess this is a new way of life? I know I will reach my DEADlines but getting there is the struggle? The goal?

My thesis has shown me how something, one thing that will hopefully get me into grad school, put a foot in some academic door somewhere somehow, can take over your life entirely. Giving yourself over to something you (used) to love, ha, still do, is beautiful? Surprising? Terrifying?

“Oh my gosh, Taylor, this week has been so awful, what am I supposed to do?”
“Well Toni Morrison has an answer. Its in the Consolata section of Paradise, let me flip to the page.”

“TAYLOR, I was staring at old photographs of my ex and they seemed to shift? change?”
“STAHP, that’s just like the ending of Beloved where I still have no idea what’s going on even though its in my thesis . . . wait. Is Morrison talking through you? Are you a Morrison oracle?”

There is an extreme irony about tracing Morrison’s theory of healing when I need to heal from the thesis process.

I walk down the road looking at the city of Ann Arbor imagining it is the City Morrison describes in Jazz. I look in the mirror and see Beloved’s face. I go to a friends house and imagine it to be Paradise’s convent pre-raid and pre-slaughter.

For now I have to give into the delusions/hallucinations/reality of certain books projecting so far into my life that I have become my own character. My agency is just the narrator of myself scripting myself and positioning myself in the world.

?

The art of getting through is perserverence. It’s taking naps when I’m tired. It’s eating throughout the entire day. It’s only listening to Le1f. It’s hanging out with friends for brief snippets everyday. It’s making angsty and somewhat frightening facebook statuses so you can tell the world that you are on the edge (of glory).

I hope when my thesis is turned in, when I get my degree, and when I’m months out from undergrad, I can say that things were surprising. Things made me question my hidden assumptions. Things made me reevaluate the world.

I am the art, for now. And give me a few months where I can become my own audience. I can’t see the “so-what” now, but I will. I will.

“Say make me, remake me.”