Oh, to be an artist.

Disclaimer: I’m aware of how subjective art and beauty is and only claim the following as my opinions, not facts.           

It amazes me what some people are willing to call “art”. I admit that defining something as “art” is completely subjective but sometimes I think “artists” are really trying to see just how far people will take it.

According to dictionary.com, art can be defined in the following ways: 1. The production of something beautiful or extraordinary 2. Paintings, drawings, sculptures, etc. 3. Skill; ability

As I was looking around the Modern Art Museum, I saw things that fit the first, second, and third definitions of art and also some things that only fit the second definition. If it were not for that second definition of it being any painting, drawing, or sculpture, there are some pieces I would argue were not at all art. I really would like to look up the definition of those as well but I will refrain for now.

There were two pieces in particular that made me want to throw my hands in the air and say “REALLY?!” I regret that I didn’t write down the artist’s names and names of the pieces but if you have been to the museum recently, you’ll probably remember them.

One was a large square canvas and it was split down the middle forming two rectangles. My memory is fuzzy, but I think the top rectangle was orange and the bottom one was gray. I was completely and utterly puzzled as to why that would be art. It was not beautiful. It was not skillful. I saw no depth. I mean there are some paintings I could easily replicate but at least those have the credit of being too original for me to have thought of them in the first place. This painting consisted of two rectangles of color. Nothing more, nothing less.

The second was a canvas that had a more unique shape to it with curves and such but it was all painted the same blue/gray color. That literally made me consider going out, making a diamond shaped canvas, painting it some purple/plum color, and selling it to the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art. I mean, maybe I have life all wrong, forget being a lawyer or a doctor or teacher, I should just be an artist!

Paintings such as these do make me wish I could go inside the mind of an artist. I would love to know what the artists were thinking when they created their works because maybe then I could understand them. Now that I have had my fun mocking some of the “art” I saw, I will spend some time praising the beautiful and creative work. I am glad that there was infinitely more inspiring art than boring, bland art.

My hands-down favorite part of the museum was the Robert Lazzarini exhibit. The illusionistic distortion of the guns and the metal safe caused me to spend the largest portion of my time. I loved that you could stare at them from almost any angle and they seemed two-dimensional. It was only once you got about a foot away that you realized they were three-dimensional objects. This to me is the epitome of art. It is mysterious and thought provoking, not to mention unbelievably creative. I didn’t even need to know the depth of his thinking to be intrigued because what it says on the surface speaks to me.

There are other pieces of art that confuse me greatly but I enjoy them simply because they are aesthetically pleasing, such as Jackson Pollock’s Masqued Image. I don’t understand it but the colors and shapes draw me in. I also very much enjoyed Richard Hamilton’s Swingeing London, mainly because I could not for the life of me figure out what technique he used to get the black shadowing the way he did. I was completely in love with the painting in the great room (the room with the book with wings). It was the painting that had a giant sunflower going down the middle of it; a real sunflower that had been dried out. Something about it was totally awe-inspiring. I was glad it was one of the few rooms with a bench because all I wanted to do was sit there and contemplate that painting. It also really meant something to me that it was made with earth. It said under the description that it was made with earth. I felt something very symbolic in that though I can’t quite pinpoint what.

Overall, going to the Museum of Modern Art was great fun. It is a unique experience for every person because the feelings art evokes are individual, not collective and that is special to me.

Food, Money, and Fashion

            Shinhye and Yosep brought me a surprise today, and I love surprises. They brought me a box of the popular South Korean snack “homerun balls.” This was both exciting and frightening. I mean, of course it was really thoughtful of them to bring me some Korean food. I am very happy that they want to share their culture with me. But at the same time, they were asking me to try foreign nastiness. These “homerun balls” were basically like tiny Twinkies balls. I don’t typically eat such over-processed foods and it was extremely daunting. Another problem: they were banana flavored. I hate bananas. I’m aware of how weird that it, but its true, I do not like bananas or banana flavored foods. Of course, in order to be polite, I ate a few. They were strange. And banana. Shinhye would not be satisfied until I ate almost half of them and I couldn’t say no. I spent the rest of the day burping banana. Gross.

            Once I got passed the force-feeding, things got strangely interesting. I suppose I didn’t teach them well enough about manners last week because Yosep came to me with a list of questions about money. “What is the most expensive thing you own?” “What is the last thing you bought?” “How much money do you spend every month?” “How much money do you want to make at work?” The questions were very personal and I couldn’t help but hesitate and blush a little. My parents taught me to avoid discussing money and especially talking about how much money I spend! I was totally caught off guard and I didn’t even know how to react. I knew they didn’t have bad intentions but I was uncomfortable answering the questions nonetheless. It didn’t help when I answered that the most expensive thing I owned was my car and they proceeded to ask me how much THAT cost too. The worst of it all is that I think it legitimately changed their opinion of me. For the first time, I saw Yosep and Shinhye both get slightly snobby and say “Oh, you are rich.” WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT?!?! “Oh yeah, I’m loaded” (I’m not actually and that is totally subjective anyways). I just said that my parents are the only reason I have anything. I was afraid they would change from “Oh, you are rich” to “Oh, you are spoiled.” Money is such a touchy subject, so I escorted us to a new one: fashion.

            Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Givenchy, Chanel, Gucci, Alexander McQueen, and more. We googled pictures of dresses, shoes, and handbags and drooled over them. This was much more up my alley than being audited. Yosep and Shinhye have switched tradition male/female roles when it comes to fashion. Yosep is a fashion design major and wants to build a fashion empire so he really knew what he was talking about. Shinhye on the other hand, was quite clueless. She didn’t know the names of any major designers and didn’t seem to care. Yosep completely called out TCU students from all dressing alike. Nike shorts, t-shirts, Sperry’s, “Easter shorts,” and polos are what the majority of TCU students wear. Yosep and Shinhye find it shocking. In Korea, people “dress nice” for classes. I tried to not take offense to that. I told them that we are all about comfortability. I mean, have you ever tried on Sperry’s? They are like wearing clouds on your feet! I was pleased that the took this as a legitimate reason for wearing these clothes.

            Hopefully next week won’t be filled with as much potential for offense as this week was and no more Korean Twinkies balls. 

The Art of "American Polite"

Talking to Shinhye and her brother Yosep (just learned how to spell it finally) is becoming more of a joy. We met on Wednesday and the conversation flowed naturally for the first time.

Yosep had prepared a presentation for me on South Korea since I know absolutely nothing about it besides the fact that is it under North Korea. He was very disappointed when his computer wouldn’t work so he ended up having to save it for another day. But it was still interesting to see a Korean computer. The keyboard was both qwerty and Korean. All the files were named with Korean letters. I feel like sometimes American’s think that everything is in English and I’m guilty of getting caught up in that so it was nice reminder that people who speak other languages don’t have to learn English just to have a computer.

Shinhye asked me to explain “American polite” to her. I have never truly thought about the customs that we have in America, or even Texas to be more specific, and how they are radically different from those in other countries. Yosep made a comment that everyone here is so kind to him. I told him that we like to call that “Southern Charm.” In South Korea, if you bump in to someone you continue walking so Yosep said that he was extremely caught off guard when he bumped into someone on campus and they stopped and said they were sorry. I tried to give him some lessons on how to be a gentleman. We practiced saying that word, “gentleman,” together. In South Korea, every person opens the door for his or her self. I told him that in some areas of America, that is also the custom, but in the South especially, boys should hold the door open for girls. This he had already learned though. He was surprised when I told him that the same concept works for the elevator. You press the buttons and offer to press buttons for everyone else. It was heartwarming how thankful he was that I was letting him in on these “secrets.” He wants so badly to fit in to American culture and needs to be taught to do the things that we don’t even recognize we do.

Some principles are more universal than others. For instance, Shinhye already knew that when you eat, you chew with your mouth closed but she didn’t realize that eating with your hands was considered somewhat primitive. I tried not to get overly formal with her but she was eager to know everything I had to offer. I told her that when she eats with a friend or friends, she should not begin eating until everyone has their food, and never rush a meal along by eating quickly. Dining with people is about being social, no satisfying hunger. Yosep pointed out that in South Korea, when you are walking down the street and you see someone you know, you keep walking. I find that so odd. I told him that in America, if you do not say hello to someone you know, even if it is just in passing, you will be considered very rude. I personally would be offended or think someone was mad at me if they did not say hello. It feels awkward to me to just walk right by someone I know without smiling or saying a word. That was the advice they found most helpful.

Yosep and Shinhye are growing on me. They text me everyday and tell me to have a good day and that they pray for me. I see a level of eagerness and sincerity that I don’t see in a lot of other people. 

Conversation Numero Dos

Shinhye loves to text me. At least once a day I have a conversation with her via text. She’s really quite thoughtful. All week she asked if I was getting rest and taking care of myself.

We met again this Monday. I was perkier this time but also still extremely sick. She must think I am a sickly, fragile person. She is really convinced that I don’t get enough rest even though I told her I had slept 10-12 hours every night the previous week thanks to the snow days.

This time, she came prepared. She brought me a paragraph she had written on the importance of learning about a culture as you learn the corresponding language. She wanted to spend some of our time reading through it so that I could correct her grammar mistakes. I’ve noticed from my limited study of other languages that lots of other languages don’t have articles. That was her biggest problem. She left out a number of a’s, an’s, and the’s. I did my best to really correct her and show her what a native speaker would’ve written. But at the same time I didn’t want to discourage her by marking up her paper so I really hyped up her flawless sentences.

Shortly after we finished looking over her paper, her brother, Joseph, came to meet us. I had told her he was welcome to come “hang out” with us because he did not have a language partner. I hoped that more people would mean less awkward silences. I was right to an extent. I talked with her brother about how he wants to study fashion and design. His goal is to finish learning English at TCU, then move to New York City and attend Parsons. That’s a lofty goal. I told him I had been to New York City and promptly pulled my computer out to show him all the pictures. I tried to ask them if they had ever been to a big city like Tokoyo but I’m still not completely clear on their answer to that one. They constantly smile and say yes so it can be very misleading and confusing.

The conversation still felt contrived. We all shared our birthdays and interestingly enough, Shinhye and I share a birthday. The exact same day and year: August 29, 1991. Now that was quite the coincidence.

Finally things began to flow more naturally. We talked about marriage. My sister is 21 and married with two kids so Shinhye asked if I too wanted to marry young. I replied that it depended on her definition of young. I can’t really see myself getting married before I’m out of college and she agreed with my stance. Apparently in South Korea most people don’t get married until they are 29 or 30. I’m not sure about her brother’s answer. He said something about only having five years in the USA and immigration. Maybe he wants to marry so he can stay here? I have no clue.

Once again, as we said goodbye, Shinhye hugged me awkwardly with one arm and told me to get rest and take vitamins. As always, I assured her I would and went home to nap.

Conversation Numero Uno

This one didn’t seem to post last week so here it is a week later:

Today (Monday Jan. 31), I met my conversation partner, Shinhye. We had been communicating via text trying to decide what day and time to meet up. I had been swamped all day and I felt a cold coming on, so I was a little less than enthusiastic about giving an hour of my time to a complete stranger. All I wanted to do was go home and nap but I couldn’t bring myself to reschedule when we were only an hour away from meeting. When I saw her she jumped up and hugged me. Shinhye appeared extremely perky and told me over and over how excited she was to meet with me. I wish so badly that I would have been capable of having that same attitude, but it just wasn’t happening that day. I told her I was under the weather and tried to put a genuine smile on my face. I really wanted to be engaging and lively but after four hours of class and a three-hour lecture movie thing, my brain was mush.

Shinhye is from South Korea and has come to TCU to study English and advertisement. I assumed she would know more languages because people always say that America is the only country where people know just one language. Contrary to my assumption, she knows about as much Japan as I know Spanish (about 6 words). I consider her blessed because her stepbrother, also 19, is also studying at TCU. I told her I thought she was very brave to come to America but also very smart for bringing her brother with her. I told her of my family and she told me of hers. I couldn’t imagine being so far from home with no one. I’m having a hard time deciding to study abroad for five weeks and she wont see her family for at least six months!

There were terribly awkward silences but I was too dead to really care to fix them. I must’ve seemed like a horrible language partner. The communication was difficult, especially since she would never stop me if she didn’t understand. It took me a while to pick up on that. I thought if she didn’t know what I was saying she would at least get a confused look on her face but she would just sit there nodding and smiling. There were several times when we were forced to give up on a topic because one of us couldn’t make the other understand what we were saying. Eventually we both just sat there staring at one another. She laughed because she felt uncomfortable. I smiled but I wasn’t uncomfortable. I was brain-dead so it was time to say goodbye. She told me to see a doctor and get medicine because she worries for my health. I thought that was really sweet considering she just met me. She told me to get plenty of rest and I assured her I would. We said our goodbyes and I went home to nap.