Sourcing Inspiration: Introduction- response

This assignment was fairly hard for me because I'm interested in many of the options... it was hard to choose one over the other.

The first choice I would like to respond on is the fact that I am more inspired by interactions with humans than non humans. I find the human mind boggling and am very interested in the ideas of others. I love to people watch and see how everyone reacts to different situations. I like animals, but am not into them enough to really be inspired by them.

Pressure inspires me more than relaxation. I have found that people typically can do more than they think possible when forced by a little pressure, but many also crack. I am interested in the responses of people when pressure is laid upon them. I think some pressure is both necessary and beneficial to us. Relaxation is definitely necessary but does not produce as big a response in people.

Culture has always been of great interest and inspiration to me. I contribute this interest to my passion for travel and experiences in seeing other cultures and the way they live. Nature is fascinating, yes, but the culture of different parts of the world is so engaging. Seeing how different societies dress, eat, relate to each other and strangers. I guess you could just say that I am interested and derive inspiration from people.

I am not a big history person and therefore derive more inspiration from the present, but the past and present are related and I am interested in how the past affects the present. I am constantly drawn to the question of why we are who we are and why at each given point in time we are where we are and make the choices we make. How did we get here and where will we go from here? I believe it is important to live in the present and for the future and try not to let the failures of our past haunt us today (or live in the pride of past accomplishments- do something now!)

The unknown, or my unknown is of great inspiration to me. I love discovering new things in life and have a hard time staying in one place for too long. Part of the reason I love to travel so much is because I want to experience something new and unfamiliar to me and these new experiences are what guide me work. But at the same time, who is to say what is familiar and what is not. Staying in one place to me is not familiar, but that place is familiar so how do you distinguish between the 2?

Memory 3- 9/28/09

One of my favorite memories with my granddaddy (grandpa Fleming) is the time when he taught me how to parallel park. Grandmother was in the house fixing dinner while Bud, Granddaddy and I were outside playing. Bud was riding around in the little blue go-cart while I rode around on the lawn mower. Grandpa was laughing watching us race around and around the house since the lawn mower was so much slower than the go-cart. We were having fun, but I was getting kind of frustrated with the speed of the lawn mower. That's when I realized Granddaddy in the back stacking up two piles of bricks. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "teaching you how to parallel park." I got really excited then and continued to practice getting the lawn mower perfectly centered in between the piles of bricks with Granddaddy's instructions. Granddaddy was always the best at finding something fun for all of us grandkids to do that would teach us something valuable for our future. To this day I still do not have trouble parallel parking. I miss him.

Memory 2 9/28/09

We had just anchored our boat in the middle of Key Waden and were eating Salami, cheese, and crackers with spicy mustard and drinking gatorade. It was the perfect typical outing for us on a summery weekend. My best friend, Jenny, my two brothers, and my father and his girlfriend at the time were all on the boat (I can't remember if anyone else was there or not). We had been skurfing (surfing behind the boat) all morning and had come into Key Waden for a break- snacks, drinks, and a swim. We were all sitting on the front of the boat and Jenny was slicing up cheese for us when a bee started flying around her. She jumped up, the knife still in her hand, and was swatting at the bee while Luke, my older brother, and I were cracking up as my Dad was yelling to stop swinging the knife. Finally, the bee landed on Jenny and she flicked it off at the same time she threw the knife overboard. My dad was pissed, but only because he was afraid someone was going to get hurt. Jenny was bright red from embarrassment trying to apologize while telling us to stop laughing. Eventually we all calmed down and finished eating but we didn't stop talking about the incident for days.

Memory 1- 9/28/09

I remember we were in our first house in Naples, the one by the Registry Hotel, the pink one. I had recently got a royal blue cast put on my left leg- a full cast- to try and straighten out my leg. Bud, mom, and I were lying in mom and dad's bed reading a book that George O'neil had sent me for my birthday along with one of the mystical creatures in a small statue form. The book had a brown cover with a picture of a mystical world- I believe with a dragon protecting an egg. Mom was in the middle, I was on the left and Bud was on the right. There was a down comforter, with Mom's white lace duvet cover on it, on top of us and we were eating banana popsicles (Publix brand). These were always my favorite treat to have when I wasn't feeling well and so of course mom had stocked up after I got my cast. I remember being extremely uncomfortable, not being able to bend my leg, and I was crying, but mom, like always, knew just how to comfort me with my favorite popsicles and cuddling up in bed with a story.

Keep in mind when reading these that I am writing these memories in a journal, by hand because I feel that writing them by hand provides me with extended time to think through the memories and not have a chance to go back and add or erase since I am writing in pen. I want to see how I remember these experiences without going back to add details that I "forgot". So when I copy them here, I am not making changes from my journal so I apologize if the grammar or sentence structure is not correct, but you know get a sense of how my mind works when I remember the past- Lucky you! ;)

Memory?

"Forgetting, not remembering is the inevitable outcome of all experience."

This is a quote that I got from www. mjt.org/exhibits/delson/oblisci.html describing the theory of Geoffrey Sonnabend.

During my studio time today, I watched the movie "Inhaling the Spore: A Journey through The Museum of Jurassic Technology" and was intrigued by the theories of Geoffrey Sonnabend. He believes that memory is an illusion that we create to overcome the knowledge that time is irreversible stating, " We, amnesiacs all, condemned to live in eternally fleeting present, have created the most elaborate of human constructions, memory, to buffer ourselves against the intolerable knowledge of the irreversible passage of time and the irretrievability of its moments and events." I agree with him. I believe that memory is a compulsory act that we do in order to try to relive our past, but they can never be exactly accurate or as real as the actually moment in time, yet can we stop having memories? I don't think so.

Sonnabend claims that "there is only experience and its decay" which makes complete sense to me and got me started thinking about how much our memories decay through time. I have decided to start recording my memories... writing down the memories that I want to focus on for my project and rewrite them every so often, without reading my previous recollections. After I do this for a few weeks, I plan to go back and compare every recollection and see what stayed the same, what changed, and what got left out of each memory. From there I will continue with the first written recollection of each one, making these the written memories that I will slightly destruct and place in the lockets. As of right now, I think that I want to record these memories through an auditory means and play them during the display of the lockets for the final show. I think it could be interesting for viewers, and invite people to be part of the experience, to play the memories audibly through headphones or some other means while they look at each piece. So for all you readers, I will begin posting my memories this week and then repost the same memories continually there after... feel free to compare and see how they change.

This week has been kind of a whirlwind. After coming out of the "false identity" work atmosphere that we had to do (for those that don't know, we were assigned to go to a thrift store, get something that did not represent ourselves and then make artwork as the person that object represented) I have been trying to focus on what I want to for my final thesis by researching the topics that I am interested in. Specifically education and the mind. I began by researching the various types of learning styles and ways in which teachers accommodate every students way of learning. I started thinking about memory and why we have trouble remembering some things where as others come so easily to us. At this point I started narrowing down my research to memory and how short-term and long-term memory work. I was reading all about these various techniques about how learning groups of numbers in sets of 3 makes it easier to remember when my mind started drifting to my most memorable experiences in life and how through time, the small details get erased until I am left with just a vague picture. I started to get really excited about this concept and how we try so hard to keep our memories safe in permanent containers such as lockets or picture frames but no matter what we do, the memories continue to fade ever so slightly throughout the years. So I came up with this idea to write down my top 20 most memorable times and make a series of lockets that correspond (since small metals is my chosen medium that I feel most comfortable working with at this point in time). I want to try and exaggerate this idea of a fading memory inside a vessel that is so solid. My idea at this time is to create lockets out of metal (each with hints about what my memory is about) and then inside have the written memory on a fading piece of paper that may be stained, torn, smeared.... destruction to the written memory that relates to how our memories become changed throughout the years. And now I am late for class so I will continue writing more soon.

It's freezing in here, but at least this apple is good.

It's been such a long time since I have had an apple this delicious. I can't even write a full sentence without taking a bite.... ok I finished. Now I can write.

So this is the first blog I have ever done. I've never really been that interested in them. I begin reading other peoples, but always forget about them and never go back. (whoops).

The hard part is deciding what to put in a blog (what do other people want to read about me?) but I guess that doesn't really matter much because the point of a blog is to put out into the public what you think is important right? Just write whatever you are feeling and if someone wants to read it, great if not who cares.

And so I begin.... Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking about who I am and why. Why do I like the things I do, listen to the music on my playlists, create the artwork that comes out of my hands? The mind is such and interesting place to me. How does each individual process the knowledge that everyday life provides them and what will they do with that knowledge. I believe that so much of who we are is dependent on who our family is and the personalities of the people that are around you constantly. We all notice how easily children are influenced by what they hear, see, and encounter in everyday lives... we hear all these sayings about being careful about what you say or do around children, "they are very easily influenced." Yet so are adults. I don't think we ever stop being influenced by our environments. One month I may be interested in doing work based on food, the next month it may be work based on education. I tend to direct my art work and derive inspiration from those I am constantly around but at the same time I feel like I always have this initial basis of who I am that doesn't change so drastically. I am pulled to certain interests because of who I am, but why am I who I am?

This brings me to my intrigue with memories. We all have them and they can be so powerful... like directional stepping stones that provoke us to stay away from certain things or be drawn to others. Yet memories change. I wrote this paper last year about how childhood memories are derived. So many of us have these vivid memories from our childhood that have influenced us in some way or another, but what are these memories. Are they truly what happened from our point of view, or are they composed stories based off the recollections of others, pictures, videos, etc. Do we even have memories that are truly our own? And the best, most vivid memories are usually accompanied by a specific smell, sound, color, or whatever. We have these mnemonic devices that transport us back to the past, allow us to relive past experiences, but just as it is improbable to recollect a story to someone exactly the same way twice, we really never go back to the exact same experience. Our memories are constantly altered by such things as time and memories of others. I would like to do a project about this... the altering of memories as we live our present/future. My project now is deciding how to represent this idea through art, and possibly relating it to my interest in education and teaching (how we tend to remember certain aspects of the school curriculum and forget others.

Well that's all i got for now... more to come soon.