3-rd Paper- an observation

So, this is the 3rd installment in my little 1301 saga. This one I freely admit to being a fly-by attempt. The topic was really interesting to me, but I just had a really hard time focusing on the assignment. I ended up until 3:30 am (again!) the night before, finishing it and revising. I got up the next morning knowing that I would have to re-read it, as I was so tired the night before, and found that all of my revisions were deleted when the computer decided to gobble my paper. Oh well, I suppose you’re not really a college student until you’ve had an all nighter, as well as have your computer crash, with the result of a panic attack and frantic revisions. So, without further ado, I present my OBSERVATION PAPER!!! I would love to hear your thoughts and discussion on the topic. Yes, I want all three of my readers to respond. All three of you.

One of my favorite things to do is to wander through museums. I usually like to go on rainy, cold days. I let my thoughts mimic the same erratic path I take through the halls, knowing that I’m safe and warm in the museum as I move from piece to piece, from culture to culture and genre to genre. There is something in the hugeness of the place that gives me a certain satisfying anonymity. I allow myself to meld with the people and am reminded of our commonalities. And not just my common nature with the visitors. I like to think about each artist, each carver, potter and weaver. I like to imagine what their lives were like, what role they played in their communities, what inspired them to create whatever object I’m viewing and how it came to be where it is.

I have been coming to the Dallas Museum of Art for many years, using it as a retreat. At first, driving in from Fort Worth as a teenager, then proudly showing it to friends while visiting from Austin and now, enjoying the occasional visit when I am able to duck out from the new responsibilities of adulthood. These early visits to museums helped to shape my perception of the world and understand my place in it, piquing my interest in culture and people.

It was in anticipation of one of these visits that I headed towards the DMA late in the evening after work. It was a Thursday night during the fall, and just cold enough to make me hurry in from the street where I had parked my car. I noticed as I crossed to the museum, an older, middle-aged couple, giggling conspiratorially to each other, obviously on a date. As we crossed the street together, heading towards the entrance, he courteously slowed his pace to keep in step with his date and her shoes. I moved past them, thinking over where I would start my walk in the museum. As I walked through the door I was suddenly reminded of how noisy it can be at the DMA on Thursday nights. The museum is always crowded with people, but with a more relaxed atmosphere, enhanced by the band, that can be heard from almost every gallery, accompanying the chatter of the people around the refreshment tables. This was a night to promote the arts and allow people accessibility to something they might not otherwise get to experience, perhaps because of the restrictive hours the museum is open or the cost. But tonight, late hours, free! And a band!

This night was particularly energetic, with tours making their noisy but necessary rounds. Couples on first dates using the museum as a middle ground to get past their mutual shyness and groups of teenagers clustered together with an attitude of desperation, betraying their fear of being separated from the others. Classes sitting quietly together, sketch a modern sculpture, all bronze and smooth curvy lines. Young couples that quietly but determinedly peruse the paintings, grasping at each other and silently agreeing to agree, afraid to experience something on their own.

Quietly taking all this in I start off towards the European Painting and Sculpture gallery to visit a favorite painting, “Mountain Landscape with Approaching Storm” by French artist Claude-Joseph Vernet from the 18^th century. It is as its title suggests a landscape, but so unlike the typically peaceful landscapes popularized by Edwardian gentlemen and ladies with too much time on their hands. This is a violent and emotive painting. Small groups of people scurry in the fore ground, preparing for a storm. A woman with a child haphazardly slung over her shoulder oversees a group of men stuffing work into baskets. Fishermen gather nets for safety from the roiling water, and a woman strains against a frightened donkey with a man on it’s back, urging it to go. To the right is a castle set in a craggy nest of cliffs beside an immense waterfall. And to the left, are the storm clouds, dark and massive with the dying sun struggling behind to overpower them- and failing. But somehow it finds the strength to illuminate a city in the centered back round, serving as a beacon for the harassed people in their struggle for shelter from the imminent storm. This is perhaps a fictional account, and more than likely is in fact, and somehow that seems to heighten my perception of the people around me, jolting me from my fantasy of being there in the painting, hurrying the men or coaxing the donkey back to the safety of the stable.

As I moved through the crowds noticing the differences in the people I begin to wonder why they all had come. What were they getting out of being in the museum, and why do they feel that it’s important to come here at all? Is it a desire to feel “cultured”, to be a part of something big and therefore deemed necessary? Or are they merely here to socialize? What is it about art that demands our attention? Whether we love it or hate it, understand it or think its trash, if it’s in a museum we at least respect it.

When I first began going to museums, I was drawn to what we think of as “traditional” art: Renaissance portraiture, religious allegory, landscape painting and figurative sculpture. I seldom ventured into the modern or contemporary galleries, except perhaps to wonder why they were there at all. I certainly understood them to be considered art by some, but that was where my understanding ended. How could these strange, unrecognizable shapes and oddly colored things be considered art, worthy of sharing space with paintings that rendered so carefully the details of a man’s hand or the glorious colors of a sunset? Sculpture taken from a bygone city or a necklace that shares the artistic skill of an early and civilized people, these clearly seemed to have great merit and a place in the museum. After all, this is what museums are for, to collect beautiful things.

Or are they? Are museums storehouses of the dead and dying or living histories of a vast and complex race? They are not merely specialized collections of paintings and sculpture; they are cross sections of what we are capable of as humans. They are the remainders of the people that create them. Every marble sculpture on display was touched by an actual human, one living a life he responded to in the only way he knew how, just as every twisted metal sculpture was a response by some contemporary artist to his world. Perhaps in each piece we view, we are reminded of our own inherent capabilities of expression, our own desire to communicate, our own response to life.

This is key in understanding why I saw such a diverse crowd at the museum that night. The various couples, the young man taking his aging mother through the galleries, the groups of tittering teenagers, the elderly couple making small talk with their tour guide and then the loners, like me. We had come to explore our humanity, search for something more than everyday life. By beginning to understand the contributions of others we are better able to understand our own and to add value to our lives. This is the significance I’ve discovered in my meandering walks through museums, that art is not just a form of beauty, its power is that it is, first and foremost, communication. A way for us to find relevance in our lives.

So, here is Episode 2. I don’t have any titles for these, but I suppose that I don’t need them. This one was a struggle for me as I am a Master Procrastinator- I’m actually supposed to be working on a math assignment as I write this… Like every good college student I saw the clock numbers turn from big to little as I labored away on my paper. Ryan was a huge help to me in clearing the fog from my brain and forcing some sort of semblance of sentence stucture into my paper. So, here it is. The assignment was analysis of an image, and I don’t think that it would be fair for me to rip the ad from the New York Times Magazine that I got it from, but, here’s the paper at least.

In this advertisement we are seduced by an image of a woman in a silk and embroidered, cream colored evening dress, gently pulling her head from the wall. It brings up an odd mixture of shock and revulsion coupled with a sense of intrigue. This clearly is not your average ad for hot dogs or detergent; but an ad targeted to a very specific audience- a ‘couture’ audience. An audience that is perhaps created by an industry that facilitates an attitude of indulgence through opulent ads featuring fabricated and fantastic situations, such as this one. Advertisements appealing to an audience with very different priorities than those of the harried mom with dinner looming and clothes to throw in the washer. It is more to an audience of those who might not think twice about paying an exorbitant amount of money on shoes, an amount that perhaps an average person might pay for rent. The message here is not so much an actual product; but an idea, a sensibility, a world of glamour and sophistication. The creators of these clothes would love for you to buy their $12,000 dollar dress with matching shoes, but their goal is to implant a brand name picture in you and have you believe that you are in some way incomplete without SOMETHING from their humble line. Therefore, the text or the initial visual, is not as brazen as, “Gets whites whiter,” but somehow just as insistent.

The woman blithely blends into the room around her, seductively inviting you to rest yourself there, in the image, if only for a moment. The soft, subtle hues of the walls and carpet evoke feelings of well-appointed relaxation in the 70’s, enhanced by what seems to be someone’s designer vintage furniture collection and tempered with an edge of contemporary snobbery, just a tinge though. Enough for the targeted audience to identify with and think, “I belong …there.” But, just as you’re easing yourself into that vintage Eames chair and accepting an hour d’oeuvre, you remember that something was not quite right about this image. Even prominently placed as she is, it’s easy to lose yourself in the room and the deceptive harmony of the image and forget that she is inexplicably stuck, seemingly teasing the last bit of herself free. Stretching what should be her head, away from the wall, like gum from under a bench. Her body is relaxed with hands resting on the wall, almost in an attitude of resignation, as if she has accepted her full-grown and fully clothed birth from the beautiful and contemporary surroundings.

She is an elegant and grotesque armature; she is a display piece for a dress that the creators clearly think of as more valuable than the woman. The hold of the wall is expertly camouflaged by embroidery that echoes the detail of the dress, lulling you into to thinking about the beauty of the overall image instead of how bizarre it is. In a most casual way, this woman has become a part of the décor. This seemingly innocuous image for high fashion begins to reinforce ideas of women that are embroidered into our culture as seamlessly as she is attached to the wall. One in which we are told yet again, you are what you wear. In this instance, she is physically deprived of the only part of herself that might allow for her to be distinguishable from other women. Our most intimate self is manifested in the head. Thoughts and emotions, which are mirrored in facial expressions and speech, both serve to communicate our understanding of our world to others, and our unique-ness. Even the very placement of the features on our faces reminds us of our individuality. This woman is deprived of her humanity.

By setting her in the home, and one that reminds us of the 70’s at that – an era that exemplified this theme – we are reminded of yet another common myth of our culture: the woman’s place. A myth that includes delicacy, grace and an exhausting idea of womanly duties: a woman who is beautiful at all times, a gracious host, the smoothest of diplomats in all situations and somehow manages to find time to make those delicious canapés for her guests, polish the table they rest their drink on and raise beautiful, well-mannered children. In a dress that has elements of styles popularized by that icon of beauty and femininity, Jacquelyn Kennedy, we see a woman who is perhaps so comfortable in her home, she has become a part of it.

So why is it that when we first glance at this image and are caught off guard, we so quickly accept it, dismissing an immediate reaction of, “I don’t get it.” The audience is not expected to “get it”, but to believe that it is merely a beautiful image that may seem a little strange at first, and then perhaps justified as just a unique way of catching your attention. By believing this, we accept all of the social implications attached and submit ourselves to being the targets of companies and designers that further enable these fantastic and unrealistic ideals. These themes are so commonly reinforced in advertising that it’s easy to see why the woman sitting by the pool, flipping through a magazine, idly contemplating her next purchase, would not see them- and more to the point, not care to. Why worry about challenging an entire industry when you can accept your role and buy that fabulous pair of sandals.

I have been saddled with the oh-so-enjoyable task of writing for school. Writing for a dead-line, learning to expand your ideas for others, yada, yada, yada- these are the goals I suppose. Yes, yes, all very well and good. So, I thought that since I would be writing them anyway, I might include the 6 essays that I will be writing for this class on my blog, so that I might get a little more personal enjoyment from them, as well as share some of my thoughts with others. So, consider this Episode One. This one was just your basic remembering essay, and yes, it did really happen to me. Hope that you enjoy reading it. Oh, and if it seems that I’m a little cynnical about this whole writing for a grade thing and just writing in general, it’s probably because I’m belly-up to a dead line for class and not quite finished with a rough draft.

There have been many moments that I’ve thought, while traveling, “this is note-worthy, this is something that I would like to remember for a very long time.” Sometimes it was a very pleasant moment, sometimes it was meeting someone interesting, and once it was a time that made me think very hard about who I was, where I came from and most importantly, it made me think about the people all around me, what their lives were like and what kind of impact I had had on them.

When I was 23 a friend of mine asked me to come with her to Kenya to help her with her graduate thesis. She needed someone to take notes as she talked with the women that were the focus of her study, and perhaps someone to be there with her as she traveled through a foreign continent- a modern version of the Victorian travel companion. We made our way from Texas to London, down through Abu Dhabi and found ourselves in a little town called Oloitoktok at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro. It was easy to get lost in the stark beauty of the area and forget that we were there to work. But every morning we got up with the dawn and boarded a commuter bus, that each day made the 8 hour trip from the Tanzanian border to Nairobi- back and forth. Our stop was two hours down the dusty, bumpy dirt road at a group ranch called Imbirkani, pressed between more than the bus’s intended capacity. Men and women in the traditional Maasai shukas, going to the local open market up the road, the occasional businessmen traveling to or from Nairobi. We were usually the only whites on the bus, gamely trying to be friendly with our neighbors, and listening politely to the preacher that had chosen the people on this route as his flock. Pushing his way up and down the aisle, yelling for his sermon to be heard above the rumble of the bus, closing with a hymn and passing around a little ragged collection bag.

Every morning and every afternoon, we made this trip- to go and talk with the women of this community. We were there to find out their role in the community-based natural resource programs, and pick up details of their lives along the way. How many of them had been to school, or were one of two to three, sometimes even five wives. What their hopes were for their children, how they cared for them and of course their fears for their families. Sitting in the middle of a crowd of smiling women, under the leaves of the rare tree, we often heard the same responses to our questions. Sipping tea with our hosts, we heard from them their worries that they would not be able to pay school fees, hopes that the rains would be good enough for them to be able to eat well the next year, or that they could afford the necessary repairs for their homes. Some were unable to buy medicine to control symptoms of malaria or even AIDS; or as was more often the case, the medicine was just not available. We met so many wonderful people, with quick smiles and easy, effusive hospitality. We held their babies and let them crawl all over us, as the women pulled on our jewelry and asked us questions about America and especially Texas. They loved to talk about Texas, even there in the middle of Kenya the romantic myth of Texas had preceded us. My friend and I came to see the differences and then the many similarities between ourselves and the people that we were meeting.

It was on that dusty and hot ride home one day that I really saw just how different we all really could be. The bus was always much more crowded coming back from Nairobi, as it had had more time to pick up passengers than on the morning trip. It was not unusual for us to spend an entire trip home clinging to the straps above or clutching the seat we were standing next to, so finding a seat was a treat. That day, after making our rounds of talking with the women, we climbed up on the bus and began our ride home. I found a seat somewhat early on and sat down, grateful that I could. There was a young Maasai woman in the aisle next to me, holding her small son. We nodded to each other and realized that there would be no easy way for us to trade places, so I offered to hold her son while she stood in the aisle. He was quiet, as I soon found to be typical of the babies there, staring at me with wide, brown eyes and a fist stuffed in his mouth. There is a huge soft spot for babies in me and I found myself trying to make him laugh, while hugging him and watching his bright eyes light up with intelligence, as he absorbed everything I did. I tried to ask the mother what his name was but couldn’t quite seem to make myself understood. The bus rumbled on, dropped off people, and occasionally added them. The mother soon found a seat on the row ahead of me, and sitting on the edge turned to watch me still holding her son. I offered him back to her, and she shook her head. I thought that maybe she was enjoying that rare respite from full-time mother-hood. Then she leaned in towards me and spoke. It was such a short sentence, in broken English, and spoken with a beautiful accent lent by her native Maasai language, but it was a sentence that will resonate with me for the rest of my life. She said, “you take him home?” This woman was not asking for me to take her child home for the evening, she was asking for me to take him HOME. To MY home- to America, and to adopt him. It was said with wistful hopefulness and in complete sincerity. This woman had somehow seen in me an opportunity for her son to have what she thought of as a better life. As what she was asking of me sunk in, I stared at her, still holding her son, my mind stubborn and slow. Fighting to control my emotions, and my strangely wet eyes, I shook my head and handed her son back to her. As we rode the last couple of miles to our homes, I thought about this woman, her son, and their lives, how they lived each day; and I thought about why what she had asked of me had affected me so deeply.

This woman had constructed an idea of how I lived, and what my life was like- real or not. Just as I had constructed one for her, one based on stories, magazine pictures and idealism; and then the more accurate one based on what I had actually experienced. The people I met in this remote part of Kenya had a higher risk of AIDS, a lot of them probably had not even finished high school, their lives revolved around the rain and it’s effect on the livestock, which had a direct effect on what they were able to buy; food, medicine, school materials and even roofs for their homes. Simple things that I took for granted, like clean drinking water, a guaranteed education through high school, the more sophisticated health care system that had protected me from disease as a child, better nutrition and more opportunity to change my life- simple things; that were just as simply, not available to this child.

All of these thoughts came to a thudding halt in my head and I looked at her and saw her for who she was: a woman who wanted to see the best for her child. She was willing to give up her son, and accept all of the anguish that would come with it, in exchange for the hope that her son’s life might be different than the one she could envision for him there.