3rd Writing Post

Intensification. The most basic definition for the word intensification outlines exactly what it means, it make something more intense. When you think of a sculpture, it is kind of hard to think of it as intense. We would normally relate sculptures to the type of class period we had on Tuesday. I was out of town, therefore not in class on Thursday, but from what I understand the class was polar opposite from Tuesday. Therefore, we need to take time to think of our sculptures in a more intense way rather than subdued.

The first step is to think through our sculpture as an intensification of the object it represents. My sculpture is a waterfall, therefore, it intensifies a waterfall because you are viewing it as a stand still. There is no motion which is what a waterfall does, so it is a whole different kind of viewing when it is still. This sculpture also intensifies the movement and "fall" of a waterfall. It does the same for the "arch" of a waterfall. The imprints in the stone of the sculpture through the lines formed represent the rippling of the water. You wouldn't necessarily be able to see those lines when watching a live waterfall. The sculpture is almost a snapshot of a waterfall because it catches it just in one single second or movement.

The second step is to think through our sculpture as an intensification of an art object. This sculpture really allows you to view a waterfall as an art object because of a few things. One thing being, the substance used, bronze. That makes us focus even harder because it is not like we are looking at a blue painting- we don't automatically think of water when we see the bronze color. If it indeed were blue, or whatever color you consider water to be, we would be more prone to assuming it is a waterfall right away than we are when we look at a bronze stone. Also the fact that we can see the finger imprint that make it a water design ties in with the fact that it is an art object. You know that it took skill and technique to form the material so that it turns out representing a waterfall.

The third and final step is to think through our sculpture as an intensification of the natural environment in which it is found. Just the bare fact that this sculpture is outside intensifies that it is a waterfall because it is in a natural environment. Although not the precise environment it typically would be found in. I think it would still be able to be a waterfall sculpture if located inside of Sheldon or any art gallery for that matter, but it just makes it a little more realistic being placed outside.

It is interesting to be able to look and reflect on our sculptures in two complete opposite approaches, but I think that is all the better for making sure we are looking at every possible aspect of our sculptures and really digging deep with them.

John Cage Response

I can’t say I’ve ever thought of a class as a performance, but after Thursday’s class, I now see how that is so. Whenever anyone is speaking, the rest of the classroom becomes an audience. The teacher must prepare what they are going to do for the day and the students must be willing to obtain the information and focus. When someone wants the floor, the star of the show changes. When you take away the voices in a class, there is no real leader or person in control. Everyone is left to figure out for themselves what is going on. There is still a message being portrayed, but its up to you to find out what it is. When we had our silent class I was clueless as to what was going on, so I had to make the class what I wanted to make it. This can all be related to analyzing sculptures.

Sculptures are like a silent classroom or performance. They are giving off a message that the audience members usually have to figure out on their own. Without knowing anything about the sculpture, we have to make up a story about it for ourselves. As in the classroom situation, there can’t really be a right and wrong when this is the case. We take a chance to examine the sculpture, consider its surroundings, look at it from different aspects and ultimately come up with an argument or purpose for the sculpture. It might be what the sculptor intended the audience on getting from it or it might be some different variation.

With my particular sculpture, it is crucial that it is located outside being that it is a waterfall. If it were to be located inside of Sheldon Art Gallery I would still give off the vibe of a waterfall, but it seems more realistic when it is outside in a natural environment. I would assume as a sculptor, they would want their piece of art to be as realistic as possible having that it is a sculpture.

When we think of “what something is not” in terms of a sculpture, we think about how they are not alive or real. They do not literally consist of streaming water but when we try to look at the sculpture with a realistic sense, it becomes more real.

We are given a lot of freedom with letting our minds form opinions and formatting reasons for things. When we are sitting in a silent classroom we make the class what we want to. When we are looking at silent, non moving sculptures we get to make a story up for them, but the context they are placed in and the ideas of “what they are not” are helpful to us when forming these opinions or stories.

WP3: Pre Write 2

For our third and final writing project this semester, we are now analyzing a sculpture rather than a picture or a comic. We are using sculptures located around Sheldon Art Gallery on the UNL campus. All of the sculptures are located outside the building in various areas. My particular sculpture is titled Arch Falls and it was sculpted by Bryan Hunt in 1980. Bryan Hunt is known for sculpting "waterfalls that convey effects of rippling, fluid surfaces in solid bronze." (Sheldon website)

Sculptures are a bit different to analyze then the other art objects we had previously studied. Most aren't in color so that takes away the discrepancy of the hue and brightness and saturation we could talk about when analyzing a photo. But similarly to our other projects, I first took time to just write down my first thoughts when looking at this particular sculpture. After this post, I will do some historical research on the piece and hopefully be able to figure out more of an argument for this sculpture.

After only hearing the title at first, I assumed it was some sort of waterfall, which I found out it was. When I got to Sheldon, I knew which sculpture was mine because I had looked it up online. I don't think I would have been able to look at it without knowing the title and be sure right away that it was representing a water fall. I was able to tell it was some sort of stone substance. To me it appeared to be a section of a water fall from the front view and an even skinnier section from the side view. I felt that it looked like water because of how the creator used their fingers possibly to work through the substance to form it. I don't quite understand why there's a slit of openness in the bigger chunk, it could just be a movement of the water. Also I'm not sure on why there is the separation between the big chunk and little chunk.

I don't feel like this sculpture really gives off an emotion, but maybe after knowing more of the meaning of it, it will make more sense. I think the sculpture is in the right sort of context that it is outside. That helps portray the fact that it is a waterfall. The visual hierarchy is the bigger piece of the waterfall because of its size. It stands out more. The color is the dark "sculpture" color. I feel like a lot of sculptures are this color. It is like a mix of black, brown, and gray. The bottom part of the sculpture gets clumpy, which I see it as the bottom of a water fall, like the rocks. When thinking back to the title, I'm not so sure on what the arch is referring to. The only thing I can think of is the formation of the start of a waterfall how it is kind of in an arch. The arrangement is made by the hole and the separation. The only sort of argument I've thought of thus far is that it can kinda be like a freedom of falling? Or a free falling?

WP3: Pre Write 1

Art can come in many different forms. Whether it be a painting, a drawing, a sculpture, a dance, a song, a picture, or a play. Each one has its own design and format but they all are classified as art and express something. I have had years of experience with the art of dance and a little bit of experience with some of the others, but sculptures are not an art I am familiar working with. Recently, I feel like I have experienced sculptures the most from walking around campus. There are many different ones placed all over UNL and they each are different and hold a different story. Many times they are open for interpretation to each individual audience member, or passerby.

Besides the UNL sculptures, I just haven't really been exposed to any much before. I feel like besides seeing them in big cities, I just haven't been surrounded by them much before. I don't think this should be a huge issue with our next project, except that I might need to study up on the crucial points of a sculpture in terms of the differences between them and other pieces of art.

I never took an art class in high school, so my last experiences related to that were from elementary and middle school. I am anxious to work on this project as it again is something new. My roommate is an art major so I have witnessed her art projects but she is working with the more common art types of drawings and crafting. I think once I combine analyzing my sculpture, studying some historical background, and researching sculptures as an art in general, I will have a good grasp for this missing part of art in my life. It will be interesting to compare it to all the other forms once I am more knowledgeable and have done some work with sculptures.

I think we will all benefit from when we took the time in class earlier this year to analyze the Breech sculpture. Since we all experienced that, we are all at least at the same level if not higher with sculpture art. I am planning on applying that same experience to analyzing my given sculpture.

Writing Project #2

Author's Note
I really enjoyed working on writing project #2. I thought it was really fun to be able to analyze a comic and it was definitely something I had never done before. I think more times then none, we just read comics not thinking much of them, but after having the experience of analyzing them, I think I will take a much deeper look at them from now on. I thought I grasped onto a clear argument right away with no trouble. It was very evident to me. My struggle came with interpreting the argument and comic in CDA terms. I feel like we had a lot more vocabulary words to work with when we were analyzing pictures then we did with comics. I often had to remind myself that this was not an informative paper about the need to work out, but instead that I needed to be expressing how the comic proved its argument. After receiving peer reviews and advice I made some changes and additions to my project. When I first started the project, my introduction was directed more to the fact that comics don't have to be funny and that they give off a lesson with a funny manner. Although that is true, I decided to take that paragraph out and just dive into the fact that there are weight and exercise issues these days, which went hand in hand with my comic. I added some information on the importance of this comic being a single frame. I discussed how although we are unaware what went down before and after the comic, we can infer based on the single frame we are given. I included how I thought the single frame worked well with the to the point argument. I also messed around with the images to make sure they fit well within the paragraphs. I at first had all the images in the center and lots of space around them before the paragraph started again. I altered this and now have the images flowing into the paragraphs and I think that made the overall look of my writing project better. I also added some relevant links to make sure I was meeting the requirement. I included a graph showing the split between the number of people that work out and don't as I felt that having a visual of the break was useful. I used my conclusion to touch on the fact that comics can express touchier subjects in a different way than new or articles can. I left my conclusion as is after taking out the whole original introduction about this same subject. I feel that the pre writes, the statement of purpose, the peer reviews, and your comments all played an effective role in achieving my final draft. After my revisions and additions, I am very confident that I did my best work on completing Writing Project #2.

Writing Project #2- Rough Draft 2
Writing Project #2- Rough Draft 1
Writing Project #2- Statement of Purpose








Weight and exercise issues are definitely evident these days. People find themselves too busy to have time to work out when really, exercising just needs to be moved up higher on their to do lists. It has been found that more than 60% of adults don't get the recommended amount of regular physical activity and 25% of adults aren't active at all. (myfit.com) The comic is stressing that by having the doctor ask him "Which works better for your busy schedule." It makes the patient realize that they would much rather set aside an hour a day to work out than to die sooner than necessary. Every excuse in the book as been made as the comic below exemplifies.

For this particular comic, the argument is being made that exercise has gotten pushed to the bottom of people to do lists these days, and it is expressing the scare in doing so. The comic is arguing that if you don't work out daily, you will be heading down an unhealthy path. But how did we come to understand that as the argument? There are many things to lead the audience to understand what the comic is all about. For this comic, we of course are given words which directly explain the argument. The doctor is being the speaker which we can tell because his mouth is open and just from the context of the comic. He is telling the patient, who happens to look a little concerned and be a bit over weight, that he needs to start exercising an hour a day no matter how busy his schedule is in order to continue his life. The concepts and event topics of the levels of abstraction are evident. This comics is the same as many real experiences in this world, it is just up to the audience how they interpret it. The concept can be accepted or rejected, however and the same word may be interpreted differently by different people.



This comic is not about looking perfect or fitting the perfect body image, but more just about being healthy. We know this because they are not comparing the patient and his weight to any other person or the doctor isn't telling him a specific number he needs to weigh, or way he needs to look. I think that is a more effective way to get across to audiences. People don't want to be told how to look but everyone does know that they need to be healthy. By translating this message through a comic, I think more audiences might learn from this rather than reading a news article or watching a story on the news. We get those everyday, but a comic serves the message through humor which directly has an appeal to our emotions through pathos.

The fact that this comic is just a single frame works for the argument. It goes hand in hand by saying that it is a simple and to the point issue. There is no need to explain or go into detail about it all through multiple frames of explanation. Everyone understands it by one frame, or one person explaining it to them. Comics arguments sometimes get lost in a mess of frames. As you can see, single frame comics are much easier to understand. On that same note, with this comic only being a single frame, we are unaware of what has happened before this particular scene, and what will happen after it. It is in media res, or "in the midst of affairs." We can infer that before this scene, the patient had some concern about his weight. We also are pretty sure that he has not been finding time to work out to help his weight issue. After he has been to the doctor and heard what he heard, we then assume that he starts working out for at least an hour everyday, but because there are not more frames, it is left up to our imagination if he really does follow through or not.

Glasbergen, the author of this comic tends to have a lot of comics poking fun at weight or the lack of exercising. I think once he found one of his comics being effective to his audience, he must have decided to continue down that path. Also, it is an easy subject to poke fun at but yet everyone knows its serious. These subjects have kind of become his "thing" as he currently does a weekly diet and exercise cartoon for newspaper Health & Fitness pages.

We are all globally aware of the issue of not exercising, but it is much more effective to read about it or get advice on the topic from comics. This comic expresses the importance through a funny manner and makes everyone aware that they should be working out at least an hour a day in order to maintain a healthy life. So, why is it that exercise is becoming such an unpopular trend these days? There seems to be so many other things going on in everyones lives and working out just gets pushed aside. Take the computer and internet for instance. It has been found that teens spend 31 hours a week on the computer. I know for myself, it would be smarter to eliminate some time spent on Facebook and turn that into working out time and this comic has helped me realized that.

Citation:

"Definition of Comic." Babylon. Web. 12 Nov. 2009. http://dictionary.babylon.com/comic

Marshall Hons, Sarah. "Fitness Statistics." Fitness Statistics. Web. 12 Nov. 2009. .

Stack, Carol. "The Importance of Exercise in Your Life." The Importance of Exercise in Your Life. Ezine Articles. Web. 12 Nov. 2009. .

"Randy Glasbergen." Wikipedia. 10 June 2009. Web. 12 Nov. 2009. .

Deleon, Nicholos. "How do you Compare? Teens Spend 31 Hours a Week Online." How do you Compare? Teens Spend 31 Hours. Cruch Gear, 10 Feb. 2009. Web. 12 Nov. 2009. .