Artist Intention

When viewing artwork, I tend to search for the artists’ message within the piece. In doing this, I neglect the thought of the process behind creating the piece. Garth Freeman helped me realize the importance of the creation process with the print activity done in class. Our class separated into groups and created prints, which is the first time I have done this. At first, I was not too excited for this activity because I do not think of myself as an artist. By the end of the class, I started to think more about how an artist gets to their final piece of artwork. Continue reading “Artist Intention”

For the white person who wants to know how to be my friend- Pat Parker

Within the packet of poems that Dr. McCoy presented to us, a few of them stuck out to me immediately. Similar to what Analiese stated in her blog posts, I would not usually go for poems if I were. There are certain poems, however, such as Pat Parker’s that draw me in almost instantaneously. Parker’s poem gave me a conversational feeling which sparked more of an interest than poems usually do. I found myself making commentary while reading along because I could relate all too well and there were certain aspects of it I found to be humorous.

Continue reading “For the white person who wants to know how to be my friend- Pat Parker”

Culture and Property

Over break, I re-read a prompt that Dr. McCoy provided for us that talks about culture and how it relates to property. I’ve talked before about Bernice Johnson Reagon and her ideas about how church is the black community’s property. Recently in class, we have been talking about how the concept of culture can be a kind of property. In Pat Parker’s poem, “For the white person who wants to be my friend”, she expresses how blackness can be seen as a property, but not just property as an object, rather property as an idea.

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DuBois and Sociology

I don’t like to admit when I’m struggling, but I have to say, I have been having a difficult time with The Souls of Black Folk recently. I didn’t realize that I was until we read “Of the Passing of the First Born;” part of the problem with reading the book both not in order and in a manner that breaks up the work into smaller chunks makes it difficult to grasp the work as a definitive whole, which is something I have been trying to do recently. While it is a collection of essays and thus some discrepancy in tone is expected it is still worth considering the work in its entirety; after all, DuBois chose to publish these essays together, not separately.

This past week, I sat down and actually thought about the work as a whole  and the crux of my struggle with the tone of the work is this: certain chapters, such as “Of the Passing of the First Born,” are incredibly personal and the ways that the way that the Veil and Double Consciousness affect DuBois personally are so clear. However, some chapters are so deeply impersonal that they read more like an anthropological or sociological survey than a work that deals with fundamental societal issues that the author himself experiences. This divide makes it difficult to grasp the work in its totality, especially as the more anthropological sections come across as almost judgemental (more on this later). Continue reading “DuBois and Sociology”