Monthly Archives: April 2019

When it come down to finding an essay to read and bring in, I honestly didn’t know what to search for. In turn, I looked to the internet for answers. George Orwell’s writing intrigued me because of his past with being a police officer amongst the imperial Burma. Rather than a few sentences, A passage from the essay stood out to me.

“But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd — seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives’, and so in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing — no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.”

This passage intrigued me the most because it is himself questioning his right as a police officer to shoot an elephant, and listening to his own morals of death. He’s pinned against the idea of domination over this large animal, but at the same time is taking into consideration how the elephant is at this moment in time (The elephant does something bad OBVIOUSLY because he gets shot, it’s why, when and how he gets shot.)

Orwell, an officer in the Burma community, is stationed in a small village in the deep hills of India. In the village, they have a problem with a “large enemy,” the male Indian elephant. The elephant comes through the village and ends up knocking over, holding down, and inevitably stepping down on a Coolie (working class) man. Almost instantaneously, the village begins to riot against the elephants presence and demand it be killed. Orwell, being the officer in charge in the village, grabs his rifle and ammunition to keep himself safe from the elephant. The villagers take that sign as a form of aggression towards the elephant rather than a form of defense. Multitudes of villagers begin to rally behind him, exclaiming that the “enemy would finally be taken.” However, when they meet the elephant in a field, Orwell has second thoughts. That the elephant looked like a cow grazing the grass, without a care. He didn’t want to shoot the elephant, however, but he felt like he was compelled too. A raging mob of angry, armless villagers behind him and a reputation to uphold he went against his own moral compass to satisfy these villagers and promote their safety. But he still didn’t want to. We finish the essay with Orwell sinking more than a dozen shots into the elephant. One after another, to the head, body, mouth, but the elephant just sat there, slowly, painfully breathing. At the end of the essay, Orwell brings to light that he heard from a villager that the elephant was still breathing after a half hour. One thing that sticks out vividly in this essay is Orwells decision-making. Fighting against his own thoughts to provide a better outcome. “One must fall so many may rise.”

Collage Project-tkyp7x

Design Reflection

In our creation of the collage, my partner and I decided to look at the word “collage” very literally: a piece of art made by sticking various mediums such as photographs and pieces of paper or fabric on to a backing. Not only did we do that, but we also gave ourselves a question that would help us define our purpose in this project. What is the most raw and humanistic form of a collage? A tattooed body of course. Taking inspiration from both my partner and I, we went into the project seeing an image of what we wanted before it was even presented in front of us.

We used Leonardo Di Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” as our template for our “inked body experiment” because of a connection that may not stand out to the untrained mind: both are forms of classic art. Yes, it is a bit of a stretch but Di Vinci was not only artist, but a sculptor, engineer, and an inspiration.

Tattooing is connected through this because tattooing is not only one of the most universally known forms of body art, being mentioned as far back as the early 1200’s from a Chinese general who documented seeing 3 of his finest soldiers covered in “permanent symbols” from head to toe. Cultures from around the world, including Thailand, India, Egypt, and Japan have their own eccentric form of tattooing whether it be the design, coloring or style. Di Vinci was the first of his kind as well. Being a major influencer of what we consider art today, the Vitruvian Man has also come in handy in blending art with mathematics. Observation of natural symmetry, human proportion, and general growth of a human was recorded and perfected. Mixture of these two is obscure, but is swifty put together with our personal rendition of The “Vitruvian Man” (American Tattoo edition).

In Kiss’ Album cover “Creatures of the Night,” the contrast of the colors of their eyes and the Blue and black hues makes them “pop” out of the photo.

In this photo, the proximity of the 2 are very close to one another, physically speaking.

This advertisement shows an example of alignment. The irony of this advert is that is it attempting to physically align itself but cannot due to it’s design.

This photo shows a form of repetitive flow, as all four Beatles are caught in the same walking position

Compadrazgo reintegrated native societies badly fragmented by the disease and other disruptions that followed foreign invasion (P. 169)

As I stand within a crowd of people flowing by me with river-like intensity, I’m left alone in the crowd all the same. I am lost in the market of Jalisco’s largest tianguis, with no cellphone, no mom, and no sense of direction. I begin to feel my face get hot, red hot. “You are not going to freak out” I said to myself, attempting to figure out the situation at hand. I am just lost, that is the truth of it, but things could be worse. At the same time, I most definitely did not feel safe without some form of authority figure leading me through this situation. Needless to say, I got extremely nervous.

While taking a deep breath, I was struck with an idea. Not only do I have an unfortunate situation on my hands, but I have the power to make it a better one and I took it very literally. I began, just in the same as everybody else moving past me, started moving forward. I blocked out the fear in my mind of being temporarily lost, and let in the idea of exploration. Seeing all the stands, filled with Mexican delicacies reminded me that I was still in my home country. Mangos with chamoy, the chunks of the ripe fruit filling the clear plastic cup to the very brim had my mouth watering. Bead art that could put a beautiful rainbow to shame, candy stands on wheels that were the size of cars, and were able to move with the grace of a cat. I didn’t realize what the market life had to offer me until I experienced for myself.

I kept a slow pace through the market. Looking at every single stand, taking in every single product available for me to look at: perfumes, clothes patches, shoes, boots, local art, an unimaginable amount of food, custom keys, jewelry, weapons, bootlegged DVDs, religious sacraments, . I figured if you need something, the tianguis has it. I stumbled upon a very old looking bookstore as I walked. I could tell it had been around many years before any of the other buildings were constructed. With its partially breaking wooden sign, and faded, chipping red doorway I was intrigued.

A large cloud of dust hits my face as I enter. The storekeeper blowing dust off of some books. I did a scan of the man, just as any other human analyzes another. He had a wrinkly face, I could tell that his life had been full in labor because his skin looked as if it had never seen a day without powerful sunshine. He was a hunched old man, glad to be able to do some form of honest work even though he wanted to do more. His eyes however stood apart. They were a deep rich light blue, like a dark turquoise which is very uncommon in Native Mexicans. Whatever the man had to offer, I wanted. I looked around the bookstore, scanning the different books, reading the titles out loud in Spanish. Paintings of famous Mexican influencers: Frida Khalo, Diego Rivera, Pancho Villa. All of them covered with a thin film of dust. Unfortunately, I didn’t know any of the books but I did end up finding a Dr. Seuss book in Spanish, at least I had something I knew about. I noticed something else about the bookstore. In one of the corners of the store, sat an old lady hunched over a book, intensely reading. I observed her from a distance, as to not break her concentration of the book, but I wanted to know what she was reading because it looked familiar. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I asked the old man a question in Spanish. “Excuse me sir, that nice old lady over there knows that she’s reading a book meant for 12 years old, right?” He slowly looked up at me, with those deep blue eyes. He nearly opened his mouth to say something but then abruptly closed it. He was thinking about what he was going to say, and I had no idea what was going to come next.  

“You seem like a nice kid that’s not from around here,” he said. “Am I wrong?” I answered back “no” and told him that I was visiting family in Mexico. The next few things he said to me I would not forget, and I may paraphrase because this happened when I was 9.“The first thing you must realize is where you are right now. I’m going to assume that you come from the U.S, correct?” I responded yes. He continued, “She and I however, come from a third world country, where we live with barely enough bread to give to our families, and just enough water to give the entire town. Nearly a fourth of the people in this town can barely write because of how poorly the economy and teaching system is here. Work is held above education, rather than having education stressed to provide better work. People here choose the easy route, which is working in a field, selling or growing crops, or they end up homeless.” He paused for a second, taking in a deep breath. I wanted to put in something into the conversation but my grandfather always told me that old people take time to explain situations. So I kept my mouth shut and kept listening to the man. “Here, If you’re able to read and write, it’s as if you have a superpower. She’s been coming to my shop nearly everyday for 6 years, attempting to get through books. She’s only gotten through 3. You, my friend, have that superpower.    It’s being carried around within you and you don’t even know it’s true worth. The power of words on a piece of paper is starting to lose its effect.” I stood in awe for a few seconds, absorbing every little piece of wisdom that this old man had to offer. I looked back at the old woman, still hunched over her book. I felt a small spark of joy light in my stomach. She was taking such progressive steps to better change the rest of her life. I looked back at the old man, and I could see that there was a look on his face that awaited a response. He wanted his knowledge and opinion to be taken seriously, and used as knowledge for the future. As he looked through his old, bushy eyebrows, I could see a smile begin to form on his face. I told him “I grew up knowing how to read and write, being able to read something and think nothing of it. To be able to write something and think nothing of it. But, I see what you are trying to show me. What you see, what you experience, I can now understand what you see.” He smiled even more. I could tell that he felt accomplished for opening the eyes of a young soul.

All through this, I had the Dr. Seuss book in hand. He looked at me, then looked at the book, then back at me. “Take the book,” he said. “Literature is a human right that should be attained by everyone on this earth, the uneducated included. Paper and pen over the sword Compadr-” and at that moment, my mother came bursting through the store entrance with a vengeance. That’s when I knew I may have fucked up on making the decision to roam the market rather than staying in a stationary position. “What were you thinking, wandering around and not being close to me. I could’ve lost you!” The bookstore keeper and I were both startled from her entrance, and before I could say “But you did kind of lose me,” I was yanked out of the bookstore like a chicken out of a coup. I waved the man goodbye, and gave him a smile as I was being yanked aimlessly.  I don’t think he realizes what that impact had on me.

I returned to the market with a new thought in my head, a new observation. I looked at the signs of the different posts and observed them. Almost all of the signs being as short and brief as possible as to what they had to offer, some of them even having grammar errors too. I unconsciously told myself to feel pity, but I knew better to not give that. Pity helps no one except for the people looking for it.

I left that market with a book, as well with a very valuable memory. A genuine experience that I could carry with me, because I want to give. Giving is what humans do. Giving is what will help us progress. Giving will in time help us all, let that be known.