Visual Art Appropriation

Visual Art Appropriation

The Original Piece is named Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer who was one of the greatest painters of the Dutch, but his life was miserable that he didn't sell one painting when he was alive, and he had been forgotten by people for more than one century after he died. Until the middle of the 19th century, his talents and achievements were finally recognized.

This oil painting is one of his famous works which drew a girl who wears a pearl earring is watching towards the painter of the audiences. Her lips open slightly, as if she is telling something. And her eyes are beautiful and pure, which just like the pearl that symbolizes the pure soul.

This is the new image I appropriated. The icon I use is Marge Simpson, who is a cartoon figure in the famous animated sitcom The Simpsons. This animation by showing family lives of the Simpsons to humorously satirize the lifestyles, social and cultural phenomena in America. For the appropriation, the new image looks funny because of Marge Simpson is identified as a comedy character. But also, she is a mother and wife that full of tolerance. So when looking at her eyes, in some moment I can also feel the tender emotion just like I feel to the original one.

Poster Design for the Journal

Poster Design for the Journal

For this Wednesday, my small group (Martin, Sherry, and me) designed a poster for the propaganda of our Journal Lying Cotton Review. We will send this poster within the e-mail for this journal, and also post it in school buildings.

1.  

2.      We decided to use this one as our propaganda poster. In this poster, there is the Oscar statuette which is a trophy for the winner. It suggests the meaning of competition as the title written in the below, and also to attract more people join this competition and win an award. 

(The final poster will make a little change than this one.)

Website Design for the Journal

Website Design for the Journal

I am one member of the design team for our journal Lying Cotton Review. For the designing of website, we try to decide the main style of our webpage at first. For this purpose, we divided ourselves into small groups, and every group designed the webpage with different styles from each other.

Our group designed two webpages by using “MIX" website design software.

1.      Website style: traditional, artistic

2.      Website style: entertainment, colorful and youthful

Here are the links of all five different styles our team designed for journal website:

http://lyingcotton.wix.com/lyingcotton

http://lyingcotton.wix.com/lyingcottonsimple
http://zhujing.wix.com/art-style
http://zhujing.wix.com/entertainment
http://lyingcottonreview.wordpress.com/

Reflection of the Story about Vietnamese Priest

Reflection of the Story about Vietnamese Priest— “What does the story want to be?”

We watched the two film clips tell the different stories of the Vietnamese priest. In Marty’s story, the characters are not complex and the plots are too simple. The Vietnamese priest is an entirely anger and vengeful person who does not show any other emotions in the film. There is a scene he kills people in a very violent way that shows the intensity of his anger, but this violence and anger have no real meaning actually, which are gratuitous. And the hooker in the film is just sexualized and objectified. She is careless and ignorant, and lacks depth and emotion. Ultimately, the story tries to be interesting and complex, and it uses the intense historical violence of the Vietnam War to give it certain meaning. In Han’s story, the characters are much more complex. The Vietnamese has violence directed but is also extreme selflessness that he self-immolated to protest the war. This story reflects his destruction in a much more complex and meaningful way than Marty's story. And the hooker in second clip is more humanized and emotional. She has a high level of education, and she has pity for the priest who burns himself in the end. Generally Han’s story corrects the problems or flaws in Marty’s story, and he makes it much more complex and meaningful.

Response to Billy's Story

Problems:

1.      Jack shows up in a graveyard alone and unarmed to return the dog and get peace, while he knows that the mafia boss is a psychopath.

2.      The gunfight just begins without any reason or forebode.

3.      One of Jack’s friends is carrying a white rabbit when he is shooting.

4.      Marty is taking notes during the gunfight and did not get injured.

5.      Kaya just wanders in during the gunfight to say sorry and she loves Marty, and she’s got killed. Billy says her head does come off.

6.      The Mafia boss’s head exploded after being shot with an arrow.

7.      The story ends with all the people are died except Marty and Hans, but the animals are both survived.

8.      Every character in Billy’s story is simple and not thoughtful.

To fix the problems, I want the characters in this story become more complex and have more contact with each other, to make the story plots more reasonable. In new story, Jack gets the Mafia boss’s dog and asks him to release Marty’s girlfriend Kaya who is kidnapped by Mafia boss. They make a deal and Jack agrees to meet Mafia boss in a graveyard tonight. He also asks some of his friends include Marty and Hans to come together with him in case of emergency. However, something unexpected does happen. The Mafia boss is inconsistent, and he just shows unsatisfied to the deal they already made, and disagree to give Kaya back even if they will return his favorite puppy Bonny. He is overbearing and impatient, and since Jack and Marty not allow him to break his promise, he gets really angry and orders his men to kill then all. So the gunfight begins. Jack and his friends are not afraid. They are very brave and they fight back. Marty is the smartest one of them that he observed the overall structure of this graveyard and brings his notes here. With the help of notes, he presumes the most possible place the Mafia hide his girlfriend Kaya, and he finds her successfully. Kaya is also a clever and calm girl. She distracted the people who monitoring her by persuading them to help their associates who are fighting with Jack and his friends. And she gets out eventually when Marty came to find her. They escape, but right before they reach a safe place, the Mafia boss noticed them. “Don’t try to escape from me!” He lifts the gun and aims at them. A gunshot rings out. But the Mafia boss falls down slowly. And they see Jack in behind, who still looks tense with a gun in the hand. This is a successful rescue, Jack finally gets to save his best friend Marty’s girlfriend. He sets Bonny free before they leave the graveyard, which he believes is a right way to get peace. 

Oct. 27 Class Discussion

In Monday’s class we have a discussion of Martel’s “Manners of Dying” and talked about how we understand the story, and how to understand these different versions of the same event.

There are several possibilities to this question. Firstly, the author just wants to compare how one person but with different characters would behave when facing the same event happen to him. It is an interesting but also challenging practice because sometime it is difficult that we creates many characters in one story, and they both have distinctive image features so we need to describe them differently since they must not behave the same even in the same plots. I think the author did very well that he writes a same story with the same protagonists Kevin who shows different characters in nine versions. Another possibility is that these nine letters are separate templates that the warden Harry Parlington keeps in his office and just filling out the name of the individual when necessary. It is a reasonable way to understand if we related it with story plots. The third understanding to this question is that we consider these 9 situations that are all equally real or possible, the just happen in parallel universes. Therefore, Kevin is a person really exists and is going to face up his execution. In one universe he is timid, and shows extreme fear before his death. But in other parallel worlds, Kevin can be clam, humorous, spiritual, or thoughtful which reflect in different letters. 

Response to “Manners of Dying” by Yan Martel

“Manners of Dying” is a epistolary fiction composed with 9 letters written from Harry Parlington, who is a warden of Cantos Correctional Institution to Mrs. Barlow, whose son Kevin Barlow faced up to his execution by hanging for the crimes which he was convicted. The letters record and tell about all the things happened to Kevin during the last twelve hours before his death. And the letters are written with objective and official tones without much personal emotions.

However, what makes this fiction particular is the way that the author writes 9 different letters just with the same protagonist whose name is Kevin and the same events happened to him. I think it is a very interesting fiction to read, although the generally same plots just like to make fun. In these nine letters, the protagonists and story plots are not changed, but in every version, Kevin has different characters and he has very different behaviors when facing execution every time. It is interesting to see one thing repeated happen to the same person but different characters, and how he would behaves with every different character. I think it is a good fiction, because the general fiction creates a protagonist with specific character, and describes and enriches it with the story plots goes on. But it is more difficult when we create a character but changes his characters and describes what would he behave differently when facing the same event happen to him. It is also a good way to practice for describing various different persons created in fictions.