Week 4: House on Mango Street

For this weeks in class assignment I chose to do a quick sketch based off the story "Bums in the Attic" from House on Mango Street.

I chose this story because it felt the most genuine. The narrator knows how pitiful it must be to look up to the people living in these big fancy houses and doesn't wish this was how it was looked upon. She wants to be treated with kindness so when she fulfills their dream of being in that house she hopes to share it with people whose position she was once in.

Week Three: Poems of Diversity

I mistakingly thought the project was a poem of our choice since the pdf that was linked on Canvas didn't load. I am redoing the assignment and chosen Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
 (America never was America to me.)
 Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
 (It never was America to me.)
 O, let my land be a land where
Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
 (There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
 Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
 And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
 I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
 I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold!
Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
 I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
 Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
 For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
 The free? Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me?
 The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
 O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
 Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again, America!
 O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath— America will be!
 Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

In Class Questions:

1. Can you paraphrase the poem?
.

 2. Who is the speaker (persona) in the poem? How would you describe this persona? 
The speaker of this poem is someone of lower working class America, someone who feels like their rights have been violated by those in the upper class that have abused the American system.

 3. What is the speaker’s tone? Which words reveal this tone? Is the poem ironic? 
The speakers tone feels like a public speech, someone trying to band together a group of people who see the same views as him and wish to change America. Words like "Leech" and "Greed" shows that the author is at a challenging standpoint against the American system at the time.

 4. What images does the poet use? How do the images relate to one another? Do these images form a unified pattern (a motif) throughout the poem?
Hardworking members of lower/middles class American society.  The author describes several minorities of American society who suffer from being excluded from the white mans "America"

 5. Are there any symbols? What do they mean? Are they universal symbols or do they arise from the context of this poem?
Pioneers, slaves, Native Americans, people singing.

 6. What is the theme (the central idea) of this poem? Can you state it in a single sentence?
America will never be America to anyone who isn't a white man.
















OLD:
For this weeks assignment I chose to base mine off the poem,

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year. 

He gives his harness bells a shake 

To ask if there is some mistake. 

The only other sound's the sweep 

Of easy wind and downy flake. 

 The woods are lovely, dark and deep, 

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 

And miles to go before I sleep. 

Week 2: Narrative Design

1.  Discuss some of the more compelling ways that Asterios Polyp demonstrates storytelling through illustration.
• In Asterios Polyp the artist pushes the use and portraying forms with different lines, shapes, and colors. For example, whenever Asterios is acting on instinct like a repetitive sequence he's drawn as empty structured lines that have a mechanical like quality to them. This style was also used for panels where Asterios is disconnected or dissociating from the rest of the world around him. Another style used it very wavy, curving, almost melting shapes to show his emotion of self doubt or reluctance like on page 39. 
• On page 61 when Asterios meets and speaks to Hana they are each drawn in their own separate style and color. Once they speak to each other and hit it off, the illustrator starts merging the two styles together, the reader can see this as the characters influencing each other through bonding.
2. Discuss how storytelling may play a part in your own work, whether you're a filmmaker, illustrator, graphic designer, computer animator, or creative writer, etc.
• The vast majority of artist always try to relay some sort of message through their work. Whether it be a feeling, story, lesson, or emotion depends on how well the artist expresses it and how the audience will react in turn. All artist follow basic rules of fundamentals which are the foundation of art, society, and humans. 
• Society has changed and developed over centuries and because of this, created a standard that people follow without even realizing it. The psychology of colors is a great example of this. At some point in time certain colors didn't have concrete meanings, its because of us as a society that we began to define what we think of certain colors. For example the color red is closely tied to certain adjectives such as aggressive, dangerous, passion, and power. Deciding what object we apply the color to changes the outcome reaction, a red spike says "danger don't touch" while a red flower is inviting for someone to pick. By applying the right combination to our work we influence the story being told to the audience.
• As a Game Art major here at Ringling, storytelling plays a fairly large role in the work I will continue to make. By creating environments I am giving the player a setting, set dressing or decoration give them a sense of space and time, lighting gives them a mood, color influences their choices, and so on. In our line of work our main priority is to provide the player with an experience, to live the sotry itself and immerse themselves in it. 

Week 1: Your Position in the Mediascape

Woman Waiting to Take a Photograph by David Eggers

1. What is the time frame of this vignette?
• I would say that this vignette takes place sometime in the present or within the past decade based off his choice of vehicle the woman owns.

2. What does the text imply about photography and about photographers?
• Photographers are highly aware of the smaller interactions occurring in the world around them. The woman is self aware that she is exploiting the people that she features in her work and is benefiting from this. 

3. What is the writer’s attitude toward the woman? What words and phrases suggest that attitude?
• The writers attitude seems to be judgemental towards the woman. He talks about how this woman takes photos as a hobby but sees her work as having enough potential to be in a gallery or bought by a collector. When Eggers says,"This, for the viewer of her photograph when it is displayed...will prove that she, the photographer, has a good eye for the inequities and injustices of life, for hypocrisy and the exploitation of the underclass." he knows that the woman is exploiting her subjects through photography but is understanding in her ambition to do so.

4. How does the writer’s repetition of the term “Go-Getters” function in the text?
• The author wants to emphasize the label used for that specific group of people and how its definition doesn't accurately represent the people in that area.

5. How does the final sentence build on observed details?
• How much this woman and the author believes in the potential of her photography skills in composition of subject matter. The woman knows that through the photo she's about to take she is proving her knowledge of subject matter at the cost of exploiting the people in her photograph.

6. What new idea or surprise emerges in the final sentence?
•  It also brings the idea of how the underclass are exposed to labels in order to hide the truth of the matter. How "Go-Getters" has a positive connotation but the group in this area are Go-Getters in a more negative light of society.