The New Kid

Hello everyone. My name is Andrew Shears and I am new to this class. I grew up in Boulder, Colorado and am 21 years old. After high school I attended Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado where I stayed for only one semester. While I was in Durango, I studied journalism and worked for the campus newspaper as a creative.  Before I transferred to CU, I sat down with my Father and had a discussion about what I really wanted to study. My Father encouraged me to study what I was truly interested in so that I would be able to eventually have a job that I love. I then decided to major in Studio Art, as well as Media Studies. I am a very creative person and have always loved to draw, paint, and build things. After my undergrad, I plan on going to graduate school to study design. I would eventually like to work in advertising, as a creative, or do something that involves creative design. I could see myself doing anything, from designing furniture to designing spreads for a magazine. My sister works for Crispin Porter Bogusky, an advertising agency located in Gunbarrel, CO, where I hope to get an internship next year. I am currently working at the sandwich shop called Snarfs and have been for two years. I am looking forward to this summer as I am planning on going to Europe for the first time.

I am taking Writing in the Visual Arts because I need an upper-division writing course and it is recommended for art students. Visual Arts consist of anything that has been created to be looked at as an art form. I have experience in visual art because I have been creating art from a young age. Drawing with a pencil is my favorite medium, however I have worked with metal, wood, and clay. I also enjoy painting when I have the patience. In high school I was a yearbook editor and was in charge of making the spreads for each page, much like I did at Fort Lewis College.  Rhetoric is the art of communication or discourse. I do not consider myself a rhetorician because I often have trouble communicating exactly what I am trying to say. I find it easier to explain verbally rather than by writing. I hope to become a more confident writer during this course by learning how to communicate my thoughts more effectively. Also, it will be good for me to have others read and critique my writing. I am looking forward to the course.

A new view…(Blog entry 1)

Hello everyone! My name is Kaili, and I was born and raised in Boulder! I am majoring in Psychology and Studio Art, and aspire to be an art therapist of some kind. I would love to someday be able to encourage people to use art as a deeply expressive tool for growth and healing.

Growing up here, crazy artistic vibes always surrounded me and I was drawn to art at a very early age. I enjoy every type of medium and form of artistic expression, and I also like to mix mediums. I love collaging and painting but also have a very strong passion for photography. I really believe that almost anything can be considered visual art if you want it to be. The world is so full of information, talent , expression and materials and I love being open-minded to what people use to express themselves.

I feel like I should tell you, that I have not been in school for about a year.  This is the first class that I have picked up after my father passed away in 2010.  I decided to take last year off and live and work in the mountains to regain myself again. I since moved back and decided to ease my way into school again and I thought this class would be a perfect way for me to reconnect with my interests and my writing skills. I have always loved creative writing, but formal  is a different story. I was always so intimidated by it, even though I do really enjoy it, and I’m hoping that I will feel more confident after this class. I’m really excited to look at writing from a different angle and I’m also excited to learn from everyone! I think this will be a really great way for me to get back on my path.

 

 

Hayden Collins– Post #1

Hello everyone!  My name is Hayden Collins, I am currently a senior at CU Boulder and studying Sociology and Psychology.  I am from Albuquerque, New Mexico and moved her last January–as a transfer.  Prior to CU I attended University of New Mexico (UNM) and quickly realized I needed to leave and experience something new and meet some new, great people.  So, being a mountain and high country enthusiast, I naturally was drawn to Colorado, and specifically Boulder.  I love the could climate and the clean, fresh air that this area brings.  I also love snowboarding so Boulder was a great change of pace for me.

I would say that my writing skills are mediocre at best, but I realize that being able to be a good writer, and more importantly, being able to build a strong rapport with your reader is a skill that can quickly separate you from others when applying for jobs or simply help you when you are trying to gain someones interest or favor.  Along with needing credit hours, I chose this section because I think there is a very strong correlation between and artist expressing their ideals, and a writer expressing theirs.  So using the two together seemed very interesting to me and, hopefully, will show me the beauty of writing and open up many new perspectives that haven’t came to me thus far.  When I was young I had a very strong desire to write and for some reason it came very naturally to me, so at a young age I was writing all the time; whether it be a nonsense fairytale or a justification letter to my parents about how I shouldn’t be grounded or why I deserved a new toy.  When I got older though, I lost that passion for writing and started to view writing more as a chore rather than a tool to get away from all the stressors of the outside world.

I think that rhetoric is not only the effectiveness of persuading an audience, but it is using every tool in a writer’s arsenal; which obviously varies depending of the writer themselves and especially the audience that they are trying to appeal to.  Being able to use both modern and traditional exaggerations and symbols, along with understanding how to manipulate a specific reader’s emotions and views with your words in the most effective way possible is what–in my opinion– defines a great rhetorician.

A rhetorician I am not (Blog Entry 1)

Hey, it’s Loula here. I moved to Boulder from Austin, Texas about eight years ago to attend graduate school at Naropa.  After studying Buddhism for a few semesters, I felt it was something I didn’t need a degree in. I ended up leaving school and working where I had previously volunteered for one year. That’s how I ended up in the mental health field. I thought I’d eventually go back to school to get an MA in Psychology, instead, after about five years as a mental health worker, I chose to learn the art of Art! So, currently I’m working on a second BA at CU in possibly Studio Art, and I’m entertaining the idea of working towards an MA in Art History.  I’d like to use the BA in English I have, combined with my background in the mental health field and the new info I’m learning in Art History classes, to work as an editor in either one of those fields. I work part-time in Career Services at CU, administering the GRE, TOEFL, etc. exams, and on the weekends, I work birthday parties at WOW! Children’s Museum in Lafayette. Since I’d like to work as an editor, I thought this class might teach me a few things about writing, and this entry will most certainly reveal my lack of writing knowledge, as I’m sure I will commit tons of grammatical and writing faux pas in this entry, ha!

Visual Arts, I suppose, is what we can see, however, if blind, what we can feel. Everything is visual art to me, even us! The way we dress, tattoo ourselves, even the way we move is visual art. Sometimes, I like to think of my food as visual art, rearranging it until it looks artistically pleasing. After speaking with Alaina the other day about rhetoric, I now have some ideas about what it is.  Rhetoric, from my novice viewpoint,  is how we choose to write what we write. So, perhaps rhetoric is similar to how we decide to dress or if a songwriter, the style in which one composes music. It’s interesting to think about because we all have a unique voice. Rhetoric could be defined, I suppose, as the voice of the writer.  A rhetorician I am not. As a matter of fact, I’m considering joining Toast Masters to learn how to coherently convey my thoughts out loud. I would consider someone like Alan Watts a rhetorician. Would you agree Alaina? Here’s a link to an Alan Watts You Tube video if you’d like to hear him speak:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?R=1&feature=endscreen&v=vUYUF65VK5M

A little about me =)

Hello everyone!
My name is Meghan and I’m currently in my last semester at CU. I was born in Canada and spent a lot of my childhood in many different parts of the world, including several years in Hiroshima. When I was 9 years old, my family moved to Maui where I grew up. When I came to Colorado I felt so far away from home and it really makes me treasure the times I get to spend with my family. I’m studying English right now but I’m also really interested in Education. One day I would like to teach elementary school. Or write novels for a living 🙂 After graduation I am going to be moving back to Maui for a year. I’m starting a job in June working for a program called Maui Language Institute. I will be an instructor teaching English as a second language to college aged students from all over the world. I’m hoping I can learn as much from them as I really want to get some of my Japanese back. Other than that my plans for the summer are to get scuba certified, save money, and hopefully be able to afford a trip to Australia by the end of the summer. It’s somewhere I’ve dreamt about going my whole life.

I’m taking this class because I was to improve my writing and I love films and comic books. I like that the course is centered around this blog. I would define the visual arts as any form of artwork, film, graphic novel, and photography as a way of expression. I hope I learn a lot about what other people in this class find interesting/appealing. I’m curious to see what other people have to say about certain pieces of artwork or films we watch. I also hope to become a better writer throughout the course. I think being able to do peer reviews will become extremely beneficial. Anyway, I look forward to getting to know everybody!

 

Intro Post 1

Hi everyone!  My name is Julie Lee.  I was born in Denver, Colorado and lived here until I was 8. I spent the next 8 years in the Greater Los Angeles area in California (predominantly in San Gabriel Valley.) At the age of 16, we moved halfway across the country to Houston, Texas where I would spend my life until the summer of 2009.  In June of 2009, I moved back to Colorado to finally take the path to finish my long-awaited Bachelor’s degree at CU-Boulder.  I am a senior majoring in Chinese Language and Civilization.  My dream job is to be an interpreter and translator.  I currently work full-time at a hotel as a front desk agent because I am putting myself through college.  I walked in the December commencement and I am just a few credits shy of graduating.  I am now finishing up the few classes I have left in Continuing Education online classes.

I am taking this class to fulfill graduation requirements.  I chose this topic because it sounded interesting and engaging.  I think visual arts is using performance to convey/portray a message via the means of movies, theatre, dance, singing and various arts, such as paintings, drawings and sculptures.  Visual arts can be seen with the eyes, but also with the ears and hearts for those who unfortunately cannot see. When I see the word rhetoric, my first thought is confusion.  It has been a long time since I have taken lower division writing, so I need to look up the definition.  Upon looking it up, rhetoric is defined as using exaggerated words in writing.  I do not see myself as a rhetorician.  I like to be simple and straight to the point if possible.  However, when I tell stories through my writing, I do become more of a rhetorician.  I just want to find the perfect word to convey what I am trying to say.  What I really want to learn from this class is to be a better writer.  I want to be able to use a variety of words in my writing.  I always feel as if I use the same, simple words every time.  I am also hoping that this class will help me improve in my vocabulary as well.

Lacy Moore (Blog entry 1)

Hi my name is Lacy Moore, I am from Aspen, Colorado and I am studying Classics and Studio art. Ever since I was little I have been interested in drawing and throughout school I am always doodling in my notebooks (sometimes creating distractions from actual class). I really enjoy calmness and relaxation that comes from drawing so I try and keep up with projects as much as I can. After college I hope to continue on into some aspect of graphic arts. As for Classics, I have never been the history type, I always though it to be a bunch of memorization, but after taking some ancient history classes at CU, I was hooked. It also is a good compliment to Studio arts. This summer I am hoping to study abroad in Italy. I think that it would help my studies to be submerged into the culture.

 

I am taking this class because it seamed most appropriate for what I am studying. I think that it will help me improve my writing about art for now and for the future. I would define visual arts as anything to do with the production and history of art in a certain culture. I think that the visual arts are an important aspect in society.

 

I would define rhetoric as the art of speaking or writing to communicate some point to a certain audience. I believe everyone is a rhetorician in some way, whether that be through writing, drawing, or speaking. From this course, I hope to improve the flow in my writing and my ability to get my thoughts out onto paper.

Remy Pearlstone Blog Entry 1

My name is Remy and I am a senior from Aspen, Colorado. I am an art history major and I chose it because I am a very good visual learner. I also like it because I get history and art all in one. One day I would like to trade commodities. I had a summer internship in commodity trading and I really enjoyed it. I have also worked for a property management company for some summer jobs. It was a great job and I learned how to be more resourceful and fix my own things. I plan on taking advantage of my long weekends while I still have them and visit friends at other colleges.

 

I am taking this class because I needed an upper division-writing course and writing in the visual arts fills two requirements for my degree. Visual arts are basically anything one can see with their eyes. My experience with visual arts is that my major is Art History. Art History requires that I write a log of papers on paintings that I am studying.  I enjoy them, but sometimes struggle with my writing. I am hoping to improve these skills while taking this class. Often I know what I want to say, but struggle figuring out how to say it in the proper way. Hopefully this class will help me get these ideas on paper, and will make me sound more like an art expert. Rhetoric is the study of writing as means of communication. If texting and writing small emails is a form of rhetoric then yes I do consider my self a rhetorician. I believe that this class will help me not only in my writing in my art history, but also with my writing in every day life. I think that being able to comfortably put into words what I am looking at with my eyes is a skill that will be helpful in anything that I choose to do in my career. I also hope that this class will help me further my love of the arts. I hope that I will not only become a better as a writer, but I will learn new ways to observe and think about art.

“The art of growing up (Blog Entry 1).”

If you ever feel the urge to torture young children just keep asking them what they want to be when they grow up.  I don’t know how many times I have been asked this question in my life, but at some point years ago I finally figured out the right answer, “I want to be me but older.”  This eliminates any sort of future disappoint because I know I will be able to accomplish this.  Now that I am older I am still pursuing that perfect career that will define me as a person.  So I suppose I should tell you about myself then…  My name is William White, but I have always gone by my middle name, Spencer.  I am originally from Maryland, but after taking a few years off college and working the restaurant business I was determined to go live in the mountains.  I now live in Eldorado Springs, and I spend my time hiking, fly-fishing, and enjoying the many breweries Boulder has to offer.  I will graduate this spring with a degree in Anthropology.

I feel that being creative is something necessary to survival.  It’s like eating or breathing.  As human beings we have this unique ability to create and it must be used.  I have always had a creative side, but I never had the patients to be a full-blown artist.  The hardest part is actually sitting down and putting the pencil to the paper (or brush to the canvas, whatever you do…).  I dabble in writing, music, drawing, sculpture, and just recently graphic design.  If I get into it I can spend hours creating something unique and usually completely useless (economically speaking).  I have been trying to find a use for my creativity in the money-making world.  It’s not easy and next to impossible if you want to do art for art sake.  I do believe in the importance of graphic design.  Although I know close to nothing about web design, it seems this could be the most useful thing to know in the future.  Writing and rhetoric would play a role in this too.  To me rhetoric is simply the ability to effectively control language for any purpose.  Language is a tool, and for the first time we can use it to communicate instantly with the masses via the internet.  For this reason I don’t think the importance of graphic design or website design will go away.  I would like to use my last semester here to develop my writing skills, learn anything I can about web design, and improve myself artistically.  Last semester I created a brief statement on art for WRTG 3020…  feel free to take a look!

Anything Art. Erin Lorentzen.

Hello fellow students! My name is Erin Lorentzen, Erin is good although some of my friends call me E. I grew up in Mason City, IA and have been in Boulder for just under four years now. I moved here because I had a dream, literally, and just picked up and left. I haven’t regretted a day of the random spontaneity with the wonderful people and beautiful surroundings.