Final Thoughts

The humanities are all around us and they help to shape our socialites as well as us as people. I really enjoy the humanities as well as this class. I really think this blog was a great idea. I wrote my post as I went in class and then posted. My only problem was that I accidentally deleted my blog thinking it was my other blog that I no longer use, so I had to repost them all, but that turned out to be a good thing because it gave me the opportunity to rewrite and add some thoughts, now that I am done with the class as a whole. From taking this class I think I have a good base to take any class in the humanities and get all I can out of the class. We are all learning and growing and the humanities are important for that learning.

Thank you

Artists?

While reading for class I started to remember why I have a problem with a lot of modern artist. There are some artists who have made it so big that now they do not even do their own work really. They have teams who “help” them get their work done for shows. They worked to get where they are and now they just come up with the concepts and then others do the work and in the end they slap their names on the work and they sale for a ridicules amount of money when they are really being done by art students. Something about this just bothers me. Art should be about the art and not the name on it and if your name is on it you should also be the one putting most of the work into it. Modern art is thought provoking, but in some cases the process in making art in todays day and age is a bit flawed.

What

“What” by the artist Ray Huston has to be one of my all time favorite sculpture in the valley. There was a similar sculpture there before, but this one is better in my opinion. I love the lines and the way that it is so life like. Every time my sister and I go for a walk we have to make it to “What” because we love it so much. There is just something about it that speaks to me. It makes me want to do art again or maybe write a poem. It just speaks to my soul. I also like the transition that is made over the winter. The first photo is of it in summer/fall of 2014 and the other photos are of it in winter/spring of 2015. You can see that it is starting to discolor and I really love that. It makes me feel like he is alive. He is made of steel. I just really enjoy this piece.

Art walk

The loop trail in town is a great place too be one with nature, but it is also a great place to view art. This year there are some really great pieces that I have really enjoyed. One is a very colorful modern sculpture called “Captain Cubust” by the artist Chuck Fitzgerald. It is one of my favorites. It is great too look at and it makes me think. I recently went on a walk with my sister and the three year old she watched and “Captain Cubust” was clearly his favorite piece we walked by. He instantly knew what it was and was walking around it pointing out all the different parts to us. He ran over to it all on his own yelling “look at the ear!” The colors and form make it very interesting to look at and it really draw in your eye, I took pictures from all sides because you really have to see it all around to appreciate it. I love the colors and shapes within the sculpture. I think my favorite thing about it is the indents in his chin that look like another little face. I really recommend an art walk, it is a great way to see many different types of sculptural art.

Religion and The Grand Inquisitor

“I have a longing for life, and I go on living in spite of logic. Though I may not believe in the order of the universe, yet I love the sticky little leaves as they open in the spring. I love the blue sky, I love some people, whom one loves, you know, sometimes without knowing why. I love some great deeds done by men, though I’ve longed ceased perhaps to have faith in them, yet from old habit one’s heart prizes them.” (page 2)

When reading Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor I thought a lot about my feelings on religion and the people around me. I was not raised religious. My father is an Atheist and my mother is a Catholic. My father’s parents are Methodists and have always been a bit disapproving of our, none religious upbringing. My brother is an Atheist (he has a very over rational science brain) and my sister, as well as myself are Agnostic. We celebrate holidays (Christmas, and Easter) and because my mother is Catholic we celebrate Lint. My view on religion has always been a bit different than the people around me. My friends growing up went to church so I have had that in my life, but I never really could get into the whole concept. I believe in being a good person and that you should just want to be a good person and not have fear make you do it. Growing up a few of my friend’s parent thought I was a bad influence on their kids. Later in life when their kids started getting into bad stuff, I was a good kid. My parent taught us that we should have pride in what we do and if we ever did anything bad they never really punished us because we felt so bad for what we had done. Not that I have a problem with religion, I just don’t think it is for me. Reading The Grand Inquisitor I really started thinking about my own views. I love that books and stories can make us think and help us come to new revelations. Religion is something that will always be around us, but we need to figure out our own views.