Cave Art and Graffiti

Cave Art and Graffiti
Student Chosen Topic
Maggie McBrady

    In class we talked about ancient cave paintings and how the people of the time viewed the cave as the womb of the earth.  By painting on the cave they believed they were communicating to the womb the animals they needed to survive.  As I was thinking about the cave paintings graffiti popped into my head.  I am by no means an expert on the use and history of graffiti but I do know a little about a very famous graffiti artist named Bansky.
   Bansky is a political and social activist who has chosen graffiti as his medium.  As a disclaimer, the large hype about Banksy may only be due to the mystery surrounding him but some of it is merited.   As I said I am not a graffiti artist but usually graffiti is used as a way to claim territory for a gang but Bansky has taken a different approach:  activism.  His graffiti serves no purpose for his own gain.  
   Now back to the cave paintings.  Could Bansky be using the walls and buildings in the same way the ancient peoples used the cave?  Is he attempting to communicate a need to higher power?  Or is painting on a wall simply the easiest way to get people talking about an issue?  I think there is some overlap between Bansky and the ancient peoples.

the person of beauty

The more I ponder beauty and Beauty, the more I realize that Beauty is a person; the person of Jesus. All beauty and its expressions have their origin in Him. He is beautiful in appearance (Rev. 1), in  perfect love, in perfect justice, in perfect mercy. C.S. Lewis writes that we desire to be united with the beauty that we see and experience. I believe this is true also in the sense that we desire unity with the person of Beauty. We crave unity with the divine and are not eternally satisfied with anything else because eternity has been set in our hearts.

A lovely poem

    This morning as a group of my friends and I were sitting around the table about to enjoy breakfast together, our friend asked if he could first share with us a poem that he had read recently. He read to us a poem by Billy Collins titled “Eastern Standard Time,” in which the author expresses a feeling of kinship with those in his same timezone. He wrote of how they do their morning activities together, they awaken at the same time, begin the showers at the same time, take their vitamins at the same time, and so on. He goes on about how everyone else in the world is doing something different (just sitting down to dinner, going dancing, crawling into bed at the end of a long day). Because of this, the rest of the world is either a little bit ahead or a little bit behind.

    Though difficult for me in the morning, I focused on what he was saying, listening to the poem. Soon being mentally present was no longer difficult; I was lost in the poem. In my mind I was picturing everything the author described; I saw individuals waking, getting ready for the day, spreading jam on their toast. Immediately before he began reading, I was worried about my scrambled eggs getting cold. Yet soon after he began, I was totally held fast by the words and forgot about breakfast altogether, let alone its temperature. Realizing after the poem was read, that I had been utterly swept away by its words and rhythm, I was reminded of van der Leeuw’s words on the poet and poetry. I had experienced the fixed power of poetry that van der Leeuw spoke about. Because of this, I desire to introduce more poetry into my life, especially the Psalms. The poet, according to van der Leeuw, receives his song from God and sings back to God. I cannot think of or imagine a more fitting example of this description of a poet than the poet-king of ancient Israel, David.

beauty of the trees in winter

    The drive home for Christmas break was lined with trees that looked dead. This, aside from the bone-chilling cold, is one of my least favorite things about weather. I have never thought that trees in winter were beautiful unless covered in a layer of snow. When driving past the trees, somewhat lamenting their lack of foliage, I was wondering if some people consider trees in winter (without the snow) to be beautiful. I unconsciously challenged myself to be one of those people, to find something about it that I thought to be beautiful.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take me long to come up with an answer. Their beauty is in their strength and endurance. These trees, that appear dead, are indeed alive. They are equipped to last through the harsh winter season, enrobed in strength for longsuffering by the Almighty. Once I viewed them this way, I started to perceive the trees as pillars of strength, in possession of beauty and worthy of my respect and admiration. I expect this enlightening experience in the car will likely prompt me to continue challenging myself to have fresh eyes and look for the beauty in things I usually don’t notice or consider to be lovely.

Perception

    Today while painting with friends I noticed that the paint color looked different the longer and more closely I looked at. I was painting with a light gray and light yellow. After looking at the paint so long, I started to perceive the yellow and gray as closer to white. I was so convinced that my perception was reality that I asked my roommate when she walked in “does this even look yellow to you?” Surprised by my question, she responded “yeah, it definitely looks yellow.” Because of this, I began to think about how often when we are close to things (physically, emotionally, ect.) it changes our perception of them. We no longer see the thing we are close to objectively and as it truly is.

    This realization caused me to wonder about how our proximity to and time spent with various things or people often affects our view of it’s beauty.  Often I find that when I find something beautiful, like a painting for example, and introduce it into my daily life (i.e. putting it in my room), I am no longer enraptured by it as I once was. Even upon intentionally pausing to look at it and admire it, I do not get that same feeling as I did upon first glance. Somehow, because it’s become a part of my everyday, some of it’s charm has faded and cannot be recaptured.     I begin to take it’s beauty for granted.

    Conversely, I find the opposite is true with close friendships. The more time I spend with a close friend and the closer we become in proximity, the more beautiful they and their friendship become to me. Despite the knowledge of the yucky, imperfect things I come to know about them (their faults, mistakes, tendencies) somehow I always find them more beautiful. Being open and fully known, with nothing hidden or withheld,  is such a powerful and beautiful thing. I pondered why it is that I view friends as more beautiful when I know them in all their weakness as well as their strengths, and it’s not the shortcomings and mistakes that I perceive as beautiful. No, the beauty is in their story, in their trust, and in the great hope of redemption available to each one, no matter their story.

Search for Beauty

I remember the first day of class very vividly.  I can remember my anxiousness and my fragility.  Like the feeling of packing the day before you embark on a journey that you know is going to take you somewhere you've never been before.  I remember how alone I felt opening the door to my new apartment before the semester started.  Reality had sunk in.  I had left behind everything that was familiar to me, everything I knew, my job, my friends, for something unknown.  And for the life of me I couldn't figure out why I had to do this, I just knew that that was what I was going to do.  I don't think my experience was unique in any way.  I think we all have moments when we recklessly leave safety behind because whatever safety was wasn't cutting it.  It's a pretty simple concept.  It could just be called "going out on a limb".  But what isn't simple, is getting there.  Stepping out onto that limb.  This is what I realized on the first day of class.  Like I said, I couldn't for the life of me remember why I had decided to go back to school, or pick philosophy for a major.  There was no rational answer in my head.  And then Kip walked in, and without saying anything, wrote, "What is beauty?" on the board.  And then all the sudden this sense of relief and joy sunk in.  I remember having a powerful aesthetic experience.  That "aha" moment that almost made me laugh out loud.  I remember saying to myself, "oh, that's why I'm here".  It was just my search for beauty that had gotten me here.  I remember looking back on all the things I'd done to get where I was and felt like the hard part was over.  The unknown wasn't scary anymore, it was magical and ready to be explored. 

Body of Art - Maggie McBrady

Body of Art - Phaidon Editors
Outside Reading
Maggie McBrady

     Body of Art is a collection of art pieces filled with pieces of art that explain what it is like to be human.  My personal theory or art is that art can be used to convey a message.  The message Body of Art is trying to convey is the uniqueness of the human experience.  An article on the book says that the one uniting factor of the human experience is that we all have bodies.  To capture the human experience the Body of Art is filled with different depictions of bodies.  The inspiration for the book came from the lacking of representing how the human body has changed over time and how it has become the "canvas on which and through artists talk about the human experience".
     I see beauty in the Body of Art not only in the art work within its pages but in its message.  The Body of Art is uniting all people through depictions of all different bodies.  All people are represented within its pages and can relate to the human experience.  In a way I am stunned that this idea hasn't been thought of till now because it seems so simple.