Josh Taylor: MY FINAL VIDEO

It was a pleasure class! Thank you Mr. Deskin and Thank you Mrs. Sydnor for the experience!

Josh Taylor: Houston ZOO Attendance 11/27/2013

Joshua Taylor Houston Zoo

Josh Taylor: My thoughts on the class and the MAFIA

 Life long friendships is not something any of us were expecting to acquire from this humanities class. We all thought we would just pass the class and then leave. Little did we know, we started our own version of the Breakfast Club. French Toast Mafia is the name. This group is full of wonderful people that all have their diversities and insanities. One of us wears skinny jeans on a daily, another wears baggy pants and goes clubbing every weekend. As for the other two, one is a half Mexican, half Arab ninja that destroys everyone in his path. Last but not least, there is the funny guy; the one that wanted nothing to do with the group when it first came about. He soon came around after getting to know the other three. Now we are all good friends and we hang out outside of class. We had our moments in class that were just hilarious and outrageous but that is just us. We photo bomb every group's photos, we do handstands in the middle of everything, we say "thats what she said", and we just enjoy life and have fun. What more could you ask for in a special group of friends? Friends that you can depend on for anything and everything. That is who the Mafia is!

When I first enrolled in this class I would've never imagined how fun it would be. Most college students don't look forward to their next class, but that is the opposite of what I felt. I'd wake up groggy and in a bad rump but it would eventually go away knowing my class was going to be fun. I wasn't going to the same old college classes, no it was much more than a class. This class taught me to appreciate all diffrent kinds of art not just traditional paintings, murals, and statues. Art also comes in forms of grafiti, paintings not found on canvas but walls, ceilings and even doors! The artists creativity truly is awe inspiring and quite a sight to behold. The folk trip we took to see the decorated houses was one of my favorites. Inside of the houses at the folk trip we took were much more diffrent than I expected. Before we arrived the thoughts going through my mind were funky indoor decor for some reason, not really anywhere near what they actually were. When we arrived to the houses I was quite anxious to finally see them. Fom the side view that I saw them they looked like plain white houses at first. As we neared them the art was just plain to see, I felt a bit dumb, blind and childish for a bit. I felt childish, the reason for that was because the art made me feel like a kid in the candy store.
 The bright and vibrant colors just attracted your eyes to them. It was like looking at something so beautiful that is was difficult to look away from. My favorite trip we took this semester was definetly the museum of fine arts. When I was younger in fourth grade we took a trip to this museum, I was young and i didn't much know anything about anything. We walked around the museum and I looked at sculptures and paintings and thought they were neat because of the pretty colors. I never once thought the amount of time, creativity and soul the artist put into it, all I thought back then was about candy, milk and playing video games. But on my second visit to the museum I definetly recall what I saw that day back in fourth grade, the one sculpture that hasn't left my mind. This time I visited I made sure I saw every detail that was put into the pieces of art being displayed. They were simply outstanding! I loved and embraced every second that I spent in the museum. There was an abundance of Roman, Greek, those two types being some of my favorites.

In a journey into the unknown-Emmanuel Trejo

In a journey into the unknown our hearts and minds were exposed to new ideas about the nature of art. Art wasn’t just a simple painting on a mural or a simple porcelain sculpture; instead what we witnessed is that art is alive and vivid with the captured imagination of the artist’s soul. Humanities on the go was a great guide into discovering the art that was hiding in plain sights all of these years. 

This class led us to discover how an art once considered vandalism could reflect many thoughts of a shunned society.  Their valuable work is overlooked an underappreciated, but can depict a valuable inside into our own modern society. For example the “all American eagle” has its wings proudly flexed to fly but it is chained to a weight. The eagle is a great representation of we call our self’s the land of the free, but we are too limited to actually calls ourselves “free.”  

            Through our ventures we traveled to the heart of the beast, we went deep into its belly to see how life was still in full motion even several feet below our feet. We go to admire the towering buildings that seemed to challenge the gods of Olympus. With access to a vantage point high above the streets, we got a first-hand view of the majestic view only relished by winged beast such as birds. Our venture by foot brought witness to many pieces of art laid out in the city streets that are not often appreciated by the common city inhabitant. Each piece of art stood as a speckle of creativity in a loud and busy city street.

Art is not just found in picture but in architecture. Architecture is perfect representation of a community. Urban decay is a sign of a struggle and deterioration of hope of the people, but what we saw in Galveston on that cold Friday morning was restoration. Restoration is sign of positive change, restoration is sign of hope, and restoration is a sign of a community blooming to become a spot light for others to follow.  Even with the icy cold winds flowing into our exposed skin that felt like a river flowing through land, I could feel the warmth of the newly restored buildings as a sign of gratitude for a new lease on life.

  In this past semester I have observed so much that few have, or will ever get the chance to see and truly connect with the art that stands before them. Each trip was always a new and exciting way of seeing something innovative. Each trip was revealing of what we are all capable of accomplishing if we set our God given creativity into an art master piece. This class served its purpose in showing us that there is more than what meets the eye. 

Ode to Humanity by Georges Boulos (final article)

Georges Boulos

Ode to Humanity

What is humanity? Well, we are humanity. Should we disappear from the world humanity would be


what is left behind. So what will be left behind from us? Will what is left behind be considered good? Beautiful maybe? Worthy of preserving? I for one believe so. Our art and our architecture and whatever else we will be able to leave behind of our lives will both literally and figuratively, should they stand the test of time, stand as a monument to everything that we are, what we will be, and what we have ever been.
We have been given examples, we have seen art, contemplated it, we have seen the architecture wrought from the hands and minds of those who wished to leave something greater than their name, and we have looked into the very depths of one of the greatest tragedies that our world has and will ever experience in the course of human history. What we have seen are the constructions and destructions of humanities that live in our present and by extension into our futures. We have been shown clearly how these constructs persist though their creators are either long past, or not long for this world either in mortality or in their endeavor for work. That is reality. We have seen what others created and after having been pushed to take picture of all the things that move us, however I think it is time that we all take a new prerogative should we be so inclined. We are now the creators, or at least we should be. We study history not just so that we may avoid making the mistakes of the, but also to repeat its successes. So we must all become creators. It doesn’t mean we all need to have a painting in an art gallery, though creating artistically is considered to be one of man’s purest forms of creation. We must create with all the things that make us human, we must all create using our humanity and we must do it for all of humanity. I will even take for the first step though I am more inclined to the artistic route, I fancy myself a poet. Now picture yourself a Rose facing the turning of the world, or better yet, let me show you my metaphor through a rose’s eyes, that despite all the happenings around us there has been beauty created and it deserves our attention regardless. Maybe one day we will be regarded the same

Rose:

It is Winter

And I am cold,

I am a rose growing cold

I endure the cold, with bold

But my petals still fall,

 

The petals are my hope,

My life’s last breath,

I cling to my final petal

As it is spring’s final jest

 

The petal will fall though

And I will fall,

It is springtime’s set

And winter’s rise,

And though we treat it as a surprise

It is a time where all roses must die,

 

Though the spring abandoned it

And the winter brings its demise

The rose falls seeing the beauty of the wintertime

 

And though I must watch

As my last petals touch the earth

And though I can feel my last breath escaping

I will fall as though it were the first day of spring

For there is beauty in every season our world brings

George Boulos Hugo Final video