Goal = To be an Artist Even if it Scares Me

Yesterday was my first day working as a ZeumMaster. At first I was nervous but then working with the educators and other Zeum Masters I got more comfortable. When the staff greeted me, I felt like I was important. I had a lot of fun. Working in the animator studio was cool. I love working here.

So last night was also parents night. Parents night was a night for zeummaster parents to come and see what we do. We got to see all the old zeummasters projects they've been working on for a while. The art work was amazing and I want to do one for the next time we have parent night.

They did a fantastic job. The zeummaster projects inspired me. I want to develop my art skills.

I think that working at zeum will help me develop my art skills because here at zeum there are different forms of art like technology, clay animation and so much more. I think I would want to do a poetry piece, a play, a drawing or a clay figure. At the beginning of the event, christian welcomed the parents and thanked us for being there. In the middle of the event, the parents got a tour of where we work. all the old zeum masters and educators work really hard to make the event as successful as it was. parent night was a huge success, we had a lot of parents.

I think I like the idea of having my own art show because then I can chose the art I want to be displayed and it would be a lot of dedication and hard work because you need to be organized and on top of your game. this way if I have my own art show I can put art of of the visitors and zeum masters. I do not consider myself an artist but I would like to try to make art and put it in even if im not that great because this way people can see what i have created and my hard work. Making art scares me because people can judge me and my art and I take things personally and hard even if it is a joke or sarcasm.

What does it mean to be an artist? To me being an artist means expressing your self in poetry, lyrics, drawing, music and so much more. If you express yourself in anyway, you're an artist. The reason why i came to zeum was to get away from all the stress at home and just express myself. Here I've been expressing myself through playing with the clay figures because it calms me down and I can be an artist when working with it.

Spoken Music: Fran Varian visits Zeum

This morning Ari's friend, Fran Varian came and talked to us - she is a spoken word artist. I might have mentioned spoken work in my project in media and self image because that's how I'm performing it. Spoken word is a kind of performance art in lyrics, poetry, and stories are spoken instead of sung. So it's like talking music.

Fran gave us a insight into the world of spoken word like slam poetry, which is a competition with eight people who have two minutes to make up their own piece of work and get judged by random people from the audience. Wow that must take extreme talent to make up something in two minutes... it takes me weeks to come up with something even close to a poem.

The artistic process is different for everybody... but I'm seeing that the base of a spoken word poem is to "be vulnerable". A lot of artists write about things that are really personal. This can be hard because people feel uncomfortable but also really easy because you are writing about a subject you know the most - yourself. When you talk about yourself lots of people might respond to it because they might have felt the same way or had the same experiences.

I have never really performed as myself - I'm use to getting characters and being someone else. But I can be someone else and even be myself at the same time. I talked about this with Fran and the group. Even in getting a script and being a different character can be a way to "be vulnerable".

Fran told us about an organization called Youthspeaks.org it helps teens get into spoken word. It gives them a chance to really have a voice and express their feelings, opinions.

I'm using spoken word in my project so it was good chance to hear about her process and actually hear one of her poems. It was cool because the hardest part for me was to get down and write what I wanted to say. Hearing Fran talk about her process of writing made working on my project a little bit easier. I never thought of myself as a writer but in reality if you write something down on paper you're a writer.

On Performing, the Main Gallery and FINISHING a project

This morning at Zeum, I finished my final project: Fantasy Seder. I performed the one girl play I'd written about how I imagined my family members at a Passover Seder. I was really unsure as to how I was going to be able to act out my different family members and really show the audience different personalities that I was hoping to portray. Recording myself was a bit nerve- racking because I wanted the audience to see what I saw as I was writing the script.

I enjoyed recording myself because I was finally able to make a project that I help kids do everyday when I work at Zeum.

All the kids I work with take their performance so seriously and they really have a vision of how they want their performance to be. When I was recording myself at the production stage, I felt like a visitor, like I was new to the experience even though I've worked at the production stage so many times. I wanted my performance to be right what I wanted. I did a practice run-through, and then did another two more practice runs, until I was finally happy with it, and hopefully those who watch it will be happy with it too.

I've been working at Zeum for two years, and over this time, I've seen Zeum change. The production stage in the Main Gallery is one exhibit that has changed a lot, and where I have become a lot more comfortable working. When I first started working at Zeum, I hated working in the Main Gallery because I never felt like I was 100% prepared to help kids produce a performance.

With Zeum changing over these two years, I've changed a lot too.

These days, working at the production stage in the Main Gallery is never dull, helping kids make their own masterpieces. I have become much more confident, and I have much more to say to visitors and helping them make a great performance. Because I feel more confident working in the Main Gallery, I was able to make a great performance of my own, using the same skills I use to help visitors.

Watching my final project made me feel proud of performing something and I felt that I really portrayed what I wanted the audience to see.

ANGEE on Human Rights, Technology and the Artistic Process...

For Parent Night I chose to create a movie based on the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Now, the Declaration has THIRTY articles, so I didn't know if I were to make a move based on all THIRTY articles or just a few.

Now, it's still a work in progress. I'm still going to tweek it here and there, but overall it looks good.

Here's what I've done so far:

Enjoy!


Starting out, I realized that basing the movie on all THIRTY articles would be a little ambitious, so i just stuck with the first ten. Then, I had to brainstorm how to do this: animation? drawings? claymation? I didn't know just yet.

LIKE A BOLT OF LIGHTNING it hit me. I could just do images on photoshop based on each article. ADOBE PHOTOSHOP is one of my favorite things to do here at Zeum. I've been working with photoshop for about four years now, so I thought it was a great idea.

On Photoshop made an image for each article. To do this I would get an image from the internet, make it into a black and white/positive and negative image, then define a brush. Photoshop saves the brush automatically. This is a good function to know. The brushes I made then became backgrounds for the images I created.

From there I took the articles and placed the text over the colorful backgrounds. I think it came out great, just like I wanted.

Now, what to do with the images?! Make a gif. file? Movie? Hmm...Then I remembered how well I worked with Windows Movie Maker...PERFECT.

I took the images I made on Photoshop and created a movie. I started with titles introducing the articles and quick history on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, followed by the images I made, and then quick credits at the end. All of this was accompanied with the song, "Dream" by Common and Will.I.Am.

Yeah, it's still a work in progress. But MOST DEFINITELY a project that I'm proud of.

Passover Story

I have a big family - we're all over the country and all over the world. My immediate family lives in San Francisco. But my aunts, uncles, and cousins on my mom's side live in New York. And most of my dad's family lives in Israel.

Because my family is so large and scattered about, I have decided, that for my end of the year project, I wanted to write a short play about my ENTIRE family at the Passover Seder dinner, and kind of make up how I think they would all interact with one another.

I'm planning on performing the whole play myself. A one girl show, reading the skit aloud, acting out everyone's part. Because my family who lives in Israel doesn't speak English, I'm going to perform some of it in Hebrew.

I always wanted to gather my whole entire family together for Passover because it would be so amazing for me to see everyone at once for such a special holiday.

With this project I'm creating my wish that someday, this gathering of my family could happen, and I would really see how they would get along.

Because of the differences between some of my family members, i wrote it so that an argument arises between my cousin (who lives in NY), my Uncle (who lives in Israel), and my mom.

The argument finally ceases when my dad says "OK, let's eat and sing songs." And I bring up the Passover song that is my all time favorite - Echad, Me Yodea?" (One, who knows one?"). Suddenly everyone in my family is talking about the song and how special and meaningful it is to every one of them. The lyrics to the song are so powerful and are strong enough to bring everyone together. And the fighting stops.

Who knows three? I know three!
Three are the mothers and two are the tablets that Moshe brought, and one is Hashem...
Who knows four? I know four!
Four are the fathers and three are the mothers and two are the tablets that Moshe brought and one is Hashem...

The song continues in this fashion of counting up until the number thirteen, and it has a lot of meaning because the song is very biblical and mentions important biblical figures. The melody is also beautiful, especially when sang in Hebrew.

When my family was all singing together, I realized that the holiday of Passover and the songs are a "common denominator" in my family and it's what brings everyone together. In spite of their differences, we all share the love for the holidays, and this, in turn, brings the family together and erases any tension.

Digital Comic Strip Finished!

I finished the digital comic strip! I made it with a computer program called Comic Life Deluxe. The program was great. Really interesting to learn.

To see what I'd written before about this project, click HERE.

For the strip, almost all of the images are symbols. The scale is a symbol of the balance and unbalance conflict. Paper money represents wealth and coin represent poverty. The black box in the third image represents the illegal activities of the wealthy people. The person that's kneeling on the broken glass with a no sign means no punishment, stop it. The sick lady laying on bed represents the poor because usually poor people don't have anything to eat and they would be sick and die. The birds flying behind the scale represent peace.

The strip is done. I was shocked by how amazing it looked to me when finished. It was so cool, I never expected it would come out to be this good. I feel really happy right now. This was the first time I've made a comic strip on the computer. Although I did on paper before.

'Killin it with Dance

Anybody can dance. Anybody can perform. Whether you're amazing or horrible it feels nice to just get yourself out there. Dancing can be a way of expressing yourself or just a way to let out stress after a hard day at work or school. Having a way to escape from life and just dance is good for you. You can forget about life's. Dancing is like a vacation for your mind.

I'm making a documentary about dance. In my movie I want to show that good things can come from dancing whether or not you're good at it.

Performance is a big deal at Zeum. We have our production stage in our main gallery and our stage in the Music Video production lab so it's crucial that we help kids realize that they can perform too even if they think they're really bad at it. Everyone has a performer inside them, you just have to bring it out of them. For the kids that come here it's a big deal to be up on stage. A lot of them get nervous because they think they can't do it but with a little encouragement they get into their performances and put on good shows. After doing their thing on stage a lot of times they get excited and have a little self-esteem boost.

With my video I want to show the positive effects of dancing on people's lives and that anyone can experience these things because anyone can dance. I'm gonna interview a few big name dance teachers about what get them started in dancing and what dancing has done for them in their lives. My video will show their interview with me and then will go into a video of them actually dancing. I'll do the same thing with people who are in dance companies and then take it down to people who simply take classes and then take it down to people who do it just for fun.

I've been dancing for 4 years. I mainly do hip hop dance. I started taking dance classes just to see what it was like. I had always seen people dance and though "Wow, I wish I could do that."

After a while I was motivated by the compliments I started getting. It's the best feeling to have someone ask me "How'd you do that?" or have a teacher tell me to keep the good work cuz i was "killin' it."

Dancing has helped not only to boost my self-esteem but also to get me through some tough times. When I dance i can forget about everything going on around me and just focus on the dancing I'm doing. Nothing else matters. I can go home after dancing and feel like I accomplished what I needed to that day. I'm at my best mentally after I've danced. I can think better having let out all my stress and energy in dance. I get my endorphins flowing so I feel pumped up but I'm more at ease so I can think better. And after getting all tired out I can sleep better too. So dancing can benefit you both mentally and physically.

Digital Comic Strip in Progress

I drew this, it's part of the project that I wrote about before on the blog - the comic strip. This image describes the punishment of the wealthy people, kneeling on broken small pieces of glass in 1950's China. Many people died from the punishment and some escaped to the United States. This is how the story ended. I just wanted to put this on the blog to show the progress.

In the other comic I'm working on, I'm imagining a new ending. It's more peaceful.

I drew all the images this week. next week I'm going to scan them into the computer so that I can import them into a really cool program that lets you make digital comic strips.

I can't wait to see the whole thing finished.

How Do You Define Human Rights?

Through the years my ideas about human rights have changed. I grew up with the perception that human rights violation happened in countries distraught by war and corrupt politicians. The media has presented human rights violation as torturing prisoners and murdering entire villages and I easily accepted the idea that this had no relation to my environment. That changed when I took notice of what was going around me. I have come up with my own definition on human rights: The right to feel safe.

For Example, a ZeumMaster left her purse near the programing station in Main Gallery and later found it at the bottom of the stairs with all her belongings stolen. She lost her phone, her iPod, but more importantly she lost her sense of safety. Having your belongings stolen - Could that be categorized as a human rights violation? When we're in an environment where we feel completely comfortable, having something as unfortunate as this happen makes the experience that much worse. You have the right to feel that not only you are safe, but your processions are as well. Although some may not agree I would categorize this event as a human rights violation.

It could have happened anywhere. And I love Zeum. But I just want to say that even your safe places can be violated.

I'm doing a documentary project where I'm interviewing Zeum staff members and strangers and using their experiences and their definitions of human rights to create a video. I'm going to record them as they answer the following questions: How would you define human rights? What do you need to feel safe? Have you ever felt unsafe?

I hope to show that feeling safe is a simple right that everyone deserves. Human rights violation does not have to be as intense a physical torture, for it to make someone feel uncomfortable. Everyone has stories and I want to share them.

Creating a documentary will not only give me the opportunity to use a video camera and edit, but using real stories with real people will create a strong message.

Chili Fritos Memory: My Sister

What I'm writing here is more stories for my memory project.

This is a picture of my oldest sister, Erica and I. We are in Detroit Michigan at this time. It's very hot out there with not enough oxygen in the air.

When my sister Erica and I were little, I would come home from my elementary school across the street from my house. I would be coming from my after school program after six and I always would see the ice cream truck as I crossed the street. Because my sign is a virgo and I love to hustle positively, money would always be in my pocket.

When I stop the ice cream truck by raising my hand like I'm in class, I would always get the same thing and never try anything new, "chili fritos". If I'm having a bad day, after eating chili fritos, my day is automatically brightened. The good thing about chili fritos is that they were cheap, you could buy them from the ice cream truck for a dollar.

Sometimes before I would eat them, I would go in the house and put them on the table to go to the bathroom and wash my hands. My sister Erica would be sleep on the couch, having the TV watch her instead of she watching the TV. I would go to the bathroom come back and my chili fritos would be on the table empty. I'd wonder who ate them because there was only my sister Erica and me in the house.

After five more times of this situation happening, I started to figure out a plan to "catch" that person eating my chili fritos. It was obviously easy because I would act like I would go to the bathroom and instead, hide under the table where my chili fritos were and end up "catching" my sisters Erica not eating my chili fritos but gobbling without chewing. There went my chili fritos down to her stomach. I had a camera on me so I immediately snap-shot my sister for evidence. In the end, all we both could do is laugh.

Mama Memory

My memory project begins with two pictures of my mom.


This is a new picture of my mom, dad, and little new born baby brother. My mom's name is "mom"! My dad's name is "dad"! My new born baby brother name is Jeremiah. My mom and I are very close. I remember there was an entire month when my mom just wanted to take off of work just for me and spend time with me by going to lunch. I appreciated that so much.

I felt like an only child. As my mom and I kept going to lunch throughout the month, I was wondering why she chose me to spend time with. Did I need special treatment or something? What? But that was not the case. The case was that she felt like I was her only son, not only child and that she don't see me as much as she does the girls (my sisters) because I'm always running around or with my dad.


My mom is the best and I'm glad she gave me life (having me was hard work is what my mom told me). I also appreciate my mom giving most of her genes, very outgoing and learning how to make a good impression on new people I meet. Cheers, to mom!

I have a lot more pictures to write about. Pretty soon I'm going to start the recording so that you can hear me, Joshua, telling this story.

Imagining Peace in Comics

When I was 15 my mom told me about the land reform movement in China in the 1950's. I'm now 19. She'd lived in China during that time.

I was interested in the Children of Jerusalem exhibit, which is about the Israeli/Arab conflict and is why I wanted to do conflict resolution for my final project. It was after looking at that show that I started to remember my mom's story. So I decided to do the story that my mom told me because it was related to the Children of Jerusalem, conflict and resolution, and it was happened in the real live and it was took place where I was from, China.

Land Reform is about redistributing arable land, whether previously collectivized by the state or held by rich farmers. The farmers are forced by the government to give up their land at prices thats unfair. Landowners evicted the farmers without their consent, and that's why they were so rich. The goals of Land Reform is to take from the rich and give to the poor, reducing poverty, expanding rural development, or returning land to it's previous owners.

I was inspired by the show of the Children of Jerusalem, and I like the symbols that they used in their paintings. Birds. flags, the colors, wall. mystery, sea.

My thing is that I like comics a lot, so I wanted to make a comic strip. My favorite is Case Closed. So I'm going to draw and make a comic strip about the land reform conflict. I will be also using symbols and some text like what the Israeli and Arab children did for their paintings. First, I will draw it on white paper with pencil, then go over with pen, and color it. Cut it out and paste them on a bigger hard cardboard.

I've already sketched out the two comics. What you see here are those rough sketches. I did two pages, one is the conflict as it happened for real and the other one is how I think it could have ended more peacefully. The conflict is that during the 1950s in China, the people were equal, but the wealthy people made the scale unbalanced. So the government needed to do something about it, and it was to punish the wealthy people by forcing them to kneel on the broken small pieces of glass. Thats what the original ending was. But i want to make an alternative ending to it to make it a peaceful conflict resolution. Instead of punishing them so harshly, I want to free the people and take their money and give it to the poor. So there's no violence and everybody is equal.

I used a scale to show the unbalance of the rich with paper money and a Chinese dollar symbol on it, and poor with only coins. At the end, I will draw white birds flying over the balanced scale to represent peace.

I want to show people that violence can't solve problems. People have to work together to make a resolution. To compromise.

Basketball Memory

My final project will be finishing my memory project: "How i almost gave up". I'm still working on scanning pictures into the computer of my three sisters, my mom and dad, my two little brothers, and me. I'm going to tell people as they look at the pictures that this is a family full of joy, that they don't have to worry about us.

When my family was split up, it caused my sisters' heart and mine to be broken. It's hard to explain what went wrong with this family that was split so lets just say that life was too good to be true for me and something bad just had to happen because it felt like I was in utopia. That's the way I remember it. Then utopia switched around to be anti-utopia. However, experiencing anti-utopia till today isn't all that bad but I still pray that it will go back the same and feel the same as it did before.


For my last blog post I talked about my brother, this time = my dad.

Yeah! I said basketball is my favorite sport/ i love it when i dribble up n down the court/ I like to pick and roll/ I like to give and go and its basketball/ Josh Mauldin let's go!-words from Bow Wow, the rapper.

Here you can see pictures of the shoes I wear playing basketball. I bought them all black and decorated them myself. I made a hat to match too.

These words apply to me because basketball is my favorite sport and my dad taught me most of my basketball skills. My dad and I are super close and one of the activities that we love to do together is play basketball, basketball, and basketball, obviously. Ever since I was three years old I've been playing basketball and once my dad payed attention that I could better my skills, he pushed me into being one of the best at any school I went to. So every school I've went to or go to now, I'm one of the best.

I don't like bragging because if you know you're good, whats the point of bragging. I know you're wondering how do I know I'm one of the best at my school. Is it because everyone else isn't that good? Well no, its because I push myself more than others and my dad and I always talked about me wanting to be one of the best at what I do. A tip that I can give you if you haven't already heard, that my freshman basketball coach told me was that, "Practice doesn't make perfect"-"Perfect practice makes perfect".

I will be speaking in a recording to tell whoever wants to listen about "how i almost gave up".

Poetic Heroes

Hero.

"A woman/man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for their brave deeds and noble qualities. The principal female/male character in a story, play, film, etc."

Well, that's how Webster's dictionary defines hero. But for me a hero is more than someone I admire it's people who help me make up what I am today. There are many heroes in my family that I love and respect but to go deeper, my more personal are people who I admire in the industry that I hope to go into, media.

For my end of the year project at Zeum I am working on Media and my self image - how people in the media have affected who I am and inspired me to go further with whatever I chose to do. Like Gaby's but different. The people who I feel closely connected to are Oprah Winfrey, Queen Latifah, and Will Smith, not only are they successful in the roles they play on screen and on stage but being African American they have became respected in anything they choose to do.

There are so many people that I could look up to, why are these people what's so special? Will Smith and Queen Latifah are both singers in the hip hop business and Oscar nominees. They all are able to do a wide variety of performances like from comedy to drama, to musicals. They're all entrepreneurs. Oprah is a great inspiration because she also came from a background of severe poverty. These are people who do work for their communities.

To deliver my ideas for this project, I'm going to do a spoken word performance. Now, at first I wasn't so sure about spoken word, it is a type of performance, but not like any I ever done before.

I tend to lean more toward to stage performance where I'm given a script and and I act out a character. Through this project though, I can perform alone, myself - which it's hard to say, but it might be the hardest role I have yet to experience. Kwesi and Ari explained the concept of spoken word and other things I can do with different types of media. I get to learn more about this type of performance and work on being able to get my ideas onto paper and on stage.

My media, My self image

How has the media portrayed me?

Since I was little, I have always heard of female Latinas not finishing high school and ending up pregnant. I know that this is not expected of me from my family and friends, but this is what the media expects of me.

For an end of the year project at ZEUM we were asked to do some type of art work that refelcted on one of these topics: Family history and Memory, Conflict Resolution, Human Rights and Media and Self Image. I choose to reflect on Media and Self Image by doing an animation that portrays what the media expects of me to become and what I want to become.

As I mentioned before, growing up as a Latina, I have always had stereotypes follow me wherever I went. Starting in middle school, my 8th grade Principal has said it himself that "If [we] didn't graduate from high school, which was most likely to happen, there were a lot of jobs opening for us that paid enough to get by". Later in High School I began to notice that many of the girls that I went to school with had gotten pregnant and were forced to drop out of school. This really upset me because it was like they threw their lives away. From then on, I knew that I wanted to be more than another fact to fit another stereotype.

What I am now is a high school Latina who goes to a private school in the presidio and is getting ready to apply to college next year. I hope to finish college and move on to graduate school and become something other than what is expected of by the media.

I hope that this art work will show others that the media doesn't have to decide who you are to become, you are in control of choosing what YOU want to become.

* Peace *



GABY