Paul Klee

Paul Klee has the type of name that begs to be spoken with a British accent..He was born on December 18, 1879, in Munchenbuchsee, Switzerland. He was a painter who focused on Modern Art and was influenced by expressionism, cubism and surrealism. Before deciding to become an artist Klee played the violin with the Bern symphony orchestra. He then moved on from music to study etching and later painting at the Munich Art Academy for two years. Paul Klee studied and eventually mastered color theory, by which many of his works were based on. He is most known for his childlike use of watercolor and for being apart of the avant-garde circle Der Blaue Reiter co-founded by his friend Wassily Kandinsky. Klee later went on to work alongside Kandinsky, in 1922 at the German Bauhaus School of art and architecture. There he taught free-form painting and color in relation to nature.  Meanwhile he wrote famous essays and textbooks including Pädagogisches Skizzenbuch. Paul Klee died on June 29, 1940, in Switzerland.

 

Letting Go

i'll admit, i have trust issues. most of us in high school do. can you really trust the people you call your friends? i find my self asking this question whenever i open up to people. i used to trust everybody, i didn't feel the need to hold back. but i made the mistake of putting my trust in people who seemed kind to me and wound up getting hurt. depending on someone else for your safety is hard. i didn't like not knowing who was guiding me across the stage. i felt the need to tear off my blindfold and demand to know who grabbed my arm. i thought that by the end of the running across the stage blindfold exercise id be sick, but i was mistaken. i slowly began to smile, and by the end i was the one running. i had a lot of fun. 

it was much easier when we were paired up. i no longer had a stranger guiding me. even though i didn't really know doug as a person, at least i knew who would be guiding me around the school. 

waking around the community center blindfolded is an experience ill never forget. all of my other senses sharpened. i wanted to feel, touch and smell everything. i wanted to soak the musty old center all in. i wanted to use what i had left because i couldn't see. 

i thought that the blindfold served to block my sense of sight. along with not being able to speak i though that i will lose connection, to the world and to the people around me. i guess thats why i though that feeling, hearing and smelling were so precious to me. but i was wrong. i tried relaxing and found it to be quite rewarding. i tried to not think about soaking everything in and to simply go along with whatever doug wanted me to touch, smell or hear. its when i let go of trying to control what i took in that i realized that i trusted him. in a weird way the blindfold didn't serve as a restriction, but opened me up to the world a little more. the community center became a new vast and interesting thing for me to explore. this became clearer when i became the leader. i recognized some of the places that i was led to, but they were completely different.  it was like revisiting a place you used to go to as a child. you remember it being so grand and astonishing in your memories. but when you go back to it , it becomes smaller, blander, disappointing.  

a question for you

i was thinking about something that luke said. he said something about how we cant talk about what is buried deep within out minds. its too complex to be put into words. the human mind isn't a language we can understand.  he said that we look to things in art, like a movie or painting and talk about that when we're really talking about the unspoken in our minds. for some reason this lead me into thinking about Rilke. he thinks that artists have the need to be creative and do art. i think this is because they need an outlet to put those things that we cannot say out of our minds. i then realized that i do the same thing. 

when we talked about it in class i was jealous because i though that i do not have the artistic need. but thinking about what luke said with what rilke said at the same time, and i realized that i do have an artistic outlet. i have had one every since i was little, i just didn't know it was art. i know this sounds weird but, before i go to sleep i have to tell a story to myself in my head. i have different characters going on an adventure and at the same time they are realizing their problems and work though them in a hidden way. these characters that i write in my head really deal with what i cannot talk about.  i write scrips and i didn't even know it. i now fell bad for people who do not have an outlet. they have to look into other peoples outlets, like reading a book or watching a movie. 

so now, after all of that rambling i post a question. What acts as your artistic need to deal with what cannot be spoken?

poem re-write

Falling stars re-write 
Just a heads up... i'm not sure if this poem was in the packet that was given out in school.
i just googled poems and picked one that i liked. oh and i have to warn you that i am not a good poet,
the last one i wrote on my own free will was in sixth grade and went something like this;
drip drip
icy cold ice cream
drip drip
runs down my hand.

but i'm staying positive throughout this one. here goes...

Original:
Do you remember still the falling stars 
that like swift horses through the heavens raced 
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we 
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were 
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play, 
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure 
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall. 

My Version:

I remember the falling stars
chasing worries away across the velvet of dark 
so innocent we were as we wished
for in young minds stars can brighten all
they were grand creatures those stars
their danger flickered in our wide eyes
but we kept sight out of admiration
and let out a breath only when they died 

Drama Queens are Mute

As many of you already know, i lost my voice yesterday. to tell you the truth at first i thought it was pretty cool. it kept going up and down and up and down. one minute it was so low that people in the halls actually mistook me for my brother. imagine their surprise faces when they yelled, "OH Dimitri I didn't see you. Wait up!" and i turn around. the next minute it went up so high that i earned the nickname "mouse girl" in my science class. i have never heard myself like that before. i talked a lot that day, just to hear myself. STUPID IDEA. at dinnertime my brother was saying something ridiculous about me, ( i don't remember what he said, but its not important) and when i opened my mouth to defend myself nothing came out. not even a squeak. 

Baffled i tried again, and again, and again. it was like when you are in a really good dream that you don't want to wake up from but you know you're about to wake up anyway. you try your hardest to stay in the dream but you're suddenly pulled away. you hold your arms out to grab something and everything gets blurry. the voices get distant. everything is clouded. you cant breathe. i felt like i was losing myself. i wanted to control what was happening but i was being pulled away. i was underwater while everyone else was on shore. i tried to swim my way up to the top but with every stroke i fell deeper. i became disconnected. 

Of course being me i started to cry. And thats when i realized i was being a drama queen. 

If i felt so alone just because i lost my voice for the day, how do people feel when they cant speak at all? i know that my voice will come back, i'm nothing compared to the little boy in africa who was forced to become a soldier and has no voice in the matter. or the little girl who was a rape victim but is too afraid to say anything about it. Who am i to be upset by something like this when there are people who have it worse? 

Did it work?

Oh sorry. this was misleading. no, i did not take it, its my wallpaper and i was just trying to figure out how to put pictures on the blog. haha

Michelle a la Tart

What you need:

For the Filling...

• 1 can of silly expressions
• 4 cups of giggles
• 1 tablespoon creativity
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract (for additional sweetness)

For the Topping...

• 10 mini tart dancing shoes
• An assortment of sliced seasonal fruit 
• 1 can healthy glaze
• 1/3 cup anti-school 
• 5 teaspoons seawater
  

Mix all of the filling ingredients together while listening to "We're in the Money". 

Scoop one teaspoon of filling into each mini tart dancing shoes. Top filling filled dancing shoes with fruit, ant-school.

Mix together the glaze seawater and and sauté in saucepan until bubbly. Using a paintbrush apply seawater glaze to the surface of the tarts.

Serves 10. Enjoy!

Dancing Numbers

I wrote this yesterday, but didn't think it was good. then i thought "what the heck" and so i'm posting it anyway. true story by the way. 

I came home from school with the intention of getting through my homework first so that i can have time to relax (not really). But, i ended up falling asleep (my intention all along). I had the weirdest dream ever. Going to sleep with your head full of lessons from the day topped off with watercolor paintings and magazines will do that to you. i was sitting with my math textbook out and i was doing my math homework, except i was using a paintbrush. Not those stupid plastic watercolor brushes, but a real Mulan type brush. I was to find the greatest common factor in several problems, so i dipped my paintbrush into my text book and gently lifted it up so that a wisp of numbers would float off the page and follow my brush. It was like when Dombledore took out a copy of a memory from his head in the Harry Potter movie. The numbers were transparent and they elegantly danced behind the brush like i was a ribbon twirler. i danced around with them, watching as the rays of sunset made them twinkle the colors of the rainbow. With my paintbrush i lead the three's into waltzing with the sevens and the x's and y's into leaping and twirling around each other.  then i turned back to my sketch book and lightly stroked the page with my brush so that it left behind the numbers, now paintings. 

This is the first picture. I like this picture because she looks like she's telling a friend a joke. I can picture her saying "Am I right? Do you get it?"

I had an interesting day today. I don't think i have ever had a day where i experienced every emotional possible. Im not talking about confusion. Confusion is when you don't know what to feel and your emotions are jumbled together all at once. Thats not what happened. Today i went from extremely happy to extremely depressed and then extremely terrified to extremely relived within minutes. And this happened on a loop... ALL DAY. See, today was the day that my grandfather was  going in for serious surgery. A real life or death situation.  Of course since im still a "kid" i had no idea that this was going on. so naturally i acted the way i usually act, completely unaware that the sentence, "Hurry up in there Eva, I'll die waiting for you", will cost me. 

I'll be joking with my mom one minute and the next we'll be arguing because i did not hold the food we were bringing to my grandmother properly in the car. My dad would put his arm around me and then suddenly give me the cold shoulder because I wanted to take my time eating but nooo, "Life is short". I truly believed the whole world was on it's time of month. It was like i was plucked out of my world and thrown into an alternate universe. It was when we drove up to the hospital that i realized what was going on, but even then i still felt like it was all a dream. I never realized how much my feelings are so interconnected with the people and environment around me. i was oblivious to the seriousness of the situation and yet i was acting bipolar like everyone else. Now, im going to bed with no feelings left in me. i think you can only feel so much before you cant feel anything at all. 

First Day of Class

These are my favorite pictures from the ones taken in class. 

There was an epic battle between this picture and a sour lemon face that she made. But in the end this one won (obviously) because this one looks innocent. I like how she is looking away.

I like this one because its where she i really laughing and not just smiling for the camera. It looks natural. 

Her hands and facial expressions make this picture look interesting. I want to know what she was saying. 

I like this because it isn't boring. To me her hand is not distracting and it makes the picture more interesting.

I like this because she has a pretty smile and she raised her shoulders a little bit. It feels more relaxed. 

This is an awesome picture. Her hair withcheeks and makes it look like an explosion of energy. Her eyes are also twinkling. 

I like how this picture is simple. 

I like this picture because looking away like he doesn't know that someone was taking his picture but he is still smiling. 

 

This picture could be of the president giving an important speech or of someone looking at Big Foot, and thats exactly why I picked it.

He looks shy in this picture. I like how he is looking down. 

Even though you cant see his face, I like it because it looks like a hand balancing a blob of hair. 

I like his expression in this picture. He has a huge smile and his hands look like he is describing something exiting. 

I like this picture because its funny. SHe is either thinking really hard or is confused. 

I like this picture because her face is off to the side and there still isn't much background distractions. 

I like this one because she is laughing really hard and her eyes are shut tightly. 

 

I like this one because it looks like he is right about to say something important.... or sneeze.

I like this one because the little growl face is cute. 

This picture is nice because she looks like she's telling the camera to come closer. 

I like this one because she looks like a shy little girl.  

I picked this one because i liked how he was off to the side. Also because he was smiling. 

I like this one because he's facial expression. It's funny how his eyebrows are raised. 

I like this one because it is close up and her glasses are hiding her eyes.

I like this one because she looks peaceful. 

I like this one because it looks like she was very interested in what she was talking about and her hand is up. 

Her facial expression is funny in this picture. Makes me wonder what questions she was asked...

I like this one because her head is tilted to the side. It reminds me of my elementary class picture where everyone tilted their head. 

I like this one because she can't control her laughter. 

I like this one because she squinted her eyes and has a nice smile in it.