Betty White Overkill???

Are you sick and tired of seeing Betty White every time you turn around? This Golden Girl is on everything from a sitcom called Hot in Cleveland to Snicker's commercials. She even recently hosted Saturday Night Live. If it seems like she has been on TV since the television's inception, she has. Betty started her television career way back in 1949.

I have to be honest, I was getting kind of sick of Betty White. Yes, I know, that's like saying you don't like apple pie and the colors red, white and blue. But seeing Betty every time you turn around was and is not an exaggeration. But then something changed. I wasn't able to sleep one night and as I was flipping through channels I came across GSN, the Game Show Network. I can honestly say that I didn't even know this channel existed on my television. An old game show was playing from the early 1960's called Password. What made me stop on this station was the split second glance I got of a brunette Betty White.

I sat there for a moment, watching the banter and jokes exchanged between the host, Betty and the other celebrity player, I think it was Peter Lawford, who was a member of the rat pack, but that is a subject for another blog. Anyway, it dawned on me that this lady has been on television for over 60 years! She is 89 years old and working more than most actors half her age. Tired of Betty White? Not a chance!...

America's Next Top Model?..Please, not my daughter!

America's Next Top Model..Just one of America's many guilty pleasures..A dozen or so 18 to 20 something girls vying for the approval of a panel of "fashion judges" including the show’s creator, model Tyra Banks, as reality shows go, it is entertaining enough. Cat fights, sabotage and a self absorbed star, it is no wonder that it has a large following. My daughters watch this show every week so I am a watcher only by association. I never gave the show more than a split second of thought until one of my daughters exclaimed one Wednesday night during the airing of the program that she wants to try out for the show. I wasn't sure how to respond at first. She had just turned 17 and everyone she knows tells her to model. After all, she is a thin, pretty, 6'2" girl (above photo).

All I could think about were the scenes of the show where girls are fighting and screaming at each other. The judges are brutally honest; verging on cruelty for what I am sure is shock value for television. Then there are the nude photo shoots...don't get me wrong, nude is beautiful and under the right circumstances, quite freeing, but as a father, daughter + photographer+ nudity just doesn’t add up...I would fear the next step could be Playboy!..and again, don't get me wrong Playboy is....never mind...

It just so happened that not long after my daughter made her proclamation, a former model and America's Next Top Model judge, Paulina Porizkova was making an appearance at one of the designer stores at the downtown mall. I took all my daughters down to meet Paulina and hopefully get an idea of what it is like to be on the show. It turns out that Paulina was still extremely attractive (I kept that to myself) and very helpful. She told us that Tyra Banks was a "tyrant, that took credit for everyone elses ideas", I also asked why she left the show after just one season, her response, "I was fired, I think, all I know is that called my agent and told him they wouldn't need me the following season." She also told my daughter to stay far far away from anything to do with the show...whew, thanks Paulina!..I dodged yet another bullet! Anytime your kids make their own decisions and the right ones to boot, is a glorious thing for a parent, it lets us off the hook!..ps..Tara is modeling, clothed and not for Tyra Banks...

When I grow up...

When I was a kid I had dreams of becoming a great a artist. Oh, it could still happen..stop laughing!..it could, but the odds are greatly against me, and for you too, if you have the same dream. I took art in school, I drew, painted, sculpted and crayola crayoned thousands of artworks for my parents, siblings, classmates, teachers and anyone else that I could pawn off my pictures to. I wonder how many of these brilliant pieces are still hanging on refrigerators around the world? Here are a few recent things I have worked on to somewhat prove that I am who I claim to be...

What is my point? Think twice before making art your major in college. Whether its studio art, dance, drama, music or any of the other art related majors, jobs are scarce and there is a flood of competition out there. I read one article recently that stated approximately 36% of graduates with a concentration in the Arts will get a job in their chosen field. It's hard to feel optimist with figures like that floating around.

Art brings out passion in a person, and artists are passionate, so most of us who were born with a paint brush in our hands, couldn't care less about job statistics. Although I have found that most landlords and a variety of other bill collectors will not accept a piece of artwork as payment. The "starving artist" isn't a myth, for I am that man....

What Does Art Mean to You?

What is art? It is million different things to a million different people. I guess I would consider myself an art snob. Why you ask? Well, I will tell you even if you didn't ask. The Dada movement for those of you that are not familiar with it was an anti art movement after WWI. Anything and everything was considered art. Probably the most famous "artwork" and I use the turn loosely, from that period was Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, a urinal detached from the wall. I have a real problem with this movement.

I feel as though art comes from ones soul. It comes from the place where the heart and the mind meet. Art should be inspiring. Art like Duchamp's piece is really quite insulting to artists. At least it is to me and yes, I do consider myself an artist. At top right is a picture I painted of one of my daughters, next to it a photo of Duchamp's piece.

Granted, there is some definite humour in this piece and others like it. I can't speak for all artists but there are some that don't consider art a joke, and these pieces are essentially jokes. I've seen hair glued to a board, an old shoe nailed to a tree stump and feces rubbed on a canvas all displayed in art museums claiming to be works of art. Am I short sighted? Am I failing to see a bigger picture, perhaps, but would Picasso, DaVinci, Degas or Monet consider pieces like the Fountain works of art? I wonder...

If I were a fly on the wall...

What would you like to find out? Does he or she really like me? What does my boss really think of me? Whose cheating? Is the McRib coming back? This was my VoiceThreading experience (http://voicethread.com/share/1929407/). It was another amazing tool that I have had the pleasure of learning how to use and create this digital artwork.

The fly on the wall story idea came to me as I sat in the doctor's office and the doctor was discussing some test results with me. I thought to myself, if I could be a fly on a wall what would I want to find out?? I thought, how about the answers to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, but I guess that would be cheating and I wouldn't want to do that, not even for a million dollars...really?..Anyway, I kept my story more playful than anything. At first I was going to go with finding out people's secrets. But there again is another moral issue popping up...that darn conscience!...

This was a fun project though. The whole fly on the wall brings up a lot of interesting questions. Whose privacy would you invade to learn something that keeps gnawing at you? I made a whole list of things that I would love to find out. Nearly half of those ideas involved getting rich. When it comes to money, morality flies right out the window..it is a shame, but that is where the world is these days. Especially with the economic situation in most countries around the world. Jobs being lost, unemployment is sky high and you or I could be the next victim of the depression or is it a recession?..oh the heck with it, give me the answers to Who Wants to be a Millionaire....

A Digital Story...it moves and plays music!

For this assignment I used the Animoto.com website to create a digital story using downloaded photos, images and music. This was challenge, but once completed, quite rewarding. I didn't create a masterpiece, but I did create, and when it comes to me and computers, that my friend is quite an accomplishment. I tried to appeal to the masses and convey some humor in my story, although it did have an underlying meaning only known to myself and my professor. Was my story important? It was disguised not to be, but it was important to me as it symbolically portrayed an event in my life. Because this was my first real attempt at a digital story that moved, and with some personal issues going on, this assignment took me a lot longer than expected. I had issues with fitting all my pictures within a 30 second window and have the music match up with the photographs and story that I was trying to tell. I never did accomplish that feat to my satisfaction, but nevertheless I was still relatively happy with what I came up with. As aggravating as this assignment was in the beginning, middle and end, I did have fun with it which is why the next assignment came with a little less aggravation and a little more fun.

Chapter One, Digital Storytelling..here we go

This first assignment we went to Wordle.net and using this program create a brief story by using a group of words graphically. Ever since I was a kid and someone told me that I was really good at art and should become an artist I have felt a kind of pressure to always be creative, interesting, funny, what ever it took to get approval of my work...I decided this one time that I wouldn't worry about what anyone else thought of my work and just create something that was meaningful to me.

I am what you would call technologically declined. I'm not familiar with creating anything on the computer, I always relied on a pencil or paintbrush. So I dove in a hoped the claims were true, that this was a simple program. To my relief it was just that. The words I used to tell a story were issues that I have been dealing with for a while. It turns out that this project was a bit therapeutic in a way. I actually had no intended audience, I did this for myself. Did I want to evoke certain feelings or emotions? No, my intention was to get a handle on the feelings and emotions I already was experiencing.

I feel that this project gave me a kind of awareness as far as being myself, to let go of inhibitions and be myself. It may not make it more interesting but it is definitely more real.