Botanical Beauty

____About a week ago, my friends and I decided that we would venture out of East Halls for dinner and try something new.  North Commons was selected as our dining location for the night.  We walked along Park Avenue on our way to dinner, taking in our surroundings on this new road.  It was the Arboretum fountain that initially caught my eye.  Since we were heading to North for a late dinner, the sky was already somewhat dark.  The fountain was lit up and glowing across the street.  Lights placed in the fountain made the water sparkle.  The plants around the botanical garden were slightly illuminated from the fountain lights, and everything looked at peace.  We came to a group consensus that we would explore the area eventually. 

            Before my East Hall friends and I got the chance to explore the Penn State Arboretum, I visited with our English class.  I was excited to go because, while I wouldn’t call myself the biggest nature-lover around, I do enjoy looking at plants and walking around scenic areas.  In Pittsburgh, we have a botanical garden called Phipps Conservatory that I love to visit.  I’ve only gone a few times to the conservatory, but it is always fun to see the beautiful types of flowers and trees that can be grown.  I believe that plants are very similar to pieces of artwork in many respects.  While they may not be produced on a canvas or sculpted from a stone, gardeners invest a lot of time into planting.  It is it’s own art form.

  

____Penn State’s botanical garden stayed true to my belief.  All of the plants looked beautiful and well kept, making everything much more aesthetically pleasing.  The flowers were brilliant in color, which to me, sent off a positive vibe.  One portion of the garden that I really enjoyed featured a wooden bench concealed by a roof of vines and surrounded by flowers.  There was something so romantic and private about this area of the garden that I loved.      

____There were also actual artsy pieces placed around the Arboretum that I thought worked well with the plants.  For instance, the yellow wooden chair surrounded by bright, colorful flowers made the botanical garden seem inviting and homey.  Another artistic piece that stood out to me was the stone sundial.  I was instantly drawn to this piece because of its size.  It helps the garden look more exciting, as it takes up a large portion of unoccupied grass.  Also, the mix of the grey stone and the rainbow of flowers looked great together.  In my opinion, the grey seemed to accentuate the bright colors of the flowers and make them pop.  

            I definitely see a returning trip to the Arboretum in my future.  I’m not sure if it was just because we were there early in the morning, but everything about the garden was peaceful.  It was a much different environment than the mayhem that makes up Penn State’s busy sidewalks, streets, and buildings.  I can see myself studying there or reading a book if it’s a beautiful day and I’m searching for tranquility.  I will also eventually make it to the Arboretum with my friends, just as we hoped to do.  It would be a fun place to go for a walk or take pictures on a sunny day.  I’m glad that Penn State has a location like the Arboretum and I look forward to taking advantage of this spot.   

 

My First Art Adventure

Walking into the Palmer Museum of Art, there were many paintings and sculptures that caught my eye, but one in particular seemed to possess more meaning than the others.  Harlem Rose was not the most colorful and outrageous piece of art that I observed at the museum, but in my opinion, it was the most intriguing and moving. 

In this 2005-2006 piece, African American artist Willie Cole creates what reminded me of a flower or a sunburst out of old, worn women’s shoes.  One shoe is placed in the center of the piece, the toe pointing outward.  All of the other shoes are placed around it in the same fashion with their toes pointing out and their rubber outsoles facing the innermost shoe.  This presents the viewer with the illusion of petals on a flower.  The shoes are neutral in color, most of them being black or brown, and the rubber outsoles are all a light brown or tan shade.  The light color of the bottom of the shoe enables the viewer to see the scuffs and age in each individual shoe. 

While Harlem Rose was created more recently, Cole was born in 1955.  At that point in American history, there was great racial division and unrest throughout the country.  The Civil Rights Movement had begun to pick up speed, as African Americans participated in bus boycotts, sit-ins, and freedom rides in a fight for equality.  Cole, an African America born during this time period, would therefore clearly have a true connection to the era of civil rights. According to the plaque next to the piece, Cole has created other sculptures from consumer objects that workers would have worn or used besides Harlem Rose.  Many of his works relate to West African culture or African American life in the Americas. 

Knowing about the rhetorical situation of the piece, it is obvious that Cole was trying to make a point that African American women during the era of racial discrimination worked hard to achieve the equality that they desired.  By seeing the worn-down shoes of working African American women, Cole uses pathos to appeal to the viewer’s emotions.  It’s easy to visualize the struggles that the African American women of the time period suffered through by simply looking at the scuffs on the shoes.  Knowing about the bus boycotts in Montgomery and Rosa Parks influence on the boycotts, I wondered if the title was a connection between the two.  A powerful woman and a powerful location create an affective title to the piece with so much meaning.

Before this assignment, I was unaware that Penn State even had it’s own arts museum, so it was a pleasant surprise to hear that our English class would be going there on a trip.  I am a big fan of art, from paintings and sculptures to music, so being able to explore the museum was an enjoyable experience.  Though the museum was not huge, there were a lot of interesting and entertaining pieces that made me think.  The trip definitely showed me a different side of Penn State that I would have never known to explore.

Behinds the Scenes

Template:  When selecting a template for my own English 015S blog, I wanted to pick something that the reader could easily maneuver.  The template titled “Simple Template” did just that.   These templates consisted of rather plain and basic backgrounds, and each one had a clear, established space for the actual blog posts.  This template also reflects my own personality because I am a very basic, organized person.  The reader may be able to pick up on this through my template choice. 

Title: Knowing that the title of my blog would be the first thing that potential readers would see, I wanted to make my title memorable and intriguing.  I decided to make the title one word because it is easier to remember a short, simple title.   As you have probably already noticed, I combined the words “blog” and “fantastic” to create my title.  I thought it seemed like a silly play on words, and I figured that others might find it funny as well, peaking their interest.  The simple and witty title also works well for my blog because it reflects my relaxed and lighthearted personality. 

Color: I selected the color green as my main background, not only because it is my favorite color, but because it stands out.  The particular shade that I used for my blog is bright, but not so obnoxious that you cannot remain on the page for a long time.  I changed the fonts to teal, rose and grey because those colors matched well with the green and were easy to read on the white text background.  I did not want to pick font colors that would make reading difficult or even painful to the eyes!

Font:  I chose my fonts based off of the information that I read about in chapter 14 of Everything’s An Argument.  I wanted my blog to be welcoming and appealing in order to attract readers.  In Everything’s An Argument, I learned that fonts such as Times New Roman are “warm and inviting”(456).  Keeping this in mind, I used Times New Roman for my blog title and the post titles.  I also used a similar font, Georgia, for all other text on the blog, hoping that it would send off the same inviting vibe.    

Pages: I decided to include a separate page for my “About Me” section because I had a decent amount of information that I wanted to share with the readers.   Since we are all just starting at Penn State and we barely know each other, I figured that presenting information about myself might be help the reader understand the author of the posts.

Pictures:  In my “About Me” section, I included a few pictures.  I decided to post these pictures because I thought that they reflected what I wrote about myself, and they help make the text come to life.  I think pictures are a good way to learn something about someone you don’t know because you are able to glimpse into a moment of their life.  I hoped that by sharing these pictures, people would understand more about me and become more interested in my thoughts and posts.