Image: Museum of Fine Arts (D3OL 2023)

When I went to the fine arts museum last Thursday, I was taking time to observe all the art in each gallery. As I was doing so, I remembered sometime in June of 2021, I was preparing to go to the same art museum. Before I did, I wanted to know if there was a specific way one is meant to view the works as I wasn’t getting it. 

There was a video I watched, titled “how to look at an artwork” by the Phoenix Art Museum and in the video, they detailed techniques one could employ when looking at artworks. One of the techniques involved looking at the artwork to get a general understanding of what the artwork is trying to convey. When one can comprehend the message/subject of the work, then a closer step is taken to understand how the artwork was constructed. 

The brush patterns, the colors, and the composition are all things one is meant to focus on. I say all this to say even when I watched a video on how one is meant to view artwork, it didn’t really resonate with me. Fast-forward to today, with me being a budding artist, I am slowly beginning to understand. It is something that is hard to put into words, it seems like it is one of those, “if you know you know” type of things. I do want to urge all my readers to try and experiment with creating something of your own. Maybe they will find their perspective of things begins to change.

Quickly going back to my previous talking point, there are some people who seem to understand art on a deeper level compared to others. I suggested that one attempting to create something on their own could allow them to develop a different perspective on art, and even life. When I was in the art museum, I went to the section that housed the older artworks. Many of them were either commissioned by the church, or it had some sort of religious influence. I began to wonder if spirituality has any sort of influence on the artist themselves. With all the references made about religion, one would think this is the case right? 

Additionally, I feel that one opening their “third eye” is in reference to the deep connection that I am unsure of though. This theory may be plausible as the origins of the third eye come from Hinduism: a religion that places an emphasis on chakras, and states of consciousness. The third eye itself is used to refer to one having perception beyond ordinary sight. A documentary could definitely come in handy when trying to explain that. Would be a cool project I could try to tackle. Speaking of a cool project to tackle.

I have once again found more inspiration from my daily life. I was playing this one Jojo game that I downloaded from Xbox’s Game Pass. Specifically, there is an intro assigned to the character, ‘Funny Valentine’. The way it goes is that there is an American flag that falls into frame, it slowly forms a cylinder, then the character appears in the middle when the flag flies away. Another one I saw was from another character called ‘Diavolo.’ I included videos below for reference because the explanation won’t do it justice. I plan to recreate these somehow. How I will do it, is still a work in progress. 

Another update is that I bought two new books from Barnes and Nobles. I think I have actually developed this bad habit of buying books, not finishing them, then buying another one💀. Both of the books I bought have to do with becoming a better writer. I am enjoying the process of writing because I can vocal/express my ideas, but in the long run, an active effort towards improvement must be made. 

The first book I got is called ‘Do I Make Myself Clear’ by Harold Evans. According to the summary on the back, it is “a writing manual so smart and incisive that it could surely benefit anyone…” The second book is called ‘The Copy Book’ by Taschen and obviously, it is about copywriting. I figured, if I really want to gauge how good my writing is becoming, I should see how much people are willing to pay for it. I have thought of employing that method because I have had a hard time gauging the progress I am making so far. 

It is possible that I just may be too early since I only started blogging about a month ago, but it would be nice to get some type of constructive criticism with my work. Also, it’s crazy that it has already been a month of “blogging”. (idk if you can really call this blogging because I have just been writing short essays on topics I find interesting.) I have been fairly consistent, writing a blog post at least once a week. But now, I have to work to be better. 

I made 7 blog posts in the first month, the second blog post has to 14 at the minimum, so it looks like I have my work cut out for me. Finally, I haven’t made much progress with the Kon (Bleach) animation, or d3ol’s instagram. I will refrain from trying to give another concrete day when they will go live, but I will work on them in the meantime. Once again, I want to thank you all for taking the time to read this “essay” and until we read again 😤.

This post’s song recommendation is “Stakes is High” by De La Soul, produced by J Dilla.