Schindler's List

Wow. This is a must see movie. If you find yourself on a Friday night with nothing to do go down to your nearest Blockbuster and rent Schindler's List. You may want to buy a box of tissues while your out.

I watched it last night and it really struck me. It is set during World War II. The movie was about the suffering of the Jews and the life of a man who tried to help them. His name was Oscar Schindler. He was a smart, wealthy German businessman. When the movie starts he seems like your average rude and mean German (at the time) who hates Jews. As the movie progresses you see him change into a man who really cares. He ends up saving over a thousand Jews from torturing and death by opening up his own factory. 

I really liked the story line of this movie, but it was also very graphic. It showed every detail of every shot that the Nazis fired. This was very painful to watch but I think that it made an even bigger impact on me. The movie really raised some questions for me too. How could the Germans kill so many people? Were they even thinking? Did they ever stop to think that maybe killing those people might be wrong? There had to be something inside of them that was telling them how wrong it was. What they did was murder, and that is just so wrong. 

I could barely watch some of the killing scenes, but Jews during the time had to watch that every day. Every day they had to watch their family and friends being killed right in front of them. I can't even imagine how it would feel to stand in a line while a man with a gun shot down dozens of people around me. The blood would be one thing, but then to think that you could be next. You could be the one that those horrible men were killing for no reason. 

This movie had such a huge impact on me and I would urge you to watch it. It may not be a happy movie but it really gets you thinking. 

Intimidation factor...

I recently participated in a debate about the atomic bomb and World War II. We argued to wether the US used their actions in Japan to intimidate the USSR for the post-war era. The actions in Japan would be defined as dropping the two atomic bombs and the post-war era would be described as the spread of communism into Europe and the rest of the world. My teams argument was that they did not use the atomic bombs to intimidate Russia. I gave the opening statement and I brought up a couple of good key points against the other argument. 

I started by saying that the US ended the war for one reason, to end the war as quickly as possible. There had already been 2.5 million deaths between the US and Japan alone and the president didn't want any more. The US had two plans: to drop the atomic bomb or a plan of attack called operation downfall. Operation downfall was a military invasion that would have prolonged the war for a long time. It would have cost an estimated million casualties on the US side and tens of millions on the Japanese side. Dropping the atomic bomb may have killed 200,000 but this is no where near the amount that the invasion would have killed. Harry S. Truman, the president of the United States in 1945, even stated why he decided to drop the bombs. He said that it was to bring about a quick resolution of the war by inflicting destruction, and instilling fear of further destruction, that was sufficient to cause Japan to surrender. This clearly has nothing to do with intimidating the USSR.

Another point that I brought up was the fact that the US and the USSR were allies during World War II. They even had an agreement called the Lend-Lease act which was created in 1941 and was still active in 1945 when the bombs were dropped. Through the Lend-Lease program the US sent 11 billion dollars worth of war supplies to Russia. In 1945 Stalin of the USSR said "Lend-Lease is one of Roosevelts most remarkable and vital achievements in the formation of the anti-Hitler alliance." As you can see the two countries were in agreement during this time so we had no reason to need to intimidate the USSR. 

I had one last point that I did not have time to bring up in the opening statement. As I stated before the US had a plan called operation downfall just in case for some reason they could not use the atomic bombs. Why would they even need a back-up plan if their only reason for dropping the bombs was to intimidate Russia? Operation downfall would not have intimidated Russia at all so the US was obviously dropping the bomb to end the war as quickly as possible. 

Doing this debate was very interesting and it made you have to look at both perspectives. In the end both teams had very good arguments and the debate was very heated and exciting.

The next level...

In my last post I talked about the art journal that I've recently been keeping. Well now I'm taking my art to another level. I chose three of my favorite pieces and transfered them to photoshop. I then made them less complex so that I would be able to paint them. After this I picked one that I liked the most and make a painting out of it.

This was actually kind of a challenging process for me. When I was looking through my art, I couldn't really find three pieces of art that I was proud of. I found one that I really liked so I started by scanning that one so that I could work with it on the computer. It was a picture of some balloons that I drew with markers. I ended up transferring it onto a dark blue background and adding stars and a moon so that it looked kind of like the balloons were soaring into space. This idea struck me because I have always wondered where your balloon goes when you let go of it. 

My next idea was kind of harder. When I was looking through my notebook I came across a drawing that I never really finished. The drawing was a locked box in the middle with thought bubbles all around it. I called the piece box of secrets and the thought bubbles on the outside were supposed to contain secrets that people could have. Unfortunately I never got around to putting the representations of secrets in the thought bubble. So I decided to do this because I thought that this might make a good painting. So I did this but when I transferred it onto photoshop, something just wasn't right... Then an idea was given to me. I decided to look up pictures of everything so that it would be more clear to what each "secret" inside the thought bubbles really was. I think this idea worked out pretty well so I decided to use this one as the one that I would paint. I hope the painting turns out good! 

For the last couple of weeks I have been keeping an art journal. Its been a little bit of a challenge for me because I've never really been an artsy person. I wasn't looking forward to the experience of keeping an art journal but it hasn't been too bad. It has helped me be a lot more creative. At the beginning it was hard to think of ideas but as the days went on I was able to come up with some ideas, even if they weren't the best ones. 

I feel like doing this art journal has helped me develop in my artistic ability but thats not the only thing it has done. I feel like I am more appreciative of art. Since it has been hard for me to even think of ideas it really makes me appreciate art and artists around me. Their jobs aren't as easy as you would think. Some people might think that making art is an easy job and that they don't really do anything but it takes a lot of work. Its a real challenge to think of something creative and aesthetically pleasing while at the same time being original so that you aren't copying anyone else's work. 

Another thing that I have gained out of this experience is that art isn't going to be in my future. I like art and all but I don't think I'm going to make a career out of it. I think that its really great that people make a living using art but its just not a passion of mine. I did enjoy drawing in my journal but it took too much thought and I wasn't exactly proud of what I came out with. But at least now I know that its not something I want to pursue! 

Brenda York

I have recently had the chance to interview an artist by the name of Brenda York. She has a very unique style that is a lot like cubism and abstract styles. She mostly paints people but she makes them unique by rearranging the features on their faces. I thought it was amazing that even though the people she paints are abstract she could still make them have a lot of emotion. They all had facial expressions that displayed some sort of emotion and it looked so life like. 

Brenda has been an artist for her whole life. She has been drawing for as long as she can remember and studied art in college. Most of her jobs have been art related and some of these include Graphic Design, jewelry making, children's book illustrations and now painting. 

I got to ask her a wide range of questions from what inspires her to what her her favorite kind of paint is. She is inspired by Picasso, who is also one of her favorite artists. She is also inspired by peoples faces because that is the most common theme in her paintings. She also has one trick that she uses to get started on a painting so that she doesn't get stuck. She starts with her canvas black instead of white because a blank white canvas can be a little bit overwhelming. 

I also talked to her about the kind of paint she uses. She says that she has used almost all different kinds of paints but has decided that she likes oil the best. It dries the slowest and is the most forgiving. If you want to change something on the painting the next day you can because it will probably still be wet. She says that watercolor is the least forgiving kind of paint. 

Another thing I asked her about was how she made a living as an artist. She said that she sells paintings through her website, online galleries, art shows and commission. I found it interesting how many ways that there really are to sell paintings to make a living. 

Overall I really liked interviewing Brenda. She was very open and I learned a lot about her, her art, and making a living as an artist. If you would like to look at some of her art for yourself you can visit her website at www.brendayork.com. 

The Diary of a Young Girl...

The Diary of a Young Girl is a real life memory of what happened in during World War II. It was written by a jewish thirteen year old girl by the name of Anne Frank. She wrote in this diary almost everyday while she was in hiding. I recently have read an excerpt from this diary and what I read was really amazing. 

One thing that she said that really struck me was in the first paragraph of what I read. It may not be very important to the plot but it is very interesting how it all plays out. On June 20th 1942 Anne wrote "It's an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary... because it seems to me that neither I-nor for that matter anyone else-will be interested in the unbosomings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl." This quote seems interesting to me because that is so far from the truth. Not in a million years did Anne think that her diary would be published as a historical book. Millions of people have read it and been deeply touched by its content. She never thought that anyone would read her diary but she was so wrong. 

Another thing that Anne says really struck me because she spoke about something that I had never heard of before. On one page she says “There are a great number of organizations, such as “The Free Netherlands,” which forge identity cards, supply money to people “underground,” find hiding places for people, and work for young men in hiding, it is amazing how much noble, unselfish work these people are doing, risking their own lives to help and save others.” This quote really got me to thinking. I never knew anything about organizations such as these before reading this quote. Why don’t we learn about groups like this when we are learning about the rest of the Holocaust? These people and organizations seem like they would play a big part in the Holocaust, yet all we learn about is Hitler. It would be interesting to learn what kind of impact these people had on the outplay of the war and the Holocaust. 

Art During the Interwar Era

Contrary to what you might think, there was a lot of art during and after World War 1. Some of the art movements include expressionism, cubism, dadaism, precisionism and surrealism. There were a lot of art movements during this time that were lashing out against the war.

One such anti-war art movement was called surrealism. This art movement had very irrational art because the artists believed that the horrors of World War 1 were a result of rational thought. The art was very dream like and was an expression of subconscious mind. One example of a surrealist artist was Salvador Dali. Here is a painting of his called "Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of a New Man." 

Another anti-war movement was called dadaism. This movement expressed its feelings toward anti-war by doing anti-art. The paintings were not aesthetically pleasing and for the most part had no meaning whatsoever. Most of the work was offensive and all of the artists were against World War 1 and its barbarism. One of my favorite dada paintings is called "Les Tablettes" which means the artists palette. It was painted by Marcel Janco in 1918. I found this painting intersting because it actually was the artists palette. After making his masterpiece, Janco decided that he liked the palette better so he used that as his art. For being anti-art, I thought this idea was creative and unique. 

This is just some of the art during the interwar era but there is so much more to learn.