Tyler vs. 36 Chambers

I was extremely surprised while watching 36th Chamber of the striking similarities it shared with Tyler/art school. I found myself shaking my head and thinking, "YES, YES, YES!" many times through the movie  while thinking about it metaphorically.

I feel like the entire movie was an ongoing metaphor for art school and art in general. The main character wants to learn martial arts sooooooooooooo bad in order to better his wya of liveing and to make a difference. He jumps through all of these hoops to finally get to the school but then is stuck sweeping the floor, a task that must be done and is important but he feels it is irrelevent. When he is allowed into the program to learn martial arts he has to go through stages of task that seem crazy and impossible as a way opf learning.

It felt like an on going nightmare when I was going through the admission process at Tyler: grades didn't allow me to attend Temple, trouble transfering community college classes to Temple, new tyler portfolio review, Tyler lost my portfolio, waitlisted........ I was really happy to finially be going to art school this past fall but when it came down to do the work I found it conflicting. I wanted to make art and felt like all I was doing was completeing assignments that I needed to do, not anything that I wanted to make. I know those things that I was forced to do in foundation year were impoartant, but I did felt like they were pointless. I didn't want to make color charts or perspective drawings. The assignments that are given sometimes seems ridiculas and unachieveable: 50 city hall drawings, creating abstract narratives, or 6'x6' drawings.

My favorite part of the movie was when the main character invented the nunchucks. While he was hitting the tree in frustration an apifinany occured. I know through out this year at school I have been so frustrated and pissed off at projects and then out of know where a sinaps will happen and everything comes together.

I deffinitely think that artist are like monks.I think that monks like artist see a bigger picture in things that others may think is pointless and irrelevent to the situation. The only problem I have with compairing an artist to a monk is, usually when monks are thought about they are considered to be peaceful people. I feel like an artist who is at peace with the world has nothing to say. Art is about what we have to say to the world.

Abbot's quote "it's peaceful in this temple but outside is turbulent" is relevant to how art making art outside of college. Making art is hard; it could very well be one of the hardest thing I've ever done. Being an artist scares me; hell, being in art school scares the shit out of me. I love waking up and having to go to school, being here right now doesn't scare me, it's the money I'm going to have to repay when I leave. I'm terrified of being beaten down by the art community when I'm out there on my own. The world is a very very cruel place. I always think of the scene in the Graduate when Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft are lying in bed talking about art; Anne claims she knows nothing about the topic. When Hoffman asks her what she studied in college Bancroft sadly replies, "art". I don't want to be her, I don't want life to prevent me for doing what I love.

I'm not really sure how art making is going to be like when I am out of school. About a year and half ago a met a man who had graduated from RISD with a painting major a few years prior; since the day he graduated he never picked up a paintbrush or made any art. He claimed school ruined art for him and eventually was the cause of him not liking it anymore. I can understand why this kid felt that way after going to art school for a year now. Art school is rough and cynical and you can easily get the feeling that nothing you make is good. Its a double ended sword though because I want school to be like that because what's going to push me if all I hear is positive input constantly. I think things ended up like that for him because he wasn't truly passionate towards what he was doing(at the time of the conversation he was attending a film school and so much happier with that). The way I make art after school ultimately depends on what type of person that this school twist me into. I'm pretty sure I'm going to making things till I die, after all I've been making things since I was old enough to hold crayons. I've beginning to realize that art is more about processes instead of the end product and I like that. I think that's what art making is going to be all about once I leave Tyler.