today, in english class, we learned about freewriting.
WHAT IS THIS COMPLETE AND UTTER AMAZINGNESS THAT I HAD NOT HEARD OF????
anyways, jubilant and slightly angry shouting aside, I do believe this is my new favorite form. If it can be called a form. I assume all of you who have not been living under some apparent rock for your entire lives already know what freewriting is. Anyways. I mean, it's basically how I blog anyways. One giant freewriting excersise. Constant stream-of-conciousness. Anyways again. For homework we had to freewrite our thoughts on Frida Kahlo's Autorretrato Con Espinas. Well, I don't know why you would be interested in my sheet, but here it is anyway.
anyways. I say that a lot.
anyways....
Exercise 1: Freewriting on Frida Kahlo’s Autorretrato Con Espinas
Autorretrato con Espinas. I should know what it means. If I actually ever did Spanish, I’d know what it meant. Probably.
The woman has scary eyebrows. almost a unibrow, actually. I would almost think it wasn’t a woman, but the hair & the butterflies classify it as such, I suppose. Plus, she looks like a woman, except for the excessive facial hair.
Autorretrato con Espinas – it means ‘Self portrait with thorns.’ I had to look it up, I couldn’t take it. Curiosity consumed me. With thorns… it seems almost as if she is comparing herself to Jesus… and yet it doesn’t seem that way at all. Clearly she’s not attempting to edit herself for the better. She paints herself as she appears, perhaps worse even. (Having never seen a portrait of Frida, I have no idea what she actually looks like.)
And what on earth are the gorilla & cat doing there? and the bird, tied to her thorny necklace. Oh, it has deep symbolism I’m sure. Eleven years reading Sister Wendy Beckett’s ‘Story of Painting’ have taught me that every paintstroke in every painting has a deep, deep meaning. A leaf symbolises communism, a hair out of place symbolises the life of muhammed. Don’t painters [and writers & poets] ever want to paint [or write] something without having to think deeply about it? I mean, sure, it’s wonderful and important to have meanings behind the things we create, and the occasional allegorical piece is splendid & thought provoking. But isn’t it exhausting to come up with a symbolism for every word – every brush stroke? My writings might have inside jokes… perhaps a hidden jab at contemporary life, & culture. But I could never write a whole allegory, or a limerick about Anarchy (that sounds like it’s about puppies)
I don’t really know if that was on topic, but I suppose you could say it was. That was my response to the picture. Disdain, and yet deep respect for the thought & the analysis required to paint, and to fully appreciate this work. Perhaps it’s just jealousy; I’m jealous I couldn’t ever create as deep a work (though at this moment it’s for lack of wanting to create one). My base, lazy instinct is, when confronted with a painting such as this, to say ‘oh, it’s nice’ & move on. Half of me screams at that quick dismisall though. It screams ‘what are you thinking? Do you not see the utter genius you are presented with?’
My word, I can go on! I suppose this is more than enough words! (And I could still go on for hours!)
PS - My english teacher also suggested we all start blogs. He spoke for a paragraph or two on how wonderful blogging was. I felt smug-ish. I have a blog. wtg me!
anyways (<----- must stop using that. I think I use it instead of indenting my paragraphs or something? Or instead of coming up with something catchy to start the new paragraph? or where I would say 'um' if I were speaking? Who knows.)
peace, love, and goldfish.
LS
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