how do you view the arts?

How do you view the arts? To be honest, I hardly ever go out to view any art related material, but after this class I actually plan going out to more. I was never the type to get up and go view “art.” I don’t have any friends who are very big in that subject, so when I go out it’s usually to nerdy-type places, like LAN cafes, but hopefully with my interest in going to these events more, I think I can change their mind. Usually when I get assignments to get up and to go view things, I always felt out of place and very unsure about things. When it comes to the question on “how do I view the arts?” it really depends on the situation. First thing is my mindset. This can be confusing to a lot of people who are thinking, “Should I go in as a reviewer, or just a viewer?” I try my best to combine the two, but most of the time I go in as a simple viewer, just to see the art for what it is. Although it can be hard trying to remember everything. For large lecture halls I usually try to sit in a good spot and bring out my notebook to write notes, but still giving my full attention to the speaker and to what’s going on, which can be hard. For galleries, it’s pretty different, since there isn’t anyone to guide you. Instead of a notebook I only have my phone handy, taking pictures of the art shown, typing notes of what I think about each piece, and of course the artist’s name. I feel like by going to more, I sort of “perfected” and I really don’t have that much of a trouble with the events I go to. And that’s pretty much how I go on about viewing the arts.

the final.

Even during my 3^rd year at Columbia, this place still seems new to me. Constantly changing with new events there is always something going on at Columbia College Chicago. It’s hard to believe I’m saying this in my 3^rd year at the school, but it’s true. Before Columbia, I lived in Bolingbrook, IL and attended their high school and once the move over here, quite a bit has changed, not only the environment, but also myself as well. Bolingbrook High School was rough. Heck, my first year attending we had a reported over 100 fights go on that year alone. So that was pretty crazy, but it did tone down as the years went by since the school got a new principal my 2^nd year, who was very, very strict. My sister is currently going through her final year at the high school and I never get tired listening to the stories of how it’s even stricter than before, it’s pretty ridiculous. Before Bolingbrook I lived in Chicago up until the end of my 7^th grade year, so once I graduated from high school, I knew I wanted to come back to the city. Columbia College Chicago was a huge change for me. Not only because I had to go to downtown everyday, something I rarely did, but the people were different. Columbia is a college with tons of people from different ethnicities, cultures, states, and even countries; although my high school was diverse, Columbia College Chicago brings it to a whole new level. But the real question is, what is Columbia College Chicago?

Though a large part in the arts scene and its ability to keep everyone active and in the loop, we cannot forget that Columbia College Chicago is first and foremost a school with faculty, students, and of course it’s classes. Though many would dismiss the idea of an “art college” at first, Columbia College Chicago has a lot to offer. One thing that interested me to this school was how the faculty are out in the field now. I had many teachers who wrote their own books, illustrated and written graphic novels, and played large parts in the whole arts scene. What makes Columbia so great is just that, the fact that teachers are out there working and know what’s going on definitely lets me know what to expect when I am ready to graduate and pursue my career choice. The courses Columbia College Chicago offers add to this as well, helping you to build a large portfolio during the stay to get ready for the real world. Each course is current and relevant to what ever major that the student has chosen. They are built upon teaching you the fundamentals, then giving you opportunity to become creative and apply your talent to the project.

When talking about the students, all that I can say is that it was a huge 180 to what I was used to. It wasn’t only the fashion style of the students, but it was how they act too. My style has never went beyond the traditional t-shirt and jeans, but coming here I was impressed on what people can pull off, some ridiculous, some not so much, but overall it was a change. Another thing about the students here is that they are Columbia. They’re the trendsetters at the school, the people who start events and go to attend them, and more importantly the future artists. The surrounding area and neighborhood definitely play a large role with the creativity of the students here at Columbia. Founded in 1890, Columbia College Chicago is located in the South Loop, though it was a rough neighborhood, it has drastically changed over the years. Since Columbia is in the heart of Chicago’s loop, there is always something to do. Events, concerts, lectures, you name it creativity will spark at any moment when you are here at Columbia. So to understand Columbia College Chicago, you would also have to learn and understand about the students.

A great start on learning the students is first going and observing the 9th floor computer lab of the 623 S. Wabash building. You can most likely find me in there all the time working on projects and I believe that this single floor just about sums up Columbia for me. It’s always filled, especially during finals (it’s packed), with art and design students working on class projects and personal works. This is the essence of the school, it’s simply students working on what they love to do, art. There is a lot on this floor, classrooms, the advisor office, and the lockers. Most importantly the floor is filled computers running both mac and pc containing an assortment of programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, whatever the student needs to create their art piece. Once they are done, the lab also contains high quality printers to print their artwork and such. If students aren’t by their computers, they are right in front of the printers. Aside from the “digital art,” the floor has space for a more traditional touch, with light tables and area for cutting their art boards. I personally use the light tables a lot for my traditional and hard drawn art, and then once finished, I move toward the computers and scan them in. Not only is this place a great area to work, but also the 9^th floor, is well, kind of a hang out and “meet up” spot for the art and design majors. When working on group projects it’s almost a given that our group meet-up will take place on the 9^th floor by the lockers.

Another area where I find Columbia to be Columbia is the outside of the 623 S. Wabash building. Basically it’s a gathering of students who share a common interest, smoking. I think of it like a small community or even a small “smoking outside in-between classes” culture that sometimes only meet during those breaks, which I find very interesting. This place is also a great place to show what Columbia is, not because of the smoking, but it’s the fact that people are just very great and outgoing here. It shows the personality of the students from what they talk about to what they wear. It kind of shows the style of the school in a way when looked at first glance or when walking by. The overall mood is pretty good, I walk past it all the time when I enter the building and I never see any conflict, just students having a good time talking and doing what they do. To be honest, I’m never out here, but after staying for about 30 minutes just observing the other students, I might just sit and hang out, despite the fact that I don’t smoke. But it’s getting colder out, so maybe next semester.

It’s impossible to talk about the students at Columbia College Chicago when you don’t mention their art. This was very different to for me to be in such an environment full of extremely talented, young people. Often time I find myself jealous saying, “Why couldn’t I think of that,” but it all in good light. Back in high school I only had 2 art classes, which I loved by the way, within the 4 years that I have attended that school. I did most of my work outside of class and just mainly doodles on the sides of papers during class. I’ve been drawing for years, the earliest I can remember of myself drawing anything that looked good was when I would sit in front of the TV drawing the cartoon characters from the shows going on at the time, such as Rocco’s Modern Life, Ren & Stimpy, Doug, and Rugrats, basically all the Nickelodeon shows; later on my love for video games grew after I got my NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) and I started to draw many video game characters like Mario and Samus from the Metroid series. Even from that age, I knew I wanted to become an artist drawing for many people and doing my own personal works. Growing up I never knew much about art or have seen other’s artwork (I was usually that artist of the class), so when I finally made it to Columbia College Chicago I was really surprised on how much people knew about art and to seeing their artwork. Columbia is a really great place to see many people’s art, by hosting many events and setting up galleries for students to show what they got. One exhibit I particularly enjoyed was one called “Dwelling.”

Upon going to the exhibit “Dwelling,” taking place in the C33 gallery of Columbia’s 33 E. Congress building during September 5^th – October 19^th, I did not know what to expect from our fellow artists at Columbia College Chicago, but after looking at their works I feel that I have gained a better understanding of each of the artists’ dwelling. Regarding the exhibit itself there were a few things I did like about, but also many pet peeves came into play.

Overall, the exhibit was fantastic; it was a personal look into the artists’ home life. What I now love about going through the exhibit, that I did not figure out when I first went in, was the fact that it appears that we are starting from the outside of the house working our way in based on the artwork of the students. This was a very clever idea well implemented. The “outside look” of the exhibit started with artist Austin P. Swearengin’s “The Importance of Finding a Way In,” which appears to look like a wooden roof. Just across from the roof we have Heather Boaz’s “Escape,” which shows a rope made out of bed sheets commonly seen in movies or television to escape one’s room. Upon going further in, we start to see furniture with works from Ericka Lechner and Heather Boaz once more.

All the work in the exhibit was great. You could tell that each piece was meaningful to each artist and they put a lot of thought into it. My favorite piece throughout the room was a very simple piece that involved only a doorknob and chair, Heather Boaz’s “Defense,” due to fact that it hit close to home with me personally. Another favorite had to be Brandy Watt’s “Untitled.” It is video of her home being viewed from the outside in; a different spin on the “dwelling” subject. There were also a few works that made me uncomfortable, in particular, a series of family videos by Carrie Schneider which felt very voyeur and incestuous. The video that stuck me was “Dad Washing My Hair.”

There are a few things about the exhibit that I did not particularly like. To start off, the lighting in the room wasn’t all that great. Some pieces were hard to see, especially their title cards. The text and the background color of the cards, together with the lighting, made it very difficult to read. I had to move my head up close to the small cards just to read them clearly. A small pet peeve I had was that not all of artwork featured about this exhibit was in the room itself. There is a photo featured on the website, Stephanie Del Monte’s “Untitled”, that was on the outside of the room, which made it a bit confusing if you wanted to see everything the exhibit had to offer. Overall this exhibit was great, it gave me some perspective on what others call home. Although it had a couple flaws, I suppose I can look into it thinking, not every home is perfect and there must be a sort of balance.

I love going to see the artwork of my peers; I feel that looking at their work strengthens my pieces. I would often gain a new perspective or perhaps a new style after coming back from any gallery. Columbia has always been apart of the arts scene and have a reputation of being “in the know” and for always keeping the students active, so the fact that Columbia College Chicago hosts many of them is great, not only for the students, but for many other people as well. I think that’s what makes Columbia great, the fact that the school hosts events makes them great as an art scene. At my time at Columbia, I went to a few of the events the school has hosted or promoted, a personal favorite was when graphic artist Chip Kidd, probably best known for creating the “Jurassic Park” logo/symbol as well as his many book cover illustrations, came to speak on March 30, but there was one reading that I attended that involved a CCC alum. And to try something new, it was a poetry reading rather than my usual listen to an artist talk about his/her illustration.

I’ve never been much of a fan of poetry, but my opinions soon changed after a listening to a couple of poets read their material at Columbia College Chicago. The reading was located in the 623 S. Wabash Ave. building within the Hokin gallery, room 106. The featured poets for this event were Elaine Equi and Jerome Sala, a married couple both Chicago natives, but currently living in New York; I did not know what to expect. I knew very little of poetry and I didn’t have much of an interest for the art, so this was a whole new adventure for me.

I entered the lecture hall around 5:20pm on Wednesday October 26, not expecting a full house. As I walked in this dimly light room, to my surprise, there were many people, teachers and students alike eager to listen to the writings of Elaine and Jerome. Luckily I found a seat near the top of the room. After about 10 minutes, a man steps up to the podium and the whole room went into immediate silence. Jokingly, he said, “That was easy.” He went on to say thank you for being here, giving small info about how he knows both the pets, and how he is honored to be introducing them to read at Columbia College Chicago. But before the featured writers, the man introduced a 2nd year grad student named Ryan to read his poetry to us. His work was very dark, perhaps too dark for this event, looking back on it. Once finished, the man goes up to the podium once more to give us some more information about the first of the two poets to read to us that evening, Jerome Sala.

Calling him the “Instigator of the Punk Poetry Scene,” I was excited to see what was in store. He goes on to tell us his accomplishments and the books that he has written, such as Spaz Attack and the newly released Prom Night. After an introduction, Jerome Sala walks up to the stage. The majority of his poems were highly entertaining, he started off with a poem called Mother’s Day, a very incestuous piece, then went on with R-Rated Christmas, a dark and vulgar take on Christmas that was also very funny. As he went on with his other work, I really taken a liking to these types of poems, they were very different to what I thought was a poem. He also went on to saying that we worked in Ads, and even read a poem designed to look like a storyboard for a commercial. Once finished, we were introduced to our next poet, Elaine Equi.

A graduate from our own Columbia College Chicago, she was an acclaimed writer, with books such Voice-Over and Ripple Effect: New and Selected Poems. Her poems I really enjoyed, they were also very entertaining, funny, and real. I connected to her work more because of the fact that they felt real. Her overall work was not as lengthy as Sala’s, they were mostly short and to the point and I really like that about her work. She read a whole series of poems based on dreams, such as one where she was sitting in a restaurant picturing others’ dreams while she looks at them. My favorite series that she read to us was the “reading books over someone’s shoulder on the bus/train.” In them, she only reads a small line of text that she could make out when she glanced at the book the person next to her was reading; these were very funny and I enjoyed them quite a bit.

Overall the whole experience was a blast. Both poets had very interesting and had surprisingly entertaining and funny work. I’m glad I went to this small reading, it was a change for me, a change that I needed. Now I can call myself a fan and go out and buy some of their books.

In answering the question, what is Columbia College Chicago? I believe that you just can’t give a simple answer, it’s more than that. It’s small pieces of a much larger picture: the teachers and students that build up the foundation, the creativity, imagination, and the passion that its built on top, and finally the work we produce whether that may be an illustration, a movie, or a album that finishes the structure that is Columbia.

links:

dwelling.

Jerome Sala

Elaine Equi

The 623

The first site I started to observe was the 9^th floor computer lab of the 623 S. Wabash building. You can most likely find me in there all the time working on projects and I believe that this single floor just about sums up Columbia for me. It’s always filled, especially during finals (it’s packed), with art and design students working on class projects and personal works. This is the essence of the school, it’s simply students working on what they love to do, art. There is a lot on this floor, classrooms, the advisor office, and the lockers. Most importantly the floor is filled computers running both mac and pc containing an assortment of programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, whatever the student needs to create their art piece. Once they are done, the lab also has high quality printers to print their artwork and such. If students art by their computers, they are right in front of the printers. Aside from the “digital art,” the floor has space for a more traditional touch, with light tables and area for cutting their art boards. I personally use the art boards a lot for my traditional art, and then once finished, I move toward the computers and scan them in. Another area where I find Columbia to be Columbia is the outside of the 623 S. Wabash building. Basically it’s a gathering of students who share a common interest, smoking. I think of it like a small community or even a small “smoking outside in-between classes” culture that sometimes only meet during those breaks, which I find very interesting. This place is also a great place to show what Columbia is, not because of the smoking, but it’s the fact that people are just very great and outgoing here. It shows the personality of the students from what they talk about to what they wear. It kind of shows the style of the school in a way when looked at first glance or when walking by. The overall mood is pretty good, I walk past it all the time when I enter the building and I never see any conflict, just students having a good time talking and doing what they do. To be honest, I’m never out here, but after staying for about 30 minutes just observing the other students, I might just sit and hang out, despite the fact that I don’t smoke. But it’s getting colder out, so maybe next semester.

Dave Chappelle's Block Party

Before seeing this movie I kind of didn’t know what to expect from this. I remember seeing commercials on TV for Dave Chappelle’s Block Party near its 2004 release, but I passed it off for being just another concert movie, despite being a fan of Chappelle. Now that I finally saw it, and read up about the whole “Dave Chappelle incident,” I found this film to be a bit more than just your regular concert/ documentary movie. This movie went to theaters just as Dave Chappelle’s return to the states from his spiritual retreat to Africa; it was the movie that he wanted to do while was still working on Chappelle.

I instantly became a fan of Dave Chappelle through his sketch comedy show Chappelle’s Show and from there went on to his other works. I first heard of him through friends constantly asking me, “Have you seen the Chappelle’s show!?” Highly interested, I had to check it out, and instantaneously I loved it. On the Chappelle’s Show, Dave tackles many issues, primarily regarding race, but even though race is a difficult topic Chappelle shows it in a comedic way, but also sometimes very smart. From checking out his other works I found him to be a great comedian.

Directed by Michael Gondry, probably best known for directing the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Dave Chappelle’s Block Party is not your average concert/ documentary, I felt there to be perhaps a larger message. Now looking back and seeing what Michael Gondry does, this is an interesting collaberatioin between him and Dave Chappelle. It obviously has the main concert, with musical acts in the genre of hip-hop and soul such as Mos Def, Kanye West, the Roots, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, and a surprise reunion of the Fugees, as well as some behind the scenes on how they made this block party for the whole documentary aspect. The movie basically starts off in Dayton, Ohio, where Dave currently resides, letting the town know and giving some people tickets to his Block Party in Brooklyn, New York. By chance, Chappelle ran into a marching band and invited them to come play at the block party. In these scenes we see how some people from the small area actually view the hip-hop genre, the majority of people where surprisingly interested, one woman even went onto say, while she was packing to go, “I knew I should’ve bought a thong,” but looking back, it wasn’t it really that type of concert.

Throughout the movie we get to see performances from the featured artists with occasional cuts to Dave and the crew setting the block party up, I felt that it was done extremely well and at no point I became lost; everything just tied together and flowed. During the whole “set-up” we get to see a lot of interesting people and places; the surrounding area had a daycare, a Salvation Army, and a chair factory. One place that sticks out the most in this film is the Broken Angel House, located at 4/6 Downing Street, right behind where Dave set up the stage. The Broken Angel House is a very interesting and strange structure, at first I though it was a church. The outside of the building was very asymmetrical and the inside looked like a giant maze to me. There are even rooms within the house which had no floors or roof, meaning that this house was still being worked on, and has been for years. Not only was the house interesting, but the people who lived there as well. Artists Arthur and Cynthia Wood, who at the time of the film had their 46th anniversary, owned the Broken Angel House.

Large parts of the film, of course, are the performances. I was never that big on hip-hop, with only a couple artists I really like, but this movie totally gave me a new genre to check out, neo soul. After the movie I found myself picking up some of the artist’s work, and I have to say, I love it; as I’m writing this, I am listening to Mos Def. From watching this movie, I really got this feeling of community and closeness with everybody, which I believe is the theme and what Dave is trying to get at. It’s the “down to earth” quality that everyone had which made me like this movie even more. The block party was a place just to have a good time and have fun, no matter who you are; the film had a feel-good vibe to it. That’s what I love about concerts that I personally go to myself. It’s the fact that for a few hours you can just forget about everything that’s going on with your life or around the world and just have a good time no matter who you are with, that’s what I felt was accomplished in this film. Overall I found this to be a very enjoyable and entertaining film, but aside from that, it really showed togetherness. With the always-funny Dave Chappelle and of course the stellar line up of hip-hop and soul acts, I can say that I recommend this movie and anyone can at least find something they like within this movie.

Poetry Reading: Elaine Equi and Jerome Sala

I’ve never been much of a fan of poetry, but my opinions soon changed after a listening to a couple of poets read their material at Columbia College Chicago. The reading was located in the 623 S. Wabash Ave. building within the Hokin gallery, room 106. The featured poets for this event were Elaine Equi and Jerome Sala, a married couple both Chicago natives, but currently living in New York; I did not know what to expect. I knew very little of poetry and I didn’t have much of an interest for the art, so this was a whole new adventure for me.

I entered the lecture hall around 5:20pm on Wednesday October 26, not expecting a full house. As I walked in this dimly light room, to my surprise, there were many people, teachers and students alike eager to listen to the writings of Elaine and Jerome. Luckily I found a seat near the top of the room. After about 10 minutes, a man steps up to the podium and the whole room went into immediate silence. Jokingly, he said, “That was easy.” He went on to say thank you for being here, giving small info about how he knows both the pets, and how he is honored to be introducing them to read at Columbia College Chicago. But before the featured writers, the man introduced a 2^nd year grad student named Ryan to read his poetry to us. His work was very dark, perhaps too dark for this event, looking back on it. Once finished, the man goes up to the podium once more to give us some more information about the first of the two poets to read to us that evening, Jerome Sala.

Calling him the “Instigator of the Punk Poetry Scene,” I was excited to see what was in store. He goes on to tell us his accomplishments and the books that he has written, such as Spaz Attack and the newly released Prom Night. After an introduction, Jerome Sala walks up to the stage. The majority of his poems were highly entertaining, he started off with a poem called Mother’s Day, a very incestuous piece, then went on with R-Rated Christmas, a dark and vulgar take on Christmas that was also very funny. As he went on with his other work, I really taken a liking to these types of poems, they were very different to what I thought was a poem. He also went on to saying that we worked in Ads, and even read a poem designed to look like a storyboard for a commercial. Once finished, we were introduced to our next poet, Elaine Equi.

A graduate from our own Columbia College Chicago, she was an acclaimed writer, with books such Voice-Over and Ripple Effect: New and Selected Poems. Her poems I really enjoyed, they were also very entertaining, funny, and real. I connected to her work more because of the fact that they felt real. Her overall work was not as lengthy as Sala’s, they were mostly short and to the point and I really like that about her work. She read a whole series of poems based on dreams, such as one where she was sitting in a restaurant picturing others’ dreams while she looks at them. My favorite series that she read to us was the “reading books over someone’s shoulder on the bus/train.” In them, she only reads a small line of text that she could make out when she glanced at the book the person next to her was reading; these were very funny and I enjoyed them quite a bit.

Overall the whole experience was a blast. Both poets had very interesting and had surprisingly entertaining and funny work. I’m glad I went to this small reading, it was a change for me, a change that I needed. Now I can call myself a fan and go out and buy some of their books.

the internets.

I’m online 24/7, whether that would be checking my status on Facebook using my phone or having a good time with friends playing video games at home; the Internet has always been there connecting me to people. I am an avid video game player, that’s where most of my time goes. When I’m not hanging out with my friends in real life, I can be found on party chat with them on Gears of War 3 over Xbox LIVE. It’s all I do, I just open my laptop screen and I’m already there, same browser open to the recent page I was viewing, it is almost like I never close Firefox.

I’ve been using a computer since I can remember. I was about 5 or 6 when my dad and godfather had one and shown me the basics, web browsing, email, etc. It had a large bulky monitor and a gray tower with Windows 95. All I used it for was to search for video games pictures, Pokémon or Dragon Ball Z episodes, and cheat codes, if I was having trouble with Metroid for NES; and for many years it was basically only that.

I went though a lot of different websites over the years. First it started with the Cheatcc.com or Nintendo.com, and then it moved on to the “kid” sites such as Nickelodeon.com and Disney.com. I still remember those shockwave-based games these sites have hosted that keep me glued to my screen for hours. I remember having a class in grade school that we simply titled, “Computer Class,” and all we did in there was browse the web and play games, such as Oregon Trail and Kid Pix.

At about the age of 10 or 11 at a summer camp, I was talking to a group of kids about general funny things, jokes, games, and of course websites. One website that a kid mentioned would be my hangout spot for about 5 years. He went on saying, “Yeah they make fun of everything there: Pokémon, Britney Spears, everything!” Very intrigued I went on the site later that day. That website is called Newgrounds.com. A site home to numerous flash-based shorts and games, such as Pico Goes to School or the classic, All Your Base R Belong 2 Us. I want to say from that point on, I acquired the “Internet Addiction.”

That website became my whole adolescence, listening to pop-punk music, like blink-182 or Sum 41, drinking Pepsi and eating chips every day, and watching anime and laughing at stupid flash movies and games any chance I can get. I even downloaded Flash to create my own movies, but it just wasn’t meant to be for now. I was so into this site that I really wanted to talk and share my experiences with it, so I made an account and joined the site’s forum, NGBBS. There I would talk with fellow NG users and talk about basically anything. The NGBBS years of my life where the most fun and the interaction with thousands of people were incredible, it felt like a second home; people knew me and I knew them.

Though this was my main site, I also browsed many other pages such as: Gaia Online, Neopets, deviantArt, Albino Blacksheep, and YTMND. Gaia Online was another one of those forum sites that I spent a lot of time on, but it had a fun side to it. You get to have an anime based-avatar and use “gold” to purchase clothing and accessories for it. Then there was YTMND.com, the site for the cheap laugh. A database for user created pages only consisting of a single image or .gif and music in the background. From there I branched out to the often called, “Internet hate machine,” 4chan.org, an image board which has been my current site to talk about random junk and other interests for about 6 years. The website is very easy to navigate, everything is right in front of you and is extremely faster than any forum that I have been to.

Nowadays what I mostly do on my computer is browse 4chan, YouTube, and Facebook or playing online multiplayer games either on my PC or Xbox 360. Although there are times you can find me off my butt from a computer chair, I can ensure you that I am always connected through my phone, looking at the same sites, getting cheap laughs, receiving information, sharing my experiences with others, but in a smaller format in the palm of my hand.

Living Out Loud

As a 20-year-old art major, I’m probably not the target audience for Richard LaGravenese’s 1998 romantic comedy, Living Out Loud. In this film we catch a glimpse of the lives of Judith, played by Holly Hunter, and Pat, played by Danny DeVito, both looking for a new identity and going through their own set of problems until they find each other at the perfect time.

Recently divorced, Judith Moore is set out to find what see really wants to do in life. Pat Francato is looking for the same, but is going through different problems. After 20 years of marriage his wife kicks him out of his home due to gambling issues, not only that, but his daughter becomes very ill and passes away. After Judith’s unusual night at the local jazz club, Jasper’s, the two meet in elevator at her Fifth Avenue apartment, also the place of work of Pat’s character. From there we see a relationship form between the two, both going through issues and both wanting the same things in life, but it becomes very much one-sided as Pat starts developing feelings toward Judith. After another night at Jasper’s, we begin to see another friendship form, Judith and the local jazz singer, Liz Bailey, played by Queen Latifah. A little hostile at first, but soon after they become good friends. Later in the movie Judith hires a male masseur, but what’s really important was what happened after. We get to see how a jealous Pat really feels for Judith as he tells her that he wants to be with her. Quickly shot down, they remain friends, but you can sense that he doesn’t want to give up. A dance scene and an elevator fight with an ex later, Judith and Pat share a final dinner in which they both ultimately decide to go their separate ways and pursue their goals.

There are quite a few memorable scenes, but one that stuck out the most for me was the dance scene at the lesbian club, The Confessional, where Liz took Judith for a night of fun. Though a little ridiculous, it showed a mix of reality and the fantasy that’s going on in Judith’s mind. This scene also left me questioning Judith’s sexual orientation due to how much fun she was having and perhaps contributing to her final decision not to be with Pat over dinner a couple days later.

Although the overall acting was great, this movie left me feeling confused. To me, this movie seems to be only a glimpse of the lives of the two characters and I would’ve liked to seen more. It’s not a yearning to see more, but the feeling of what really happened for a better understanding of what was the purpose of this film. Though the main character was Judith, I felt more of a connection to Pat. He seemed to have been going through a lot more than Judith’s character and it would’ve been nice to know more about him. The main problem I had with this movie, besides the plot, was Judith’s fantasy scenes. I felt that in the first half of the movie they were very rampant, but later on they disappear until one was had at the very end. Overall this film’s strengths are the believable characters and jazzy, cool and calm soundtrack. While this may not be the best romantic comedy/drama, it is certainly not the worse.

dwelling.

Upon going to the exhibit “Dwelling” I did not know what to expect from our fellow artists at Columbia College Chicago, but after looking at their works I feel that I have gained a better understanding of each of the artists’ dwelling. Regarding the exhibit itself there were a few things I did like about, but also many pet peeves came into play.

The exhibit was fantastic; it was a personal look into the artists’ home life. What I now love about going through the exhibit, that I did not figure out when I first went in, was the fact that it appears that we are starting from the outside of the house working our way in based on the artwork of the students. This was a very clever idea well implemented. The “outside look” of the exhibit started with artist Austin P. Swearengin’s “The Importance of Finding a Way In,” which appears to look like a wooden roof. Just across from the roof we have Heather Boaz’s “Escape,” which shows a rope made out of bed sheets commonly seen in movies or television to escape one’s room. Upon going further in, we start to see furniture with works from Ericka Lechner and Heather Boaz once more.

All the work in the exhibit was great. You could tell that each piece was meaningful to each artist and they put a lot of thought into it. My favorite piece throughout the room was a very simple piece that involved only a doorknob and chair, Heather Boaz’s “Defense,” due to fact that it hit close to home with me personally. Another favorite had to be Brandy Watt’s “Untitled.” It is video of her home being viewed from the outside in; a different spin on the “dwelling” subject. There were also a few works that made me uncomfortable, in particular, a series of family videos by Carrie Schneider which felt very voyeur and incestuous. The video that stuck me was “Dad Washing My Hair.”

There are a few things about the exhibit that I did not particularly like. To start off, the lighting in the room wasn’t all that great. Some pieces were hard to see, especially their title cards. The text and the background color of the cards, together with the lighting, made it very difficult to read. I had to move my head up close to the small cards just to read them clearly. A small pet peeve I had was that not all of artwork featured about this exhibit was in the room itself. There is a photo featured on the website, Stephanie Del Monte’s “Untitled”, that was on the outside of the room, which made it a bit confusing if you wanted to see everything the exhibit had to offer.

Overall this exhibit was great, it gave me some perspective on what others call home. Although it had a couple flaws, I suppose I can look into it thinking, not every home is perfect and there must be a sort of balance.

Thumbs Up/ Thumbs Down

Thumbs Up:
Something good that the world should know would have to be public transportation, especially in Chicago. There are practically bus stops on every corner, together with the many train stations across the city it is very easy to get around. Being a student with a U-Pass, I certainly love the advantage of going anywhere with this card. The only downside for me is that the card becomes in-active during the summer/winter breaks. This makes me realize how much I take for granted, because it’s such a hassle for me to go out and buy a “1 Day Pass” to hang out with friends, etc. I do feel a bit spoiled by the U-Pass.

Thumbs Down:

Something bad that the world should know and hopefully already do is fast food. I work part time at a place and am sick of not only the food, but the people. The fact that we have “regulars” is ridiculous. They come down the store every day, get the same unhealthy meal, and stay for a long amount of time; they practically live there. I know all they want to do is eat, and I guess relax, but it’s still fast food and should be probably eaten about once every few months.