Work or Play?

(Artwork above: Why My Baby? by Dara Ket)

Last week, I received a postcard in the mail for the "Fifteenth Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners." If you are in Ann Arbor during the next few weeks, you should definitely stop in! This is put on by an organization called Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) that I was privileged enough to work with when I was an undergrad at the University of Michigan. When I got home and saw this postcard in my mailbox, I thought about all the freedoms and privileges that come with being in Grad school. I decided to not take my nap that I was looking forward to that afternoon. I gathered my energy and "got out there" while the sun was still out.
I was really grateful for that run and that simple image helped put things in perspective for a stressful week that I have had. But I'm still trying to find that balance this semester. When do I rest? When do I push myself to work harder? When is it okay to have fun? I usually think it is ALWAYS okay to have fun. The lines of work and play are delightfully blurry sometimes: Pictured below is a wearable art piece made by a student in the First Year Program at SAIC. I would call this having fun during work time. I'm also "working" on getting ready for the Chicago Marathon in October. While the improving weather will help my motivation to get out and run more, I'm also trying to get enough sleep. Time management, anyone?

New Heights

What is the origin of the hair poof? East Coast? I'm bringing my hair and myself back down to reality after a weekend of new heights!

To catch a teacher...

For my fellow Master's Thesis writers out there, the technicalities of "citations" took on a whole new meaning for me this weekend...although my thesis was the last thing on my mind.
Okay, here's my case:
We were entering the Chicago Red Line station after Saturday's St. Patrick's Day Parade. The person in front of me dipped his farecard and proceeded through the handicapped gate. I had my U-Pass CTA card (with unlimited rides for the semester) out in my hand and ready to dip but the gate had not closed yet. I proceeded through in the flurry of getting to the train.
An undercover cop then asked me to step over to the side and show my I.D. Despite my explanation to her of the concept of an unlimited rides farecard and how it was in my hand ready to go, she continued writing out the citation. She told me I had committed theft. I told her my ride was already paid for and no one lost any money. I was then watched over by another undercover cop while she called in my information to make sure there were no warrants out for my arrest. (There aren't.) I presume the other undercover cop was standing guard over me so that I wouldn't run away? I told him that I had that U-Pass because I'm in a graduate program preparing me to become a teacher and be a role model for America's youth...and I STILL have to get a citation? He answered, "Oh, wow. Well, we just caught a lawyer going through without paying." I think he missed my point about professionals who are committed to morals but well, whatever.
They also stated that if I didn't have identification on me that day, I would have been arrested. I know what you're thinking: "Jean, when are you going to get your life together and stop getting into trouble with the law?" And I've got some nerve messing with the clean, efficient, and financially sound CTA!
I think this is an excellent time to point out the 'honor system' that is called the Viennese Transit System. Let me explain:
While I was visiting this fine, civilized metropolis called Vienna this past January- where they probably don't celebrate the feast of St. Patrick - I noticed the lack of turnstiles in all of the trains. You don't even show a ticket when you got on the buses! You stamp your ticket by entering it in the little blue box and then go on your merry way. If you have a 30 day pass, for example, you don't have to validate it again until it expires. YOU JUST WALK IN. There is the sporadic ticketing agent that will walk through a train and ask for tickets but that is a rare occasion. Might I also point out that on weekends, you can take a newspaper out of a bag (no locks!) on the lamppost, and they TRUST YOU to deposit coins into a little box. And yes, they have a health system that works, too.
I'd also like to point out the more pleasant train station experience I had in Budapest. Here I am (below) enjoying an unidentifiable pastry and machine-made cappuccino in a plastic cup upon my arrival at the Hungary's main train station. It was cold and soviet feeling, and it was still better than the CTA. And that's saying something.
So my question to you all is this: do I contest a $50 CTA citation on principle? (The citation turns out to be the equivalent of a parking ticket-I will not have a criminal record!) Or do I pay the fee and spend $50 worth of my time doing something productive? Like, maybe working on my thesis?

That's a wrap!

When Washington Mutual shutdown, I kept seeing all of their signs wrapped snugly in some tarp-like material. I saw another one still wrapped snugly while I was out in the 'burbs today. What was probably an attempt to remove the corporate presence has actually illuminated them even more. There are artists who have already been doing just that: the Jeanne-Claude and Christo duo. (See below.) I believe these artists wrap things so that we see their forms more clearly and to notice things that we would otherwise overlook. Well, I can't stop seeing Washington Mutual now. Note that I took no pictures of "unwrapped logos" on my drive today.




On a side note, Jeanne-Claude passed away this past November. But she lives on--even in a mundane drive through the suburbs.

Cyberdundant Olympics

Some of you may already be aware of a term I made called: Cyberdundant. It's where people post something on-line or link to something on the web that already exists. It is being redudant in cyberspace.
So pardon my cyberdundancy (the noun form) in this blog post you are reading. I will try to shed some new light on a topic that is already circulating plenty.

Because I love all things Olympics and don't want them to be over, I'm going to make a connection between ice dancing and ethical considerations in art education. You ready?
A Russian Ice dancing pair has been a hot topic of discussion regarding their costumes depicting Aboriginal people of Australia...

They even changed it up a bit for their second performance so that they were less offensive. What do you think? Lighter skin but still pulling on woman's hair. I'm confused. This is when I turn to the art class and ask, "Class, what is this image telling you?"
Last term around Thanksgiving time, we spent the whole class talking about the depiction of Native Americans (or American Indians, or insert other label here " ",) in American pop culture.
So what do you think? Are we any more politically correct than the Russians?