Post #2: Art Speaks Volumes

Opinions and views of artists almost always comes through in their work, often times without even realizing it. Personally, through photography, things that I actually take pictures of and the artistic thought behind my photographs reflects a lot about me. If I had to define my artistic vision, even after lots of searching, I always come back to one word: beauty.

When I go to make a photograph my initial inspiration is always beauty, or sometimes the lack thereof. Beauty means many different things to so many different people that the idea of capturing that feeling that people hold on their minds in a print or image is really what drives my work.

Taking that further, beauty can be defined in ways other than physical. People's challenging pasts, breaking away from those times and coming out on top stronger than before is amazing and very inspirational to me. And produce work I keep that concept in mind, if that is my goal. Through art you can what ever you want and (sometimes... well hardly ever) never be criticized.

Think about that last statement, and realize how untrue it is. Censorship is a huge topic to have up for discussion, not only as artists and making sure our voices are heard through our work no matter how PC or not they are, but as Americans. Our daily news shows we love and religiously watch go through so many levels of censorship before they hit the airwaves so the truth doesn't offend, scare, or anger any of their precious viewers.

Don't directly quote me on this, because the source of this information escapes my mind at the moment, but some european countries have the same type of news shows as we do but far less sugar-coated. Graphic images and frank and honest stories are on daytime television, things such as the war in Iraq to local crime reports. I makes you wonder what is really happening behind the news stories we see and read here.

Getting back to the subject of art and those who make it, it now becomes our responsibility to tell the truth and make people realize things they wouldn't normally stop and think about. Speaking more for commercial art, there are still many censors on what can be published under a companies name preventing anything that might tarnish their name. There is still an outlet for artist to say really anything through their work. That, to me, is really what defines a good piece of work: the "hmm," factor.

Someone great once said: "if it disturbs you, its art" (I don't know who they are but that's not important). If an artist can make an average person walking by a work of art stop and say to themselves "hmm," and have that second of higher thought get their brain focused on something other than how they put too much sugar in their coffee that morning, that is a small achievement in my book even if that person's phone rings seconds later destroying that blip. Something that disturbs you, whether physically mentally or behaviorally (like your morning B-line home at the end of the day) has art at work somewhere.

This is why it is so important for artist to communicate to people what might not be easily said with words on a plane other than common understanding. We really are in a place of power. The gift of making people feel is a great one.

There is no one point of art other than to communicate. It's what you say that gives this three letter word that everyone is buzzing about meaning. So, what do you have to say?

The Introduction

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog. My name is Nick Bologna, and I'm a photography major at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Moving to the city was a huge change, considering I come from the suburbs of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania. So far I love the city.

I am enrolled in a course called Literature and Writing I my first semester of college, which is why I am writing this blog in the first place. I have never written a blog before, probably because this isn't the type of writing I'm used to doing. Most of the time I am writing for a school assignment, or for some paper I need to turn in for a grade. A deadline is definitely my inspiration most of the time.

I sometimes write poetry. I think I like poetry more because of the very nature of poetic language. I love the witty, creative, and descriptive way that a poem can be worded. The fact that the rules of grammar don't have as much of a hold on the way a poet writes is intriguing to me too. The same applies for my time to write, on Facebook, but whether that counts as legitimate writing is up for discussion.

Reading is an entirely different sack of bananas as far as my interest goes. I love to read, but I have this...thing. I don't know why but I will get so in to a book I'm reading, and often times never finish the book for one reason or another. This is probably why I don't really read for entertainment. The only time you see a printed publication in my hand, it's probably a magazine (e.g. Vogue, Nylon, Harper's Bazaar, Elle). Since I'm a photography major, its absolutely acceptable for me to say "I just look at the pictures."

Besides, I've never liked the idea of reading a book by some person you don't even know. What gives them the right to shove their words down your throat for an average of three to four hundred pages? If I'm talking to someone on the street, I don't sit there and let them run their mouth forever as if they were reciting their memoirs. Why should I allow someone I don't even know (or care about, really) to do the same?

Don't get me wrong, language is a beautiful thing, and reading is absolutely necessary and unavoidable. I mean it's kind of unrealistic to try to abandon it all together. How fascinating, funny little scribbles on a page, or computer screen can actually make us feel emotion, imagine a scene, or take us to another world that we didn't know existed inside of our minds. Even reading solely for informational value (which is what I really enjoy) you walk away having gained something.

I really hope this course is going to go well, and who knows, I may finish a book one of these days.

Bye!

-Nick Bologna