Purple Door 2009: Day One

A little over a week ago I went to the Purple Door arts and music festival with my girlfriend and my friends Natalie and Jesse. There were a lot of great bands there this year. We arrived Friday evening on August 14th. We watched House of Heroes first and then walked around the grounds looking at all the booths they had set up.

(House of Heroes)

There was a booth for Compassion, The Love Alliance, Fakelife Clothing, and Relevant Magazine just to name a few. So Purple Door isn't just about music and art, it's also about activism. It's about getting God's people to get out there and make a difference because that's what true Christianity is about. Unfortunately for many Christianity has become reduced to t-shirts, bumper stickers, and music that doesn't do much more than rip off popular culture. It has become a lifestyle for many rather than a life change.

Anyway, I'm ranting. Back to the experience we had. And sorry for such a link-heavy post, but there's a lot of good stuff out there to see, so click on them, after you're done reading this blog of course. Just kidding, click on them now before you forget to. After looking at all the booths and merch, we went back to the main stage to see pastor speaker, and artist Eric Samuel Timm. He had a great message and painted this awesome picture:




It says "Share Your Love" if you can't see it, or you can click on any picture to see it full size. After Eric was finished a band called Reilly came out and performed some praise and worship music. I went through my rap and hip-hop phase a few years ago but I'm not really into that kind of music that much anymore, but I will say that I was impressed by an artist called Lecrae. He had some great lyrics and had some cool things to say up on stage. Finally to end the night, Family Force 5 performed. We stayed for a couple songs but my girlfriend and I both agreed that they were really obnoxious. They weren't that bad when I saw them at Purple Door in 2007. But they were just annoying this year, I'm sorry if I've offended any fans. Maybe I'm just getting old, I just turned 31 this past Saturday.

We met up with Jesse and Natalie at the hotel room that we got a good deal on. We paid the same for a suite that we would have paid for a regular room at the Wyndham hotel. It wasn't a huge room though, but we didn't spend a whole lot of time in the hotel. They had a pretty good continental breakfast in the morning though. After breakfast we went back to Purple Door for day two. I'll talk about day two another day, but below is a list and links for all the bands that played on Friday night.

House of Heroes

Nevertheless

Reilly

Lecrae

Family Force 5

Shawn McDonald

Rescue is Possible

Hyland

The Pledge

Receiving the Ghost

Pillar

The reason they were able to have so many acts in one night is because they have three different stages. They have a Main stage for the bigger acts, a Gallery stage for the up and coming acts, and a Hard Music stage for all the hardcore music.

Inspiring Minds Monday ~ Back to School

Today I'd like to talk about some of the teachers I had in high school. These teachers helped me to think outside the box that most other teachers try to put us in as students. Some teachers are just there for the paycheck and maybe the summer off, but there are only a few who are there to inspire some young minds.

I have two teachers from high school I'd like to talk about. (If my girlfriend is reading this she is probably imagining me saying "high school" with a southern accent. For some reason I say it that way even though I don't have a southern accent.) The first teacher I want to talk about is my 10th grade English teacher, Mr. Farrelly. He is a very unique individual. When he introduced himself to the class on the first day of school that year he told us his name and then he told us he pronounced it a different way when he was eating at an Italian restaurant so they would think he was Italian. He had Friendly Mutton Chops (circled in the diagram below).





He would do impersonations of Grover from Sesame Street and he would perform Grover's "Near and Far" routine. He also impersonated Beavis and Butt-head. As child-like as he was for an old man, he also had much wisdom. We read some great novels in his class, "A Day No Pigs Would Die" and "Flowers for Algernon" were the two I remember most. Flowers for Algernon has since then become my favorite novel. I could tell that Mr. Farrelly wasn't just there for a paycheck, he was there to teach and do it in fun and creative ways. He was always available for his students to talk to.

Even though I only had that one class with Mr. Farrelly throughout my high school years, I continued to speak with him on occasion. When I received my class schedule for my senior year I had all study halls until lunch time. It would have been pointless to even go to school until after lunch, but I had to be there or else I would have been counted as absent. I took my schedule and showed it to Mr. Farrelly. He said "This is not good." He asked me what I was into. I wasn't sure how to answer that. I was never involved in any clubs or sports. I didn't really like high school, I just wanted to get there, get it over with, and get out. I told him I was kind of into art. I had taken a screen printing class and a black & white photography class before, and I liked to draw comics in study hall when I didn't have any homework to do (and sometimes when I did have homework to do). So he helped me select some art classes and I ended up taking an art history class, a drawing & painting class, and Art I. Then I took Art II and a Pottery/Sculpture class in the Spring semester. Taking those classes re-sparked my interest in the arts and has helped me get to where I am now. I had been interested in art since I was nine but never thought about it as a career before.

So then the second teacher I'd like to talk about is, you guessed it, my art teacher. His name is Mr. Hatalsky. He kind of reminds me of Steven Seagul a little, he even had the long braided ponytail. He was the instructor for most of my art classes. He was a good teacher, but he was tough. If he saw that you weren't taking the class seriously and you were just goofing off trying to get an easy A he would throw you out of the class, not physically like Steven Seagul probably would though. A student would have to take a study hall or try to get into another elective if he was kicked out of Mr. Hatalsky's class. He was very good to those who took the class seriously though. You didn't have to be a great artist to pass his class, you just had to try. He would hang the best work in the lobby of the school and I had a pastel drawing that went out there. Another teacher at the school bought it from me.

I once had to do a project for my English class during my senior year in which I had to interview some people. I chose Mr. Hatalsky to be one of the interviewees. It was nice of him to take some time after school one day to help me out. I don't remember all of the questions I asked, but I remember the last one. "What advice could you give to a senior who is about to graduate?" His answer was, "Whatever you do in life, make sure you enjoy it." I decided to take his advice. I admit that I don't enjoy really where I am now, but I'm working on it. I'm getting experience now, and I'm working in the field I want to be in, I'm just not in a place I want to be right now. Too many people go to college and study to become something that will make them wealthy, but if they don't have a passion for it, if they don't really like what they do, they will become unhappy no matter how much money it brings.

So those were two of the best teachers I had in high school. I liked the way they taught so differently from the others. I'm pretty sure they bent and even broke some of the rules for the sake of inspiring students to think for themselves instead of trying to stick them into some kind of mold so they are all the same. I learned recently that the novel "Flowers for Algernon" was banned in many schools between 1990-2000 in Texas and my homestate of Pennsylvania. I think the world could use more teachers like Mr. Farrelly and Mr. Hatalsky. Who were the teachers that influenced you?

Artsy Fartsy Wednesday ~ Vincent, Get in the Van and Let's Gogh!

So, do I win the award for the cheesiest blog post title ever? Today we'll take a look at Vincent Van Gogh (Ah, yes now you get it), my favorite artist out of all the French Impressionists. I remember the first time I got to see a Van Gogh painting up close at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was one of his famous sunflower paintings (pictured above). I remember learning about the thickness of the paint and how some of his paintings were still drying underneath 50 years after he painted them, and I got to see the thickness of the paint. I also remember learning that he sometimes applied paint onto the canvas straight from the tube and I could see small circular indentations made by the opening of the paint tube. I was able to get such a good look at it and then the security guard said "Back away from the painting, please."

My favorite piece of Van Gogh's work has to be Starry Night.




I like it so much, I had it printed on my credit card, see:




Notice something missing? Yea, I'm not that stupid.




So here's a brief bio on Van Gogh. He was born in 1853. He was the son of a pastor and was brought up in a very religious and cultured place. He was a preacher for a little while but was dismissed for overzealousness. He decided to become an artist instead. He figured he would bring people happiness by creating beauty. His early works were very somber and lacking in color though. His first famous painting was called "The Potato Eaters".




In Paris he met other artists such as Pissarro, Monet, and Gauguin and started dabbling in Impressionism. Van Gogh was a very nervous person and he spent all day painting and all night having conversations which wasn't good for his health. His friends tried to help him but he would have fits of madness and was admitted to the asylum in Saint-Remy. He seemed to be doing better by May of 1890, so he left the asylum but then shot himself two months later and it took him two days to die.




Here are some quotes by Vincent Van Gogh:

"An artist needn't be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow man."

"The diseases that we civilized people labor under most are melancholy and pessimism."

"There is no blue without yellow and without orange."

"We spend our whole lives in unconscious exercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words."




Here are some facts about Van Gogh:

Probably one of the most well known but untrue facts is that he cut off his entire ear. The fact is he only cut off a small part of his ear lobe while in a fit of epilepsy in which he was holding a razor blade at the time.

He had an older brother who died at birth who was also named Vincent.

He sold only one painting during his lifetime and did not become famous until after his death.

Vincent completed over 900 paintings in the span of ten years.




Last Thursday I included a video from the film "Dreams" by Akira Kurosawa. Dreams is a collection of eight short films. One is called "Crows" and is about Vincent Van Gogh. Martin Scorsese plays Van Gogh, take a look:







Visit the Van Gogh Gallery for more information.

Artsy Fartsy Wednesday ~ Hello Dalí

I studied Salvador Dalí briefly while taking an art history course at Penn College in the 2005 Spring semester. I later picked up a book about Dalí, you know, one of those oversized art books they sell in the bookstores. I studied Dalí over the summer and then went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art with some friends to see a Dalí exhibit. Most of the artwork on display had not been shown in the U.S. for over 20 years so it was a real treat to be able to see many of the paintings up close that I had only seen in books before. There was an audio tour of the exhibit so everyone was wearing headphones. Since I had studied Dalí, I knew what to expect when the narrator talked about each painting. Other people did not expect to hear what they were about to hear and many people had funny and sometimes disturbed looks on their faces as they learned about Dalí. Let's just say Dalí was an interesting person. I was disappointed that his most well known piece "Persistence of Memory" was not on display there. That painting in particular has resided at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York city since 1934. I'm not too far from New York City, so I'll have to make a trip there to see it someday.

I want to make Artsy Farsy Wednesdays more about showing art rather than talking so much about it. So here are some of my favorite works by Salvador Dalí.

Persistence of Memory, 1931
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Dalí's most notable work

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Figure at a Window, 1925
Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, Madrid

One of Dalí's earlier paintings before he got into surrealism. That is the artist's sister in the painting.

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The Ram (The Spectral Cow), 1928
The Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL

I've never seen this one until today, interesting.

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The Architectural Angelus of Millet, 1933
Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, Madrid


This painting is based on Jean-Francois Millet's painting "The Angelus"

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The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table, 1934
On loan to the Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL


I just really like the title of this one.

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Skull with Its Lyric Appendage Leaning on a Night Table which Should Have the Exact Temperature of a Cardinal's Nest, 1934
On loan to the Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL


Wow, that's an even better title!

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Swans Reflecting Elephants, 1937
Private Collection


This is one of my personal favorites. Dalí did some paintings which include double images. It's obvious in this one because of the title.

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Soft Self-Portrait with Grilled Bacon, 1941
Fundación Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueras


Not so sure if it exactly captures the likeness of Dalí, but it's got that signature Dalí mustache.

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The Elephants, 1948
Private Collection


I believe this painting was the inspiration for a mewithoutYou t-shirt design. Eh, maybe, maybe not.

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That's enough for today. Click here to see more than 1,000 of Dali's paintings as well as drawings, watercolors, and objects.

Artsy Fartsy Wednesday ~ BLU

Last Wednesday I covered Banksy, a graffiti artist from the UK. Today I will be covering another graffiti artist known as BLU from Argentina. What's different about this graffiti artist is that he animates his graffiti...

Reader of this blog: "Whoa, wait! Did you just say he animates his graffiti?"

Dan: "Why yes I did, reader of this blog, yes I did."

Reader of this blog: "How?"

Dan: "Here, take a look at this video"

Warning: Due to the surrealistic nature of this video, it may contain images that may be disturbing to some. Not recommended for young children.

MUTO is the name of that animation. It won an Animated Block Party award for original design in July of 2008. The Animation Block Party is an annual event that started in 2004 in New York city. I saw a commercial recently that looks very much like this animation. I don't know if it was done by BLU or if it is a rip-off of his work. I can't remember what the ad was for since I don't watch a whole lot of TV. Someone let me know it they see it. This is going to be a short post today since there isn't much more to say. See you tomorrow!

Artsy Fartsy Wednesday ~ Take it to the Banksy

I never paid much attention to graffiti art until I learned about a man from Bristol who is known only as Banksy. Not much else is known about this man. He wants to remain anonymous. Many sources claim they have learned his identity, but it's hard to know who is right. He wants his work to be seen, but he does not want to be seen. He is not doing his artwork for himself. He wants to use his art to make people laugh, make people think, and to make a statement. Much of his work is satirical including topics such as culture and ethics. It's very different from most graffiti art. He uses stencils and he often uses the environment as a part of his work. Since I don't know much about the man I won't spend a whole lot of time talking about him. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

I will talk about how I found out about Banksy. One day I was listening to the Mars Hill Bible Church podcast. Mars Hill is where Rob Bell teaches and gives his messages. He started talking about a guy named Banksy and was showing the congregation some of Banksy's work. There was a lot of laughter coming from the crowd and from Rob. Since it was an audio podcast I had no idea what was going on. So I hopped online to see what all the noise was about. And this is what I saw:

Oh, poor Thomas.


I thought the guy and the scaffolding was real at first.


There's something very Looney Tunes-ish about this one.


I guess even the earliest artwork ever discovered
could be considered graffiti. By the way, does this
picture depict anti-graffiti graffiti?


A good example of how Banksy uses the environment
in his work.


Does it smell like wet dog or wet paint?


Claude Monet's famous painting "Japanese foot-bridge
over the water-lily pond in Giverny".


Banksy's version of it.


Awesomness.


Unfortunate, but so true.

Check out Banksy's website here. Some of the content on his site is NOT suitable for children, just a warning. Come back tomorrow for Deep Thought Thursday. Have a nice Day!