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Artist’s Statement

Recently I have noticed a big change in the style of art that I create. I have been moving further and further away from illustration and moving into music. I have been playing the guitar since sometime sophomore year and it's practically possessed me. On my off time I spend hours upon hours practicing, learning new songs, tunings, chords, and techniques. I am intrigued by how the instrument works, and how different voicings and types of chords can invoke different feelings in the listener. I prefer using acoustic guitar when learning or performing music because it feels more personal to me, and I feel like I can put more soul into my work acoustically then if it was being distorted through speakers.

Bottle Cap Poster

When starting this quarter Miss Hull introduced us to the artist Aurora Robson. Aurora specializes in creating artwork out of plastic bottle caps and bottles. When she started creating these works they were made to reflect upon nightmares she used to have as a child. She connects these nightmares to the collective nightmare of the overuse of plastic that affects us all and is destroying the environment. We created posters to inform the school of a bottle cap drive; in this way we could keep some bottle caps out of our oceans and landfills and provide material for Aurora to use.

Project

For our assignment we had to create a piece of art that revolved around the theme of recycling.  At first I had no idea how I could connect both music and recycling together, but then it came to me; last year for a physics project I built a three stringed guitar out of a cigar box, a piece of wood, and some odds and ends. Even though the guitar didn’t work very well as a conventional guitar, it worked perfectly as a slide guitar. My father also fairly recently discovered a beautiful guitar thrown away in the trash with some very fixable problems. After some cheap repairs he gave the guitar to me. So there I had two instruments that both had a relation to recycling, so all I needed was a song to record.

My choice song was “Loser” by Beck. There was no real rationale behind this choice besides it has a prominent slide guitar riff in it.

I recorded the song in three different parts, the slide guitar, the lead, and the sitar (which I arranged for guitar), and then pieced them together using GarageBand. I was going to record the bass in the song also, but my bass amp died on me during the recording process. Once I have the amp fixed I would like to go back and complete the song, and maybe add some drums with a drum machine.

MP3 and GarageBand File

Instruments

Home Made Cigar Box Guitar

Trash Find

Dream Act 2010

http://www.slideshare.net/rhaq92/dream-act-rumman

Here is my story of Affirmative Action:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B7g9DrKxwnUDYTJiOWJjMjctZGQ3MC00YjBiLWI1NmMtM2M1NjFjNzMzODI5&hl=en

Group: Samantha Beattie, William Marsh, Ibrahim Ridley, Chelsea Starks. Sorry, it's a bit quiet.

How did meat eating begin?

Meat eating has been said to go as far back as 2.5 million years for humans. Fossils of tools used to butcher meat are found to have gone back that far. It is believed that we started eating meat because of the competition for food between other species. Craig B. Stanford points to an example of this in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. This forest is the only forest where mountain gorillas and chimps live together. Chimps eat meat while Gorillas don’t meaning that they can coexist together because they have two different diets.

 How meat eating affected the evolution of humans

Long ago when humans started to eat meat it triggered tons of evolutionary changes. For one thing, our jaws have gotten smaller so we can chew meat better. And because of our diets being chocked full of meat we have evolved to have an improved ability to process cholesterol and fat.  Also, scientist say that eating meat helped our brains to grow bigger and our figure slimmer. All these positives from meat though did not happen until we started cooking meat. To get the caloric energy you get from meat you have to cook it. So we really didn’t start reaping the benefits of meat until we discovered fire.

Being a meat eater isn't all positive

But everything that has evolved from meat eating was not good. Because our jaws are downsized are teeth cannot fit inside. So it’s rare to find someone who has perfectly straight teeth that did not have any dental work on them. Also us evolving to cooking and using forks and knives has made out big teeth useless because our food is so soft. 

Sources:

Mayell, H. (2005, February 18). "evolving to eat mush": how meat changed our bodies. Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0218_050218_human_diet.htm

Joyce, C. (Producer). (2010, August 2). Food for thought: meat-based diet made us smarter [Audio Podcast]. NPR Series: The Human Edge. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128849908

This picture from left is of castings of teeth from a chimpanzee, Australopithecus afarensis and a modern human

My old one had two pictures in the slide, but my new one I put the pictures together to make it better. I made the background lighter so we can see the picture more clearly.

hisory bm

It is no easy task to predict what the future of the human race will be. According to US News, “Humans are evolving faster than ever before, picking up new genetic traits and talents that may help us survive a turbulent future.” The human race, which is a quite intelligent, evolves everyday. Until recently scientists believed that the human evolution had slowed down, due to the lack of visual changes, failing to look deeper into the issue. Human are now evolving within their genomes and DNA, it has been scientifically inferred that with so many changes within the human body as opposed to the physical features, will one day start to change humans outer body.

A recent study in the news, (available on livescience.com) shows that speculation that changes in human mating patterns may be contributing to the increase in autism. Others track how humans have morphed in response to changing circumstances, including enhanced abilities to metabolize sugar and fight disease. One of the biggest changes within human DNA is that some humans are becoming more resistant to the HIV virus and it will become more common in the future, as well as changes in human body makeup. One of the factors of that is that it a new form of DNA testing helps parents choose the genetic makeup of their children, rejecting embryos with inherited flaws or embracing those with desired traits—such as being the right sex. The future of human evolution is based on the future of new testing techniques.

Sorry this is late, I thought I uploaded, but didn't...

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In my advanced art class we were assigned to recycle something and make something from it. To think of something that is used in everyday wasn't difficult at all. However I wanted to do something different, something that a lot of people wouldn't be quick to think of. Yet I wanted to use something that is used and should be by a lot of people. So I thought of condom wrappers and making a peace sign out of the wrappers.

Make Love Not War, was the first thing that I wanted to represent my art, but also I wanted to go a little deeper than that common phrase. So many people are caring std's and they are spreading so quickly because people are not protecting themselves. Over half a million have died of AIDS, and there are currently more than one people living with HIV and AIDS in America. It is true that not all people who have it, received it from being sexually active. However those who were sexually active that received it many of those were unprotected. Once someone has unprotected sex they are not only disturbing the peace within themselves but in their homes their loved ones suffer also.

Collecting the material for this project I would say had to be amusing. To actually get condom wrappers to recycle them was awkward, but there were some people that was able to donate to my project. I wouldn't say that this is just my art project it wouldn't be able to have it's meaning without the help of others. 

Mary Altamuro

When we think of the mentally handicapped or those with mental disorders, we instantly feel pity.  We usually do not stop to wonder why or how a person came to be stricken with the disability or disorder that afflicts them.   I find myself curious about why these disorders still exist generation after generation even after all the scientific effort at uncovering the causes and possible cures.  A great deal of time and attention has been spent on how these disorders came to exist and what might make them worse and how to make them better, but there is still so much we still need to learn.  Thankfully, scientists have given us a great deal of information that can be very beneficial in understanding, treating and hopefully someday curing or preventing mental and emotional issues. 

Recently, studies have shown that a genetic predisposition may be hidden in people that makes them prone to certain characteristics that when provoked, can create emotional or mental conditions.  This predisposition, in conjunction with a triggering event or simply by the quality in that person’s environment and upbringing can cause these characteristics to become problematic and spark a mental or emotional abnormality. This peculiar phenomenon is called the diathesis-stress model.

According to this theory, when provoked, a characteristic may go into overdrive, causing a person to have a legitimately diagnosable illness. Environmental stimuli that may cause such a thing to happen are social issues or trauma that may have occurred at a young age.

 One of the most common problems that can cause such a change in people would have to do with their parents. If a young person does not receive the right kind of attention as they are maturing, it can cause emotional and social problems for them later in life.  An overbearing or judgmental parental figure can cause a person to have low self-esteem, which could then inflict disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder, social anxiety disorder or even depression.   Parents who get divorced have also been shown to cause obsessive-compulsive disorder in as children of divorced parents tend to feel they have a loss of control in their lives and obsessive-compulsive disorder is a disorder driven by a person’s overwhelming need and drive for control. 

These disorders reveal themselves when people who are predisposed for the characteristics are triggered by an emotional or social stress. This ignites an inner need to balance themselves out, mentally. Sadly, they often emotionally overcompensate; leaving them worse off then they were in the beginning.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15063238/index.html

​Link To Video:

(http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/printable/peacock.html)

The woman adorns her face in make-up, covers herself in perfume, removes all “unnecessary” hairs, puts on a most flattering outfit and enters the field. The man grooms himself, applies a hearty amount of cologne, and drapes himself in his finest clothing, entering that same realm. These are the stereotypical, if abbreviated, versions of preparation each human gender takes to make themselves a viable option for the opposite sex, a process that has only gotten more complex. Yet despite the understood belief, this is not the only species that undergoes such strenuous enticement methods. It exists everywhere regardless of the harm it may cause!

A grand example would be the peacock. This lovely creature is known for its noticeable plumage, an addition that both attracts the opposite sex as well as makes them a target for any predator on the prowl. This attachment has remained despite the danger it poses because of the higher probability of being chosen by the females for the proud honor of fatherhood. (No female can resist beautiful plumage.)

But why pick the incredibly-feathered peacock ? Or the cologne laden male? It can all be attributed to the implication. The female peacock will pick the male because if such a gentleman could survive despite the hindrance the tail causes and maintenance energy it requires, the female can safely assume this fellow is of a strong caliber and in possession of a quality genotype. This choice of the fittest mate, despite its troublesome side effects, is necessary in ensuring the peacock’s survival. Now if we look to humans, it must be acknowledged that there are somewhat more complex methods put in place but it is the same at heart. By primping oneself, it also implies the same strength and quality genome as the peacock feather. But here lays the greatest difference: humans have evolved the ability to mislead quite a bit better, meaning that such preparations may cover up an unflattering truth. (A thing no peacock can muster.) 

(http://www.haryana-online.com/images/Birds/David/Peafowl_3.jpg)

On a final note, the lady’s choice in mate is also chosen in consideration to the way their offspring will come out. A female will choose an attractive mate to give birth to others who will prove just as attractive, to ensure they will also be chosen. However, in the case of the male peacock and countless other species, these “attractive” traits are detrimental to their continued existence, yet they are chosen nonetheless. Oh how curious it is…

Hewett, C. (2003). Theory of sexual selection- the     human mind and the peacock's tale. The Great Debate,

Huk, T, & Winkel, W. (2008). Testing the sexy son hypothesis- a research for       

empirical approaches. Oxford Journals, 19(2), 456-461.

Co-evolution is how to species coexist in order to survive because no matter what species we are talking about we know that at one time it has caused another to either species to change the natural selection of another. Such as the common example of predator vs. prey:

Birds and plant coexist because one can’t survive without the other, with a bird who eats the flower or fruit from the plant, they get the nourishment they need in order to survive, while the plant started to produce regurgitating seeds for which the bird had to evolve, so the plant would find a way to share its seeds to grow more plants. They evolved to different types of birds to make sure they know where the plant would be.

http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BIO48/27.Coevolution.HTML

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/faq/cat08.html