They are Human To

During the summer of 2002, the army base at Fort Bragg's was under fire. Four soldiers had killed their wives and two of them had ended their own lives. Everyone was in a frenzy to point fingers and find the culprit behind all four murders; what had caused these soldiers to kill their wives in cold blood? What has caused them to snap? There have been many experiments done on soldiers, marines, and those that serve in the military to see the effects that boot camp and just being in the military in general has on them mentally. Most times they come to the conclusion that nothing really changes other than their anxiety levels, however, how do we explain four murders from four soldiers who had experienced war first hand, who had been to Afghanistan, who had gone to boot camp? Now the question at hand is, how does the military, and more specifically, boot camp, affect those mentally?

When recruits enlist into any of the following five branches: army, navy, coast guard, air force or marine corps, they are forced to attend boot camp for eight weeks. During these eight weeks they are put through rigorous training, meant to break them down and dehumanize them. In an article written by the University of Washington, the author quotes Joshua J. Jackson, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences. He conducted a study on the behavior of soldiers and found that for soldiers, “from the moment you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night, someone is actively working to break down anything that’s individual about you and to build up something else in its place” (Gerry Everding  February 9, 2012). Imagine someone actively working to break your very essence, what makes you human and replace it with something else, a killing machine. This would be more than enough to cause someone to snap, making them perhaps kill their wife.

Now, when wondering what goes on inside actual boot camp a research article written by Sage Journals, breaks down what happened and what they found inside a boot camp, recounting stories of, “cadence calls ranging from sexist to sexually aggressive to misogynistic were heard shouted by troops in formations. The rationale for training soldiers in this manner is the belief that young male soldiers will be trained to desire combat instead of fear it. When used in an environment that tolerates sexism, the tactic can also teach soldiers to link sexual aggression and violence with the denigration of women.” (April 1, 2003).  In boot camp like these, they are training their men to crave the violence, exploiting their masculinity and forcing them to associate aggression and this desire for violence to the abuse and degradation of women. The first few weeks they’re given a taste of the cruelest and hardest part of the military experience and it only gets worse from there.

In camps where it is only men, often times their masculinity trait is exploited to the maximum. They are being trained to become something else, to obey when given a command. I had the opportunity to talk to an active member of the marine corps to get more of a first-person insight into the realities of boot camp. This marine shared with me things that he witnessed and lived through when he was in boot camp and even now on base. When we were talking about bootcamp and his experience during his first eight weeks he described them “ mentally and physically exhausting ,” he told me about things that had endured throughout the entire process “ the first three days they didn’t allow us to sleep. Once we hit the third day some of us started hallucinating. I fell asleep walking once.” He talked about activities that they would be forced to do, “The officers would force us to fight each other, I watched multiple people get their heads slammed on the floor.” When hearing these things my mind immediately went to how prisoners are treated. Like a prisoner, the effects of what they experience and live through is often reflected after they leave the military. In a article written by the University of Washington, the author quotes Joshua J. Jackson, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, on the effects that life after militarism has on them, saying, “men who have experienced military service tend to score lower than civilian counterparts on measures of agreeableness.” This saying that after they leave the military and return to being a regular civilian their character is not the same. They can have a hard time making connections people or maintaining relationships and even obtaining jobs or positions within. This can lead to higher anxiety levels and mild levels of depression setting in. This is a sad fact, for many veterans this is the route that their life took and have not been able to make better.

A human is not conditioned to live under these situations and certainly can not function properly if they are malnourished and tired; they are weak. They are stripping their soldier, marines, sailors, and airmen of their identity, what makes them human, through actual physical torture and then they are just leaving the shell behind, a simple body. Then, after they are done with them they throw them back into society and expect them to go right back to their normal life after all the trauma they have endured. We need to realize that they are humans, they are not robots, they have emotions, we need to help them and allow their minds to heal. Disorders like PTSD have been linked to soldiers who had been to combat. They are sick and have to be treated as such.

This quarter I feel like a lot of the art work we did had a lot to do with lines and shading. In the most of the art pieces I found myself shading a lot and adding different amounts of pressure to my pencil in order to create different shades. In my opinion I feel like the artwork that I enjoyed the most was the value drawing, I think you could really see how much I had improved from the beginning of the quarter. This quarter most of the art work was assigned and we could really choose our artwork and what we worked on. I enjoyed this quarter a lot and the different artworks created.

This quarter I feel like a lot of the art work we did had a lot to do with lines and shading. In the most of the art pieces I found myself shading a lot and adding different amounts of pressure to my pencil in order to create different shades. In my opinion I feel like the artwork that I really saw myself doing this was in the Eye Drawing, I had to apply different shading in order to achieve a realistic looking drawing. I really like how it turned out and this is the art piece that I am most proud off.

This quarter most of the art work was assigned and we couldn't really choose our artwork, however we did get to create our own Mandel’s and I personally really liked the ones I created online. The app that I used allowed oneself to be creative and create intricate shapes . I really learned about shading and how to apply different pressures with a pencil this quarter.

​For my art pieces this quarter I felt very inspired to use paint as my main art material. I found that when painting I felt very calm. Holding a paintbrush and using my imagination to create art pieces felt very therapeutic for some reason.

When I started my first pieces which was the contour drawing I found it challenging since I couldn't see what I was doing, I kept trying to look but in the end I came out with very unique drawings. Then, coloring them in was also a challenge. It turned out to look completely opposite of what it was originally supposed to be, but I think that’s the beauty of art. You can draw or paint anything and it will still be right because it’s something you created out of your imagination.

Then we went on to our own choice of painting, it was around the time of holidays and I was in the christmas spirit so I decided to paint classical images you would see around the holidays, a snowman and holiday lights. I loved creating and painting these pieces. Afterwards we had to recreate a painting and I instantly knew I wanted to create a Picasso. He is one of my favorite artist for so many reasons. His artis inspiring and I find his blue era inspiring, so I decided to recreate a painting from that era. When creating this piece I learned how important it was to mix colors and blend. In the original price some areas were a lighter blue than other areas so I had to mix in some white in order to get in just right.

Afterwards, we had to illustrate a piece of writing. I knew right away what I wanted to do. I chose a J-cole song called “A Tale of Two Cities” on the song he talks about police-brutality and everything a black man has to go through. He talks about black injustice. I decided to recreate this song by illustrating one of his lines “hands in the air run it” and then “Forgive me father for I have sinned” by painting a man pointing a gun at someone else and saying the line and then above two hands praying with the lyrics next to it. In between of the two grains you can see golden bricks and this image represent the line “I know that everything that glitter ain't gold.” The bricks may be painted gold that doesn’t mean they are valuable. This was one of my favorite drawings. Lastly we had to take pictures and then edit them to show depth. I took three pictures that showed depth then edited them and highlighted and used contrast to further emphasize the depth of the pictures.

When we started this project I had to choose between three words and immediately the first three words that came to mind were impatient, overachieving and leader. Out of those three words I choose the word impatient as the word to symbolize me the most. If you were to ask someone to describe me, one of the first things they would say is that I am a impatient person and that is not necessarily a good thing, but it is what makes me. As I was starting to design the actual symbol I was searched up the word impatient and images of clocks kept showing up so I decided to use an image of a clock to symbolize me. For me the clock symbolized time passing which to me means something that has to go by fast. I sketched out the design and then passed it on to construction paper.

The positive and negative space in my design was used as a way to contrast and symbolize how I want the time to go by fast , the negative space was white, and it won’t because time is time, the positive space. It also helped to pop out the colors and form the figure of the clock. In My opinion having both positive and negative space is really important to make a image pop. Whether that negative space forms odd shapes or forms that shape the conveys a message the contrast should be there. Positive space is just as important it helps the colors contrast against the negative space. It is a tool that is very useful.

Negative Space is the space around and inside an image. Negative Space is the boundary or where positive space starts. Sometimes artist use this negative space to highlight important or interesting shapes that negative space can form.

In my cut out above I found negative space when I was cutting out the shape and the actual figure. The space outside and the rest also came along with it. When you took away the negative space and just had the cut out it made it bland but when you added the negative space back in it added to the drawing.

Seeing negative Space helps artists because it helps them see unique shapes that negative space forms. For example in my cut out when I sprayed the negative space from the actual image I got to see different shapes that helped the image come together as one.

Seeing negative space does help enhance the drawing. It helps art pop out . Whether it's creating an illusion or enhancing the focusing point of the picture , negative space serves as tool to highlight detail.

Printmaking is was one of the few things that is often overlooked as one of the most revolutionary inventions. The printmaking above is by the artist Sarah Gayle Key , it is a relief print, and it depicts a flower in a true artistic form. This image caught my eye because it shows small details in the flower and shows the variation of the different shades of black. Printmaking was traced to the 1500’s starting in China. Since then it spread all around the world and different types of variation of printmaking were invented. Since the rise of printmaking it had revolutionized the world in many important ways. For one , spreading knowledge through imagery was limited, however after print making was invented images were everywhere and allowed things to travel faster. In the image above you can see that the artist tried to depict the details of a flower. I wonder how she created the different shade variations. The drawing as a whole is very pleasing to me. Without printmaking we would not be where we are now.

Cristina-Valenzo

Blue Stream

When you first look at my slide you will see a image of the mexican and american flag in the form of two hands forming a heart. In the center of this image is the word “unity” . Then, when you look to the the left in the upper left corner you see the image “class of 2020” and finally when you look in the right lower corner you see my name in bright bold red colors, Cristina. “Why did I decided to design my one slide this way” You may ask?  Symbolism as well as the research I did on ‘“slide design and presentation” played a major role in the design and overall finished product. First off, for the background I decided to use the image of the two hands with the Mexican and American flag forming a heart because it symbolized me and how I represented myself and also because it represented my dream,  that one day these two great nations can come together. In addition, I made my background that image because it didn’t have words so it was a quick catch to the eye and it contrasted other colors in the slide. In the slide I also included the word “ unity” in the middle of the heart , I bolded it , made it black and big. I did this to send out my message , where someone driving by could easily look at it and get an idea of “unity”and keep that in the back of their mind. The second image I included in this slide was a image that read “class of 2020” I put this in the upper left corner to follow the rule of thirds, so the eye could quickly go there and see that image first. I did this so that the public or whoever is seeing my slide would know that my education comes first, it's before anything. I also made it semi translucent to symbolize that my education is also embedded into my heritage and who I am, to show people that I can make it no matter where I come from or who I am. The last thing I added to this slide was my name in the lower right corner , I made it bright, bold and big. I made it this way so that it was quick and easy to spot with the eye and also to repeat the colors in the background and create a theme. The symbolism behind it was that I wanted it to represent me, I am very bright and bold, I like standing out and being the center of attention. That is what makes me who I am.