For my third quarter benchmark I choose to pick an artist and do a research paper based upon that person.  The artist that I choose is Andy Warhol. I picked this artist is because his artwork is bright with different colors and he combines more then one image within this drawings. Another style is that he will do a single color but make certain elements pop out using a different brighter color. I like his artwork because it so abstract and it seems as though he likes to captures younger audiences.

The history behind Andy Warhol is that he was an American painter, printmaker and filmmaker. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on August 6, 1928. Andy has four siblings and is the youngest of them all. His parents are from Slovakia and immigrated here after the death of Andy grandparents. When Andy was in third grade he was diagnosed with Chorea, which is a nervous system disease that makes his body twitch uncontrollable and also caused skin pigmentation blotchiness.

Andy was always bed-ridden which caused him to develop a fear of hospitals and doctors. He was an outcast at school so Andy always loved to be with this mother at her side. When he was confined to bed he would draw and collecting pictures of movie stars. This period in time was told to be the period where Andy developed his personality and his skill set.

A little information on his personal life, Andy is thought to be a homosexual and that influenced a lot of this work and shaped his relationship to the art world. Many of his movies were displayed in gay porn theaters drawing from gay underground cultures and openly expressing sexual desires. One of the first artwork he tried to submit to a gallery was a drawing of nude men but it was rejected because of it being “too gay”.

            Andy religious belief was that he was Catholic. He often volunteers in helping at homeless shelters. He likes to do it during the busier time of the years because he thought of himself as a religious person. While volunteering he start to develop more picture of religious theme. He would attend mass but did not do confession or take part in communion because the fear of being recognized. He was self-conscious of being seen in a Latin Rite church but always because he thought that it was a private thing that people did not need to be aware of to the community.

The Last Supper cycle (1986)

            In 1949, Andy was admitted into Carnegie Institute of Technology now it is known as Carnegie Mellow University. He studied commercial art at the School of Fine Arts. Then he moved to New York City and worked in magazine illustration and advertising.

Diamond dust shoes, 1980

Since, then he has traveled around the states and made different pop art drawing form different museums. In 1968, one of Andy Warhol was shoot by Valerie Solanas who was a screenplay write from some of the films that Andy was directing. The reason for her shooting is because she wanted to a script of her returned but Andy said he misplaced it. Andy suffers majorly from this attack because a lot of physical effects that he would for the rest of his life.

"Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television."  -  Said after the shooting.

            Andy died a year later in 1987 on February 22 at 6:32 in the morning because of post-operative cardiac arrhythmia. His parents sued the hospital because they claim that improper care and water intoxication caused the death of Andy. His body was taken back to Pittsburgh for burial. He was buried next to his mother and father. 

self-portrait 1978

Andy Warhol’s drawings are not only different because of the abstract color scheme but because he captures them with a bold statement.  I like his painting because it takes a simple portrait of someone and makes it bold by adding a bold primary color like red or yellow. I feel like that he takes what he has been through and turns it into something inspiring that involves his religion, sexuality, experience and his life.

Overall Andy Warhol is not only a painter but a film maker and founder of The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts it was something that he put in his will that he wanted to accomplished for those who have a visual art skill and wanted to continue to achieve it.

A cool fact is that Andy Warhol painting Eight Elvises sold for $100 million in 1968. The highest to ever be priced.

This benchmark I would say was difficult. I feel as though it was a lot of time consuming and that it was difficult to go about this project. Finding laws and offices was challenging and sort of annoying. Finding laws and court cases that pertained to me was difficult because I do not have anything that really affects me. I do not have any problem with anything and for like healthcare and college yeah. I got frustrated a lot while doing this benchmark. I did learn the difference between the 3 different branches and interesting laws. If I would do this benchmark differently I would have...I don't know. I would not wish to do this benchmark again. Overall, this was a challenging benchmark and a productive one as well. 

Hello, I'm not sure if you got my email but I'm going to send it to you again. My apologies for responding late but you said an volunteer opportunity was "If you have any connections at area grade schools or high schools, let us know; we are always trying to get into schools with our Humane Education Presentations." What does this mean or involve actually? I am asking because I attended Science Leadership Academy and many people here are vegetarian, and not to long a go in a history class was playing a move on how our food is produce and what they do to the animals. So, if you or any of your members of the Humane League would like to come and talk to our school that be grate. Just let me know. Have a blissful rest of the week. 

Sincerely,

Leeann Nguyen. :]

It took Lydia until today to message me back on the topic. She was happy I followed up to make sure she got the email and responded with this email: 

Hi Leanne,

Thanks for following up with me! I did indeed have miss  your earlier email so I appreciate  your reaching out again.

Our Humane Ed presentations   focus on the ethical issues of factory farming and its impact on animals, the environment and human health.  They are free and virtually always get great feedback from students. You can learn a bit more from clicking on the link above.

The most important information we would need from you is the name and contact information of a particular teacher who would be interested in devoting his or her classroom time to one of our presentations. Appropriate teachers might be biology teachers, ethics teachers, social sciences teachers, or perhaps in your case, the history teacher who showed the movie you described. If you can provide a name of someone who would be receptive to the idea of a presentation, let  me know and I will follow up from there.  

If you need any more information or have other questions, contact me!

Thanks again,

Lydia

I'm thrilled she had messaged me back on this matter but a little disappointed in myself that it was to close to the due date to make this an event for people. If I had more time I would have liked Lydia to come in and talk to students that are interested in the topic as well and go and volunteer at an event with her. I should have followed up with my first email sooner then I did. I know that their are a lot of organization out there that deal with animal cruelty that I could also contacted for example PSACA, WSPA, and FoA. I reflect on this and am glad I had the chance to be in contact with Lydia and for her to give me information on what their organization does to help prevent animal cruelty and I wouldn't change my topic, I would just have wished I could have done more. 

In american government we did a bureaucracy project to see the process and the procedure for a topic we had choose. My partner  (Alexis Beren) and I chose the topic EMANCIPATION. Emancipation is the process in which a child under the legal age gets independence from their parents or legal guardian. The judge is the one to verdict the discussion and to become emancipated you have to have evidences that you dont get finical support from your parents, moved out and can support yourself. 

There is no paper work that you can get from online, you actually need to go the judge or lawyer to get the paper I believed. It is  difficult to get emancipated because the judge needs to make sure the individual can care for themselves. I wouldn't change anything, I think that Alexis did a very nice job on the flowchart. It simple but also informational. I think that this is a complicated process because the judge needs to make sure that his decision is best for the child and his/her family.  

In the middle of this week I had sent an e-mail to The Humane League on December 8th and got a replied today (December 9th) and got really wonderful news on being volunteers to help notify the public on animal cruelty which was the issue of Aj and mine lobbying project. 

Here the emails: 

“Good Morning, My name is Leeann Nguyen and I am a student at Science Leadership Academy and I was wondering if you had any projects available for volunteers coming up? I know that this email is a little surprising because it came out of nowhere. I'll give you a little background to why I am asking, I’m a senior and I am taking an American Government class and as an assignment we have to do a lobbying project, I am lobbying about animal cruelty and I had came across The Humane League and saw that you are a project coordinator, and so I was wondering if it was possible to attend a project or a meeting? I’m really dedicated to this issues and hope that it is possible. Thank you for the time and consideration about this email and have an amazing day!

Sincerely,

Leeann Nguyen  

Responses.

Hi Leeann,

“Thanks for reaching out to us! I have sent your email along to our volunteer coordinator, Lydia. She can help you learn about the different volunteer opportunities that we have. Lydia is CCed on this response.”

Take care,

Sally Andersen

Now this is Lydia

Dear Leeann,

“I coordinate volunteers for The Humane League of Philadelphia. Thanks so much for expressing interest in The Humane League. Below, I've listed our most common ongoing activities for which we need volunteers; perhaps one or more of them would be of interest to you for your assignment. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

 (By the way, consider attending our upcoming Holiday Party this Sunday, December 12th! It would be a great opportunity for you to learn more about the Humane League and its work to help animals)”

Thanks again!

Lydia Chaudhry
Volunteer Coordinator, The Humane League of Philadelphia. 

Amazing right! The projects that she had suggested to me was getting colleges, high schools and restaurants aware of vegetarianism, promoting vegetarianism of MYSPACE and the holiday party. So, as of now I am going to discuss with my partner in going to see them and actually get hands on with this issue. :] 

We do not have any specific elected officials that support this cause. But their is a ton of public support from people who report it and the SPCA. For every animal in danger, there is a news story on it. The people who are pretty much opposed to this are thous who could care less about a animals life. The was an act made for animals it was the AWA (Animal welfare act). We need an official who will listen but also for the SPCA to try hard in the animals defense. The biggest allies we have in this are the SPCA who have been helping animals for a while now. We can coordinate with the SPCA to help us talk to officials so we get animals better treatment. Everyone has the potential to be influenced since this is such a big topic the easiest to influence would be people who are willing to listen or people who are already trying to protect animals from such cruelty.

We need to protect animals like this dog from being abused, this is what influence us to notify the public and volunteer to help care and fight from there freedom and their love. These animals want to be love and we want them to love us.

It difficult to volunteer under the age of 18 but we are determine to find a location. There are many locations that people can choose to help like Morris Animal Refugee, SPCA, PAWS, Pet-smart, and some many others. Their are a number of points in which we could try to rally people with us. For example we could try “writing letters to the editor”. See what we mean is a person could write to a news firm and ask them to help spread the word.They might just put a post in the paper if a person bugs them to death with it they may even us this blog it self.

But a person cloud also write straight to the top at the government and they could be nice enough to give what they are writing a chance and actually state it at a meeting. “Phones and Faxes to the top” are basically just like.And are even more alike the letters because their all doing the same thing. They are asking to get to someone who has the power to help them get their point across. Same with an e-mail they have the same point making plan just go straight to the top and evade all the boring parts like the waiting. “Personal visits with the targeted decision maker.” that help because person good straight to the head, state his case, make it convincing, and see what the head person thinks.

NO ANIMAL SOULD BE HANDLE LIKE THIS!!