Post - High School / Follow Up

It's been a month since we've stepped foot on the Righetti High School campus. It's crazy to think I may never see a lot of you again, and crazier to think any of you will even read this. I still see this blog every day in my bookmarks so I figured it was time to give it some proper closure. (until I have something else of significance to say...)

I enjoyed my four years at Righetti, and, despite the challenges we faced with time and effort, enjoyed Open Source Learning as well. I know the vision is still there, even if it didn't actualize like some people imagined. I'm sure next year's class will have a better chance at it. Hopefully, after things begin to take off and I find my wings, I can come back and help those who are like me. I'm still working on my designs, and studying about different topics as much as I can. I also hope to direct a film or two over summer. I'm also still planning on creating that EP later on in the year, but we had some change in idea direction for it, so we may scrap what's done and redo it with new ideas. I'm always looking for fellow creatives to work with, I'm open to many different types of art and design. I am still lost but soon, I know, things will start to happen piece by piece. I want to teach younger generations to stop being degraded by adults, telling them to settle for anything they can get, to stop doing this, and stop doing that, get a retail job and slave away forever. I want kids to be inspired to follow their passions and make them a viable, sustainable reality. I want musicians to make what they want, not what they think will get them some local gigs and sell a few quick CDs. If I can do that, in any way, it'll be worth it. For now, this is the end of this blog. Thank you again to everyone who made my life a little bit better throughout high school, and to Mrs. Byrne and Dr. Preston, for helping me think outside the box. I wish you all the best in your endeavors. Find your wings and fly.

Masterpiece Essay

One of the main things I learned from all of these masterpieces is this: people who are passionate about what they love, will always prevail. Of course, a few did not know what they wanted to do yet, and didn't take the presentation as seriously as they should've, but I believe in time everyone will find their place. It took me a very long time myself. When I was a freshman, I had ABSOLUTELY no idea what I wanted to do. I thought of miniscule management or nice business jobs I could find with a measly CC degree. Then I lost most of that hope in the rough growing up stages of Sophomore year. When junior year came around, and I took art and film, I finally began to find my creativity. I love creating. And especially this year helped me push this vision even further with graphic design and fashion. I know, for the most part, how I want the rest of my life to play out. I can promise you, Dr. Preston, and anyone reading this, that I will NEVER be clocking in on a 9 - 5 brainkiller. I want to inspire other people to find their creativity as well, because I know what it's like to be lost. I'm still lost now, but there's a small light at the end of the tunnel and it's growing every day. But there are other kids out there just like me, with parents telling them about how they're going to love _____ as their career. Discouraged from creating. I can see a day when all of our cashiers and fast food workers are fully functioning computer AI, and those people can work and learn in other more important fields. Science takes over and we take our society out of the planet. Creativity isn't just art - It's science, technology, politics, arithmetic, film, etc. I want to help people and inspire them to not follow brands and pre-set pathways, but to create their own. That's why I want to have influence as well - and why becoming a creative in the art world can help me do this. Over summer I will be finishing my clothing hopefully, creating an EP with my friend Keagan, working on more scripts and films with Eric, and spreading creativity. It's a never ending, renewable resource. These masterpieces were all very different, but were all the same as well. They're all passions, all original pieces of interest of each and every one of us. While I watched them present I could see myself working with each and every one of them on some type of project, and I'm 100% serious about that. I thought about it for a while. I'm almost sad that I didn't get the chance to learn more about their passions and find something we could work on together. But in the future, there will be more time. If any of you have any type of creative project, please don't hesitate to ask me for support. I want to be there to help it grow and inspire others. But, these are just words on a screen. They don't mean anything until there's real physical progress. Over the summer and over my years at Hancock, I'm going to find this passion. And I'm going to make my own business, my own path, and my own life. And I'm going to do it for everyone who said they couldn't / shouldn't. I'm glad I made this blog and took this class. I can't wait to update it with my progress as a person. Thank each and every one of you, that I've ever known, for all the inspiration you've given me. I will not let any of you down. I'll end this with some inspiration for anyone who's nervous about following their own path:

MASTERPIECE

So the sub said we should put our presentations / prezis on our blog, but mine was mostly a visual in class experience, so I will attempt to describe it as best as i can with some images. That said, my masterpiece is:

[WINDOWS]

Windows is my concept album. At the beginning of the year, I told Dr. Preston I wanted to create a concept album. But the thing is, I'm very bad at making traditional music. I can't play guitar, nor sing, nor play drums. But one thing I do have is a wide variety of creative outputs under my belt. That said, I couldn't think of a specific thing to do it on for the longest time. My PC folders are full of emptied, burned out, bored ideas that I thought would be interesting until I did them and hated them so much I deleted them. That's when the idea struck me - Windows. Computers. It's something that has always been in our lives since this generation was born. The first generation to have this. There's something mystical and ominous about clean, clear, windows gliding across a screen, whether you're in a dirty desert trailerhouse or a giant beachfront mansion. Artificial serenity. So that's what my concept was. From then, I wondered how many thing I can relate to it. Of course, considering I've been interested mostly in clothing for the past 2 years or so, my first thought was to design a small capsule collection. I showed this off thanks to the fine help of Terry and Laike.

 

These 3 shirts were what I had to present physically to the class. The rest have yet to be made because I would need to get them all professionally done. As you can tell by the pictures, they are weird looking and stiff. That's because every printing shop in town was closed, and the only thing open was michaels - for Iron-ons and blank gildan shirts. But once I get them really done, I plan on opening a web store and allowing them to be bought online and in real life.

As you can see by the lookbook, there is a lot of very subdued, hidden messages of my central theme in there - a mixture of serene beauty, and the machine that lurks behind it. But these clothes were not all. Although the film I made was very early on in my process, and it doesn't fit the theme as closely as I like, I made this early on with a similar idea in mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpmRodX3EwI

So I had film down, I had clothes / graphic design down, but what else could there be? Well, since it is an "Album", I had to find a way to include this. Of course, much of the themes in this were inspired by working on these early in the morning listening to some of my favorite "internety" albums. So I teamed up with my friend Keagan, of Royal Suns, and he helped me make a 6 minute acoustic guitar piece. But guitar wasn't enough, it's a traditional instrument and the aesthetic doesn't really fit with mine. So I put it into Audacity, a free music editor, and created something totally different out of it. You might be listening to it right now, considering it's the first song on my Blog playlist and it autoplays. Just in case you aren't hearing it, or want to favorite / repost it on Soundcloud, HERE it is.

So that's it. I plan on continuing this as well, in the fall which I already have ideas for. But I really don't want to do what I am known to do sometimes, which is picking something up and then finding a cooler idea and leaving the last one unfinished, so I'm trying my hardest to only focus on this for now. I will update my blog with links and such once I get prices down, a shop up, and stock in. Maybe I'll do pre-orders. Not sure yet. But I am glad I finally narrowed down my ideas into one solid concept project! I would love to expand this into the physical realm as well and make some kind of popup shop, adding interior design and a little architecture into my tool belt.

On to the future! [windows]

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS THOUGHTS ABOUT MACBETH

As I read up on Macbeth (and I'll be honest, Sparknotes to help decipher some of this language I still don't fully understand) the biggest thing I feel is an impending sense of doom throughout the entire play. Since you're given the plot in the beginning, it feels less like you're watching this happen in real time, instead it feels like you are watching an event play back while these witches narrate it. The way they know what will happen and talk about it is very eerie and surreal. It's almost like cliches in horror movies - you know as soon as she looks into that mirror, or turns around that corner, something will happen. And knowing the director, (or playwright), also helps get a familiar but distant sense of what will happen. Overall, the feeling of this higher power / impending doom feeling really adds to the narrative of the story. I would enjoy it more if it was more accessible though.

thoughts over

BUT WHAT ABOUT MY MASTERPIECE?

My masterpiece, sadly, is still in my head. But that is not just empty space, it's filling my brain to the point of exploding. I have so many ideas overflowing that I don't know where to start. I've researched all of them, thought heavily about all of them, attempted some of them, and still I feel like I don't know where to move with it. I don't want to limit myself to just one because I know I would get sick of that, I want to combine them all. If I had one way to describe a perfect job title, It'd be a renaissance man of creativity. I want to help create things that better people's lives, whether it be in a technical sense, a creative sense, or an entertainment sense. I want to create things that will make people smile, or cry, or both. I've thought of different people I could ask to help as mentors, but many are too large and untouchable to get. I can't think of anyone locally who shares this vision, but I know it's out there. The closest thing I've been able to find is DONDA, and even that is reclusive and untouchable. I've been thinking of many ideas for a masterpiece, many being extremely ambitious too and waiting on starting any them is only making it worse. Between work, reorganizing my room, reading and researching my interests, keeping up with social medias, and of course school, it's been very busy. I hope this weekend or next will be a stepping stone in the right direction, because I'll finally have a bit of free time. I also become an adult one week from today. Scary.

ＬＯＶＥ ＩＳ ＢＬＩＮＤ

Lady Macbeth, from the Macbeth's point of view, seems like someone to turn to for harsh and straightforward leadership. Macbeth sees that she is a leader and a masculine type. To us, she seems like a manipulator that uses her skill not to help her husband, but to force her husband to do her bidding. Things she wants to happen get done through him, and he sees it as his own free will that was influenced by her, instead of her will being forced into him. Love really does make some blind.

Pro-procrastinator

I am really bad at scheduling things and finishing them. I started to work on this last semester and did pretty well but relaxing over break made me stop again. I think without a direct response from work, I tend to not finish / forget a lot of things. I could start something and be doing it well, get distracted, and not come back to it for days. I have thought about different ways to help me remember, ie setting alarms, sticky notes, notes on my phone, all of them have not yet helped. I am determined to find something though, because this backlog of work is only going to get longer the more I forget to finish it.