"Maker Reliquary" (Masha)

I chose the work named "Maker Reliquary". It is three piece of wood with shears and metal pulleys on it. The artist gave us the feeling of the old thing with dark colors, wax and pretty old metal parts.

I think, that the idea of this installation can be about making something sacred out of something very usual, even of some kind of a routine. The name of the work is helping viewer to connect it with reliquaries which we could see in the christian churches. And the work itself looks similar to those things. When you look at it from the entrance of the hall, you even could confuse it with the church staff. Not only a form of this reminds us of the church, the shears looks like a picture or a statue of a saint.

"Maker Reliquary" by Marianne Lettieri

It seems to me, that it was done by purpose: artist wants to make people think about the routine as about something very special, even sacred. There are several works made in a triptych (the row of three images) way. It is the usual way of putting icons. My thought is (and I told the artist about it), that the next step of special attention to usual things is the special attention to every person. We should think about each person as about something unique and even holy.

This is an example of triptych icon

Milkmaid (Jeremy)

Talking about milk, cows would come to people's minds first. But as human, the first drop of milk we get is from our mothers. In this work, butter knives, representing consumers of diary products, are placed around the diary scale, representing the milkmaids, which looks like a big family sitting by a dinner table, and children are around their mother. In other words, milkmaid, as a female dominated job, is given a meaning of mothers, who are producing everyone's sustenance.
Most of Miss Lettieri work, as she told to us, are focused on human's labor, which give them a kind of humanistic care. Milkmaids, as a representative of those people working to produce food and other necessary stuffs in our daily life, are like people's mother in some way. This work suggests us to give them the respect they deserve, for they are of vital importance for our daily life and found the basis of human's society.

Master (posted by Song)

This art work's name is master. It consists of paint brushes, canvas, old photos and a large picture frame. All the things are old, and the black-and-white photos show the scenes of San Francisco in 1800's. The big picture on the back just contains five small photos. It shows the scattered memories of the past time, old acquaintances and human activities evidence. The large picture frame symbolizes the whole history of San Francisco, and the small picture just a part of the history, they are tiny fragments but meaningful. These small photos were clamped by old paint brushes which were used as photo frames. The brushes cover a part of photos, it seems that some old stories want to be hidden. It looks like that the brushes paint the diachronic picture scroll.
In my opinion, the topic of the art work are mysterious and reminiscent stories. it use old materials to show past human activities. And the pattern of manifestation is realism. I think if we look its details carefully, we can realize the colorful history and experience its charm. Old things always remind people of wonderful memories, recovering beautiful memories is a great method to make life fragrant. That all my feelings.

Past Tense(Tim)

The most impressive art work in the gallery is "Past Tense".In the begging, I was very confused about why the artist wanted to put the candles in the bottom of the clock, because it is very weird to see th clock' bottom filled with candles. Eventually, I knew the main purpose the artist want to express through this art work. I thought that the most important idea the artist want to convey is that no matter how different the method to know time in anciet time or nowadays, time is very important as the value of pearls. When you get better use of time, you can accumulate more value during your lifetime. Thus, I think the crucial idea the artist want to convey is that the concept “time is money” is very important no matter in ancient time or nowadays.

Behold (Daniel)

     I'd like to introduce an art work which we saw in today's class.  I chose the one titled 'Behold.'  There is one elderly couple in a box with having sad expressions on their faces like a photo below.  The sky is painted in the background.  This work is based on a poem written by Michael Haven, who is a housing coordinator in Pacific School of Religion.  The poem is shown in a photo below.  The elderly couple doesn't want to be in the box, but want to go to the outside world. This probably means that the elderly couple feel alienated.  I imagine that younger people mock the elderly couple because the younger people have a negative fixed concept for the couple.  However, the concept is not appropriate, so the couple doesn't like it. The couple seriously wants younger people to treat them as ordinary people.  The box in this art represents the negative fixed concept and the sky represents the couple's thought that they want to remove the fixed concept and want to be ordinary people.
 

Carpenter ( Kevin)

The most impressive thing for me today at the exhibition is Carpenter. As you can see, it contains Roman wood plane, nails, wax and rust. Several nails is sticking into the wax. At first, I could not figure out the meaning of this art. It is too abstract for me to understand because it looks like a normal object. Everything seems reasonable on it. Gradually, there's something I want to talk about. For me, this tool might be used do works by carpenter a long time ago. It is obvious that this tool is not used in the modern society. It represents ancient tool that is no longer used by people now. On the other hand, nails might represent modernization, or industry which destroyed old traditions. So, in my opinion, Carpenter is an art that means old traditions are gradually replaced by modern things.

Lunch Break (Massy)

The artwork below is named "Lunch Break". There is a belt on the wall, and under the belt can we see some empty sardine cans, connected to the belt by wires. Each can has a picture of typical Victorian style houses and of men, women, families.
The first impression I felt of this art was "relaxing". The belt on the wall expresses the situation that the man wearing the belt undo the belt of after he finished his work. The picture on the sardine cans shows he has a life with his lovely families, and he probably would feel comfortable after he finished his work and back to his home. Cans are symbols of human life. Sardine cans are sardine cans for a long time, their shapes and usages have not changed until now. So the rusty sardine cans express the fact that human being have lived until now by working(he was working in cannery, maybe) and eating, from long long time ago.
These are just my impression, so there can be other interpretation of this art. But there is one clear fact. The man wearing this belt must have been fat! Because we can estimate his waist by seeing the length of the belt and the location of a hole he used.

Shoe shine box by Kenny

   This is the work of art i am going to talk about. First, let's figure out what it is. According to this picture, there is a shoe shine box with a brush on the table and a silver panel hanging on the wall. The character 'P.D' should be the name of its owner which vividly shows a picture in our mind: a man or boy named P.D was carrying a shine box and struggling for life on the street.The previous owners of this box were obviously workers who shined shoes for others. From the shabby wood and the dirty brush, we can feel the poverty of the owner and the history of this box.

   I was curious about the relationship between polishing shoes and the shiny silver panel on the wall. The word 'shine' has two meanings: one means polishing, the other means appearing brightly. Thus in my opinion, the shiny material indicates the shoes would look more shiny after shining shoes here. However, in author's opinion, because it took 10 cents (one dime) each time for shining shoes and a dime coin is in the colour of silver, so the silver shiny panel means money earned. In similar way, I think I can explain the reason why the box is full of candles. Maybe Ms.Marianne use candle wax to represent the shoe wax, just like using silver panel to represent the silver dime.

   Ms.Marianne said she is interested in the ritual of daily routine such as repetitive actions everyday. And this is how she noticed this box. However, I think this peice of art is more of a way to memorize the past. Due to less people shining shoes on the street, this box can record the history. Maybe this art can make the society notice those people who still earn a living on the street.

   By the way, the table below is also very interesting. It's just half of what it was originally. It's fixed to the wall with nails.

Missive (Hill)

 This work is named Missive, it is an envelope from theater arts in New York to Miss Myna Hughes in San Francisco. At the picture, we can see that artist use gouache to paint some patterns. On the left, it is a white pattern, looks like a white flower. On the right it is a brown patter, I think it may be abstract style pattern. It is very different between the two patterns, and they are on an envelope used for art. So I think it means the different kinds of art need communication. We can see 4 blue points on the envelope, it may mean to be continued. So for the whole works, it expresses that art needs communication not only old time but also nowadays, and art will be better and better in the future.

  It gave me strong impression, I thought art might be expensive and it is very hard for normal people before this visit. But from this work, I know that everything around us can be a great work. If we have acute eyes, everyone can be artist. We can use very simple things and add some paintings, it could be a good art work. Art is not far from us, it is always in our lives waiting for us to discover.

(Sorry for the unclear picture...)

Sisters of Biscuits and Pies (posted by Julia)

When I saw this artwork, I had many different impressions or imaginations what this can symbolize.

For me those rolling pins can symbolize humans or babies. They are all similar but not the same. Some are bigger, some smaller, some are made out of darker wood and some out of lighter. Humans or people are similar, how they look like or their shapes, but they are never completely the same.

This artwork made me feel comfortable, because it reminded me of the past: When I was a little girl, I used to go to my grandparent's house and baked with my grandma during christmastime. I always got a smaller rolling pin and my grandmother had a big one. So this art immediately won my favor. It made me feel good and I could connect it to my experiences and memories.

Homework(Esther)

Sorry for the late post about our homework today...
1.chose one exhibit and describe it based on your own expression and feelings on it(posted with a photo of it).Writing one paragraph or more if you like.

2.read 3 more chapters of CR.

3.blog errors correction.

See you tomorrow guys!

­Blog Errors: Please look at the following sentences taken from our blog posts about ‘things we like in California’. Each sentence contains at least one predominant error. See if you can identify it/them and make corrections. What does the writer need to do next time?

Especially when you go into a shop and immediately someone asks you, how you are and how he or she can help you.

In Japan I've been suffered from humid, hot weather and continuous rainy days in summer.

But I saw something special when we came to presents opening.

One thing that I really love is the weather here in California. Because in Taiwan, it's always humid and overwhelmingly hot.

Also, because of the heavy air pollution, I often get coughed or some other respiratory diseases.

The most I like here is the enthusiasm of people here.

Sometimes there could be some embarrassing circumstances made by oversea travelers because of culture shock,for instance,people from Asian and European countries may not know the fahrenheit degrees when talking about temperature and may cause some embarrassing condition,but American people are always willing to help you get out of the stuck circumstance by telling some relevant jokes or showing their comprehension to you.

For instance, to welcome the summer's coming, some brands will  make some attractive plans to celebrate summer's coming and entice people to buy their newest summer apparel.

However, my English skill is not enough to speak whatever I want to say, so I have to improve the skill because I want to talk with her more fluently.

Good weather do make people feel happy and the cozy weather here make it more comfortable for people to stay outside!

Chap 15 (Addison & Tim)

Mack and the boys are the kind of young fellows who circulate joy and happiness wherever they go. Also, it can be easily seen from this chapter that Mack is a master of the art of language, winning him a nice impression from the captain. The captain is fully indulged in the delightful atmosphere Mack has created and really enjoys the stay of Mack and the boys. The main purpose of Mack and the boys' advent is to catch frogs for Doc, yet Mack manages to attain a pup and have short ones for two hours before they actually go out for frogs in an unprecedented bold way of moving in a line and making a lot of noise at the same time. They are amply rewarded and have caught almost the frogs. Then they have some more short ones and the captain gives Mack a jug of whiskey before he goes to sleep. Mack is conscious enough to flee with the boys with a delicately selected pup and a jug of whiskey before the captain wakes up, leaving the mess behind.
There is also some further discussion about the captain's wife, a woman who fully engages in politics so that she concerns little about home, yet she appreciates tidiness.

Chapter 12 of Cannery Row Kenny and Esther

This chapter mainly talks about what happened after the death of a great writer called Josh Billings.

 Josh Billings died out at Hotel del Monte. A doctor in Monterey knew how to preserve a dead body. And he embalmed the body of Josh Billings ,threw his organs away in the gulch. A boy and his dog happened to find the liver and intestine of Josh Billings which the boy dicided to use for catching mackerel. Mr. Carriaga met the boy halfway and figured out what it was after a long inquisition. Then Mr.Carriaga and men in the bar formed a committee and made the doctor collect the parts of the dead body. They required the doctor to wash them and bury his organs in a coffin.

Their behavior indicates Monterey was a city with literary tradition. People in Monterey respected Josh Billings and thought he honored the city. Also, they considered the doctor's behavior as dishonor to a literary man, which may become a shame to the city.

Summary of Chapter 11 (Hill and Masha)

The chapter 11 is mainly about the day, when Gay fixed the truck, and Mack and the boys went to get frogs for Doc.
First, chapter is about the Lee Chong's Model T Ford truck, it was very old and it had belonged to many owners before. The story of the car is similar to the stories of almost all people on Cannery Row. The Ford knew the better times, as the most of these people did. But it is in a very poor condition now. Steinbeck in a few words described the lives of the cars owners, and it gives us a wider view of America in those days.
Second, we got to know, that Gay was a great mechanic, nearly a magician, and he fixed the truck successfully with help of Eddie stealing dry cells in Gay's house. The boys went to the Red Williams' service station in order to get gas. We could notice, that although the boys were working so hard to conduct a party for Doc, even then they're trying to get some profit from the business.
Third, on the way to frogs, the truck had trouble, because of the carburetor and Gay went for the needle valve and didn't come back because he was caught by police in a quarrel. And this was a very significant story for understanding the whole book. Lives of Mack and the boys and other Cannery Row inhabitants was all about the chance. There was no constancy in their lives. We could remember, how unusual for them was to live in a house. And another significant thing is how the chapter ended: the boys stopped to mention Gay. One of them disappeared, but they showed no worries about it. People are coming and people are leaving, and this is the usual flow of life.

Summery of Chapter 13 (Jeremy Alex)

This chapter is about Mack and the boys' trip to Monterey for frogs, which includes event from they repaired their model T Ford and go on the trip, to they met the captain from Monterey.
This chapter can be divided to 3 parts. The first part is about their second-time departure and arrival to Monterey, during which they caught a chicken and took some vegetables from a vegetable truck.
The second part is Mack and the boys' chatting during they enjoying dinner in Monterey. At the beginning Jones made a social blunder about wine, then Mack turned the topic to other things. Then they blamed Gay for his leaving, and finally they discussed about what they wanted to do for Doc.
The third part is the interaction between Mack and the captain. The captain wanted them to leave but Mack used his eloquence the captain that they just came for scientific reasons which can help many people. Then he distracted the captain to his dog and gave some advice on how to cure the bitch's wound in its shoulder. By these Mack got favorable impression from the captain, and his smart impressed the boys. The boys thought he could have made much bigger achievement by his intelligence, but he didn't want it.

Summery of chapter8 (Guo Becky)

Chapter 8 is a story about Mr. and Mrs. Sam Malloy, who live in a giant boiler abandoned by one of the canneries. They have lived in there since 1935. At that time, it was an ideal place to live in. In 1937, the economy picked up a little. The canneries worked full time catching fish and there was shortage of housing. Mr. Malloy started renting out sections of pipe in the lot for men to sleep in. Once Mr. Malloy became a landlord, Mrs. Malloy felt her status had improved and she began to decorate the boiler using rug, washtub and lamb. When she tried to buy curtains, her husband pointed out that the boiler had no window and discouraged her. That upset Mrs. Malloy greatly.

Chapter 14 of Cannery Row (Kevin and Daniel)

  There are 2 soldiers and 2 girls who strolled easily along the street. Each girl wore a soldier's cap and the soldiers also wore the girls' hats.  They walked holding hands, swinging their hands rhythmically. They looked at one another and smiled and came to the park-like property of the Hopkins Marine Station. There is a tiny beach in front of the station. The girls sat down in the sand and then the soldiers lay down and put their heads in the girls' laps and looked up into their faces and they smiled at each other.
  However, they heard someone yelling at them. It's the watchman. The watchman told them that they could not lay around here, for it's a private property and they must leave. The soldiers seemed not to follow what the watchman told them to do. They kept smiling at girls and ignored that man. They didn't even see the caretaker go back to his house.

Summary of Chapter 10 (Rebecca Ashley)

This chapter mainly talks about a boy Frankie and his story with Doc.

Frankie was a nice, good, kind boy having some little problem with coordination and was not able to learn so he was not accepted by schools. His dad was dead and his mom was staying with his uncles who treated him in a really bad way so Frankie began to like working for Doc during the day time and he sometimes slept in the excelsior crate when there was a crisis at home.

Frankie had nothing good to wear so Doc bought him clothing and Frankie became Doc’s slave but Frankie actually liked working for Doc. Although he was trying hard to help Doc group the crayfish, he could not do it. When Frankie finally found that he could not grade the crayfish, he went to the excelsior box and spent a whole afternoon in it. But there is also something Frankie learned to do like lighting Doc’s cigars so he always wanted Doc to smoke.

Another thing Frankie liked was the parties. He loved to hide behind his chair and listened to the conversations and always tried his best to understand those conversations. And then one day, he offered a young woman a beer and received a ‘Thank you’ from that young woman and ‘Frankie is a great help to me’ from Doc. Those two sentences sort of lighten up Frankie’s word because he probably had never received a compliment like those before. It was probably because he loved receiving compliment so much that he decided to serve that young woman again. He carefully prepared for a long time and went to that young woman again. But that was the moment his coordinate collapsed and everything he had on his hands collapsed into that young woman’s lap. After being silent for a moment, Frankie rushed out of the scene to his excelsior, scrabbling hollowly and started to whimper.

Frankie was a really nice boy and he really wanted to be accepted by people around. He cared a lot about what other people thought about him like we can see from his reaction from Doc saying his hands were dirty. He really wanted a family, a peaceful place for him to stay but until he worked for Doc, he didn’t have a place like that. He also wanted to make things right and he really didn’t want to fail in doing something and that is probably the reason why he felt so bad when he was not able to grade the crayfish and felt so good when he could light Doc’s cigar. He wasn’t able to do a lot of things and he was aware of that, yet he still want to be useful and he felt so great when receiving compliment from that young lady and Doc. He liked to be useful but he ruined everything after that collapse, which eventually made Frankie himself collapse.