Completing this assignment was thought provoking for me and it required a lot of thinking before I could answer the questions. The reason for this is because I am someone who loves food. I love eating but I also get great enjoyment from trying new foods. However when I think of food, I think of slow food. Whenever I travel, the number one thing on my to-do list is always trying the local food. So after much thought, I came to the conclusion that food is a form of art. It is a craft like any other that people spend their whole lives trying to master. One thing that makes food so special is that you can admire its preparation and aesthetic look but you can also get a more personal experience when you actually taste the food. In the reading, Tefler says, “Aesthetic reaction is a pleasant reaction to something. But it will not do as it stands. An aesthetic reaction need not be a favorable one, and even where it is, pleasure may not be the right characterization of it” (Tefler 10). I think this quotation summarized food perfectly. When you look at food you might get a “pleasant reaction” or appreciate what you see but I think it is hard to fully experience food and gain pleasure by just looking. In order to get pleasure, you must actually try the dish. If you walk past a wedding cake, you might say that looks “nice” but you won’t get pleasure until you try it. This is why the author says pleasure may not be the correct word for aesthetics.

In addition, I found the multimedia portion of the assignment to be interesting. If we consider food to be art, someone might say, ‘how is fast food art?’ After watching the YouTube videos I can see how someone might think that something such as fast food can never be art. The man in the video went into great detail about fast food and all of the chemicals that can be found in the food. He also went on to talk about the rather gross way the food is prepared. Initially I would agree with those people that fast food is not art but then I started to think more; is there not creativity in the way the food is prepared and how McDonalds can make the Big Mac taste the same anywhere in the world? I also started to compare it to a ‘typical’ art form such as drawing. If I go to a restaurant and get a coloring sheet with the outline already printed on the paper and color it in with my crayons that I am given, is that not considered art? I would consider that art. Therefore I think the way that the fast food companies are creating their food is very similar. The food is already close to being premade and all you need to do is add a few steps in order to complete the preparation process. Although this might not be the prettiest art, which is how some people view the crayon coloring sheets, it is still its own unique form of art.

Lastly, I think the theory that describes food the best is Modernism. Dissanayake describes modernism when she writes, “A concern with elucidating principles such as taste and beauty that govern all the arts and indeed make them not simply painting or statues but examples of (fine) art” (Dissanayake 17). Modernism reveals that art can be more than your ‘typical’ art styles. It can be defined as many things. However I think the part that stands out the most to me from that sentence are the words “taste and beauty.” Food has taste from through its flavors and beauty from the way it is presented. Both of these elements represent Modernism.

References
Dissanayake, E. (1991). What is art for? In K. C. Caroll (Ed.). Keynote adresses 1991 (NAEA Convention), (pp.15-26). Reston, VA: National Art Education Association.

Telfer, E. (2002). Food as art. In Neill, A. & Ridley, A (Eds.), Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2 ed., pp. 9-27). New York: Routledge.

1. The author, Ellen Dissanayake, coined the term paleoanthropsychobiological. Dissanayake says that this word describes art and she tells her readers what it means when she writes, “First, that the idea of art encompasses all of human history; second, that it includes all human societies; and third, that it accounts for the fact that art is a psychological or emotional need and has psychological or eDissanayake, E. (1991). What is art for? In K. C. Caroll (Ed.). Keynote adresses 1991 (NAEA Convention), (pp.15-26). Reston, VA: National Art Education Association.motional effects” (Dissanayake 1). After reading this definition, the author created this phrase in hopes of having an adjective that encompasses all aspects of art. The author has to create such a term because art cannot be narrowly defined by the definition of one word.

2. When the author refers to “making special” on page 8 and 9, she is talking about things that are different from everyday tasks. She refers to “making special” as, “things that one cares deeply about or activities whose outcome has strong personal significance” (Dissanayake 8). The author mentions that in the hunting and gathering stage of humanity, humans used to have certain rituals and taboos that they would follow because they felt like it gave them a better chance of succeeding in their goals. These rituals and taboos were very special to them because if they were to fail in something such as hunting, they could all die of starvation. They were considered much more serious than their everyday tasks. I personally believe that many of these rituals could be seen as art. If a warrior had to put special carving in his spear or perform a dance before the hunt, this would be considered a form of art.

3. Ellen Dissanayake talks about an “institutional” theory that occurred in the modernism time period (late 19th and early 20th century). This theory suggests that in order for a piece of art to be considered art, the “artworld” would have to either “buy and sell the piece of art, write about it, or display it, otherwise it would not be recognized as art” (4). Unlike today where anything can be considered art, based off of this theory, “artists made candidates for appreciation” until the artworld did one of the above tasks (4). Furthermore, it goes on to say that one of these tasks perhaps could be more important than the work of art itself. The author then discusses postmodernism, which is a late 20th century movement, when she describes says, “identifying artworks has opened a Pandora’s box that is now called postmodernism, a point of view that calls into question two centuries of assumption about the elite and special nature of art” (5). The people of this movement believed that this was the last movement. Postmodernism discusses that art can been seen and created by everyone and that there is no right or wrong interpretations of art. Also in the reading, the author discusses the medieval times which lasted from the 5th to 15th century. During this time period “the artists were in the service of religion” (2). You can conclude from what they author wrote, that during this time period, artists main focus was regarding God. They did not have nearly the same level of free flowing art that we see today.

Reference
Dissanayake, E. (1991). What is art for? In K. C. Caroll (Ed.). Keynote adresses 1991 (NAEA Convention), (pp.15-26). Reston, VA: National Art Education Association.

One thing that was difficult for me to comprehend was when the author was talking about abstract art in history and said, “Because these values were not easily apparent to the untutored observer, appreciating art became more than ever an elite activity, requiring an apprenticeship and dedication not unlike that of the artist” (Dissanayake 4). This seemed crazy to me because I never thought of art as something that you needed to be educated in to appreciate. Although someone who is majoring in art might be able to critique a piece of art better than the average person, that does not mean that the art is any less important to either one of them. I would not consider myself very “skillful” in examining art but I still appreciate going to museums and having artwork in my home. I would also be curious on how someone defined art during this time period. Today I feel like art is freer flowing and someone could make an argument that everything we see is a form of art. I wonder if it was the same way back then?

However, the part of the article that I connected with the most was when the author started talking about living abroad and how it changed her life. Dissanayake said, “Living in a non-western country permits, indeed demands that you look afresh at all the cultural truths and beliefs that you have grown up with and taken for granted. Among these of course was my idea of art” (Dissanayake 1). The reason that I found this so interesting was because I just finished studying abroad for the past four months in Hong Kong. Although I had traveled out of the country before, this was my first time going anywhere as exotic as Asia. This was also my first time ever living abroad. Since this experience has been so recent and this is my first term back in Oregon since, I have been thinking a lot lately about how my experience has changed many of my beliefs and truths that I grew up believing in. While in Hong Kong, I would see new buildings being created and even though it is a modern place, they still used bamboo scaffolding while the buildings are under construction. For me, that was art and I loved to look at it. I found it fascinating and beautiful. Before studying abroad I do not think I would have ever considered something such as scaffolding to be a form of art.

Source:
Dissanayake, E. (1991). What is art for? In K. C. Caroll (Ed.). Keynote adresses 1991 (NAEA Convention), (pp.15-26). Reston, VA: National Art Education Association.

As you can see, my top five values (in order) are: Family, Health, Friendship, Wealth, and Enjoyment. I know that these five life values are the most important to me because everything I did today fell into one of these categories.

Family: I come from a rather large family with two parents and three brothers. They are all very important to me so I maintain good relationships with all of them. Today I called home and talked with my parents for a while. I also talked with each of my brothers today via text message. My brothers and I have a group conversation that we keep going throughout the week.

Health: Besides my family, health is the most important thing to me. Almost everything I do goes towards being either physical or mentally healthy. Last night I slept a little over nine hours because I could tell that I was on the edge of getting sick and I knew sleep would help me. I then woke up in the morning and went to the gym. Not only do I go to the gym to stay physically fit but it really helps me mentally. It allows me clear my head and stay focused throughout the day. In addition to all of this, I generally eat very healthy.
Friendship: Since today was the semi-finals for the NFL, I watched some of the football game with my friends. This was a lot of fun and taking time out of my day to do things like this helps strengthen the bond with my friends.

Wealth: I think my motivation to become wealthy came from my upbringing in Southern California. Although this does not mean I want to become wealthy so I can buy a bunch of fancy things. I want to become wealthy so I can get out of “the rat race” of work and do what I want rather than having people tell me what to do. I want to be able to spend my time as I wish as well as help people who were not as fortunate growing up as I was. Today I worked towards achieving wealth by studying multiple hours. I study numerous hours every day so that when I graduate, I can take the skills I have learned and apply them to the workforce.

Enjoyment: Finally, enjoyment is essential because there is no point of working hard if you cannot enjoy yourself. Today I got enjoyment by watching some football with my friends. After watching the football game for about 30 minutes, I went back to continue my studying. I now plan on going out with my friends tonight so that we can have some fun.

I think the biggest belief I learned from my parents is that hard work pays off. Growing up, my parents always told me that I should work hard in everything I do. I took this advice to heart and have applied it to a variety of things such as high school sports, college academics, and summer internships. It is difficult to determine if any of the belief patterns that I have learned from my family are no longer important. Growing up my parents instilled some core principles such as hard work and integrity and then allowed me to develop my own values. The biggest goal that I have for myself that I have not yet pursued is that one day I want to start up my own company. The reason I have no yet done this is because that I feel my time is better spent studying for school. By studying hard and getting good grades, this in turn will allow me to do better when I go to start up my company. So although I have not directly started towards achieving my goal, I have started to develop the building blocks for my company by learning all I can right now in school.

The thing that stood out to me the most in this article are the four “most basic ways we come to ‘know’ something.” Although I do agree that these seem to be the four most basic ways to know something, I think that “sense experience” should be broken down one step further into direct sense experiences and indirect sense experiences. There is a big difference between me hearing something is true from a friend and me seeing something so I know it is true. As humans, I think that we like hard evidence so when we personally witness something first hand with one of our five senses, we are able to create a stronger belief. This is something that I can personally relate to. When I was growing up, my parents would constantly say things like, “if you touch that you are going to get burned.” Of course I wanted to see for myself so I would touch it and I would get burned. After that was over, I then decided that I didn’t want to touch it again because I knew I would get burned. Although I might have gained knowledge by listening to my parents, I did not truly accept it until I witnessed it for myself first hand. On the other hand, I know a lot of people who always believe what people tell them; they have no desire to witness certain things for themselves. Although we both may have the same idea in our head not to touch the hot object, it seems as though my belief would be much stronger. I would be able to defend my point by describing exactly what happened. My friend would just be able to say that his parents told him not to, so he didn’t. Although one isn’t necessarily better than the other, they are very different and that is why it makes sense for the classifications to be broken down one step further.