Reflecting on my dress and customization, I feel that I have evolved my fashion throughout the years. Just last year I felt comfortable going to class in athletic shorts and a sweatshirt and not fixing up my hair at all, but this year I have felt the need to look good for myself and that it is a lot of fun to customize and mix my dress and hair. I like to be current with my fashion and wear things from flannels to nice shirts everyday using different colors. One thing that I have always customized with and been expressive with have been my shoes. Ever since middle school I have worn that I see as unique and different because that’s how I express myself and feel that my shoes sometimes show my values and emotions. I value being a unique individual and believe that it is important to be yourself and express who you are. With my clothing, I believe that I express it is important to do what you enjoy and that I value making yourself feel good with how you look. One thing that has specifically changed for me over the years has been my hair. I haven’t grown my hair out long until recently and have found joy in styling and making it look different with headbands or hats to accessorize and express myself because I think it looks good. What I did not realize until recently was what my hair shows about myself, in C.R. Sanders book “Customizing the Body” he shows what hair has been known to express, “For both males and females hair style consistently has been a semi-permanent way to demonstrate opinion of and connection to current popular taste, established authority, and mainstream values” (Sanders 5). I guess that what I have come to realize is that my hair has given me some authority as I have been told that it makes me look older, and that I like to demonstrate my liking to the current popular taste that so many celebrity males have gone to long hair now as well. The reason why I choose the clothes that I do is because I do not want to be looked down upon because of my appearance and I now realize that I want people to have a good impression of me and see what I value based on my appearance and customization.

Some of the core beliefs from my family include being loving and open to others, working hard, and expressing our true selves no matter how different we may be. Loving and open to others is a value that resonates strongly with me as it is something that I value immensely and carry with me in my everyday life. One way that I express this value is often dressing invitingly like using soft colors and not using piercings or tattoos that may scare people away from your initial impressions. One way that I express my hard working belief in my outfits is when I dress professional to show that I am driven and focused. Finally, I really enjoy expressing myself through my dress and feel that this is very important and can often be seen as an art form. Doing something that you enjoy and can be seen as beautiful by a number of different people is something that should be encouraged and is something that can be a learning experience.

My peer community or friends has a separate core belief and value system that includes having fun, building relationships, and being unique. While being unique was a similar value that I shared with my family, my friends are very unique in how they dress but more specifically in body adornment with tattoos, different hats, watches, and even unique ways of hair styling. The value of having fun is often expressed in my peer community by wearing comical shirts and other clothes that most college kids wear when going out because it is fashionable. Also, we express our belief in building relationships by often dressing similar, on purpose or on accident, and also documenting our appearances with each other. Fashion in college is very unique because of how universal it is but also by how expressive many people can be with how they accessorize. I believe that being able to express oneself with clothing or body adornment is a very unique art form and is very expressive of how people feel and value. From head to toe, people can be seen differently by one subtle difference and the interpretations are vast on the different ways people express themselves.

The first person that I saw was a female who was wearing a heavy rain jacket with bright yoga pants and running shoes. She had brown hair with blonde highlights and had her hair in a pony tail in a hairband. The way that she was dressed made me feel like she was going to work out and that I believe she valued her personal health and fitness. I also felt that she liked to be fashionable with her bright colors and dyed hair. The assumptions that I made based on her dress was that she was a white, college aged female who was very healthy and the look on her face made her appear to me as if she was emotionally worried about something or about working out. These assumptions I made may say similar things about me because I dress in a similar way when I go to work out at the gym and feel that I am constantly worried and thinking about things when I am walking by myself to get somewhere, I value thinking deeply and this reflects in my facial expressions when I am walking around.

The second person I saw was a man in a grey sweatshirt, jeans, and an Oregon stocking cap and was wearing a black backpack. One belief I feel he expresses with his backpack was that he believed in a good education. One value I believe he expressed with his stocking cap was that he values his comfort and wanted to stay warm. Overall, I assumed, based on his attire, that he was a college aged white male that was from Oregon. This says about my values that I assume that most people that look and dress like the people I know from a place are immediately believed by me to be from that place. This is an unfair assumption and shows how I do not look deeply into a person until I get to know them better but also that I like to associate people with familiar faces because it makes me more comfortable.

The third person I saw appeared to me to be an older gentleman with glasses and a polo and jeans. His hair looked a little sporadic to me as well as his facial hair and it appeared that he had a concerned look on his face while looking at his computer. I believe that he expressed a knowledgeable value as he was looking onto his computer screen intently and it appears to me that he cares about school more than appearance because his hair was messy and had longer facial hair. Based on his appearance, I would say that he is a mid to late twenties white male who appears to be emotionally stable but very stressed. This says a lot about my values as I often find myself being stressed often but value my time to myself and believe that it is important to take time off and enjoy things. I also believe it is important to take care of yourself and look nice at times.

Deresiewicz, W. (2012, 27 October) A Matter of Taste? [The New York Times On-Line] Retrieved January 31 2015 from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/how-food-replaced-art-as-high-culture.html

The article “A Matter of Taste?” by William Deresiewicz spoke a lot about how food has in ways replaced art recently and the value we put on food today. William spoke about how food is regarded how art is regarded and that now we put more value on food than we do art pieces. In the article, he mentions aestheticism of food and how so many people share a similar passion for food today. Ultimately, Williams believes that we are heading down the wrong path in valuing food over art and feel that food should not be regarded in the manner it is today.

This article was very interesting to me and had a lot of links to the things that we learned this week. The article spoke about aesthetics of food and how it has appealed the minds of the 21st century and that food has become almost a religion to some today. We spoke of aestheticism in our reading “Food as Art” by Elizabeth Telfer and in our videos also drew a line where aestheticism of food separates whether food should be considered art or not. In the videos, they spoke of how slow food should not be considered art because it is not unique or made in an artistic way. The article by William Deresiewicz also spoke about how food should not be considered art because even though it incorporates our senses, it is not something that is symbolic or that will express emotion. I do not agree with these as I feel that there can be something symbolic about food and that food can definitely bring up emotions in someone because senses are heightened. I thought this article was very interesting in pointing out how food is being regarded in today’s culture, which is something that I agree with. Food has become a very broad subject and has allowed for a lot of different inputs from people who feel that food has become a lifestyle and the experience behind making and creating food is exactly like art. I believe that this is because food is an art form and that we should be treating it that way to allow artistic freedom and to bring along new ideas to art.

The article I chose also spoke about how food specifically cannot introduce new ideas and provoke any thought for people. Elizabeth Telfer would refute this point in her article when she said, “Many meals are intended by their cooks to be considered largely in this way – to be savoured, appraised, thought about, discussed – and many eaters consider them this way” (Telfer 7). Many foods are meant to bring up discussion and when a group of people go out to a restaurant, the experience brings up a lot of conversation to be considered by everyone and in which case could bring up new ideas that were sparked by food. Food can bring people together and provoke deep thinking by a lot of people, much like the first thanksgiving brought the pilgrims and Native Americans together. In many ways, food is not seen as art because people see the food itself as something that we must do everyday and focus on the item of food as whether it is art. For me, art is a process and an experience, not just an individual item, and the craft behind making and eating food can really bring up a lot of different senses and emotions. If I go out to eat at a restaurant with my friends, I look forward to not only the food that I get to experience but the company and ideas discussed with my friends and that is something that I can relate as art.

One thing that left me thinking after reading my article was when he spoke about food taking the meaning that art once did in a lot of places.  I believe that this is because food and art should coexist together to help bring new ideas and food is an art because it is “replacing” the things that art once used to represent. Art traditionally challenges thoughts, creative, and represented a wide range of standards. Today, art does this by using different dishes and different palettes to be criticized by others for its representation and also to bring people together to discuss real issues and challenge thoughts. Food is art because it not only encompasses all the ideas art is meant to represent, but also brings an experience that many other art forms do not normally bring with them.

I really like the idea of seeing food as art and I have thought about this many other times. According to Ellen Dissanayake in “What is Art For?” she believes in a species-centered view of art from humans as “thinking of art as kind of behavior that developed as they evolved, to help them survive” (Dissanayake 2). She also goes on to talk about how art has become something that is psychologically challenging and that it can be a number of things. For me, food embodies all of these characteristics, some foods more than others, and that basically all food is art. In Elizabeth Telfer’s article “Food as Art”, she discusses how food can be related to the art forms we all think of at first but also provides reasoning behind why people may believe that food and drink are not art forms. She claims, “It would be implausible to maintain that food and drink never constitute works of art in the classifying sense. People sometimes treat them as works of art, and I have argued that we can compare the creator of a recipe to a composer” (Telfer 11). I agree with her as I feel that food is something that not only a behavior that has helped us survive and think differently, but also affects us in ways that aren’t always measured the same as the way that art affects us.

Art to me is something that creates some sort of impact or reassurance in values and for me, food of any kind does this to me. The feeling that I get going to my favorite burger place back at home with my family or friends is something that I don’t feel towards anything else and has an impact on my mentality and emotional state. The video on fast food this week was interesting to me as it pointed out a lot of good details on how some don’t consider fast food an art form and that there may be “a line drawn” between what food represents an art form and which one’s don’t. Similarly, Elizabeth Telfer discusses a counterpoint of how our senses are not as highly developed so eating may create a faulty experience than what we think like certain other art forms do from time to time. For me, the experience that comes with food is just as much of an art form and even if the food may have been duplicated and uniform, the feelings that come from the food qualify it to me as an art form. What was most interesting to me was how one video talked about the aesthetics of slow food and whether it would be considered more of an art because of the effort put in to make it more aesthetically pleasing. I feel that there is just as much importance in the taste as their is in the “decoration” and that the best food that can be represented as art, takes these two ideals into equal consideration. One question that remained with me was whether the experience with food as an art form can be just as impactful as an experience with another art form? This question I felt really made a clear distinction on if food should be considered an art form or not.

1. The term paleoanthropsychobiological was coined by Ellen Dissanayake in her article “What is Art For?” and can be described as her view on art that “must be viewed as an inherent universal trait of the human species” (Dissanayake 1).  In other words, she believes that the history of art and art itself is a universal perspective.

2. To make something special it must be something that is unordinary or not seen everyday and must impact the person in a significant way. For art to be made special implies that there is a lot of meaning and intention behind it and can truly impact us to adapt new values and emotions. This ultimately affects human survival as we adapt to things that are special to us as individuals and can impact our decision making.

3. Three theories that Dissanayake mentions in her article include modernism, postmodernism, and western concept of fine art. The development of the western concept of fine art she discusses developed up through the 18th century and was shaped by the great minds of Plato and Aristotle who did not mention art specifically but used beauty to describe the understanding we had with daily tasks or activities. This emphasized the value of reason on art and developed the true thinking behind fine art, not being restricted to what we may simply think is art. Modernism was a belief of art as an ideology and happened in the 18th century through the 20th century. American critics like Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg challenged previous beliefs of what we believed to be art as the appeal of aesthetics were introduced into art. Finally, postmodernism is currently happening as it integrates the idea of art being an interpretation. Postmodernism believes, “Artists, just like everybody else, do not see the world in any singularly privileged or objectively truthful way, but rather-like everybody-interpret it according to their individual and cultural sensibilities” (Dissanayake 5). This is showing how the idea of self interpretation has been introduced and is encouraged to challenge the art and previous beliefs of art.

This article by Ellen Dissanayake discusses the idea of art and the different ways and periods through which it has progressed. I felt the modernism period of art really related to me as the theme of ideology started to become introduced in this period. As described in the article, “The work of art became a world-in-itself, made solely or primarily as an occasion for this kind of detached aesthetic experience” (Dissanayake 4). I feel this relates to me personally of how I look at art. I see art all around us in our everyday lives and they can really bring another element to our lives as they are a special experience that can provide a lot of value to people. Through this, art became universal and was seen as something that everyone could relate to. The part of this period that I did not appreciate was how they talked about criticism of art becoming an elite idea and that only few could correctly do this task. I feel this is wrong because everybody brings different insights on different subjects and it is unfair to discount someone else’s claim simply because they may not be as qualified as someone else is to critique it.

The video this week talked a lot about beauty and how it is related to evolution. Beauty has evolved many things in this world to give people pleasure by simply looking at them and that is something that art tries to imitate. Art tries to evoke beauty in different ways and get people interested in it, but also challenges people to look further than simplistic beauties. The one remaining question that I had after this weeks lecture and reading was how does this beauty in art challenge people and what ideas does it introduce to try and shape people’s own personal values? For me art speaks in different ways to different people and getting insight from others on their perspectives is very beneficial in understanding what art is trying to provoke. Ultimately, this can lead to a lot of different ways of thinking, good or bad, and can lead to people wanting to emulate the values displayed in art.

1. Friendship
2. Family
3. Enjoyment
4. Personal Development
5. Leadership
6. Integrity
7. Wisdom
8. Service
9. Creativity
10. Loyalty
11. Independence
12. Health
13. Community
14. Personal Accomplishment
15. Security
16. Expertness
17. Wealth
18. Prestige
19. Power
20. Location

My top five in comparison to what I have done today is fairly similar as I feel these top five values that I chose are what I try and represent everyday. Today I went to class, did homework, spoke with my family, and had some down time with friends which truly incorporates my top five life values according to this list. When I went to class, I was aiding in my personal development and by participating in the class, I was also helping solidify the life value I try to represent being a leader. By doing my homework I am also trying to better myself and further my personal development. The final things that were important to me today included talking with my family and spending time with my friends as I feel that these are my most important life values as doing these also brings me my most enjoyment.

My belief patterns have been shaped since a young age but ultimately are determined from my level of enjoyment from them as I feel personal enjoyment is the most important thing in life. I believe that most of these values I inherited from my family as the importance of family and personal improvement are things that are encouraged in my family. Further down the list I feel that I am not fully capable to express these life values as I have not been given the opportunity to empower these because I do not have much authority to help create wealth or work on expertness. Ultimately my life values are very important to me as they are seen through my daily actions and represent who I am as a person.

I was very intrigued by the reading, most specifically the debate between whether values truly exist or whether humans are driven by natural instinct. This is a very interesting topic as I feel that we develop human values through our instincts and our experiences in life. The article states a clear difference in how we as humans still develop our own human values throughout life but also states, “The proposition that individual human beings are programmed into their values, either by the influence of genes on personality or by social pressures, can neither be proven nor refuted” (Lewis). I believe that we are not programmed into values but our values are influenced by genes and social experiences. I feel that my experiences led to my values, specifically my experience in sports at a young age. One of my personal values is to treat everyone with respect and to be kind to all and doing sports at a young age I feel molded this by being taught to display great sportsmanship at all times. I always felt that displaying great sportsmanship not only helped when playing sports but carried value off the field. To this day I do my best to treat everyone with respect and I feel that my experience in sports has helped me create that value.

I also feel a little confused on the concept in the article they spoke about the concept of knowing something. They believe knowing is based on a number of factors including things from emotion to authority to science. My confusion comes when I look at knowing something through emotion or authority, then being “disproved” on another front like science or logic. My question to this would be whether we can at any point be 100 percent on a subject or whether it is up to us as people and our beliefs and experiences to know whether something is true or not?

http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/1/4/7490087/espn-tribute-to-stuart-scott-video

Sports is a big interest to me and a true icon in the sports world passed away a few days ago. Stuart Scott, an ESPN sports anchor, died at the age of 49 on Sunday and I feel this blog above is a fantastic tribute to what he contributed to the sports world and the impact that he had on those who worked in sports. It was amazing specifically to hear about how his children kept him going through his battle with cancer and how he felt that cancer should not control one’s life, to quote Stuart Scott, “You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and the manner in which you live.” A truly great and influential man will very much be missed by many.