Oh for shame!

Yeah, Hawk, you left me all alone and unsupervised in the blog! What were you thinking? I could have severely injured the readers. Gosh.

Anyway! STATES. YES. EXCITED!

And I turned in my summer internship application RIGHT ON TIME (and 2 months late...). I made it before the deadline, so it's all good.

Hmm, anyway, inspired by recent events:

Whatever happened to freedom of speech/expression? Specifically, at what point should fear of retribution or paranoia hamper a person's expression of an idea?

A little bit of background: I was painting a masked, armed robber to demonstrate misuse of masks. My parents freaked out and said what can basically be summarized as "OMG IT'S A TERRORIST THE FBI WILL ARREST YOU AND YOU'LL FAIL AP ART IF YOU SUBMIT THAT IN YOUR PORTFOLIO"

I very frequently disagree with my parents, but I thought this was highly amusing, especially their tirade about the government's paranoia.

Their suggestion: Don't express anything political or controversial.
Well then, what would I use art for? Art is meant for expression controversial ideas. I am by no means an activist of anything, but even I occasionally would like to express controversial ideas in visual form. Y'know, only on special occasions, that sort of thing.
At the risk of sounding like a radical, this paranoia about the government's paranoia (though hilarious) is what allows dictators to rise as fast as they do. (...did I just say that?)
At any rate, those are my thoughts on the matter.

Also: in my mother's words, "Girls are supposed to paint pretty, positive things."
Response: No.

I'm too tired to blog about gender stereotypes right now. Please leave a message after the beep.

Anyway
Ugly is the new beautiful!
Ogres are in! Mermaids are out!

It basically boils down to this: There is eye-candy, and there is art.

Bah, I sound like an artist elitist. Oh well, I shall enjoy myself while I do!