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Created January 6, 2020
Community? Engagements? Arts? Well, for starters this is a class taught at Transylvania University in Lexington, KY by professors Kremena Todorova and Kurt Gohde. The goal of this class is to form a relationship with the community by engaging in artistic projects with the community. The outcome of this will manifest itself in many ways, some recognizable and others not so much.
CETA 2020: Our first 2 emojis (of hundreds)
Created January 6, 2020
Individual Tasks
Collect addresses, make & write thank-you cards, design pronoun buttons--Anna Davis
Blog Manager--Paige Wessling
Recorder/archivist for This I Believe essays--Sarah Metcalfe
Social Media--Lydia Baggett & Garrett LeVan
Photographic Inventory (3 people)--Yousef Alsdudi, Sarah Bennett, & Faith Boles
Space, raw material, & tool inventory manager AND order enforcer--Emily Neat
Quality Control & Class Ethicist--Alex Toney
Software Design Team (3 people)--Shelby Barker, Emily Cecil, & Abby Pearson
Fabrication Team (3 people)--Brooklyn Greer, Will Hemingway, & Marissa Price
Finishing Team (4 people)--Nannie Baze, Emon Daneshmand, Ally Frederick, & Madison Phillips
Additional photographic documentation--Kremena and Kurt
Working with production design at Kre8Now Makerspace--Kurt and Kremena
Publicity for the class--Kremena and Kurt
Securing materials needed--Kurt and Kremena
Because Leila Martin covered hers in cool whip every Saturday night(1),
ReplyDeleteBecause a teaspoon dissolved in a cup of warm water worked as fixing gel for her hair,
Because she believed in it in spite of the fact that the her beloved Grange(2) was a sworn enemy to Peter Cooper, the man who invented the first American-built steam-engine, founded the tuition-free Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, and received the first patent for a gelatin dessert(3),
Because Homer, Leila’s husband, mixed the strawberry-flavored variety with instant oatmeal to make catfish bait,
Because he didn’t know catfish preferred the celery and green vegetable flavors available in the sixties,
Because—according to a painter named Art Frahm—carrying celery in a sack of groceries can make a lady’s bloomers slide to her ankles, unexpectedly,
Because bloomers are all the wrestlers wear inside an inflatable kiddie-pool filled with the product of 1,347 boxes of cherry-flavored powder and boiling water, left to chill for two days,
Because it took all of two days for electroencephalographist Dr. Adrian Upton to prove that Lime Jell-O has brain waves identical to those of adult men and women(4),
Because Pearle Waite, a carpenter from LeRoy, NY once experimented with gelatin while bottling home-made cough remedies and laxative tea,
Because his wife, May, named the fruit-flavored dessert he concocted(5),
Because Paul E. Parrish II lied about concocting a remote-control bomb and slid it onto the counter of his local video store in an attempted robbery,
Because the West Virginia clerk working the video store immediately recognized the box that had held a cheesecake-flavored variety before Parrish ate it, dry, in the Kroger parking lot and said, “Shyeah, whatever, dude”, and called the cops(6),
Because Leila Martin always kept a small cup of it with extra cool whip on top for me, I believe in Jell-O and so should you.
(footnotes)
1. After meeting refreshments served at Westville Grange, Westville, NY from 1981 through 1988
2. A fraternal organization that demonstrated, in 1876 when political pressure yielded a series of “Granger laws”, that farmers were capable of organizing to advocate a political agenda when it forced railroad companies to pay a fair wage for the vegetables that became their cargo.
3. Patent No. 4,084 for Improvements in the Preparation of Portable Gelatin, dated June 20, 1845.
4. On March 17, 1993, technicians at St. Jerome hospital in Batavia, NY tested a bowl of lime Jell-O with an EEG machine and confirmed the earlier tests by Dr. Adrian Upton that a bowl of Jell-O has brain waves identical to those of adult men and women. Though Upton’s pioneering work on the electroencephalography of gelatin desserts started in the 1960s, popular press was unaware of his research until the New York Times published his findings in 1976.
5. Named Jell-O in 1897, the recipe was sold, by Pearle Waite, two years later when he realized he could not market the product. Sold for $450 to Orator Frank Woodward, one of the best known manufacturers of proprietary medicines, the recipe was sold again two years later for $35. By 1902 sales of Jell-O reached $250,000 each year.
6. The Charleston Gazette reported on the skilled police work that occurred: "It was some kind of cheesecake dessert ... I'm not sure if it was pre-made," said Sgt. Aaron James, assistant chief of detectives for Charleston police. "I think he had just bought it at Kroger, and he ate it. Then he got the notion to go in and rob the business."
As a kid, I gave no thought to what I said. The first words that popped in my head were the first words that came out of my mouth. Sadly, this is still the case. While it has gotten me into trouble many times, my rashness has also made for some funny moments. I don’t remember what the context was, but I remember telling my grandfather, “Mom yells a lot because she grew up hard on the farm.” I’ve never heard the end of that one.
ReplyDeleteThere was also the time that my cousins, my brother, and I were driving past a school on the way to a bowling alley. My first cousin looked at us and said, “They treat Christians real bad there.” Now, my entire extended family was Pentecostal. I had no idea what denominations were. Basically, there were Christians and whatever they were. Naturally I said, “That’s okay, I’ll just tell them I’m Pentecostal.” I haven’t heard the end of that one either.
Or there was the time that I told my parents, “I used to not like papaw, but now I do.”
Or the time a girl asked me to prom and I automatically said “yes” because that’s what I do when I’m caught off guard.
Or just any time I go to a restaurant and the waiter asks me, “So, you want that well done?” (No, I wanted that medium, but since you asked a question that I wasn’t prepared for, I’ll just say “yes.”)
These funny moments are often consolation for the times when I make a serious mistake. I’ve messed up before and I’ll mess up again. It won’t be the end of the world. Speaking without thinking has gotten me into trouble many times, but it has also given me some funny stories and shows me that it’s okay to mess up here and there. I might be able to look back on it and laugh. That’s why I believe in speaking without thinking.
I used to say my father would talk to anyone. I mean ANYONE. His appeared to be a skill that set him apart from everyone else. My father’s inclination to conversation seemed effortless and inexhaustible. I remember the time he took me on a train ride across Bulgaria during what was supposed to be a short visit with his new family in my hometown. My parents had divorced when I was 3. Mostly, I saw my father on weekends. On that weekend, we traveled for many hours in order to visit his only sibling: my aunt. Though my mother was furious when she found out how far he had taken me, what I remember most is the train journey. My father struck a conversation with every person who entered our train compartment: village women traveling to the nearest big town, old men who had spent their lives on construction sites, little kids shuttled by grandparents from one divorced parent to the other. My father had a story to trade with everyone.
ReplyDeleteBecause he would talk with everyone, my father seemed to make friends that didn’t fit his age or known interests. When he was in his 40s, he became close friends with his next-door neighbors: a couple in their 70s. The three of them shared a glass of rakia, Bulgarians’ version of moonshine, most evenings. When they needed help making pickled cucumbers at the height of pickling season, he spent hours helping them. When he headed to the United States for my wedding, they made sure his mother ate her meal and took her medicines 5 times a day. By the time I got married, my paternal grandmother, the woman I was named after, could no longer remember my name. Alzheimer’s had claimed most of her memories. She did know she had a grand-daughter who had left for America. She told me so herself the last time I spent time with her.
I used to say my father would talk with anyone. Now my kids say the same about me. They know not to believe it when I tell them we are visiting a community gathering for a minute or dropping by to say a quick hello. At times, my kids appear tired of my fondness for chat. “Can we go now?” they ask when the conversation stretches beyond an hour. At times, their question reminds me of my father. I marvel at our similarities, across many years and different continents.
I believe I am my father’s daughter.
I am from Arizona. Raised in Arizona from first grade until my sophomore year of college. In Arizona my blood was thinned from the constant heat and I did not own a single winter jacket. All my shoes were sandals or flip flops besides my one pair of running shoes. There was no need for running tights, more than a couple pairs of jeans, or to put the heat on in the house. Winter days average a temperature of 50 degrees that lasts maybe a month. The rest of the year was a dry heat of 90s to 100s.
ReplyDeleteI remember one summer day I worked early, so I did not have time to do my run in the morning. After work, I went to one of my favorite running paths. It had been an extremely hot week, but I figured at 7PM with the sun gone, it should not be that bad. Wrong. That was the day “dry heat” and feeling like you are in a oven had never been a truer statement. Heart covered your body, suffocated your lungs, drenched you in sweat, made your throat so dry it burned with every breath. It was like even though there was no direct sun, the heat had just settled over the state and was trapped and there was no where for the heat to go. That was the first moment I wanted to live somewhere else, so I could not be trapped in this oven.
Now I am living in Kentucky for the second year. Experiencing seasons for the first time. My thinned blood cannot handle these Kentucky winters. I have bought my first winter coat, learned how to use an ice scraper, and slid for the first time on ice, while driving. I have enjoyed the change in seasons and this new winter until this moment. This winter was one of the worst winters I have experiences and I am mad right now because of the false hope of 60 degree weather we got last week. Now the forecasts shows, that we are going back to the 30s and I am over it. I am tired of always being cold, my skin being the palest it has ever been, and having to wear a thousand layers just to walk outside. I want to walk out in shorts and a shirt and feel the sun on my skin. I believe I miss the sun.
Too many kids in a crammed station wagon
ReplyDeleteRachel, you're the smallest. Sit in the back.
But the backseat faces backwards.
I make faces at the cars behind us. Try to forget that I want to puke.
Too many kids in a Shaker-Town bound Windstar.
Rose brought two friends, so I get middle seat.
Rose falls asleep. Wakes up. Pukes. In Kristen's hair.
Kristen screams. Pukes. On Brittany's leg.
Dad stops. Hoses off the inside of the van. And the children.
But the show must go on. There is an historical education to be obtained.
Too many grown ass siblings in a Florida-bound Sienna.
Dibs on back middle with my feet on the hump.
No parents this time, just car jams and car snacks and the palpable fear that Rose will wake up, puke in my hair.
I believe in road trips where every single seat is called, where middle-window is a legitimate, desirable call to make after shotgun.
Yesterday, I didn’t go to class. It’s not that I was unable to physically make it or had someplace else to be, I just didn’t go. I like the class, like a lot, I mean it’s ceramics, and I like wrote my first essay on how much I was feeling the vibe so you know it’s like no shade to the professor or anybody in there. Even the people who I thought were gonna be trash I’ve ended up enjoying, and the other day we talked about dildo pottery. I guess I’m just finding it really hard to expend energy in really any direction in this place that isn’t directly correlating with further success and growth in my career. Granted, ceramics and writing these essays you could argue are benefiting my artistic capabilities and my crafting skills, which I like to improve, but damn I’m ready for a fucking job. Or I’m ready to live my dream to the fullest without having to worry about what I owe a “class” or a particular institution that isn’t fully benefiting me or my peoples. Like I’m out here tryna bloom in this dry ass no inspiration manifestation energy desert. Furthermore I’m in this place where I think everyone is wrong all the time, and I don’t feel that bad about feeling this way, because it feels kinda true...like look at the fucking government. I’m sure I’ll look back at this and be like wow you are one cocky asshole, and that’s true, but also I just want to be my best self and I don’t believe in lowering standards in order to play nice or placate feelings that can’t handle criticism. I say this, but I’m sure I’ll continue to just do that. Actually I’m just gonna continue to go off...like my senior sem class is comprised of guests that I already know coming in and talking about their lives, and I love them and am happy to see them and I have questions and such, but some others in this small ass class just sit there and are like “IS MAYONNAISE AN INSTRUMENT ” and I’m like “THIS PERSON WROTE ON THE FIRST VIRTUAL REALITY OPERA AND YOU HAVE NO COMMENTS AS SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO ENTER THIS INDUSTRY”, and a we had like a three day ballroom dance class thing with these humorless old people where one of them was kinda sexist and problematic. Last year the class had a couple month long intensive in a performance technique by a practitioner of the craft. WHAT THE FUCK. and you want me to show up? Bye. Anyway, so I didn’t go to class and I don’t really know what this is about anymore but
ReplyDeleteI believe in
Spilling the Honest Truth Sometimes I Mean Damn
Monday is the stress day,
ReplyDeleteThree more days of classes for me,
Tuesday is the lose day,
Second is always the first to lose,
Wednesday is heel day,
Hit your heels together in that weird awkward jump because there’s only one more day to go,
Thursday is the turnt day,
Your final day is here, the last school day for the week,
Friday is my “non”-day,
I am not going to do shit I said i was going to do on this day with school work,
Saturday is the happier day,
Usually, committed to making bullshitting plans to avoid being stuck in the house all day doing school work,
Sunday is the “fuck”-day
I realized, “oh fuck!” I have all this work to do but so little time...Oh well I’m going to do it next week again because I believe in procrastinating in school. It’s my senior year...I’m just trying to walk...
I believe that there are dragons sleeping under the ground. Since I was a toddler, I’ve pictured enormous beasts curled up below the slope of each hill, slumbering until it’s time for them to wake up again. They don’t mind that we build our lives on top of them because they’re too big, too strong, and their skin too tough to be bothered by anything we could ever do. In my childhood mind, every earthquake and tsunami was the product of a dragon rolling over in her sleep. Every new sinkhole was opened because a dragon’s hibernation was somehow disturbed and she had to move to find a more comfortable resting place. Unexplained wildfires and volcanic eruptions were created by distressing nightmares which forced dragons to reflexively release a bout of fire from their scaled nostrils.
ReplyDeleteMy answer to every question back then was: dragons (or sometimes aliens). In my nearly 22-years-old, college-educated mind, I know that I logically shouldn’t believe in my dragons anymore. Tectonic plates shift, dry air ignites sparks, underground water reservoirs are drained. If my dragons ever did exist, the extensive damage we’ve done to this planet would have, at the very least, severely wounded them. But I can’t help clinging onto this narrative. In every hill I drive past, I see a sleeping creature just below the earth’s crust. Every time I hike up a mountain, I picture myself climbing across the slightly spiked spine of a magnificent beast locked in slumber. Believing in my dragons is more comforting than believing only in hard scientific explanations. I love my dragons, the sense of magical wonder that they give to me, and the security I feel when I think of them peacefully resting just below my feet.
When I first came to Lexington to attend Transylvania, much like any freshman college student, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I was coming from living in the suburbs in central Ohio, where I'd grown up in a house we moved into when I was three months old, to the bustling downtown heart of pseudo-southern Lexington, Kentucky.
ReplyDeleteLife was going to be different.
Over the past six years of attending or visiting Transylvania, I've experienced a lot. But by far, my favorite and most memorable experiences of this college, and this town, are the weird ones.
Just last month, I was driving back to my off campus apartment in a light rain, and had turned onto Jefferson from 4th street when some movement caught my eye by the edge of the road
Being the avid animal lover, I quickly directed my attention to the low to the ground, russet colored creature, hoping to spot a cat.
It was a chicken.
Actually, it was three chickens. Three chickens scouring the road end of the driveway of one of the petite, unfenced houses in a light rain less than a block behind the housing side of Transy’s campus.
What did I just see?
Thinking about it later, I realized it was just one of many experiences that had been somewhat bizarre during my time in this town, but all had been memorable.
I remember walking through the courtyard in Forrer a few years back and noticing a pine cone sticking vertically out of a bush next to the steps. The pine cone was wearing a paper hat folded out of a brown, paper caf napkin.
I stopped, starred in befuddled amusement, and took a picture.
I remember last may term, when I discovered that we have a taxidermied platypus and echidna in our science building, rediscovered the giant mathematician head with googly eyes pasted to it next to the math professor’s offices, and learned that, in addition to our crypt and ghost stories, Transylvania also has a tiny museum hidden in the basement of one of the science buildings.
Not only is this museum, managed by professor Jamie Day, widely unknown, but it contains bizarre, historical treasures, much like the various displays in the science building.
The strangest of which is a GIGANTIC hairball that's in the Guinness Book of World Records. It was discovered in the stomach of a cow and gifted to the university by the brother of Mary Todd Lincoln.
Another memory is from when my roommate and I were returning to campus, and, waiting at the light on High Street to turn onto 4th street, a black man with a lean build and a shaved head crossed the street in front of us. On top of his round head, positioned in a pleasingly off center angle, was a classic conical birthday hat, complete with rainbow stripes and polka dots.
Cracking up, I rolled down my window to call out to him that he’d just made my day, and that he was fantastic. He jovially thanked me and happily announced that it was, indeed, his birthday. We had a short conversation with him, and all three of us left in a better mood.
I also have entertaining interactions with professors.
When I first met professor Kurt Ghode, to remember names, he had everyone in the class introduce themselves and say what the most mutant animal they'd ever seen in person was. Ironically for me, that ended up being myself.
Professor Jack Girard always entertains me, but I remember in the beginning of one of my first painting classes, he ended up with orange paint on his face and joked that we would go home and tell our parents how we learned about eating paint that day in class.
I don't plan on staying in Lexington after graduation, but I will leave it with some parting words.
Stay weird, Lexington.
I believe that the best things in life are weird.
I honestly completely forgot that we needed to have a TIB essay for this week so I wrote one that was twice as long as normal to make up for my stupidity. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteOkay, so it is my first day on the boat that me, 25 other newly certified scuba divers, and 5 crew members are all living on for the next three days. That morning it takes us three hours to get to the middle of the Great Barrier Reef, this trip was kinda rough. Most people got seasick and threw up on off the back of the boat. I just slept because I did not mind the cocking honestly if just felt like the sea was rocking me to sleep. But, anyways we finally make it to our first dive spot of the day. I am legitimately going to pee myself I am so excited. We get all of our gear on and one by one we get in the water. Scuba diving is super fucking weird. You have to trust that if you keep this thing in your mouth then you will have air and be okay but honestly, it just is so weird to submerge yourself and be sinking and then be like wow now keep breathing even though there no more air around.
Alright, so that was a crazy experience. My buddy and I were able to find Nemo and listen to the stillness of the ocean floor, and really fall in love with how beautiful this whole different world is under the water. The Next dive was just as cool, we were even more adventurous. Now the sun is about to set. The moment I had known I was afraid of, the night dive. This diving boat leads two-night dives and promised sharks. Um, the hell? Okay, so I thought it was so cool, terrifying but really cool. My buddy was the one who convinced me to do this with her and dammit at this moment I knew I was not as much as an adrenaline junky as her. But anyways we suit up as normal, but the crew members are throwing our leftover dinner in the water. They laugh as they say it attracts the fish that the sharks like to eat. I really was not trying to die that night. They also turn on this bright light that shines all the way down to the ocean floor, and not surprisingly they say “ If you get lost just swim back to the bigger white light and not the small one because the small one is the moon and you will swim out to see and we won’t find you.” It this point I am shaking, I can see the smaller, and by this I mean about the size of a two or three-year-old, thrashing around in the water trying to eat the old food that was thrown in. As I got closer to getting in the instructor called out “hey look! The first shark of the night” “oh wait sick there are two”. And I swear as was next in line to jump in the shark-infested water I count at least 4 or five dorsal fins that I see sticking out of the water, this does not include all the ones that were under the water waiting for me. I finally get the balls to jump in and my first thought was “well fuck now I’m here”. I could sense them around me, I could sense their large figures in the distances but we only had a tiny flashlight that had a visibility of about three feet. The only thing I could really do was try and stay calm, I mean a shark attack seems better getting shot by some crazy person in my opinion. But to cut it short, I survived. The feeling of their presence never went away that entire dive though, and when we got out I asked the instructor if he felt or saw the shark flowing us. And his answer was “ well year that bloke was following us the entire time, I was waiting for him to get one of the slackers who fell behind”. It was the most entertaining two hours of my life. The next two days and nights on that boat were my absolute heaven.
I believe in swimming with sharks.