Artistic Influences My Ass
I have to write a 300 word essay about my Artistic Influences--film, book, tv, music, anything, how it inspired/influenced my work or the way I look at the world.
I've been having a staring contest with my notebook for about an hour now.
I just don't know? I've consumed a lot of art over the course of this year, and much of it has influenced me, but none of them in any especially concrete way that doesn't intertwine with like a dozen other things.
For example, I try looking at The Abigails. I don't see any clear influence at work. I mean, I got the idea of dividing the personalities up from The Breakfast Club (especially pajama girl, Ally Sheedy II), and House of Cards inpsired me with the whole slow-reveal-of-true-nature thing, but otherwise it was inspired by my own life, as well as Taiwanese culture in general, neither of which is a work of art.
I suppose I could talk about those things? It's just that when I think Artistic Influences, I feel like I should talk about The Artistic Influence, the most central thing I draw my inspiration from, the one thing that has impacted me the most.
And really...that's so many things. Lolita. Sherlock. The Smiths. Taiwanese indie music. But these things haven't inspired my work so much as just open me up to the world of literature and film and music, to a broader and deeper understanding of art and life. So far, art has impacted my life way more than it has impacted my art. It's been about feeling and learning and believing.
I don't even know what I am like as an artist, or the second part of the question, "How you look at the world."
I know how I look at the world. I see Taiwan at the middle, and America is land surrounding the it with twelve hours of ocean in between. that's the truth. I want to tell stories about Taiwan, about Taiwanese school girls and Taiwanese queerness in all girls schools, about the limp struggle against the wretched system, about enlightenment and isolation, about absent fathers, about hating and loving home, about hating and loving your mother.
But I only have 300 words. I guess I'm supposed to just pick a minor point of interest and elaborate on that.
But what, for the love of Nabokov, what?
I've been having a staring contest with my notebook for about an hour now.
I just don't know? I've consumed a lot of art over the course of this year, and much of it has influenced me, but none of them in any especially concrete way that doesn't intertwine with like a dozen other things.
For example, I try looking at The Abigails. I don't see any clear influence at work. I mean, I got the idea of dividing the personalities up from The Breakfast Club (especially pajama girl, Ally Sheedy II), and House of Cards inpsired me with the whole slow-reveal-of-true-nature thing, but otherwise it was inspired by my own life, as well as Taiwanese culture in general, neither of which is a work of art.
I suppose I could talk about those things? It's just that when I think Artistic Influences, I feel like I should talk about The Artistic Influence, the most central thing I draw my inspiration from, the one thing that has impacted me the most.
And really...that's so many things. Lolita. Sherlock. The Smiths. Taiwanese indie music. But these things haven't inspired my work so much as just open me up to the world of literature and film and music, to a broader and deeper understanding of art and life. So far, art has impacted my life way more than it has impacted my art. It's been about feeling and learning and believing.
I don't even know what I am like as an artist, or the second part of the question, "How you look at the world."
I know how I look at the world. I see Taiwan at the middle, and America is land surrounding the it with twelve hours of ocean in between. that's the truth. I want to tell stories about Taiwan, about Taiwanese school girls and Taiwanese queerness in all girls schools, about the limp struggle against the wretched system, about enlightenment and isolation, about absent fathers, about hating and loving home, about hating and loving your mother.
But I only have 300 words. I guess I'm supposed to just pick a minor point of interest and elaborate on that.
But what, for the love of Nabokov, what?