Honors Book Club
There Eyes Were Watching God
The Monkey Wrench Gang
Artist Statement: This poem is intended to represent how Ed Abbey (through his characters in the Monkey Wrench Gang) felt about nature as well as industrial development. I could imagine one of the characters writing this poem on one of their adventures through Canyonlands, thinking about how beautiful the land is around them and how much they want to keep it from being destroyed. I wanted to show Abbey’s environmental ethic through the description of the beautiful nature he believes should be preserved. I also added ideas from the Gaia Hypothesis to show the connectedness between, ancestors and Abbey, as well as Abbey and Mother Nature. I don’t know if Abbey felt that interconnectedness, but I believe that in order to fight so hard for nature there must be some kind of connection that pushes people forward in taking action.
Cat's Cradle
Artist Statement
Paragraph 1: State your thesis statement and how your thesis applies to the novel.
Religion is a way in which people are able to feel a sense of purpose and meaning in life. However, when one examines it deeply, as Kurt Vonnegut did, they are able to see that religion is unexplainable. We are making meaning out of nothing, as we have no facts to tell us whether God and his teachings truly exist. This theme was present throughout Vonnegut’s novel as he creates a religion based on lies that is a representation of all religions around the world. As Vonnegut’s character Newt says, “A cat’s cradle is nothing but a bunch of X’s between somebody’s hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X’s… No damn cat, and no damn cradle”(Pg.166).
Paragraph 2: Explain how your piece expresses your perspective and explain any symbolism or relevant “artistic decisions”.
I chose to create a cat’s cradle out of words to symbolize the idea that there is nothing concrete that holds our ideas and beliefs about religion. When we look past the words we see a deep hole in which there is nothing. All these words may mean something to us, but they are only words and we may just be putting meaning where it doesn’t truly exist. I chose to use the words of Vonnegut as the strings that create a cat’s cradle, to give a sense of fragility to these claims about religion. I also wanted to illuminate one of Vonnegut’s ideas that people look deeply for a meaning and purpose in life through religion yet it has no real importance. I did this by choosing the lines that expressed these ideas most and creating the poem from them.
Paragraph 3: Defend your Refinement and Perspective and Cohesiveness. Explain what influenced or inspired your work.
The seminar inspired me to create this artwork and poem as we explored religion in Cat’s Cradle more deeply. I realized from early on that Vonnegut was making a claim about all religions through his fiction religion called Bokononism. He was showing how all religions are made up of lies. However, I didn’t understand the larger claim he was making about religion and even science to an extent. During the seminar we were able to discover what we believed to be the larger idea Vonnegut was trying to explain; we need so badly to have a purpose and meaning in life that we often make meaning out of nothing through things such as the practice of religion worldwide. I wanted to focus on this idea and therefore decided to take the most prominent lines in the book and create a found poem and combine that with a shape poem to make it come to life. Throughout creating this art piece I was able to refine it. I started out with just a found poem, but quickly realized that I wanted it to be more complex and connect to the book through another avenue, which ended up being the title and larger theme, a cat’s cradle. I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to make the words work in creating a cat’s cradle but I tried several different pictures. I settled on the final one and used Photoshop to erase the original lines so I could add my own. I worked hard to make sure that every line was purposeful and worked with the concept I was focusing on. I also tried to make it flow together in a way that didn’t feel choppy. I feel that I was able to accomplish this through my very intentional line choices and the refinement I put into both the poem and the art piece.
Works Cited:
https://www.google.com/searchq=cat%27s+cradle&espv=2&biw=1168&bih=631&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=wq_9VNCVLsemgwT90YG4BQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg#imgdii=_&imgrc=arycu1Mme_7f3M%253A%3B2UQ4XtiXezJDvM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.ifyoulovetoread.com%252Fbook%252Fcats4.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.ifyoulovetoread.com%252Fbook%252Fchten_cats1105.htm%3B648%3B360
Religion is a way in which people are able to feel a sense of purpose and meaning in life. However, when one examines it deeply, as Kurt Vonnegut did, they are able to see that religion is unexplainable. We are making meaning out of nothing, as we have no facts to tell us whether God and his teachings truly exist. This theme was present throughout Vonnegut’s novel as he creates a religion based on lies that is a representation of all religions around the world. As Vonnegut’s character Newt says, “A cat’s cradle is nothing but a bunch of X’s between somebody’s hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X’s… No damn cat, and no damn cradle”(Pg.166).
Paragraph 2: Explain how your piece expresses your perspective and explain any symbolism or relevant “artistic decisions”.
I chose to create a cat’s cradle out of words to symbolize the idea that there is nothing concrete that holds our ideas and beliefs about religion. When we look past the words we see a deep hole in which there is nothing. All these words may mean something to us, but they are only words and we may just be putting meaning where it doesn’t truly exist. I chose to use the words of Vonnegut as the strings that create a cat’s cradle, to give a sense of fragility to these claims about religion. I also wanted to illuminate one of Vonnegut’s ideas that people look deeply for a meaning and purpose in life through religion yet it has no real importance. I did this by choosing the lines that expressed these ideas most and creating the poem from them.
Paragraph 3: Defend your Refinement and Perspective and Cohesiveness. Explain what influenced or inspired your work.
The seminar inspired me to create this artwork and poem as we explored religion in Cat’s Cradle more deeply. I realized from early on that Vonnegut was making a claim about all religions through his fiction religion called Bokononism. He was showing how all religions are made up of lies. However, I didn’t understand the larger claim he was making about religion and even science to an extent. During the seminar we were able to discover what we believed to be the larger idea Vonnegut was trying to explain; we need so badly to have a purpose and meaning in life that we often make meaning out of nothing through things such as the practice of religion worldwide. I wanted to focus on this idea and therefore decided to take the most prominent lines in the book and create a found poem and combine that with a shape poem to make it come to life. Throughout creating this art piece I was able to refine it. I started out with just a found poem, but quickly realized that I wanted it to be more complex and connect to the book through another avenue, which ended up being the title and larger theme, a cat’s cradle. I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to make the words work in creating a cat’s cradle but I tried several different pictures. I settled on the final one and used Photoshop to erase the original lines so I could add my own. I worked hard to make sure that every line was purposeful and worked with the concept I was focusing on. I also tried to make it flow together in a way that didn’t feel choppy. I feel that I was able to accomplish this through my very intentional line choices and the refinement I put into both the poem and the art piece.
Works Cited:
https://www.google.com/searchq=cat%27s+cradle&espv=2&biw=1168&bih=631&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=wq_9VNCVLsemgwT90YG4BQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg#imgdii=_&imgrc=arycu1Mme_7f3M%253A%3B2UQ4XtiXezJDvM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.ifyoulovetoread.com%252Fbook%252Fcats4.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.ifyoulovetoread.com%252Fbook%252Fchten_cats1105.htm%3B648%3B360