Penny's Responses to Readings

Kitchen Table Wisdom
Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

This preface is a unlike many that serve as a disclaimer for what will shortly follow. Instead, the author Rachel Remen bares all of her concerns, apprehensions and fears about taking on the task of writing her book Kitchen Table Wisdom. This is a refreshing approach to a preface that I often skip over due to the writers need to justify what will be contained in the remaining pages. Remen lays out her journey through and struggle to write the text discovering that in the end you do not have to be a writer in order to be called author. She fills the pages with a multitude of stories told to her and by her that reside in her memory, finding in the end how powerful her way of thinking can change her life and that of another.
As a budding writer myself I found the preface to Kitchen Table Wisdom to alter my thinking entirely. Coming into this course on the verge of taking my life and what I have spent five years of life working for in another direction, I feared ultimate failure. Reading the words “less afraid, less apologetic,” I began to realize in the end I may come back as neither writer nor author, but having taken this turn will be the most beneficial experience to date.

My Working –Class Roots in an Academic War Zone:
Creating Space to Grieve and Honor
Ed Check

Having grown up in working-class Wisconsin, author Ed Check recounts how his upbringing as a Polish-American male was impacted by the Catholic religion and his emerging homosexuality. In his youth Check recounts the steadiness of daily life in the rural working class town of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Here the aluminum blast kept many locals in steady jobs thanks to the growing market. The Polish Catholic background of his family established value and ethics early on leading to a career interest as a priest. However, upon entering the academic world Check found himself at odds with faith, value, ethics, and the blatant disregard his colleagues had for the working-class.
As a way of guiding himself through these difficult times, Check began to invest his time in his artwork that evolved into activist art depicting images of his former self and those of himself today as a profeminist and homosexual. While his lifestyle and beliefs have changed his love for family and the community that shaped him has not. In this way he has combined all of the elements of his life and experiences into educating others and giving back to community.

Reading this I could not stop myself from comparing his words to my own life. While I came from a middle-class family, I spent years watching my father, a man filled with experience struggle with his job because he lacked the degree to get ahead. I am one of the first in my family to go to college and graduate let alone go on for a second degree. Catholicism was the basis for my values and beliefs and I too served as an alter server every Saturday and Sunday for nearly six years. It was a huge part of my life and Check is correct in describing the anxiety that comes when you begin to question everything you’ve known.

Even greater is my struggle to find place in the academic role I have as a grad student here at Ohio State. If there is one thing I missed in my undergraduate education it was everything I should already know, critical theory, pedagogy and history. A creative mind, I find it difficult to connect with the material and colleagues, I write what I know and communicate my ideas only to be met with confusion and hostility in some cases. There is little support for the autobiographical and first person methods I use in my writing. My research takes form in the ramblings of a “journey” as I call it, which end up being too close to the subject matter and myself. This is something I have struggled with since day one of this program and still have no solid reason why I am unable to get close to my research.


“Redrafting and Editing”
Jenny Newman

This article can be summarized in one statement, reread and write your piece to perfection, very good advice for someone like myself who often holds off until the last minute to begin writing a paper. It is not that I am lazy in my writing only that I wait for the burst of creative thought to jump-start the writing process. This often takes place during the revision of my research and towards the due date. In remedying these personal issues I found Newman’s brief chapter enlightening and the list of misgivings very helpful.

Early on she points out that editing and questioning your work yourself id very much like parenting. In this way you are present in the work from beginning to end, taking all the necessary steps to see it succeed. In the case of my writing I have found it to be wordy and overpopulated with meaning. After reading Newman’s chapter on redrafting your work I find that her book will no doubt be a welcome addition to my collection of writing resources.


Stranger Than Fiction:
(True Stories)
Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk has always been a writer to capture, confuse and stun me as a reader. From Fight Club to Invisible Monsters, each filled with twists and turns so bizarre; the stories would feel empty without them. However, in his work Stranger Than fiction I find myself stepping outside of the bizarre plots in favor of the more profound journey in Escort. The title and beginning sentences certainly took me down my usual walkway into Palahniuk’s works but as I moved through the story the journey of the escort was certainly not what I had imagined. Instead he took me on a journey through the eyes of a man who happened upon a job that would turn out to be an eye opening experience. As he began working with the man with one leg and the transition into the lives of others in the hospice care center his role became not that of caregiver but provider. He was able to provide each person with a last wish for which he was rewarded with countless afghans the work of loved ones. Each one of these carefully packed away but kept in memory of each person now dead and perhaps as a reminder that each one could be anyone.


The Book of Genesis
R. Crumb

In this comic strip artist R. Crumb depicts what is one of the most controversial chapters in the Bible. Debated over for centuries between the creationists and scientists about the origin of man, Crumb takes the literal translation and places it into a comical context that would make anyone smirk. The graphic nature of the text is cleverly acknowledged with a disclaimer citing that “Nothing” is left out. Aesthetically it is wonderfully done in black and white with strong line. The imagery brings the story to life and highlights how confusing the tale can be with the presence of Adam and Even before the creation of Adam is even mentioned.

As a child growing up my family was very involved in the Catholic religion so I am no stranger to the story. There is a need to tell the story, to see and visualize it in the Catholic faith. There is also a strong need to believe in it and in faith because we are left with little else if we do not. Having passed this point in my life, upon listening to my classmates remarks of the work I see how much my own opinions of the story have changed. I believe now that the story of the creation is just that a story and while many have illustrated it before, Crumb has perhaps mastered the art of reality. While it is comical the images of God as he is seen in our reality is spot on and Eve (finally) is depicted as a woman with full frame unlike the modest desexualized images of the church.


Revision Number Nine:
Idiot
Dave Hickey

As an art critic Dave Hickey steps outside of his box and comfort zone to curate the biennial exhibition for SITE Santa Fe in 2001. After struggling with financial business and a near death by stress incident, his exhibition goes accordingly. Afterwards, avoiding the complex politically charged nature of the new art world; Hickey misses out on the opportunity to curate the larger Venice biennial. Consecutive years pass and he is able to view the 2007 Venice biennial curated by a friend Robert Storr. Upon reading reviews for the show he is shocked to see his friend caught up in the new art world politics that have solely consumed some reviewers, those no of an art critic background.

Sprinkled with modern references, I feel that Dave Hickey’s article is easy to follow though I am positive that I have not fully grasped his intentions. I do however feel that the conferences, politics, boards and agendas that now fully consume the art world have placed a stigma on what the biennials and any exhibition should really be about, the art.