This section is meant to parallel the School section in terms of what I'm not doing during leisure time (that would be travel), and because I am stuck in between two non-interbreeding disciplines, the two sections are separate. Whereas School is about my academic side, this section pays homage to my artistic side. They could just as well have been called Linguistics and Architecture, since the first is the field I am in, and the second is the field I would like to go into. Architecture is a language far more powerful than any I have studied in Linguistics (and there have been many), because, like other forms of art, it can communicate with people who don't "know" the language.

First of all, just what exactly do I call "art" and does it have to look nice? Well, for me art is simply non-verbal self-expression. What I mean by non-verbal is that it doesn't happen by face-to-face communication -- your audience is larger (or smaller) than that. Of course art can be spoken or sung, but you're not trying to tell someone something -- the artistic part of it is beyond the mere meaning of the words. Art has to be pretty for me to like it, because I'm a sucker for beauty (as I behold it), but not for it to be art.

So, what kinds of "art" do I like? Visual -- almost exclusively. Painting, sculpture, architecture. Mainly either very, very old stuff (cave paintings, neolithic monuments...) or pretty new stuff ("Modern art", that is stuff from about half a century to a century ago). Some of my favorite artists are:

Matisse -- Henri Matisse is my favorite artist. What originally attracted me to Matisse was the idea of cutting funky shapes out of bright colored pieces of paper (it's kinda fun). Then I got into the exoticness of the Moroccan paintings which were in pretty pastel shades I liked (I actually went to Morocco to see the hotel room from which he painted Landscape Viewed from a Window -- the poster of which I have hanging behind my bed, like my mom's friend Simone...), and I guess when you start to see his stuff around alot, it sort of grows on you, so now I like his nudes and most of his other stuff as well. Seeing his paintings "for real" at the MoMA in New York and the Barnes Foundation really reinforces this and changes your mind about stuff you don't like in reproduction.

Miro. Don't know what to say about him.

Matt Feazell -- Some people might find it funny that I list him third after Matisse and Picasso. Well, he is the creator of Cynicalman, the stick figure driving a car who graces the front of my homepage. I like him because he's so versatile and inspiring (if stick figures can drive cars and save the world...), and he has attitude (plus what human could make that face? Not even Jim Carrey).

Keith Haring -- Boy, bold shapes and bright colors. I have often found graffiti to be very beautiful and this is a good example.

Bedard -- I like cartoons, I like cute, and I like ducks...

Klimt -- I don't like all his stuff, just this one in particular. The woman is weak, I know, with the man acting as protector, but he doesn't seem like he can live without her either. I finally made the connection between Klimt and Byzantine art this summer while I was in Ravenna, or more specifically on the train from Ravenna. I mean, I knew about it, but then it really hits you, y'know?

Someone whose work I've just recently been introduced to is Andy Goldsworthy. He make stuff with nature and the lets it be destroyed by nature. The transience and precariousness adds to the attraction, but the creative use of materials to emphasize negative space really impresses me. There's also a strange fuzzy line here between documentary photography and art -- since the works themselves disappear, does the photograph, then, become the work?

Last but not least: Frank O. Gehry. Have you been to the new Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain? It is my reason for wanting to pursue a career in architecture. I saw it first as a rusty metal dinosaur skeleton, behind ugly barriers attempting to hide the messy construction. It looked more like a deserted roller coaster ride from some turn of the century carnival than the beginnings of a glorious new museum. Then, two years later, I saw the finished product on a bright sunny day, gleaming in the sunlight. What a difference two years make! I actually feel kind of sorry for the artwork that displayed inside because noone goes there to see it -- they're all interested in the building. Well, I guess as long as they're actually there, it can't be all bad.